If You Were Me

by Sam Hepburn

  The lane where Connor parked the car had woods down one side and a high, moss-covered stone wall along the other. We walked back towards the main road, following a line of yellow arrows nailed to the trees that said FILMING. I was weaving a bit, lagging behind, and by the time I got to the entrance a harassed man in headphones was shooing Aliya, Connor and a half-dozen other people away, shouting, ‘No fans on set, can’t you read?’

  Aliya didn’t move. ‘We have to see Miss Lambert. It’s important.’

  ‘You got a visitor’s pass?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you must be joking. Go on, clear off, we’ve got props coming through any minute.’ He scanned the road, raising his clipboard as a truck rumbled towards us. A uniformed security guard came out and herded us further back. ‘You heard him. Move away from the gates, please!’

  Aliya ducked under his outstretched arm and we followed her as she made for Clipboard Man. ‘Please. Could you give her a note?’

  ‘I’m not a ruddy postman.’

  ‘Her husband, Colonel Clarke he . . . he knows my family.’ Tears misted her eyes. She wiped them away. ‘Please, it is urgent . . . a matter of death and life.’

  He darted her a suspicious look, but anyone could see she was serious.

  ‘Oh, give it here, but get away from the gate.’

  Aliya had a pen on her but for paper she had to make do with a grease-spotted food wrapper I snatched out of the gutter. Using Connor’s back to rest on, she wrote:

  Dear Miss Lambert,

  I am the sister of Behrouz Sahar. I am at the gate. I have proof that my brother is innocent and I must talk to Colonel Clarke. I am in danger. Please help me. If you cannot talk to me now, please phone me very soon.

  She scribbled her number, signed her name and handed it to Clipboard Man. As soon as he’d checked the truck over he stomped away across the field, shouting orders to a bunch of workmen in overalls and grabbing a bottle of water from a stand under the trees. I half expected him to chuck the note in the rubbish but he made his way to a row of trailers and knocked on the door of a luxury model, twice the size of all the others, standing on its own at the end. The door opened. The three of us sucked in our breath as he talked to someone inside, willing him to walk back and let us in. But the door of the trailer banged shut and he hurried off towards the castle, pressing on the mouthpiece of his headset. The uniformed guard walked towards us, walkie-talkie crackling.

  ‘He says it’s a no. Go on, hop it.’

  We shuffled past the rest of the crowd.

  ‘Now what?’ I asked.

  Aliya shook her head, totally dejected. ‘That was my last hope.’

  Connor strolled off towards the lane where we’d parked, kicking a stone around, trying not look as if he was checking things out. He circled back. ‘We could have a go at climbing over the wall and knocking on the door of her trailer.’

  I couldn’t see myself making it over a wall that high, but Aliya was totally up for it, telling me I didn’t have a choice.

  We were heading down the lane looking for the best place to climb when her phone buzzed. Her eyes widened as the screen flashed up ‘number unknown’. She flicked on the speaker. Connor and I crowded round as a man’s voice said her name. ‘Aliya?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Miss Lambert’s personal assistant. She says she’ll see you but she’s only got a few minutes, so I’ll come and pick you up, it’ll save the hassle of getting you a pass. There’s a bus stop on the main road, past the pub. Wait there and I’ll bring you round to the cast entrance. I’ll be in a silver Range Rover.’

  Before she could say anything he hung up and she started to run back to the main road. I hobbled after her on legs that felt like mush. She was nearing the bus stop when the silver Range Rover came swinging round the corner. I put on a spurt and tripped on a crack in the path. Connor grabbed my arm, helped me up and dragged me to the car. Dizzy and breathless, I peered inside. The dark-haired, square-jawed driver was leaning over, looking up at us through the open window – designer stubble, white teeth and an expensive white shirt rolled up to his elbows, showing off tanned, muscular arms.

  ‘This boy is Connor and this one is Dan,’ Aliya was saying. ‘They have important things to tell Miss Lambert too.’

  The man hesitated, his eyes on me. Something flickered in his face. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or just surprised that she hadn’t come alone.

  He said, ‘OK. But I’ll need your full names in case security stops us at the gate.’

