The Division Bell Trilogy

by Rachel McLean

  “What about Samir?” Hassan whined. “Is he being boring again?”

  Jennifer forced a smile. “No, sweetie,” she said, her voice pinched. “He’s just gone out. Dad’s going to wait here for him.” She raised her eyebrows at Yusuf who nodded. “Then they’ll come and join us.”

  She hustled Hassan into the car, looking up and down the street, and headed for the botanical gardens, Hassan’s favourite place. She scanned the pavements on the way and kept her mobile in its holder on the dashboard, anxious for news of both Samir and Catherine.

  Hassan always enjoyed the gardens, most of all the talking mynah bird in the glasshouse. He marched past it again and again, collapsing into fits of laughter every time it said hello.

  Eventually he stopped marching and looked at her. She could see he was about to ask a question.

  “Come on, you,” Jennifer said. “Let’s go outside.”

  “No.”

  Hassan ran off into the depths of the glasshouse.

  “Hassan? Please Hassan, this isn’t funny. Come back.”

  She paused, listening. She could hear the slap of his shoes against the paving slabs, receding.

  “Hassan!” Jennifer called, her chest tight. “Come back, now!”

  Hassan wasn’t one to run off, and although he was eleven now, he didn’t have the presence of mind to remember where he’d been. She could feel her heart racing; how could she lose two boys, in one day?

  “Boo!”

  Hassan jumped at her from behind, giggling. She spun round.

  “Hassan! That was—”

  His face crumpled and she stopped herself. “That was funny. But you gave me a scare. Don’t run off again. Please.”

  He shrugged, his lip quivering. She sighed.

  “Come on, let’s get some fresh air.”

  As they left the glasshouse she took a deep breath, praying that by now Yusuf had tracked down Samir and that they’d have followed them to the park.

  Hassan yelled Samir’s name and ran off across the grass. Jennifer put her hands to her face, groaning with relief.

  Yusuf was sitting on the grass with Samir, their backs to her. They hadn’t spotted Hassan yet. She edged towards them, anxious. Yusuf spotted her first and threw a smile over Samir’s shoulder.

  Yusuf nodded at Samir, an unspoken agreement in his eyes. Samir stood up, brushing his hands on his trousers and looking down at the ground. He turned to Jennifer.

  “I’m sorry, Mum,” he muttered.

  Jennifer felt her heart lift. She held out her arms to him and he let her give him a light hug which he returned reluctantly. She decided it was wisest to accept his apology. They could talk about why he’d run off another day.

  “Thanks, Samir. I love you.” She touched his cheek, ignoring his flinch. “Don’t scare me like that again, huh?”

  34

  May 2021. London

  Jennifer looked up from her desk to spot John peering round her office door. She bit her tongue and closed her laptop.

  “Hello John. What can I do for you?”

  She watched him squeeze into her office. His bulk looked ridiculous in the confined space, elbows brushing against the walls. She wondered what was so urgent, or so confidential, that it had brought him up here.

  The armchair was piled with files; John looked at it and then at her.

  “Just put it on the floor,” she sighed.

  He picked the pile up and held it for a moment, casting around for a free space.

  “Under the desk.” How long must it have been since John had had to endure cramped conditions like this?

  He deposited it at her feet and slumped into the armchair. He shifted his weight then placed an ankle on his knee.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  She’d arrived late this morning, taking a later train so she could have breakfast with the boys, something she’d been doing for a few weeks, since Samir’s outburst. Today it had backfired, making her start the week grouchy and irritable. Still, he didn’t need to know about all of that.

  “Fine. You’ve never been up here before.”

  He snorted. “Yes I have. Before your time though.”

  She shrugged. Maybe he’d been housed up here in his first or second term, before his promotion to the government and before her election. She didn’t remember Yusuf saying anything about it, at the time. She wondered who’d seen him come up here; the Leader of the Opposition wasn’t in the habit of venturing up to the eaves.

  “Look, Jennifer. I know Catherine could have been hurt, but she wasn’t. We still need to talk about your friendship with her.”

  So this was it. She thought about the last month, the conversations she’d had over the phone with Catherine. Knowing her friend was unhurt had made her warm towards her, and planted an idea in her head, a better idea than John’s. And Catherine’s second promotion – to the Home Office this time – had cemented it there.

  John looked at her, waiting for a reply. She didn’t provide one.

  “Jennifer?”

  “You look tired,” she said, stalling.

  He frowned and pulled at the skin of his cheek. It was grey and loose. “Yeah.”

  “What’s up?”

  He shook his head. “Trask. As ever.”

  She pushed her paperwork to one side. “What’s he done?”

  “Well, he’s not satisfied with the bill he’s already passed. Immigration. The bill I guess a person might say you didn’t stop.”

  She tensed. “You failed to stop it too, John.”

  He laughed. “Don’t say that outside this room. Please. Ever.”

  She smiled. “Of course not. So what’s he planning now? And how do you know what Trask is thinking?”

  “Oh, I have my sources.” He tapped the side of his nose. “The Milan attack has got to him. I guess it’s had the same effect on him as the Home Office bomb did on us.”

