The Agent Runner

by Simon Conway

  She was beautiful. It didn’t matter how much effort she went to disguise it by cutting her hair short and slouching around in army-surplus boots and jeans holed at the knee, none of it worked. Her face was luminous and the more she stooped the more sensual she seemed. The grace of her movement was criminal. And everywhere she went the jungle drums followed.

  Sameenah hurried in five minutes after she’d left, red-faced and hoarse, ‘Did I miss her?’ she gasped.

  Nasir nodded.

  Sameenah was crestfallen. ‘Did she say anything?’

  Nasir shook his head.

  Sameenah strode back and forth with her brow furrowed and her hands on her hips.

  ‘Not a word?’ she demanded. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Not a bloody word,’ Nasir confirmed, grim-faced.

  Sameenah stopped in front of Ed’s desk. ‘She’s a bloody genius, that girl,’ she told him. ‘She’s studied art, she’s studied politics, she’s studied philosophy, she has degrees coming out of her ears, she has read just about every book ever printed. Has it done her any good? Not a bit of it. She’s a wild cat. What am I going to do with her? I’m telling you, it’s driving me crazy.’

  She retired to the reinforced glass cage in the corner of the room to count her cash.

  #

  It was her sullen nephew Nasir who filled in the gaps. On the subject of Leyla he wouldn’t shut up. As soon as Sameenah stepped out of the office he’d start ranting on about her, a torrent of pent-up frustration.

  She lived, against her mother’s wishes, in a mixed house in Dalston with anarchist girls and infidel boys. She smoked cigarettes and left lipstick smears on the butts. She drank pints of beer. She popped pills. She steered clear of Friday prayers and although she understood Punjabi, the language her mother spoke at home, she obstinately refused to speak a word of it herself. There had been a string of unsuitable boyfriends in London and Lahore, including the latter city’s most notorious bootlegger. Word had leaked out and she would never find a husband.

  It wasn’t hard to imagine how word had leaked out – Nasir’s obsession with her was the enemy of discretion.

  Ed thought her perfect. When he wasn’t working he was scouring the Internet for the impassioned blogs that had caused so much ire back in Pakistan, her equal condemnation of the state for its out-of-control intelligence services and illicit arms industry, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban for their bloodthirsty sectarianism and medieval attitudes to women. But she didn’t just have Pakistan in her sights. She wrote about the plight of women in London who had been trafficked for sex from Eastern Europe and the Horn of Africa. She condemned the use of Soviet-era cluster munitions by the Syrian government against its own populace. She was without doubt a dervish.

  He lay awake at night imagining her long limbs and the fire in her eyes. He lived for the rare occasions that she graced the office with her presence.

  In return, she ignored him completely.

  #

  As the days shortened, Ed immersed himself in learning the workings of every nut and bolt in the company. And just as intended, the zeal of her new employee delighted Sameenah. She warmed to him with each new skill he revealed and in return Ed worked extremely hard. No job was beneath him, from untangling snarl-ups caused by wrongly delivered baggage to meeting the latest plane from Lahore when all the drivers were committed elsewhere. He proved to be an enthusiastic salesman, extolling the exclusive features of J&K’s Hajj packages and, when word got out that he spoke both Farsi and Pashto, the Afghans started coming over from Stratford to buy them. Ed’s proudest moment came when he introduced Sameenah to a former colleague at HSBC who was able to offer her a bespoke exchange rate that widened her margins even further.

  In Sameenah’s mind Ed’s name became equated with profit.

  But Ed’s reticence on personal matters gave Sameenah pause. What was he doing back in Whitechapel after so many years away and with so little to show for it? At first she decided that Ed must have returned to care for an ailing relative, but a few discreet enquiries on Brick Lane established that Ed’s father Rifaz was hale and hearty and as truculent as ever. A call to the Treasury in search of a reference was met with polite refusal and a gentle, probing conversation with Ed’s former colleague from HSBC revealed that the bank was mystified and not a little hurt by his departure.

