Praise for Khurrum Rahman

‘Told with striking panache. Announces the arrival of a fine, fresh new thriller writer’

Daily Mail

‘Combining humour and tragedy is one of the hardest literary challenges, but Khurrum Rahman succeeds.’

TLS

‘A brilliant thriller. You’d be mad not to buy this.’

Ben Aaronovitch

‘A very funny but tense thriller… Think Four Lions meets Phone Shop’

Red

‘As much a coming-of-age story as a full-on action thriller, East of Hounslow is thought-provoking and entirely gripping.’

Guardian

‘Excellent book. Phenomenal writing.’

BA Paris

‘Sweary, funny and, above all, an absolutely cracking thriller that you’ll tear through, this is the anti-James Bond that the 21st century needs’

Emerald Street

‘East of Hounslow, in which a young Muslim finds himself forced to become an MI5 plant in a group of jihadists, is as British as Nelson’s Column. A superb and exciting debut novel’

Telegraph

‘The best thriller I’ve read in ages’

Stephen Leather

‘I loved it. More please’

Mel McGrath

‘Builds to a heart-constricting climax’

Times Crime Club

‘Clipped dialogues, staccato sentences and the hilariously brilliant prose set the pace of this excellent unputdownable crime thriller. The climax will leave you breathless.’

New Indian Express

Born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1975 KHURRUM RAHMAN moved to England when he was one. He is a West London boy and now lives in Berkshire with his wife and two sons.

Khurrum is currently working as a Senior IT Officer but his real love is writing. He has a screenplay which has been optioned by a Danish TV producer but is now concentrating on novels.

His first two books in the Jay Qasim series, East of Hounslow and Homegrown Hero have been shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel and CWA John Creasey Debut Dagger.

Ride or Die

Khurrum Rahman

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Khurrum Rahman 2020

Khurrum Rahman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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 e-book on-screen. No part of this text 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 or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008322434

Version 2020-06-16

Note to Readers

This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

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 Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008322434

In memory of my beautiful Dad x

Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

Prologue

Part 1

Chapter 1: Javid Qasim (Jay)

Chapter 2: Imran Siddiqui (Imy)

Chapter 3: Jay

Chapter 4: Imy

Chapter 5: Jay

Chapter 6: Imy

Chapter 7

Chapter 8: Jay

Chapter 9: Imy

Chapter 10

Chapter 11: Jay

Chapter 12: Jay

Chapter 13: Imy

Chapter 14: Jay

Chapter 15: Imy

Chapter 16: Jay

Chapter 17: Imy

Chapter 18: Jay

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21: Jay

Chapter 22

Chapter 23: Jay

Chapter 24: Imy

Chapter 25

Chapter 26: Jay

Chapter 27

Chapter 28: Jay

Chapter 29: Jay

Chapter 30

Chapter 31: Jay

Part 2

Chapter 32: Jay

Chapter 33: The Teacher

Chapter 34: Imy

Chapter 35: Jay

Chapter 36: Imy

Chapter 37: Jay

Chapter 38: Imy

Chapter 39: Jay

Chapter 40: Imy

Chapter 41

Chapter 42: Jay

Chapter 43: Imy

Chapter 44: Jay

Chapter 45: Jay

Chapter 46

Chapter 47: Jay

Chapter 48: Imy

Chapter 49: Jay

Chapter 50: Imy

Chapter 51: Jay

Chapter 52: Imy

Chapter 53: Jay

Chapter 54: Imy

Chapter 55: Jay

Chapter 56: Imy

Chapter 57: Jay

Chapter 58: Imy

Chapter 59: Jay

Chapter 60: Imy

Chapter 61: Jay

Chapter 62: Imy

Chapter 63: Jay

Chapter 64: Imy

Chapter 65: Jay

Chapter 66: Jay

Chapter 67: Imy

Chapter 68: Jay

Chapter 69: Imy

Chapter 70: Jay

Chapter 71: Imy

Chapter 72: Jay

Chapter 73: The Teacher

Chapter 74: Jay

Chapter 75: Imy

Chapter 76: Jay

Acknowledgements

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

In that very heartbeat, I knew what I had to do.

As I watched, his small hand emerged out of his pocket, a detonator gripped high above his head, high enough for me to see. In a hall full of guests, I alone was his audience and he had my attention. The serene smile on the face of the ten-year-old boy was one of no regret and no fear of death, only victory. There would be no second guessing, no degree of falling to my knees and begging to sacrifice my life for the lives of my family.

There was only one way it would go. This was my punishment.

His serene smile was the last thing I saw before a white light filled my eyes and an explosion filled my ears. He took his own life and snatched away everything that I had allowed myself to believe would forever be mine.

I held my family in my arms, tight to me, their faces and bodies burnt and broken and breathless. Through my tears and through my screams, I never once asked why.

I knew why.

The rage was the only emotion that I’d felt and I welcomed it back like an old friend.

I knew what I had to do, and I would allow the rage to dictate my actions.

Part 1

Fake News.

Definition: Bullshit information fed by bullshit media to fit a bullshit narrative.

Chapter 1
Javid Qasim (Jay)

Flat on my backside, arms flopped to my side, laid out on a sun lounger with one of those big umbrella things above me, protecting me from the blazing sun, with nothing but another lazy day ahead of me. On the small plastic table next to me, a bottle of water sat upright on top of a book. Yeah, a book! Seemed like a good idea at the time. Seemed like a holiday thing to do, but really I could not be arsed. Give me some credit, though, I attempted it, ripped through a few chapters, but it just felt way too much like homework. Fuck, man, I barely did homework at school, I sure ain’t doing homework on holiday! Next to the book was my phone, also taking a well-deserved rest, and some loose change that amounted to either a fortune or jack-shit. I don’t know, I still hadn’t sussed out the exchange rate.

I sighed the sigh of a man who had finally sat down. I accompanied it with a noisy stretch which turned into a big fat yawn. Good times, that may just get better from what I could see in front of me.

Through the tango tint of my replica designer shades I glanced across the pool and the brunette who was giving me the eyes yesterday was doing so again. I wasn’t surprised, I’d hit the weights twice in the last couple of weeks, and possibly this attention was a result of that. I crossed my arms across my chest, hoping that the curve of a bicep might make an appearance. I lifted my shades onto my forehead, and gave her the elevator eyes. I decided against a wink, instead giving her the smallest of smiles, no teeth, not yet, just one side of my lips curling a touch. That’s enough for today. I’d played this game before, with varying results. I’d keep it cool. With a flick of a finger I slid my shades down my forehead, but they fell too far down my nose and I had to quickly readjust. Great! She’d turned her attention elsewhere.

A member of staff approached. Unlike me he was showing teeth and smiling wildly. He towered over me, blocking my view. His too-tight shorts too close to my face, he handed me an already dripping lemonade ice-lolly that I’d forgotten I’d ordered, and didn’t feel like anymore, and started jabbering on about some excursion or another, thrusting flyers in my face. I reached across to the table and picked up a couple of coins and held them up to my face, squinting, trying to figure out how little of a tip I could get away with. I handed him one Qatari Rial and took a flyer from him and waved him away with it as I considered jumping in the pool.

This had been my spot for the last two weeks, with another two weeks to come. And I didn’t have the inconvenience of waking up at fuck-off-o’clock in the morning to come and plant my towel on the lounger, as is the international method of reservation. No, man, this was my mum’s joint and she called the shots. It was actually the Marriott Hotel in Doha, Qatar, and Mum worked there on reception. She had a word with one of the lifeguards to keep the shaded lounger reserved for me during my stay, because she knew better than anybody how sensitive my skin was to the sun.

I had finally managed to get out to Qatar to visit Mum and Andrew, her now fiancé. His proposal was a long, convoluted story which I lost interest in pretty quickly when they told me, but there were dolphins, a hot air balloon and a lost shoe involved. He was alright, Andrew, made Mum smile and laugh. He made her happy. Even though they were settled in a Muslim country, nobody questioned their so-called interfaith relationship. It would have been worse in Hounslow!

Yeah, man, life was good, you know. Well, it was good right then.

In a couple of weeks, I’d fly back home to an empty house and an empty life. I’d sit on my trusty armchair and face up to the fact that I was quickly running out of money, currently unemployed and had jack-shit to fill my days with. It crossed my mind that I should go crawling back to my old IT Helpdesk role at the London Borough of Hounslow. I mean, I never officially left. I just hadn’t been in for the last eight months. I didn’t even phone in my absence. I mean, what would I tell them? How would I explain the death in the family? That my old man was tracked down then shot down as part of a large-scale government operation that I was central to.

Can you imagine that conversation?

So instead I ignored the emails and phone calls from my team leader, then I ignored the emails, phone calls and letters from HR. I just couldn’t be arsed to go back, figured that I had too much to sort out. Turns out I didn’t have jack-shit to do. Abdul Bin Jabbar was dead and MI5 had no use for me. I should’ve been glad. It’s what I wanted. What I thought I wanted.

My life came to a standstill and the world continued to spin without my interference.

It gave me time to reflect. Eight months of sitting in my armchair watching Piers, Lorraine and Holly and those crazy Loose Women, as I tried to work out what matters and what fucking doesn’t. I was done with doing the right thing in the wrong way, and I was done thinking about those that didn’t deserve my fucking attention. But, you know, sometimes your mind betrays you.

The fuck, man! Stop with this self-pity bullshit.

I had Christmas in the sun with Mum to look forward to. I realised that my nails were digging into my palms. I flexed my fingers and shook my head clear of that shit. Those demons could take a back fucking seat.

I lifted my head and peered over the rim of my shades across the pool to see if I could re-establish eye contact with my soon-to-be holiday romance. I watched her carefully, still perfectly poised, one leg stretched, the other bent at the knee looking like an Instagram post. She was no longer looking in my direction. She was chatting merrily away to a copper.

He had gallantly picked up her towel, which had dropped to the floor, and handed it to her. She smiled and flirted her way through a show of gratitude. I had been about to make my move on her, tomorrow or the day after. But I had no chance with him knocking about.

I laughed to myself in disbelief. If I’d had a pen and a pad, I’d have been taking notes.

I took him in. He wasn’t in police uniform. In fact, he’s wasn’t wearing a stitch, apart from a pair of barely-there lime-green trunks that he’d probably borrowed from his ten-year-old nephew. He gave her a Sheriff’s nod and sauntered away, her eyes tracking his movement as he rounded the pool and approached me with a perfect smile on his stupid face.

My best mate, and Hounslow’s finest detective – his words, not mine – Idris Zaidi. I hadn’t seen him in, I don’t know, a couple of months? A few? A long time considering that we once lived in each other’s pockets. Despite the fact that he’d got in the way of what could very well have been The One, Idris was just what I needed.

‘They’re letting anyone in here now, are they?’ I beamed up at him. ‘This is supposed to be a five-star joint.’

‘They dropped a star as soon as you walked in,’ Idris replied. ‘You going to get up and greet me properly or do you want to do this horizontally? You know I’ll do it!’

I laughed and straightened up, and we bumped fists before bumping bare chests. It was as awkward as it sounds.

‘Mum?’ I asked.

‘Yeah,’ he said, using a straight hand to shield the sun from his eyes. ‘She called me, said you might need some company, so you know, thought I swing by.’ He smiled and ruffled my hair. The girl from across the pool was laughing like a cheerleader as though the jock had just kicked sand in the nerd’s face. I knocked his hand away.

‘Swing by?’ I said, fixing my hair with a flick of my hand. ‘It’s a six-and-a-half-hour flight.’

As sunny as my disposition allowed me to be, Mum had read me inside and out. She recognised that I was at war with myself. She’d made the right call to the right person. It was just what I needed. I’d never tell Idris this, but he was just what I needed.

In the evening Mum and Andrew joined us for a meal at one of the many bars at the Marriott. This one, can’t remember the name, something corny, turned into a nightclub late on and I could already see it filling up with young hungry holiday-makers and well-dressed hookers looking to clean them out for a slice of dirty heaven.

‘We should call it a night,’ Mum said, joined at the hip to Andrew, opposite us in a booth.

Idris glanced at his watch. ‘It’s only just gone nine. Can I tempt you with a nightcap?’

Idris always did that, always spoke like that around certain company, a little hoity-toity for my liking. Who says tempt you with a night cap? Like he’s just stepped out of a black-and-white flick.

‘I wouldn’t mind an early night, actually,’ Andrew said, making eyes at Mum.

I wanted to believe that age was catching up with them, and that they were heading up to rest their old bones and not… you know. I made a face. Mum noticed, smiled beautifully at me, and they shuffled out of the booth. Idris stood up and gave Mum a cuddle, and shook hands heartily with Andrew, and told him what an immense pleasure it was to meet him. Seriously Idris, keep that shit real, man!

Mum beckoned me over to one side, away from Andrew and Idris, and softly asked me the same question that she had been asking for the last two weeks.

‘Are you okay, Jay?’

It was a double-barrelled, fully loaded question. We both understood the meaning of it, but neither of us was willing to mention or even acknowledge the fact that my dad, her husband, was dead. We just had to read it in each other’s eyes.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Are you?’

Mum smiled and replied. ‘I am.’

I watched her watch me for a moment before landing one on my cheek and then rubbing off the lipstick with her thumb. She stepped away and linked arms with Andrew, then with a joint smile they walked out of the bar.

‘Right.’ Idris rubbed his hands together like he was trying to start a fire. ‘Drinks?’

‘Yeah, go on,’ I said. I didn’t have to tell him my order. He knew.

Idris went off and ordered the first round of alcoholic drinks of the night. It wasn’t like we were hiding it from Mum, I think she knew, but I would never feel comfortable drinking around her. I did quit for a while, possibly due to the company I was keeping, but I was back on it. It helped, other times it hindered, but each time it numbed and clouded what I didn’t want to see.

