by Sam Hepburn
He raised his eyes and spoke so quietly I could hardly hear what he was saying, ‘I meant . . . I meant if something bad was threatening them, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to save them.’
His answer surprised me so much that for a moment I didn’t know what to say. ‘That is why you want to help me?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you swear to this?’
‘Yeah.’
I was still suspicious but the misery on his face made me want to believe him.
‘It could be dangerous,’ I said quietly.
‘What do you mean?’
In my head I heard the hate-filled crowd outside the police station and saw the men in black suits who spat at me. ‘People are angry. They think that I and my mother were helping Behrouz to make bombs. Even when they don’t know that I am his sister, this is a bad time to be seen with someone who. . .’ I pulled at my head scarf ‘. . . who looks like me.’
He shrugged. ‘So ditch the outfit.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Get rid of the scarf. Wear something that blends in. I dunno, jeans or something.’
‘I do not have jeans.’
‘I’ll lend you some.’
‘You! I cannot wear the clothes of a boy! It would not be decent.’
‘Come on. We’ll get the bus back to mine.’ He was speaking as if I’d agreed. As if we were friends. I stepped back, still unsure. ‘Your family will be there.’
‘It’s OK. My mum and dad will have left for work ages ago.’
An uneasy feeling spread inside my chest, but what choice did I have? I needed help and this skinny English boy with a tuft of hair like the beard of a billy goat was the only person in the whole world who was offering me any. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I will come with you.’ I watched him carefully: all I saw in his face was relief.
We walked through the thin cold rain, side by side in silence. The streets were busier now, full of cars, lorries, bikes, taxis and people who belonged in this city, people who knew where they were going, while I was following a boy I barely knew. A boy I wasn’t even sure I could trust. I felt a moment of doubt, an overwhelming urge to run while I still could.
‘Quick, that’s our bus,’ he said.
Before I could resist, he was tugging my sleeve, pulling me along the crowded pavement and on to the bus. With a hiss and a clunk the door folded shut behind me.
The boy held out a plastic wallet. The machine beeped and the driver let him through. I opened my purse, uncertain how much to pay. The boy looked back. ‘You can’t use cash.’ I felt myself go red. He held a bank card to the machine. It shot out a ticket. Still embarrassed I followed him upstairs, clinging to the handrails, toppling first one way then the other, while he took long easy steps down the aisle and flopped on to the long bench seat at the back. The bus braked sharply, throwing me on to a man reading a newspaper. I tried to pull myself up. ‘Excuse me, please. I am sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’ but the picture on the front page sucked the words from my mouth. It was a pile of scorched bricks, charred wood and melted metal. Even before I read the words, ‘Bomber’s Cache of Hate Backfires’, I knew this was the garage where they’d found Behrouz.
The man glared at me. His lips moved. For moment I thought he was going to spit at me, like those men with the golden chains. The bus jerked forward. I fell backwards into the aisle and stumbled into the corner next to the boy. I grabbed a crumpled newspaper from the floor. There were pages and pages about Behrouz, all of it twisting the truth, saying he’d only worked for the British army so he could spy on the soldiers and wait for the best moment to strike. I pulled my scarf across my face and whispered, ‘My father told me that in Britain everyone is innocent until they are proved to be guilty. Not Behrouz. No one is giving him a chance.’
‘So, go on,’ the boy whispered back. ‘Why are you so sure he’s innocent?’
‘I know him. He’s good and kind and he would never hurt anyone.’
‘That’s not going to sway a jury.’
‘All right. It would take many weeks to get hold of the things they found in that garage – the chemicals, the parts to make detonators. He did not have time or money to do that. And until last week he was happy and normal, making plans for our future and smiling and joking, then suddenly he was so frightened that he jumped when anyone walked past our door.’
‘So why didn’t he go to the police?’
That question had been haunting me from the moment I’d found the gun, and now that the boy had asked it aloud, the dark coldness was filling my mouth.
‘I . . . I . . . don’t know.’ I rubbed the steam from the window and peered down at the passing city through the spatter of raindrops. The answer to everything that had happened to Behrouz was out there, somewhere in that sprawling mass of streets full of dangers I couldn’t see, people I didn’t know and secrets I didn’t understand.