  I leant against the side of the car, trying to catch my breath. ‘Daniel Abbott.’

  Connor ducked his head so the man could see his face and muttered, ‘Connor Mackay.’

  ‘I’m Steve Hutchins, call me Hutch. Hop in the back and make sure you stay down when we go past security.’ We slid along the seat, breathing in the powerful smell of his aftershave.

  ‘You from Kabul, Aliya?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I did a couple of tours in Afghanistan with the colonel.’ He was reaching for his phone and calling a number.

  ‘Hey, Ind— Miss Lambert. Aliya’s got a couple of friends with her . . . two boys . . . Daniel Abbott . . . yes . . . yes . . . that’s right . . . and . . . Connor Mackay. They’ve been helping her find out about her brother. They seem like decent kids, so I thought it’d be all right to bring them along . . . yeah . . . no . . . No problem.’

  He headed for a side entrance, barking, ‘Heads down,’ drove through very fast and sped down a muddy track that led behind the trailers.

  ‘Go easy when you see Miss Lambert. She’s been working since dawn and she needs to catch some rest before they start shooting again this afternoon.’

  He swung the car around and pulled up in front of her trailer. The field we were in was packed with trucks and tents, and beyond the catering van on the other side you could just make out the castle’s turrets sticking through the trees. It was like a circus – people running in all directions, guys leading horses around, actors wandering past in old-fashioned costumes, some of them with curlers in, even the men, and one bloke had a sword in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Hutch barely knocked on the trailer door before he pushed it open and stood back to let Aliya pass.

  OK, I thought. This is it.

  ALIYA

  The trailer was like the cave of Aladdin. Bright fabrics and glittering jewels scattered everywhere, a dress of green velvet threaded with pearls hanging from a folding screen, a purple cloak thrown across a chair, the air heavy with the smells of coffee, shampoo, perfume, make-up and something else that could have been the faintest hint of burning. India Lambert was sitting in front of a huge mirror with light bulbs all around it, talking on her mobile and wiping make-up from her face with a little round pad. Her pink silk dressing-gown rustled as she cut the call and swung around in her chair. She looked beautiful even though her hair was wrapped in a towel and her face was shiny with cream.

  ‘Aliya! Come in.’ Her voice was warm and welcoming, as if she knew me.

  Hutch closed the door behind the boys and said, with a stiff smile, ‘Sorry, lads. After all that’s been going on, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t pat you down.’ They glanced at each other and raised their arms. This was why India Lambert had an ex-soldier for an assistant. He was her bodyguard too. I watched his big, probing hands slide expertly down their shirts and trousers. My breath was coming fast. I stepped back and dug my hands into my pockets. Hutch looked up, as if he’d heard the pounding of my heart. ‘Don’t worry, Aliya. If Miss Lambert wants you searched, she’ll do it herself.’

  India Lambert threw me a quick smile. ‘I don’t think we need worry about that, do you, Aliya?’

  ‘N-n-no, Miss Lambert.’ I couldn’t stop looking at her. She had a slender face, huge dark eyes that slanted upwards like a cat’s, high cheekbones, a slim, delicate nose and a mouth that was pink and full. She was so perfect she seemed to glow. Please let her believe
me. Please let her say she’ll help me.

  She turned to the boys. ‘Which one of you is Dan?’

  ‘Me,’ he said.

  ‘And you must be . . . Connor.’

  Connor stared at the floor and nodded.

  ‘Good, I always like to get people’s names right.’ In one graceful movement she swept a pile of towels off the padded bench under the window and dropped them on a stool. ‘Sorry about the mess. Have a seat.’

  We squeezed in behind a table piled with magazines, hats and gloves, and as we shifted along the bench I caught our reflections in the mirror, embarrassed at how scruffy and out of place we looked. Especially Connor, who sat with his head down, biting his fingernails.

  India leant back on her swivel chair while Hutch propped himself against the wall beside her, texting on his phone. He was a giant in that cramped space and she didn’t seem at all embarrassed to be sitting in her dressing-gown so close to a man who was not her husband. She folded her hands in her lap. ‘All right, Aliya, what is it you want to tell the colonel?’

  ‘Behrouz is innocent.’

