houses faced on to a small industrial estate. Halfway down, he spotted the signage for his destination. PRO-TECH SUPPLIES, in scarlet against a white background inside a border of black exclamation marks.
He parked the van outside and turned off the engine. He leaned on the steering wheel, breathing deeply, feeling his stomach wind itself into knots. He’d hardly eaten anything that morning, using his urgency to get to his meeting to defuse his mother’s oppressive concern with his recent loss of appetite. Of course he’d lost his appetite, just as he’d lost the ability to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. What else could he expect? This was how it was when you embarked on something like this. But it was important not to arouse suspicion, so he tried to be away from the family table at mealtimes as much as he could.
Given how little he was eating and sleeping, he couldn’t quite believe how energized he felt. A bit light-headed sometimes, but he thought that was more to do with imagining the effect of their plan than the lack of food and rest. Now, he pushed back from the steering wheel and climbed out of the van. He walked through the door marked RETAIL SALES. It led into a room ten feet square partitioned off from the warehouse behind. Behind a zinc-topped counter that bisected the room, a skinny man hunched over a computer. Everything about him was grey – his hair, his skin, his overalls. He looked up from his computer screen as Yousef entered. His eyes were grey too.
He stood up and leaned on the counter. The movement stirred the air enough to send the bitter after-smell of cheap tobacco across the gap between them. ‘All right?’ Yousef said.
‘All right. What can I do you for?’
Yousef pulled out a list. ‘I need some heavy-duty gloves, a face shield and ear protectors.’
The man sighed and pulled a dog-eared catalogue along the counter. ‘Best have a look in here. That shows you what we do.’ He opened it, flicking through the creased pages till he reached the section on gloves. He pointed to a picture at random. ‘See, there’s a description. Gives you an idea of thickness and flexibility. Depends what you want them for, see?’ He pushed the catalogue towards Yousef. ‘You decide what you’re after.’
Yousef nodded. He began to pore over the catalogue, a bit taken aback by the range of choices on offer. As he read the descriptions of the items, he couldn’t help smiling. For some reason, Pro-Tech didn’t list his project among their recommended uses for their protective gear. Mr Grey behind the counter would shit himself if he knew the truth. But he never would know the truth. Yousef had been careful. His tracks were clean. A scientific and chemical supplies warehouse in Wakefield. A specialist paint manufacturer in Oldham. A motorbike accessories shop in Leeds. A laboratory equipment supplier in Cleckheaton. Never, never, never in Bradfield, where there was an outside chance of being spotted by someone who knew him. Every time, he’d dressed the part. Painter’s overalls. Biker’s leathers. Neatly pressed shirt and chinos with a line of pens in a pocket protector in the shirt. Paid in cash. The invisible man.
Now, he made his decision and pointed out what he wanted, adding a protective chest shield for good measure. The warehouseman entered the details into the computer and told Yousef his goods would be along in a minute. He seemed nonplussed when Yousef offered to pay in cash. ‘Have you not got a credit card?’ he asked, sounding incredulous.
‘Not a company one, no,’ Yousef lied. ‘Sorry, mate. Cash is all I’ve got.’ He counted out the notes.
The warehouseman shook his head. ‘That’ll have to do, then. Your lot like cash, don’t you?’
Yousef frowned. ‘My lot? What do you mean, my lot?’ He felt his fists clench in his pockets.
‘You Muslims. I read it some place. It’s against your religion. Paying interest and that.’ The man’s jaw took a stubborn set. ‘I’m not being racist, you know. Just stating a fact.’
Yousef breathed deeply. As these things went, the man’s attitude was pretty mild. He’d experienced much, much worse. But these days, he was hypersensitive to anything that had the faintest whiff of prejudice about it. It all served to reinforce his choice to stay on this road, to carry his plans through to the end. ‘If you say so,’ he said, not wanting to get into a ruck that would make him memorable, but equally reluctant to say nothing at all.
He was saved from further conversation by the arrival of his purchases. He picked them up and walked out without responding to the warehouseman’s ‘See ya.’
The motorway traffic was heavy and it took him the best part of an hour to make it back to Bradfield. He barely had enough time to take the protective gear to the bedsit, but he couldn’t leave it lying round in the van. If Raj or Sanjay or his father saw it, it would provoke all sorts of questions he definitely didn’t want to answer.
The bedsit was on the first floor of what had once been the town house of a railway baron. A sprawling pile of Gothic Revival, the stained stucco covering the gables and bays was scabby and crumbling, the window frames rotting and the gutters sprouting an assortment of weeds. It had once had a view; now all that could be seen from its front windows was the cantilevered slant of the west stand of Bradfield Victoria’s vast stadium half a mile away. What had once been a quarter endowed with a certain grandeur had declined into a ghetto whose inhabitants were united only by their poverty. Skin tones ranged from the blue-black of sub-Saharan Africa to the skimmed-milk pallor of Eastern Europe. According to a survey carried out by Bradfield City Council, thirteen religions were practised and twenty-two native tongues spoken in the square mile to the west of the football ground.
Here, Yousef travelled under the radar of his own third-generation immigrant community. Here, nobody noticed or cared who else came and went from his first-floor hideaway. Here, Yousef Aziz was invisible.
The receptionist tried to hide her shock and failed. ‘Good morning, Mrs Hill,’ she gabbled on automatic. She glanced down at the calendar on her desk, as if she couldn’t believe she’d got it so wrong. ‘I thought you … we weren’t …’
‘Good, it keeps you on your toes, Bethany,’ Vanessa said as she swept past on her way to her office. The faces she passed on the way looked startled and guilty as they stammered out their greetings. She didn’t imagine for one moment they’d done anything to be guilty about. Her staff knew better than to try to put one over on her. But she liked that her unexpected arrival sent a ripple of anxiety through the office. It was a sign she was getting her money’s worth. Vanessa Hill wasn’t a touchy-feely employer. She had friends already; she didn’t need to make her employees her buddies. She was tough, but she thought she was fair. It was a message she tried to hammer home to her clients. Keep your distance, win their respect, and your HR problems would be minimal.
Pity it wasn’t that straightforward with kids, she thought as she dumped her laptop on the desk and hung up her jacket. When your staff didn’t cut the mustard, you could sack them and recruit someone better suited to the job. Kids, you were stuck with. And right from the start, Tony had failed to live up to expectations. When she’d fallen pregnant to a man who had disappeared like snow off a dyke at the news, her mother had told her to put the baby up for adoption. Vanessa had refused point blank. Now, she looked back in bewilderment and wondered why she had been so adamant.
It hadn’t been for sentimental reasons. She didn’t have a sentimental bone in her body. Another position she recommended to her clients. Had she really gone that far out on a limb just to spite her demanding, controlling mother? There had to be more to it than that, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember. It must have been the hormones, addling her brain. Whatever, she’d endured the neighbourhood spite and gossip that went with single parenthood back then. She’d changed jobs, moving right across town to where nobody knew her, and lied about her past, inventing a dead husband to avoid the
