Baghlan Boy

by Michael Crowley

  Back at the jail Robertson was ‘spinning’ Atif’s pad wearing surgical gloves in the company of a frisky spaniel, whilst officer Scully was being led to his car by security officers. It was to be his first taste of custody. When they opened the boot of his Honda Civic, they found a box of chargers, phones and even labels on the phones with customer’s names. He got his first taste of handcuffs. When Robertson found two phones inside the back of Atif’s TV, a question began to unsettle him. Why would Atherton give up Scully and Atif, even if he had beef with them? The consequent reputation of being a snitch wouldn’t make it worth his while. Maybe he was looking in the wrong place.

  Vinnie was at the wheel of a recently stolen Astra in the car park of the Copper Kettle public house, a few hundred yards beyond the end of the M602. The engine was running. In the passenger seat was Farood, across Vinnie’s lap a shotgun – a ‘shotty’.

  ‘It’s not as hard as you think.’

  ‘You’ve done it before?’ asked Farood.

  Vinnie looked up at the Salford sky as if his crops depended on it. ‘I’m no virgin, son.’

  The driver of Atherton’s sweat-van was an ex-service man with tattoos to prove it. His number two for the journey was a short, middle-aged woman whom he suspected of being part-Japanese. He was midway through an account of last night’s veterans’ get-together when he looked at his watch and noticed they were well ahead of schedule.

  In the back Atherton was disorientated. He wasn’t sure if he was in a motorway queue or a traffic light queue. ‘Yo! G4 people, where are we!’

  The closer they got to the police station the more vans there would be on the roads. Whilst Vinnie was staring at his iPhone, Farood leaned forward, spotting a G4S van the other side of the pub. Neither of them wanted to give the word. The phone flashed ok, the ski masks came on and they were nose to nose with a prison escort van in seconds flat. Farood took a long-handled axe from the backseat and smashed every window, calling for Atherton. Vinnie pointed his shotty at the windscreen and coolly made his request.

  ‘I’d like the keys for the back door.’

  The driver dropped them down to Vinnie. He tossed them to Farood, who shook his head.

  ‘Listen!’ he commanded.

  Women could be heard shouting, cussing, crying.

  ‘We’ve got the wrong van.’

  Farood pointed to a second white van with a white-shirted driver further up the sputtering queue. They ran, up the middle of the road, with the shotty and the axe. Other drivers looked straight ahead, fingering the steering wheel, retuning the radio, pushing the door locks. The veteran van driver did not need the motivation of the shotty and held out the keys for Vinnie as he approached.

  But Vinnie had been rehearsing this moment during the preceding forty-eight hours and so he shouldered the weapon, adopted a slightly legs-apart stance, and with one eye closed, commanded down the barrel, ‘Where’s Michael Atherton? I want Atherton unlocked.’

  The veteran pissed his pants, his cotton kecks, the seat and the foot-well.

  De Niro clicked back one hammer and jerked the end of the barrel, nudging him towards the sweatboxes.

  ‘Yo! Open this box, boss, I’m Atherton.’

  ‘Yo, yo, this one, this box here, boss.’

  ‘No, I’m Atherton…’

  ‘I’m Atherton.’

  The G4S woman scanned her clipboard. ‘He’s in number two, Sarge.’

  Atherton was lying down on the floor of the Astra and he felt the vehicle dart into the swarm ahead, elbowing its way towards the city centre. They dipped down side roads and under arches through the Manchester that had survived regeneration, pulling up at a barrier, two topless ten-year-old boys sparring the other side.

  Vinnie led Farood and Atherton to a gleaming caravan with an interior of white and silver surfaces and brass appendages. Light shone from porcelain figurines: their heads turned, their arms outstretched. There were a lot of cushions with roses on all of them. Beyond the net curtains were a disused mill and fighting dogs, children riding bikes across the tarmac. Farood looked at the photograph on the opposite wall. It was of a boxer, a boxer without gloves, pale and sinuous, eyes set upon an opponent beyond the frame.

