THE THESEUS PARADOX: The stunning breakthrough thriller based on real events, from the Scotland Yard detective turned author. (47 page)

‘But al-Qaeda claimed the attacks. They said they did it.’

‘Yeah, they tried to claim some sort of vague responsibility. But, Len, it was months after the event when they finally got their hands on those videos. Yes al-Qaeda said that it came under their banner, but two other groups tried to claim the credit for it in the meantime too! I bet Biaj was quite happy for al-Qaeda to get their hands on those tapes and take the limelight. He didn’t want anyone to tie him to the attacks. It was a cover-up so it couldn’t be traced back to him…’ Jake paused suddenly. ‘Lenny, I have to go now. There’s something I need to do.’

Jake put the van into gear and moved off. He was mesmerised by the rhythm of his own movements, changing gear, moving the rear-view mirror, moving the steering wheel; his mind a myriad of thoughts about what he had just heard as the dirty industrial backstreets of East Ham slipped past him.

‘It was all about land and a fucking money-making enclave!’ he shouted.

What was he supposed to do with what he had just been told? What he now knew? What he’d just done?

Biaj was dead.

He needed time to think. He was suspended from work. That had to run its course. Nothing he had just done would help that. He had to get back to work, had to keep his job. Jake admitting he’d been illegally watching the mosque, that he’d confronted Biaj, that Biaj had fallen into the shit-filled creek and drowned while Jake refused to help him – it would just make things worse. It changed nothing. Fifty-two people and four bombers were still dead.

Jake drove through Stratford town centre. The Olympics were coming. The mosque wasn’t going to be built. Nothing had changed.

Claire must have known. How? He still had no clearer understanding of where she was, what she was…

Locard’s theory. Every contact leaves a trace. Jake’s fingerprints and DNA were all over the van. The van was the only thing that connected him to Biaj, to the mosque site.

Jake drove northwards and into the heavily industrialised area that was set to become the Olympic park. Right now it was just full of scrap-metal dealers and brickworks. He knew a car park that was concealed by railway sidings. Travellers regularly used the place to dump their rubbish.

A cold mist was the only occupant of the otherwise deserted place when he arrived. Jake got out of the van and left the key in the ignition. He rubbed down the exterior with his sleeve, paying particular attention to the mirrors, handles and paintwork around the driver’s door.

Whilst camped out at the mosque site in the back of the van, Jake had spotted a can tucked under the Transporter’s front passenger seat. It had previously been hidden by Paul’s vintage mower, the one he’d disposed of at the dump. When he smelt it, Jake realised he’d struck lucky – it was petrol for the mower.

It was this petrol he now emptied over the van’s interior, throwing the empty can into the passenger seat through the open driver’s window. In Jake’s experience, vehicles always burned better if you left the windows open. They sucked in oxygen to feed the flames.

He lit a match and dropped it into the van. There was a sudden whoosh as the petrol and its vapour ignited inside. Flames flew out through the open windows as the initial blaze struggled for breath and life. Jake watched as the fire fought for its existence, consuming everything just to stay alive.

He imagined Biaj fighting for breath below the waterline, trapped in the mud and scrabbling about in the freezing, putrid water of the creek. The burning and tearing of his lungs as the water rushed in and pushed out every last piece of air from them. The terror that he must have felt trying to draw breath from nothing, so close to the site of his dream venture, almost in the shadows of the gleaming tower blocks of Canary Wharf.

He stared into the flames as they licked at the roof and reached from the open window, the fire trying to grab hold of anything else that it could.

For the second time that day, a luminous sight triggered in Jake a memory of religious scripture, yet this time the numbers 8:50 were reversed.

Psalm 50:8 – I bring no charges against you concerning your sacrifices or concerning your burnt offerings, which are ever before me.

Jake walked slowly onto a patch of wasteland, down the hill, away from the burning van and toward Stratford.

He didn’t look back.

