Duplicity

by Fin C Gray

  ‘Today. I’ll just need to go to the cashpoint. Can you start today?’

  ‘I’m free now for a couple of hours. Get the cash and then we can look at some designs.’

  The only trace that showed that Waqar had ever lived there was a pewter trinket box that he’d given Daniel a few months after he became his lodger: his mother’s trinket box: one she’d brought from Pakistan and given to him in Syria. It was the only thing belonging to Waqar’s family that had survived the journey to England. And Waqar was the only member of that family to make it to Britain alive. It sat on top of the bookcase where all Waqar’s textbooks and English courses had once been. Daniel picked the box up and ran his fingers over the snake engraved into the top, its fangs bared and a forked tongue extended. Waqar had said the snake would protect the contents of the box and that Daniel could keep precious things in there with no fear. Daniel opened the lid and was surprised to see a small folded piece of paper inside. He pulled it out and laid the box back on the bookcase.

  Sitting on the chair that Waqar always preferred to sit on when he studied, Daniel unfolded the piece of paper. It was pale grey vellum, marked with a fountain pen in precise strokes of black ink. The Urdu characters begged to be read:

  :آپ

  ﺗﮏﺟﺐﺪ

  اﺮﻣﯿﺎﻧﺖﺒ

  ﮟﻣﯿ

  ہﺸﮨﻤﯿﮐﺎ

  Daniel knew enough by now to be able to understand what the words said, and tears formed in his eyes. He said them out loud.

  ‘Jab tak, ye mahabbat hai. Mai appka hi banke rahunga.’

  Waqar must have written this before they left for the airport for the final journey to Pakistan. The words simply said: UNTIL SOON, MY LOVE. I WILL ALWAYS BE YOURS, W. X. As Daniel kissed the words, a tear fell on the ink, causing the end of the message to bleed into a black cloud on the paper. For Daniel, this showed that his love was in the clouds. Another message from Waqar.

  ‘Yes, soon, my love,’ said Daniel, blowing on the ink, willing it to settle, pleading with the words to reappear.

  He placed the paper on the windowsill to dry and went to the bathroom to examine his tattoo in the mirror, hoping to distract himself. The outline of the snake was complete, and the edges were raised on his skin like a glistening line of ink, bleeding from its edges. Tomorrow, Jeff would add the finishing touches, along with his piercings, and Daniel’s chrysalis would have begun to form. His hair was already growing longer and tomorrow he would start letting his beard grow too. By the time he got to London, there wouldn’t be a CCTV camera anywhere that would recognise any pictures of him that might have fallen into the hands of the security services.

  Although Waqar wouldn’t approve, he had bought some weed as well as a couple of sugar cubes of acid for good measure on his way home from the tattoo parlour. Now he retreated to his bedroom, stripped down to his boxer shorts, and set up the bong. Lying on his bed, he swallowed back one of the sugar cubes. The first rush of smoke he sucked into his lungs stung, and he coughed harsh barking hacks, but the soft euphoria of the drugs coursing through his brain came quickly, after so long without it, and brought a rare feeling of happiness. He put on some music that he and Waqar used to listen to together and lay back, sucking in the smoke, letting the happiness waft over and through him.

  The light was beginning to fade by the time he stuffed the last of his mixture into the bong. Was it all gone already? He’d better make this final lot last a bit longer. As he lit the bong he popped the last acid cube into his mouth. The high began to take hold, carrying him outside his body. Sucking in some more of the weed, his hand fell to his crotch, and he rubbed his cock through the material of his underwear. As the blood started to pump and the vessels filled, he pushed the band of his boxers down and wriggled out of them, lying naked in the twilight, only the candle he was using to light the bong giving any added light to his skinny, exposed physique. Daniel stroked his shaft and fondled his balls with his other hand. The music transported him and gave rhythm to his hand movements and the fingers of euphoria enveloped him.

  From nowhere, he came to him, a shadow at first, then more distinct, standing tall and unclothed, at the end of the bed. Bathed in the soft flickering light, his beloved Waqar stood, naked, smiling, erect.

  ‘I am here, my love,’ he said. ‘The music, and your love, brought me here.’