‘Come on,’ the boy said. ‘This is our stop.’
I made my way downstairs, gripping the handrails and avoiding the eyes of the other passengers. We hurried down a main street, cut down a side road, passed a garage, a shop selling phones, another selling brooms and plastic bowls piled up on the pavement, and turned a corner into a square of new houses, built of pale yellow bricks with garages at the side and neat patches of garden at the front.
The boy walked down one of the gravel drives and when he unlocked the door, it was as if I was stepping into another world, one where everything was brighter and clearer than the dirty grey chaos I’d lived in since I came to London. It was how I’d imagined England would be: fresh, colourful, clean and safe, with soft carpets, shining paintwork and air that smelt of pine trees and lemons. I stood at the door of the sitting room gazing at the photos on the shelves – proud, smiling faces, snapped at weddings, birthdays and picnics – and thought of all our precious family photos left behind to be trashed by thieves and looters. I followed the boy up the stairs and along the hall, peeking through the half-open doors at a large pale-blue bedroom with a white frilly cover on the bed, and a smaller room laid out like an office, with a computer and a desk piled high with papers. I felt shy about entering the boy’s bedroom, so I stayed by the door and looked at the posters, the laptop and the games console that was so much newer and slimmer than the old one my cousins used to play on. The boy rummaged through his drawers and threw me a pair of jeans, a black T-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt, a pair of thick white socks and a baseball cap. ‘You’ll need this as well.’ He tossed me a belt. ‘Change in the bathroom if you want. I’ll look out some of Mum’s old trainers.’
I crossed the landing to the sparkling white bathroom and sat on the edge of the bathtub, running my fingers across the fluffy towels and the rows of bottles and creams before I took off my scarf, stepped out of my sandals and salwar-kameez and pulled on the boy’s socks and jeans. Even with the belt drawn in as tightly as it would go, the jeans hung loosely on my hips. I rolled up the legs, put on the T-shirt, and took some steps around the room. The clothes made me walk differently and feel different. I pushed my hair into the baseball cap and glanced in the mirror, shocked by the stranger who stared back at me. I was pleased. If I didn’t recognize her, there was a good chance that no one else would either. I slipped the phone into the deep pockets of the jeans. I’d never owned a phone before, but the girl in the mirror looked as if she’d feel lost without one. I stuffed my old clothes into my backpack and I was standing on the landing when the boy came out of his parents’ bedroom holding a pair of trainers. His eyes swept from my face to my feet. My cheeks burned.
‘Yeah, that works,’ he said. ‘You want something to eat before we go?’
I hopped after him, pulling on the trainers, and sat down at the table in the kitchen while he made me a peanut butter sandwich and a mug of sweet, milky tea. I took a small bite of the sandwich. I’d tried peanut butter before, when Behrouz brought a jar of it home from the army base, but I still wasn’t sure if I liked the taste or the way it s
tuck to my teeth and I definitely did not like this square white English bread that felt like sponge. But it was kind of him so I ate it. The kitchen was very neat and everything in it was shiny and new, just like the kitchens I’d seen in movies and magazines.
‘You are very lucky to live in a house like this,’ I said.
‘We nearly lost it when Dad’s business was on the skids.’
I wanted to ask him what that meant but he seemed upset and began to clear the table, so I said, ‘Your father is a nice man.’
He crashed the plates together so hard I thought they would break.
‘I’ve been thinking about Behrouz not going to the cops,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Maybe whoever did this to him was so powerful your brother didn’t think the police could protect him.’ He kept his back to me, as if he didn’t want to turn around. ‘Has he made any enemies since he’s been here? You know, anyone dodgy he’s rubbed up the wrong way?’
Dark doubts numbed my tongue. I couldn’t let them win. ‘Maybe this terror group Al Shaab, who claim he is their bomb-maker. Perhaps they did this to him because he refused to make their bombs.’
The boy turned to look at me. His face went still. I thought the mention of Al Shaab had made him angry and he was going to order me out of his house. But he didn’t. He fetched out his phone. ‘How do you spell Shaab?’
