‘Getting the first pictures from what we believe to be the execution of Abu Din,’ she said. ‘Let me put it on the big screen.’
She pounded her keyboard and a hangman’s noose appeared on the TV. The camera zoomed in and then out again, as if getting focused. It settled on the noose, hanging stark against the familiar cell-like space, mildewed with the ages, beyond all light. Then the camera slowly pulled back and you could see the four black-coated figures.
‘Production values definitely improving,’ Edie muttered.
But this time was different. Because there was no condemned man wild-eyed with terror at the centre of it all. Instead the camera focused on a series of photographs on the wall.
Servicemen. Six of them. Smiling, happy, proud.
Edie looked up from her laptop.
‘Getting reports – unconfirmed – that those are the Sangin Six.’
‘I remember the Sangin Six,’ I said. ‘Sangin is a district in the east of Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Six of our servicemen – and women – were in a patrol vehicle in Sangin that got hit by an IED. They all survived the blast but then they were torn to bits by a mob. They didn’t show it on the mainstream media because it was too gruesome. Body parts hanging from bridges while the locals danced in the street.’
The camera tracked slowly across the faces of the six dead soldiers. I looked across at Tara Jones who was running voice biometrics on the film.
She saw me watching her.
‘Are you picking up any dialogue, Tara?’ I said.
‘Just ambient sounds,’ she said. ‘It’s not traffic. Sounds like some kind of major building work going on nearby.’
‘Abu Din was vocal in his praise of the killers of the Sangin Six,’ Whitestone said. ‘He insisted on calling them the Six Crusaders. The elderly grandmother of one of the Sangin Six said that he should be hanged.’
‘Then why didn’t they?’ Edie said.
The camera zoomed in for another close-up on the empty noose. And then the image froze.
‘Maybe it’s a trailer,’ Edie said. ‘Stay tuned for the main event.’
‘Maybe they think hanging’s too good for him,’ I said.
The early morning crowds filled the Imperial War Museum. But it was very quiet in the basement room where I sat with the young woman in a wheelchair. I had met Carol through my first SIO in Homicide and Serious Crime Command, DCI Victor Mallory. It was because of him that I could come to her for help at any time.
‘I was in Camp Bastion when the Sangin Six died,’ she said. ‘It felt like a turning point in the war on terror.’ A short laugh. ‘That’s when it started to feel like terror had declared war on us.’
She moved her wheelchair closer to the desk and scrolled through some images of hell. Jubilant crowds. Scraps of human remains. The pitiless sun of Afghanistan.
‘I don’t know how much you want to see of this stuff, Max,’ Carol said. ‘There’s plenty that they couldn’t show on the evening news, but I’m not sure you can learn anything from it.’
I checked my phone again for a message from Edie Wren. We kept expecting the execution to go live. But the morning after the abduction of Abu Din, it still hadn’t happened.
‘I really wanted to sound you out about Abu Din,’ I said.
‘The Mental Mullah,’ she grinned. ‘They took him, didn’t they?’
I nodded. ‘Who would want to string him up, Carol?’
‘Are you kidding? Anyone who served. Anyone who loved someone who served.’ She slapped the sides of her wheelchair without anger or self-pity. ‘Anyone who came home in one of these.’
I thought of the two protestors held back by one uniformed cop in Wembley.
‘But that’s not the same as doing it,’ Carol continued. ‘And besides – the style’s all wrong.’
‘You mean abduction and the mock trial and the hanging?’
‘All of it. The masks. The drama. The little hashtags. Why hang him? There are far easier ways to kill someone.’
One in the head and one in the heart.
Jackson Rose, I thought. Who the hell are you?
My phone began to vibrate.
‘We’ve got Abu Din,’ Edie said. ‘And he’s alive.’
21
‘Inshallah, there was a mighty fire,’ said Abu Din. ‘And it was revealed to me that this country is Dar al-Harb – the land of war.’
Edie looked at her notes.
‘So this was when they burned the van just down the road from Brent Cross, right?’ she said. ‘This is when you had your revelation about the land of war? At Brent Cross?’
He turned his face away from her, the pink tip of his tongue flecking his lips. He smoothed down his grey robes and stared out of the window of his home. It was as if Edie had never spoken. I followed his gaze. On the street where they had taken him, his followers were already gathering, excited at the news of his miraculous return. Some of them were praying. Others were taking pictures with their selfie sticks.
Abu Din had been found alive at London Gateway service station, on the very edge of the city. He had spent the night locked up in the back of an abandoned container lorry until he eventually kicked his way out and raised the alarm. Perhaps his followers were right. It seemed a miracle that his execution was not being watched on YouTube.
‘Please tell me everything you remember, Mr Din,’ I said.
He nodded, his eyes behind the wire-rimmed spectacles flicking on me and then away.
‘Allahu akbar,’ he murmured, not for the first time. ‘They took me. The men in their masks. And then they burned the first vehicle and put me in another vehicle. Then we drove to the car park with many lorries. The big lorries.’
‘Container lorries,’ I said.
‘And all of them gathered around me as they locked me in the metal box.’ His eyes swivelled to the heavens. ‘But the metal was weak, Allahu akbar, and it was not my time to die.’
I looked down at his sandalled feet, both of them bandaged, both of them weeping blood where he had spent the night kicking out the rusted side of a container lorry.
‘Did they say anything?’ I asked.
‘Before they locked me away, one of them – the big one – asked me if I knew why I was being punished. This made another very angry and he slapped the side of the lorry, calling for silence. They were trying not to talk. And then they locked me in and left me and all three of them returned to their vehicle. I heard it drive away.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Three of them locked you up? So there was another one that remained in the cab?’
‘No. They all came to lock me away.’
‘So you’re saying there were only three of them?’ I said.
Abu Din nodded. ‘The two who took me and the one who was driving.’
Edie and I exchanged a look.
‘Then where was the fourth man?’ I said.
‘Maybe he was driving the change vehicle,’ Edie said. ‘It was the smart move to switch vehicles and burn the kidnap van.’
‘But he would still need a ride, wouldn’t he? After the first vehicle was torched.’ I turned back to Abu Din.
‘Did you see their faces?’ I asked him. ‘Did they remove their masks? Did you hear voices? Did they say any names?’
‘You asked me this already. I saw their white hands. I smelled their lack of faith. They were kuffars – unbelievers. Like you.’
‘Any tattoos or distinguishing features on their hands? Did they say anything at all?’
He did not answer me.
‘You’re very lucky to be alive,’ Edie said. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
He knew.
Abu Din gripped his right hand with the left, but still he could not stop it shaking. But he was playing the big man for the followers who were out in the street and who had crammed into the large council house in Wembley. We could hear them stomping around upstairs while we conducted our interview. And it crossed my mind that perhaps he truly believed that it was some god who had saved him today.