  She sighed and said gently, ‘He admitted his guilt on tape.’

  ‘He was kidnapped. The kidnappers forced him to say those things. If you look at the tape, halfway through he says, “I have a plan,” which is a message to me. He’s telling me something is wrong and that I must do what he did and try and go to the colonel.’

  ‘But he said he was planning to kill the colonel.’

  ‘No!’ I was getting frustrated, afraid my English wasn’t clear. ‘They made him say that.’

  India shook her head as if this was my fantasy and said gently, ‘Nothing would give me or my husband greater pleasure than to find out that you’re right. But just because you want something to be true, it doesn’t make it the case.’

  ‘We know who kidnapped him. We’ve got photos.’

  I thrust my phone at her and pointed to the face of Zarghun. ‘This man is Farukh Zarghun. He’s a drug lord and a war criminal and he’s supposed to be dead.’

  As I explained how Behrouz had recognized him and how Zarghun’s people had kidnapped him and tried to make it look as if he’d killed himself by mistake with his own bomb, I saw a look on her face, something that might have been disbelief or shock or something I couldn’t work out.

  ‘I saw the kidnap, Miss Lambert,’ the boy said. ‘I swear. They got him outside the flats where he lives and dragged him into the loading bay at the back. He kept saying, “Please don’t hurt my family,” then they hit him with a gun, threw him in the van and drove off.’

  That was why he was here, to be a witness, but I couldn’t bear to look at him while he told her what he’d seen. Miss Lambert shook her head slowly and when she turned back to me, the tears welling in her eyes caught the light of the mirror lamps. ‘I knew Behrouz, Aliya. Not well, but I met him a couple of times in Afghanistan. He was a lovely boy and it’s terrible, truly terrible, that he chose to go down this awful path. But the obvious explanation for what Dan saw is that he was working for this man Zarghun and got beaten up for stealing some of his drugs. It doesn’t mean that he wasn’t also making bombs for Al Shaab.’

  Hutch nodded and folded his arms. ‘Sounds like a typical gangland warning to me. They probably drove him round the block, roughed him up a bit and dumped him back where they’d found him.’

  ‘No!’ the boy said. ‘It wasn’t like that. Look, Behrouz only told two other people about Zarghun. Captain Merrick, who he knew from Afghanistan, and his friend Arif from Khan’s Cars, and Zarghun got someone to get rid of both them.’

  India Lambert glanced up at Hutch. The look that passed between them shocked me. It was a look of total trust and understanding. When he put his hand on her shoulder, I knew the gossip in that magazine was true. Hutch was much more to her than a bodyguard or an assistant. I felt sad for the colonel and embarrassed that she was shaming a good, kind man in this way. But it was not my business. Her eyes turned back to the boy, and Hutch said, ‘Just out of interest. How could Zarghun’s people have had any idea who Behrouz told?’

  The boy frowned at the floor, then at me. It was a good question. One we should have asked before. As I turned it over in my head a worm of something unsettling stirred inside me. Hutch shrugged and started texting again, as if he was getting bored with us.

  ‘We don’t know exactly how he found out,’ the boy said quietly. ‘But I promise you he’s got people working for him everywhere – bent cops, immigration officers, even soldiers. It’s too much of a coincidence that on the day Behrouz nearly died, Captain Merrick was killed in an army training exercise and Arif went missing. Tell them what happened, Connor.’

  Connor went red when the boy said his name. He refused to even look at India Lambert and when he spoke he mumbled. ‘Me and Arif went out to get a takeaway and he got picked up by an immigration spot check. They say they checked him out and let him go, but they didn’t. I saw them drive off with him and he hasn’t been seen since.’

  India Lambert dropped her head and rubbed her temples. ‘This is crazy. You want me to believe that an Afghan criminal could frame Behrouz, pay someone inside the army to shoot a serving officer and get British immigration to snatch Arif Rahman off the streets? Things like that just don’t happen, not outside the movies.’

  The boy’s head lifted, his glazed eyes struggling to focus. I saw his lips twitch as if he was about to say something. He didn’t, though, he just glanced at Connor.

