he got closer. Then, hearing footsteps behind him, he turned, and saw that he was not the one they were keen to avoid.
There were a dozen or so boys, sixteen and upwards, in step and walking close together. They were black, white, Asian. They all wore regulation blue T-shirts and cargos, but each also wore a simple grey skullcap. As they drew closer, Thorne saw that there was a middle-aged Asian man in the middle of the group, wearing a plain white robe and embroidered velvet kufi. The boys flanking him moved aside when the group was within a few feet of Thorne, allowing the man to move ahead.
He placed one hand over his heart and extended the other one towards Thorne. ‘I am Imam Mir Hamid Shakir,’ he said. ‘I am the visiting imam here at Barndale.’
Thorne shook the man’s hand, nodded over his shoulder. ‘Got your own bodyguards, I see.’
The boys standing behind Shakir gave no more of a reaction than the imam himself did.
‘I hear you are asking questions about Amin Akhtar.’
Thorne said that he was.
‘Then we need to talk.’
THIRTEEN
The address that Holland and Kitson had been given for Scott Clarkson – one of the other two boys alleged to have attacked Amin Akhtar on the night of Lee Slater’s death – turned out to be a fifthfloor flat in a block behind Highbury and Islington station. The lift was predictably out of action and, after the climb up five flights of stone stairs that apparently doubled as a communal toilet and rubbish dump, there was no reply when Holland and Kitson knocked.
‘We should get some cards printed up,’ Holland said. ‘“We called while you were out. To ask if you, or any other waste of DNA you know, had anything to do with a death that may or may not have been a suicide. Please contact us on the number below if you can help.” That kind of thing.’
‘Or we could just move on to the next one,’ Kitson said.
‘Can we grab some lunch first? I’m bloody starving.’
Kitson turned and began walking back towards the stairs. ‘We’ll get a sandwich or something on the way.’ She peered over the wall and was pleased to see the car was where she’d left it. That it still had the requisite number of wheels. ‘I don’t think taking the full hour would go down too well under the circumstances, do you?’
‘Probably not.’
Holland followed, stayed a few steps behind her as they trudged back down the stairs. ‘Where’s Armstrong live?’
‘Luckily we’ve got a work address for this one, so I suggest we try that first.’ Kitson dug into her bag for a piece of paper. ‘Might be hopelessly optimistic of course.’
‘Theme for the day,’ Holland said, quietly.
Kitson looked at her notes and smiled. ‘Well that’s a bit of luck. He works in a takeaway on Essex Road, so we can kill two birds with one stone and pick you up a burger or something at the same time.’
‘Not unless I want extra spit in it,’ Holland said. ‘Or worse.’
‘Well if you’re going to get picky.’
Holland caught her up on the next flight. ‘Seriously though, Yvonne-’
‘I know, but let’s just get on with it, shall we?’ Kitson’s tone was suddenly a little less matey. A simple reminder that she was a rank above him. ‘Yes, we’ll almost certainly turn up jack shit, but it’s not like Thorne’s got a lot of choice, and it’s the least we can do for that poor cow with the gun at her head, don’t you reckon?’
Holland appeared to have got the message, said he supposed it was.
‘Besides, it’s nice to have a day away from the office,’ Kitson said. They emerged from the stairwell on to the scrubby patch of grass in front of the block. There were two newly painted benches, and an old bike leaning against a yellowing fridge-freezer. ‘Get out and about, see a few of the sights.’
They both turned at the noise of a car backfiring and saw two figures fifty yards away to their left, huddled in the shadows of a concrete overhang. They watched something change hands that almost certainly wasn’t a set of Pokemon cards, before one of the figures looked in their direction, suddenly aware that they were being observed. Each shoved their hands into their pockets, but neither showed any inclination to move away.
‘Such a shame we’re in a hurry,’ Kitson said, then turned and began walking quickly towards the car. ‘See, Dave?’ she said. ‘If we weren’t so up against it, and we actually gave a monkey’s, we might have had that nonsense to deal with. So, every cloud… ’
They both knew very well that, busy or not, the chances of them choosing to intervene in a petty drug deal were slim to non-existent. But Holland was happy to play along for the sake of the joke.
‘I didn’t see a thing,’ he said, a step or two behind.
Thorne followed Mir Hamid Shakir and his friends in a slow, ten-minute procession to the other end of the wing. At each set of heavy metal gates they waited patiently for a prison officer to let them through, until eventually, after descending to the ground floor, they turned into a narrow corridor and arrived at a plain wooden door.
A sign outside said Faith Suite.
The imam unlocked the door and invited Thorne across the threshold, leaving his followers to wait outside. The room was the largest Thorne had been in since he’d arrived, white and windowless. There were half a dozen wooden benches against the walls, a wide-screen TV on a stand and a scattering of plastic chairs across a thin blue carpet. At the far end, a simple altar draped in purple sat beneath a large metal cross.
Shakir sat on one of the benches and Thorne took a chair a few feet away.
‘Yes, it is rather strange,’ Shakir said, watching Thorne take in his surroundings. ‘At the moment this is the only place of worship we have, so we are forced to share it.’ The imam was somewhere in his mid-fifties with a wispy grey beard. He was slight, birdlike, and the eyes that shone behind rimless glasses were almost as bright as the perfect teeth that flashed when he smiled. ‘There is rather more work for us than for my fellow priests as we have a little more… paraphernalia than they do to remove when it is our turn.’ He fluttered a hand towards the altar. ‘We need nothing but our prayer mats.’
‘Nice and easy,’ Thorne said.
‘And of course, we pray rather more often.’ He smiled at Thorne. ‘I am hoping that we will have our own place of worship very soon. It would be more convenient for everyone.’
‘You wanted to talk about Amin Akhtar.’
Shakir nodded and lowered his head. Muttered, ‘Yes, yes… ’
Thorne waited a few seconds. ‘Is there something you can tell me about his death?’
Shakir looked up. ‘Why he did it, perhaps?’
‘That would certainly be helpful.’
Another fifteen seconds passed. Thorne glanced at his watch, hoping that the imam might catch it.
‘Most of the young men who come to this place are looking for something,’ Shakir said. ‘The fact that they have not found it might explain why they have turned to violence or drugs to fill the holes in their lives. In here, those options are of course denied them, so they search for something else. There are gangs of course, even inside these walls, but those who wish to change their lives will seek out something they can belong to that nourishes them and shows them a different path. I believe passionately that Islam offers them that. I have no idea if you are a man of faith at all, it does not matter, but does what I’m saying make sense to you?’
Up to a point, Thorne thought. He just nodded.
‘You only have to look at the numbers. In an hour’s time I will have twenty or more boys in this room. Black, white, whatever, all praying and reading from the Qu’ran. I can assure you that is many more than the Catholic priest might expect. Or the… vicar.’ He enunciated the word very precisely, smiling as though he found it amusing. ‘Muslims are less than three per cent of the population outside,’ he said, holding up fingers to make his point. ‘ Four times that number in here, and at other institutions such as this one. Many finding their faith, you see?’
Thorne tried to look impressed, but in truth he was not surprised.
He had read about the increase in the Muslim population in UK prisons, which to a large extent was due to