  Atherton closed the shower door behind him, rattling the whole caravan. Towel around his waist, he lit the gas for the kettle. On his left shoulder was the same tattoo as the man in the photograph: a green harp.

  ‘Nice, innit?’ said Atherton through a custard cream.

  ‘It’s like a home,’ ventured Farood.

  ‘Better than a house, really. Thing is, Roodie, people say things about travellers, like they’re dirty and that, but most other people wouldn’t live somewhere as clean as this.’

  Farood nodded over his mug. ‘That’s true, I have been in some houses, our cave was cleaner. Have you always lived in a caravan?’

  ‘Me? No. Dad’s side of the family, they’re the travellers. Proper travellers, they are. But he chose to marry my mum, who ain’t a traveller, and had to leave. This is one of me uncle’s caravans. Plod will be looking for us where me dad lives.’

  ‘Does it ever move, this caravan?’

  ‘Yeah. Been all over with me uncle. Appleby Fair. That’s the place. Racing horses, selling horses. There’s a river there. I took this horse in it once, and it had a swim; and I swam beside it. Travellers are free, Roodie. Go where we want, do what we want.’

  Vinnie stepped into the caravan. He wore a vest and although he wasn’t henched like prisoners, he still had much of the muscularity in the photograph. They drank tea and joked about the escape.

  ‘That driver started pissing when I flicked the hammer back.’

  ‘We should’ve brought some of those bitches back here, Vinnie.’

  ‘Minging fucking dogs, by the sounds of it.’

  Anyone could do it, anyone with bottle. Atherton and Vinnie recalled when they had held up the Spar and Atherton had made the staff lie down on the floor, fucking slaves. Plod, plod would be nowhere. They would be getting the run around on his dad’s estate: ‘I might have seen Michael in the back of a car… but it could have been his little brother John Jo.’ And if plod came to the site they would never get past the dogs before they were gone. Atherton decided who he wanted to look up whilst he was out, before he got on his toes, because he would have to go. Atherton and Vinnie had decided this a while back and now it was settled.

  Atherton pointed at Farood with a spliff in hand. ‘We’ve had enough of this country. It’s not ours, anyway. Travellers don’t have a country and we’re not wanted here anyway. Where you going, Roodie?’ he asked. ‘Not going back home, are yer? Took long enough to get here.’

  ‘I want to stay in the UK.’

  Atherton coughed and had to spit in the sink. ‘What, go back to jail?’

  ‘I’m going to try and sort things out. I shouldn’t’ve gone to jail in the first place.’

  ‘Fucksake,’ said Vinnie, switching on the TV.

  Atherton passed the spliff on to Farood. ‘You were there, you were standing next to the guy who pulled the trigger. That’s joint enterprise.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You don’t even know. What kind of brief have you got?’

  ‘Khalid’s cousin.’

  ‘Stitched up, mate.’ Atherton pounded a fist into a palm. ‘Joint enterprise is you’re guilty by being there, by association. I got seven years for being in a car behind another car that had a gun in it.’

  ‘Yeah, and what did those people get for murdering that child?’ added Vinnie, pointing at the TV. He continued, ‘You see that muppet that got sent to jail for robbing a sausage roll from Greggs? He got sent to jail cos it was during a riot. It weren’t the sausage roll they sent him down for – it was the rioting.’

  ‘That ain’t joint enterprise,’ argued his nephew.

  ‘I
t’s not right either, though.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s right.’

  Interpretations were shoved back and forth while Farood stood at the window. Two women – mothers, no doubt, at their age – were face to face, shouting at each other. A small girl stopped skipping, one grabbed the hair of the other and they began to wrestle. The girl dropped her rope and ran to a caravan door, out of which came two men, both carrying beer cans. They stood with the child between them, watching the women, now on the ground, twisting, thrashing.

  ‘Is it alright if I go out?’ asked Farood.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ shouted Atherton from a bedroom.

