If You Were Me

by Sam Hepburn

  The good news is the police found Arif trussed up in Hamidi’s attic along with a tape of him claiming it was an Al Shaab operative who’d killed Behrouz. He was bruised and battered and really pissed off, but now he’s sold his story to the tabloids, he’s cheered up a lot, even though they won’t be able to print it until after Clarke’s trial. He’s buying a flat and Connor’s moving in. I see Connor a lot, he’s a good mate. Good driver too. Maybe one day I’ll find a way to pay him back for what he did.

  The bad news is that Aliya won’t speak to me. Even when we’re at the police station, going over what happened, looking at mug shots of people they think might have been working for Clarke, she insists on sitting in a separate room. I don’t blame her. I know there’s nothing I can ever do to make up for what I did. Or rather what I didn’t have the guts to do. I miss her, though. Sometimes I play the clips of her in the hospital car park just to see her face.

  ALIYA

  I’ve had my hair cut very short and spiky, like a boy. I did it to stop people recognizing the wild, dishevelled girl they’d seen on their television screens shouting accusations about Colonel Clarke. Sometimes I wish I could take scissors and cut away the anger too. It doesn’t ease, even when it says on the news that they’ve arrested more of Clarke’s network. Businessmen, immigration officials, detectives, soldiers, van drivers. It’s as if we’ve dropped a stone in a pool of fetid water and the ripples won’t stop spreading. But there is also anger at the boy. Wherever I go, whatever I do, it’s always there inside me, like a lump of hot black tar.

  The policemen at Behrouz’s door still watch me as I come and go, but they’re there to protect him now and they smile at me and call me by my name. I’ve got to know some of theirs: Keith, Brian, Jim and Phil – short, blunt English names. They bring my mother tea sometimes and try to make her go home to rest or go down to the canteen to eat, but she refuses to leave Behrouz’s bedside unless I am there. That’s all right, because I come every day while Mina is at nursery. For the first few days after Clarke’s arrest I would push open the door of Behrouz’s room, see his empty eyes and nervous, blistered smile and know I was still a stranger to him.

  After a while I began to bring him things that I hoped might stir a spark in the ashes of his memory: a hot bolani with pepper sauce, DVDs of his favourite films, a bowl of banjaan, and then, one day, the photo of our family picnicking by the river which I printed off the internet. When he focused on the image of my father, something flitted across his face like the shadow of a startled bird and gave me hope. I propped the picture beside his bed and for the next three days I talked to him about Baba and our life in Kabul, and on the fourth day it was as if someone had cracked open the shutters in his head and let in the thinnest shaft of light. The memories were patchy, but every day a few more filtered through the darkness and the day he finally smiled at my mother and called her Mor-jan, I thought she would swoon with joy.

  Gradually, with the help of the photos from his phone, we began to fill in the blanks on my grid and work out exactly how he’d come to be in that lock-up. It broke his heart when I told him that Captain Merrick had been killed, but it made him even more determined to make his own statement to the police.

  Today he is ready. He sits up in bed and beside him, resting against the jug of water, is the picture Mina has drawn for him of the new house the council is going to give us. As I tell him about the patch of garden, the shiny tiles in the kitchen and the hot water that is always there when you turn on the tap, the room fills with important men and women, some in uniform, some not. They lean against walls, squash into chairs and talk in hushed whispers. I recognize Inspector McGill, the officer who interviewed me for eight long hours after the explosion. He nods at me. I do not nod back. My mother gazes at them all, then tightens her scarf and leaves the room.

  The policeman called Keith switches on the video recorder, murmurs the date and Behrouz’s name and tells him, ‘In your own time.’ Behrouz glances at me, I smile at him. He takes a sip of water and in the raw, rustling whisper that is all the sound his burnt throat can make, he begins to speak.

  ‘On the morning of the Meadowview fundraiser PC Mark Trent asked to search my cab because he’d been tipped off that I was using it to transport drugs.’ His eyes wander a little as he reaches for the memory. ‘He found a package in the boot and made me open it. It was full of white powder. He tasted it and said it was heroin. I denied it was mine but by then my fingerprints were all over the packaging. Then he told me about a gang with links to Afghanistan who were moving drugs around London on the canals and using the Meadowview loading bay as a holding depot.’ The listeners shuffle their feet and exchange glances. ‘He said if I helped them out, I would make a lot of money and he wouldn’t pursue the charges for possession. But if I didn’t cooperate, he would arrest me, and my whole family would be deported.’

  Behrouz takes another sip of water and shakes his head when the doctor leans in and asks him if he’s getting tired.

  ‘I decided my only hope was to gather enough evidence to prove he was corrupt. To buy myself time, I told him I’d have to think about it. He gave me five days. Later I saw him talking to a plumber called Jez Deakin, who sometimes does work at the flats. I could tell from the way they were looking at me that Deakin was involved.’