Jake took the Tube from Stratford to London Bridge. His walk back to Whitechapel was filled with thoughts about what he should do next. His priority had to be finding Claire, but how? Maybe he could do some tracework on her missing iMac? The IP address of the computer might throw something up. But what if someone had already kicked over these tracks? Had the iMac even been used since she’d disappeared?

When he arrived home, Jake was surprised to see that the lights were still on in the sari shop. He was about to walk up the stairs when he heard a voice behind him.

‘Hey, I think this is for you.’ He turned to see the young girl from the sari shop standing behind him.

She was holding a postcard. ‘It’s got 26 Caroline Street as the address and not 26a, but it starts “Dear Jake”, so I’m guessing it must be for you?’

‘Thank you.’ Jake took the single piece of card from her.

She smiled and returned to the shop’s entrance, switching the lights off and pulling down the shutters.

Jake glanced at the small piece of card. It was the type of postcard you could get from any British seaside town, with a photo on the front and space for writing on the back.

The image on the front was a familiar one. It was of the harbour at St Austell. He flipped the card over. A message had been scrawled out in blue pen; it looked messy and rushed. He recognised the handwriting instantly – it was Claire’s.

Dear Jake,

I’m fine. Will explain everything over some tea and scones with cream. Meet me in the place you waited for me that morning by the harbour.

X

Jake felt a sudden surge of emotion. She’d been watching him that morning while he waited.

She’d not tried to contact him in person – maybe she was aware that he might have been followed? She’d shunned using any electronic method to make contact. Whether because of family difficulties or work reasons, she’d been in hiding. The postcard had been deliberately sent to the sari shop so that it circumvented any trace and intercept that the Post Office had been asked to put on his address by the police or the Security Service.

Clever girl.

As Jake turned to close the door, Ted bolted in and began rubbing herself round his feet and legs. He picked her up and she purred loudly. He kissed her on the head and tickled her behind the ears.

‘Come on, Ted, let’s have cuddle on the sofa, just me and you.’

Tomorrow he would get the train to St Austell, eat scones and wait.

EPILOGUE: THE FACTS

 
(All times given as British Summer Time, BST)

The Tablighi Jamaat movement has been banned in several countries, where it is viewed as an extremist, fundamentalist and separatist sect. It is known that Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the 7/7 bombers, had previously worshipped at Tablighi Jamaat’s European headquarters in Savile Town, Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Several other prominent extremists have been shown to have links to Tablighi Jamaat, including Muktar Said Ibrahim, leader of the failed 21/7 bomb plot in 2005; the failed shoe bomber, Richard Reid; several of those involved in the 2006 transatlantic-airline plots; John Walker Lindh known as ‘the American Taliban’; and Kafeel Ahmed who died from burns whilst trying to set off a car bomb at Glasgow airport.

1865
  Abbey Mills chemical works in the Lower Lea Valley is built to produce sulphuric acid. The site of chemical works for more than one hundred years, substances such as manure, animal fat for candles, oil and kerosene were also processed on the land.

1994
  The Lower Lea Valley is included in the East Thames Corridor study area and earmarked for regeneration in a study entitled Regional Planning Guidance for the South East.

Also in 1994, a review of International Olympic Committee members shows that London is the only British city capable of competing on an international stage and attracting enough votes to win an Olympic bid.

1995
  Following three consecutive unsuccessful bids to host the summer Olympic Games (Birmingham tendered for 1992 and Manchester for the 1996 and 2000 games), the British Olympic Association decides that London is to be the site of the UK’s next bid.

1996
  An eighteen-acre piece of disused, brownfield land on the site of the former Abbey Mills chemical works in West Ham is obtained by the Anjuman-e-Islahul Muslimeen of London UK Trust, a charitable-trust arm of Tablighi Jamaat.

Cut off from the surrounding area by Abbey Creek and the Channelsea River to the east, the District Line Railway to the south and the Jubilee line to the west, the area can only be entered by a single access point, Canning Road, from the north. The site is purchased from RTZ Chemicals for a reported figure of £1.6 million. (On an unconnected note, RTZ goes on to become Rio Tinto and exclusively provides the metal to produce the 4,700 gold, silver and bronze medals at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.)

