morning.'
Ramirez asked him for some names and checked them off against the list of men given to Elvira by the Spanish woman, Esperanza. The first three names Harrouch gave him were on the list and therefore probably dead in the mosque. The fourth name lived in an apartment in a nearby street.
'How well do you know the Imam?'
'He's been with us nearly two years. He reads a lot. I've heard his apartment is full of books. But he still gives us as much of his time as he can,' said Harrouch. 'I told you he was not a radical. He never said anything that could be construed as extreme, and he even made his position clear on suicide bombing: that in his view the Koran did not regard it as permissible. And remember, there were Spanish converts to Islam in the mosque, who would not tolerate anything extreme so…'
'If he was preaching radical Islam to younger people,' said Ramirez, 'do you think you would know about it?'
'In a neighbourhood like this it wouldn't be possible to keep it secret.'
Apart from these two men who delivered the sugar and mint, have you ever seen the Imam with any other strangers? I mean people from out of town, or from abroad?'
'I saw him with Spanish people. He was very aware of the image of Islam in the light of what has been happening in the last few years. He made efforts to communicate with Catholic priests and spoke at their meetings to reassure them that not all North Africans were terrorists.'
'Do you know anything about his history?'
'He's Algerian originally. He arrived here from Tunis. He must have spent some time in Egypt, because he talked about it a lot and he's mentioned studying in Khartoum.'
'How did he learn Spanish?' asked Falcon. 'The countries you mention have either French, or English, as the alternative to Arabic.'
'He learnt it here. The converts taught him,' said Harrouch. 'He was a good linguist, he spoke quite a few-'
'What other languages?' asked Ramirez.
'German. He spoke German,' said Harrouch, who'd gone back on the defensive.
'Does that mean he'd spent time in Germany?' asked Ramirez.
'I suppose he did, but that doesn't have to mean anything,' said Harrouch. 'Just because the 9/11 bombers came from Hamburg, it doesn't mean that any Muslim who's been to Germany is also a radical. I hope you're not forgetting that it was the mosque that was bombed and there were more than ten people in it, and most of them were older men, with wives and children, and not young, radical, extreme bombmakers. I would say that we were the target of an attack…'
'All right, Sr Harrouch,' said Falcon, calming him. 'You should know that we're looking at all the possibilities. You mentioned VOMIT. Are you aware of any other anti-Muslim groups who you think would go to such extremes?'
'There were some very unpleasant demonstrations against the building of our mosque in Los Bermejales,' said Harrouch. 'Maybe you don't remember-they slaughtered a pig on the proposed site of the mosque back in May last year. There's a very vociferous protest group.'
'We know about them,' said Ramirez. 'We'll be taking a close look at their activities.'
'Did you ever feel that you were being watched, or under some kind of surveillance?' asked Falcon. 'Has anybody joined the mosque recently, who you didn't know or who, in your opinion, behaved strangely?'
'People are suspicious of us, but I don't think anybody was watching us.'
Ramirez checked the descriptions of the two men from the Peugeot Partner with the men Harrouch had seen bringing boxes into the mosque. Harrouch answered with his mind elsewhere. They got up to leave.
'Now I remember, there was something else that happened last week,' said Harrouch. 'Someone told me that the mosque had been inspected by the council. Because we're technically a public building, we have to conform to certain rules about fire and safety, and two men came round last week, without any warning, and went through everything-drains, plumbing, electrics-the lot.'
13
Seville-Tuesday, 6th June 2006, 16.55 hrs
'What did you make of him?' Falcon asked Ramirez as they made their way back to the pre-school for a meeting with Comisario Elvira and Juez Calderon.
'The difficulty with these people is not disentangling the truth from the lies. I don't think Sr Harrouch is a liar. He's been an immigrant for sixteen years and he's developed the knack for telling you the story which will give him the least amount of trouble, and makes his people appear in the best possible light,' said Ramirez. 'He says the Imam has never preached a radical word in his life, but he faltered over the Imam's linguistic ability. Why wasn't he happy about revealing the languages the Imam could speak? Because it was German. Not only the Hamburg connection, but it also means he's moved around Europe. It's making the Imam look more suspicious.'
'He was straight about the two young guys turning up with their cardboard boxes.'
'Of sugar,' said Ramirez. 'He was very emphatic about that. He was reluctant to reveal anything more about them, though. He wanted to be able to say he knew them, but he couldn't. He wanted to be able to stand up for them in some way. But if they're just shifting sugar around, what's the problem? Why does he feel the need to protect them?'
'Loyalty to other Muslims,' said Falcon.
'Or repercussions?' said Ramirez.
'Even if they don't know each other, there's a sense of allegiance,' said Falcon. 'Sr Harrouch is a decent, hardworking man and he'd like us to think that all his people are the same. When something like this bombing happens they feel embattled, and the instinct is to put up the defences all around, even if he ends up defending the sort of people he may abhor.'
Elvira and Calderon had been joined by Gregorio from the CNI.
'There have been some developments in Madrid,' said Elvira. 'Gregorio will explain.'
'We've been working on the notes found in the margins of the copy of the Koran, from the Peugeot Partner,' said Gregorio. 'In the meantime, copies of the notes were faxed up to Madrid and they made comparisons with the handwriting of the van's owner, Mohammed Soumaya, and his nephew Trabelsi Amar. They don't match.'
'Do the notes reveal anything?' asked Calderon. 'Are there any extremist views?'
'Our expert on the Koran says that the owner of this book has made interesting, rather than radical, interpretations of the text,' said Gregorio.
'Have you found Trabelsi Amar yet?' asked Ramirez.
'He was still in Madrid,' said Gregorio, nodding. 'He was just keeping out of the way of his uncle until he got the van back, which was supposed to be this evening. When he heard about the bomb he went into hiding, which was obviously not part of the plan, because the best hiding place he could think of was a friend's house, not some prearranged safe house. The local police picked him up a couple of hours ago.'
'Has he identified the people he lent the van to?' asked Ramirez.
'Yes. He's very scared,' said Gregorio. 'The CGI's antiterrorist squad in Madrid say he hasn't been behaving like a terrorist at all. He's been happy to tell them the whole story.'
'Let's start with the names,' said Ramirez.
'The shaven-headed guy is Djamel Hammad, thirtyone years old, born in Tlemcen in Algeria. His friend is Smail Saoudi, thirty years old, born Tiaret in Algeria. Both were resident in Morocco and still should be.'
'What sort of records have they got?'
'Those are their original names. They've operated under a lot of pseudonyms. They were medium-to high-risk terror suspects, by which I mean they were not likely to actually carry out attacks, but they have been suspected of document forgery, recce and logistical work. They both have relatives who have been active in the GIA-the Armed Islamic Group.'
'And how did Trabelsi Amar get to know them?'
'They're all illegal immigrants. They came across the straits together, on the same shipment. Hammad and