My stomach rumbled at the thought of drinking on empty. Once again, my choice of meal had been poor. I’d bent two knives trying to cut through the steak, so I gave up. The potatoes were too squishy, so I left those. The vegetables I didn’t touch, because they were vegetables.

‘Here,’ Idris said, handing me my drink, a bag of crisps, and some sort of health bar. ‘Figured you might be hungry,’ he said, taking a seat opposite me.

‘The hell is this?’ I said, holding up the health bar, all raisins and berries.

‘You don’t want it?’ he said. ‘I’ll have it.’

‘No. I’ll have it,’ I said, taking a bite out of it. ‘So, what’s new?’ I asked, through a mouthful.

‘Honestly, I needed to get out of Hounslow. That place is starting to depress me.’

‘Yeah, it’s not what it used to be. Lost some of its charm.’ I split open the bag of crisps longways and nodded at Idris to help himself. He shook his head. ‘Gone are the days when you could sort out shit with a good scrap. Now it’s all blades and shooters.’

‘It’s worse than that, Jay.’

‘Drugs?’ I nodded. Idris worked for the Met’s Drugs Directorate; he was basically a Narc. It was a role that had taken its toll on him. ‘Fucking junkies are taking over Hounslow.’

‘Worse than that, Jay.’ Idris took a sip and watched me over the rim. It was starting to become clear that he hadn’t just flown over to work on his tan.

‘What’s happened, Idris?’ I said, shifting my drink from one spot to another for no apparent reason.

‘I’ve been meaning to chat to you, but I couldn’t get hold of you at home. You could’ve mentioned that you were flying off on holiday.’ Idris took his time clearing his throat. ‘So when your mum called, I thought, I’m due time off work, so why not. I’ll fly over.’

Stalling…

‘What’s happened, Idris?’ I asked, again.

He took a sip of his drink, and dropped his gaze. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and evenly and eventually, he asked, ‘The name Imran Siddiqui mean anything to you?’

I sat back in my chair and measured the question. Yeah, that name meant something to me, but I wasn’t quite sure what. Imran, or Imy as I knew him, used to knock about with this stoner, Shaz, and on occasion when I was juggling, they’d pick up off me at the back of the Homebase car park, Isleworth. Some shit-talk and that was it, everyone on their merry way. Once I quit dealing, I didn’t see much of either of them.

Until one day Imy tried to fucking assassinate me.

From what little I found out, Imran Siddiqui was a sleeper agent for the terrorist cell, Ghurfat-al-Mudarris, and when said terrorist cell slapped a fatwa on my head, it was on him to carry it out. He couldn’t go through with it, though. Living in London, in Hounslow, had softened him, I guess. The fuck do I know!? All I know is that I was looking down the barrel of a gun and then I wasn’t.

‘What about him?’ I asked, drained all of a sudden. All that optimism dissipated out of me.

‘Do you know him?’ Idris said, one fucking word at a time, like I was a child.

‘I’ve seen him around,’ I shrugged. ‘Way back when, when I was hustling, he used to pick up a little weed off me… You going to tell me what’s on your mind, Idris?’

‘You haven’t seen him since?’

I wasn’t about to give it up that easily.

‘Yeah, knocking around town, probably. Fuck, man, what’s with the questions?’

‘He got married… Last week.’

I shrugged. ‘Yeah?’ The lights dimmed above me as the DJ took his place behind the booth, a ripple of excitement from the few early ravers. ‘Good for him,’ I said. ‘What’s that got to do with me?’

The DJ spun his first track, a Christmas classic remixed with a jaunty Euro-trash beat. Idris leaned in over the table so he could be heard over the music. I didn’t know what he was going to say but I had a feeling I didn’t want to hear it. I moved back even further in my seat and crossed my arms as I willed my knee to stop hammering under the table. He inclined with his head for me to join him at the middle of the table. I sighed, leaned in and met him there, our foreheads almost touching.

‘Ten days ago, there was an attack at his wedding reception,’ he said. ‘A bomb went off,’ he fucking said.

Chapter 2
Imran Siddiqui (Imy)

I used to have this itch. I’d scratch it and it would appear elsewhere. I’d scratch there. Then somewhere else. It would leave me with scrapes and grazes all over my head and body. At times I would break skin and bleed. It was a condition brought on by stress. Brought on by knowing with certainty that one day my past would catch up with me and destroy all those that I cared about.

I no longer have that itch. I no longer have that stress. My past caught up with me.

His name was Rafi Kabir, and at ten years old he was a child desperately trying to be a man. He reminded me of myself at that age, dripping in poison and ready to infect the whole world for a belief shared by millions but no longer by me. From the first time that I’d set eyes on him, I knew that he had the will to one day achieve what I never could.

I’d only spent a short time in his company, but Rafi often crossed my mind. The cocksure smile, the bravado, as though, at ten, he had it all worked out. Spitting out words with raw intention, the vicious promise to kill for his people, when at that age, his people should have been running around a playground, and not a battlefield.

But that’s not how he was brought up. He was a product of his environment. His father, his brother and his mother, all had a part to play in polluting an innocent mind with sick thoughts.

I had walked away from him, desperately relieved that he would never cross my path again, and I would never again have to look at the hatred in his eyes.

Life has a way about it, though.

An uninvited guest at my wedding. Standing beside my son, Jack, my wife, Stephanie, and my Khala. Waiting, just waiting for the right moment for me to notice him, acknowledge him. With guests in my ear, hands out for me to shake, and pats on my back, I noticed him.

I noticed the detonator, too big in his small hands.

My eyes moved hungrily over my family, one last time. I was too far away to save them but close enough to see the smiles on their faces. They were the happiest I had ever seen.

It’s how I would remember them.

My Khala was like a mother to me. I buried her the day after she’d been killed. As a Muslim, it had to be that way. Then I waited ten days locked away at home, lying on my side, staring through a small gap in the curtains as it shifted continuously from darkness to light to darkness. I ignored the knocks on the door, the phone calls and the well-wishers, and mourned them just as I had once mourned my parents. But I was older now, stronger, no longer a boy. And I had nothing or nobody left to lose.

On the tenth day, I put on the same black tie and suit and buried Stephanie, my wife only for a day, and Jack, my son. He would have turned six that day. We’d planned to celebrate on the beach in the Maldives, a joint celebration of our marriage, his birthday, and a future that I had been foolish to present to them. I had ripped the tickets into the smallest of shreds and then Sellotaped them back together and placed them in the inside pocket of my suit jacket.

I stood alone at the side of the graves, the rest of the mourners stood away on the other side. To them I was damaged, a disease, someone to steal glances at and blame. Stephanie’s mother and father would have stood by my side, but they too had been murdered on our wedding day.

Somebody, I don’t know who, had hired out an old tavern for the wake. And somebody, I don’t know who, said a few words. The mourners, who had been guests at our wedding, sat and listened in grim silence, surrounded with cheap Christmas decorations, knowing how close they themselves had come to death. They drank, they ate, they whispered, they stared. I felt the blame directed at me and accepted every judgement. They walked away, leaving me on my own with ringing messages of consolation and promises of support. It meant nothing to me. They meant nothing to me. I’d never see them again.

Last to leave, I walked out of the tavern and into the early evening darkness that the winter brings. My Prius sat alone in the small car park, a thin layer of snow melting away as the weather changed to a cold rain.

I unlocked the car and lifted the boot. From under the spare tyre I picked up a roll of plastic food bags, a handful of elastic bands, and a Glock .40-calibre handgun and suppressor. I pushed the boot shut and sat in my car, placing the items on the driver’s seat. I started the car and as I waited for it to warm up I felt a presence outside.

My hand reached across and instinctively I gripped the cold steel barrel of my gun and turned to look outside my window. A figure wrapped up in a black puffa and a woolly Raiders hat that I recognised, ambled slowly and uneasily towards me, each step more tentative than his last. I dropped the gun on the seat and placed my hands on my lap.

Shaz was the only other person left in this world that I cared about. But the cards had been dealt and turned over and he had walked away from my life without a goodbye. Because of who I was. Because of what I had brought into his life.

We watched each other for a moment through the driver’s side window, replaying the same events in our minds. I had once hurt him and I hadn’t seen him since. I blinked away the memory and slid down the window.

‘I’m… I’m so sorry.’ He said the words I should have said to him a long time ago.

I took my eyes away from him and stared straight ahead at the Christmas lights running along the roof of the tavern.

‘Steph… Jack… Khala… I don’t know what to say… I’m sorry.’

I turned back to him. His teeth chattered and his body visibly shook from the cold or from facing me again. He looked at me for a response and I wanted to give him one. I wanted to get out of the car, put my arm around him and buy him a drink. I wanted to hear him regale me with the first world problems that always seemed to bother him. I wanted to hear his laughter. I wanted to hold him.

Instead, I nodded blankly.

‘Anything I can do?’ He shrugged softly.

I shook my head.

‘I’ve moved away.’ Shaz hesitated. I didn’t blame him for not telling me where. I had once brought hell to his doorstep.

‘It’s okay,’ I said.

Shaz looked embarrassed at what our friendship had become. He shifted his eyes away from mine and they landed on the passenger seat, on the roll of plastic food bags, the elastic bands, before resting on the handgun and suppressor. He blinked as though trying to find the common factor between the items. He couldn’t. How could he?

I watched him jerk back, as though he had just been pulled back from stepping onto a busy road. His eyes were wide, wild, worried, expressing what words could not.

‘I have to go,’ I said.

I slid the window up, my eyes not leaving his, and shifted the gear into D and drove away. In my rear-view mirror, past Jack’s car seat, I watched Shaz get smaller and smaller until he disappeared out of my life.

Chapter 3
Jay

‘Jay,’ Idris called. ‘Did you hear what I said?’

Imy got married? There was an attack? A bomb went off? Yeah, I fucking heard him.

Not able to bring words to my lips, I nodded and snatched my eyes away from his. Over Idris’ shoulder, a gaggle of giggling girls moved onto the dance floor. A group of three lads followed, all tight jeans and tight T-shirts and perfect glow-in-the-dark teeth. They stood at a safe distance, eyes set on the girls as they coolly nodded their heads to the bass. In an effort to impress, one of them decided to break the monotony and bust a move. His body moved too fast to the music as he drew invisible shapes with his hands. Too soon, I thought, bide your time, mate.

‘Aren’t you going to say anything, Jay?’

‘Is he dead?’ I asked.

Idris shook his head. ‘No… But there were fatalities.’

I nodded again, my eyes still over his shoulder. The over-enthusiastic dancer had peeled away from the group and shimmied closer to the girls. His friends watched and laughed on as though they were used to such an audacious move.

‘Who?’ I said.

‘Imran lost his wife and son… He lost his Khala… He lost his mother- and father-in-law.’ He held up an open hand. ‘Five fatalities. Six including the bomber. And a whole lot of guests were left with life-changing injuries.’

I nodded and kept nodding. The disco dancer had made himself a sixth toe, bang in the middle of the group of girls. He carried a huge smile, lighting up his face as the girls laughed and danced around him. I wondered what his biggest problem was. If he had any. I wondered if he would continue to live the rest of his life as free and happy as he was at that moment.

‘How?’ I said, not yet able to form any more than one-word responses.

Idris shook his head again, this time sadly, and took his time telling me. ‘The bomber. His name was Rafi Kabir. He was ten fucking years old.’

I blinked and moved my eyes from the dance floor and they landed on the traffic light disco lights at the foot of the DJ booth. I watched them flash from red to blue to green. Red to blue to green. Red… Blue… Green. I focused on them until they were burning a hole in my eyes.

‘Jay,’ Idris said, putting a hand on my arm. I turned to him, the colours in my eyes moving with me. The bass thumping through my heart. ‘You okay?’ I nodded. He wrongly took it as a sign to continue. ‘Rafi walked into Osterley Park Hotel with an explosives vest strapped to his chest under his sherwani. He detonated at the head table where they all sat.’

‘But not Imy.’

‘No.’ Idris narrowed his eyes, picking up that I called him Imy, when I had told him I didn’t know him all that well. ‘Not Imran. He was at the other side of the hall, but he witnessed it.’

I let it sink in. I tried to visualise it. I couldn’t. But I knew what it meant. Imy suffered a punishment worse than death.

‘They only got married that morning. Less than a day they were husband and wife!’

‘Yeah, alright, Idris.’ I didn’t need to know anymore. I stood up. ‘I’m stepping out for a cigarette.’

I moved away from Idris with my name on his lips. I ignored him and walked through the half-empty dance floor in the straightest of lines, past the happy, and out of the bar into reception. The receptionist, a friend and colleague of my mum, said something to me, like a joke, something funny about my shirt, I can’t be sure. I laughed politely without catching her eye and walked out to the pool.

I located my lounger and sat down heavily on it. The humidity, still strong at that time of the night, strangling me. I watched my cigarette shake in my hands all the way to my lips. I sparked up. The swimming pool was empty and blue and still and perfect. I wanted nothing more than to jump in. See how long I could hold my fucking breath for.

I took a long pull of my cigarette, not realising that I had smoked it down to the butt. The cherry was gently burning my finger tip. I let it burn.

Idris was walking towards me, drinks in hand, as if we could continue with this fucking evening. As if I would finally tell him what my life had become.

I wished I could.

He placed the drinks on the plastic table and pulled up a plastic chair and sat down beside me. I stubbed my cigarette out and slipped out another.

‘Rafi Kabir was reported missing from his home in Blackburn by his parents eight months ago,’ Idris continued, when all I wanted was for him to shut the fuck up. ‘Did you not hear about it?’

I shook my head. A missing brown kid was never going to make any kind of waves in the news. The media is selective as fuck.

