If You Were Me Read online

  Dad looked at me. ‘What time do you think we left Brody’s – nine-fifteen, nine twenty-five?’

  ‘Probably gone half past.’ My voice came out strangled. I pulled out a chair and perched on the edge. Lighten up, Danny. I tried to smile. My mouth wouldn’t let me.

  ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘Scared,’ Dad said. ‘Petrified, I’d say.’

  ‘Any idea why?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  I stared at him. Really, Dad?

  Collins wagged his pencil at me. ‘Danny?’

  Yeah, officer, it’s because a load of armed thugs were trying to kill him. ‘No,’ I muttered. ‘Me neither.’

  Collins turned his pencil back to Dad. ‘Could he have thought you were from the police, Mr Abbott?’

  That was a laugh.

  ‘Not a chance. I was wearing my work overalls. Danny too.’ Dad pulled a clean pair out of the ironing basket, flipping them round so they could see the bright-orange logo front and back.

  ‘Oh, right, you’re that Abbott,’ Collins said. ‘I’ve seen your partner around a few times.’

  Dad laughed. ‘More than likely. Jez spends a lot of time down that estate. He’s even been known to drink in the Trafalgar Arms.’

  Trent grinned. ‘It’s got a bad reputation but they do a good pint. So, was Sahar carrying anything, Mr Abbott?’

  ‘Not that I noticed.’

  ‘Danny?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Can either of you tell me what he was wearing?’ Collins asked.

  Dad looked surprised. ‘What does that matter?’

  ‘These guys are clever, they keep changing their clothes to fox the CCTV.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, as far as I remember it was jeans . . . dark T-shirt, some kind of jacket – brown, I think. With a zip.’

  ‘Shoes?’

  ‘Trainers.’

  ‘Did you happen to notice the make?’

  Dad smiled at me. ‘That’s more Danny’s department.’

  I shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  ‘How long did you stay in the Sahars’ flat?’

  ‘Two, maybe two and a half hours,’ Dad said. ‘We had to replace a mains pipe.’

  ‘Who was there?’

  ‘Just the mother and a little girl at first. An older daughter turned up a few minutes later. I think she’d been shopping.’

  ‘How did they appear to you?’

  ‘The mum was in a bad way, totally out of it, the little one was very quiet, and the older girl, well, she was a nice kid, serious, made us tea. She seemed to be the one holding things together, clearing up, cooking.’

  ‘Any other visitors while you were there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any of them mention the son?’

  ‘No.’

  Collins raised his eyebrows at me. I shook my head again and reached for the mug of tea Mum was handing me.

  ‘Did either of you see anything suspicious in the flat?’ Trent said.

  I stared into the mug.

  ‘Like what?’ Dad said.

  ‘Anything incriminating they might have disposed of before we searched the place, like money, flash drives, phones, computers, weapons?’

  A blast of heat burnt through my body. What if they searched our house? What if they found Behrouz’s phone in my room? Dad was shaking his head. ‘No, nothing like that. Course, we didn’t go in the bedrooms, but from what I could see, the flat was pretty empty. Pathetic, really, how little they had.’

  Collins nodded. ‘We’ve been up all night helping search the building but we drew a total blank.’

  Was I imagining a muscle twitching in Dad’s cheek?

  Trent handed him a card. ‘You’ve been really helpful, Mr Abbott. If you think of anything else, just give me a shout on my mobile – there’s all sorts of departments sticking their oar in and we wouldn’t want your call getting lost.’ He drained his tea, leant back in his chair and sighed. Dad raised the teapot. Trent nodded and held out his mug. ‘Go on, then, just a drop. It’s going to be a long day.’

  ‘This your speciality, then?’ Dad said. ‘Terrorists?’

  He had a nerve, dragging this out, topping up their tea, asking them questions. Though you had to hand it to him, his concerned-citizen act was good.

  ‘No, we got roped in because Sahar’s local,’ Collins was saying.