  Eventually Sameenah decided that Ed was nothing less than an enigma, which was not normally a good thing, but that as long as he continued to contribute to the wealth of the company it was to be tolerated. The only time that Ed gave Sameenah cause for concern was one afternoon, about a month into his employment, when one of the bushy-bearded Wahhabis from the local sweetshop appeared at the door of the shop and started asking questions about what Ed had been doing in Afghanistan.

  ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Sameenah told him, shooing him away from the doorstep. ‘Don’t you go making trouble…’

  #

  In November Ed was sent to spend a month at the sub-office in Bradford and when he came back he was greeted with the news that Leyla was making regular appearances in the office and, most surprising of all, she’d moved back into the parental home.

  Sure enough the next day Leyla slipped into the office and set to work at her computer and Ed struggled to concentrate.

  This new version of Leyla made his head reel. It felt like the countdown to a clandestine meeting with an informant, the same giddy feeling of weightlessness, of time stretching like elastic, of events rushing towards collision.

  20. Knight in shining armour

  It was late. Leyla had been attending a seminar at the School of Oriental and African Studies on live-blogging titled Citizen reports from the Middle East. She was riding home on the District Line, the carriage rocking loudly in the darkness.

  Three youths in hoodies with low-slung jeans slunk on at Tower Hill and sprawled on the bench seat opposite her with their legs spread wide. The one directly opposite leered at her and made an obscene gesture with his pierced tongue. He had a narrow rat-like face with a pointy nose and shiny black eyes. The mixed-race one sitting to his right was overweight, muffin-topped, with a bad case of acne. He tugged ostentatiously at his balls. The third was short and skinny, malnourished, deprived of a mother’s love. He was carrying a sharpened screwdriver up his sleeve. Panicked, she glanced each way. The two other passengers were at the far ends of the carriage and studiously ignoring the situation.

  Thank you Londoners, Leyla thought.

  She jumped out of her seat as the train approached Aldgate East. She stepped out onto the platform the moment the doors opened and hurried towards the nearest exit. With a start she remembered that the Whitechapel Art Gallery exit was closed at this hour. She was walking in the wrong direction. She turned around. Damn! They were standing there in a loose picket, between her and the other end of the platform.

  Rat-face, Skinny and Acne.

  She took a deep breath, hefted her carpetbag on her shoulder and walked towards them, with her chin raised and a defiant expression on her face. As she approached they seemed to shrink back, parting before her. She was past them, with the stairs just ahead of her, when one them called out after her, ‘Paki cunt!’

  She hurried up the stairs and out through the barrier, emerging at the bottom of Commercial Street. It had started raining. She headed east cutting across Altab Ali Park, which at least had cameras, and into the darkened streets beyond.

  She heard footsteps behind her, quickening in pace. She snatched a glance over her shoulder, glimpsed a hooded figure darting between two parked vans. She started running. She turned a corner next to an industrial unit and ran straight into Acne. She stumbled backwards, dropped her bag, and tried to run back the way she’d come. Rat-face was there, darting out from the shadows. He grabbed her by the sleeve and pulled. She twisted away and the fabric ripped. She ran a few more steps. Then she was grabbed from behind, lifted up and carried into a darkened doorway. She was slammed against a door an
d it took her breath away. A hand was pressed over her mouth. Her head was ringing. Then she felt something sharp against her neck, the screwdriver. Skinny’s breath in her face, whispering what he was going to do to her. Rat-face pawing at her breasts, Acne tugging her jeans down.

  It had started to snow. But it couldn’t be snow. From the collar to the waist her down jacket had been cut open, the down tearing loose and swirling around her.

  They pulled a plastic bag over her head. Suddenly she was fighting for breath, the crackling plastic stretched taut across her mouth, the reedy whistle of her breath filling her ears. Her legs buckled. Her skull felt like it was going to explode.

