Why on earth did she think this would work?
As a last resort she went into text. There were plenty from the station and from voicemail but nothing that helped.
‘Come on, Jack,’ she shouted, and scrolled frantically. At last she found one from MB and pressed ‘Read’.
When the words popped onto the screen Lilly had to lean against the fridge to steady herself. Her stomach felt as if it was lodged in the back of her throat.
I ENJOYED LAST NIGHT. U?
She read it. Reread it. Then she read it again.
A burning anger started low in her pelvis and snaked up to her face like a lighted fuse.
Bastard. Fucking bastard. He’d been out last night pretending to work when all the time he was…
When the fury reached her brain she exploded. With a scream she smashed her fist into the cake. She threw handful after handful at the wall. It slid down, leaving a slimy brown trail.
When Jack got home she would kill him.
An hour later Lilly was still in the kitchen. Every inch of her body ached and moaned. The realisation of what Jack had done was like a physical pain.
When she heard Jack’s key in the lock she could barely move.
The first thing she noticed when he entered the room was how terrible he looked. His eyes were empty, his cheeks hollow. No doubt her own appearance was similar.
He glanced at the cake splattered across the wall but didn’t say a word.
Instead he pulled out a chair and sank into it as if he had never felt so tired. He put his head in his hands.
‘Lilly,’ he whispered, ‘I’ve done a terrible thing.’
Lilly couldn’t speak. It was as if her brain had split in two, the connections lost.
‘You’re going to hate me,’ he said.
She had an urge to run away, to avoid hearing the words, but her feet wouldn’t move.
‘You know the case I’ve been working on,’ he said.
Oh God, he’d been having an affair with another copper. Lilly almost laughed at the cliché.
‘Yes,’ her voice was no more than a murmur.
‘Well, I got it all wrong,’ he said. ‘The boy, Ryan, he wasn’t what I thought at all.’
What was he talking about? What did this have to do with the text from MB?
‘I thought he was just another little toerag, swinging the lead.’ He looked up at her, his eyes bright with tears. ‘I treated him like just another bag of useless shite.’
Lilly realised that what he was upset about had nothing whatsoever to do with her suspicions.
‘I had a chance to help that kid but I blew it,’ he said. He broke down, his shoulders heaving with each sob.
Lilly had never seen Jack so bereft, and despite herself, she reached out to touch him.
‘Tell me what’s happened,’ she said softly.
So he told her about the lad who was truanting from school, who was bullying his mother, who had lured away a vulnerable girl.
‘Only none of that’s true,’ he sobbed. ‘If I had just opened my eyes for just one second I’d have seen what was right in front of me.’
Lilly stroked his hair. Whatever she had felt an hour ago was overtaken by the need to comfort Jack.
‘His mum isn’t the full ticket and he looks after her as best he can,’ he said. ‘And the girl came to him because she was frightened of her brothers.’ He slammed his fist on the table. ‘It was bloody obvious from the start.’
Lilly thought about Sam. Her lovely, sweet boy with a collection of teddies to rival Hamleys. The school bully.
‘Things are never obvious,’ she said.
‘You’d have seen it in a jiffy,’ he pointed a finger at her, ‘because you’re not some fucked-up cynic.’
‘Neither are you.’
He pushed his knuckles into his tear ducts as if to stem another flow.
‘Then why is Ryan lying unconscious in hospital?’ he asked. ‘Why is the girl missing?’
He wasn’t looking for an answer, of course, but Lilly gave one all the same.
‘Because, Jack, none of us are perfect.’
When he looked up at her his gratitude was palpable.
‘You never judge,’ he said.
She smiled at him. She knew then that she wouldn’t tackle the text from MB now, not when Jack needed her support. She might be angry with him but she still loved him.
When her father left without a forwarding address but with a heap of unpaid debts, his name had never been uttered again. Elsa simply put her shoulder to the grindstone and took two jobs. Yet each night when she thought her daughter safely asleep, Elsa would lie on her bed and weep.
‘Why does she care?’ Lilly had asked her nan. ‘He’s a horrible git and she should be glad he’s gone.’
Nan had stubbed out an Embassy Regal in her gilt ashtray on its jewelled stand and pulled Lilly into her arms.