  Trent grunted. ‘I was supposed to be heading back to Newcastle for my cousin’s wedding but Meadowview’s on my patch so when they asked for extra hands, I couldn’t say no. My mum’s not best pleased, neither’s my girlfriend, but what can you do?’

  ‘I bet you see all sorts round those tower blocks,’ Mum said.

  ‘Tell me about it. But that’s the side of community policing I like, getting the families to trust me, doing what I can to stop a bad situation getting worse. You can’t do that unless you put in the hours and get to know who’s who.’

  Mum folded her arms. ‘Someone should do something about those warehouses by the canal. I’ve heard there’s kids in there all hours of the day and night, drinking, smoking and Lord knows what else. Can’t they put in some CCTV or a few street lights?’

  Collins rubbed his thumb and finger together. ‘Same old story, Mrs Abbott. No money.’

  Trent put his mug down and stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea, Mr Abbott. Anything else you think of, just give us a call. Some idiot back at the nick’s already been leaking stuff to the press – so, as I said, it’s best to get me on my mobile. Here you go, Danny.’ He snapped a second card down on the table in front of me.

  Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, ‘Behrouz Sahar. Are you sure he’s guilty?’

  Trent nodded. ‘Hundred per cent. Al Shaab have already admitted he was one of theirs, and his fingerprints were all over everything in that lock-up. But take it from me, going by the amount of explosive he had in there, they were planning something big. Our focus is on finding the rest of them. He wasn’t in this alone, that’s for sure.’

  They got up and followed Dad into the hall. I ran upstairs and took Behrouz’s phone from under my pillow. My fingers hovered for barely a second before I deleted all the shots of Jez Deakin and Dad’s van from the memory. Aliya was right. If she was going to stand any chance of proving her brother was innocent, she’d have to start with what was on this phone. But no way could I let her see anything that would connect Behrouz Sahar to my dad. To make myself feel better, I printed her out a set of the other photos, the ones of Cement Face in his green overalls and white rubber boots. It didn’t help. Every time I tried to breathe it still felt like a giant claw was squeezing my lungs.

  An hour later I was sitting on the little wall outside the Holly Lodge Hotel, flicking through the photos of Cement Face and trying not to look as shifty as I felt. Shutters rumbled and milk bottles clinked as the cafe across the road opened up. A woman hurried in, came out with a steaming mug and sat down at one of the little tables, battling with the wind as she leafed through the paper. She didn’t even go inside when it started to rain.

  I pulled up my hood and walked up and down. Just a few paces one way and a few paces back, trying to ignore the voice in my head telling me I shouldn’t even be there, I should be down the police station telling Trent everything I knew about Behrouz Sahar getting kidnapped. I tried to block it out but the voice went on nag, nag, nagging, driving me nuts. Shut up! I’ve brought her the phone, haven’t I?

  The front door swung open and when I saw her coming down the steps, the voice gave a sort of groan before it started going on at me again. She was wearing the same baggy grey dress and trousers she’d had on before but she looked smaller, as if the wind might blow her away, and she had dark smudges under her eyes. She didn’t smile. Didn’t say hello, in fact she didn’t even look at me. For a minute I thought she was going to walk straight past me but she slowed down as she got nearer, pulled her scarf over her mouth and murmured, ‘Please. Meet me at the back of the hotel.’

  I gave it a cou
ple of minutes, then wandered back the way I’d come. Half my brain was telling me to keep on going and forget I’d ever met her. The other half kept seeing her thin, frightened face and telling me I had to stay. Feeling ripped in two, I slipped down the next side road and counted along the buildings until I came to a gate in a high wooden fence. I pushed it open and stepped into a cramped back yard full of dustbins, crates of empty bottles and soggy cardboard boxes. She was waiting under the roof of an old lean-to and every couple of seconds she glanced up at the back of the hotel.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I said.

  ‘There is a policewoman upstairs with my mother. I don’t want her to see us. Did you bring the phone?’

  ‘Yeah. I charged it too and put a bit of credit on it for you.’

  She took the phone and looked at me warily. ‘Why are you helping me?’

