Countdown to Terror

Chapter 15

The Gent rang Harrods and asked for Sulamain Khan. Surprisingly, he was put through and the phone was answered by Sulamain himself. Without introducing himself, he came straight to the point. ‘I know something about the Sword of Allah incident.’

The response was terse. ‘That’s hardly surprising. It’s been front-page news all week.’

‘I also know you have a nephew Samir, who is currently in London and by all accounts you two are pretty close.’

Sulamain was now all ears. ‘OK, who are you and what do you want?’

‘Can we meet? I would be happy to come to your office at Harrods.’

Sulamain was business-like. ‘OK, the day after tomorrow, one thirty. Go to the Mezzah Lounge on the fourth floor. It is usually quieter there at that time. Make yourself known to the maître d’ and I’ll come and join you.’

He was about to say thank you but the line was already dead.

The next morning he and Jenny were to travel to London together. She took a local train from Stockport to Crewe and changed to platform one, where she found him passing the time of day with the local Conservative MP for Crewe and Nantwich, Edward Timpson, whose family was famed for the shoe repair and key-cutting empire.

The town of Crewe was perhaps best known as a large railway junction, and was for many years a major railway engineering facility for manufacturing and overhauling locomotives, but now much reduced in size. From 1946 until 2002 it was also the home of Rolls Royce motor car production. The Pyms Lane factory on the west of the town now produced Bentley motor cars exclusively. Crewe was not formally planned out until 1843 by Joseph Locke to consolidate the ‘railway colony’ that had grown up since around 1840-41 in the area near to the railway junction station opened in 1837. Crewe was thus named after the railway station rather than the other way round. The town had still not gotten over the loss of Rolls Royce and the British Rail Engineering works. After passing the time of day with Edward Timpson, he introduced Jenny as a colleague and they boarded the train, leaving the MP to concentrate on his parliamentary papers at the other end of the carriage.

During the journey he advised her of his conversation with Sulamain the previous evening.

They checked in at the Imperial Hotel in Russell Square, where they were greeted warmly by the assistant manager, who, remembering him from previous visits asked, ‘How are things in Cheshire, sir? And what are we up to this time, sir?’

‘Oh, this and that, probably shopping, I should think. My associate Jenny here has always wanted to visit Harrods.’

The assistant manager’s face was inscrutable as he handed over the keys for two rooms next door to each other on the third floor.

On the evening of 6th June, Samir’s father Mansoor arrived home from work. Aisha immediately asked, ‘Have you seen the news about this killing in a takeaway shop in Manchester?’

‘Yes, of course I have. It’s not that far away from the factory, and there was lots of talk about some kind of attack last week, but no one knows who it was or where they came from at this stage. I’m still not getting much work done in the factory what with everyone gossiping about it. Some of them said they would have done the same if it had been their child, but there is a large police presence in the area. I can tell you this, though: it should keep my factory from being burgled again.’

Aisha said, ‘You’d have thought Samir would have mentioned it.’

‘Well, we haven’t seen him, have we? I asked on the phone but he didn’t know any more than me. We can ask him again if he rings at the weekend.’