‘You’ll understand one day, Lil.’ She smelled of Hartnell’s In Love. ‘Feelings don’t die overnight.’
Lilly suspected she was beginning to understand perfectly what Nan had meant.
‘Have you been at the hospital?’ she asked Jack.
He nodded. ‘The poor kid has taken a terrible beating. They cracked his skull open like an egg.’
‘And the girl?’
‘We don’t know,’ he said. ‘Ryan’s mum said a group of men barged into the flat and grabbed her.’
‘Did no one call the police?’
Jack frowned. ‘This is the Clayhill, Lilly—what do you think?’
She nodded. Of course no one called the police.
‘Apparently Ryan tried to stop them and took a swing at one of them. Broke his nose, by the look of the blood,’ he said.
‘It’s got to be the brothers,’ Lilly said.
Jack shook his head. ‘Uniform went straight round but they’ve got a cast-iron alibi.’
‘Then who?’
‘A group of thugs who think they’re above the law.’
Lilly felt as though she’d been slapped in the face.
PTF.
A shiver ripples down Aasha’s spine and she pulls her knees tight into her chest.
It’s not that she’s cold—just very scared of what is going to happen next.
She had fallen asleep on Ryan’s bed, exhausted by everything that had happened in the last few days with Imran and then with Ryan’s mum. It had been a good sleep, deep and warm without any dreams to disturb her.
Suddenly, there was a bang in the hallway that woke her with a start. She could hear Ryan shouting. At first she thought his mum might have done something stupid again. The poor woman had seemed calmer when Aasha had taken in a cup of tea but you never could tell when people were sick. Their moods could change.
So she’d jumped off the bed, her heart in her mouth, terrified that once again the walls would be covered in blood.
When she got into the hall she saw two men pushing their way into the flat.
‘Get the fuck out of my house,’ Ryan shouted at them.
But one was three times his size, all pumped up from doing weights. He picked Ryan up by his T-shirt and slammed him into the wall. Ryan groaned and slid down to the floor. The other man was skinny with a weird twitch at the corner of his eye. It made him look even more mental than the big one.
Aasha screamed and ran to the kitchen to phone the police. Ryan might have a golden rule never to involve the authorities in his business but right now she didn’t give a shit.
They followed close behind her and filled the tiny kitchen with their huge bodies.
‘Don’t make this any worse for yourself,’ the big one told her. ‘We’re leaving.’
It was then Aasha realised that her brothers had sent them.
It was over. She was going home.
‘Don’t you touch her.’
Everyone turned to see Ryan in the doorway, the front of his favourite Lacoste T-shirt ripped.
The big one pointed at Ryan with a huge hand. ‘Don’t be stupid and you won’t get hurt.’
Aasha took a tiny breath as she saw the baseball bat Ryan had by his side. She wanted to grab it, to stop things spiralling out of control, but she was so frightened she couldn’t move.
‘Don’t,’ she whispered.
The man looked from Aasha to the bat and back again.
‘Worried about your boyfriend?’ he said. ‘Sweet.’
The other man laughed, his eye dancing manically.
‘Come on.’ The big one reached out to grab Aasha, his hand sweaty.
Ryan ran at him, swinging the bat and whacked him hard in the face. Aasha heard a crack like breaking wood.
‘Little fucker,’ the man roared, blood pouring from his nose.
The other man aimed a punch at Ryan but he dodged around until he was at Aasha’s side, still swinging the bat to keep them at bay.
How long could he keep it up, Aasha wondered. She knew she should try to help, but she was paralysed by fear.
The big one wiped his nose with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his cheek. ‘I’m going to make you wish you were never born,’ he snarled.
He grabbed the edge of the kitchen table and upended it. Bowls and cutlery flew across the room. Aasha screamed again.
Ryan held the bat out like a sword. ‘For the last time, I’m telling you to get out.’
The big one glanced at his friend and nodded.
For one second Aasha thought they were agreeing to leave, that Ryan had scared them off.
She was wrong.
They stepped forward, almost as if they’d rehearsed it. Ryan lashed out at the big one’s bloody face. The bat didn’t connect. Ryan swiped again, drawing an arc with the bat. When his arm was fully extended to his right and his own face was unprotected, the man with the twitch punched him square in the face. Aasha heard the air leave Ryan’s mouth in a whoosh.
