He shrugged. “Then he was dead and I felt I had no choice but to return to London, at least temporarily, and so we moved the next month. We found an apartment near enough to visit my mother but far enough away to suit my wife. Marie Claire was worried what my mother would say to our children about their religion if she left her alone with them.
“I told my mother I intended to sell the stores as quickly as possible. I was surprised she said she’d been very involved in the business for a number of years. She begged me not to sell the business, that I didn’t have to be involved at all. I could simply hand over the running of it to her. But I refused. I wanted nothing to do with the chain, I admit it, in part because I still felt great anger at my father for what he’d done to us. To me, my father’s business was an albatross around my neck. Besides, I soon had conglomerates lining up to make offers, and I had already been asked by the London Herald to write for them.”
“Surely your father must have realized your mother would want to keep the chain. Why did he leave his business to you?”
“My father always did exactly what suited him. For some reason, he must not have wanted my mother involved in the business any longer. I don’t know why. He must have known I would sell the business if he left it to me. In any case, he didn’t beggar her, don’t get that idea. He left my mother three houses and a great deal of money.
“Dealing with my mother was the difficult thing. I wasn’t in England more than a week before she was asking me to visit the South London Mosque with her and meet with the imam, Al-Hädi ibn Mirza is his name. I finally agreed, for my own reasons, let me be clear about that. I was curious what it would be like to revisit my religion after so many years. The imam was all she could talk about with me—how wise he was, how his fire would bring Islam to the world, and the world to Islam. He was a genius, she said, at helping Muslims who had lapsed into the ways of the West with the greater jihad, their personal struggle to fulfill their religious duties. She was smitten.
“Finally I visited with Al-Hädi ibn Mirza after prayers. He certainly had charisma, seemed comfortable speaking with people like me. He listened carefully to my concerns about the faith, blessed me for searching for my true path, invited me back to speak with him.
“To my surprise, the imam suddenly asked me over tea, to reconsider selling my father’s business. He said it was important to Islam that devout women like my mother continue in positions of power in England, that she was a pillar of the mosque and he needed her support. My mother obviously put him up to it, and it angered me. I was not very polite when I told him it was not his affair, and that it had nothing to do with Islam. He lectured me for a bit about my responsibilities, but when he realized he wouldn’t convince me, he bowed his head and apologized. I did as well, for being short with him. He changed the subject, spoke of my success as a journalist, and asked if I was interested in writing a piece about some of the young local men he had recruited to the faith. He said it might help me find my way.
“I told him I would think about it, that I’d only just moved to London and needed time. That was all that was said. I have thought back to that conversation many times, but I don’t know if that meeting with the imam had anything to do with this.”
Sherlock said, “MI5 already had the mosque and the imam under surveillance, Nasim. We knew you had been there. We’ll know to ask questions about your father’s business now. You were right to be upset, to suspect something.”
“Let me say that my wife, Marie Claire, was far more upset than I.” He paused, a memory bringing a quick smile. “She’d been against my going to the mosque with my mother in the first place, called it ‘sticking my foot into my mother’s tent.’ She called my mother, told her to stop trying to manipulate me using the imam, that selling my father’s business was my decision and she could keep her nose out of it. As you can imagine, my mother didn’t take this lying down. She screamed that Marie Claire was a worthless Crusader harlot, that she, my mother, would not rest until I returned to Islam. Needless to say, they haven’t had any contact with each other since then.
“You might laugh, but it hasn’t been easy for any of us.” He paused again, another smile playing around his mouth. “Marie Claire can be ferocious.”
When he looked up again, he whispered, “Do you know what is most painful for me? Realizing that Marie Claire, however she tries, cannot help herself or our children. And I am useless to her.
“You have heard everything I know. And you will use it to help my family. I am sorry it wasn’t more.”