Authors: Cathy MacPhail
Patrick stood at the back of the crowd, taking in Hakim’s every word. He was sure he could never be that bold, to run in and save someone, and certainly not from a man with a machete. Especially if that man was Grady McManus. But he could picture the scene in the underpass as if he had been there. The steel blade rising, the old man bent and terrified, and Grady McManus. Patrick knew Grady, almost everyone did. Bad news – always had been. Cody was right. He wouldn’t forget Hakim spoiling his fun.
Hakim’s eyes caught sight of Mosi, standing away from the crowd. He stabbed a finger at him. ‘This coward, he ran off and left him!’
They all turned to Mosi.
Hakim took a step towards him. ‘He was in the underpass. He saw what was happening . . . and he ran off.’
‘He was on his own, Hakim.’ Bliss, as usual, sticking up for people. ‘He couldn’t do anything on his own.’
Hakim’s eyes didn’t leave Mosi. ‘He could have stayed and helped us. Instead, he ran. The man’s from his country, I bet. And he just left him.’ He spat on the ground. ‘Coward.’
Hakim began the story again as more joined the group eager to listen. Patrick kept watching Mosi.
Mosi’s expression didn’t change. There was neither guilt nor shame there. But why had he run so fast? Patrick had never seen anyone as scared as that in his life. The fear on his face hadn’t been caused just by seeing an attack in the underpass.
Mosi had seen something different.
Something much worse.
Mosi passed him as he went into the school building. ‘I saw you last night, Mosi,’ Patrick said softly.
Mosi looked at him, and Patrick could see he didn’t remember running past him. His mind had been filled with something else. Something so terrifying it had pushed everything else out.
Patrick’s imagination went into overdrive. What would make him so scared? ‘I know you saw something last night, Mosi. Something terrifying.’
Mosi flinched. His eyes grew wide. A reaction at last. ‘I don’t know what you mean . . . I saw nothing. Leave me alone.’ Then he said the same thing in his own language. ‘
Idaa!
’
Patrick didn’t know whether Mosi was lying, or if he honestly could not remember. Surely, no one could look so frightened and not remember what they had seen. It was bad not to remember. He’d seen a film once where the hero had a locked-in memory that had to be . . . well, unlocked. Mosi couldn’t even remember seeing Patrick. Maybe everything else about last night was blocked out of his mind too.
Patrick was sure he had to be right. Mosi
had
seen something terrifying. There was only one way to find out. He was going to keep his eye on him from now on.
Patrick’s words bothered Mosi all day. How could Patrick possibly know that he had seen something that scared him? Had he been somewhere, hidden in the underpass too? And even if Patrick had seen him, seen the man who had terrified him, he couldn’t have recognised Papa Blood? There were no photographs of this most hunted of war criminals. That was why he had evaded capture for so long.
Mosi’s mind swirled like water in a whirlpool. Papa Blood was calling himself Okafor. So this man, who had been a terrifying warlord back in his own country, was now known as Mr Okafor. He must be here under a false passport. Was he posing as an innocent asylum seeker, just like Mosi and his parents?
But people said he was soft in the head. His brain had been damaged. Had something happened to him? Had he been beaten, just as he had beaten others?
Had he been shot in the head, just as he had shot others?
He was a lovely man, Ameira had said. Everyone seemed to like him.
Had he changed so much?
Or . . . and now Mosi faced another possibility. In fact, he wished for it. Prayed for it. As he had never prayed before. Was it possible he had been mistaken? There in the dark of the underpass how could he have possibly been so sure? The man he had seen was tall, with the same dark face, but how could he be so certain that this was the same man? Perhaps this man was really Mr Okafor – a man to be pitied, not feared.
And in that second he knew, though the thought terrified him, he knew he was going to go to where Okafor lived. He had to see him again, and find out the truth.
Patrick’s granny had decided to camp out at his flat. She was there when he went home that day. Lying in wait for him as soon as he stepped from the lift. ‘Where’s your mother?’ were her first words, as she held the front door wide.
Patrick shrugged and ducked under her arm. ‘She must be at the bingo,’ he said as he walked up the hall, slinging his school bag on the floor.
His granny closed the door and followed him inside. ‘Is that daughter of mine never here when you come in from school?’
Never
, he almost told her, but stopped himself just in time. It would only get his mother into trouble, and worse, in Patrick’s opinion, it would keep his granny here for even longer. So he lied like an expert. ‘Naw, she’s always here, Granny. Nice tea ready for me and everything.’
‘Ha!’ Somehow, he was sure she knew he was lying. But it was worth a try. ‘Have you got any homework?’
Patrick hesitated. ‘Naw.’
She didn’t believe that either. She threw his school bag at him. ‘Right, well, let’s get it done while we’re waiting for your mother to come in.’
‘I . . . eh, I had kinda plans the night. Meeting my mates and that.’
His granny pursed her lips. She looked as if she had just sucked a lemon. ‘Not tonight, you’re not. This is a school night. You are staying in.’
‘But, Granny . . .’
‘But Granny nothing! You’re in for the night and that’s final.’
How was he supposed to solve a mystery if his granny didn’t let him out? He wanted to explain to her that he had to keep Mosi under surveillance. Mosi had seen something . . . something that had scared the life out of him. Patrick had to know what that something was. But he knew there was no way he was going to get past his granny tonight.
Mosi was even quieter than usual as he sat in his bedroom. His mother came in to see him. ‘Has anything else happened?’
How could he tell her?
‘There are many things going on.’
‘We’re not part of that, Mosi,’ she said in her soft voice. ‘Remember what we decided? We would keep our heads down, become invisible. Then we would be safe.’
Become invisible. The way to survive. Always the way to survive.
If only it was really possible.
