Century of Jihad (5 page)

Staff at Camden Mortuary had by now identified the remains of the bomber from amongst the bodies removed from the carnage. This was possible due to the nature of the damage sustained by the remaining body parts. The bomber’s head, that of an Asian male, was intact but the facial features had been damaged, which would make facial recognition difficult.

It was just after 9pm when Stuart called. ‘Boss, I think I may have something here. This guy with the quilted jacket. The colour isn’t clear. The thing that drew my attention to him is the way he keeps looking up as if to see if any cameras are on him. You can just make out his face, occasionally peering from behind this tall guy. He seems to be tugging down at his jacket as if it is an uncomfortable fit. I have a feeling he could be our man.’

Ed looked at the picture on the screen for a few more seconds and then said to Stuart,

‘Get down to the mortuary. See if the remains they have identified as belonging to the bomber – his clothing, or any of the remains down there – match with this guy. If he’s not among the dead, I think he would be worth talking to. Well done!’

Ed called to the other members of the team to gather round Stuart’s VDU.

‘Go over any footage from outside the station. I want to see where this guy has come from. See if we can get a hit with facial recognition. I know it’s getting late and it’s been a hard day, but I don’t need to tell you how important this is.’

Stuart left the Yard at 9.30pm and headed to Camden Mortuary, where the autopsies and identifications of the deceased were being carried out. As he left Scotland Yard and drove through London, Stuart was struck by the normality of what he saw. The streets were busy with traffic and people. Many of the shops he passed were brightly lit, with twinkling lights and Christmas-themed displays. It was as if the events of the morning had been a dream. A very bad one!

Stuart arrived at Camden Mortuary at just after 10pm. It was a dark and very cold December night. The air was crisp as he made his way across the car park to the entrance. Inside the midnight oil was burning, and the place was full with a hustle and bustle at odds, he felt, with its function. Approaching a tall and gangling mortuary assistant sporting a ponytail, he identified himself and explained his reasons for being there at this ungodly hour.

‘I need to establish if any of the remains of your suspected bomber could belong to the man in this photo.’

The mortuary assistant looked at the photo of the man taken from CCTV footage on the station platform and indicated to Stuart to follow him.

The two men entered the autopsy room where the pathologists, their assistants and photographers were busily going about their gruesome work. Six bodies were laid out on trays.

‘Ponytail’ led Stuart to the far corner of the room in silence. There was an air of respectful urgency, as the pathologists and others diligently applied their skills to the task in hand. It was late and it had been a long and stressful day for all concerned, but emphasis was nonetheless still applied to the detail and accuracy of their findings. The young Scot had attended a number of autopsies in his career, but this was the busiest and most urgent scene he had encountered in such a place. He normally took such attendances in his stride, finding a macabre calm in the presence of the bodies on the examination trays. With life having been extinguished, they appeared to him no longer human, not much different from the scene in a butcher’s shop. And yet these bodies had once been human beings – laughing, crying, thinking people, just like him. But this was altogether different. He found the atmosphere almost overwhelming. He reasoned it could partly be explained by a weariness within himself. But he was also aware he had never encountered anything like this scene before. The magnitude of the whole thing. He had never been so directly involved in such horrific events as he had this day.

He found himself thinking back to when he had got out of bed, only this morning, which now seemed like a lifetime ago. Kissing his girlfriend goodbye, he never could have dreamed that only hours later he would be standing in this place, surrounded by the bodies of people who had like him, just over half a day since, got out of bed for the start of another day at work or shopping. Yet here they all were, at the end of the very same day, the victims of an untimely end in such horrific circumstances they could never have imagined. Not preparing to go to bed, but lying here on a cold metal tray, human no more, and he, who had never been introduced to them while they were alive, now standing, staring at them. He suddenly became aware of the assistant speaking to him.