  Then she could hear screaming. But she wasn’t the one screaming. She fell to the ground. Someone fell over her and was dragged away. There was more screaming. The distinctive crack of a bone snapping. Then the bag was being torn apart and she was taking great, gasping breaths.

  Someone took her gently by the shoulders. A familiar face looking down at her. It was the new guy from the shop, Edward, the tall melancholy one who averted his eyes whenever she looked his way.

  ‘It’s ok, you’re safe now,’ he said in a reassuring tone. Her attackers were on the ground behind him, two of them curled up like insects, only Rat-face was moving, crabbing sideways and cradling a broken arm. ‘Everything is going to be ok.’

  He picked her up, effortlessly it seemed. She was being carried down the street, with her head lolling on his shoulder. The next thing she knew she was sitting in the kitchen of a house and he was planting a mug of hot sweet tea in her hands.

  ‘Drink that.’

  Dutifully, she blew and sipped. From over the lip of the mug she watched him range across the kitchen, opening cupboards and drawers. He was lean and loose-limbed, a picture of unthinking health and strength. Good looking too. She was surprised she hadn’t noticed it before.

  ‘Bingo,’ he said. From a drawer he took a bottle of antiseptic and a ball of cotton wool. He pulled up a chair alongside her.

  ‘Turn your head this way,’ he said in a matter-of-fact way. The antiseptic stung. ‘It’s just a graze. I’m afraid your jacket was less fortunate.’

  ‘Where am I?’ she asked, looking around her. She noticed a pair of boxing gloves, once bright red and now faded from use, hanging from a hook on the wall. There was a punch bag leaning against a wall in the corner.

  ‘This is my father’s house,’ he told her. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’

  #

  The following morning Sameenah ushered him into the back office and ordered him to sit, which she preferred given that she was a good six inches shorter than him. She opened her hands.

  ‘I cannot begin to thank you for what you did.’

  He shook his head. ‘It was nothing.’

  ‘It was most definitely not nothing. You saved her life.’

  ‘You’re exaggerating.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned you're part of the family now,’ she announced. ‘You tell me what you want, anything at all.’

  He shrugged. ‘Give me a proper job with real responsibility.’

  Sameenah immediately looked suspicious. Her shoulders hunched together and her brow furrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Put me in charge of the Lahore office.’

  Her lips condensed into a thin line. Lahore might be underperforming and in need of his talents but it was where the bribes were paid and the books were cooked. Only a truly trustworthy soul could be put in charge of that end of the operation, a member of the family.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said and then her voice softened. ‘I’ll give it serious consideration. I promise.’

  On the outside he maintained a facade of composure, but inside he was cheering.

  21. Tikka and naan

  That evening after work, Leyla rang the doorbell. She stood in the street with a pile of books in her arms and a laptop bag hanging over her shoulder. Go now, a compassionate part of him thought, before it’s too late.

  ‘Were you following me?’

  ‘I was walking across the park,’ he explained. ‘I saw you up ahead of me. Then those thugs ran past me. I realised the danger you were in.’

  She looked away while chewing her lip, trying to make up her mind. Then she looked at him again and the knot in his stomach tightened with sexual urgency.

  ‘I need somewhere to work,’ she said. ‘My mother’s creeping me out.’

  ‘Of course.’ He stepped back to let her in.

  ‘You like it here, do you?’ she asked as she brushed past him in the hallway. ‘Living with your dad?’

  He followed her down the stairs. ‘It’s ok for now.’

  ‘What do you do when you’re not working?’

  ‘Read. Walk. Hit a punch bag.’

  Behave like an out-of-control vigilante.

  She was examining the stack of books on the kitchen table. She picked up Milestones by Sayyid Qutb and pulled a face, a flicker of suspicion. ‘You’re a Jihadi?’