  I shrugged. ‘Like you said, I had to wipe my prints off the gun. So getting the phone was no big deal.’ Unnerved by the way she went on staring at me, I scuffed the loose gravel with my trainer. ‘And I saw your brother.’

  ‘When?’ Her eyes brightened, hungry for information that might help Behrouz.

  I felt sick that I couldn’t just open my mouth and tell her what I’d seen in the loading bay. ‘That morning at Meadowview. He was coming down the stairs. He looked petrified.’

  She took a couple of seconds to choke back her disappointment. ‘I think he knew someone wanted to kill him.’

  ‘You think that’s why he had a gun?’

  She lowered her head and nodded. ‘I will find out who has done this to him and I will prove that he is innocent.’

  ‘What if you can’t?’

  ‘They will put him in prison and they will send us back to Afghanistan and then – ’ she screwed up her face and the words came out in a whisper – ‘they will kill us.’

  ‘Who will?’

  ‘The Taliban.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The fighters who say they are men of God but they are not. They are devils.’

  I stared at her. Afghanistan and Taliban were words I’d only ever heard on the news, usually over pictures of wild-eyed men in dusty turbans waving rocket launchers around. ‘Why’d the Taliban want to kill you?’ I said.

  ‘My brother worked as an interpreter for the British army. They want to punish him for that, so they came to our house. Three of them with guns. That’s why we had to leave my country.’

  This wasn’t a game or a movie I could switch off and forget. These were real people. Real lives. Real deaths. I couldn’t walk away. Not this time. The guilt was growing inside me, churning and swelling, and the voice in my head was getting angrier, telling me to get it over with and call the police right then and there. I couldn’t do it. Not just because of Dad. Because of Mum. How could I destroy her life? But one look at this girl, shivering in her flimsy dress, and I knew if I didn’t do something, I’d be destroying the lives of her whole family. There was only one way out of this. If I worked with her, then maybe I could find some way to prove Behrouz was innocent that didn’t involve Dad. Her frightened green eyes were scouring my face, trying to work me out. I rubbed my sweating neck, pointed to the phone, and for the first time since I’d seen the kidnap I almost took a breath without it hurting. ‘Have you seen the photos on there?’ I said.

  I watched her as she laid the phone on an upturned packing case and opened the picture gallery. She stopped at the ones of the Meadowview fundraiser, tensing up, staring hard.

  ‘Seen something?’ I asked.

  ‘No . . . I don’t know . . . it’s just that the day he took these was the day he started to get nervous and worried.’

  I glanced down at the bunting and the tea stall and the little kids crowding round the juggler. Of course there was nothing on the screen to show that I’d deleted any photos, no trace of them at all, and no sign of all the grubby grey lies I was telling except for the quiver in my finger as I clicked open the next file and the catch in my voice when I said, ‘This lot are all of the same man – do you know him?’

  I bent closer while she took her time studying the pictures of Cement Face. Close up she smelt of soap and a dusty sort of spice. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I have never seen him before.

  ‘What about the wall he’s leaning against? Seeing as he’s wearing overalls and rubber boots, it’s probably some kind of factory. Look, you can see the corner of a red sign and a bit of roof.’

  ‘I do not know where it is. I do not know many places in London.’ She frowned a little. ‘When did Behrouz take the pictures of this man?’

  ‘Tuesday. I already checked.’

  ‘That’s the day before the explosion.’ Her eyes blinked nervously. ‘The day he came back with the gun. Can you tell what time he took these photos?’

  ‘Between 12.34 and 12.42. Looks like he caught Cement Face having a fag in his lunch break.’

  ‘What is a fag?’

  ‘A cigarette.’

  ‘Why do you call this man Cement Face?’

  ‘Look at him.’ I smiled but she didn’t smile back. ‘Here.’ I handed her the set of photos I’d printed out. She looked at them, a bit bemused. ‘Why did you make these?’

  I just about managed a shrug. ‘Oh, you know, I thought you might want to show them around, find out who he is.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She folded them neatly and put them in her little backpack. Giving me a careful look she said, ‘Can you find out who Behrouz called that day?’

