‘Shaheed means martyr, right?’
‘Literally shaheed means witness. But yes – shaheed is the tribute we pay to believers who die fulfilling their religious commitments. Their place in paradise is assured.’
‘Maybe you were just lucky.’
He stopped smiling.
‘There’s no luck needed, alhamdulilah. All praise be to God. I have tawakul – reliance on God – so I do not fear shaytan.’
‘It must be nice to have such faith.’
He looked at me coldly. ‘And it must be hell to live without it.’
‘One thing I don’t understand . . .’ I said.
‘Oh, I think there are many things a kuffar such as yourself doesn’t understand.’
‘I’m sure that’s true. But there’s one thing in particular that I don’t understand.’
‘I’m waiting.’
‘If you hate this country, sir – if you hate living with the kuffars – then why don’t you make hijrah?’
‘Hijrah? Migration? Are you asking me why I don’t leave this country?’
I nodded. ‘Nobody’s going to stop you, are they?’
He didn’t even look offended.
‘I don’t need to leave, alhamdulilah,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because everywhere belongs to God.’
And that was when they came.
A white transit roared into the cul-de-sac and slammed on the brakes, as if suddenly clocking the ARV.
‘Billy!’
The white transit reversed at speed out of the street. The ARV was going after it. I saw the pure terror flash on Abu Din’s face as I ran from the room. Billy Greene was right behind me.
I went out the front door in time to see the white transit van pulling away with the ARV on its tail. At the end of the street I could see the crumpled figure of PC Rocastle half on the pavement and half in the street. The taillights of the ARV disappeared.
‘Call it in,’ I told Billy, and began running towards the unmoving body of PC Rocastle.
And then another transit van – this one black – turned into the street and accelerated towards me.
‘We’ve been suckered,’ I said.
Billy was halfway up the garden path as the back doors of the transit van opened. I waved my hand at him to tell him to keep going.
‘Get back in the house, Billy. Lock all the doors. And don’t leave his side.’
I heard his footsteps on the garden path and then the front door slammed shut. I heard the door bolt and looked back to catch a glimpse of Abu Din’s petrified face beyond the net curtains. And then I turned away because three dark figures were getting out of the back of the van. No Albert Pierrepoint masks tonight. No friendly uncles now. Their faces were covered with ski masks. No, not ski masks. Tactical Nomex face masks.
I clenched my fists as they came towards the house and swung a right at the first figure. And that was when my muscles went into involuntary spasm and I was suddenly down on my knees, a drool of saliva coming from the corner of my mouth. I vaguely understood that I had been shot with a taser or some other kind of electroshock CEW. My muscles were still twitching violently with shock and pain as strong hands lifted and loaded me into the back of the black transit van.
Inside there was a smell I knew from somewhere but it felt like it was long ago and far away.
Rank and sweet, like something good that had been left to rot.
The doors slammed shut.
My muscles flexed and trembled and now the pain began.
The transit van started to move.
And it was only then that I realised they had not come for Abu Din.
They had come for me.
25
I sat on the bench of the transit van as docile as a lamb being led to slaughter, my mind feeling that it was separated from the rest of the world by thick soundproofed glass. I stared at the black Nomex face masks of the two figures sitting opposite me and they stared back, and for a while all I could think about was the way my muscles twitched and shuddered with a will of their own.
Then I took a breath and tried to think, sucking up the pain and pushing it to one side, telling myself that it would keep on getting better, moment by moment, and telling myself that I could take it.
Think.
There was a smell I knew in the back of the van.
Something foul that had once been sweet.
Rotting fruit.
Dead flowers.
Sugar and human waste.
Think.
I took a breath and looked again at the two figures on the bench opposite me. The big one – the one who had filled my nerve endings with electricity, the one who had picked me up as if I weighed nothing – was sitting by my side. And there had to be one more man driving.
Four of them. The full team. None of them were talking. None of them displayed any telltale tattoos or jewellery.
They were good.
But they were not cops.
If they had been cops – and there had always been the unspoken suspicion that the Hanging Club just might be rogue cops – they wouldn’t simply have knocked the stuffing out of me with a cheap East European taser knock-off. A formal arrest will always be accompanied by physically taking control, was the first thing they taught you at Hendon. They hadn’t done it.
They had merely flattened me with their pound-store taser and chucked me in the back of their van. Any cop would have done more. But I was not cuffed. I was not unconscious. And I would get stronger with every passing minute that I could stay alive.
I looked at the masked faces, realising they had still not said one word.
‘So if you’re all here, then who was driving the white van?’ I asked.
‘Friends,’ murmured the large figure by my side.
‘Friends?’ I said. ‘I bet you’ve got lots of friends, right?’
A fist pounded furiously on the back of the cab. The driver was sending a clear message.
No talking!
I glimpsed eyes wild with rage behind another black Nomex and I felt the three figures in the back of the van shift uncomfortably. So was that the leader behind the wheel?
I laughed and half-turned to look at the man by my side.
‘You’re the big man in town, right? Cleaning up the mean streets—’
I caught my breath as he placed the razor blade against the lid of my right eye.
Very gently, almost lovingly, he drew the sharp edge of the razor blade across the thin layer of skin that covered my eye, demonstrating how very easy it would be to slice it open, how little would be the effort required on his part, how pathetically fragile I was.
I thought of what had happened to Justin Whitestone and fought to control my breathing. My eyes, I thought, and my heart wanted to burst.
And I thought that was the end of all conversation. But the black figure holding the razor blade pressed against my eyelid leaned in close so that only I could hear what he had to say.
‘And you protect the filth, little man, don’t you? And that is why you have no friends any more. You stand guard at the door while the Pakistani child groomers rape our children and you tug your forelock while rich men murder the innocent and you devote yourself to cleaning the shoes of the scum of the earth. More than any of them, little man, you are the one who deserves to hang.’
And it was a voice I thought I knew from somewhere.
Once upon a time. Long ago and far away. My muscles twitched with pain and my mind was foggy with shock.
But I had heard that voice before.
He pressed the blade against my eyeball and, as stray muscles in random parts of my body still spasmed with shock, I tried very hard to not move.
Perhaps they’re cops after all, I thought.
There was no change of vehicle. Perhaps they had learned their lesson with Abu Din. Perhaps the switch vehicle had been used to sucker the Armed Response Vehicle. And to sucker me, too. But there was no stopping this time.