‘The attack has made front-page news,’ Idris said, as if crawling through my brain. ‘The first few days, the country’s media set up shop out on the Great West Road just outside Osterley Park Hotel. There were protesters from the left, from the fucking right. Gangs of Muslims from Luton turned up. Faces obscured with scarves. It kicked off, Jay! Fights and riots! The Four Pills pub and that Indian restaurant next to the hotel was smashed up and looted. Two stabbings and a fuckload of arrests.’ Idris took a breath as I held mine. ‘All because this kid decided to express his hatred in the most violent way possible, right in the middle of a wedding reception between a Muslim boy and a Christian girl.’ Idris rinsed off his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘The press, as you can imagine, lapped it up.’

Yeah, I can imagine. The media. Instant fucking hard-on. Instant fucking narrative. Bomb attack at Muslim/Christian wedding. Reporting the level of racism, of hatred it would take for someone to react in that way. To destroy the coming together of two cultures after one had tried so hard to accept the other. I could picture the headlines, designed to prod and provoke, designed to escalate a war starting on social media before drawing blood onto the streets. It’s bullshit, such fucking bullshit! Just another reason to avoid us, shun us, look at us and judge us. The press were not going to let go of this fucking bone. But once again they would be wrong. Because I know exactly why it happened.

It happened because of me.

Chapter 4
Imy

I pulled into our driveway. The front bumper of my Prius gently kissed the back bumper of Stephanie’s Golf. The red and white Christmas lights draped across the houses either side of our bare home reflected and blinked lazily on the windscreen.

I didn’t move for a moment, or a while. The soft, synthetic leather of my seat cradled me gently as the wind whipped and whistled around me and the rain beat down on my windscreen, making shapes in the darkness that resembled the holes in my heart. I could see her. In the driver’s seat of her car, her blonde hair falling across her face, as she leaned across to pick up her work files before emerging out of the car, clumsily balancing the files and kicking the car door shut with the heel of her sneaker. She turned to me and smiled, transforming the storm into sunshine.

The wiper swooped over the windscreen and she disappeared.

I stepped out into the rain and rounded the car. I opened the passenger side door and picked up the Glock. I slipped it into the back of my trousers, letting the tail of my suit jacket conceal it. I slipped the plastic food bags and elastic bands into my inside pocket, along with the suppressor. As I walked past Stephanie’s Golf I allowed my fingers to slide gently across the slick windows, leaving my mark.

I unlocked the front door and pushed it open with the palm of my hand. A dark empty hallway greeted me. Behind the darkness I knew the coat stand was filled with jackets and hats and scarves and them. I knew Jack’s handiwork was sprawled across the wall in red crayon as high as he could reach. I knew Stephanie’s hairbrush sat on the shelf underneath a single Post-it note stuck to the hallway mirror serving as a school run reminder.

Book bag. Bottle of water. Lunch box.

It gripped me instantly. Paralysed me. My legs felt like the heaviest of weights and I was unable to cross the threshold. The wind howled in my ears, the voices and the laughter and the fucking hope that we once shared rushed at me like a physical force and dropped me where I stood onto my haunches. I reached out for support and my hand found the doorframe, my nails clawed into wood. I could feel a breath caught somewhere inside me, desperately trying to escape. I wrenched my tie away from my neck and ripped away the collar, the cold rain snaking its way down my back. I squeezed my eyes closed and pressed my teeth together. My jaw pulsed and my head pounded as their faces filled it. I screamed through gritted teeth, a guttural sound from deep within, willing me not to fall now, not to fail now.

In one quick motion I forced myself up to my feet and stepped inside the hallway and punched the lights on, slamming the door behind me into silence. Their faces disappeared and finally I released a breath.

I stood perfectly still in the hallway, the house now as still as me.

I had too much to do. Afterwards, the ghosts can take me.

For now, I had to focus. I slipped my phone out of my pocket and positioned it on the shelf. It would remain there and place me at home. I picked up my baseball cap and scarf from the coat stand, adjusting the cap low, finishing just below my eyebrows, and the scarf high, covering my mouth. With the cover of the darkness and storm, I didn’t think that I could conclusively be picked up on CCTV.

I stared in the hallway mirror at what I had become, what I always was, and what I had tried so desperately to get away from. The black suit that I wore to bury Stephanie and Jack and Khala was drenched and clung to me. I wouldn’t change. It felt fitting, somehow, for what lay ahead.

Chapter 5
Jay

Idris went to his hotel room and I went to mine. Thankfully he was seven floors below me. At that moment I needed that space between us. My room had been cleaned. Six pillows lined neatly against the head board, when all I needed was one. I threw the other five off the bed with unnecessary aggression, losing the complimentary chocolate in the process, and snatched the room service menu off the side table. I browsed through it intently, trying to prioritise my stomach over my heart and mind, which were ready to lead me astray.

Idris. Fucking Idris. I know in his own way he was looking out for me but all he was achieving was to bury me deeper into a hole that I was desperate to climb out of. The detective in him knew I was involved in something, and I could feel his concern, his disappointment that I couldn’t share it with him. I wished I could. I wished I could share all of it with my best friend, but how could I put my shit on him? Instead my silence continued to drive a hole through our friendship.

Idris wasn’t aware that I once had ties with MI5, but he was aware that I once had ties with a group of Muslims that had planned and failed to carry out a gun attack in the heart of London. Some of them were based in Hounslow. Fuck, man, one of them lived across the road from me, and I had considered him a friend. He died as result of his actions. If he hadn’t, others would have. That should have been it, alarm bells should have been ringing, but no, instead, earlier this year, I grew close to a kid – much against Imy’s advice – a kid who was touched by tragedy and decided to even it out by carrying out a fucking acid bomb attack against a right wing group. So, yeah, I get it! Idris was probably shattered from carrying the weight of I told you sos.

Given my track record it was only fair that Idris wanted to know whether or not I knew anything about the bombing, as if any shit that goes down in Hounslow has my name attached to it. If Idris had asked me, if he had brought those words and that question to his lips, I would have answered Fuck no. When the truth was entirely different.

Eight months ago, Imy walked into my home and pointed a gun between my eyes. I knew he was doing so against his will, and he knew that if he didn’t pull the trigger then there would be consequences in the shape of his family.

And it came. The consequence, it fucking came.

This bomber, this child, exacted his plan to perfection, on what should have been the happiest day of Imy’s life. Helpless, he watched his loved ones perish.

The one thing worse than death is watching the ones closest to you die.

The black and white of it. If Imy had killed me, his family would still be alive. But he just didn’t have it in him to take a life.

I bet burying his wife and son changed that.

I had to get to him.

I made four phone calls. To reception, telling them that I would be checking out tomorrow. To Idris, telling him that I would be flying out tomorrow, and then cutting him off without explaining. Then a longer call to Mum with a bullshit excuse, telling her that I had to return home. And finally a call to room service, ordering myself a chicken burger, onion rings and a chocolate gateau.

I placed the receiver back in its cradle and eyed the minibar.

It wouldn’t be the first time that I’d reached for a bottle to dim the madness.

Chapter 6
Imy

My Prius stayed at home. I couldn’t risk the number plate being picked up by one of the many ANPR cameras. I needed a car that would be less likely for the police to notice, one they wouldn’t expect me to be driving.

With a full moon for company I walked thirty minutes from our home in Osterley, to Kumar’s Property Services in Hounslow West. I hadn’t been back to work since, and I wasn’t planning to, but I still had a key to the office.

I let myself in through the back door and blinked until my eyes adjusted to the dark. Each blink felt heavier than the last and I had to take a deep breath to push away the creeping exhaustion. I cut through the makeshift kitchen and stepped into the front office and stopped. To the left was my desk, as organised as I had left it. It sat opposite what had once been Shaz’s desk. His inane observations and our laughter filled my head. I let it in. Let it add to the rage.

I keyed in the pin to the security box and picked out the keys to the company Ford Mondeo.

An hour later I joined the M40 and settled in for the four-hour journey to Blackburn. I let the radio run in the background, the incessant Christmas music reminding me of all that I would never have.

Rafi Kabir wasn’t the only one to blame. If I’m honest, Rafi was the least to blame. The Kabirs, a seemingly normal, happy family, with good standing in the Muslim community, were in reality a channel for Ghurfat-al-Mudarris. Messages, weaponry and explosive materials would pass through many hands before arriving at 65 Parkland Avenue, Blackburn, straight into the hands of Saheed Kabir – father of Rafi and the head of the family. His responsibility was to secure the package in a safe place until it was picked up by a jihadi.

I was once that jihadi.

The Glock .40 handgun that sat beside me in the passenger seat had been provided to me by Saheed, with the intention of using it to carry out a fatwa that I think I always knew I wasn’t capable of. I clearly remember the meeting. Kabir was a cheery man, full of life, content for the time being in his small role as he waited patiently for the day that his two sons, Asif and Rafi, would come of age and give themselves wholly to The Cause. He would happily and knowingly send his own blood, to shed blood. He didn’t see it coming, though. He didn’t see it coming that his youngest, the impatient Rafi, at ten years old, was ready.

He wouldn’t see me coming.

I turned onto Parkland Avenue and drove at a crawl. The snow had settled heavier than in London. I parked the car in a tight spot outside number 34 and checked the time. It was near ten, still relatively early. The risk of being seen was high. I pulled the seat back and stretched out. Patience was key. I would wait until the early hours of the morning to give me cover.

I let the wipers sweep away the flakes of snow as I looked out onto the street. It was quiet, not a soul or a Christmas light in sight. This wasn’t that kind of place. It was a thriving Muslim community, unashamedly proud at being segregated. I remembered from my last visit, each face was brown and every woman was covered top to tail in black with only her eyes visible. There were four halal butchers, located close together, and two masjids less than a hundred metres apart, with a third under construction. They were frowned upon in today’s backwards Britain, but places like this do exist. I didn’t have a problem with it. I know what it’s like to find comfort with your own, whether that’s family or whether that’s someone who looks like you. It’s only a problem when those values are forced upon you.

I remember clearly Rafi’s elder brother, Asif, walking me up and down this street, proudly showing me the sights, revelling in the seclusion. He pointed out a newsagents, the only business on the street that was owned by a non-Muslim. I remember it being empty at the time, as a result of it being boycotted. Seeing it now, through my windscreen, it was boarded-up, out of business. Job done.

Across the road to my right, fifty metres or so in front of me, I could just make out the outline to the Kabirs’ semi-detached home. I scanned for police presence, for the press that had set up camp outside the house after the attack. It had been widely reported by the media that Rafi was a cleanskin. He wasn’t affiliated to any terrorist group or known in any capacity to MI5 or counter-terrorism. His family were looked at closely, but ultimately they also didn’t appear on any watchlists. They hid their connections well. The press frenzy eventually fizzled out after Saheed Kabir had given his tearful doorstep interview to the world’s media, about the tragic loss of his youngest son. His pain was genuine, even though his words weren’t. His emotion blended easily with defiance as he stated that Rafi was innocent, and had been subjected to religious indoctrination from the day that he had gone missing to the day he took his own life. Not once mentioning that his innocent son had taken innocent lives. As for religious indoctrination, Rafi had been indoctrinated a long time before he went missing. By his father, his mother and his brother, who raised and nurtured him to exact madness against those who opposed their beliefs. The Kafir.

I couldn’t wait any longer. The thought of Saheed’s emotion in front of the cameras fuelled mine, and my body moved of its own accord. I don’t remember stepping out of my car. I don’t remember tucking the Glock into the waist of my trousers and slipping the suppressor in my inside pocket. All I know is that I was striding through the snow, the plastic food bags secured tightly over my shoes and hands with elastic bands.

The weather had picked up. The gentle fall of snow was now torrential rain, dropping from a black cloud that would forever follow me. I pulled my baseball cap low and my scarf high. It gave little protection against the strong wet wind, biting into me, trying to blow me back the way I came.

God’s way.

But me and Him, we were no longer talking.

I lifted my eyes and through the storm I glanced at number 65 across the road. My eyes furtive and busy, taking in everything. Upstairs the bedrooms lights were on, shining a ray through the gap in the curtains. Downstairs, the living room light was off, but the glare of the television through the net curtains illuminated one figure.

I dropped my gaze and moved past the house. Further down, two houses next to each other had their lights switched off. Number 71 and number 73. Only a metal gate between the two houses separated them. I crossed the road and without breaking stride I rested one foot on the metal gate and scaled over. I hurried around to the rear of the house and into the back garden. The fences were head-height but the adrenaline made me feel light as I lifted myself over with ease. I ducked low under washing lines as I crossed from garden to garden to garden, until I was standing in the Kabirs’ garden.

I craned my neck up. Upstairs the toilet light came on.

I pressed myself to the house and sidestepped to the back door. I peered inside, through the frosted window. No movement, just the muted sound of the television. I removed the Glock from my waist and wrapped the tail of my scarf around the butt of the gun and then tapped it firmly against the window. The glass fell gently onto the kitchen mat on the other side. I put my hand through; the glass cutting into my forearm caused me no pain. My hand landed on the lock. I turned it and stepped inside their home as glass crunched under my shoes.

I looked around the kitchen as I attached the suppressor to the Glock. It was dark but I could make out a tower of mismatched Tupperware on the worktop. The neighbours. They would have rallied around at this tragic time and forced home-cooked meals into the hands of the Kabirs. I moved out of the kitchen and into the narrow hallway. Flashes of light and music from the television travelled from the living room. I stopped halfway into the hallway as an unwelcome memory hit me and I stood staring, just as I had eight months ago. Hung on the wall, the Ayut-al-Kursi in swirling Arabic written and engraved in wood. A prayer that once meant so much to me and was threatening to do so again. I squeezed my eyes shut and gripped my gun tightly and let them in again.

Smiling. Laughing. Living. Dying.

I exhaled hard and walked past the prayer without another look. With the Glock in my grip hanging low by my side, I stepped into the living room.