  Slowly and painfully, between sips of water, he tells them how he followed Jez Deakin and saw him and Tewfiq Hamidi unloading suspicious parcels from a Hardel Meats van. The boy and I had been right: Behrouz had gone to Hardel’s to get a better photo of Hamidi, and was shocked and terrified when he recognized Farukh Zarghun and realized that Zarghun had recognized him. His voice is already beginning to fade but everyone is so quiet it doesn’t matter. His eyes sweep the room. ‘I knew that only a top-level conspiracy could have got Zarghun out of jail and into Britain, so I tried to get hold of Colonel Clarke. He was the only person I trusted to protect me and help me to expose the truth.’

  When Behrouz describes how he asked Merrick to get him the colonel’s private number, he swallows hard and plucks at the bandage on his hand before he finds the strength to go on. ‘As soon as he sent me the colonel’s home number I called it and told his wife everything – who I had talked to and what I knew. She told me to come to their house immediately and she would arrange for me to speak to the colonel in the States. Before I went I hid my old phone so there would be a copy of the photos if Zarghun’s people caught up with me on the way.’ Outside in the hallway someone coughs and a trolley rumbles along the floor.

  ‘India Lambert set up a Skype call with the colonel. Very calmly he told me that he was the one who had arranged Zarghun’s fake death and organized his entry to the UK under a false name. He said it had been necessary because Zarghun still controlled the Afghan end of the drugs supply chain. He said he’d backed my asylum claim so he could take me into the heart of the business and he’d got my family housed at Meadowview so I could oversee the storage of some big drug shipments that were coming in via the canal. He’d planned for Trent to ease me into the business and, once he was certain of my loyalty, he would have revealed his own involvement and moved me up the ranks. But my investigations had forced his hand.’

  ‘Why did he pick you?’ asks a voice that sends a quiver through my flesh. It is Inspector McGill. Behrouz’s eyes seek him out in the crowd before he answers.

  ‘Clarke said my reputation as a decorated hero, my language skills and my clean-cut looks . . .’ Behrouz croaks out the ghost of a laugh and touches his bandaged face. Who knows how he will look when those bandages come off ? ‘. . . would make me an ideal goodwill ambassador for Hope Unlimited, and that my foreign trips for the charity would provide the perfect cover for meeting useful officials and international dealers.’

  ‘How did you respond to this proposition?’ McGill asks.

  ‘I pretended to agree to it. But he demanded more than assurances. He asked me to go with Tewfiq Hamidi that afternoon and prove my good faith by killing
a courier he suspected of double-crossing him.’

  I gasp and raise my hand to my mouth. Behrouz has kept this from me and for a long moment he refuses to meet my eyes.

  ‘Hamidi took me off in his car but I managed to make a run for it. I was certain they’d go after my mother and sisters to punish me, so I waited until after dark and went back to Meadowview, disguised as a woman, to try to get them out. But Hamidi and his thugs were waiting for me. They beat me up and threatened to kill my family unless I made a video claiming that I was a member of Al Shaab. I added some words of my own to the ones they made me read out. I hoped that my sister would get the message that Clarke was a criminal and responsible for what had happened to me.’ He looks over to where I am standing. His voice is almost gone. With the last of it he wheezes, ‘If it wasn’t for her, I would be dead, the world would believe I was a terrorist and Mike Clarke, Farukh Zarghun and all their corrupt cronies would be walking free.’

  Keith clicks off the tape and the silence in the room grows thick and uncomfortable. The doctor lifts his hand and insists that Behrouz must rest now. One by one the men and women leave. He gives Behrouz an injection. Within minutes he falls into an exhausted sleep and I run from the hospital because it hurts too much to stay. The hot black anger weighs me down and tears fill my eyes, distorting the buildings and the cars and the outline of the elderly man coming towards me, leaning heavily on his walking stick. He is red in the face and struggling to breathe. As we draw level, he trips and catches hold of my arm.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I say.

  ‘Just a little dizzy. I think I need to sit down.’ He keeps hold of my arm and dabs his face with a handkerchief. When his breathing is steadier, he points to a wide white building and says, ‘I was on my way to take afternoon tea in that hotel, would you mind awfully helping me inside?’

  Something inside me recoils from the tightness of his grip. I hear WPC Rennell’s words in my head: ‘London’s a big city and the people in it aren’t always what they seem. There’s some you can trust and some you can’t.’ But I tell myself he’s a sick old man and I let him lean on me as I guide him into a red-carpeted reception area full of spindly gold-painted chairs, tables with marble tops and palm trees in pots. He points to an archway. ‘Through there, my dear, if you would be so kind. It’s the table in the corner.’

  The table is laid for two; thin white china on a starched white cloth, pale-pink flowers in a silver vase. He sits down heavily. ‘Thank you, my dear.’ He waves his upturned hand over the cakes and the little pots of jam and butter. ‘Please, do join me.’

  ‘Me? Oh, no. Thank you.’

  ‘I insist. It’s the least I can do.’

  ‘You’re expecting someone.’

  He smiles. ‘I asked them to lay for two, just in case I had the pleasure of a companion.’