  ‘Come closer, my lost one,’ said Daniel. ‘Let me make love to you. Let me show my soul to you.’

  Waqar came closer. His body was perfect, unblemished. Gone were the weals and the scars left by his father. His face was soft and shaven as it had been when they had first met. His hair was curly and full, shorter than in the camp. Thick bushy hair covered his chest, forming swirls around the dimpled flesh of his nipples. Waqar’s cock pressed against the hairs of his stomach, quivering gently, oozing a strand of dark wetness from its tip.

  ‘We need to get you ready,’ said Waqar, his head now lowering over Daniel’s erection. Waqar swished saliva around in his mouth and slowly let it trickle over Daniel’s cock. He licked his lips and said, ‘I want to moisten you, make you glisten, feel you inside me.’

  Waqar was now squatting over Daniel, lowering himself closer to his penis. ‘Wait,’ said Daniel, pushing Waqar’s stomach gently. ‘Let me get it ready for you, make it smooth and slick.’

  He reached for the lubricant he kept on his bedside table, squeezing the tube and allowing it to trickle over his cock, mingling with Waqar’s spit. Waqar squatted lower and moaned as Daniel entered him. Daniel writhed – the wet heat made him feel ecstatic, beautiful, unimaginably fantastic. This moment was never meant to happen here, not here, not on earth. But this was something else, it felt ethereal, heavenly. Had he completed his task and already forgotten it? Was his destiny complete and he was now in Jannah? Daniel thrust against Waqar’s resistant flesh, and his movements became faster, almost febrile. A fervour possessed him as if God was inside him, driving his ecstasy. Daniel threw back his head and arched his spine, thrusting and pounding.

  But then a different sensation gripped him. A shimmering wall of red separated him from the beauty and the ecstasy. Pain. Extreme pain in his cock and his hands. What had changed? Why was this incredible joy dissipating, disappearing? His eyes snapped open. Waqar was covered in dark red oil, engine oil. He remembered its smell. Daniel’s hands dripped the same red-black filth. And Waqar’s too, but these weren’t Waqar’s hands! No, these were older, coarser hands; they had cuts and old, untreated warts. Hands that he recognised from a time long past. Daniel looked up and now saw the driver from the lorry park, from all those years ago. His wet, scabrous lips stretched in a hideous grin, showing his yellow tobacco-stained teeth. He writhed on top of him, barking, ‘Fuck me, you little bastard. Your cunt of a father will never know.’

  ‘No!’ shouted Daniel, his voice hoarse, hardly audible. Could he even be heard?

  ‘No! Daniel, no!’ replied another voice, louder, clearer. A familiar stern voice from the past. It wasn’t the bark of the lorry driver. The voice wasn’t sweet and soothing like Waqar’s. Just as the hands had been unmistakable, the voice, too, was one that could belong to only one man. He looked up again and saw his father, Tom, naked and on top of him, where Waqar had been. Tom’s legs, covered in thick grey fur, were dripping syrupy dark liquid onto the hooves that replaced his feet.

  ‘Waqar, where are you?’ Daniel’s voice was feeble. An inaudible scream that reached no one. Even Daniel struggled to hear it as it gurgled noiselessly in a bubble in his throat. The curtain of red had devoured the vision of his love.

  He pushed the aberration from him and stared at his own hands, now also covered in the thick liquid. His flaccid genitals were murky with the same filthy oil. He jumped up and turned on the light. The room was empty, only he was there, his pale skinny body reflected in the mirror on the wall. His hands were bleeding, and there were lacerations on his stomach, pubic area, penis and testicles. On the sheets, he could see particles of glass,
and the bowl from his bong was shattered and splintered on the pillow and side table. Pieces of it still pierced his palms.

  He took what was left of the bong and threw it at the wall. Waqar had shown him, made him see that the only escape from these horrors would be through God.

  He stood under the shower and watched the blood swirl in the water and disappear into the drain along with the horror of what he had experienced. A sense of incredible cleansing coursed through him, subsuming any pain. Soon he would go to London. Waqar was calling him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Today, Friday

  The police car stops at the lights. Traffic is heavy on Horseferry Road. Life trudges on as normal for the rest of the world. It feels as if he is still reeling through the nightmare. This can’t possibly be happening. Will he ever wake up from this? How much longer?

