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?’
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.
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
