If You Were Me

by Sam Hepburn

  ‘My name is Behrouz Sahar. When you see this video, I will be dead. A willing martyr. I planted the bomb to punish the foreigners who invaded my country. They said they wanted to give us freedom. Instead they destroyed our homes, our families, our farms, our innocent women and children. Some of my people collaborated with these invaders, others took their revenge in Afghanistan, but I came to the UK to punish those at the very top, the leaders who destroyed my country. You see, I have a plan. A plan to seek out Colonel Mike Clarke so that justice can be done. By destroying those who led the invasion of my country, I will ensure that the name of Al Shaab will live on to strike terror into the hearts of all who hear it.’

  A sound wailed through the walls. It was my mother screaming in the next room. I ran to her. She was shrivelling up, shrinking away from the television screen, her eyes and mouth three dark circles of horror.

  Even as I tried to comfort her they played the tape again and she rocked forward on her chair, tearing at her clothes and hair, screaming over and over, ‘Who has done this to my son?’

  I switched off the television and signalled to the policewoman to take Mina away. She shouldn’t have to see my mother like this. But even in Mor’s frenzy of shock and horror she did not doubt her son, even for a moment. Her conviction gave me strength. Someone had done this to Behrouz. Beaten him and forced him to say those terrible, terrible things.

  I made my mother take a tablet and lie down on the bed and all the time I kept seeing the look in Behrouz’s eyes, the strange twist of his face, the way he’d blinked away from the camera when he said, ‘I have a plan.’ Was he telling me not to doubt him? Reminding me that, whatever happened, he was still my crazy big brother who had used an old washing line to save us from the Taliban? Or was there another message hidden in the words he was reading out? Some meaning in his hate-filled rant that I’d missed.

  That night I slept fitfully and dreamt of the Taliban. The men who came down from the mountains before I was born, with whips and guns and eyes smeared black with surma, vowing to drive out the warlords who had plunged Afghanistan into chaos. My father had never trusted them but even he thought they would rid our country of a greater evil. But you can’t make a devil dance to your own tune and by the time the Taliban revealed themselves to be even bigger devils than the warlords, it was too late. I woke up blinking into the darkness and thought of the boy. I had sensed the lies in him from the moment he’d come to the hotel, but I’d ignored my suspicions because I’d thought he would help me to save Behrouz. But the boy had turned out to be a devil too. A devil with secrets that I needed to find out before it was too late.

  I texted him and called him. If I didn’t hear from him by morning, I swore I’d go to his house and shame him into telling me the truth. I told myself I didn’t care if he’d been working for the police. All I cared about was why he’d hidden that photo of Hamidi and lied about following that meat van to the packing plant. But still I felt an ache inside and it was the thought that he’d betrayed me that hurt. I lay awake with my phone on my pillow. He didn’t call.

  In the morning I left my mother and Mina staring at the tray of breakfast and ran out of the hotel. High above me a silver aeroplane skimmed the sky, its engines roaring as it flew towards the airport. Less than a month ago it had been me sitting up there, peering through the clouds, giddy with hope and excitement as I caught my first glimpses of London.

  DAN

  As Aliya stormed out of the library it was like my whole world was disintegrating, dropping away, leaving me with nothing but blackness, emptiness and guilt. What if I never saw her again? I tried to blank out the image of her face when she’d called me a liar and picture the way she’d look if I told her I’d cracked this on my own and Behrouz was free. It was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.

  I snatched up the printout of Hamidi and his thugs at Sarobi with that big warlord, Zarghun, sneering down like he owned the lot of them. His beard was longer, his tunic was whiter, even his rifle was bigger than theirs, glinting new and shiny in the sunlight. Not surprising, I suppose, considering the millions he’d been raking in. But there was something weird about the way he was holding that rifle that set my brain buzzing. I peered closer, focusing on the fingers of his right hand. He only had three of them. The index and middle fingers had been cut off just below the first knuckle. My eyes stared at his stumps, held there by something echoing in my brain like a half-heard tune I couldn’t remember.

  I couldn’t face going home, so I stayed on at the library reading stuff about Behrouz Sahar – the work he’d done for the army in Afghanistan, the medal he’d got for bravery – and trying to think of one good reason why he hadn’t gone to the police with his photos of Hamidi and Jez Deakin the minute he discovered they were dealing drugs.

