The entrance has the characterless smell of a new building, a mixture of plastic, paper and fake plants, but with the underlying stink of stale body odour. The space is small—a waiting area with a few plastic seats blocked off by a firmly closed door and a counter fronted by a thick glass separator. Behind the glass is an even smaller space, bare and utilitarian, with a door at one end. It is unmanned.
“There’s no one here!” she says in dismay leaning into the glass and searching through the grey light for sign of movement.
“It’s only about five a.m.”
“Yeah, you’re right, but still ... this place should be manned twenty-four-seven.”
“Ring the bell!” Alex says motioning to the plastic rectangle fixed to the counter.
“It won’t work,” she replies but presses it anyway. The button presses down but no sound comes. She raps against the glass. “Hello!”
Rap. Rap! Rap!
Alex walks to the door and pulls at the handle. It doesn’t budge. He knocks against the door then thumps it. The door judders.
“Hang on!” Jessie whispers and grabs his shoulder. “I think I can hear something.” Unseen footsteps thud behind the door and Alex steps back.
“Hold on!” The voice is muffled but its weariness clear.
Keys jangle and then the door behind the glass opens. Torchlight flickers and shines into Jessie’s eyes.
“How can I help?” the weary voice asks from behind the light.
The officer upends the torch on the counter top and it casts deep shadows on his face.
“We need...” she’d gone through what to say numerous times, but now she’s about to say it out loud it sounds far-fetched. “... to report a terrorist plot!”
“Oh, aye?” the police officer returns, his face dead-pan. He picks up the light and shines through the glass.
“Can you put that light down? It’s blinding me.” The light shifts and the officer peers through the glass. Squinting eyes and dark shadows make him ugly.
“A terrorist threat you say?” His voice lacks interest.
She hadn’t expected apathy. Wasn’t he going to take her seriously? “Yes. The fires-”
“We know what’s causing the fires, Miss.”
“Let me finish my sentence,” Jessie returns beginning to rile. He stares back at her through the glass. His lips purse.
“Go on then,” he returns with an edge.
“The fires are deliberate.”
“The blackout has caused shortages, Miss. We, along with the fire service, are doing our best in the circumstances to keep them under control.”
“Have you even looked out of the window?” Jessie shouts through the glass. “The city is on fire!”
“Now, just remember your place. Abusing a police officer-”
“Pah!”
“She’s telling the truth,” Alex says stepping up to the glass. “Terrorists are planning to burn down the towns and cities-”
“Extremists are burning down the city! We overheard them talking about it and caught them trying to burn down a tower block in Eldrington Road.”
He looks at her with widening eyes at the mention of the road. “Just a minute,” he relents. “Let me get a notepad.”
“Notepad!”
He casts a steely glance. “Just hold your horses!” He leans out of sight then returns with paper and pen. “Name?”
Jessie falters for a second. “Lucy Shaw,” she lies. Alex doesn’t betray her deceit. She’s just an ordinary girl—that’s all she wants them to know.
“Alright, Lucy, tell me all about it.”
As Jessie describes the scene at the café, how they’d followed the men, and what happened in the basement of the tower block, the policeman asks Jessie to stop then disappears into the police station. Within two minutes he returns and opens the door leading into the station. Standing a good foot above Jessie, another officer waits in the room. He makes no effort to speak but from the look on his face they’re taking the story seriously—finally! He motions for Jessie to take a seat.
“Ordinarily I’d take you into an interview room and record our conversation, but none of them have natural light, so we’re going to have to sit here and I’ll take notes whilst my colleague asks the questions.”
As Jessie recounts her story the men’s faces remain unreadable.
“And you say you left them in the basement.”
“Yes.”
“And they were both dead?”
“Yes, both of them.”
“You killed them both?”
“Yes,” she admits.
“Then, I’m afraid we’re going to have to take you into custody.”
“What?” Alex shouts and pushes back from the desk.
“No way! I have to get back to my family,” Jessie exclaims looking from one officer to the other. Alex grabs her arm.
“Civilians can’t take the law into their own hands. You’ve admitted killing these men and it’s my duty to take you into custody.”
“Are you crazy? The country is burning down around us!”
The taller policeman stands and walks towards Jessie. “You do not have to say anything-”
“Wait! No!”
“... but it may harm your defence if you do not mention-”
“Alex!”
“... when questioned something-”
“Bloody jobsworth!” Alex shouts.
“... which you later rely on in court ...”
As the officer continues his recitation of the Miranda rights Jessie backs away. There is no way they are going to arrest her. She has to get back home. She eyes the two men. Neither have firearms, and although both are taller than her, they’re overweight, middle-aged and in sunlight probably as grey-skinned as they look now—suited far more to sitting behind a desk than out on the beat arresting criminals. Think Jessie! The door behind is closed but not locked. Beyond is the small entrance hall and then freedom.
“Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”
“Alex.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go.”
“Sure.”