He
could become invisible. Papa Blood. Hadn’t he told them that often? He could become invisible and soar like a great bird, soar above them, and see all. He was the breeze that brushed their cheeks. They could have no secrets from him. He was all powerful.
He could change his shape, become any creature he wished. He could slip into their minds so even their thoughts were not secret. Now, he was back.
It was too much. He would never escape from this man. Never. His mother left him, and he sat on his bed, rocking back and forth. He would never escape him.
Unless. Unless. He was not Papa Blood at all.
It was all Mosi thought about at school the next day. He paid no attention in lessons. He hardly listened. He would not go home. Instead, he would go to the block of flats where Ameira lived. He would find Okafor’s house and he would see him in daylight. Then he would know.
He saw Patrick watching him all that day. He could see that he wanted to talk to him. So Mosi avoided him. He had nothing to say to Patrick.
As soon as the bell rang at the end of school, Mosi made sure he was out of the classroom and the school gates before anyone else. He slid behind the shop on the corner, where no one could see him. He watched Hakim take photos of himself and his friends with the new iPhone his uncle had given him for his birthday. He heard Cody and his crowd shouting and yelling as they ran down the road. There was Bliss and Ameira and some of the other girls, arms linked, giggling and chatting as they walked home. Finally, he spotted Patrick, last out. Probably thinking Mosi was still somewhere inside the school. He stood at the school gates, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, looking up and down the street. Mosi knew he was watching for him. He stood there for ages. Mosi thought he would never leave. It began to rain. Patrick pulled up the hood of his jacket, then with a puzzled look on his face he began to walk in the opposite direction, kicking at stones. Every so often he would glance around, and Mosi could almost read his mind. He was wondering how he had missed him.
Mosi waited in his hiding place till everyone had gone, till the road was quiet again. Then he too pulled up the hood of his jacket against the rain, trying to look invisible as he hurried towards the place where Okafor lived.
Patrick hadn’t gone far. There was no sign of Mosi. How could he have lost him? But Mosi had been acting weird today. Shifty. Never making any eye contact. Moving away from him every time he tried to talk to him. Mosi was up to something. Patrick was sure of it. Something to do with what had scared him yesterday. Mosi definitely hadn’t taken his usual route home, or Patrick would be able to see him somewhere on that long snake of a road. So where had he gone?
Halfway down, there was a path to the left that passed over the railway bridge and then wound round to the back entrance of the school. Perhaps he’d gone that way. Patrick took that path, and began to run.
He was out of breath when he stopped at the bridge. His eyes searched the pedestrian walkways and paths that led to the different parts of the estate. Where could he have gone? Yet, Mosi could hide. And he had seen how he could run.
What else could Mosi do, he wondered.
And just as he was thinking he might as well go home, Patrick saw him. He must have hidden somewhere outside the school and when it was safe, he had gone back in through the front gates and was heading across the playground, towards the back entrance.
It would have been easy to have missed him. His hood was up, and in that maroon hoodie he looked just like any other boy in the school. For that split of a second Mosi moved into the open. Then Mosi stopped, hesitated, looked back, as if he was unsure about whether to go on or turn back. But only for a second. Then he was gone again. Patrick didn’t waste any time before he was after him. He wasn’t going to lose him this time.
All the time he ran, Mosi was working out his plan. He would wait and watch for as long as he had to. He needed to see the man again. He had to be sure. He would make certain he wasn’t seen, but even if he was, the man surely would not recognise or remember Mosi. He had only been one boy among so many, among thousands. But if he caught Mosi watching him, could he guess who Mosi was?
That thought stopped him for a second. Should he just go home? Forget he had ever seen him? Yet what choice did he have? He had to find out the truth. Mosi glanced back as he crossed the open playground. Once out of the back gates, he melted into the shadows.
The block where Ameira lived was the last on the estate. Behind it was a pathway, and then a high wall that blocked off the old cemetery that rose on the hill. Its dark grey headstones and stone angels seemed to loom in the background. For a moment the superstitious part of him believed it was a warning. Mosi stopped across from the entrance to the tower block. Beside it there was the long line of houses meant for the elderly or infirm with ramps leading up to the front doors. Ameira had said this was where he lived. Mosi stood inside the bike sheds. Though no one ever dared leave a bike here. Instead the sheds were filled with rubbish, and broken bottles and a couple of old prams. But he could hide here, out of sight. Hide here and wait.
It amazed Patrick how silently Mosi could run, how fast. He didn’t even seem to make a sound as he splashed through puddles. How did he do that? Even running as fast as he could, Patrick almost lost him. But there, beside the bike sheds, he caught sight of Mosi’s dark red hoodie, just as Mosi eased himself inside. Perhaps he was waiting for someone. Patrick slipped behind the bus stop. He saw how Mosi’s eyes kept darting towards the houses. Or was he watching for someone coming out, or going in?
Ameira suddenly showed up. And who was with her? Big man Hakim, showing off, and waving round that blinking iPhone of his. Surely, Ameira couldn’t fancy him! But it looked as if she did. It was all that talk of him saving Mr Okafor that had done it. Big show-off. They stood talking for a while. No, they didn’t both talk. Hakim was doing all the talking, Ameira just seemed to be listening, hanging on his every word, giggling, it seemed, at all the right moments. Girls. Patrick would never understand them. And then, at last, with a little wave, Ameira went into her block, and Hakim left and darkness began to set in.
So why was Mosi here? Was he spying on Ameira? She was always nice to him and she was really pretty. It only took Patrick a second to dismiss that. Nah. This was bigger than girls. Much bigger.
How could Mosi stay still for so long? Patrick’s legs were sore, his feet were cold. And yet, there was Mosi, still as death. Watching.