relieved that he would never cross my path again, and I would never again have to look at the hatred in his eyes.
Life has a way about it, though.
An uninvited guest at my wedding. Standing beside my son, Jack, my wife, Stephanie, and my Khala. Waiting, just waiting for the right moment for me to notice him, acknowledge him. With guests in my ear, hands out for me to shake, and pats on my back, I noticed him.
I noticed the detonator, too big in his small hands.
My eyes moved hungrily over my family, one last time. I was too far away to save them but close enough to see the smiles on their faces. They were the happiest I had ever seen.
It’s how I would remember them.
My Khala was like a mother to me. I buried her the day after she’d been killed. As a Muslim, it had to be that way. Then I waited ten days locked away at home, lying on my side, staring through a small gap in the curtains as it shifted continuously from darkness to light to darkness. I ignored the knocks on the door, the phone calls and the well-wishers, and mourned them just as I had once mourned my parents. But I was older now, stronger, no longer a boy. And I had nothing or nobody left to lose.
On the tenth day, I put on the same black tie and suit and buried Stephanie, my wife only for a day, and Jack, my son. He would have turned six that day. We’d planned to celebrate on the beach in the Maldives, a joint celebration of our marriage, his birthday, and a future that I had been foolish to present to them. I had ripped the tickets into the smallest of shreds and then Sellotaped them back together and placed them in the inside pocket of my suit jacket.
I stood alone at the side of the graves, the rest of the mourners stood away on the other side. To them I was damaged, a disease, someone to steal glances at and blame. Stephanie’s mother and father would have stood by my side, but they too had been murdered on our wedding day.
Somebody, I don’t know who, had hired out an old tavern for the wake. And somebody, I don’t know who, said a few words. The mourners, who had been guests at our wedding, sat and listened in grim silence, surrounded with cheap Christmas decorations, knowing how close they themselves had come to death. They drank, they ate, they whispered, they stared. I felt the blame directed at me and accepted every judgement. They walked away, leaving me on my own with ringing messages of consolation and promises of support. It meant nothing to me. They meant nothing to me. I’d never see them again.
Last to leave, I walked out of the tavern and into the early evening darkness that the winter brings. My Prius sat alone in the small car park, a thin layer of snow melting away as the weather changed to a cold rain.
I unlocked the car and lifted the boot. From under the spare tyre I picked up a roll of plastic food bags, a handful of elastic bands, and a Glock .40-calibre handgun and suppressor. I pushed the boot shut and sat in my car, placing the items on the driver’s seat. I started the car and as I waited for it to warm up I felt a presence outside.
My hand reached across and instinctively I gripped the cold steel barrel of my gun and turned to look outside my window. A figure wrapped up in a black puffa and a woolly Raiders hat that I recognised, ambled slowly and uneasily towards me, each step more tentative than his last. I dropped the gun on the seat and placed my hands on my lap.
Shaz was the only other person left in this world that I cared about. But the cards had been dealt and turned over and he had walked away from my life without a goodbye. Because of who I was. Because of what I had brought into his life.
We watched each other for a moment through the driver’s side window, replaying the same events in our minds. I had once hurt him and I hadn’t seen him since. I blinked away the memory and slid down the window.
‘I’m… I’m so sorry.’ He said the words I should have said to him a long time ago.
I took my eyes away from him and stared straight ahead at the Christmas lights running along the roof of the tavern.
‘Steph… Jack… Khala… I don’t know what to say… I’m sorry.’
I turned back to him. His teeth chattered and his body visibly shook from the cold or from facing me again. He looked at me for a response and I wanted to give him one. I wanted to get out of the car, put my arm around him and buy him a drink. I wanted to hear him regale me with the first world problems that always seemed to bother him. I wanted to hear his laughter. I wanted to hold him.
Instead, I nodded blankly.
‘Anything I can do?’ He shrugged softly.
I shook my head.
‘I’ve moved away.’ Shaz hesitated. I didn’t blame him for not telling me where. I had once brought hell to his doorstep.
‘It’s okay,’ I said.
Shaz looked embarrassed at what our friendship had become. He shifted his eyes away from mine and they landed on the passenger seat, on the roll of plastic food bags, the elastic bands, before resting on the handgun and suppressor. He blinked as though trying to find the common factor between the items. He couldn’t. How could he?
I watched him jerk back, as though he had just been pulled back from stepping onto a busy road. His eyes were wide, wild, worried, expressing what words could not.
‘I have to go,’ I said.
I slid the window up, my eyes not leaving his, and shifted the gear into D and drove away. In my rear-view mirror, past Jack’s car seat, I watched Shaz get smaller and smaller until he disappeared out of my life.
‘Jay,’ Idris called. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
Imy got married? There was an attack? A bomb went off? Yeah, I fucking heard him.
Not able to bring words to my lips, I nodded and snatched my eyes away from his. Over Idris’ shoulder, a gaggle of giggling girls moved onto the dance floor. A group of three lads followed, all tight jeans and tight T-shirts and perfect glow-in-the-dark teeth. They stood at a safe distance, eyes set on the girls as they coolly nodded their heads to the bass. In an effort to impress, one of them decided to break the monotony and bust a move. His body moved too fast to the music as he drew invisible shapes with his hands. Too soon, I thought, bide your time, mate.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything, Jay?’
‘Is he dead?’ I asked.
Idris shook his head. ‘No… But there were fatalities.’
I nodded again, my eyes still over his shoulder. The over-enthusiastic dancer had peeled away from the group and shimmied closer to the girls. His friends watched and laughed on as though they were used to such an audacious move.
‘Who?’ I said.
‘Imran lost his wife and son… He lost his Khala…
