The Division Bell Trilogy

by Rachel McLean

  “Of course.”

  He came back to stand over her. He leaned over and puckered his lips exaggeratedly.

  She lifted herself up from the chair and kissed him. He slipped his arm around her shoulders, holding her in for a few seconds.

  Eventually she fell back onto the chair and he continued to the kettle.

  “You’re in a good mood today,” he said, looking out of the window.

  “I feel determined. Justified.”

  He turned. “What about?”

  “Seeing Catherine again. Telling her what happened last night. That was Trask’s policy. She can’t know it’s still happening.”

  He sighed. “Jen, love.”

  “Don’t.”

  He shook his head. “How do I tell you this?”

  “You don’t.”

  “You don’t know what it is I need to tell you.”

  “I do.”

  “What then?”

  “You’re going to say that I shouldn’t trust Catherine. That she’s just as bad as Trask. That it doesn’t matter that she’s my friend.”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you that she might have been using you all along?”

  She stood up and took a deep breath. The morning air was chilly.

  “I’m not that bad a judge of character, Yusuf.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “Look. I’m going to call Maggie at eight. She’ll be up and about then. She’s the only person who’ll help me right now.”

  “Jen, we need to find that note. It’s the only way you’ll get her to listen.”

  “I know. But it has to be our last resort. What if that doesn’t work? Then where will we be?”

  They both turned. Their front doorbell was ringing, long and insistent.

  “Who’s that?” asked Jennifer.

  “I was going to ask you.”

  “I thought it would be one of your constituents.”

  He frowned. “Could be, I suppose. Hell.”

  He pulled his dressing gown tight around him. He knotted the belt twice and started towards the door.

  “No,” said Jennifer. “Let me go. I’m dressed.”

  He nodded assent. She expected him to dash upstairs and throw some clothes on but instead he stayed in the kitchen where he could eavesdrop.

  She turned the door handle, expecting to see maybe a lone man or woman, maybe a family. Probably Muslim, more than probably scared.

  She took a deep breath. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry. I know this is a bit irregular.”

  “Irregular? You’ll bet it’s irregular. Last time I saw you, you were filling me with sedatives and asking me questions.”

  “Not quite the last time.”

  Jennifer remembered her last moments in the centre, sitting in Yonda’s office, being told she was allowed to go home.

  “No,” she said. “Not quite.”

  The woman looked up and down the street. A car pulled out of a driveway. A man walked past with a screaming toddler pulling at a set of reins. Further down, the Taylors’ house was in darkness.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Sorry.”

  Jennifer pulled back to let her pass. They headed towards the kitchen. Their visitor glanced at the stairs, as if wondering who might be up there. She was pulling at her fingernails.

  Yusuf was trying to look casual, as if he hadn’t been listening in. When he saw their visitor, he looked puzzled. He didn’t recognise her.

  Jennifer looked between the two of them. How much had Yusuf been told about her? Might Samir have confided in him?

  She cleared her throat.

  “Yusuf, meet Meena Ashgar. Samir’s girlfriend.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Mark hated this. He’d had his job ripped away from him, been sent to another centre as an inmate, and still Yonda had him under her spell.

  She’d given him a hundred pounds in cash and the address of a flat in Birmingham. He had no idea if it belonged to the government or it had been rented especially. When he’d arrived, the fridge was bare and the place smelt of feet and stale food. It looked clean enough though; the cupboards bare, wardrobes empty.

  He looked out of the window towards the canal. This was no luxury canal-side apartment. A mile or so out of the city centre, it backed onto a stretch of water whose banks were littered with discarded cigarette packets and used syringes. A path two storeys below his window led into the city. He sure as hell wasn’t using that.

  Spaghetti Junction was half a mile in the opposite direction, the constant roar of traffic pounding in his ears when he tried to sleep. He’d been here two nights. He hadn’t done what Yonda had told him to. Not yet.