To my left the television was tuned into a music channel, heavy drum and bass accompanied by flashing lights. I turned to my right. Rafi’s older brother, Asif, had already leaped up from his armchair and was hurtling towards me, the flashing from the television made his movements appear jerky. He cut the distance quickly. I blinked as a tight fist gripped around a remote control came towards me, connecting just above my eye, knocking my baseball cap off. I absorbed it. No pain. No fucking pain! The batteries dropped out of the remote and cracked loudly on the laminate floor. A second blow, same place, and I felt a trickle of blood above my eyebrow. I switched the Glock from my left to right hand and swiped across, blindly catching Asif flush on the jaw and dropping him. He looked up at me. Anger turned to recognition and then realisation.

‘Imran?’ he said, getting himself up on his knees. He spat out a bloody tooth. I lifted the Glock and pointed it to his chest. ‘I couldn’t have known… I didn’t know Rafi was going to—’

I pulled the trigger and felt the bullet travelling through my heart and through my arm and popping quietly out of my hand and into his heart.

Asif dropped back, his head meeting the floor with his legs still tucked underneath his body. I breathed in three times through my nose and out of my mouth.

I would not let the guilt in. He had a hand in this.

I turned away and moved out of the living room. I passed framed family photos hung on the wall as I slowly climbed the stairs, the last of the family’s memories. I stood on the landing, the Glock impatiently tapping against my leg. To the left, a light seeped underneath the bathroom door. To the right, a bedroom, door ajar. I pushed it open slowly. The room was lit dimly from a small football-shaped table lamp. Rafi’s room.

By the side of the bed, Rafi’s mother was standing on a prayer mat, hands clasped against her chest, her face a picture of peace. I watched her for a moment, just as I’d watched my Khala pray so many times. She moved her hands to her knees as she bent down towards Mecca, and then knelt in the Sajdah position, her forehead touching the floor as she recited Subhana Rabbiyal A’laa, three times.

The Glock twitched in my hand.

She sat up, back straight, such was the discipline, she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the prayer mat even though there was no doubt that she would have noticed in her peripheral vision a stranger in her home.

She turned her head slowly over her right shoulder to the angel who records good deeds and softy whispered, ‘As-salamu-alaykum Rahmattulah.’ She turned her head slowly over her left shoulder to the angel who records wrongful deeds and softly whispered, ‘As-salamu-alaykum Rahmattulah.’ It signalled the end of prayers.

She folded the prayer mat twice over and got to her feet. Turning her back to me, she placed the mat on the bookshelf, amongst Islamic literature mixed in with comics. She sat down on Rafi’s bed, her hands clasped together on her lap, and for the first time lifted her eyes to me. She nodded.

The gun felt heavy as I lifted my arm and pointed it at her. I nodded back and shot her in the chest. She fell to her side, her head finding her son’s pillow.

I would not let the guilt in. She had a hand in this.

I stepped out of the bedroom and waited on the landing for Saheed Kabir, faithful servant of Ghurfat-al-Mudarris. A man who helped fight a war that to many was justified. He was a small part of a huge movement, one that had become too powerful in the battle against the West, against the deaths of innocent Muslims across the world. He was a man who had educated his two sons with nothing but hatred towards the West and hatred towards the Kafir.

In the eyes of his ten-year-old son, I was that Kafir. I was that Munafiq. I was that traitor.

I heard the sound of the flush and then the sound of running water. I lifted the Glock and pointed it at the toilet door. The water stopped, the handle turned and the door opened.

Saheed met my gaze before his eyes moved towards the bedroom, then back on me. Filled with dread, his mouth moved, a silent question on his lips.

I answered it with a slow shake of my head.

Saheed fell heavily to his knees, a tear escaping from his eyes as his obese body shook and shuddered. ‘Asif?’ His voice barely above a whisper. ‘My son?’

I shook my head again and his howl deafened me as tears flooded his eyes.

‘My family,’ he cried, at my feet. ‘You took away my family.’

‘You took away mine.’

I shot him twice in the chest.

I would not let the guilt in. Saheed Kabir had a hand in this.

Chapter 7

Sophia looked up at Easedale House, the tired-looking tower block standing tall but unremarkable amongst the surrounding identical tower blocks that filled the landscape within Brentford’s Ivy Bridge Estate. Brentford had undergone – or was in the middle of – a regeneration project; Sophia wasn’t sure which. It had been ongoing for years. Her crappy flat in her crappy tower block was a few minutes’ walk away from the flats on the waterfront with price-tags she could never dream of affording. Nine figures had been spent on the regeneration, but not a drop on the Ivy Bridge Estate. Sophia despised having to walk past the smell of the rich, so close to her shit-hole flat.

Not even entertaining the idea of the piss-stinking lift, Sophia trudged up three floors. She walked past a whiny malnourished Alsatian tied to the railing on the first floor, and nodded curtly at a neighbour slumped on the landing of the second floor, who, judging by his eyes and blank stare, looked as if he’d fallen off whatever wagon he had been on. She entered the lobby of the third floor and let herself into her apartment. She closed the door behind her and double-locked it, aware that the cheap Homebase locks wouldn’t withstand force. The door probably wouldn’t even withstand somebody leaning against it.

As per routine, Sophia picked up the iron bar on the small hallway table and gripped it firmly in both hands as she walked from room to room, checking for chancers. She entered the bedroom last, dropped the bar on the side table and shrugged off her coat, letting it fall in a puddle at her feet. An ancient desktop PC sat on a desk in the corner of the room. Sophia lifted the monitor off the computer and placed it to the side. Her heart picked up as she clicked the two catches on the side of the PC and lifted the cover. Inside, sitting on the motherboard, right beside the hard drive, was a small stack of fifty pound notes, amounting to exactly ten thousand pounds. She sighed with relief, clicked the cover back in place and sat the monitor on top of the computer. And then, as she did every night after a shift, fell backwards with her arms out onto her unmade double bed, enjoying the thrill of her body bouncing gently before coming to rest. Strands of blonde hair fell across her face. She blew them away from her eyes and stared up at the damp patch on the ceiling, lit by the two working downlights. It was not a view she would get used to.

Sophia Hunt had arrived in London, aged 22, clutching hopefully onto her Performing Arts Diploma. She’d waited patiently for the opportunity – that one successful audition that would kick-start her career and give her the chance to live life on her own terms. Meanwhile, she worked hard as a cleaner. No, that’s not right. She worked as a cleaner, but the effort was minimal, as were the wages and tips. Sophia’s mother had been a cleaner. So had her grandmother. Was it predetermined for Sophia to end up on her hands and knees, with a J-cloth and a backache, and to serve those who felt it was open season to grab, grope and fondle the fucking help?

Sophia’s father had been a social worker, before he injured himself, accidentally-on-purpose, and pissed off with his benefits. He wasn’t big on sharing-is-caring. Sophia didn’t blame him. At least he’d had some semblance of get-up-and-go when he’d got up and left.

Her mother, not able to afford childcare, dragged Sophia to her cleaning jobs, from the age of seven through to her teenage years. She couldn’t bear to watch her mother crawl around grand homes with her bad back and her bad knees, making the place gleam whilst pocketing items that wouldn’t be missed. It made Sophia sad. Sad to watch her mum. Sad that they were surrounded by money but didn’t have any.

She died of a heart attack on the job, with an apron full of silverware. Sophia promised herself that she would not end up in the same position. But she was going up against life and patterns and a history of bloody cleaners in her family.

Sophia put in her all to achieve her Performing Arts Diploma, sacrificing sleep to study lines, skipping meals to stay skinny, taking extra classes to help improve her singing and dancing. But it had become quite evident, fairly soon after she’d arrived in London, that she was just one of a million starlets who shared that same hunger.

Working as an extra on TV wasn’t as exciting as it had seemed. Hours of waiting around with all the other desperados, eating yesterday’s sandwiches, until she was called to aimlessly sit in a coffee shop or a pub whilst the A-listers blocked her view of the camera. Regardless, she gave it everything, made each role her own. Once she had to push a pram across the road and she did it method. Making sure the road was clear as any mother would, looking left, looking right, and then left again, before tentatively crossing over, only for the director to shout, ‘Cut! Just cross the bloody road!’

Her diploma meant nothing, on top of which she couldn’t remember where she’d put it, and these days all the networks could afford to make was reality TV. Brain-dead airheads with no qualifications or discernible talent, catering for the brain-dead viewer. Despite herself, Sophia adjusted, realising that it may be her only path to success, a platform from which she could showcase her talent to the world. She applied for the lot, and was turned down by the lot. Her only success, if you could call it that, came as she got through to the second round of The X Factor and the judges had to decide between her and some singing clown who couldn’t hold a note for toffee. After some pretty dramatic deliberating, the judges chose the singing clown who sang sad songs with a frown.

Over the years, casual employment and the odd shoplifting spree helped her keep her head above water. She started to decline TV extra work, it was beneath her, and concentrated on promoting her talents on social media. Her presence was heavily felt on every platform by her twenty-three followers, who, if she was honest, were dirty old men, ogling her. She had lived in hope that a music producer or a film director would spot her undeniable talent, but all she’d received was creepy direct messages and dick pics.

And just as she was coming to another realisation – that the cleaning, the waitressing, the odd temping job, was no longer a stop gap, but just a stop – a man had entered her life and presented her with an opportunity.

It had been five days since Sophia had found the handset on her doorstep. She wasn’t expecting it, and her first and second thoughts were that it had been wrongly delivered, and how much could she sell it for. She’d frowned when she noticed it was an old throwaway Nokia phone with physical push buttons, screen the size of a matchbox and no camera. It was worth next to nothing. She’d flipped it over and attached to the back of it was a small silver key and a white card. In neat handwriting the card read: Call me. With growing curiosity Sophia did just that.

A polite gentleman had answered. He told her his name was Samuel Carter. He sounded like a Samuel Carter, too, as though he had been brought up well, educated the expensive way, and never been referred to as Sam or Sammy. It was a particular quirk of Sophia’s that whenever she met somebody new, or spoke to them on the phone, afterwards she would take her time deciding whether their name matched their face or voice. She had done this ever since she realised that her own name was so far from the mark. When you hear Sophia, you expect grace and glamour and a few quid in the bank. You don’t expect a grubby apron and a damp ceiling and the high rise of Ivy Bridge Estate. And her surname: Hunt. Posh! As though she had come from old money, rather than a mob of cleaners and fraudsters.

Samuel had informed Sophia that he had located her online, sifting through her various profiles on social media. Samuel Carter wasn’t in a position to help her further her non-existent career, but he was in the position to help her. Why he chose her, she didn’t know or ask, but she was aware enough to realise that her online presence exuded a certain desperation and a willingness.

The job he had presented to her was easy, low-risk and with a pay-off to the tune of fifty thousand pounds. Ten that had already been delivered after their one and only conversation, left in a locker at Metro Bank – that’s what the key attached to the phone was for. The money was there in a small bundle of fifty pound notes, which she had pocketed and transported safely back home and hidden amongst the guts of her computer. Samuel hadn’t been in touch since.

Sophia reached across to her cabinet and from the drawer picked out the pay-as-you-go Nokia handset. She turned it on and waited a long minute for any alerts to come through. When that didn’t transpire, panic didn’t quite set in, but it was nearby. Had Samuel changed his mind?

Sophia shuffled up on the bed and rested her head back against the creaky headboard. She tried to relax, tried breathing techniques to force the panic from knocking on the door. If Samuel didn’t get in touch, then what? Was it still on for tomorrow? Worst case, she still had ten thousand pounds. But ten wasn’t exactly fifty. She’d already spent the fifty in her head. She was going to update her portfolio and replace cheaply taken selfies with professional shots. Then she’d hire a music studio and lay down the tracks that she’d been writing since she was thirteen and finally direct and star in her very own, high-production music video, possibly in Paris, possibly Rome, and share the hell out of it, until someone important sat up and took notice. Hadn’t Justin Bieber got noticed online? She would stretch every penny of that fifty thousand pounds. She’d give it her best shot. Her last shot.

Sophia checked the phone signal, five solid bars stared proudly back at her. She checked the volume. She even called it using her own phone, and it rang loudly in her hand. Sophia considered her options. Samuel had treated her like an equal, she reasoned. It wasn’t just a set of instructions, he had actually asked her for advice about the task ahead. Just like a partner. A business partner. She stared at his phone number. He hadn’t said not to call, and surely one partner should be able to call the other.

Sophia pressed dial and butterflies the size of bats fluttered and danced away in the pit of her stomach. She cleared her throat several times as it rang once, twice, three times, before abruptly being cut off by a smarmy automated voice, telling her that Samuel Carter had found somebody better suited, or words to that effect.

‘Shit!’

Sophia disconnected the call as the butterflies vacated, leaving her stomach feeling cold and empty. She stared at the phone until the screen dimmed.

‘Shit!’

The small screen came to life and the unexpected ringing made her jump.

‘Oh, shit!’

The butterflies were back with a vengeance, and they’d brought their butterfly friends with them. ‘Hello,’ she answered carefully.

‘I apologise,’ he said, and she thought she heard the slightest of accents, which hadn’t been evident the last time they spoke. He lost it by clearing his throat. ‘I had to find a quiet spot.’

‘Oh, yeah, yep, yes. No problem. Not. A. Problem,’ she replied, aiming for nonchalance but getting nowhere near it. She cleared her throat loudly and wondered how disgusting it would’ve sounded.

‘You called, Sophia,’ he said. ‘I trust everything is okay?’

She loved how he said her name, like it was meant to be said. Samuel waited patiently and Sophia had to switch on and recall why she’d called. Why had she called?

‘Are we definitely on for tomorrow? It’s just I hadn’t heard anything.’

‘Yes, Sophia. We are planning to go ahead tomorrow, as discussed. But, as I said before, it’s entirely your call. If you feel that you may encounter logistical issues, then, by all means, we can further discuss or… We can abort.’

