‘Good choice, sir,’ said the waiter, with what Chaudhry took to be a sarcastic tone, and then he flashed Jamila another beaming smile before heading off to the kitchen.
‘I didn’t see any pictures of your volunteer work,’ said Jamila.
‘Sorry?’ said Chaudhry, confused.
‘On your Facebook page. There weren’t any photographs of you in Karachi. At the medical centre.’
‘I’m not a great one for taking pictures,’ said Chaudhry, hating himself for yet another lie. ‘And I was worked off my feet.’
‘Will you go back, do you think?’ she asked.
‘Probably not,’ said Chaudhry, and at least that was the truth.
‘I’m definitely going back,’ said Jamila. She sipped her wine. ‘I thought of taking another year off and spending it at the orphanage but my dad says I should graduate first.’
‘Definitely,’ said Chaudhry quickly. Too quickly, he realised. ‘I mean, you’d find it much harder to get back into studying. Better to get your degree first and then take another year off before you start work.’
‘That’s what my dad says.’
The meal flew by. They ate their pizzas, Jamila ordered a second glass of wine, they shared a dessert, they had coffee, and all the time they talked and laughed as if they had known each other for years. She was the prettiest girl Chaudhry had ever seen, and he was all too well aware of how men’s heads turned as they walked past their table. When the bill came she offered to split it with him but Chaudhry insisted that she allow him to pay. She agreed but made him promise that on their next date he would let her pay. His heart raced when she said that, and he couldn’t stop grinning as they stood on the pavement looking for a taxi.
It turned out that he could have eaten the Diavolo pizza after all because he didn’t get a kiss. But he did get a peck on the cheek and she squeezed his arm before she got into the back of a black cab. He stood rubbing his cheek as the taxi drove off. He’d had an amazing evening, and he knew that his father was right: she was the perfect girl for him. But he also knew that no matter how the relationship progressed it had started with him lying to her, not once but several times. He’d looked into her beautiful, sexy, wonderful eyes and he’d lied. His stomach lurched and before he could stop himself he was vomiting in the gutter.
Hargrove arrived at Thames House immaculately dressed as always. He was wearing a black pinstriped suit, a crisp white shirt and a blue and yellow striped tie, and was carrying a black leather briefcase, looking more like a stockbroker or merchant banker than a chief superintendent with the Metropolitan Police. Shepherd met him outside. He was also wearing a suit, but a black one that had probably cost less than Hargrove’s trousers alone.
‘Any idea what this is about, Spider?’ asked Hargrove as they headed for the entrance.
‘I know as much as you do,’ said Shepherd. Button had phoned him the previous evening and asked him to come in for a 10 a.m. meeting with Hargrove and to walk him into the building.
‘Is that because it’s need-to-know or because she hasn’t told you either?’
‘The latter,’ said Shepherd.
Hargrove smiled thinly. ‘Of course you’d say that anyway, wouldn’t you?’
‘Charlie tends to play her cards close to her chest,’ said Shepherd. They walked into the reception area where Hargrove showed his warrant card and Shepherd signed him in. They walked through a metal detector and took a lift up to the third floor. Button was waiting for them in a windowless meeting room. She was sitting halfway down a large oak table with a pale-blue file in front of her.
She stood up, shook hands with Hargrove and waved him to a seat on the opposite side of the table. Shepherd hesitated as he wondered on which side of the table he should sit. His instincts were to sit next to Hargrove as they were working together on the arms case and Button had called the meeting, but he was still employed by MI5 and Button was his boss.
Button saw his indecision and nodded at the seat to Hargrove’s left. ‘Why don’t you sit yourself there? It’ll be easier for me to show you what I’ve got.’
Shepherd sat down next to Hargrove.
‘Coffee?’ asked Button.
Both men shook their heads.
‘Okay, so I’ll dive straight in. Basically there are some interesting developments in the Kettering and Thompson case that I need to run by you.’
‘That’s a West Midlands case,’ said Hargrove quietly. ‘I didn’t realise there was any MI5 involvement.’
‘Any case where terrorism is involved falls within our brief,’ said Button.
‘Terrorism? We’re talking about a group of Brummie villains purchasing weapons,’ said Hargrove.
Button nodded. ‘I’m afraid there seems to be more to it than that,’ she said. She flipped open the file on the table. Inside were a couple of dozen printed sheets topped by a photograph.
‘We’re all familiar with Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, of course. He detonated a car bomb in central Oslo killing eight people and went on to murder another sixty-nine at a youth camp.’
Shepherd and Hargrove frowned. Button smiled at their confusion. ‘What Operation Excalibur seems to have missed is that three of the men they’ve been looking at met with Breivik just six months before the attacks.’
The colour drained from Hargrove’s face. ‘How could West Midlands Police not know this?’ he said.
‘They’ve been treating it as a purely criminal case,’ said Button. ‘I assume no one there thought of looking at the bigger picture.’
‘But why didn’t a check on Kettering and Thompson throw up the link to the Norwegian?’ asked Hargrove.
‘Because that intel isn’t on the Police National Computer,’ said Button.
‘I know that,’ said Hargrove. ‘I ran the checks myself when we were first approached about the case. I don’t understand this, Charlotte. A British group with links to a Norwegian mass murderer discuss acquiring high-powered weapons and alarm bells don’t start ringing?’
‘Well, they’re ringing now, Sam. Loud and clear.’
‘That’s what you think?’ asked Shepherd. ‘You think this Brummie group is planning some sort of public attack?’
‘All we know is that Kettering and Thompson met with the Norwegian in 2002 and were in email contact with him right up until the attacks. Six months ago Kettering, Thompson and another man flew to Olso and met with him again.’ She flicked through the papers in the file, then tapped one. ‘During interrogation Breivik claimed that he was a member of a new Christian military order. He called it the new Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici. Effectively a new order of the Knights Templar. He told his interrogators that this group was formed in April 2002 by nine men — two from England, a Frenchman, a German, a Dutchman, a Greek, a Russian and a Serb. And himself. He says that there are now eighty of these knights and that they are preparing to seize political power in Western Europe with the aim of expelling all the Muslims.’
She smiled thinly.
‘How much of this is the fantasy of a deluded mind and how much is a serious terrorist threat has yet to be determined. I don’t think we’ve uncovered anything that suggests a coup or revolution is on the cards. But the link with Breivik is a red flag. A very big red flag.’ She took out a surveillance photograph and slid it across the table to Hargrove. ‘This is the third man from the UK who was at that meeting. Roger McLean. I gather he doesn’t appear on Operation Excalibur’s watch list?’
Hargrove studied the picture and then handed it to Shepherd. McLean was a big man with a shaved head and a St George’s Cross tattooed on his right forearm.
Shepherd shook his head. ‘They’re not looking at him,’ he said.
‘McLean’s been around right-wing groups for more than twenty years. He was initially with the National Front, then switched to the British National Party, then just before he met Breivik he moved to the EDL. In 2003 he went off the grid.’