Baghlan Boy

by Michael Crowley

  Misha was on his feet. ‘First you need to get someone for me, someone I came from Baghlan with. He’s in the cellar of a nightclub down there.’

  ‘Berzan?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘All the agents round here know him. He wants to control Istanbul, Turkey if he can. But he can’t, so he gets ugly.’

  ‘Yeah, well, my friend’s going to be very ugly if we don’t get him out of there.’

  They walked together down the hill and back to the club. In the end the extraction was routine. The club was open to the public, so the agent paid to go in, went down to the cellar forced the door and left with Farood the same way he came in.

  Misha ran across the road towards them, his eyes on his friend’s face. ‘Are you okay?’

  In reply Farood launched his tin of treasure at Misha’s head.

  Seventeen

  Lancashire, January 2012

  It was their first date and it was painful to recall. He was with Sabana at Khalid’s restaurant waiting to order. They had been sitting at a table in the corner by the door waiting to order for thirty minutes. The wait had killed the conversation. A conversation he had planned. It was a week since they’d cancelled the previous date because Khalid had made Farood work in the evening, yet still Farood insisted they eat at Khalid’s restaurant. Khalid had promised him he would take special care of them this time, but Khalid was in his office.

  ‘We should go. It’s not like we haven’t got a choice,’ suggested Sabana.

  ‘I could always take our order myself. I am a waiter,’ he said, smiling.

  Sabana was angry, at his humiliation not hers.

  Khalid emerged from his office, seemingly in a rush, and he spoke directly to Sabana about problems with a supplier. He was wearing an expensive silk shirt. Farood was wearing his white work shirt from the market. Khalid moved around to Sabana’s side of the table, leaned in to her shoulder, his eyes following her forefinger on the menu. He told her he thought he might need glasses, and smiled. ‘Farood came in the other day and I didn’t recognise him from just over there. Isn’t that right, Farood?’

  Farood smiled and agreed with his boss.

  ‘I’ll come and see you for an eye test, leave Farood in charge here.’

  He smiled for him again, even though he had just realised that it was Khalid not him who appeared to be on a date with Sabana. Khalid told him to show some new guests to a table and take their order while he took Sabana’s order.

  During the meal Sabana told him she had found another job for him. A friend was opening a shop, a fashion shop, but he didn’t want to work for a woman, and anyway, where would he live? Then Khalid came over and told him he could help himself to coffee. While he was at the coffee machine, Khalid told him he would be taking money from his wages for the meal.

  Farood’s anger at the memory was still raw. He walked out of his cell and onto the balcony. It was almost time for him and Barker to fetch the dinner trolley. To be outside for ten minutes, to be with Barker, who listened. Directly below him Atherton was at a table, pretending to play solitaire with a pack of cards. Standing opposite, with one foot on the seat, was Atif. Atherton and Farood technically at least had jobs on the wing; Atif wasn’t a cleaner and he wasn’t in education, but he was allowed out of his cell to wander at will doing the odd errand for Officer Scully.

  Atherton spoke with his eyes fixed on the cards. ‘You got to be careful on here now. You know why? Because there’s a grass, Atif. On this wing.’

  ‘So, who is this grass?’ said Atif. ‘No one would grass on me. The consequences for them would be too high.’

  ‘Course, bro, but some of these rioters they’ve brought in, they can’t do prison, they don’t know prison, so they’re always helping the officers, aren’t they? So, Atif, you into picking up girls at kids’ homes? Bitches from kids’ homes. Do you do that?’

  ‘I’m not a fucking paedo, Atherton, and you see those girls, yeah, they claim they were raped, but they weren’t. They were paid to have sex and they enjoyed it.’

  ‘You saying they’re not nonces then. That lot on D wing?’

  ‘I’m saying it’s not how the media tell it.’

  As Farood came down the stairs, Atherton looked up from his cards. ‘What yer sayin’, Roodie?’

  He stood, hands down his jogging bottoms, nodding politely, just like the day he arrived from court.

  Atif put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I was just saying to Atherton, he doesn’t understand Muslims and he doesn’t understand the current situation.’

  ‘I know what you’re up to,’ said Atherton.

