If You Were Me

by Sam Hepburn

  The boy nodded but seemed troubled. ‘How are we going to do that?’

  It was my turn to feel proud of a discovery. ‘I have found the address of Greg Parkin. Let’s go there tomorrow morning. Maybe he can tell us more about Hamidi.’

  We were so wet and so muddy that other passengers on the buses and trains edged away from us. I didn’t care. Inside I felt strong. I wasn’t running from anyone. I wasn’t cowering in a doorway being spat at. I was looking for the truth. I looked up at the boy. And I wasn’t alone any more. I had a friend I could trust.

  He promised to meet me outside King’s Cross station at eight the following morning and offered to walk back with me to Swinton Street. He seemed surprised when I said no, but I needed a few minutes on my own before I returned to being the Aliya who looked after her mother and sister and didn’t lie or wear jeans or break into houses.

  It was nearly eight o’clock when I walked through the doors of the hotel. I crept into my room and pushed my phone under the mattress. Desperate to get clean and warm, I dropped my backpack and wet clothes in a heap and I went into the little bathroom to take a shower. It felt good to wash away the traces of Hamidi’s filthy house, and as I scrubbed my fingernails I wondered for one heart-stopping moment if the blood on my hand could have been Behrouz’s. I came out towelling my hair, shocked to see the empty backpack on the bed, my crumpled salwarkameez hanging over the back of a chair, and WPC Rennell standing by the bed holding my jeans. She flashed me a big smile. ‘Hello, Aliya. I thought I’d get these wet things laundered for you.’

  I forced myself not to look at the mattress where I’d hidden the phone and fixed my eyes on the jeans dangling from her hands.

  ‘Gosh, wherever have you been? They’re all muddy.’

  ‘Please, don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I can wash them in the bath and dry them on the radiator.’

  ‘It’s no problem. There’s a few things of Mina’s that need doing as well. If I take them down now, they’ll have them ready by the morning.’ She shook them out and went on chattering. I watched her fingers slide in and out of the pockets. ‘We don’t want anything clogging up the hotel’s washing machines, do we?’ She gave a little laugh to ease the lie. It felt unreal. She was searching my things, just like I’d searched Hamidi’s, and we were both pretending she was helping with my laundry. Still smiling, she pulled out my room key and the leaflets I’d stuffed in my pocket as I was leaving that house. I froze as I saw the damp scrap of envelope with Greg Parkin’s address scribbled on it clinging to the back of one of them. She peeled it off.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked, scanning the writing. ‘Something important?’

  I held out my hand. She frowned as she handed it over and a silent whoop of relief rose in my throat. It was written in Pashto.

  ‘It’s a . . . shopping list,’ I said, and dropped it in the bin. ‘I need to wear those jeans tomorrow. Are you sure they will be dry?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get them back first thing. I was just the same when I was your age, always running home, doing a quick change and scrubbing off my make-up before my dad caught me.’ She sat down on the bed, right on top of the phone, leaning back as if we were friends enjoying a chat. ‘You were gone so long I was worried. Did you find a library?’

  I was tired of her games. ‘I’m hungry. Do you know where I can get something to eat?’

  ‘There’s kebabs and rice in your mum’s room, but they’ll be a bit cold by now. I could order in something else.’

  ‘The kebabs are fine. I would like to get dressed now.’

  ‘OK . . . I’ll take these things down for you.’

  ‘Next time, please don’t worry about our washing. I will do it myself.’

  I bolted the door behind her and tested it before I retrieved the paper from the bin.

  As soon as I was back in my salwar-kameez I hurried to my mother’s room. I found her just as I had left her that morning, sitting in the high-backed chair by the window, watching one of the news channels. Without moving her eyes from the screen, she murmured, ‘Where were you, Aliya?’

  I walked over to her and rearranged the shawl that had slipped from her shoulders, surprising us both when words I didn’t expect dropped from my lips.

  ‘I was looking for the truth, Mor.’

  She turned her grief-stricken face to mine and for a second a spark of pride appeared in her red-rimmed eyes. She lifted her hand and stroked my face the way she used to, and said, ‘Pray God you find it.’