‘As you can see, this one is more damaged than the others. Category One blast damaged. We have had to piece him together. The head became detached in the explosion, consistent with him wearing an explosive belt strapped around his body. Unfortunately the facial features were damaged. The head is that of a young Asian male, like the chap in the photo. The legs are, more or less, in one piece. The torso is completely destroyed. What was left of the clothing has gone for forensic examination. Other stuff has been collected by the forensic people at the scene. We have photographed the remains as they presented to us before and after clothing was removed. He was wearing black jeans. Nothing to connect him to wearing a jacket like the man in the photo you showed me, though. Still that’s not surprising. DNA samples have been taken. No fingers here for fingerprints. There will be enough for dental records to be used to ID him if you can find any records.’

Stuart drove back to the Yard in something of a daze. He was on automatic pilot as he went through the events of the day, yet one more time in his head. The scene at Regent’s Park Underground Station that morning. The scene in the mortuary. The CCTV footage of the man boarding the train at Regent’s Park seconds before the explosion.

‘How did it go Stuart?’ Ed asked as Stuart made his way across the room. It had just gone midnight. It was now December 7
^th
. There were still quite a few people working at their desks. Stuart went over the scene at the mortuary. He described the state of the bodies still being examined, and still to be officially identified. How the condition of the remains meant visual identification would not be possible. However, the remains of the suspected bomber could be their man. He certainly was not one of the others at the morgue. He was a young Asian male and he had been wearing black jeans, as described by the female witness. Ed listened attentively then announced:

‘While you’ve been out, there was a delivery. Some more CCTV footage. As a result Lisa spotted what looks like our man, caught on a camera covering the outside of a private medical centre located in Park Crescent, behind the underground station. He is seen getting out of a taxi just outside the station. We traced the cab driver and he recognised the individual when Theo and Lisa showed him the photo taken from the CCTV footage. He remembered picking him up on the Edgware Road, near Marble Arch, at approximately 8.30 yesterday morning. He had received a call, over his radio, to pick up the fare outside the ‘Blue Nile’ cafe. The man asked the driver to take him to Regent’s Park Underground Station.’

‘Odd, asking a cab to take you to Regent’s Park Underground when there is an underground station at Marble Arch,’ mused Stuart.

Ed continued, ‘Cab drivers get all sorts of strange requests so he didn’t think anything of it. Anyhow, there are so many visitors and newcomers to London. I’ve told Theo and Lisa to go home and I suggest you do the same. I’ve asked one of the other teams to start making enquiries down Edgware Road. Some of the restaurants down there are open until the wee small hours, so they may pick up something. I’ve also asked uniform to pick up any CCTV footage in the area. I’ll be on call if anything urgent comes up during the night. I’ll see you and the rest of the team here at 0700 hours, when we will go over anything that’s come up overnight and proceed from there. Now off you go. And well done today.’

As Lisa drove home to Uxbridge that night, she hoped that she would be able to clear her head of the day’s events during the journey. She was aware that today had been the first of many long working days ahead. The ability to ‘switch off’ during the short rest periods would be very important.

As she travelled along the almost empty roads, she thought how lucky she was to have met Chris. A police officer like herself, he understood the job and its demands, both emotional and in terms of hours worked. In the coming days there would be no rows about the long hours she was working; the disruption to their social life. She would be spared feeling guilty. In fact, Chris was also involved in working ‘the bombing’ and might still not be home when she arrived.

Her thoughts then switched to the weekend they’d just spent with her family in Bristol. It all now seemed a lifetime away. They’d driven down on Friday evening, arriving at her parents’ home around 8.30pm. Her brother, Rick, a soldier in the Parachute Regiment, had already arrived with Rosie, his girlfriend. Mum had cooked the family’s favourite tuna pasta and they’d sat around the table for hours, eating, drinking, talking, laughing.

At breakfast on Saturday, the men decided they’d go to the football that afternoon. She, Mum and Rosie had hit the shops. However, before then she and her dad had spent the morning decorating the Christmas tree. This was something the two of them had done together since she was a little girl, and she considered it to be a Christmas ritual. She loved Christmas – the decorations, buying and giving presents, the atmosphere. On Saturday night they’d all gone to a Thai restaurant and then watched the new Michael McIntyre DVD.

