Hakim lifted the whip above his head. He was aware that he was breathing heavily and that his hand was shaking. Aleena was crying, her limp body held up by the ropes which bound her to the pipe.
"Wait."
The Imam walked up to Aleena and, with one brutal act, ripped the shirt from her back.
She screamed. There were gasps from his friends. Hakim's phone rang.
"Leave it!"
"There's no answer. We'll have to try the software," commanded Doug, urgently.
Julia switched on the iPad and quickly accessed the programme. They loaded in Hakim's number. The map hovered over central England with Derby at its centre.
"Go closer. Use the zoom button," urged Doug.
Julia zoomed into the icon which marked the position of Hakim's phone. It appeared to be between two residential streets not far from the centre of the city.
"Do you know this place?" asked Doug. "What's there?"
Aleena's father tugged nervously at his beard.
"Yes, I know it. It's a lock-up garage. I used to run a second hand furniture stall in the market. I used that place to store the furniture. I gave it up about two years ago. But Hakim knows it well. He used to help me take the furniture to market. He probably still has a key."
"How long will it take to get there?"
"Fifteen minutes."
"By car?"
"Probably only five minutes. But let me go alone. It is better that I deal with this. It is a family matter. Not for outsiders like you. This brings great dishonour to my family."
"We'll take you there by car. And we'll wait outside – just in case there's trouble."
"Come on. Let's go now!" yelled Nick.
"Do it now!" screamed the Imam. "Your last chance."
Hakim held the whip above his head. His hand shook with fear. Perspiration trickled down his wrist, soaking the cuff of his tunic. These were people he'd looked up to – teachers. But now they were demanding something unimaginable. He had never intended that this would happen – never thought it was possible – not in England. This was something that belonged to other places – mediaeval places. But not here.
"Now!"
He brought the leather thongs down on Aleena's back with a crack. She arched and screamed. He saw red wealds where the leather had cut into her skin. He realised that he was screaming too – his fist was forced into his mouth. A terrible sense of betrayal overwhelmed him.
The Imam was yelling. He rushed up to Hakim and tried to seize the whip. Hakim clung onto it so the two of them were locked together. For a moment, their eyes met – Hakim's filled with fear and self-loathing, the Imam's exuding hatred. Hakim felt a hand grab his hair from behind and jerk him painfully backwards. The Imam had the whip in his hand, his eyes ablaze. The sound of leather cutting through air – a sickening crack as it met bare skin – a high pitch shriek as Aleena convulsed.
The door scraped open.
"Hakim, what is all this? Where is Aleena? What have you done with her?"
A moment of intense silence as eyes met and comprehension dawned. The Imam, with his hand raised to strike again. Hakim, gripped by his hair. The two friends, huddled in disbelief and denial.
With a shout and agility much beyond his apparent age, Aleena's father vaulted a line of chairs and threw himself across the body of his daughter just as the Imam unleashed a second lash. It caught Aleena's father squarely across his cheek opening up an angry gash from which blood poured. Pulling free of his captor, Hakim threw himself at the Imam, his hands gripping his throat in a desperate struggle for survival. The Imam's men moved forward. Hakim's two friends suddenly found the courage to act. A metal chair was hurled across the room and knocked one of the Imam's men to the floor. A table followed, splintering as it hit the far wall. Hakim was pulled from the Imam and thrown like a sack onto a pile of rubble.
"Who are you? Why are you doing this to my daughter?" yelled Aleena's father, as he clasped his hands to the gaping wound.
"She is a whore. She is not fit to be called your daughter. This is a Sharia court and we are administering justice in the name of Allah," croaked the Imam, as he rubbed at his swollen neck.
"What do you know about Islamic justice? I know you. You are converts. You understand nothing about our religion. You cannot administer justice. That is a job for our elders. You are criminals."
A blow from a baton brought him crashing to his knees.
Hakim was on his feet again and, with his two friends, struck back armed with pieces of broken furniture. The Imam's men braced themselves. The air filled with screams as wood made contact with flesh and spatters of blood covered the floor and walls. A kerosene lamp was knocked to the ground and flames began to lick greedily at the debris. Acrid smoke quickly filled the room.
Hakim seized an opportunity. As the Imam reached for his pocket, he brought a table leg down onto the back of his head with all the might he could muster. The Imam crumpled and fell.
A blow to Hakim's head sent him reeling across the floor.
A shout from the door.
"What's going on? Christ!" Doug and Nick entered the building.
The Imam reached for his pocket again.
A glint of light from a metal barrel.
A shout from Hakim.
"He's got a gun!"
Nick moved to shield Aleena.
Doug dived towards the Imam, who was on his knees cradling the pistol. The Imam was thrown backwards.
The gun crashed to the floor. Doug lashed out with his foot, pushing the weapon into the dense smoke.
Sirens approaching.
The 'crack' of a bullet being discharged.
A cry of pain.