She had never before, not once, been spoken to like that. He valued her opinion. He actually valued the value of her opinion. Sophia smiled as she wiggled her big toe through the hole in her tights. They were partners. Partners in crime! As for logistical issues, all she had to do was leave the patio door unlocked, turn a blind eye, and then deal with the fallout with the police.

‘I can’t see there being any logistical issues,’ Sophia replied. Check me out, talking logistics, she thought. ‘I think we should proceed.’

‘Excellent, Sophia,’ Samuel said. ‘It’s been a delight dealing with you. Now, I’m sorry to say that this will be the last time that you and I shall be speaking.’

‘Oh,’ she said, her heart taking a sideways dive. She wasn’t sure why.

‘I’m afraid so. After this call, can you possibly delete this phone number and call register and dispose of the cell phone discreetly.’

‘Yeah, sure. I’ll dash it. Like, an outside bin? Or even in the river?’ Sophia said, enjoying the drama of throwing away incriminating evidence in the river in the cold of the night, right under the noses of where the rich lived.

‘Outside bin is fine. Just as long as the cell is cleared.’

‘Okay,’ she said, nodding thoughtfully to herself, as she recalled the Jason Bourne movie she’d seen the previous night. ‘Should I take it apart piece by piece and put the battery in one bin, and the other bit in another bin, maybe on another street. And the sim card… I could destroy the sim card by frying it.’

Sophia thought she heard a sigh.

‘It’s fine to throw it away in one piece. It’s unregistered.’

‘If you’re sure,’ Sophia said, slightly cut. Maybe she was trying too hard. She should just say as little as possible, though that had never been her style. She had to think about number one. ‘When do I get the rest of the money?’ Sophia asked, carefully.

‘A second key for a second locker will be posted to your address. The same as last time. The remainder of the fee will be there.’

Sophia had no reason to doubt Samuel Carter.

Chapter 8
Jay

The hotel room phone trilled in my ear. Shut the fuck up! I lifted the edges of the pillow tightly over my ears. The trill dimmed but just would not quit. Defeated, I reached out to it, blindly knocking a bottle of water off the side table as I located the phone.

‘Good morning, Mr Qasim,’ the smoothest of voices said. ‘This is your eight-thirty wake-up call.’

‘Yeah, I’m up, man. I’m up,’ I slurred. My tongue felt as though it was wearing a fur coat and my breath bounced back at me off the phone. I turned my face away in disgust and noticed that the bottle of water that I had knocked over was actually a bottle of beer, steadily dripping onto the carpet. That damn minibar had broken my defences.

‘Fuck’s sake!’ I groaned to myself as I straightened the bottle. That was going to cost me about seven quid in Qatari money!

‘Excuse me?’ the voice said, losing a little smoothness.

‘No, not you… Thanks. Bye.’

I replaced the receiver and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for my vision to clear, trying to piece together my movements before sleep had eventually found me at… who knows when. The last time I had glanced at the clock, it was four something, closer to five.

The thought of meeting Imy had twisted me up inside, and I just wanted to forget about him, just for a minute. I think I had a moment of madness. Me. On my own. Wanting to let the fuck loose with total abandonment before I faced up to my responsibilities.

Not sure what happened after that.

I lifted my heavy head off the pillow and took in the state of the room as it sadly recounted the story of my night.

Yeah, it was coming back to me.

I remember wanting a drink but being too mentally drained to leave my bed. Rather than walk the three steps, I’d crawled to the foot of the bed and reached out to the minibar, which was just tantalisingly out of reach. I hung halfway off the bed, stretching, my shoulder screaming at me as I managed to pull open the door. The light illuminated my face and the miniature bottles neatly lined up greeted me like a surprise party. I started with a vodka.

I’d stayed at the foot of the bed, on my back, my head hanging off the edge as I watched the brilliant Mean Girls upside down, whilst knocking back drink after drink, unable to get Imy out of my head.

I’d pictured standing in front of him, meeting his eyes and letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that I recognised my part in his loss. I’d welcome whatever he threw at me. I’d fucking take it all.

Oh man, I got so wasted. Dotted around the bed were empty miniature bottles lying sadly on their sides, as though they’d been abused. I dropped my head back on the pillow, the pounding in my head taking the attention away from the ache in my stomach caused by all the food that I’d ordered from room service!

I knew that I should be getting up and packing, but I gave myself five more minutes just to get myself together. It’s always five more minutes – How many times had Mum said that to me? Feeling sorry for myself, I turned on my side and curled up in a ball. Beside me was a chocolate gateau, some eaten, some spread across my pillow. I rubbed the side of my face. Some there, too.

I turned my back to it and flopped to the edge of the bed. I thought about how much of a tip I should leave for housekeeping to clean my mess. Next to the bed was a bin, that I’d placed there in case I vomited. Next to that, a pool of vomit!

I groaned loudly and shot myself out of bed and went about carrying out a pre-emptive clean before housekeeping clocked on and, through Chinese whispers, Mum found out. I couldn’t have that.

Satisfied, with the room looking semi-respectable, I spent record time brushing the crap out of my teeth and tongue whilst hopping around in the unpredictable shower. I had used the bath towel to soak up the vomit, so with an impossibly small hand towel wrapped around my waist I set about packing my holiday clothes before getting into my shitty-weather England clothes.

I had a flight to catch.

There was no way I was calling a bell-boy. I had already spent a small fortune on tips, so I belled Idris and asked him to help me with my luggage. He was at my door a few minutes later, looking annoyingly fresh and rested in his shorts and lairy Bermuda shirt. The total opposite of me.

‘You sure you don’t mind me staying on a few days?’ he said, entering my room, sniffing and making a face. There was nothing I could do about the smell, but crack open a window. Idris took me in, jeans and Jordans where shorts and flip-flops should have been. A hoody on the bed to carry onto the plane, and my parka jacket in my hand luggage. Prepared for the wet, windy, vicious weather back home, back in Hounslow.

‘Here, grab that,’ I said, pushing my trolley his way.

‘I still don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why’d you have to rush back?’

Why? A man’s family had burnt and perished and I had a part to play. I had to find out how far a simple sorry would take me in easing the fucking guilt that I was drowning in.

‘I just have to, that’s all, Idris,’ I said, knowing how unfair it was to keep my closest friend in the dark. It wasn’t the first time, and I’d started to realise, the way my life was turning out, that it wouldn’t be the last, either.

‘Obviously, this is about Imran Siddiqui,’ he pressed, and I couldn’t deny it but I could ignore it. I handed him my rucksack. ‘Okay, fine! Be like that. Least tell me what bullshit you told your mum, just so we’re on the same page.’ Idris couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice, or maybe he didn’t want to.

‘Told her that…’ I hesitated, knowing how it was going to sound.

‘Go on. Told her what exactly?’

‘Told her that I’d received an email inviting me for a job interview and that I really couldn’t afford to miss the opportunity,’ I said, looking suitably sheepish at the lame excuse.

‘What job?’ Idris asked.

‘What’s it matter what job?’

‘Jay!’

‘Project manager,’ I mumbled.

‘And she believed you?!’ Idris scoffed, clearly not convinced that I could be a project manager.

‘The fuck’s not to believe?’ I said, more than a little offended that he didn’t think I could be a fucking project manager. I could easily be a project manager. Give me a project and I’ll fucking manage it. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the hangover, or the prospect of flying back home and into fuck knows what, but Idris was getting on my last nerves. He always found a way – I know not on purpose – to make me feel a lot less important than him. As though being a Detective Inspector puts him on some elite level.

The fuck’s he know!? I’ve done a shit load more than manage fucking projects. You ain’t the only one making a difference. I did, too. A big fucking difference. Global. Fucking international! Not just plodding around after junkies in Hounslow.

I wanted to tell him just to shut him up.

‘What is it?’ Idris sensed. He edged closer, eyes on high alert.

It would have been for the wrong reason. Just so that I could prove to him that I was somebody, and I was worth something, and not just the fuck up he clearly thought I was. I shot him a look that said, Sorry mate.

‘Alright.’ He sighed, then like a friend he smiled. ‘I’m coming to the airport with you.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, looking back at the room where I’d spent the last couple of weeks pretending all was okay. ‘I thought you might be.’

The lift doors opened and I saw Mum before she saw me. She had taken position behind the reception desk and was dealing with a hotel guest. She’d already told me, on the phone the night before, that she wouldn’t be able to accompany me to the airport as she couldn’t get the time off at such short notice. It was better this way. I tend to get overly emotional at airports.

I moved myself in her eye line and gave her a small wave, she beamed when she saw me and I recognised the sadness behind it. She palmed off the guest to a colleague, picked up a large boxy paper bag and hurriedly walked around the reception desk. She placed the bag by her feet and threw her arms around me, one hand cupping the back of my head, the other hand lightly gripping my shirt.

I was going to miss Mum so fucking much, but I was determined not to show it. The last time we had said goodbye it was a cocktail of tears and snot and uncertainty. I couldn’t show her that I was still that person. She had to know I’d be alright.

‘It’s cool, Mum,’ I said, as she released me, my smile coming easily as she straightened my hair. ‘I’ll come visit soon.’

‘Or I can come and see you in the New Year.’

And see the mess that my life has become.

‘I’d rather come back to be honest, Mum. Keep the sun going for me.’

‘Andrew is going to drive you to the airport, Jay. He’s just bringing the car around.’

‘He didn’t have to do that,’ I said. The last thing I needed was stilted conversation, but at least it would stop Idris from interrogating me further.

‘If you need anything, anything, I’m here, Jay. I’ll be here.’

I know what she meant. She would always be there just as my father wasn’t.

‘Oh, almost forgot.’ Mum picked up the boxy bag and handed it to me. ‘I popped into the mall this morning before my shift and got this for you.’

I snaked my hand into the bag and pulled out a smart, sandy coloured mac. I nodded dumbly at it.

‘For your interview, Jay. You can’t turn up in your parka.’ Mum smiled and in that moment the hard fought determination not to cry threatened to crumble as my bullshit lie gained momentum. Not wanting Mum to see me break, I moved back into her, holding her tightly, releasing a deep breath over her shoulder, as Idris averted his gaze to the floor. I steeled myself and released her as she planted goodbye kisses all over my face. I took it all in, the smell, the touch, the comfort. A weird feeling swept over me – I couldn’t shake it off – that a time was coming when I would desperately need to reach out and recall this moment.

Chapter 9
Imy

It wouldn’t bring back my family, but pulling the trigger felt right. I didn’t entertain the idea of disposing of the bodies. I left them where they fell and walked out of their home. The immense feeling of satisfaction was fleeting and I was overcome with an almighty tiredness as I struggled through the now torrential rain. Burying my wife and my son, followed by the long drive to Blackburn with nothing on my mind but avenging my family, had consumed me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten. Slept. The adrenaline that pushed me was gone, leaving me feeling more exhausted than I’d ever been.

The rain hindered my vision as I swayed and staggered and once stumbled to my knees as I tried to remember where I’d parked my car. I eventually found it after walking obliviously past it, before recalling that I had stolen Kumar’s company Mondeo and not travelled in my own Prius. My mind and body, that had worked together perfectly to exact my revenge, had deserted me and the sharpness was replaced by a mist.

I turned up the heating the moment the car came to life, and held my hands close up to the vents, the seat beneath me shaking in rhythm to my body. I hunched over the steering wheel for support and gripped it tightly as I drove out of Parkland Avenue. With my phone at home and the absence of a satnav I drove aimlessly from one empty street to another until signs led me to the M6.

Thirty minutes on the motorway and I was startled back to alertness as headlights filled my car. I looked in the mirror, and saw a big BMW X5 with fluorescent markings. My heart thumped in my chest. They flashed again. What had I done to give myself away? I looked down and saw that the needle was hovering at forty-five mph, which on a motorway is almost as dangerous as speeding. I put my foot down, taking the car to sixty and beyond, hoping they wouldn’t feel the urge to pull me over and ask me any questions or search my car.

The car slipped into the middle lane. Their eyes on me as they moved past. I noticed then that it was a Highways Officer – plastic police, not the real thing. Even so, I was shaking long after I lost sight of their tail-lights.

I released a sigh of relief which turned into a yawn. The heavy patter on my windshield was hypnotic, and yet again I found my eyelids starting to betray me. My body flagged and my shoulder moved towards something to lean against, causing the car to veer into the middle lane. The blare of an SUV shook me. I pulled back hard and the car swerved before settling back into its lane. As I straightened up in my seat I caught a glimpse of a young family, eyes wide and faces white with fright. I threw up a hand in apology.

There was no way I could complete the four-hour journey in that state. I had to take a risk before I became a risk to other drivers. I had to get off the motorway before somebody got hurt.

I managed to stay alert for the next five miles, and pulled into the first service station. I kept my cap low and my head down as I walked across the forecourt and followed the inviting light through the automatic doors. Despite it being the early hours of the morning, it was busy with families and groups of friends coming or going. Living a life that I would never have. I headed straight to the bathroom and splashed and scrubbed my face with cold water. I ran a wet hand through my hair, letting the water drip down my back.

Leaning against the sink I stared at myself in the mirror. The black suit I wore to bury my family. The same black suit I wore to kill another. I squeezed my eyes shut and questioned my actions. That of judge, jury and executioner.

I had no regrets.

Without making eye contact I purchased a black coffee, a chicken sandwich, and picked out the coldest bottle of water from the back of the cooler. I took a seat alone at a round table and tried not to focus on the two empty seats across from me. I removed the lid and emptied three sachets of white sugar, then took a sip of hot coffee followed by a bite from the sandwich, and then another before I’d swallowed the first. As I broke it down in my mouth I watched from under the peak of my cap. Two kids – brothers, judging by their features – were messing about at an internet kiosk under their parents’ watchful gaze. Their eyes were darting between their children and me, as though they sensed a threat. As though they could sense that I had a gun tucked into the waist of my trousers.