  The policewoman seems to read his mind. ‘Nearly there, Mr McIntyre,’ she says.

  Tom can see a row of police ‘no parking’ cones on the kerbside up ahead.

  As the car draws level with them, the driver stops and jumps out. He moves a few of the cones to one side, drives the car into the space he’s created and opens Tom’s door. The policewoman gets out of the passenger side and stands by the open door, smiling benignly at him.

  ‘Follow me,’ she says.

  Tom stays put. ‘I don’t want to do this.’

  ‘We need a positive identification, Mr McIntyre. We’ll make it quick, I promise. Everything is ready for you. It will be very quick – in and out.’

  She offers her hand to him, and he shakes his head, but puts one leg out of the vehicle. He feels unsteady as he pushes himself upwards and out of his seat. People are walking back and forth on the pavement, paying no heed to him, probably intent on getting home, keen to see their loved ones, to relax, do normal things. How he wishes that was him, that he was one of those anonymous commuters who would read about this on their journey home and be shocked by it all, without being touched by it. He has the marks of it, has been tainted by it, eternally destroyed by it. This day, today, Friday will never leave him. It will slowly strangle him until…

  Now he is out of the car. He looks around. Should he try running away? The policewoman beckons him over to the slotted metal gates. It reminds him of a prison cell. Is Daniel – what is left of him – in there, behind bars? After he walks through those gates, he will be in a prison of sorts. A prison of knowing, of being exposed to something that can never be unseen, never be forgotten. Once he walks through those barriers, there will be no going back for him, no return to normality. Normality? What is normality? Everyone has an idea of what it is, what it might be… until it changes, until normality isn’t anything any fucking more.

  ‘I can’t do it. Take me home, please.’

  ‘I know this will be awful for you. You have to be brave. We need you to do this, for your sake, if nothing else. You have to be sure that we haven’t got this wrong.’ Her voice is soft, her eyes narrowed, grave.

  Maybe they had got it wrong. Please let it be a mistake. Let this be a mistake. But he’d seen the video that Daniel had made – on the news – or at least he’d seen the glimpses of it that they’d shown, slapped up against scenes of smoke, fire, bleeding people fleeing from the tube station. That had been like watching a dead version of his son. His eyes had been lifeless, passionless. His speech had been monotone, completely without emotion. Daniel couldn’t have done something like that, whatever his words said. It had to be some internet hoax he’d got himself mixed up in. What had Daniel to do with terrorism? He was such a gentle boy. What could have happened to make him like this? It had to have been Waqar. All those trips to the mosque, the prayer mats, the kufis. He had wielded some power over Daniel, hadn’t he? Daniel had told him Waqar was dead. Car accident. Was this one of his lies? Had Waqar been with him in the tube station?

  The policewoman holds the gate open, an AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY sign visible above her head. Tom follows the male police officer through the gate and hears it clunk shut behind him. A thick-looking, grey wooden door lies ahead of them. The policewoman mumbles something into the intercom at the side of it, and Tom hears a dull click from the door as it pops open. He hesitates again as she holds the door open for him, her eyes looking him up and down as if he’s some pathetic lost soul. The other officer leans against a wall, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

  ‘I’ll wait for you here, Julie,’ he says, lighting up.

  Julie. So there’s a human being under that uniform. She might have introduced herself. The bastards that came to his flat were telling him who they were before he even had a chance to open his door fully. Julie? PC, sergeant, inspector, what? Maybe she’s married. Too young for kids, probably. She can’t be any older than Daniel. Probably a junior. A lesbian maybe? Lots of women in the police were, he’d heard. She seems too soft for that. Too feminine. God, he’d never met any of Daniel’s girlfriends. He never would now, would he? There would never be any kids from Daniel. Tom had always hoped for a little girl, wondered if he would see some of Alison in a granddaughter, get a little bit of her back in his life. No hope of that. Daniel had all Alison’s features and mannerisms, didn’t he? Jenny was more him. No grandchildren from her either, if he knew his kids at all.

  ‘C’mon, Mr McIntyre,’ she says. ‘The sooner we do this, the sooner it’ll be over.’