  “She trusts you,” Yonda had said to him, in Steve’s office. Steve had watched, his ankle crossed on his knee and a quizzical expression on his face. Mark wondered how Yonda had inveigled her way into his office, even more how she’d found the authority to get Mark released.

  He slumped onto the scuffed grey sofa bed that had afforded him so little sleep. It was stained, dim grey stains and smaller, rusty stains that he preferred not to investigate. Or to lie on.

  Yonda was expecting a call. He should have called her last night, but had managed to get away with a garbled voicemail message when she hadn’t answered her phone. He pictured her sitting at her vast desk in the centre, watching her phone. Waiting. Would Meena be there with her, waiting too?

  He stood up. If this took longer than three days, she’d warned him, with a sidelong glance at Steve, he’d be back in the centre. The men’s centre, not Burcot Park.

  The front door had five locks. He unbolted each of them then slipped into the dark corridor, looking left and right for signs of other occupants. Behind a door he heard a woman shouting. Eat your effing breakfast, Ollie, or I’ll chuck it in the bin. Ollie. He had a moment of panic as he imagined his own five-year-old son in there, refusing to eat his eggs again.

  He crept past the woman’s door and headed for the bare concrete stairs. It was raining.

  Mark pulled up the collar of his suit jacket, the suit he’d been wearing when Yonda had brought two police officers to his office, and had him taken away. He wished he’d thought to grab a coat as he passed the hook on the back of his door. He wished he’d thought to ask Yonda what was going on, why they were taking him. He wished a lot of things.

  At the bottom of the stairs, two teenagers huddled close together, both clad in hoodies and low-slung jeans that exposed their backs. They must be freezing. One of them nodded at him and the other one leaned back, inhaling deeply as he looked up at the sky. He exhaled a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke. He looked down and passed a spliff to his mate.

  “Want some?”

  Mark realised the boy was talking to him.

  “Er—no. No, thanks.”

  Maybe Vee had been right, taking their son Olivier abroad. Maybe this wasn’t a place to raise a child. He’d be old enough to start school now, somewhere in Canada. Exactly where, he had no idea.

  Would helping Yonda bring him any closer to finding his son? Could he make a bargain with her?

  He took a deep breath. If he didn’t do this, someone else would. He could see the logic behind it. It wasn’t just paranoia on Yonda’s part.

  He turned north, towards the motorway, and started walking.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Samir doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “That’s what I said,” replied Jennifer. “When Edward told me.”

  “Edward?” said Yusuf. “Hang on minute. It’s her?”

  Meena stood quietly by the kitchen door, watching this exchange. She shrank back as Yusuf raised his voice. He turned towards her, his eyes blazing.

  “You’re the reason our son was taken away!”

  She blushed. “I’m sorry. I never intended—”

  He advanced on her. “I don’t care what you intended. If Samir hadn’t met you, he’d still be here with us today.”

/>   “I know.” She lowered her head, not making eye contact. “I never meant for him to become involved.”

  “But he didn’t. He wasn’t involved. All they had on him was this relationship with you. That photo.”

  Jennifer spotted Meena frowning. She didn’t know about the photo.

  She raised her head. “I know you don’t want to hear this. But he did get involved.” She sniffed. “I’m so sorry.”

  Yusuf raised his hand and held it still, glaring at her. His cheeks were inflamed and he was shaking. Then he loosened and let his arm drop.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re just a girl.”

  She nodded.

  Jennifer stepped forwards. “How did you get here?”

  “I’ve got a week’s leave. I thought I owed it to you to—”

  “Too right you do,” muttered Yusuf. Jennifer put a hand on his arm. He turned to her, his lips tight.

  “How did she find us?”

  Jennifer looked at Meena.

  “Your file, at the centre,” the younger woman replied.

  Jennifer felt hollow, thinking about the centre. She’d been trying to put it behind her, even as she was working to get it closed down.