  ‘No, what you don’t understand, white boy, is that the Jews control the media. Everything that comes out of that screen is thought up by Jews.’

  Scully poked his head around the door of the wing office. ‘Atif! Put these away for me, will yer!’ He dropped a pile of towels and Atif went to do his errand.

  Farood sat down at the table opposite Atherton.

  ‘He knows everything, dunt he, your mate?’ said Atherton, cards spilling out from his cack-handed shuffling.

  ‘He thinks he does,’ replied Farood.

  Atherton bowed his head and said quietly, ‘So, go find what else he thinks he knows.’

  Atherton and Farood had become pals – as much as prisoners trusted each other. Atherton appeared genuinely interested in Farood’s story, the details of his journey across two continents. He asked questions, and Farood welcomed the unburdening.

  Atif could leave his cell door open and wander around the wing in the knowledge that no other prisoners would enter; in fact, that other prisoners and officers would keep an eye on his premises. It was a cell with more than signs of long-term habitation, furnished with lamps, mats, a Playstation, a stack of computer games, photographs and certificates across the walls, his prayer mat, and several different-coloured keffiyeh scarves. Technically prisoners were not allowed into each other’s cells; it encouraged bullying. Scully at least was prepared to let it go, since bullying wasn’t always bullying it was just another way of keeping order. Indeed, sometimes it was justice. On occasions he and other officers slid newspaper cuttings under the doors of prisoners like Atherton – cuttings about newly arrived sex offenders.

  Farood was sat on the visitor’s chair, Atif his bed. ‘Do you want a coffee?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘Farood, I can help you in here. Make your time easier. I want to help you, but as a Muslim you have to play your part.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re an Afghan, which makes you a leading Muslim in the jail. There’s too many brothers in here who don’t take their religion seriously, who take part in things that are haram.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘They watch television. Let the propaganda fill their heads.’

  ‘You’ve got a television.’

  ‘That’s just for games. And they associate with kaffirs. If you’re going to convert someone that’s fine. But people like Atherton and his crew. You know what, I think he’s part Jew. He probably doesn’t know, but I can tell.’

  ‘Kaffirs don’t know who they are, what they believe,’ said Farood.

  ‘They don’t believe in anything. Only what they can buy.’

  ‘In my country we don’t have much more than our belief, but it has been enough to beat the British, the Russians and the Americans.’

  ‘Exactly. This is what people need to hear, Farood. We need to turn Muslims into fighters.’

  Farood nodded. ‘You’re not a Muslim unless you fight.’

  Atif offered out his fist; Farood touched it with his. Then, from under the hand towel folded around his Qur’an, Atif produced an iPhone and offered it to his new brother.

  ‘Here, take it. My solicitor’s number’s in there. He’s good. When the time is right, I’ll mov
e to another wing. And this will be your wing.’

  ‘Sharia wing,’ said Farood, smiling.

  ‘Like I say.’

  ‘How do you get the phones?’

  ‘Money. Some officers are easy to buy. Scully’s no problem. But let me deal with him.’

  *

  Sabana didn’t recognise the number when she took the call at the optician’s reception.

  ‘It’s me,’ whispered Farood.

  ‘And how may I help you, sir?’

  ‘Listen, is Khalid still in hospital?’

  ‘Actually, I think that’s no longer the case?’

  ‘I need you to do something. I need you to speak to him, get him to admit it was him that shot Samir in the amusement arcade and record the conversation.’

  ‘I’m not sure, may I ring you back on that?’

  ‘No, no, no.’

  He paced his cell, pointing a finger at the ceiling, the radio beating in the background. ‘Listen to me, listen to me.’

  She killed the call. He stared at the phone, suddenly a useless object. Nearly all the clandestine dialogue in the jail was about acquiring a phone, the influence this bestowed, yet at that moment with a phone in his palm, he had never felt weaker.

  Later in the day, Atherton was grinning as he cupped it in his hand in Farood’s cell. ‘Could’ve done with something a bit smaller. What did he want for it?’

  Farood shrugged. ‘Nothing. He wants me to be one of his boys. One of his radicals.’

  ‘A terrorist, yeah?’