‘With two As. It’s Arabic for “The People”.’
‘Is that what you speak, then, Arabic?’
‘No, I speak Pashto and Dari, but we learn Arabic at school. It’s the language of the Koran.’
He scrolled up and down, his jaw muscles tense. ‘There’s not that much about them, it just says they’re a shadowy terrorist organization that’s claimed responsibility for attacks in Britain, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Maybe someone used their name to make it look worse for Behrouz.’
I shook my head. ‘No. The man who called the police told them things about other Al Shaab bombings that only the bombers would know.’
He chewed on his nail as if he was thinking this over, then he handed me a little plastic card. ‘Here.’
‘What’s this?’
‘Mum’s Oyster card. It’s a pass – for buses and Tubes. She hardly ever uses it.’
My eyes burned. I looked away. This boy had done more than give me clothes and food and a travel card. He had pulled me back from despair and given me hope. Though I still didn’t understand why he would do all these things for a stranger.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered.
‘Are you all right?’ he said.
‘Yes.’ I quickly slung my backpack over my shoulder and slipped the pass into the pocket of my jeans.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
DAN
It was weird how different she looked in my clothes – stronger, straighter, more determined. She was still on edge, though. All the way to Stoke Newington her eyes kept darting to my face as if she was still trying to work me out. I just had to hope she wouldn’t manage it. Khan’s Cars was on the corner of a long string of shops but you could see a mile off which one it was, due to the massive hole in one of its front windows and the angry-looking graffiti sprayed across the other. A bloke on a ladder was busy scrubbing it off, working his way down to the dripping red ‘OUT!’ scrawled at the bottom. As soon as Aliya saw the state of it she pressed her wrist to her mouth and her eyes slid away, shiny with tears.
We squeezed past the bored-looking men hanging round the doorway and walked over to the woman at the dispatch desk. She was about Mum’s age, smooth dark skin, tiny red-streaked plaits scraped into a bun, and pink plastic earrings that rattled and clacked when she looked up.
‘Are you Corella?’ Aliya asked.
‘That’s me. Where do you want to go?’ Her voice was deep, with a strong Jamaican accent.
‘I don’t want a cab,’ Aliya said. ‘I am the sister of Behrouz Sahar.’ She said it quietly but with a touch of defiance. Every head in the room snapped round. Corella’s smile faded fast. ‘Please,’ Aliya said. ‘I need to ask you some questions.’
‘What about?’
‘The jobs Behrouz did this week and the people he picked up.’
A scuffle broke out behind us, one of the drivers elbowing people aside in his hurry to get to the street. Corella shouted after him, ‘Hey, Karim, where are you going? I’ve got a job for you.’
He didn’t stop. Her dark eyes flashed back to Aliya. ‘You shouldn’t be here. You’d better leave. Before Mr Khan gets back.’
‘Please,’ Aliya said. ‘It’s important. It will take only a few minutes.’
Corella wasn’t happy about it but she unlocked the side door. Keeping a wary eye on the entrance, she beckoned us into the cramped office.
‘Behrouz is not a bomb-maker,’ Aliya said. ‘You know him, you know he would never hurt anybody.’
Corella sighed and shook her head. ‘When I saw the news I said to my husband this doesn’t make sense, not at all. But you’ve got to admit it looks bad. All those chemicals and detonators. We had a gang of bikers round here last night, threatening to torch the place and accusing Mr Khan of running an Al Shaab terror cell. The punters are keeping well away, even our regulars are cancelling.’
‘Can we have a look at Behrouz’s satnav?’ I said.
Corella threw me a suspicious look. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Dan. I’m . . . I’m helping Aliya. So, can we see it?’
‘Sorry. The police took it away when they came for his cab.’
‘Can we speak to Arif then?’ Aliya said.
‘Arif?’ Corella kissed her teeth. ‘He’s been picked up by Immigration.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He got caught in one of those government spot checks.’
Aliya’s eyes widened. ‘Are they going to deport him?’
‘Who knows? He told me his visa was all sorted, just a few more days and the paperwork would have been through.’ She glanced across at the other drivers. ‘They blame Behrouz. They think they’re all going to get harassed now. Half of them daren’t even come in to work.’