  ‘I have to see Sabana.’

  ‘I have to see my bird too. Does she know you’re out?’

  Farood said nothing. He only realised he hadn’t asked himself what she would say.

  ‘Is she going on the road with you?’ asked Vinnie.

  ‘That’s what I need to find out.’

  Outside a man in a combat jacket took quick, short steps towards the fighting women. Without hesitation he marched between the spectators, lifting up the woman on top of the other and waving the men back to their caravan. The girl returned to her skipping and began to sing.

  Vinnie took a brief look at the commotion. ‘Roodie, don’t be standing at the window all day. You know what I’m saying? You look different to everyone else.’ Vinnie pulled out a black box from under the TV, pulled up its aerial, switched it on. It sizzled between police radio calls.

  Atherton pleaded Farood’s case. ‘He wants to go out, Vinnie.’

  ‘Why do you want to go out? You’re safe here. No one comes on here.’

  ‘He wants to see his bird.’

  ‘What do you want to see her for? You’re a fugitive now. Whatever you started you can’t finish with her.’

  ‘I just want to say goodbye.’

  Vinnie’s eyes consulted his nephew, who conceded. ‘He’s not in jail no more, is he?’

  ‘We’ll need you back here tonight. We’ve things to arrange. And we’re doing a nice curry. Okay?’ Uncle Vinnie gave Farood twenty pounds and a new phone. ‘Never switch it off.’

  He was taken to the barrier at the site entrance and pointed in the direction of central Manchester. He went to Piccadilly and bought a ticket for Burnley. The town that took him in as a refugee, the place where he was fostered. A middle-class Indian couple had fed and clothed him, given him a room. They found him a school place and a kickboxing class; they took him to Khalid’s restaurant and introduced him to the owner. Still drinking lassi, he was shown the kitchen and introduced to the waiters. At first, he was offered a few hours on a Saturday, then when he left school for college, some days during the week. He had his own money for the first time and he could make it last when other boys had squandered theirs on clothes. Then the bedsit nearer his workplace and whenever the social worker made visits to his foster parents, he went back to the house and pretended he still lived there. An arrangement that suited everyone. The last day he was there, it ended in a police cell.

  The cell door in the police station was deep blue, as were the plastic cushions around the perimeter of the cell. The floor, he thought, was like the sea off the coast of Greece. He recalled the lorry on the ferry from Greece to Italy. He tried to remember what the cargo was, who else was there and how many years ago that was. Until then he’d thought that his hours and days of waiting alone in rooms and containers were over. He was eleven when he had left Baghlan – it was autumn, that was nine autumns ago. He had also thought until that day, that he would take Sabana to Baghlan with him, to show her to his mother, but in spring time, when the rivers were rushing and the mountains were in flower.

  The door unlocked and a man in a suit came in. He was thin, yet the suit was too small and worn to a shine. It was a moment or two before he made eye contact. ‘Khalid has sent me. You’re going to be interviewed, but you must say nothing. Do you understand me? Nothing.’

  He reassured Farood that if the police were unable to prove anything, they would have to let him go. He said he could be trusted because he was experienced, that as long as he continued to work for Khalid he could stay in the country, and he begun or ended every sentence by saying ‘believe me’. The door opened and he was taken to a room where a policeman in a superior suit smiled as if they were friends. The policeman, who didn’t look at the lawyer, asked Farood if he wanted some water, which he didn’t; asked if he had been given something to eat, which he hadn’t. The policeman apologised. He was old, happily overweight and fatherly.

  ‘Farood, you’re being interviewed in relation to the shooting of a man in an amusement arcade. Do you understand?’

  ‘I didn’t shoot him.’

  The policeman was surprised, gratified, by Farood’s frankness; the lawyer was rattled and he flicked out a kick to Farood’s ankle.

  ‘I mean, no comment. No comment is what I meant to say.’

  Thereafter that was all he said in interviews, before and after he was charged with attempted murder. His lawyer kept advising him he was confident that the case would evaporate once they got to court.

