'Yeah, well my diary's pretty free.'
'I'm sure it is,' Pankhurst replied. 'I'll get in touch with Credenhill now, tell them you'll be there in a couple of hours. In the meantime, I need to give you further instructions…'
Three and a half thousand miles away, a woman lay on the floor. She did not want to shiver. She did not want to show any sign of weakness, but she could not help it. The snow was thick outside — it had been falling for days now, the flakes piling softly on top of each other, covering the warscarred ground of her country in a false blanket of purity. As a child, she had loved the coming of the snows. She and her brother would rush out of their small house to play in it the moment they were allowed, their parents watching them fondly from the doorway as they made snowballs and threw showers of powder at each other.
But it had been snowing, too, when the soldiers came; and now, she could not think of the whiteness of the snow without picturing the crimson of their parents' blood as it seeped from their bodies, melting the white powder with its warmth, before mingling into mush. Her childhood delight in the coming of the first snows had ended that day.
The hut in which she was being kept had no floor — just the earth, hardened with the cold, which seemed to leech any of the remaining warmth out of her body as she sat there. She pulled the thin cloth they had given her to wear tightly around her, but it had been chosen more to cover her body than to keep her warm and it did little good. She even found that she was glad of the burka headdress they had insisted she wear — in that enclosed environment around her head, the heat of her breath at least staved off some of the chill.
She had not eaten for three days; even then the food had been filthy, but she had devoured it simply because she was famished. Every few hours of the day and night, one or two of them would come in. She had learned long ago with these people that it was better to let them do what they had come to do, rather than try to resist. They used thick wooden sticks, mostly, and beat her around the stomach and the back of her legs; she did not dare look at her skin for fear that it would revolt even her, and she had become used to the constant pain and the bruises that grew worse day by day.
One day, a particular man would come in. He was taller than the others and more quietly spoken. His face was scarred — a long scar, starting on his lower lip and finishing somewhere on his left cheek. No hair grew over the scar, which was red and angry, and it gave his face an ugly, gnarled look.
When she had seen that scar, she had known that her life was about to turn unpleasant, because she had been there when it was first inflicted. It had been a while before the Taliban had been overthrown and shortly after they had discovered that her brother — her foolish, reckless, beloved brother — was a double agent. He had come to warn her, to tell her to flee, but the Taliban were close behind. They had burst into her tiny house, knocking down the door — six of them, armed and with wicked, almost hungry gleams in their eyes.
The men were barking harshly in Pashto, shouting at each other to grab Latifa; but they soon fell silent when they saw Faisal Ahmed waiting for them. Her brother had pulled his gun on them. He fired it twice, with a deadly pinpoint accuracy: two Taliban members fell to the ground instantly, their foreheads exploding in a grisly shower of blood and brain; but the others, silent now though still with a terrifying fervour in their eyes, had continued to close in on him.
That was when he drew his knife.
It was a wicked-looking thing, its blade smooth and sharp on one side, hooked and jagged on the other. When he stabbed it into the belly of one of their attackers, the man's entrails came out with it. Latifa had watched as Faisal swung the knife, which still had human gore hanging from it, and slashed another of them across the face. The blade instantly ripped a gash across the man's lower lip and up into his cheek; he had roared in pain and raised his hands to his bloodsoaked face.
Faisal had almost overcome them, but not quite. No doubt if he hadn't come to warn her, he would have been long gone. But he had come to warn her and now he would pay the price. They would both pay the price for the path he had chosen to take.
That had been nine years ago. The man who held her in captivity now had never made any reference to the day her brother had scarred him so horribly. But they both knew what this was all about. And while he did not hit her or raise his voice to her, she was more scared of him than anyone. He asked her questions. He told her she would die if she did not comply. Despite her state, she had been fully aware of the madness and the thuggery that lay beneath those questions. To stand up to him was perhaps the most difficult thing she had ever done in her difficult life.
There were no windows in the hut, so she had to judge what time it was by the amount of light that peeped through a crack in the wooden walls. It was mid-morning, she guessed. About the time that he usually came. She huddled into one corner, waiting for the sound she so dreaded: her door being unlocked.
It came soon enough and when it did she started shaking through fear as well as cold. She heard the harsh voices first, then the scratchy sound of a key in the lock. Her eyes winced as the door opened, letting in the light, which was blindingly bright from being reflected off the snow. Two men appeared in the doorway, both of them wearing robes, turbans and long beards. One of them carried an AK-47 strapped around his neck — he stood guard outside the door. The second man carried no weapon. He closed the door behind him, then walked towards her. She remained cowering in the corner.
'Get to your feet, woman,' he said softly in Pashto.
She pushed herself up from the ground. Her legs were weak, and it was a strain to remain upright. She found she was glad of the burka — it hid the fear on her face as he looked at her.
'You shall tell us where your brother is,' the man insisted quietly. 'Sooner or later, you shall tell us. It is the will of Allah.'
She took a deep breath. How close she had been to crumbling on more than one occasion. How close she had come to persuading herself that her brother had brought all this on himself. She did not approve of how he was spending his life. She did not approve at all. But he was her brother. He had looked after her. She loved him. And whenever she found her resolve crumbling, she thought of him as a little boy. So earnest. How could she condemn him to the fate these Taliban monsters no doubt had in store for him?
'I do not know where he is,' she whispered.
The man remained expressionless. 'You are lying, of course,' he said. 'He has been in contact with you. This is not something we suspect; it is something we know. Your pain will not cease until you tell us where he is.'
She stared defiantly at him, though he could not see her expression. They stood there for a moment, face to face in that freezing hut, before he turned and walked out of the room. 'Beat her,' he said to the guard as he left.
She felt her knees buckle at those words, but she did her best to remain standing as the guard entered the hut. He was a huge man — burly and big boned — with a thick-set face and broad, heavy shoulders. He had a look of wild fervour in his eyes as he removed the strap of his gun from round his neck. A look that suggested he would take great pleasure in what he was about to do. Pleasure in carrying out Allah's will.
'Please,' she whispered, but her plea went unheard or at least unnoticed.
The guard made sure that the safety catch of his weapon was switched on. Then he put one hand on the barrel and the other on the handle. He approached her, waving the butt of the gun in her direction.