  Another shrug. ‘Cos I’m an Afghan.’

  Atherton smiled. ‘You’re nobody’s boy, are yer, Roodie? Where’s he getting them from?’

  ‘Scully. You know what, I think he’d bring them in for us.’

  ‘Course he would,’ confirmed Atherton.

  ‘Except I haven’t got any money.’

  ‘It’s lucky I have then,’ said Atherton, cleaning the phone’s screen with his cuff. ‘Have you spoke to your missus?’

  ‘Yeah. Khalid’s out of hospital. When are we gonna do this?’

  ‘I’ve got a legal visit tomorrow. I’ll know more then. Soon, I reckon. You need to be ready, Roodie.’

  Eighteen

  Lancashire

  He was back in the one room he lived in, provided by Khalid. Sunlight was there as well for once. On the days it made an appearance in the grey skies of England there was a forty-minute spell when it cut down the alley between the paint shop and his window. He was reading Surah four of his Qur’an in between a popular lads’ magazine which featured the industrious sex life of a footballer. On the letters page, a communication from someone’s girlfriend about the changing taste of her boyfriend’s semen. The Qur’an spoke about the need for a dowry, a gift upon marriage. He remembered a family in Baghlan refused their daughter because the dowry wasn’t good enough. He was waiting for his shirt to dry, draped over the back of a chair. His door opened, his living-room door which was also his front door.

  Khalid entered shoulder first and put a box on his bed. ‘Microwave. Means you can eat here.’ Khalid looked around the room and sniffed. ‘You know how to use it?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Farood, ‘I use one at the restaurant.’

  Khalid picked up the Qur’an, brandished it. ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘Mosque.’

  ‘I don’t want you getting into any shit with those people. Bringing it to my door.’

  ‘It’s just my Qur’an.’

  ‘You think I haven’t got one? I don’t read it on my day off, though. And what’s this magazine?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Eh? Who do you think you are? One thing you need to know about women: they’re not interested in you. They’re only interested in what you can provide for them. In life, everyone has a price, and that’s all women think about. And the first thing you need to know about a woman is her price. And I’m telling you, Sabana’s price is too high for you. You’re going to have to settle for less.’

  ‘Sabana isn’t interested in money.’

  Khalid laughed, shaking his head. ‘You think her father will agree to her marrying you? An Afghan with no money? Farood, you’ll only upset yourself if you carry on like this.’ Khalid sat down next to him, took a breath and lowered his voice. ‘I’ve been hurt by women myself, Farood, so I know. I’m only trying to help.’ He placed his hand gently on Farood’s shoulder. ‘And you know something, I need your help. Will you help me?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’ve never asked for it before, have I? But there’s this man. He wants to buy my restaurant. He wants to take it from me: my livelihood, your job, this place you live. He’s saying I have to sell it to him and he thinks I’m weak. So, I’m going to have to show him that I’m not. And for that I need my people to support me. Can I count on you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know what, he calls himself a Muslim and he sells drugs.’

  Farood shook his head, demonstrated his disgust. Khalid left without saying a word, leaving Farood feeling anxiously optimistic. He opened the box and looked at the microwave and saw that it wasn’t new.

  ‘You waiting for someone else to dig that hole for you?’

  The prison officer’s shout snatched Farood from his daydream. Barker smiled across at him, pushing his foot down on the shoulder of the spade, slicing down into the saturated earth. They were working on ‘Farms and Gardens’, except there wasn’t a farm at the prison anymore. Not after the donkey lost an eye. They were planting trees on the central concourse, where the pond used to be before someone’s head was held under for too long and the pond had to be filled in. A vegetable patch had also surrendered under the fear of food hygiene litigation and currently, in the interests of health, all vegetables consumed were now tinned. Farms and Gardens was a sought-after job, for lads who wanted to keep themselves to themselves or who needed to be kept off the wings. Working, or even walking, on the central concourse meant you were abused from the windows by lads who had to be kept away from other prisoners because they were so viciously and pointlessly belligerent. ‘You down there, you fucking victim, go fucking hang yourself. Is your ma on the game? I’m gonna shag yer ma, lad.’ Mothers were handy ammunition, and sometimes a target. A mother escorted by the governor, walked past the well-kept flower beds and the cut grass, under the seagulls to collect her son’s belongings and view the cell in which he had hanged himself. ‘Hey, missus, your lad string himself up, did he? String himself up because you were such a shite mother, did he? Is that right?’