I placed the cold bottle on the back of my neck and it sent an icy shiver down my spine as I glanced up at the security camera at the entrance. There were two more cameras on each side of the food court, plus the three that I noticed in the car park, that would have picked me up as I drove onto the forecourt. I had no choice. The state I had been in, I couldn’t have stayed on the road.

Regardless of my carelessness, I would’ve been the obvious suspect. It was inevitable that the police would knock at my door. But I wouldn’t be the only suspect. There had been numerous threats made to Saheed Kabir and his family. Vile threats, cowardly threats of death and rape and ruin from behind a keyboard by those looking to place the blame on them. It was a release of aggression, venting, trying to put the world to rights, but ultimately they were empty threats. Nobody was going to touch them. That right belonged to me.

The two brothers left their station at the internet kiosk and I watched them join their parents. They walked out of the food court, the father turning to look at me one last time. I held his gaze until he turned away, a protective arm around his wife.

I picked up my coffee and bottle of water and approached the internet kiosk. I slipped in two pound coins which allowed me thirty minutes of internet time and opened up a search engine. Sweat covered my back as I typed in his name. I hit enter.

The rage that had led me to kill Saheed Kabir and his family in cold blood was a different rage to how I felt about him.

He had social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram but his activity was minimal. The only recent activity was two photos that he’d posted on Facebook. The location was tagged – Qatar.

The first photo was in a restaurant. Him and his mother in conversation, their hands meeting at the middle of the table, unaware at the time that their photo was being taken. She was looking at him like Khala had once looked at me. Like a mother looks at a child.

The second photo, he was in a swimming pool, his elbows resting on the edge next to a colourful drink with a small umbrella. He was smiling broadly behind orange-tint sunglasses. Like a man without a care in the world.

I looked at the date stamp – 3rd December. It was the date that I was married. The date where I’d lost everything.

Chapter 10

Sophia Hunt’s alarm buzzed at 4.30 a.m., just as she was in the middle of a Beverly Hills shopping spree, a snobby shop assistant was questioning her means of payment, a-la Pretty Woman. But unlike Julia Roberts, she didn’t have to rely on a smug-faced Richard Gere to come to her rescue. She hated that bit. Always had. It wasn’t the fairy tale that she was looking for. This was different. A man and woman on equal footing, neither reliant on the other. A business deal, if a little crooked, but like her mum always used to say, usually as she slipped a trinket or two into her apron, Robin Hood was a national treasure, if it’s good enough for him… It wasn’t her best advice, but it wasn’t her worst.

Sophia lifted the duvet and her feet left the warmth of her single bed and found the laminate floor, cold enough to send a walking-over-her-grave shiver through her bed socks. She snaked her hand under the duvet and located the fake Gucci cardigan that she had slept beside, so that it stayed warm. She shrugged it on and wrapped it tight around her as she took in the day in front of her.

There’s crime and then there’s crime, from petty to full-on evil, and all the degrees inbetween. A couple of nights ago, Sophia had popped into Londis. She paid for the tiger bread roll, but pocketed the cheese spread. Nobody got hurt. It was a victimless crime. But what she was planning to do, wasn’t. But was it evil? Sophia didn’t think so. If all went to plan – and how could it not? – then nobody would get hurt, and the victim would be compensated through insurance. Everyone’s a winner. Okay, maybe not a winner, but, Sophia shrugged to herself, nobody loses.

Tonight, after her part was complete, she would have to face the police. She accepted that. It why Samuel Carter would be paying her so handsomely. The cops weren’t a problem; her story would be straight. They’d believe her because, even though nobody recognised it, Sophia Hunt was a damn good actress and this would be her breakthrough role, one that changed everything.

Sophia picked up the pay-as-you-go handset from the cabinet and slid it into the side pocket of her cardigan. That was her only concern. That phone, those conversations, the secrets between her and Samuel Carter. It was the link that could see her swap her one-bed flat for a one-bed jail cell. Regardless of Samuel’s somewhat casual attitude about the phone being unregistered, she would dispose of it as safely and securely as she deemed necessary.

Sophia got to her feet. The day had begun, and it was promising to be a long one. To help combat the cold, she pulled a pair of baggy jeans over her thin pyjamas and slipped on her navy blue coat, and matching bobble hat and gloves. At nearly five in the morning, armed with some burnt buttered toast, she walked ten minutes in the quiet and still darkness of the bitterly cold early morning, and made her way through Brentford Docks. Above her the rich slept soundly, the way only the rich can.

She arrived at the edge of the River Thames and leaned against the metal railing, her teeth chattering as the cold seeped from the slick, cold metal railing, through her gloves to her fingers. She faced the dirty grey, unimpressive river and shook her head as she wondered why people would pay hundreds of thousands for this crappy view? If she had that kind of money, would she? Absolutely, she decided.

Using her teeth, she pulled off her gloves and noticed her hands shaking. From the cold or from the nerves, she wasn’t sure, but it reminded her of her dear old Nana’s last years. She blew hot air onto her hands and rubbed them together hard and fast, before flexing her fingers and feeling the blood circulate. She removed the pay-as-you-go handset from her pocket and wedged a fingernail into the clip and released the battery. With a quick look over her shoulders, she lobbed the battery as high and far as she could, and lost sight of it before it had become part of the great river. She peeled out the sim card and lobbed the handset in another direction, again losing sight of it before it went under. Would it go under, or would the waves carry it until it flows into the North Sea, on the way to France or Germany or even Norway? Sophia impressed herself. Maybe some things had seeped in at school whilst she was scrawling her stage name – Simply Sophia – in pink and gold felt-tip all over her exercise book.

The last piece, the sim card, Sophia placed between her teeth and clenched down. She bent it back and forth until it weakened and snapped clean in half. Sophia placed both parts of the sim card on the palm of her hand and flicked one, and then the other, in two different directions, into the River Thames.

Chapter 11
Jay

I stepped off the aeroplane and cleared arrivals without any issues. More than could be said about the young Asian man that got hooked out of the queue and taken in for questioning, even though he was clearly Sikh judging by the turban wrapped neatly around his head. Fuck, man, how do these clueless fucks get these jobs, all they see is dark skin and a beard and it’s hunting season. I could be wrong, he could have been pulled for a whole ’nother reason, but I don’t think so. When the man appeared back, half an hour later, looking dishevelled and more than a little humiliated, I knew that he’d had his turban hand-checked and possibly removed. Do these clowns not realise how fucking offensive that is? It pissed me off, but was I surprised? Fuck no! If you’re brown and travelling, you best have your affairs in order because fuck knows where you’re going to end up. Airport security don’t think twice, barely think once, they just react on some unfounded instinct. Happens all the time. But that doesn’t mean we get used to that shit.

I could feel him, could feel the angst in his face. I watched him look around sheepishly to see if anybody noticed. We all noticed, mate. I caught his eye and nodded at him in solidarity He didn’t return it and turned his back to me. Fair play.

I swear these things never used to bother me until that is, they did.

I picked up my luggage from the merry-go-round, and on a whim slipped on the mac that Mum had gifted me. I buttoned it up to the hilt and stepped out of the terminal. Even though I’d braced myself, the weather was a shock to the system. Only twenty-four hours ago, I was on my arse sizzling in the sun as I made eyes at my girl on the other side of the pool. And now this. Sideways fucked-up rain pelting me, and a strong wind not letting me spark up a much needed post-flight fag. I popped the collar shielding my face, and took the shuttle bus to the long stay car park. Just to elevate my bad mood I was charged for the full four weeks, even though I’d returned two weeks early. Bad mood didn’t last long, though. Just for a minute everything was forgotten as, sitting there in Red Zone, Row 4, comfortably holding its own between a white Bentley and a silver Maserati, was my black BMW.

Restored to its full glory.

When Bin Jabbar had been killed, my Beemer had taken the full force of my anger. I’d taken a baseball bat and smashed the shit out of the one constant in my life. The regret was instant and overwhelming, and I didn’t think twice about parting with the best part of five G to have it restored. That money was pretty much the last of the MI5 pay-off, and I was living off the kindness of strangers until somebody hooked me up with a job.

I placed the trolley and holdall in the boot, and then I did a couple of slow laps around my car, inspecting it for even the slightest sign of damage, a scratch, a nick, a fingerprint. I knelt down by each wheel and rubbed the built-up dirt away from the alloy with my sleeve. I nodded to myself, satisfied that my baby was as I’d left it. I pressed the button on the fob, and the interior lights lit up softly. I opened the door and sat behind the wheel, shutting the door gently on the world behind me.

And it just felt like home.

The car came to life on the button, as though it’d been waiting for my touch. Automatically it connected to my phone via Bluetooth. I opened up my playlist on Spotify and swiped my finger down, and watched all those killer tracks tumble down. I jabbed at one at random. ‘Appetite for Destruction’ – NWA.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

I wheeled my Beemer out of the car park and pointed it towards Hounslow.

First stop, find car wash. Second stop, find Imy.

I rolled my car into American Jetshine behind the Treaty Centre and requested the full complement. I walked out with my face in my phone and almost bumped into a car queuing to get into the car wash. I mouthed an apology as I checked out the car. Trust me, this car was built to be checked out. Latest model Mercedes AMG GT Coupe, dropped low on matt black 22s. The colour was a customised job, like a slimy green. The bodywork looked immaculate, and not at all like it needed a wash.

I couldn’t make out the driver’s face as the sun was bouncing off his windscreen, but I could feel his eyes on me. Typical cuts, I assumed. It’s something you get used to living in Hounslow, a fucking pastime, looking to make something out of nothing. He slid down his window and I moved away before he could start something. The last thing I needed was more friction.

As my Beemer was getting scrubbed behind the ears, I took a stroll through Hounslow High Street. It had been a long, stiff flight and I needed to stretch my legs and allow the cold air to slap me out of tiredness. I couldn’t be a shattered mess when I faced Imy. I had to be on point.

I grabbed a takeaway cappuccino heavily sprinkled with chocolate for a boost, and strolled aimlessly, hoping for some of that Christmas magic to rub off on me. It didn’t work, not like it used to.

It just doesn’t feel like Christmas around Hounslow anymore, not like it does in neighbouring Kingston or Richmond or the like. I don’t know what it is. Maybe the rise of the powerful pound shops, or the lack of a decent shopping centre. Sure, we have Treaty Centre, and it gets seasonally decked out, but it all seems a little half-arsed. It wasn’t always like that. I remember Mum taking me to a giant Santa’s grotto in the main lobby of the Treaty. She’d plonk me on the lap of a pretty decent Santa, surrounded by proper sized elves, year in, year out. It took until my early teens for me to clock that most of the kids queuing were younger than me. I didn’t care. Christmas was everything. I’m not sure what changed, or when the mood shifted. Looking around now, it could be that there’s just way too much culture and colour and other occasions that take precedence, and are celebrated with a little more gusto, to give too much of a crap about Christmas. Either way it was sad to see.

On a whim I nipped into Argos and picked out a six-foot plastic tree, and then hit the 99p store and left with a bag of decorations for under a fiver. I decided that I was going to make the most of Christmas, like it used to be. Like it should be. I refused to be on my lonesome like a sad Christmas commercial. I’d invite Idris over for some pre-Christmas-dinner drinks, and then I’d invite myself over to his place for his mum’s halal chicken with all the trimmings, and watch whatever Harry Potter was showing on a satisfied stomach. I owed it to myself to end the year on a high, after the shit-circus of a year I’d had.

With two weeks to go before Santa was due to shoot down the chimney, I started to get that feeling, but I had to put it to one side. For now, I had more pressing issues to suss out.

I picked up my freshly cleaned motor, then steeled myself and headed towards Imy’s place, a short drive down London Road. I only knew that Imy lived there because he and a stoner called Shaz used to session there, and I’d made the occasional visit to deliver some green. Seemed like a lifetime ago.

Across the road I could see workmen pulling temporary traffic lights from the bed of a truck, and I knew I was going to get stuck in traffic on the flipside. I pulled up on the opposite side of the road to The Chicken Spot. The strong smell wafting from there and through my open window made my stomach moan in anticipation, and I tried to recall the last meal I’d had. I’d never had the privilege to eat there before. According to the locals, the chicken was fried to crispy perfection, but I’d always been loyal to Aladdin’s and their Inferno Burger. Either way, I wasn’t there to eat.

Above the chicken shop was Imy’s flat. The curtains were drawn. I watched intently for a moment, but couldn’t make out anything other than that the curtains were drawn. I imagined Imy behind there somewhere, mourning. Or maybe he was past mourning and was intently plotting. Could be that plotting was his way of mourning. I could picture him sitting in an armchair staring at a wall covered with photos of all those who had wronged him, with maps and locations and bits of different coloured string connecting them. I wondered if I was on that wall. I wondered if he was waiting for me, watching me from a great height through the telescopic sight of a high-powered rifle.

I shuddered, killed the engine and stepped out of my car, not knowing what to expect. It could be anything from a slap in the face to adios, Jay. Whatever! I had to make my presence felt. I owed him that much. I looked both ways before jogging across the road and then slowing to a walk. I glanced inside The Chicken Spot and wasn’t surprised to see customers queuing for a speciality heart-attack breakfast. I approached the door just to the side of it and pressed the buzzer. It sounded muted, like the batteries needed replacing, but probably Imy wasn’t ready for household chores. I knocked on the door, respectfully at first, and then a little louder. I took a couple of steps back and looked up, shielding my eyes from the sun, which had made a surprise appearance considering the time of year. The curtains were still drawn. It got me thinking.

Imy had just got married. Would he have planned to live here with his wife and son, above a chicken shop? Doubt it. But in the absence of any other options this was as good a starting point as any.