‘But he didn’t do anything!’
A green light flashed on the desk. Corella quieted her with a raised finger and leant into the speaker. ‘Khan’s Cars. How may I help you?’ She tapped the computer, her brightly painted nails clicking against the keys. ‘Pick-up address? Phone number? Thank you, sir. I’ll have a cab with you in five minutes.’
She called to one of the smokers in the doorway. ‘You can take this one, Steve.’ She tore a slip of paper off the printer and poked it through the grill. A lanky man with a thin grey ponytail dropped his cigarette, ground it out on the step and came over to collect the docket. When he’d gone, I pointed to the computer. ‘Have you got all Behrouz’s jobs on there?’
‘Of course. The police took copies of them going right back to the day he started.’ Corella made a snorting noise. ‘What are they going to do, interview every punter he ever picked up?’
‘Was there anything strange about the jobs he did just before the explosion?’ I said.
She pressed her knuckles to her mouth, thinking hard. ‘There was one thing.’
‘Yeah?’ I tried not to look desperate.
‘I had an airport run come in, Tuesday morning, pick up at nine from Luton. That’s good money. I rang him at six-thirty to offer it to him and he turned it down, said he was in Tottenham and wanted work that would keep him in that area till lunchtime – Finsbury Park, Seven Sisters, anything out that way.’
Aliya was frowning as if she was having trouble taking this in. ‘Why was my brother in Tottenham at six-thirty in the morning if he was not working?’
‘You tell me,’ Corella said.
‘Why did he want to be round there at lunchtime?’ I asked.
‘Didn’t say.’
‘Did you find him a job up there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you give us that address?’
Corella looked doubtful. ‘I don’t—’
‘And a list of all the other jobs he did this week?’ Aliya said.
‘Mr Khan wouldn’t like it.’
Aliya was getting agitated. ‘Please. I have to find out where he went.’
Corella hesitated, glanced at the door, then starting tapping the keyboard with her crazy nails. ‘This might take a minute or two.’
The back door banged open and a heavyset man with close-cropped grey hair and a bristly black moustache stomped into the office.
Corella jumped. ‘Oh, Mr Khan—’
The man’s eyes flew from my face to Aliya’s and lingered on her clothes for a couple of seconds before he exploded, yelling at her in some language I didn’t understand. Aliya looked petrified, so I said, ‘Look, Mr Khan. We don’t want to make trouble. We just want to know what jobs Behrouz did this week.’
Khan’s lips curled back in a snarl. ‘Why? Why do you want to know this?’
‘We think he is innocent.’
‘I’m not giving you anything. All this trouble happening to me and my drivers because of Behrouz Sahar. Police here, people writing filthy words on my windows. He has brought shame on my community and my business!’
He was a pretty scary guy but I managed to keep calm. ‘I told you, Mr Khan, we think he’s innocent. If we knew where he went and who he picked up, it might help us find out what really happened to him.’
A vein bulged on his forehead. He moved towards me, jabbing the air in front of my chest. ‘You stay away from my office and my drivers. Do not mess with this or there’ll be trouble for you!’
Corella touched his arm. ‘Come on, Mr Khan. It’s just a few addresses. Where’s the harm?’
He smacked her hand away, hissing through yellow teeth, ‘You keep out of this!’
He stepped back to the door and called, ‘Karim!’ A young, hard-faced bloke ambled in, the one who’d run off in such a hurry when Aliya said who she was. He moved towards us, flexing his fingers.
‘You heard Mr Khan,’ Corella said, slipping her plump body between us and Karim. ‘He wants you to leave.’ Her bracelets clicked as her arms swept us out into the waiting area. Khan lumbered after us, still ranting. We pushed through the staring drivers into the street and broke into a run, cutting through a twisting pathway, down past a churchyard, through to another street, round the back of some scabby flats till we got to a park. I pulled Aliya through the iron gates. There was a cafe in a building that looked like it used to be a big posh house. We ducked under one of the dripping umbrellas outside and flung ourselves down on the chairs.