May 1997
  The British Olympic Association begins work on a fourth bid – this time for London 2012.

1999
  The first of an ongoing series of applications to use the Abbey Mills site are lodged by the Tablighi Jamaat charitable trust, arousing intense opposition locally.

15 December 2000
  A confidential report is submitted to the Government by the British Olympic Association about London’s bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. East London versus West London options are assessed.

October 2001
  Temporary permission is given for the Abbey Mills site to be used as a place of Tablighi Jamaat worship for five years. It is believed that plans for the proposed mosque are first agreed in principle in a deal between Newham Council and Anjuman-e-Islahul Muslimeen. Yet the Newham Unitary Development Plan also places the area within one of its ‘major opportunity zones’.

November 2001
  Four main potential Olympic Games 2012 sites in East London are analysed in a report.

January 2002
  The Lower Lea Valley, East London, is assessed as the host site in a specially commissioned report. The plan for 2012 focuses on the regeneration of a five-hundred-acre swathe of land there, in one of the most deprived areas of the UK.

January 2003
  London’s 2012 Olympic bid is debated in Parliament. On 21 January 2003, the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee releases a report (entitled ‘A London Olympic Bid for 2012’) stating that due to the availability of land, a bid for the 2012 Games was London’s (and therefore the UK’s) only chance to host a Games for the foreseeable future, possibly ever.

May 2003
  Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, announces that the Government would ‘back London to the hilt’ with £2.38 billion in funding.

11 July 2003
  The International Olympic Committee is officially notified by the British Olympic Association that London will bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games.

January 2004
  Planning applications for the proposed 2012 Olympic developments are submitted to the four relevant London boroughs affected by the Games. London officially launches its Olympic bid for 2012 on 16 January 2004. Tony Blair announces that the proposed East London base for the Olympics will be completely regenerated with new facilities for the Games.

1 October 2004
  The four affected East London boroughs each grant planning permission for the 2012 Olympics.

14 November 2004
  The London bid team flies to Lausanne, Switzerland, to hand in a six-hundred-page bid document to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). London’s Olympic bid application states that the legacy of the 2012 games will be ‘the regeneration of an entire community for the direct benefit of everyone who lives there’.

19 November 2004
  
Just five days later
, the ringleader of the four 7/7 bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, along with another of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, both fly to Pakistan. There they spent four months at clandestine military training camps in Pakistan, learning how to make explosives and build bombs.

8 February 2005
  Bombers Khan and Tanweer arrive back in the UK.

9 February 2005
  
Just one day later
, the International Olympic Committee flies to the UK, to visit London for a week-long tour in order to audit the London bid.

22 March 2005
  A subsequent IOC report following the February visit to London says that transport is the crucial limiting factor that impacts upon the strength of the London Olympic bid. Out of a total of eleven criteria, Britain’s Olympic bid scores lowest for its ‘transport concept’ with a minimum score of 4.7 points and a maximum of 6.7 out of ten. The report calls for ‘substantial improvement’ of the London Underground system. Terrorism is also cited as a ‘global concern’ for the Olympic candidate cities.

Summer 2005
  Plans for a Tablighi Jamaat mosque on the Abbey Mills site, to cater for forty thousand worshippers, are announced by acclaimed architect Ali Mangera of Mangera Yvars. The project for an International Islamic Centre with school, gardens, mosque and exhibition spaces is to cover a built area of 180,000 metres squared on a site one kilometre in length. The project is reportedly expected to cost around £100 million and include wind turbines and solar panels.

28 June 2005
  The group of four 7/7 bombers carries out a full hostile reconnaissance mission and visits King’s Cross station, London.

Tuesday, 5 July 2005
  Mohammed Sidique Khan arrives with his pregnant partner at Dewsbury Hospital.