I doubled back and stepped into The Chicken Spot, the smell of grease and onions and the hunk of doner meat smelt divine, and my stomach grumbled at me: Fill me the fuck up! I ignored it and leaned my arms on the counter.

‘Mate,’ I said to the guy with the greatest moustache in the world and a food-stained apron that I could easily have licked.

‘Help you?’ he said. Heavy accent, could have been from anywhere. I’m not hot on accents.

‘Yeah,’ I said, trying not to talk to his ’tache. ‘Have you seen Imy? He lives upstairs.’ I pointed up at the cracked, yellowing ceiling.

He took me in, paying special attention to my sandy mac, his eyebrows banging into each other in bemusement, maybe because I’d accidentally mistaken a chicken shop for the missing persons bureau. He leaned over the counter and his moustache was almost as close to my face as it was to his. ‘You look like journalist,’ he growled.

I gasped; I’d never felt so offended in my life.

I ventured out a smile. ‘I’m a friend,’ I said, playing fast and loose with the truth.

He snorted through his nose and something flew out. ‘Where you from, boy?’ he said from somewhere under his moustache.

‘Here, Hounslow.’

‘From newspaper!’ he said, not letting it go. He picked up a meat cleaver in one hand and a blade sharpener in the other. ‘I tell you what I say to all newspaper people. Get out of my restaurant!’

Restaurant! Probably best not to correct him. But I did need to convince him that I wasn’t a journalist. I think it was my new sandy mac, it made me look exactly like a fucking hack. I assumed I was being judged by association. This shop had probably seen its fair share of reporters attempting to dig up dirt on Imy so they could write an inaccurate article.

‘He’s my friend, I just want to know where I can find him.’

He stared me down before turning his sizeable back on me and going about his business. I was losing him, and it made me do something I’m not proud of. Something which contradicted my friend status, and cemented that I actually was a fucking journalist.

I cleared my throat loudly. He turned back around to see near ten pounds, in coins, neatly stacked on the counter. I looked at the bribe and then at him. He looked at the bribe and then at me. His jaw tightened and his eyebrows collided. I swallowed and lowered my gaze, realising quickly what a shit idea it was. I had no choice but to abort mission and improvise.

‘Can I have three pieces of chicken, fries, and a can of Coke, please?’

Chapter 12
Jay

I blasted the heat to max, dropped the gear and pulled away from The Chicken Spot towards London Road, only to drive into a standstill. Ahead of me were unnecessary road works galore. I was temporarily defeated by temporary traffic lights. I shifted the gear into neutral and checked my mirrors for the cops before firing up the web browser on my phone, hoping for some inspiration. I typed Imran in the search bar and Google ominously auto-filled Siddiqui. I ran my eyes down the first few hits.

Racially motivated bomb attack at wedding party.

Five dead. Many injured. Husband survives.

Ten-year-old Jihadi targets interfaith marriage.

Hostile reception for Prime Minister as she visits Osterley Park

Hotel amidst protests.

Calls for tighter immigration laws.

Nah, I ain’t reading any of that shit.

I shut down the browser and exhaled dramatically as traffic crawled slowly in front of me. It was killing me to be so stationary. Frustrated, I slipped the car into gear and pulled a daring U-turn and I was on my way. I glanced in the rear-view mirror, wishing away the suckers stuck in traffic, when I noticed a slimy green Merc pull the same manoeuvre.

There was no way that there were two of them in Hounslow. Not in that fucking colour. I’d seen that car twice in the space of a couple of hours.

Okay, so rationalise. It’s not exactly unheard of to pull out of traffic and head in the opposite direction. The earlier appearance at the car wash was a little strange, though, considering the car already looked squeaky clean. But then again, if I was rolling around in a motor like that, I’d be getting it washed daily. I shrugged it off. I didn’t have the time or the energy for paranoia. I put my foot down and put some distance between my Beemer and the Merc and took a turn and slipped down a quiet residential road.

Finding Imy was turning out to be a proper mission. There was one person who could help me in my search, but I really, really did not want to go there. The last thing I needed was for a next man to get involved, but with fuck all in the way of options, I had to consider it.

Using the dial on the centre console I scrolled through my phone book and stopped at S.

I caught myself smiling as his name appeared on the screen.

I wouldn’t say we were friends; he was once my customer and I was once his dealer, that was the extent of our relationship. But I liked him, he was funny as fuck, mostly unintentional as he muddled through life like I once did. He and Imy were close, like only stoner-buddies can be. If anyone could point me in the right direction, it’d be Shaz.

My finger hovered over the screen. I swallowed the guilt at getting him involved and jabbed at his name. The phone rang through my car speakers, and eventually a small voice that I didn’t recognise came through.

‘Hello.’

I turned the volume up a touch. It didn’t sound like Shaz at all. His token greeting had always been a jovial ‘What’s cracking, Jay?’ followed by an inexplicable laugh and a smoker’s cough.

‘Shaz?’ I asked, unsure.

‘Yeah. Alright, Jay?’ he said through a sigh.

‘It’s been time, man.’

‘It has. Look, I’m not looking to score at the moment.’

‘That’s cool,’ I replied. ‘I’m not looking to deal.’ I laughed unnecessarily. He didn’t, unnecessarily or otherwise. I cleared my throat. ‘I wanted to chat to you about some next thing.’

I heard him sniff, as though he’d been crying or maybe he just had a seasonal cold.

‘I haven’t got long, Jay,’ he said softly.

‘What’d you mean?’ I said carefully, wondering if he was ill, as I tried to recall the last time I’d checked my testicles.

‘I’ve got a coach to catch in an hour.’

‘Oh,’ I said, relieved. ‘I just need, like, five minutes, ten, tops.’

He didn’t answer, and whatever he had said up to that point didn’t seem like the Shaz that I knew. Considering the sensitivity of the situation, and the sensitivity coming off him in droves, I figured it would be better to meet him rather than chat about it over the phone. That way he wouldn’t be able to cut me off.

‘I can link you now, tell me where you are?’ I said.

‘Seriously, this is not a good time.’

‘Please, Shaz. It’s important,’ I said, approaching the junction to the Great West Road, my hand hovering over the indicator, the direction dependent on his reply. It came in the form of a low moan. I was frustrating him, I know, but I couldn’t let it go.

‘Is this about Imy?’ he asked, so fucking gently, that I had to think twice before answering.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s about Imy.’

‘Sorry, Jay,’ Shaz said. ‘I… I can’t meet you.’

He disconnected the call.

Deflated, I slowed down, and without a destination I parked my car to the side. I let the engine idle as I slid down in my seat. I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose. The fuck was I thinking, calling Shaz? He’d probably been at Imy’s wedding reception – scratch that, he was probably best man! He would have seen the tragic events of that night unfold in front of his very eyes. I should have let him be.

I exhaled deeply, trying to loosen a little of that frustration. I opened my eyes and in front of me that fucking slimy green Merc was creeping towards me. Any thoughts about coincidences curled up and died when it slowed down and stopped beside me.

His window slid smoothly down. He was a young Asian man, with a tight buzz cut and a small stud on the side of his nose. He was wearing a bright red tracksuit over his skinny frame, and he was watching me with an air of amusement on his face, as though Tom had finally caught up with Jerry. He twirled his finger, gesturing to me to drop my window.

I acknowledged him with a slight nod, and in no mood for bullshit, I said, ‘I saw you at the car wash. What? You tailing me?’

‘Nah, bro. Just trying to get your attention,’ he said. ‘You walked away just as I was about to say hello.’

‘Do I know you from somewhere?’

‘I think me and you should catch up,’ he said, completely pissing over my question.

‘Catch up?’ I said, not a clue what he was chatting about.

He slipped his hand in the centre console and reached for something. My heart did a backflip. This is exactly how drive-by shootings happen. To my relief his hand emerged holding up a business card between two fingers. He passed it across through my window. I took it. It was a black and glossy, embossed gold trim bordering around an embossed gold phone number and nothing else. Not even a name.

‘Call me,’ he said.

I nodded and slipped away the card. ‘I better go,’ I said, making a show of putting my car in gear.

‘Busy man, huh?’

‘Just got a lot on, that’s all.’

‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘Just another day for Jay.’

Wait. What?

Before I could ask him how he knew my name, he’d roared away. My eyes flew to the rear-view mirror trying to pick out his number plate before he disappeared out of sight. The plates were private – OMA 22R – I repeated it out loud a few times before it escaped, and opened up the notes app and typed it in. It wasn’t exemplary detective work, but at least I now knew his fucking name, too.

Omar.

The name didn’t mean jack to me. He definitely wasn’t someone I knew from dealing, that circle was small and I knew every one of my customers pretty well. I didn’t recall him knocking about town either, flash little rich boy like that, I would have remembered. It’s possible that we may have crossed paths at a house party or at a session, or his older brother was in my class at school and why the fuck was I wasting so much time thinking about this shit? I had more urgent matters to get my head around and getting hold of Imy should have been my only focus. And my only link to him had told me in no uncertain terms that he wouldn’t help me.

Doing the right thing, I swear, is a bitch. Most of my life I’ve done the wrong thing and it’s served me well. Responsibility is over-hyped. The last year or two, my attitude changed pretty quickly and pretty fucking dramatically, and doing the right thing has done nothing but cause hurt.

I dropped the indicator and turned right onto the Great West Road, when I should have turned left towards home. There was something I thought I needed to do but I wouldn’t know for sure until I got there. If I couldn’t face this, how the fuck could I ever look Imy in the eye?

Five long minutes later I wheeled my car into the grounds of Osterley Park Hotel.

Ground fucking zero.

The car park was empty and I parked in the first spot I saw. I exhaled loudly and stepped out. A toxic smell hit me like a force field and I found myself breathing through my mouth. The entrance to the hotel was at the far end, to get to it I had to walk past the hotel pub and the hotel Indian restaurant. Both haunts that I’d often kicked in, lifting my glass in one and stuffing my face in the other. Both now closed for business. I hoped the community spirit Hounslow is known for would soon see both of these businesses thriving again. Then again, people have long memories.

I gritted my teeth and moved quickly past, the presence of rioters, looters and protesters apparent as my feet crunched through a sea of discarded leaflets, patronising placards, broken glass bottles and improvised missiles. All that crap that comes when people lose their fucking minds.

There are six wide steps leading up to the entrance. I stood at the bottom, and despite wanting to puke out my heart, I lifted my eyes to Osterley Park Hotel.

The double doors leading into reception were hanging by a thread. Somebody had attempted to board it up, but somebody else had ripped it off again. The board lay by my feet, and scrawled over it in thick black marker was Closed for Refurbishments. It sounded a fuck of a lot more respectable than Closed due to Terrorist Attack. A few windows were smashed, and there were patches of a rough paint job, no doubt covering probably offensive or righteous graffiti. If I made the effort and looked closely enough, I could make out the message under the paint, but what the fuck for? To be honest the damage was minimal; it could be fixed. It was the screams that would be trapped inside forever.

I turned my back to the hotel and sat on the bottom step. I slipped out a cigarette, sparked it and pulled hard.

The fuck had my life become?

I’d lived my life in a lullaby, without a care in the world. Juggling a little weed to the bods in Hounslow and cruising through life in my shiny black Beemer, so blissfully ignorant. I never even used to watch the news or read the papers, and suddenly there I was, making the fucking news. I’d seen first-hand the destruction that most people only read, and cast their judgement about.

Fuck, man, this wasn’t even the first bombsite that I’d had the misfortune to set eyes on. A hospital, located beside beautiful snow-topped limestone mountains in Afghanistan, was the first. It was built and funded by Ghurfat-al-Mudarris for the poor people of a poor village called Hisarak, and devastated by two US military drone strikes.

The result of a war – as was this, thousands of miles away in Hounslow.

The difference, and there was a fucking difference, was that the military action that destroyed the hospital was able to dodge the bad press. Sorry about all the innocent lives but target has been met. A round of applause and pats on the fucking back. Either way, the impact was felt, at the time and forever after. Points are scored as lives are lost. Shit escalates and then calms down for a beat, just before the next devastation. It’s just where we are.

I sighed and it sent a shiver through me as I tried to figure out who was the egg in this fucked-up equation, and who was the chicken.

I took a last pull of my cigarette and added it to the littered ground, and looked out at the Great West Road. Cars were slowing down with purpose, necks craned, phones out, pointing, snap-snap-snapping away like it was a fucking tourist attraction, taking pictures that would burn through their phonebook, tagged with the same insincere message; Look what I drove past today! It was harrowing. Followed by a string of suitable sad-face emojis.

I threw a firm middle finger up at the rubberneckers. Take a picture of that, you fuckers.

Tyres crunched on glass. I turned to see a black cab pull into the grounds. The back door opened and a blue Adidas Gazelle hit the ground. A head popped out. His woolly Raiders hat was pulled down and it took me a moment to recognise him.

He recognised me, though. With his hand gripped to the car door, he remained rooted to the spot. I expected him to fall back in and leave. I looked away. The car door closed. I nodded knowingly to myself and sparked up another cigarette.

A moment later I felt Shaz stand beside me.

I looked up at him, trying to figure the right way to acknowledge him, but he was transfixed on the hotel. I let him be, didn’t say a word. He’d had already made it clear that he didn’t want to talk to me.

Shaz had changed. Obviously he’d changed! Shit like this chews you up, spits you out and then tramples on you. He looked like he’d put on weight and lost weight at the same time. I was used to seeing him carrying a quizzical look on his round face, as though he was trying to work something out, and then beam stupidly as if he had just worked it out. Now he just looked gaunt and sad. Yeah, Shaz looked sad.

‘You alright, Jay?’ he said, after a time.

I nodded. ‘Yeah, you know.’

Shaz looked at the waiting cab before sitting down next to me on the bottom step.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I know.’