  DAN

  The house was empty when I got home and I managed to shower off the mud and change into clean clothes before Mum got back from her Zumba class. Cheeks flushed, ponytail swinging, she slipped off her jacket and I followed her into the kitchen.

  ‘It’s just you and me tonight, so I picked up a pizza on the way home.’ She laughed and patted her thighs. ‘Put back some of those calories I just burnt off.’ She opened the box, filling the kitchen with the warm doughy smell that always meant a night in with Mum, because Dad didn’t like pizza. But tonight, all I could think about was how miserable she’d be if it was just her and me permanently.

  ‘Get some plates out. We’ll have it in front of the TV.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘Pub with Jez. Why?’

  ‘Just wondered.’

  I reached for the plates and closed my eyes for a minute, not sure how to ask her what I wanted to know. ‘You know when his business was in trouble . . .’

  She was heading for the door with the open pizza box. She stopped and looked back, surprised and frowning slightly. ‘It’s doing fine now, love. Don’t you worry about that.’

  ‘Yes, but does he ever talk to you about how he turned things around?’

  ‘You’re in a funny mood tonight.’

  ‘Does he, Mum?’

  ‘Well, no, not really. I mean, I know getting those big council contracts helped a lot, and I don’t like to admit it, but Jez does his bit bringing in new work and doing the books. It was just a blip – that’s the way it is when you run a small business.’

  I followed her into the living room. She handed me the TV remote. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You choose. Anything you want as long as it’s not football.’

  I flicked through the channels, itching to check out the news, but that really would have got her worried. She held up a slice of pizza and bit off the corner. ‘Eileen told your Dad you had someone round this morning,’ she said, trying her best to sound offhand and not succeeding. ‘A girl.’

  ‘She’s just a friend, Mum.’

  ‘The one who phoned the other night?’

  ‘Yeah.’ I could feel my heart thumping.

  ‘Eileen said she’s foreign.’

  ‘It’s not a disease.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Your Dad wants you to bring her round. We’d like to meet her.’

  My heart almost stuttered to a stop at the thought of Dad meeting Aliya, looking her over, judging her, finding out who she was. ‘It’s not like that. She’s not my girlfriend or anything. I’m just . . . helping her out.’

  ‘What with?’

  ‘Filling out forms and stuff. Her family haven’t been here long.’

  She gave me a funny little smile and ruffled my hair, as if she was about to say something sloppy.

  ‘Get off!’ I dodged away and turned up the sound. ‘There’s a new cop show starting – do you want to try it?’

  Dad usually had a lie-in on Saturdays but I was up and on my way out well before seven, and not just to avoid him. Sleep had stopped being an option the night I saw Behrouz Sahar get kidnapped, and now the only time I could breathe properly was when I was doing something to help prove he was innocent. I’d seen him twice in my life for a total of maybe ten minutes, but he was all I could think about. Well, him and his sister. As I ran past Eileen Deakin’s house I felt like chucking a brick through her front window. Interfering old bag. I got to King’s Cross so early I had to hang around outside, watc
hing bleary-eyed tourists dragging their suitcases into the station, but Aliya was early too, running across the concourse waving, with her backpack bouncing on her back, and by seven forty-five we were on our way to Wandsworth to find Greg Parkin.

  The guy who opened the door was late twenties, six foot, packed with muscle, wearing track pants, a sweat-soaked T-shirt and a towel round his neck like he’d just got back from a run. He took a swig from a carton of juice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Um . . . are you Greg Parkin?’ I said.

  He glanced up and down the street, looking wary. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Dan and she’s Aliya. It’s about Tewfiq Hamidi.’

  He slitted his eyes. ‘What about him?’

  ‘He . . . got in a fight with . . . my brother,’ Aliya said.

  ‘Why’re you telling me?’

  ‘We heard it’s not the first time Hamidi’s attacked someone,’ I said, treading carefully. ‘And, well, if it’s OK with you, we wouldn’t mind knowing why you dropped the charges.’

  He tightened his jaw, about to tell us to get lost when a voice called out, ‘Who is it, Greg?’