  “Have you come to take me back?” she asked.

  “What? No.”

  “Then why are you here?” asked Yusuf.

  He backed towards the table, not taking his eyes off Meena. When he stumbled into a chair he let it take his weight, almost falling to the floor as he sat.

  “Go easy on her love,” Jennifer said. “She’s as much a victim of all this as Samir.”

  “She worked at the centre. She’s part of the system.”

  “We’ve all been part of the system in one way or another.”

  He said nothing, but eyed Meena, who shrank under his gaze.

  “I didn’t believe her at first, either,” Jennifer said. “But I think she loved Samir.” She looked at Meena. “Maybe still does.”

  Meena nodded, her cheeks darkening.

  “Damn odd way she’s got of showing it,” said Yusuf. “Getting him involved with a terrorist group.”

  “It wasn’t as simple as that,” said Meena. “No one forced him. And it wasn’t a terrorist group. It wasn’t even an Islamist group. We just wanted to stop the attacks on Muslims. We wanted to stand up for ourselves, since the state wasn’t doing it for us. And the mosques—well, the moderate ones were just too weak. Too compliant.”

  “You’re talking about my mosque,” Yusuf snapped.

  “Sorry. Nothing personal. Like I said, I’m really sorry that Samir got caught up in it all. Really I am.”

  He shook his head and turned away from her, wiping his eye. Jennifer squeezed his arm but he shook her off.

  She turned to Meena. “Tell me how you got here again.”

  A shrug. “The train. Probably the same one as you.”

  “They let you have a week off? Did they know you were coming here?” She hesitated. “Did they put you up to it?”

  Meena took a step forward. Yusuf’s eyes narrowed and she stepped back again. “No one from the centre knows I’m here.”

  “Not even the women?”

  “I couldn’t risk telling them.”

  “No.”

  Jennifer looked past Meena towards the stairs. Hassan never woke until he was forcibly dragged out of bed, but she didn’t want him suddenly appearing.

  “Yusuf, do you mind checking on Hassan?” she said.

  He looked at her. “Why me?”

  “I don’t want him to find Meena here. Not like this. Please.”

  He stood and put a weary hand on her arm. Meena shuffled to one side to let him pass, lowering her head again.

  “Sit with me,” said Jennifer. “Tell me how they are.”

  Meena looked towards Yusuf, who was dragging his feet up the stairs. When he was out of sight, she sat next to Jennifer.

  “They’re not good,” she said.

  “How d’you mean?”

  “Things have got stricter. The orderlies are sitting in on group sessions.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “If the women don’t cooperate, if they get out of line, the counsellors are expected to let the orderlies intervene.”

  “Intervene?”

  “Physically.”

  “Shit.”

  Jennifer thought of Maryam, Paula and Bel, left behind. Bel would never survive a regime like Meena was describing. She’d been barely aware of her surroundings most of the time, and could hardly string a sentence together, let alone recite the oath or go through the six steps. Maryam and Paula would do their best, but they were only human. Even Sally, angry, scapegoating Sally, didn’t deserve a beating.

  “What about Mark?” she asked. “Dr Clarke? Is he going along with it?” She thought of the way Mark had treated her, the promises he had made to help her get out. It contrasted so harshly with the way he’d treated Rita, humiliating her in group and leaving her to the mercy of the orderlies.

  “Didn’t you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Mark’s gone. He was arrested.”

  “Arrested?”

  “Just before you left.”

  “Why?”

  A shrug. “No idea.”

  Did Meena know what Mark had done? He’d attempted to game the system, to load the syringe with something benign and not the truth drug. To help Jennifer lie her way through Celebration. Maybe he’d done it for other women too.

  “Who’s Mark?’

  She jumped. Yusuf was standing in the doorway. Hassan was next to him. He shrank back when he saw Meena.

  Meena gasped. Her face softened. “Is this Hassan?”