  Farood and Barker were waiting for a tree. The trailer reversed towards them as they received instructions on digging a hole and how to bend correctly. The willow stood delicate and pert; the supervisor remarked, ‘That’ll be a lovely tree in about ten years.’

  Back in his cell Farood fetched his phone from behind a pipe and rang Sabana. Making a phone call from a cell was tricky, even at night. Staff were known to patrol close to doors with their shoes off. Some lads even put cornflakes under the door that would alert them to the presence of an officer. Phones were passports, leverage and they were weapons. Atherton understood their potential better than most. When he’d arrived for his current stretch, he was warned by an officer not to put his Paul Scholes poster up anywhere but on the noticeboard. Then, when he ignored this, Miss Nicholls threatened to take his television away, at least until she came home to find four of Atherton’s boys in her living room. With a mobile phone it wasn’t hard to find out an officer’s address, it wasn’t impossible to take a photograph of someone, or, indeed, a key. Farood had no such ambitions, no boys on the out – just Sabana.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he whispered. ‘I know what we can do. Get your sister to talk to him. And she wears a hidden microphone.’

  ‘She’ll wet herself.’

  ‘Just ask her – it’s
the only chance we have.’

  ‘You said you had another lawyer.’

  ‘That could take years. Are you coming to visit next week?’

  ‘I can’t. I can hardly hear you. Are you on a mobile? Farood, Khalid came to our house, met my father and he knows I visit you.’

  He killed the call, just in time. Senior Officer Robertson was at the door. ‘Farood, trolley time.’

  ‘Can’t be arsed, boss.’

  Farood ate alone in his cell, thinking how someone like Khalid would be dealt with back home by his brother or his father.

  After dinner he was summoned to the wing office. Robertson was waiting for him, sleeves rolled up, hands behind his head in the prisoner of war position. He swivelled in his chair, took a sip of coffee.

  ‘Sit down, Farood.’

  Behind him Scully punched a keyboard from height with his forefingers. Farood wondered if Atif had paid for Scully’s bracelet watch.

  ‘I understand you must be struggling a bit,’ Robertson began. ‘With your appeal being turned down, and you’ve got a long time ahead of you. You need to settle down, Farood, accept your time and start serving your sentence.’

  ‘I still have another lawyer to contact. And I’m going to write to the ombudsman.’

  ‘Who told you about that?’

  The reply was a shrug.

  ‘Why don’t you become a wing representative?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Each month you represent the views of other lads at meetings. Put forward suggestions to improve things…’ Farood was nodding. ‘Atif’s moving to another wing, so there’s a vacancy coming up.’

  As Robertson turned to Scully for a form to fill in, Farood slipped the teaspoon from his cup up his sleeve. ‘Think that’ll be a good thing for me, sir. Where do I sign?’

  The following morning Atherton entered the arena of the visits hall. It was cold and it echoed, which was convenient. On a platform, above the ranks of bolted-down desks and chairs, sat two officers whose job it was to observe every visit, to watch for something moved from sleeve to sleeve, for trainers to be swapped under the desk, for something to be conjured from out of a girlfriend’s hair, from under a baby’s nappy. But today was a legal visits day and the only illicit exchanges were spoken ones. Atherton was patted down and handed a high-vis jacket. Across the hall, jabbing coins into a drinks machine, was his legal representative, Martin Walker. ‘Mart’ had been a brief for two decades, and for most of those years the Athertons had been his bread and butter. Two generations of Athertons had filled interview rooms and filing cabinets, and both parties had served each other well. No case was ever shut so tightly that Martin couldn’t prise it open to the light of doubt and improbability. ‘Just because my client’s DNA was on the ammunition doesn’t mean he fired it.’ His client could extemporise from the witness box on how he was always picking up spent cartridge cases as a child. ‘They were everywhere.’ Juries were gullible, which they mistook for open-mindedness.