As the officer reaches out to take Jessie’s arm she bats it away with her forearm simultaneously jabbing him in the throat with her fist. He gags and stares at her with bulging eyes as he stumbles backwards. Losing his balance, he knocks into a chair and topples to the ground. Next to her Alex punches the other officer and he knocks against the table. Without hesitation Jessie strides to the door and pulls it open.
“The city is burning down. Terrorists are trying to bring England to its knees and you want to arrest me! This is real. This is happening. Get off your arses and look outside this building. You’ll see the fires for yourself.”
The policeman scowls as he pulls himself to his feet but exchanges a worried frown with his colleague leaning against the table.
“I did what I had to do,” Jessie continues. “Those men were going to burn down that block of flats and kill as many people as they could and then they were going to do it all again. I got the information I needed from them—now you have that information—including names. Take control of that! Don’t lock me up for trying to save people’s lives.”
The officer opens his mouth to reply but Jessie turns letting the door slam behind her and walks out into the grey of early morning. She takes a deep breath as her hands shake.
“Let’s catch up with the others, Alex. I don’t feel safe here and it’s not the terrorists that scare me anymore!”
“It’s unbelievable.”
“It is. Does that mean I’m a fugitive now?”
Alex is silent for a moment. “Well, you gave a false name.”
“They know what I look like though.”
“I can’t believe that they’d punish you-”
“No? I’m not so sure and I’m not sticking around to find out.” Pulling at the rucksack on her shoulder Jessie picks up her pace and pushes through the trembling of her legs. Get a grip, Jessie. You
’ve done your best. You told them—done your duty. But what if they find you? You’ll go down. You murdered someone. It was a terrorist. It doesn’t count.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nareen pushes back the duvet and sits on the edge of the bed. The sun is thin through the curtains and the fuchsia roses on the fabric give the room a tinge of pink. The baby shuffles in her cot. She has her father’s dark eyes. Everything about the delicate child is beautiful and Nareen’s heart swells with a love she never realised existed until the child slipped from between her legs and she held its tiny body against her bare breasts. Bending down, she scoops the child into her arms and strokes the back of her head. Breath, warm and sweet, brushes Nareen’s neck as the child lays its head on her shoulder.
Bam!
The front door bangs shut. Nareen flinches and holds the baby a little tighter. Heart pounding against her chest bone she walks to the landing. Her husband stands in the hallway pulling off his coat. The stench of fuel already wafting up the stairs.
“I told you not to come back,” Nareen says, keeping her voice low. She doesn’t want his mother, in the bedroom along the hallway, to wake. Doesn’t want her to worry or feel the shame her son has brought down on them—not yet.
Hamed grunts, hangs his coat on the hook, then walks through to the kitchen. Doors slam as he raids through the cupboards. Not wanting her daughter to be startled by the banging of her father’s anger, she sits the baby back in the cot, offers her a toy, then pulls on her dressing gown.
In the kitchen, Hamed leans into the fridge. He pulls out a container of food and slams it into the microwave.
“You’ll wake your mother!”
He scowls at her then turns back to the microwave. “Hungry?” Nareen ventures, wondering when he’ll realise the oven won’t work.
“Yes,” he says as he pings the oven door back open and thumps it closed again.
“Careful, or you’ll break that!”
He grunts in return and presses the timer.
“You stink,” she throws at him as the stench of petrol fills the room.
He stares at the glass door of the oven, grunts again, jabs at the start button, mutters ‘stupid’, then clicks the door open and pulls out the food.
“You stink of petrol,” she repeats walking up to him. “What did you do last night?”
“Nothing for you to know about,” he replies and takes the carton of cold food to the table.
“Hamed! I know about it all.”
“You know nothing. What could you know—you’re just a woman.”
“What!” she hisses in anger. The man she married would never have said that—never even thought it. “Just a woman! I’m your wife. I’m the mother of your child. I’m not just any woman.”
“Leave me alone.”
“No!” she says, the sense of despair she’s pushed down these last months rises. “You’ve changed. Since you met Bilal you’re different.”
“I’ve had my eyes opened, Alhamdulillah.”
She groans at his words. “Become blinkered more like! He’s dangerous, Hamed.”
“I said leave me alone. Go back to your bed.”
“Hamed, listen to me. What you’re doing now is criminal. Those men you think so much of, they’re nothing more than murderers.”
“The cause is just,” he replies spooning in the cold meat and rice.
“Just! Have you lost your mind, Hamed? Since when was burning down innocent people in their homes just?”
“They’re kafirs, Nareen. None of them deserve to live.”
Nareen stands back horrified at the evil spewing from her husband’s mouth. This wasn’t the man she had married. Since he’d met Bilal he’d become festering and angry. She’d tried to ignore his rants about the wars and had resisted his pressure to conform to his new rules for living, but she couldn’t ignore it any more.
“How can you say that? You’ve been brainwashed by Bilal and his cronies. They’re full of lies—perhaps they believe them, but they’re lies nonetheless.”
He ignores her and continues to shovel food into his mouth.
She has to take a stand. “I ... I told you last night that if you went out not to come back.”