  Voices broke through my thoughts. People were gathering round one of the computers, jostling to get a better look. The librarian stomped over to tell them to be quiet. Once she saw the screen, she just stood there, with her hand clamped over her mouth, not shushing anyone. I moved round to see what was going on. And there he was. Behrouz Sahar, with a black bandana round his head, his face wiped clean of blood but still puffy and swollen, confessing through a mouthful of broken teeth that he was a terrorist.

  A rumble of fury spread around the library, worse than the night outside Meadowview. For a second I saw what they saw: a face twisted with hatred, a crazy blank-eyed bomber hell-bent on destroying everything he could, including himself. What would they do if I jumped on the desk and told them he was innocent? That his eyes were glazed and his face was twisted because he’d been beaten and kidnapped by a load of drug-dealing thugs, who’d probably threatened his mum and kid sisters to make him record that confession? Lynch me, probably. It wasn’t what they wanted to hear.

  I ran back to the computer I’d been using and searched for the clip on YouTube – 10,000 hits and counting. Dizzy and panicked, I grabbed my stuff, ran out of the library, and walked the streets for a long time, feeling as if I was stumbling along a crumbling cliff edge in a blindfold and it was only a matter of time before I went crashing over the edge.

  By the time I got back to North London, I’d calmed down a bit, and I stood at the end of my street trying not to think about anything, just staring at the parked cars, the houses, the clipped hedges, the grey sky. Our house looked the same as always, shiny paintwork, flowers in tubs, a faint glow of light down the hall, Dad’s van parked on the drive. Coming round the corner and seeing it sitting there, knowing he was home, used to make me feel safe. Not any more. I slipped round the back, hoping I could sneak straight up to my room without seeing anyone. My heart sank when I walked in on Mum and Dad at the kitchen table going through holiday brochures. Mum glanced up. ‘Where have you been?’

  I shrugged. Dad winked at her. ‘Mooning after that girlfriend Eileen saw him with – Ali, wasn’t it?’

  It was a joke, a wind-up, and normally I’d have brushed it off, but hearing her name in his mouth caught me off guard. I looked away and stared angrily at the floor, willing him to shut up. He didn’t take the hint.

  ‘When are we going to meet her, then?’

  Mum reached for the oven gloves. ‘Don’t tease him, Ron.’

  ‘I’m serious, Debs. I want to see this mystery girl.’

  I shot him a look and saw his surprise as he caught my contempt. Mum took a plate of sausage and chips out of the oven and put it down on the table. ‘Sorry, love. It’s got a bit dried up.’

  ‘It’s his own fault.’ Dad was glaring at me, annoyed now. ‘Next time you’re going to be back late, you show your mum a bit of respect and give her a call.’

  I sat down. I wasn’t hungry, it was just the easiest way to avoid a row. Mum topped up Dad’s mug, trying to smooth things over. ‘We’ve found a lovely hotel in a resort called Bodrum. Here, have a look.’ She pushed a glossy leaflet across the table, all sandy beaches, candlelit restaurants and sun loungers round the pool.

  I t
ossed it back. ‘What’s that going to cost?’

  Dad’s face darkened. ‘Never you mind what it costs. I work hard for my money and I decide how I’m going to spend it.’

  I jabbed at my food, breathing slowly, trying to calm down. Mum pushed the ketchup bottle towards me. ‘Linda from work went last year, she said her kids loved it, and the hotel’s got a spa with one of those steam rooms – what do they call them, Ron?’

  ‘Hammams.’ Dad thumped his gut. ‘I’m up for that, sweat a bit of this off.’

  ‘I’m not going,’ I said.

  He carried on as if he hadn’t heard me. ‘There’s windsurfing and diving and if you play your cards right, I might sign you up for a bit of sailing.’

  ‘I said, I’m not going.’

  Mum frowned at me like I was a toddler having a tantrum. ‘Don’t be silly, you’ve always wanted to have a go at sailing.’