  Yusuf put a hand on Hassan’s shoulder. “How do you know his name?”

  “Samir told me.” She stood up. “And there was me thinking you were just a little brother. You’re a young man.”

  Yusuf fronted and Hassan smiled. “I’m twelve,” he said.

  “Pleased to meet you, Hassan,” said Meena. “I’m Meena. I’m—”

  “I said, who’s Mark?” interrupted Yusuf.

  “Dr Clarke. My counsellor,” said Jennifer. “The one who tried to help me.” She thought of the way Mark had panicked at Rita’s outburst in group, his weary face bent to the intercom. He’d let the orderlies drag her away.

  She turned to Meena.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said. “But I don’t think you should stay here. The cameras…”

  Meena nodded. Her eyes were an orangey-brown colour, with long lashes. Jennifer could understand what Samir had seen in her.

  “But I haven’t told you what I came here for,” she said.

  Yusuf sighed and muttered in Hassan’s ear. He frowned then left the room.

  “What’s that?” Yusuf asked, his voice weary.

  Meena looked at him then at Jennifer. She let her tongue poke out for a moment, her upper teeth resting on it.

  “I’ve found Samir,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Rita’s entire body hurt. Her feet were covered in weeping blisters, her legs threatened to give way at any moment, and her head felt like it was full of angry wasps.

  But still she kept walking. The prospect of stopping terrified her. Fear of the people she might meet. Of being picked up by the police. She hadn’t seen a newspaper or TV since her escape, but was sure her photo would be everywhere, telling the world there was a dangerous, subversive woman on the run.

  She wondered what had happened to Sonia. Had she survived the crash? Would she be under suspicion herself? Could she end up in a British Values Centre because she’d helped Rita?

  What had happened to this country, that people were called dissidents because they showed some human decency?

  She’d followed a sign to Birmingham that she’d found when roaming Worcester in despair. It took her along twenty miles of trunk road. Just one village to get through and a small town with its bypass. She kep
t to the bypass, relying on the fact that it would avoid built-up areas and the possibility of discovery. But the village was more challenging. She to skirted it as well as she could, finding a quiet lane with just a few houses at the edge. The lane continued for a mile or so, veering away from the main road and making her worry that she’d lose her way.

  At last she reached a junction with a road heading back the right way, and collapsed with exhaustion and relief. After what could have been minutes or hours, she found herself lying on the grass verge, there for anyone to see.

  Two days ago she’d started at a steady walk. Now it was a desperate stumbling ahead, focused only on the next step and then the next until she reached the outskirts of Birmingham.

  She got to her house late afternoon, scuttling along familiar pathways and keeping out of sight of the roads. She knew these streets well, the benefit of walking everywhere, and now it kept her safe.

  As dusk fell she took shelter in an unused alleyway opposite her house and watched it. There was a spare key under a plant pot at the end of the back garden, which she could access via an alleyway that ran behind the houses. But the authorities would be looking for her.

  She looked up and down the street, glad of the hoody to cover her head. It was a warm evening for February. The occasional couple walked past on their way to the pub on the next street. A small group of teenagers loitered on the corner at the far end. But there was something new; a camera, high on the lamp post opposite her house. It was pointed towards her bedroom window.

  She told herself it had been put there to watch the street as a whole, maybe focusing on the pub. But there was no doubting what it was watching now.

  She yawned and dragged herself up to standing. She couldn’t face another night walking, but had nowhere nearby to go. All her friends were teachers at the school. She didn’t want to risk their safety.

  It was getting dark now. She was tired. She looked like a vagrant, someone the police might pay attention to.

  She’d cried as she walked the first night, the tears starting after Ash had been taken away, not stopping for almost six hours. She’d made the wrong decision by escaping, she knew that now. She’d die out here. If not attacked by one of the shadowy figures she’d seen slipping past on the late-night streets, then she’d starve. Prison at least meant food, and the chance of eventual release.