He shovels in another spoonful of food then looks at her with a flickering anger. “It’s my duty, Nareen.”
She almost laughs at the ridiculousness of his statement but holds it back and pushes down the hysteria rising within her breast. “Think of our daughter, Hamed. Allysiah needs you. When this is over the police will find you and you’ll be taken to prison. What will we do then?”
“It’s a small price to pay.”
“What? Your new friends are more important than your own child?”
“We’re all slaves of Islam. I must do what is right-”
“Burning people in their beds is right?”
“One day this country will be subservient to us and then you’ll see what is right, Insha’allah.”
“But what if God doesn’t will it, Hamed? Have you thought about that?”
“Of course he does.”
“But what if you’re wrong? What if those men are wrong?”
“We’re not.”
A knock at the door and Hamed stares at her, a warning to stay put and let him answer. She stands at the kitchen door and listens as he leans out of a narrow gap.
“Your work last night went well.”
Bilal! She sighs in exasperation.
“Yes, all went as planned.”
“We’re meeting up as agreed. Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
“The streets will be filled with their blood, Insha’allah.”
Her stomach swims with nausea as she listens to their plans and her husband’s ready response.
“Insha’allah.”
“One hour. Berkeley Street.”
“Yes.”
The door closes and Hamed returns to the kitchen. Sitting back down at the table without a word, his hand trembles as he spoons in another cold mouthful of last night’s dinner. She remains quiet, her heart beating hard in her chest. Let him think she hadn’t heard. Upstairs the baby cries and Hamed pushes the empty tub across the table and stands.
“She’s hungry,” Nareen says as he leaves the room forcing down the tremble in her voice.
“Then go to her!” he replies with a snarl. “I’m going for a shower.” He catches her gaze as she stares at him and raises his eyebrows in question daring her to challenge him.
“There’s no hot water,” she replies ignoring his taunt although her anger is rising to a point where she won’t be able to hold her tongue. She turns back to the sink and pulls out a bowl for the child’s breakfast. “There’s no power.”
“Then how am I to wash?”
She reaches across to a large bottle of water, the last she’d been able to purchase from the corner shop the morning after the electricity went off, and hands it to him. He takes it with a surly ‘thanks’ and disappears up the stairs. Allysiah gurgles as he walks into their bedroom and Nareen listens with a growing sadness as he talks to the child. His conversation at the door with Bilal won’t leave her mind.
She can think of only one meaning to his statement that ‘the streets will be filled with their blood’. It was typical of the terrorists to attack innocent civilians in the streets. Every time one of the atrocities had been reported from Germany or France and even here, she’d felt an anger she could barely tolerate. That her own husband was planning to kill innocent people with his bare hands made her stomach churn. She sags against the sink in despair, her legs trembling.
She’d discovered Hamed’s involvement in their plot, theirs ‘Days of Fire’ after overhearing him talk to his friend in the living room one evening. His change of behaviour in the previous months had made her suspicious and she’d become wary, listening in to his conversations. The paper-thin walls of the house had made it easy to hear. At first, she’d thought the changes meant he was losing interest in her, had a girlfri
end or was taking drugs, but when Hamed had started coming home spouting religious texts and criticising her for wearing clothes he thought were too revealing she’d realised just where his new-found dismissiveness and seething hatred had come from.
Unable to talk to his mother, she’d turned to her parents - the voices of sanity and reason - as her marriage began to disintegrate and her husband grew into an intolerant arsehole.
Expecting their first child, she’d endured his rants and then aggression. Allysiah was born and her loving husband seemed to return. He was calm and gentle, but after only a couple of weeks he’d become sneaky, secretive and intolerable again. Tolerance towards anyone that didn’t believe in his version of the ‘truth’ was non-existent.
At first, checking his phone and laptop had filled her with guilt but that was quickly overridden by a deep and abiding shame however and then terror as she discovered exactly what her husband was doing. The text messages were cryptic and often didn’t make sense, particularly those from unrecognised numbers, but there was enough to understand that he was mixing with dangerous people intent on wreaking havoc. His browsing history was even more illuminating and had made her tremble with rage then fear.
She’d cried for hours and struggled with her conscience when she’d discovered numerous videos of ISIS preachers spewing hate and their followers carrying out atrocities. She hadn’t been able to watch those beyond the first seconds. There were others too, of radicals preaching against the West, teaching their followers that the only truth was Islam and that all other cultures should be obliterated until the entire world was under its shackles. She was shocked to recognise Jasim as one of the most virulent among them encouraging men to take up the holy war against the infidel. He’d sat in her house not more than six months ago drinking her coffee, eating her cakes, laughing with her at Hamed’s terrible jokes. She’d felt betrayed as she watched him pouring out his hate against the country that had given her family refuge. Jasim was one of Hamed’s closest friends, one she really liked, a decent bloke who worked hard and loved his wife, but here he was talking about rising up against the kafir and burning the West to the ground. Her sleep had been fitful since then and she prevaricated between packing her bags and disappearing and reporting them both to the police. She’d been a coward, waited too long, and now they were killing people night after night.
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