  ‘Not any more. So just stop going on about it!’ I don’t know why I was taking it out on her, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  Dad pointed his finger at me and snarled, ‘I’ve just about had it with you. If I say you’re going, you’re going.’

  Mum squeezed my arm. ‘Come on, Dan, your Dad wants to give us a treat, what’s wrong with that?’

  Something snapped inside me. I threw down my knife and fork, splattering chips and chunks of sausage across their brochures. ‘Flash holidays, flash washing machines, keeping up with Linda at work. Is that all you care about?’

  Dad jumped to his feet. ‘Don’t you dare talk to your mother like that! I don’t know what’s got into you lately. You clear up this mess and apologize to her, right now, or—’

  I stood up and stared him in the face. ‘Or what, Dad? You going to send some of your mates round to sort me out?’ I backed towards the door. ‘Or maybe Jez could do it. He likes getting his hands dirty.’

  He was shocked, I could see that, but there was something else, a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes that kicked the punch out of his voice when he shouted, ‘You come back here!’

  Mum’s voice rose above his, ‘It’s all right, Ron. Leave him, he’s upset.’

  I ran upstairs, tripping on the top stair in my hurry to get away. As I lay there rubbing my ankle a bit of me wanted Dad to come storming after me, demanding to know what was going on, and then I’d tell him what I’d seen and what I knew. And maybe it would turn out I’d got it all wrong and he and Jez weren’t up to their necks in Hamidi’s rackets. He didn’t come. I hobbled into my room and slammed the door.

  Fired up by anger and desperation, I spent the next few hours trawling the internet for information about Hamidi. Every time I came across the photo of him on the Afghan mountainside with Zarghun and his band of thugs, I’d feel a stab of annoyance that I couldn’t work out why that warlord’s mangled fingers were getting to me.

  ‘Danny!’ I swung round. Mum was standing at my door. ‘No wonder you’ve been looking so peaky. It’s two in the morning.’

  ‘You’re s’posed to knock!’

  ‘Sorry, love, I thought you’d dropped off with the light on. What are you doing?’

  I closed the lid of my laptop. ‘Nothing.’

  She came over, rested her hands on my shoulders and said gently, ‘Are you in trouble, Danny?’

  ‘No, Mum.’

  ‘If you ever had a problem, anything at all, you know you could tell me.’ Her voice jammed, as if she was forcing herself to think something unthinkable. ‘I wouldn’t care what you’d done, I’d always stand by you. Your dad too. He thinks the world of you.’

  For a minute I was tempted to tell her everything so she could make the bad stuff go away, like when I was a kid. But I couldn’t tell her anything, because this time it was me trying to keep the bad stuff away from her. I shrugged her hands away. ‘I’m fine, Mum.’

  ‘You’re not. You’re exhausted. Go to sleep.’

  She kissed the top of my head and the smell of her soap lingered for ages after she’d gone. I slipped under the duvet fully dressed and fell into a weird half-sleep full of dreams of Dad being dragged off by the police, Mum smashing down the door of the loading bay, and Aliya blinded by tears, running and stumbling to escape Zarghun’s massive stumpy claw.

  My eyes snapped open. My head was emptying of all the crap and debris of the last few days, leaving just one terrifying, impossible thought. I switched on the light and grabbed my phone, my pulse thrashing faster and faster as I skimmed through Behrouz’s photos. There he was, Hamidi outside Hardel’s, smoking with his bald mate. I slid on to the next picture, the one where Behrouz had cut off their heads. The bald man’s right hand was in shot, holding his cigarette in a really awkward way, with his little finger stuck out like some old lady drinking tea. Like a flash of lightning on a dark night, I realized what had been gnawing at me – his index and middle fingers were missing! Behrouz hadn’t made a mistake when he’d taken that shot. He’d been going for a close-up of those knuckles.

  Two photos of Hamidi with two different men who both happened to be missing the middle and index fingers of their right hands. What were the odds?