  They were both silent for a moment.

  “He’s rattled,” John said. “Wants to retaliate.”

  “How?”

  “Well,” he said, shuffling in his chair. “How do you cope up here, anyway?”

  She laughed. “I’ll be moving when they can find me a better office.”

  “Good. Not right, for shadow cabinet to be up here.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe it is. See how everyone else has to put up with it.”

  “You’ve had your stint. No need to be a martyr about it.”

  “No. So – Trask?”

  “Hmm. OK, so none of this is official. But we do have our ears to the ground.”

  She wondered whose ears he was referring to specifically; certainly not his own. John Hunter and Leonard Trask were both men whose presence in a room was impossible to miss. Whenever they found themselves together, an uneasy silence descended over everyone present, until one of them decided to leave. It could take some time, as neither wanted to give the impression he was running away from the other.

  “So,” said John, examining his bitten fingernails. “He wants to toughen up even more on anyone they think’s a terrorist, plus the people around them. To be honest I think he was planning this before, but Milan has just sped things up.”

  “What’s that got to do with it? The Milan bombers were both Iraqi.” The two men had been travelling under false Italian passports. There had been a backlash in Italy, Muslims being attacked on the street and one group of women having their hijabs ripped from their heads. There had been a countermove on social media, people worldwide declaring solidarity with Muslims, but it wasn’t enough. It was only when the true nationality of the bombers was released that the tensions had died down. Jennifer had watched it in horror, remembering the night when she’d been at the centre of a stabbing just two streets from home.

  John eyed her. “But who’s to say that there aren’t similar men in this country being recruited and brainwashed right now, plotting something similar?”

  “Come on, John. You’re sounding like Michael.”

>   “I’m right, Jennifer. Recruitment is going on, and you know it.”

  She sighed. There was tension in her local mosque, and one of the imams had mysteriously left the city after being suspected of involvement in radicalising teenagers. Luckily it was a different mosque from the one Yusuf took the boys to.

  “Doesn’t he have the police working on that? Security services?”

  “I don’t think he trusts them to do it. Wants to start some sort of citizen army.”

  She stiffened. “What?”

  John spread his hands. “I exaggerate, sorry. An army of citizen spies, more like.”

  “How on earth—?”

  “It’s fairly easy. Reward being a tittle-tattle. Punish being connected to suspects. Anyone who provides the police with information will receive a commendation.”

  “And the punishment?”

  “Extend the deportation laws. Not just terrorist suspects and sympathisers, but families too. Extended families. So the granny of someone Trask’s vigilante army accuses of being a terrorist sympathiser could be out on her ear.”

  Jennifer moved over to the window. All she could see was the roof below and a clear white sky.

  She turned back to him. “So. How do you plan on fighting it?”

  Fatigue passed over his face. “That’s just it. I’m not sure we can.”

  “What do you mean, not sure? This would turn the country into a police state, with everyone spying on their neighbours. What the hell has gone wrong with the world?”

  Her voice had become high pitched. She thought of Samir, of how he would react to this. She turned back to John and glared at him.

  John came to stand next to Jennifer, gazing out of the window. An image sprang to her mind of the Home Office bomb, his face against the glass before it shattered. She shuddered.

  After a few moment’s silence broken only by the coo of pigeons on the roof, he leaned back, still looking out of the window.

  “I need your experience,” he said. “And the fire in your belly. I want you to find out what he’s planning.”

  Catherine was her friend, and she was expected to spy on her, to use her. “I don’t feel comfortable with this.”

  He glanced back at her office door. Seeing it was shut, he inhaled but continued to speak in a low murmur.

  “Why are you refusing me? It’s bloody rude. Why don’t you want to help?”

  Samir’s voice rang in her head. They don’t want us here, Mum. Then the headteacher: a different school. A Muslim school. A segregated school.

  She put up a hand. “I do want to help. But not the way you think.”

  “OK.”

  “I’ve got an idea. Sit down and I’ll run it past you.”

  35

  May 2021. London

  The hotel room was as soulless as any other, despite the extra layers of luxury. Jennifer sat on the soft bed, feeling the mattress dip beneath her weight. Opposite her, the full width mirror reflected her anxiety back at her. Her eyes were rimmed with dark shadows and her hair was dishevelled.

  This won’t do, she thought, and stood up. She crossed to the mirror and licked her forefinger. She rubbed around her eye, wiping off some stray mascara, and then licked her fingers again and used them to straighten her hair. Her roots needed doing.

  A quiet knock came at the door, making her jump. She pinched her cheeks, trying to will some colour into them. Then she gave herself a final look in the mirror and crossed to the door, closing the bathroom door as she passed it.

  She peered through the peephole. There was only one person outside. She pulled back and opened the door, ushering her visitor in.

  “Hi,” she said, closing the door again. Suddenly the incongruity of the hotel room hit her, making her wonder why she’d gone along with this.

  Catherine stopped by the bed, dropping her coat onto it and placing her bag on the floor by her feet. She smiled nervously. “Hi.”

  Jennifer laughed. “This all feels a bit cloak and dagger,” she said.

