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still apparently in a daze, replied, ‘I’m very sorry, Officer, I can’t say I saw much of him at all apart from when he came in to pay his rent. We never spoke apart from pleasantries. He never caused any problems. He was always respectful. I never saw any visitors come or go.’
    Lisa listened attentively to the man’s responses and concluded the interview.
    ‘Mr Talpur, thank you very much for your co-operation. If you think of anything further which may help our enquiries, please call me.’
    With that, she handed the man her card and Stuart opened the door. The elderly man shuffled out of the room. Lisa looked at Stuart.
    ‘Not a lot to be getting on with from that, but I’m sure he’s telling us everything he knows. Did you see him? He was in a right old state!’
    Stuart agreed. ‘Yeah, poor old bugger. Not something you want to be involved in at that age. Shall I call in one of the others now?’
    Lisa replied, ‘Yes, let’s get on with it.’
    The two other tenants, both students, told the officers a similar story. Neither had any real contact with the suspect, nor had either seen a visitor to the suspect’s apartment. They were not aware of anything suspicious about the man.

    Police checks on the landlord and his two student tenants produced nothing untoward.

C HAPTER 9
    Fayaz stood staring for a moment out of his office window in the extensively renovated, Grade II listed building that is the HQ of the British Security Service, or MI5. Thames House, a substantial building on the north bank of the Thames, is located at the corner of Millbank and Horseferry Road in Central London, overlooking Lambeth Bridge. The MI5 officer could see the lines of cars crossing the bridge, their headlights glaring in the darkness. Office workers were leaving their places of work and heading home to the outskirts of the city and to the surrounding counties. He reflected that, now the Christmas lights had been switched on, the streets of the capital would throng with Christmas shoppers and revellers well into the evening on a daily basis.
    Fayaz Dhavi, aged forty-five and of portly build, was a senior officer in the Counter Terrorism Branch of the British Security Service, commonly known as MI5. His area of responsibility was Islamic extremists operating, or people suspected of operating in this capacity, in Britain. He was a British-born Muslim, his parents having moved to Britain from their home in Pakistan shortly after Indian independence and the partition of India and Pakistan into two separate and hostile states, divided by hostility between Muslim and Hindu. His father had subsequently done very well in his adopted country, building up a very successful textile business. Fayaz joined ‘Five’ on leaving university, where he had studied politics. At the time he was one of the few non-white, non-Oxbridge members of the organisation.
    At first he had found his colleagues either patronising or, in some cases, hostile. However, with time and the changing world MI5 found itself operating in, post the collapse of the old Soviet Block, he found acceptance from his compatriots in their new operating environment against Organised Crime and Counter Terrorism. The fight against Organised Crime, particularly drug trafficking, which absorbed approximately ten percent of resources in the decade leading up to 9/11, was eventually pushed aside by the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, and the international terror campaign mounted in its name. The Security Service had taken over the lead role in Intelligence gathering in the fight against terrorism. The police were still running the investigations and executing the arrests, while ‘Five’ used its Intelligence gathering skills to good effect. The Service had developed finely tuned analytical skills and great experience, gathered over many years, in agent running, surveillance and the use of phone taps. With the change of direction, the Security Service had doubled in size and in