  Tom steps inside and the door clicks shut behind him. Cream-coloured walls meet a glossy, grey-painted floor, and a faint chemical smell reaches him. There is nothing about this place that makes him want to take a step further in. A small sign points towards the lifts. He follows Julie, who has come to a stop by the lift doors, pressing the ‘down’ button. There is no indication of what floor the lift is on, and they stand in awkward silence, waiting. After a few minutes, Julie presses the call button again.

  ‘Shall we take the stairs?’ asks Tom, now desperate to have this over with.

  ‘We have to take the lift,’ she says. ‘Doors to the stairs are only released for emergencies. Security, you know.’

  Tom nods, but he doesn’t know. He knows fuck-all about these government mazes. These places wouldn’t exist without their stupid rules and regulations and red tape. ‘Maximise the misery’ is probably the mantra of every government department. He closes his eyes and sucks in deep breaths. If only he could have a drink, something to take the edge off this. Bilious liquid still bubbles in his throat, burns his gullet. Only another drink could get rid of that. Every image he manages to banish from his brain quickly returns with added detail or different ugliness. He throws his head into his hands and presses his thumbs against his eyes to stop himself from screaming. Finally, a muffled, almost rubbery ding comes from the lift and the doors draw slowly open.

  Julie takes his arm and leads him inside. She presses the ‘-2’ button that has a small sign beside it that says: THE IAIN WEST FORENSIC SUITE. The lift doors close as slowly as they had opened. There is no sense of movement, up or down. Tom feels trapped in some endless purgatory. Julie seems to sense his thoughts again.

  ‘Sorry, it’s always like this,’ she says, ‘I’m sure the buttons get pressed a hundred times for every floor because people think nothing is happening.’

  Tom forces a mirthless smile to his face and immediately chastises himself for even responding; he is here to identify his son. Focus on that. Show some decorum. He closes his eyes again, willing the lift to stop and the doors to open, then, just as forcefully, yearning for them to stay closed. Being trapped in a tunnel that is going to be filled with rushing water at any second is how it feels. When he opens his eyes, Julie is pressing the button again and again.

  When the lift doors finally open, a grey corridor stretches before them, with the same glossy painted floor. Rows of dark wooden doors stand like sentries along the length of it. A heavy smell of chemical cleaner hangs in the air, and anti- bacterial lotion dispensers number almost as many as the doors. Tom shudders.

  �
�Follow me,’ says Julie.

  She leads him down the corridor and opens one of the dark doors near the end. The room is small, rectangular, claustrophobic. Air with the same chemical taint whooshes through vents at either side of a long narrow window that has brown curtains pulled tightly closed, with a cord to one side. A number of seating rows semi-circled around it would turn it into a perfect mini theatre. A Punch and Judy show, maybe. Let him be Judy, let him be clubbed on the head until he bleeds and drops. There is a table with four chairs round it. Julie pulls out one facing the window and tells Tom to sit. He wonders whether she will say, ‘The performance is about to begin.’

  ‘I’d prefer to stand,’ he says.

  ‘It may be a few minutes,’ she says. ‘I have to find the pathologist so that we can go ahead with the identification. Sit down, please. Would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee, water, maybe?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  Tom sits down in the offered chair and folds his arms tightly. He fixes his stare on the covered window.

  ‘OK,’ says Julie. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’

  She leaves the room, closing the door behind her. Tom feels panic rising in his gut. He stands up again and paces back and forth. The walls are blank. Nothing to focus on but the table and the window. And the door. Oh, how he wants to open that door and run and keep on running. He takes hold of the handle, but lets go of it immediately. She’s probably locked him in, anyway. He sits down again, stands up, sits down, stands up. Paces the room. Walks around the table. Sits down again.

  The only noise comes from the air vents and the adulterated air pushing through them. Occasionally, the air flow causes the curtains to flutter slightly, making Tom think something is finally happening. But nothing would happen while he is here in the room, alone. This much, he knows. Standing up again, he goes over to the window. Should he? His fingers reach for the cord as if somehow they are acting independently of him. Is Daniel behind these curtains? He pulls on the cord and the curtains part a few centimetres in the centre of the window, revealing the glass. Tom stops pulling and moves tentatively towards the opening. Can he bring himself to look through?