  The woman who came down the hall was wearing a short white dressing-gown. She was slim and pretty, with brown hair, honey-coloured skin and huge dark eyes, like a model or something. Parkin went on glaring at me. ‘Couple of kids, asking about Hamidi.’

  ‘Hamidi?’ She glanced at me, looked questioningly at Aliya and said something in a language I guessed was Pashto. Aliya nodded and smiled and they chatted for a minute or two. I don’t know what they said but the woman put her hand on the man’s arm and said, ‘It’s all right, Greg. Let them in.’ She nodded at me. ‘I’m Zahra, Greg’s wife.’

  He hesitated for a minute, then stood back reluctantly to let us pass. We followed the woman into a warm, bright, open-plan room that was half kitchen, half lounge. Still chatting, she and Aliya sat down on the sofa, leaving Parkin and me a couple of armchairs. He sat there looking at me as if I was roadkill. After a bit he flicked his eyes at Aliya and said, ‘What happened to her brother?’

  Zahra stopped talking and turned to listen as I spun him the story we’d come up with about Hamidi driving into a petrol station, overtaking Behrouz in the queue and throwing a punch at him when he complained. The harder Parkin stared, the harder I tried to make the story sound authentic. I was so busy dropping in real details about Hamidi’s black BMW and how the petrol station had been near his work at Hardel Meats that I couldn’t work out why Aliya had suddenly stiffened and gone pale. I could have kicked myself when I realized I’d said her brother was called Behrouz, not Jawid, like we’d planned. But I ploughed on, talking faster, trying not to let Parkin see I was flustered.

  Zahra glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. I couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. He folded his arms and said, ‘How did you get my name and address?’

  Aliya chipped in then, like we’d planned: ‘My brother talked to a lawyer who looked up Hamidi’s police files.’

  Who knew if that was even possible? Greg just worked his jaw and said, ‘So why didn’t this brother of yours come and see me himself?’

  Aliya looked up, her eyes brimming with tears and told him the truth. ‘He’s too sick,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ I added quickly. ‘He’s been off work since Hamidi hit him, getting headaches and dizzy spells, so we thought we’d, you know . . . help him out.’

  I’m not sure Greg was convinced, but Aliya’s tears had definitely won Zahra over.

  ‘That man is a menace,’ she said. She took a tissue from the pocket of her dressing-gown and as she handed it to Aliya I grabbed the chance to start asking a few questions of my own. I gave Parkin a nervous smile. ‘So how come he had a go at you, then?’

  He crumpled the juice carton, strode over to the kitchen area and dumped it in the bin. ‘Because he’s a nutter.’

  It didn’t look like he was going to say any more so Aliya turned to Zahra. ‘What happened?’

  She sighed. ‘It was all because of me. I was waiting to pick Greg up from the station when Hamidi came burning round the corner in his BMW and smashed into the side of my car. So I got out and as soon as he realized I was Afghan he started yelling at me, trying to make out it was my fault and telling me a decent Afghan girl should be at home, not flaunting herself on the streets. You know what these people are like. I wasn’t having it, though. I told him he’d been driving like a maniac. He went ballistic and came out with all that “how dare a woman talk to him like that?” stuff. Then Greg arrived. When he told Hamidi to back off, the guy grabbed a crowbar out of his car and attacked him, like really laid into him. I don’t know what would have happened if the police hadn’t turned up.’

  Greg grunted and rubbed his jaw, as if he was reliving the pain.

  ‘So why did you drop the charges?’ I asked. I’d obviously hit a nerve, because he turned away like he hadn’t heard me and started unloading the dishwasher, leaving his wife to answer.

  ‘I went round to tell my parents about it, and an uncle of mine who was over from Kabul told me not to go ahead with the case because it was too risky.’

  ‘Why?’

  She gave a little shrug. ‘He knew all about Hamidi, said he’d got dangerous connections who were known for intimidating people who got in their way.’

  I glanced at Aliya; at last we were getting somewhere.

  Zahra stood up. ‘Do you kids want some breakfast? Greg just picked up some croissants.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, though I could tell by the look Greg threw her that he hadn’t been planning on sharing them with us.