  She watched intently as I showed her how to pull up the call log.

  ‘All right, it looks like Khan’s Cars rang him at 6.30 in the morning, then again at 11.00; then there’s nothing till 1.15, when he phoned someone called James Merrick – you know him?’

  She nodded eagerly. ‘That’s Captain Merrick. He helped us to escape from the Taliban. How do I call him?’

  I pressed the call button and put it on speaker. It went straight to voicemail.

  She leant in and left a message. ‘Captain Merrick. I am Aliya Sahar, the sister of Behrouz. I need to speak with you. It is very urgent. Call me, please. I am using Behrouz’s old number.’ She hung up and scrolled down to the next call in the log. ‘This number has no name.’ She pressed recall. It rang once before a crisp voice said, ‘Houses of Parliament.’

  She shot me a panicked look and hurriedly cut the connection.

  ‘Parliament?’ Fear pricked my spine. ‘Who does he know there?’

  ‘Colonel Clarke. His old boss, the one who is sponsoring us. He is in the government now.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. The old guy whose wife’s that actress. I saw him on TV. He seemed pretty upset about Behrouz.’

  ‘The police are crazy. They think Colonel Clarke is the one Behrouz was planning to bomb.’ She pressed her hand to her mouth as if the thought had made her feel sick.

  ‘This next call is to someone called Arif,’ I said quickly. ‘Who’s he?’

  She swallowed hard. ‘Another driver at Khan’s. Behrouz likes him. He went to school with his cousin in Kabul.’

  She tried the number. A ‘number unavailable’ message crackled over the speaker. ‘Maybe he worked late last night and wants to sleep,’ she said. ‘Did he make any other calls on Tuesday?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘I told you. That’s the night he came home with the gun.’

  I kept scrolling. ‘At 9.22 on Wednesday morning he got a text from Merrick, look, “Called in a couple of favours, got Clarke’s home number, no luck with address or mobile. Will call u. Keep ur head down.” Then he rang Clarke’s number, the call lasted seven minutes, and that’s the last one he made on this phone.’

  ‘That fits with what the police told me. They said he talked to the colonel’s wife and got angry and upset when she said he was out of the country.’

  She glanced up at the rain and tucked a few strands of hair under her scarf.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ I said.

  ‘Go to Khan’s. If Arif isn’t
there, I will talk to the other drivers. Do you know how I can find a place called Stoke Newington?’

  ‘It’s not far. What’s the address?’

  She handed me a card from her purse. I keyed the postcode into my phone. ‘You get the 476 bus to the High Street, then it’s like a two-minute walk.’

  For the briefest second our eyes met. It was like looking in a twisted mirror – both of us desperate to prove Behrouz was innocent, both of us protecting people we loved, and both terrified of what we might find out on the way.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and walked towards the gate.

  ‘Hey, Aliya!’ I called. ‘Hang on!

  ALIYA

  I turned around. The boy was blinking fast and pulling at the spiky tuft of hair at the front of his head.

  ‘I . . . I could go with you if you want,’ he said.

  It was like being struck in the face. Now I understood why he had come, why he was so nervous. I backed away from him, fury shaking every fibre of my body. ‘You told the police about the gun!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘They have sent you to spy on me.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘That is why you brought me the phone.’

  ‘No! Course not.’

  He didn’t look me in my eyes when he said it.

  ‘Then you want to sell stories about me and my family to the newspapers!’

  ‘No way! Don’t be stupid.’

  That made me even angrier. ‘I am not stupid. Why else would you want to come with me? You don’t even know me.’

  ‘I . . .’ His face grew red.

  ‘Go on! Tell me the truth!’

  ‘I want to help you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because . . . because I know how you feel about your family.’

  How dare he! How dare he say that! My lip quivered. ‘Do you have a brother who is in hospital accused of something he didn’t do?’

  He bent his head and gave it a small shake.

  ‘Have you got a sister who’s so scared that she won’t speak, or a mother who has gone crazy with sadness?’

  He shook his head again.

  Anger slowed my words. ‘Then how can you know how I feel about my family?’