  The waitress appears with a silver teapot and sets it down on the table.

  It would be rude to hurry away and I’m tired and thirsty, so I hang my bag on the back of the chair and sit down. He smiles again and pours tea into my cup.

  ‘Forgive me. I should have introduced myself. George Woodcote.’

  I shake the plump pink hand he offers. ‘Hello, Mr Woodcote, I am—’

  ‘I know who you are.’

  My face burns. I look down.

  ‘Don’t be alarmed, my dear. I’m afraid I rather bumped into you on purpose.’

  Fear prickles my skin. I look up slowly. ‘Why?’

  ‘I wanted to congratulate you on the excellent job you did exposing Colonel Clarke’s drug ring.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘May I offer you a scone?’

  He takes a small brown cake, slices it in half, spreads it carefully with red jam and white cream and hands it to me on a plate. ‘This is called a cream tea. It’s a very English treat.’

  I bite into the crumbly little cake he calls a scone and store these new words away.

  ‘I have to say, it’s not often that we come across a young woman with your . . . language skills . . . intelligence and . . . tenacity.’

  I don’t like the change in his voice. I don’t like the way he says ‘we’. ‘Are you from the police?’

  ‘Not exactly. However, my organization does work in tandem with them on occasion and we certainly took a close interest in your brother’s case and your activities after the explosion.’

  The kindly twinkle in his eye has dulled to a glimmer of steel.

  A close interest? My activities?

  ‘You had me followed, didn’t you?’ I say. ‘All those people who kept brushing past us, walking where we walked, sitting where we sat. They were working for you.’

  He chuckles as if we are playing a game, but it’s a hollow sound and it makes me angry. ‘We thought you might lead us to Al Shaab, but it wasn’t easy. You and your friend Dan proved very elusive.’

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’

  ‘Don’t look so concerned. I have a proposition to make to you.’ I say nothing and he keeps on talking. ‘There’s an organization that we’ve had our eye on for a while. It works with young refugees but we think it’s a front for something a little more sinister.’ He folds his napkin to a point and dabs a blob of cream from his lip. ‘We were rather hoping you might be able to find out what’s happening from the inside. There would be a payment of course. A substantial sum.’

  I stare at him as his meaning sinks in. ‘You want me to spy for you?’

  ‘Well . . . yes, if that’s what you want to call it.’

  I feel a ridiculous urge to laugh. Why do people keep offering my family these horrible jobs? Behrouz didn’t want to run drugs for Colonel Clarke and I certainly don’t want to spy for the British government.

  ‘You thought I was a terrorist. You thought I would lead you to Al Shaab.’

  ‘Only at first. Do have another scone.’

  I push my plate away. He drops his napkin into his lap and reaches for my arm to stop me leaving. ‘There are many things you learn as you get older, my dear, especially in a business like mine. One of the most important is that it’s deeds not words that prove a person’s worth. You’ve been through a lot – uncertainty, fear, pain, threats – but you stayed loyal, kept going against all the odds and risked your life to help someone you cared about. People capable of that sort of selfless loyalty are pretty thin on the ground. Gold dust, you might say.’

  Gold dust.

  It all comes back to me: the running and hiding, the barge, the black water, the fear and the pain the boy suffered to help me without betraying his father, trying as best he could to do the impossible and stay loyal to us both. I stand up. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘My dear, what’s the problem?’

  I run out of there. As I hurry down the street I get out my phone and call a number. My heart is heavy. Then I hear the boy say quietly, ‘Hey, Aliya,’ and the sound lifts my anger away.

  ‘Hello, Dan,’ I whisper. ‘I think I owe you a ride on the London Eye.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to say a big thank you to my editors Rachel Leyshon and Bella Pearson and my agent Stephanie Thwaites at Curtis Brown for their guidance and support, I would also like to thank Detective Constable Laura Hynes for her help with my research and for being so patient about my endless questions and Nasir Ahmadi for his insights into life in Afghanistan. And, of course, a very special thank you to my husband, James, for his endless patience, enthusiasm and encouragement.

  ALSO BY SAM HEPBURN

  CHASING THE DARK by Sam Hepburn

  Mum’s gone. Killed in a hit-and-run car crash. Her last words a message for someone I’ve never heard of.

  What happened that night? All I’ve got is a trail of secrets and lies, but am I just chasing the dark?

  BOOKS FOR KEEPS

  Paperback, ISBN 978-1-910002-80-3, £6.99 • ebook, ISBN 978-1-909489-01-1, £6.99

  Text © Sam Hepburn 2015

  First paperback edition published in Great Britain
in 2015

  This electronic edition published in 2015

  Chicken House

  2 Palmer Street

  Frome, Somerset BA11 1DS

  United Kingdom

  www.doublecluck.com

  Sam Hepburn has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical or otherwise, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express prior written permission of the publisher.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictional. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Produced in the UK by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication data available.

  PB ISBN 978-1-909489-80-6

  eISBN 978-1-910002-42-1