  Twenty-One

  Lancashire

  The afternoon was almost over when Farood’s train pulled into Burnley. Market traders were dismantling their stalls; the precinct echoed with the sombre clunk of steel poles on van floors. Asian stallholders worked one side of the precinct, white traders the other. It was strange how it reminded him of the market in Baghlan: socks and plain tee shirts, batteries and baklava. Back home they were luxuries; here they were for the poor. And in England, the poor were sometimes fat and the rich always thin. A burger van chose its pitch for the evening; young men gathered at pub doors renewing allegiances; cigarette smoke merged with the smell of onions. It was match night, not a good night to be passing time on the streets.

  He stood waiting in the corner of a shop front opposite the opticians. There was a vacant bandstand between him and the windows that glowed with a buttery light. Then he saw her, between the displays, standing at a desk, writing something down. She went to a rack, bringing back a pair of frames carrying them like they were jewels. A member of staff left the shop and Sabana smiled in her direction, in his direction. He felt fearful, eager and lonely. His phone chirped a text. It was from Atherton: U ok?

  Sabana was the last to leave the shop, pulling down the shutter and locking the doors. Perhaps she was the manager there now. Her outfit was more expensive than anything he had seen her wearing at visits. In her tailored blue suit, she was very much the woman – a married woman, even. Her hair was cut short, and even from where he was stranding, he could see that it was tinted red. He didn’t like this; he felt it was something they should have talked about, even if he was in prison. He sensed something had changed. What if she had done this for someone else? Two road workers in grubby high-vis jackets stared at her long after she had passed by. One seemed to say something to the other, which only made him angry at her. He kept pace with her some distance behind to the car park a few streets away. Once they were away from the precinct his pace quickened until he caught up with her on a quiet side road.

  ‘Sabana.’

  ‘My God, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I got out.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘For fucksake, Farood.’

  ‘There’s no need to worry.’

  ‘Yes, there is. They’ll come straight to my house because they know I’ve been visiting you. My father will find out and the rest of my family and there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter about that anymore. We can’t stay here, there’s no point. I thought we could prove my innocence, but maybe I can’t. I’m with some people, people I can trust.’

  ‘You once said that about Khalid.’

  ‘Sabana, listen. They can get
me out of the country. They have connections.’

  ‘You’re going?’

  ‘I want you to come with me.’

  She took a step back, a breath in, her mouth opened in silence. He took a step towards her, placed his hands upon her shoulders; she lifted them away.

  ‘Where? Come where?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. But I want to visit my family. With you.’

  ‘And meet your mother?’

  ‘So, I can show her that I’ve achieved something.’

  ‘Wow, thanks for the invitation, but you know what, I’m not a prize for an Afghan family.’

  She turned from him and strode into the car park. She unzipped a shoulder bag and began to delve for her car keys.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘You’ll have to find something else to bring back with you.’

  He grabbed an upper arm, fingers pinching on her jacket. ‘Sabana, pack your things, we can go in a couple of days.’

  ‘Get off me.’ She broke away. ‘Farood, I’m not going anywhere with you. I never was. I knew what Khalid was like – he was always going to use you and I tried to tell you but you wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t listen to me because I’m only a woman. You should never have come.’

  ‘You stopped visiting me.’

  ‘To this country, I mean.’

  The driver’s door gave a gentle thud; the car hurried her away. He wished he had hit her. Slapped her to the ground, rubbed her face in the gravel. The phone rang, but he ignored it.

  He headed back to the precinct, went into a café and ordered a coffee and water. He felt as betrayed now as he had done on the last day of his trial, looking up at Khalid in the gallery, sitting a few places away from Sabana. After being told to say nothing through a dozen police interviews, he was suddenly advised to plead guilty, but he refused. Even after the man whom Khalid had shot stood in a witness box and pointed at Farood – ‘That is the man who pointed the gun at me and fired’ – he pleaded not guilty, knowing he would be found guilty.