  I flicked back to the only shot of Bald Guy’s face in focus. Now I bothered thinking about it, I was sure he was the passenger we’d seen in Hamidi’s car the night we followed him home, which upped my pulse rate another couple of notches as I compared his picture to the picture of Zarghun. Bald Guy had yellowish skin and heavy-lidded eyes, whereas Zarghun was weather-beaten and squinting at the sun. With all that hair and beard, it was impossible to guess what he’d look like if he’d been living in England for a while and shaved his head. Even so, those matching fingers kept my pulse pumping and my hopes sky high. I ran through the possibilities:

  Number one: this was just a weird coincidence, Bald Guy wasn’t even Afghan and he’d lost his fingers cutting up meat at Hardel’s.

  Number two: Bald Guy was an Afghan, but that didn’t mean anything because losing those exact same fingers on that exact same hand was something that happened all the time if you handled guns or butchered meat.

  Number three. Bald Guy was Farukh Zarghun.

  I got both photos up on my laptop, resized the faces to make the best match I could, and laid the printouts side by side. There was software for this kind of thing. I’d seen it in films. But I’d have to make do with a ruler and a pencil. I measured the distances between the corners of Zarghun’s eyes and all of his ugly features that weren’t covered by his hair and beard, including his bushy eyebrows, broken nose and fleshy lips. I did the same with Bald Guy and carefully compared the proportions. I’m not the greatest at maths, and it would have helped if the photos had been taken from similar angles and the ones of Bald Guy had been sharper. Even so, the match was pretty good. Too good. I was positive it was the same man. Which meant that convicted drug lord Farukh Zarghun wasn’t dead at all. He was working in a meatpacking factory, living in a crappy house in North London with a brand new BMW in the garage and shed-loads of cash stashed in his bathroom ceiling. That’s why Hamidi had wanted Behrouz dead. To protect Zarghun.

  *

  I went over to the window and watched the early-morning sky turning pink over the rooftops, imagining how petrified Behrouz must have felt when he’d locked eyes with Zarghun and realized he’d been recognized by a man who was supposed to be dead. I still couldn’t work out why he hadn’t gone straight to the police and demanded protection, but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake. I was going straight to the cops. I was on a high. I’d found exactly what I’d been looking for – evidence that could prove Behrouz was innocent that didn’t involve Dad. I ran on to the landing. I stopped, went back into my room and deleted the photo of Hamidi and Jez Deakin loading up Dad’s van from both my laptop and my phone. That picture had done enough damage. I felt a little lift of relief as it disappeared from the screens. Still, it knocked me back a bit to find Jez Deakin sitting at our kitchen table poring over an Excel spreadsheet on his laptop and eating a bacon sandwich. Whoever had
put him in hospital had packed a pretty good punch. One eye and half his face was dark purple, tinged with yellow, and his neck and hands were covered in cuts and bruises. Served him right, his injuries were nothing compared to the state Behrouz Sahar was in. I grabbed a carton of juice out of the fridge and took a big slug.

  ‘All right, Danny?’

  Act normal, Dan. Not easy when all I wanted to do was even up the bruises on his smirking face. ‘Yeah. You don’t look so good, though.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me. I’m fine. At least I would be if I didn’t have this lot to sort.’ He smacked his hand on a thick pile of invoices and tipped his head at Dad. ‘I keep telling him, if he doesn’t behave, I’m going make him go back to doing his own books.’

  Dad looked at me and laughed, as if our argument last night hadn’t happened. ‘No, thanks. I still have nightmares about that ruddy VAT man.’ He pointed a fork into the spattering frying pan. ‘Bacon?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ I headed down the hall.

  He called after me, ‘Where are you going?’

  I slammed the door. To the police, Dad. If it goes the way I’m hoping, there’s an outside chance Aliya Sahar won’t ever need to know that you and your mate Jez are thieving, drug-dealing lowlifes, or that it’s my fault her brother is lying in hospital fighting for his life.

  The air was fresh and crisp as I walked out of the house. I checked my phone – a text and a couple of missed calls from Aliya. I ignored them, too much of a coward to speak to her till I could tell her that Behrouz was a free man. It wouldn’t be long now. I walked down to the precinct and sat on one the benches while I dialled Trent’s number. He answered after a couple of rings.

  ‘PC Trent.’

  ‘Um . . . This is Dan Abbott. I don’t know if you remember me. You came round our house to interview me and my dad about seeing Behrouz Sahar at Meadowview.’

  ‘Oh . . . yes. Danny. What’s up?’