  We moved over to the kitchen area and sat at the breakfast bar while he fiddled with this big fancy coffee machine and Zahra laid out plates, butter and jam, and ripped open a bag of warm croissants. It turned out she’d been born in London and her Pashto was a bit rubbish, so she asked Aliya if she’d like to come round some time to help her practise. The friendliness would have been great if she hadn’t kept probing her about her family, where they were from, why they were here, stuff like that, and Aliya had to keep dancing round the details, trying not to give too much away.

  ‘So did your uncle say anything else about Hamidi?’ I said, as she handed me a croissant.

  She pulled a disgusted face. ‘Apparently he calls himself Commander Hamidi, but everyone else calls him Mad Dog because of his crazy temper.’

  ‘Was he in the army, then?’

  ‘You must be joking. He ran a private militia that did all the dirty work for some big warlord back in 1980s.’

  I glanced at Aliya. ‘What sort of dirty work?’

  ‘Basically they guarded the fields where this warlord grew his opium poppies and ran a checkpoint where they robbed anyone who passed through, kidnapped them too sometimes. Then when the Taliban took over, this warlord was smart. Instead of fighting them, he cut them in on his drugs racket. They say he made millions. He’d probably still be at it if the Brits and Americans hadn’t started cleaning up the Afghan drugs trade and put him at the top of their most-wanted list.’

  ‘Did they catch him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. And they had a big show trial.’

  Aliya shifted in her seat and said quietly, ‘The warlord that Hamidi worked for, do you know his name?’

  Zahra frowned and snapped her fingers softly. ‘Hang on . . . It’ll come to me.’

  ‘What happened to Hamidi?’ I said.

  ‘You won’t believe this – somehow he managed to avoid prosecution and claim asylum in the UK. He said the Taliban were after him!’ She gave a little snort. ‘Which they probably were, for double-crossing them over some drug deal. And now he’s here, I bet you any money he’s importing heroin from his old connections in Afghanistan.’

  I stopped chewing, suddenly not hungry any more. The thought of the wads of cash in Hamidi’s bathroom, the little packets of white powder stashed in those appliances at Meadowview, and the footage they’d sho
wn on the news of crazy-eyed Taliban fighters made me want to throw up. Did Dad have any idea what he’d got himself mixed up in?

  Greg stuck a jug of milk under the electric steamer and raised his voice over the din. ‘Can you believe it? Immigration letting that joker in. He’s either got friends in high places or he gave someone a bloody enormous backhander.’ He handed the steaming jug to Zahra, who spooned the frothing milk into the coffees.

  ‘Greg still wanted to go ahead with the prosecution, but a couple of days after the attack we started getting harassed – threatening phone calls, car windscreens smashed, that kind of stuff – and I got scared. Then I found out I was pregnant and we decided we just didn’t need the hassle, so we withdrew the charges.’

  Greg pulled up a stool. ‘I tell you, it stuck in my gullet, but what can you do?’

  Zahra smiled at him and squeezed his arm as she went to fetch her iPad from the counter. ‘I’ll find you the name of that warlord, Aliya. My uncle sent me some of the trial reports from the Afghan papers. Honestly, I need to sort out my inbox.’

  She took a sip of her coffee and peered at the screen. Out of nowhere her perfect face turned ugly. Her eyes darted over to Aliya then back again. As if in slow motion, I saw her coffee splash on to the shiny black floor tiles followed by her cup. The smash of breaking china coincided with her yell of fury: ‘Get out!’

  Startled, Greg jumped up. ‘Hey, babe, what’s wrong?’

  She was so angry she didn’t even hear him. ‘I don’t know what you want or why you came here, but you can get out now!’

  Greg looked at us, half confused, half apologetic, and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘What’s the matter?’

  She thrust her iPad into our faces. Her home page had a feed of news stories and she’d clicked on one of the photos. It showed a family lounging on a rug by a river, above the caption, ‘Bomber’s family picnic in the sun’. She jabbed at the girl in the photo. ‘Aliya Sahar. That’s you, isn’t it? You’re the sister of that bomb-maker!’