I pushed my cigarette deck towards him and he slipped one out. I sparked him up. He nodded his thanks and we smoked in silence for a bit as we both ran silent conversations in our head.

‘I had to see for myself,’ Shaz said.

‘Me too,’ I replied. ‘I’m sorry. It must have been—’

‘I didn’t go.’ Shaz cut me off. ‘To the wedding, I didn’t go… I went to the funeral.’

I could have addressed it, asked why he hadn’t attended his best friend’s wedding. I was curious enough, but it wasn’t any of my business.

I changed the subject. ‘Where you off to?’ I said, nodding at the cab.

‘Terminal 3. From there I’m catching a coach home.’

‘You’ve moved. How comes?’

He replied with the smallest of shrugs. ‘Just… I had to get away.’

I didn’t push him, sensing that whatever Imy had gone through, Shaz, in his own way was going through, too. I didn’t blame him for moving. He didn’t ask for any of this shit. The person who he considered his closest friend had carried secrets that had devastated those around him. I know a little something about that. The secrets and the life I’d kept from Idris had strained our friendship, at times threatened to break it. I realised then that I couldn’t allow what happened to Shaz and Imy to happen to me and Idris.

We sat in silence, looking across at the Great West Road through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

‘I got to see him,’ I said, before I could stop myself.

‘What?’ he said, his face scrunched up tight.

I didn’t repeat it. He’d heard me. I waited for him to get his head around it. He did so by bouncing to his feet. ‘What is it?’ he said, standing over me. ‘You wanna pay your condolences? Fuck, Jay! Take my advice, stay as far as fuck away from him. He’s… He’s not right. He ain’t thinking right!’

‘I know he’s not.’

‘You don’t know shit! And you don’t know him!’ His outburst had caused his Raiders hat to shift and I clocked the tail end of a deep scar. ‘Fuck!’ he hissed and pulled down his hat and stared at me in defiance, daring me to say something.

I didn’t.

I watched a fat teardrop roll down his cheek followed by another. I stood up and clumsily rubbed his arm.

‘Sorry.’ Shaz apologised when he had no need to.

‘Don’t be.’

He swiped a hand over his face. ‘It’s bad,’ he said. ‘He’s mixed up with some bad people. People that… Shit, Jay, it sounds so…’ Shaz took a ragged breath and then he snorted out a laugh, and there was the tiniest glimpse of the Shaz I knew. ‘These fucking guys!’ He shook his head in disbelief.

‘You and Imy, did you fall out?’

Shaz touched his two fists together. ‘He was my boy, yeah. But he’s got problems, he’s got problems that I can’t even begin to get my head around. I should have stepped up, but no. What do I do? I run. I up and move as far as fuck, don’t even tell him. And now… This! His family! Like that they’ve gone! And here I go again, looking the other way, walking in the opposite fucking direction.’

Shaz closed his eyes tightly and bopped his head a few times as though he was struggling to find his go-to-tune and instead finding nails down a blackboard.

‘He’s got a shooter, Jay.’

Yeah, I knew he had a gun, I knew because he once threatened to put one between my eyes. I nodded my head without committing to anything. ‘Tell me where I can find him.’

Shaz shook his head, and looked at the cabbie. I thought I’d lost him, but really I’d fucking broken him. He met my gaze, held it in his, and slowly he slipped off his beanie hat.

I stared when I wanted to close my eyes. I stared at the word Kafir carved into his forehead.

He placed the hat back on his head. ‘You still wanna see him?’

Chapter 13
Imy

I returned Kumar’s company Mondeo in the early hours of the morning and I was back home before the day had begun. I gave my phone a cursory glance. Numerous missed calls, texts and voicemails from well-wishers, same words, words of commiseration and finding strength. I deleted them all without regard as I climbed heavily up the stairs.

I stood outside Jack’s room and looked in from a distance. His single bed still carried the small indentation of his small body. Dear Zoo, neatly sitting on the side table, by the lamp, never to be read again. A Buzz Lightyear poster peeling from the top corner, calling to be pressed back against the wall in line with the rest of his Toy Story posters. I still hadn’t stepped into Jack’s room since he was taken from me. And I wasn’t ready yet. I closed the door.

I stripped off in the bathroom, peeling away my suit, which had stuck to me from the rain and the snow and the sweat. Placing the Glock on the edge of the sink I took a shower and scrubbed myself hard, cleansing the murder from me. I picked out an old grey tracksuit from the wash basket, put it on and headed downstairs to the kitchen. From the worktop I swiped a bottle of vodka by the throat and picked up a dirty glass tumbler from the sink.

I stepped into the living room and walked past the sofa that the three of us had spent so much time squeezed together on, and sat down heavily on the armchair that we hardly used. I poured myself the first shot of the day and waited for the police to knock on my door.

The Kabirs and I had one thing in common: we had paid dearly the consequences of siding with Ghurfat-al-Mudarris. For worshipping a man who I had never seen, yet I had betrayed. Abdul Bin Jabbar, known affectionately as Al-Mudarris by his thousands of followers, and known by the world’s authorities as The Teacher. Such was his magnetism, he was able to make each one of his followers feel not like followers but like equals. Those who would lay down their lives for him, even though it would never have been asked of them. It was his teachings that had led me here, put me here. Given me everything and then ripped it away from me. All for a Cause that tried to change the world, but rocked mine.

I had once fantasised about meeting him, embracing him, but that fantasy had shifted. Now when I close my eyes I picture myself looking at him over the barrel of a gun. It would always remain a fantasy. A man who was worshipped by many, had many enemies. And he was killed before I could kill him.

I poured myself a second, heavier shot, and brought it to my lips. Over the rim of the glass, something caught my attention. I knocked the second shot back and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I watched his movement through the front window. If I applied even a fraction more pressure the glass would smash in my hands. The face that had fuelled my thoughts had dared to turn up outside my home. I breathed heavily and quickly through my nose as my heart slammed against my chest. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, I couldn’t blink. I watched him standing at the top of the drive, his mouth moving as though he was trying to convince himself that this was a good idea.

It wasn’t.

I tracked him down the driveway as he moved past my Prius, past Stephanie’s Golf, before losing sight of him as he approached the front door. I braced myself for the doorbell but instead the loud clang of the letterbox reverberated in my ears. I gritted my teeth and willed for him to leave and never think of making the same mistake again. Instead, he moved on from the letterbox and pressed the doorbell. Once, and then again: a short sharp burst and my heartbeat raced and my fingers gripped the arms of the armchair as he pressed it a third time. I pictured my Glock in the upstairs bathroom resting on the edge of the sink. It was just as well that it was out of reach.

Then a beat of silence. He’d left. I closed my eyes tightly before letting my eyelids relax as I concentrated on my breathing. I took a breath and another, as I tried to lose his face, stop it from playing on my mind. When I opened my eyes he had his nose pressed against the window.

Chapter 14
Jay

I walked across Imy’s driveway and looked back at my Beemer, hoping that I would be getting back into it in one piece. I’d just had it washed, and my car had already seen too much of my blood shed. I walked past a Prius, which I knew belonged to Imy, and then past a Golf with a child’s car seat in the back. That alone nearly made me spin on my Jordans and drive for the hills.

I took a breath and tried to clear the vision of when we’d last met. A gun planted between my eyes. Hands shaking, unable to pull the trigger. A decision that would irrevocably change his life.

I glanced through the bay window as I approached the front door, and wondered if his eyes were on me. I pushed the letterbox and it clanged loudly in my ears and I realised that I should have pressed the doorbell. So, I pressed the doorbell, too. I don’t know why I did that.

I waited for the clanging and the ringing to die down before I jabbed at the bell short and sharp, but I wasn’t sure if it had rung that time, so I pressed it again, just in case, and then jammed my hands in my pocket, so I wouldn’t be tempted to do it again. He surely would have heard. I tried to work out his movements; the funeral had been the day before, I doubted that he’d be out. Chances were, Imy was curled up in bed, mourning his loss, with a pillow over his head, pissed off at the idiot insensitively jabbing at his doorbell like it’s a musical instrument. But I was here now, and I had to see this through. I side-stepped off the porch and pressed my forehead against the bay window and peeked through the small holes of the nets into the living room. It took a second or two for my eyes to adjust.

On the other side of the window Imy was sitting in an armchair with a glass in his hand. He was looking right at me with dead eyes. I swallowed and pointed at the front door as though to gently guide him through the door-opening process. Fuck, I was on form! I watched him for a moment through the nets, as he tried his utmost to ignore my existence. I could have and should have come back another time, but would it have changed anything? I was never going to be welcome there. I side-stepped back onto the porch and got down on my knees and pushed open the letterbox and spoke through it.

‘Imy,’ was as good a start as any. ‘It’s me, Jay,’ wasn’t the best follow-up. ‘Look, I… I… I wanted to chat to you… I heard… you know, I heard what happened… Can we talk… please?’

I let the flap drop and rested my forehead against the cold steel of the letterbox and sighed. He didn’t want to see me and I couldn’t blame him. I’d thought maybe the dark history that we shared would count for something, we’d both lost a big part of our lives to this. But I had to remind myself that my loss could not be in the same league as his. It was time to give the man some space. I pushed the letterbox and put my mouth to it.

‘Listen, Imy. I’m gonna go. I’ll try again later. Tomorrow maybe. Hopefully you’ll—’

The door flung open and from my position on my knees I lifted my eyes up to him. He wrapped his fists around the collars of my mac, hoisted me to my feet and dragged me over the threshold. He kicked the door shut behind him and then spun me around in a waltz before pinning me to the wall with force.

He gritted his teeth in my face. No words, just a feral growl coming from somewhere deep inside him. I smelt booze on his breath as he shook me. I allowed my body to slacken and let him just fucking get on with it, which he did. He repeatedly bounced my head hard against the wall. I took it. I’d take it all. He dropped his hands and balled them into fists, his forehead scrunched tight over his face as he breathed heavily through his nose.

I did what I went there to do: I looked into his eyes and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

His fist connected against my ribs, and again, two rapid jabs, painful as fuck. I slid slowly down the wall and crumpled to the floor. I lay on my side and held my stomach.

Imy leaned down, his breath in my ear, his tears on my face. ‘You ever, ever come to my home again, I’ll fucking kill you.’ He left me there on the floor, and through heavy eyes I watched him walk away.

I should have, too.

Chapter 15
Imy

Jay was nothing to me but a reminder of a destination that I would never reach. I could not stand to look at his face. He had his eyes, his face, all I could see was his father in him. And I reacted. If I’d had a gun in my hand, I think I would have pulled the trigger without thought or hesitation.

I dropped down on my armchair and poured myself another shot. From the hallway I could hear Jay shuffling to his feet, muttering a swear word under his breath. I slumped back and took a sip of neat vodka. I placed the glass against my forehead to help cool a fast-approaching headache.

I know, I damn well know that Jay isn’t responsible for my family’s death, but if I’d never set eyes on him, they would be here and he wouldn’t.

The front door opened. I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath as I waited for the door to close behind him. And only when it had, did I exhale and feel my heartbeat slow. A moment later, when I opened my eyes, Jay was peering into the living room.

He pointed to his bright white hi-tops and said. ‘Shoes off… or…?’

‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I said, ready to dish out more punishment but not having the heart, will or energy to go through with it anymore.

‘I’ll just keep ’em on, if that’s cool?’ Jay tentatively stepped into the living room, holding his side from where I’d struck him. He stood around awkwardly for a moment as he regained his breath. His eyes wandered over to the coffee table, to the bottle of vodka and the tumbler and then back to me. ‘In the kitchen?’ he said.

I clenched my jaw as he disappeared, and I could hear him in the kitchen noisily going through the cabinets before popping his head around the doorframe.

‘Can’t find any. There’s a couple of glasses in the sink, but they need washing.’ He waited for me to reply, and when I stared back at him in open-mouthed disbelief, he said, ‘It’s cool. I’ll wash them.’ And with that he disappeared again. My fingernails dug into the arms of my chair, and my heartbeat started to race again, my head started to pound.

I heard the tap come on, then I heard him hiss, ‘Fuck! Hot!’ He clattered around for a while, longer than he would need to wash one glass. I got to my feet and peered around the door and into the kitchen. Jay had taken his coat off and placed it on the worktop, and he was bent over the dishwasher stacking days-old dirty dishes.

I backed away as he closed the dishwasher door. A moment later he returned, a clean tumbler in his hand which he placed on the coffee table. I held his gaze. He tried to return it, but I could see the uncertainty in his eyes as he stood awkwardly in front of me.

‘Do you mind?’ Jay asked, nodding at the bottle. When I didn’t answer, he poured himself a small shot and sat on the edge of the family sofa which I still hadn’t sat on since.

He took a sip. It started small and then developed into a gulp, possibly for courage. He made a sickly face before wiping the back of his mouth with his hand. I reached for the neck of the bottle and Jay covered the top of his glass with the flat of his hand.

‘Can’t. Driving,’ he said before realising that I was pouring one for myself. ‘Oh, right, yeah, you go ahead.’

‘What do you want?’ I asked.

‘Just…’ He shrugged. ‘Wanted to see you. See how you are.’

‘Why?’

Jay took his time finding the right words and, unable to bring them to his lips, he said, ‘You know why?’

My hand shook as I poured another for myself. ‘You think that you owe me something. Is that it?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I do.’

‘As if it all happened because of you?’ I said. It sounded harsh, and maybe I wanted it to.

Jay’s eyes wandered round our living room, stopping at the canvas of Jack dressed as a sheriff on a rocking horse. ‘Is that how you feel?’ he asked, carefully.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s how I feel.’

The words had left my mouth without regret and without meaning. I watched him, nodding his head in agreement, his eyes going back again to the canvas of Jack. He blinked away the tears.

My words were designed to cut him, and they did.

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