  ‘No. I’m just trying to understand,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t have any truck with that kind of stuff,’ she said. ‘Qutb was a middle-aged virgin, a bigot and a misogynist. He went to New York and all he could do was moan about the pigeons.’ She put her books down on the table beside his and unpacked her laptop. ‘He didn’t lift his eyes from the ground. He didn’t see the Statue of Liberty. I’ll sit here.’ She sat and switched on the laptop. ‘You think I’m defending America now don’t you? Maybe I am. The Declaration of Independence is a thing of rare beauty.’

  ‘Do you want to be left alone?’ he asked, after a pause.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll sit there then,’ he responded, pointing to the armchair in the corner.

  ‘It’s your house,’ she said, rolling her eyes.

  He made tea. He sat down and opened his book, stared without seeing at the words swimming on the page. It felt like an interview. She was studying, transcribing notes or writing a blog, he wasn’t sure which, but she was watching him too.

  At nine he went out for Tikka and naan. They ate amongst their books. For dessert they had two outrageously sweet gulab jamuns.

  ‘Why did you come back here to Whitechapel?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t know where else to go.’

  ‘Where were you before?’

  ‘In Afghanistan.’

  The same flicker of suspicion. She wasn’t sure yet whether to trust him. ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘It’s not as interesting as it sounds.’ By now lying about his job was second nature to him, as easy as putting on his clothes in the morning, but even so he felt a stab of regret. He did not want to lie to Leyla. ‘I was on loan from the Treasury as an advisor at the Ministry of Finance. I was supposed to be advising them on how to collect taxes.’

  ‘How did that go?’

  ‘Not very well.’

  ‘Do you have anything to drink?’ she asked.

  Without answering he went to the kitchen cupboard and took out a bottle of Lagavulin. He poured them two generous measures. Where his choice of reading material had unsettled her, his choice of alcohol was evidently reassuring.

  ‘Are you going to stay?’ she asked, after she’d taken a sip.

  ‘Here? In Whitechapel? I’m going to leave as soon as I can.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Something happened to your mother didn’t it?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ve been listening to local gossip.’

  ‘People talk,’ she said. ‘Information comes to me.’

  ‘She’s dead,’ he told her.

  ‘I gathered that.’

  ‘She committed suicide.’

  Typically once the basic facts were laid bare people couldn’t get away fast enough, they made some expression of sympathy that made him feel embarrassed and uncomfortable but also excused him from explaining any further. But not Leyla, she was different. She wanted to understand. ‘Why?’

  ‘It was so
me kind of death pact,’ he explained. ‘She had a lover, a teacher at a local school. It had been going on for years, apparently. Things came to a head when my brother and I left for college. I guess she thought there was no further reason to stay. She asked my father for a divorce but he refused. So they killed themselves in a hotel room in Tunbridge Wells. They were found in each other’s arms.’

  ‘Did it make you angry?’

  ‘It made me sad. I thought I knew my mother but it turned out I didn’t know her at all.’

  She finished her whisky and announced that it was time to leave. She packed up her things and popped an extra strong mint in her mouth. He walked her to the door. He regretted that he had not changed the subject or said something to lighten the mood.

  #

  The next night she told him a joke. It was a commentary on the state of criminal investigation in the Punjab. The joke as told to her by a labour activist who’d been fitted up by the police.

  ‘Once upon a time, a king lost a prized and extremely valuable deer,’ Leyla told him. ‘All sorts of investigation teams were called in from all over the world but none was successful in tracing the deer. Eventually a wise man suggested that the Punjab Police might be called in to assist with the seemingly impossible task. The king took the wise man’s advice. Within twenty-four hours a crack squad of extremely efficient police investigators appeared with a wailing elephant between them. “What is this?” The king demanded. One of the policemen struck the elephant with a chittar, or leather shoe, and the elephant screamed, “I’m the king’s lost deer! I’m the king’s lost deer!”’

  Ed despised torture as much as she did.

  He didn’t tell her that he’d once spent four days at a black site in Damascus listening to a cowering man in a cell repeating, ‘I’m the Sheikh’s Engineer! I’m the Sheikh’s Engineer!’