‘That’s not the way it works. Sod off back to your cell and think about the dangers of not cooperating fully,’ barked Mike.
Rafi was frog marched back to his cell, where he sat on the corner of his bed, shaking. He was cold and his nose was running, but he had nothing with which to blow it. His mind was in turmoil – he’d been accused of being a terrorist. It was all incomprehensible. He was scared. What the hell did they think he had done?
Andy and Mike stayed in the interview room. They were frustrated. They agreed that they had got nothing out of their suspect. It was as if he had been expertly tutored in the art of interrogation. He gave answers, but they revealed nothing relevant to his crime. And yet the evidence they had against him was substantial.
‘He’s a slimy bugger,’ said Andy, ‘And a first class actor.’
‘Gives the impression that he ain’t got a clue why he’s here,’ replied Mike. ‘Obviously he’s been well trained.’
‘He is going to be a hard nut to crack,’ said Andy. ‘When do you reckon we move on to the Bishopsgate police station bombing?’
‘As I see it he knows damn well why he’s here, so I reckon we don’t need to tell him,’ replied Mike. ‘Anyway, we’ve got weeks before we have to charge him – my instinct is to use the time to break him.’
‘But time isn’t on our side,’ argued Andy. ‘Our intelligence suggests there could be a follow-up bombing. We have got to get information out of him, or more lives could be lost.’
‘If he isn’t going to crack soon, what’s the hurry? Shouldn’t we go for a confession, add it to all the evidence we have and secure a conviction?’ countered Mike.
Andy looked concerned. ‘But we need information, now!’
‘He’ll break given time. Who wouldn’t in these surroundings? Just think of the praise we’d get,’ said Mike.
‘So you let another bomb go off just to prove a point and suck up to our political masters?’ replied Andy uncertainly.
Mike relented. ‘It’s an option, but… bugger it! You’re right! We’ve got to bring things to a close as quickly as possible.’
‘OK, let’s see if we can’t tie this up in record time.’
Rafi was sitting in his cell. He’d asked for a blanket, but did not get one. He was reflecting on his helpless predicament and his utter lack of rights, when his cell door suddenly swung open.
‘You’re wanted. Now! Get a shift on!’ bellowed the guard.
Moments later, Rafi sat down opposite his two interrogators. He sensed they were impatient and keen to start.
‘We have evidence that puts you in the frame for the Bishopsgate police station bombing. We’ve got you on CCTV talking to the bomber next to the cashpoints in South Place, on Thursday lunchtime, the day before the bomb blast,’ said Andy.
Rafi was dumbfounded. He couldn’t recall speaking to anyone. He’d been in a hurry.
‘Watch the tape,’ demanded Andy.
A grainy but unmistakable picture appeared on the wallmounted screen opposite the one-way glass window.
‘The City of London has cameras everywhere now. The camera on the corner of Moorgate and South Place picked you up.’
The screen showed a row of five cashpoint machines on the return frontage of the nearby Barclays bank. Moments later, there he was, joining the back of a queue in a smart suit with his neatly cut black hair. His turn came; he withdrew his money and turned. Behind him, to one side, was a man dressed in nondescript clothes with a hoodie largely obscuring his face. They talked for a minute and then the man gave him a hug. His hoodie slipped back off his head, revealing a tanned, ordinary-looking face. The CCTV footage stopped, framing the man standing right in front of him. Rafi was passing something to him, but it was largely obscured from view by the other man’s body.
Rafi’s mind raced. He tried to recall what he had handed over. Slowly it came back to him. The man had passed him an A to Z map book and asked to be shown which underground station he should use to get to Finsbury Park. Rafi had not needed the map, and explained that Moorgate station was just round the corner, where he could catch a train straight to where he wanted to go. It had been an utter surprise to Rafi when the stranger had embraced him to show his gratitude.
Rafi looked at the picture on the screen, bewildered.
‘Caught red-handed!’ beamed Andy. ‘Tell us how you know Imaad Wafeeq.’
Rafi thought for a moment. The CCTV footage painted a very misleading picture. It made an innocent conversation look very incriminating.
‘I didn’t know that was his name and that was the first time I met him,’ Rafi replied. ‘I was just getting some cash for my boss, Jameel Furud.’
‘Cobblers!’ burst out Mike, leaning forward. ‘You can do better than that. Do you think we’re dead from the neck up?’
Rafi saw malice in his dark eyes and sensed that the table would offer little protection.
‘That was the first time I’d ever seen him,’ he repeated.
‘Bullshit! We know that you know Imaad Wafeeq, the Bishopsgate bomber. Lying to us is pointless. Why else did he embrace you as a friend? Look at his body language.’
Rafi was dumbstruck.
The two interrogators fired more questions at him.
‘Who else was involved?’
‘What’s the next target?’
They kept on at him for what seemed like hours.
Rafi kept pleading his innocence. There was little else he could do, but it only further infuriated his interrogators. Eventually their patience ran dry. Bland answers were not what they wanted.
Mike looked straight at Rafi; his eyes were those of a coldblooded snake. ‘Let’s get this straight: with the evidence we have against you and the new laws, you’ve next to no human rights. We can send you to Belmarsh Prison, throw the key away and leave you to rot. No one will give a toss! Foxtrot Oscar back to your cell and do some very careful thinking. When you come back, we want answers, or else…’ Mike raised his hand in the direction of the one-way glass wall. The door to the interrogation room swung open and a guard walked in.
‘Take him back to his cell.’
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the guard, under his breath. He was ugly, seriously ugly. His face was pockmarked, his nose was bulbous and bent, and he made the dour interrogator look like a softy. He escorted Rafi to his cell in double quick time and slammed the door shut behind him.
Rafi tried to come to terms with what he’d seen. It was absurd. He had never met that man before; he had just wanted directions. The implications shook him. Thoughts flooded through his head. The horrific bombing had taken place on Friday morning. It was now Saturday. There must be hundreds if not thousands of CCTV cameras in the City of London. How did they pinpoint his meeting with the terrorist so quickly? OK, the camera was only a couple of blocks away from where the bomb had gone off, but still Rafi couldn’t help wondering whether the police had managed to retrace the bomber’s movements, simply been lucky or been tipped off. It all seemed far-fetched.
As his circumstances and plight struck home, his brain moved into panic mode. He realised that he was staring at the back of his dark brown hands. He was a secular Muslim, not a fanatical extremist. He surmised that his skin colour, religion and the misinterpreted CCTV evidence put him squarely in the frame.
Slowly, Rafi regained control of his thoughts. He was in serious trouble. With the new draconian laws, it would be easy for them to hold him in this hellhole with no charges for weeks on end. He looked around at his surroundings: the bed was solid, the floor and walls were bare and there was a slops bucket in the corner. Superficially, the cell looked fairly clean, but there was an all-pervading smell of stale urine and the feel of grime everywhere.
The stark overhead light gave no warmth and just provided glare. It was getting to him. Its rays penetrated remorselessly into his eyes. He closed them. The illumination did not go away. It was as if the bulb had been doctored to give maximum discomfort. He was tired, but he had to keep his brain working. He had to think carefully. The only logical conclusion he could reach was that somebody had set him up. But what might he have done to make someone go to all that trouble? Nothing in his life, neither private nor professional, sprang to mind as being particularly unusual. At work things had been pretty normal… Except for the research Callum and he had been pursuing. So by process of elimination that had to be at the top of the list.