Sunday was a bright but cold day. Following a late breakfast, they’d taken the dogs out for a long walk, returning home for one of Mum’s huge roast dinners.

The journey back to London had been slow, the roads were very busy and they’d arrived back at 10pm.

Now as Lisa pulled into the parking bay outside her house, she looked at the car’s clock. It was well past midnight. What a difference a day made!

After a short and fitful night’s sleep, the team assembled at their corner of the large open plan office. They gathered round DS Ed Malone, as he brought them up-to-date with events and developments over the past few hours, while they had been away from the fray.

‘Well, uniform have now gathered yet more CCTV footage for us to pore over; this time from the Edgware Road area. And there is more to come in from premises where we couldn’t get hold of it last night. Some of the café and restaurant owners in establishments that were open after 11pm have been given an initial interview. Least ways, their night managers and staff. Our man has been seen at, at least, one or two of these venues over recent weeks. Some of those interviewed were, at first, a little reluctant to assist with our enquiries. You know how it can be. Anyway, it transpires that our man has been a regular at these venues, mainly to purchase takeaway food from them. He will undoubtedly show up on shop and street CCTV footage. What we need to establish, quickly, is where he comes from and goes back to. Where he lives. To this end I suggest Lisa and Theo, you take a walk down Edgware Road, visit a few of the premises down there including the ones visited last night. Speak to people, see if we can paint some kind of a picture of our man’s movements, individuals he has been seen with and, of course, establish where he has been hanging out these past few weeks. Stuart and I will go over the new CCTV footage to see if we can pinpoint where he lives. But first, Stuart, we’ll visit our witness. See if she recognises the man in our photo.’

Ed and Stuart visited the witness at her home. The young woman was still in a state of shock. She couldn’t be sure if the man in the photo was the same man whose strange behaviour had unnerved her on the underground train. She was, for the moment at least, preoccupied with her inner thoughts. She did, however, have questions for the two detectives.

‘How come I survived? I was standing so close to the explosion. All those poor people are dead. How are their families coping?’

The two detectives, unable to help the woman come to terms with her ordeal, returned to the Yard. They settled down to viewing the CCTV footage gathered the previous night, with a renewed determination to catch those behind the outrage.

Theo and Lisa drove over to Edgware Road, mostly in silence, interspersed with the occasional commentary by Theo regarding the female pedestrians he observed as they made their way through the morning rush hour traffic. It was mild for the time of year, and sunny. Theo was driving as usual. He didn’t like being driven by a female. He believed that women had neither the spatial awareness nor the attention span necessary to drive, especially in London traffic which required split-second timing, fast reactions and total attention to the job in hand.

‘Would you take a look at the fun bags on that! Take a look at those two over there!’ commented Theo, as he turned his head to look at female pedestrians whilst he negotiated the traffic.

Theo had only been driving for a couple of years, and he was still very impressed with his ability behind the wheel. Almost as much as with his sexual prowess. He was still one of only a few among his East London friends and relatives who could drive. Londoners, if they learn to drive at all, usually learn later than in other parts of the country. Theo and Lisa were quite different personalities. The banter between them could, at times, get quite personal as Lisa couldn’t quite understand Theo, and Theo definitely couldn’t understand Lisa.

‘I wonder how the relatives of the casualties from yesterday, especially the deceased, are coping this morning. A lot can happen in twenty-four hours. It makes you wonder what drives people to do that sort of thing,’ commented Lisa.

Theo responded, ‘I’ll tell you what drives them. They’re all fucking nutters! Either that or sex maniacs. I mean, let’s get real. A hundred virgins waiting for them on the other side? Let’s face it, you’ve met some of these guys. They wouldn’t know what to do with one rampant nymphomaniac laying it on a plate for them. Now me, that’s a different matter.’