  Catherine’s face was hard. “Yes,” she agreed. “Necessary, though.”

  A shiver ran through Jennifer. Was this a good idea?

  Catherine turned away from her, stopping at the easy chairs in front of the window. She touched the net curtain that filled the wall, as if deciding whether to look out and then thinking better of it. After a moment she pulled one of the chairs further into the room, and then dragged a low table next to it.

  Jennifer grabbed another chair, pulling it next to Catherine’s. Catherine took her phone from her pocket, glanced at the screen and then turned it off. She placed it on the table between them. “Can’t be too careful.”

  Jennifer frowned and then looked at her own phone which she’d dropped onto the bed after making a couple of calls when she arrived early. Was that wise? This was ridiculous. Two friends meeting for a chat, what was wrong with that?

  Except they were in a hotel room near Heathrow Airport, miles from Westminster. She hadn’t told anyone else she was coming here. Not even John. Not even Yusuf.

  She looked at Catherine. “Does anyone know you’re here?”

  Catherine rubbed her lap. “No.”

  Jennifer steadied her breathing. Calm down, she told herself.

  They both looked up at the sound of voices outside the door. Catherine stared at Jennifer, her eyes wide.

  Jennifer stood and went to the door, leaning her face against the peephole. A group of people, American by the sound of it, were passing in the corridor, heading for another room. Nothing to worry about.

  She turned. “It’s OK,” she breathed. “Just some tourists.”

  Catherine nodded. “Right,” she said. “So, you’ve got me here. What d’you want?”

  36

  June 2021. Birmingham

  “Samir?”

  Jennifer stopped in her tracks, car keys dangling from her hand. She was outside her constituency office, having been in to check on her post before heading out to a meeting at the local hospital.

  Samir turned to her. He was at the centre of a group of boys, huddled over something that one of them shoved into a pocket.

  His eyes grew wide. “Mum.”

  “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at school?”

  He blinked rapidly. One of the other boys nudged him and sniggered. She didn’t know him. Or the other one.

  She stepped forwards, checking her watch. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning. Why aren’t you at school?”

  “Free period,” he muttered. One of the other boys laughed.

  She cocked her head. “Samir, you’re in year eleven. If you had a free period, you’d be in school, studying.”

  He glanced around. “They let us out.”

  He was lying, she knew.

  The other boys had their heads down now, staring at the pavement. One of them was white, the other Asian. Who were they?

  An elderly man barged past, grumbling at her for getting in the way. She scowled and watched him recede, rubbing her shoulder where he had banged into it.

  She turned back to see Samir flash her a wide-eyed stare and a shrug as his friend grabbed his arm and they ran off, disappearing down the gap between two empty shops.

  “Samir!” she shouted. She looked around, wondering if anyone in the office had been watching.

  She hurried to the spot where he had disappeared, peering into the alleyway. But there was no one there. Just piled up rubbish and a discarded sleeping bag. She frowned and headed back to her car, her mind fogged.

  Jennifer didn’t get home till five hours later, after picking Hassan up from school. Yusuf was still out and there was no sign of Samir. She opened the front curtains wide, hoping to spot him coming home. Hassan grumbled at her, annoyed that she was hovering in the living room, disturbing him.

  “Mum, what are you doing?” he whined.

  “Nothing, love. Do your homework.”

  He grunted and leaned over his work, reluctant. On a Friday night he’d rather b
e out with his friends, playing football. But Jennifer didn’t want to leave the house to take him.

  Finally she heard the door slam and she rushed to it, to be confronted by a red-faced Samir.

  “You embarrassed me, Mum.”

  She clenched her fists. She should be accusing him, not the other way around.

  “Why weren’t you at school?”

  “I told you. Free period.”

  She shook her head. “I checked your timetable. You should’ve been in Maths.”

  “Whatever,” he said, pushing past her.

  She grabbed his arm. “Whatever? Is that all you’ve got to say?”

  He shrugged her off.

  Behind her she could hear Hassan laughing at something on the TV. She glanced at the living room door then back at Samir. “Upstairs, now. We need to talk,” she snapped.

  He walked up the stairs, making slow progress. She resisted the urge to push him up.

  Once in his room, Samir slumped onto the bed and picked up his phone, scrolling through it.

  “Put your phone down please.”

  He grunted and threw it to the floor.

  She looked around. His room was unnaturally tidy. The floor was clear and books were stacked in an orderly pile on his desk. The curtains were pulled open and a jacket hung neatly on the back of the door. It was almost as if he didn’t live here. It certainly wasn’t the same room he’d inhabited a few months ago.

  She sighed. She couldn’t criticise him for being tidy. But it felt wrong.

  She took a few deep breaths and decided to change her approach. She edged towards the bed and eased herself onto it, leaving some distance between the two of them.

  She cleared her throat. “OK,” she said. “I’m not going to shout at you. I just want to find out what’s been going on.”

  He grunted.

  “Is this the first time you’ve skipped school, or has it happened before?”

  “Dunno.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. Be patient, she told herself. Losing her rag with him would achieve nothing.