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘even if you don’t believe us about Arif and Merrick, it’s still true that Zarghun wants to kill us. He’s got people from the police out looking for us. That’s why we came here and why we have to see the colonel.’

  India Lambert pulled the towel off her head and shook out her damp hair. ‘Look, I don’t know what to make of any of this but if there really are policemen and soldiers involved in major corruption, the colonel will certainly want to know about it. He’ll probably be in meetings right now but I’ll text him.’

  I gazed at her, feeling as if a sack of stones had been lifted from my shoulders. ‘Thank you, Miss Lambert,’ I whispered.

  She smiled her beautiful smile and picked up her phone. ‘If I say it’s urgent, he shouldn’t take long to call back.’

  ‘Where is he?’ the boy said, sharply.

  India Lambert tossed back her hair. ‘Where is who?’

  ‘The colonel.’

  ‘Scotland. He’ll be back this afternoon.’

  She must have seen the panic in our faces, because she said, quickly, ‘Don’t worry, you can go back to our London house and wait for him there.’ She slipped behind the screen. ‘We’ve got plenty of DVDs, and I’m sure the housekeeper will rustle you up some lunch. Hutch will drive you, won’t you, Hutch?’

  Hutch shrugged. ‘No problem.’

  ‘No need,’ Connor said. ‘We’ve got—’

  The boy swung round, jabbing his elbow hard into Connor’s ribs. Connor let out a grunt of pain. The boy ignored him and said to Hutch, ‘Any chance of something to eat?’

  Why was he being so disrespectful? Hutch didn’t seem to mind. He looked up from his phone and pushed himself off the wall. ‘What do you fancy? Catering does great Danish this time of the morning.’

  Connor was glaring at the boy. The boy glared back at him and gave the tiniest shake of his head before he looked up at Hutch and said, ‘Yeah, anything.’

  ‘Have you told anyone else about this man Zarghun?’ India said from behind the screen.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We’re keeping quiet about everything.’

  ‘Even about coming to see me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She came out from behind the screen wearing faded jeans and a soft white jumper, pinning up her hair. ‘Would you mind waiting here? I just have to get my notes from the director. I won’t be long.’

  ‘No problem,’ Connor said.

  Hutch followed her out, stopping on the steps to glance over his shoulder. �
�If it’s OK, I’ll lock the door. We don’t want anyone barging in and getting funny about unauthorized visitors. You all want tea with those Danish?’

  ‘Sure,’ the boy said.

  Connor barely waited for the door to shut before he turned on him. ‘What the hell did you punch me for?’

  The boy reached up to the window and rattled the lock. ‘So you wouldn’t tell them we’ve got a car. Come on, we can be halfway to London before they stop searching round here.’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘You heard her. She said “Arif Rahman”.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Did you mention Arif’s second name?’

  ‘What? I don’t know . . . maybe.’

  ‘Take it from me. You didn’t. And neither did Aliya.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t have. I didn’t know what his second name was.’

  ‘Quick,’ the boy said, ‘see what they’re doing.’

  Frightened and confused, I peered through the blind. ‘They’re walking towards the food vans. Both on their phones.’

  The boy grabbed India Lambert’s handbag and pulled out lipsticks, letters, a hairbrush and her purse. Connor flew at him and wrestled the bag out of his hands. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Get off me.’ The boy gave him a push. ‘Don’t you get it? She’s in on it. Her and her muscle-man boyfriend.’

  ‘You’re crazy!’ Connor said.

  The boy lifted a handful of charred paper out of the bin. ‘So why did she burn Aliya’s note and why didn’t Hutchins take us through security?’ He snatched a nail file from the mess on the dressing table and jabbed it at the lock on the back window. ‘You stay if you want. I’m out of here.’

  ‘You’re insane,’ Connor said. ‘Tell him, Aliya.’

  I didn’t want to believe it, but as I watched India and Hutch through the window I could feel the doubt growing inside me. ‘I . . . I don’t know. She takes aid to Afghanistan all the time, she meets powerful people who could have got Zarghun out of prison and . . . and I think it’s true that none of us said Arif’s second name.’ There was something else, something worrying me, like a sharp little splinter working its way to the surface of my mind.