As he tried to gain his breath the man punched again. This time Ryan fell to the floor coughing and spitting blood.
The big one grabbed the bat from him. ‘Get her out of here,’ he ordered his friend.
The man with the twitch pulled Aasha roughly but
she didn’t fight. She couldn’t even lift her arms and she let him drag her from the kitchen. As she stumbled along the hallway she heard the horrible thud of the bat again and again and again.
When they got to a white Transit van her legs buckled. The man picked her up and threw her in the back as if she weighed nothing. Her shoulder bashed against the metal floor.
She rubs it now, knowing that if she could see it there would be a mark where it feels tender under her fingers. But she can’t see. She’s been locked in the back of the van, in total darkness, for what seems like hours.
She remembers a journey—she couldn’t say how long—where she rolled and tumbled in the back. Then the van stopped. She’d braced herself, expecting the doors to fling open, to be thrown at Imran’s feet. When they just left her in here she felt something like relief.
But it’s been so long now, she’s getting scared again, and the smell is making her feel sick. What if she needs to pee? What if the air runs out?
She holds her hands out in front of her and gropes for the doors or the sides. She waves in a circle, touching nothing but air, thinking how terrible it must be to be blind and have this nothingness every day of your life. Just that sickening smell.
She leans forward a little, then a little more. It is so disorientating, like being suspended in mid-air.
At last her fingers brush the side. The solid steel is so welcome she pats it like a dog.
Then she traces down, hoping for a handle.
The smell gets stronger and stronger until she gags.
When her hands are almost at floor level she touches hard plastic. It’s a container of some sort. She follows its straight lines until something else makes her draw back. Soft, yet dense. Aasha can’t think what it is. Gingerly, she reaches out again until her fingers meet its feathery lightness. She presses harder until she feels a firmness beneath. The smell, the touch—they are both familiar.
She strokes sideways, confirming the entire container is full of these objects. But what?
Then something scratches her finger. Hard and sharp. A beak.
Aasha recoils in horror and scoots away on her bottom until her back touches the stiff smoothness of another container. She tries not to cry and buries her hands in her lap. She doesn’t want to touch them, she doesn’t want to smell them, but she knows what they are.
She’s been locked inside a van full of dead chickens.
February 2009
‘Those that make war against God and his people shall be slain.’ The teacher is back at the mosque. ‘This is the basis of Jihad.’
I am late for the discussion but a place has been reserved for me at the front now that I am known. I nod an apology as I make my way forward and the teacher nods back.
We are equals. Well, perhaps not equals, but I certainly have position.
A sister raises her hand. ‘Does the noble Koran not tell us that whoever kills a human shall be regarded as killing all mankind?’
The teacher smiles patiently. ‘This is a very good point,’ he says. ‘Does anyone here have an answer?’
I feel confident to have my say and gesture to the teacher with my eyes. Not for me putting up my hand like a child in school. The teacher gives me a nod.
‘There is a duty upon every Muslim to live peacefully,’
I say. ‘The word peace should be the most common of all words on the believer’s tongue.’
‘How then can we justify war or terrorism?’ the sister asks.
‘Because Allah requires us not to be the aggressor,’ I pause for effect. ‘But he does not expect us to do nothing while our enemies attack us.’
The teacher gives a modest smile but it is enough to spur me on.
‘Any Muslim who is being prevented from following his true path has the right to defend himself.’
Over breakfast that morning I had the very same discussion with Yasmeen. When the news of a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv came on the radio she had shaken her head sadly.
‘War is war,’ I said.
‘It’s still horrible when someone walks into a café and blows up children sharing a Coke,’ she said.
‘What choice do they have?’ I asked. ‘Palestinian children are being murdered every day.’
‘An eye for an eye,’ she said. ‘Since when did you become Jewish?’
I was about to throw an insult but Yasmeen batted me away.
‘I understand where you’re coming from. These are poor people without access to even basic food—we can’t expect them to fight back in a traditional military manner,’ she said. ‘Terrorism is the only response available to the oppressed.’