Shouting, confusion, people running from the building.
Flames reaching higher to the ceiling.
Thick smoke making it impossible to see.
Someone stumbling through the carnage.
"What's happened? Christ!"
Julia rushed across to Doug who was clutching his arm, blood seeping from a wound.
"You're alive! Thank God! I saw the smoke so I called the police."
"I'll be alright. What about Nick and Aleena?"
She pulled herself away from Doug and stumbled through the smoke to where a body lay. It was Aleena's father.
"Are they alright?"
Julia let out a stifled scream and turned back to Doug just in time to see him collapse onto the floor. Sirens drowned out her anguish. Men in black poured into the wrecked and bloodied building.
Firemen doused the flames. A policeman levelled a Taser at Julia whilst someone secured her wrists from behind.
"Not me. You're letting them get away. Arrest the others," screamed Julia.
"What others?" came the rough response. "There's no one here. Just you and the two on the floor. Did you kill them?"
Chapter 21: London, May 2nd 2011
The hours and days that followed seemed to pass by in a series of nightmarish episodes as he slipped in and out of consciousness. He knew he was in hospital. In lucid moments he could see that there was a police guard in his room and he was aware of being shackled to the bed.
His left side ached and his arm felt as if it had been ripped from his torso. He wanted to speak to Julia but she wasn't there. He slipped into delirium.
He was floating – like the time he'd fallen drunkenly into the dock. The pain receded and he was suspended between time and space. He was at peace and felt in no hurry to leave. Then voices – echoes. Distant at first, but then closer. A woman's voice – soft, like a whisper.
"Things are not as they seem. Listen."
"I am listening."
"Listen with an open mind."
Her words embraced him like a warm tide gently lapping at his battered body – soothing, caressing, comforting. Her presence no longer troubled him. He felt at peace in this ethereal in-between, timeless world. Relieved of the pain imposed on his mortal self, his mind seemed to float across an ocean of mist that spanned other times, other places –
hidden to him now but tantalisingly within reach.
"The future," she whispered as her breath teased his ear. "Just look to the past."
"Douglas – wake up. Can you hear me?"
His peace was shattered by piercing light and the discordant intrusion of brusque medical voices.
"You're in hospital. Do you understand where you are?"
Then a sweeter, softer voice.
"It's me, darling – Julia. Can you hear me?"
His eyes flickered open and he was staring into her eyes. She smiled and kissed his forehead.
"What happened?"
"You were shot – in the arm. The wound became infected. But you're going to be OK. You've been delirious."
"Was anyone else hurt?"
Julia paused, her face looking drained.
"Aleena's father – the same bullet. It went right through you and hit him." Doug stared at her uncomprehendingly.
"The bullet killed him. Went straight into his chest."
"Who fired?"
"We don’t know. At first, the police thought I did it. When they arrived I was the only one left standing. They spent two days interrogating me."
"What about that Imam? Didn't they get him?"
"He escaped. From the description that Hakim gave the police they think they know who he is. He's not from the Muslim community at all. He's English and he was born in Bolton. But he claims to have converted and now runs an extremist group which recruits from universities and colleges. It seems that Hakim was one of his converts."
"So what about Nick and Aleena – are they safe?"
Julia breathed deeply and squeezed his hand.
"They haven't been found. The police think they were either kidnapped again or they made a run for it."
"Why would they run away?"
"Fear of being caught. Fear of punishment for bringing shame on Aleena's family."
"And Hakim?"
"The police have him. He's in custody – apparently inconsolable. He says he only intended to frighten Aleena – not to harm her."
"Julia, I have to get out of here. We have to find Nick and Aleena. I think they're in danger."
He tried to pull himself up but handcuffs bound him to the bed.
"You can't leave, my love. You're under arrest for not reporting to the police for the phone hacking interview. Your solicitor is waiting to see you as soon as you're well enough."
The next few days were taken up with a whirlwind of interviews, meetings and medical tests. The bullet that had passed through his arm before killing Aleena's father had not done any lasting harm. Police visited him endlessly trying to establish who was present in the warehouse and who might have handled the gun. A specialist community worker spent hours with Doug pouring over the implications of Nick and Aleena's relationship. Were there any implied threats before this incident? Did Aleena's father know what was going on? Did Aleena fear that she might be forcibly taken back to India?
On the third day of his convalescence, Winston Brown exploded into his room clutching a battered leather case from which loose leaves of paper dropped as he tried to juggle his load.
"Well, Douglas, you've really fucked up this time. I did warn you that you had to toe the line. Not much I can do for you now. Better tell me the story, I suppose."
Doug gave him an account of events, filtering out any mention of Penhallam and voices from the past. Winston's inscrutable look was replaced by a bemused expression as details of the attempt to find Nick and Aleena with the spy software were recounted.
"Just a minute. Let me try to understand something," said Winston, becoming suddenly agitated. "Are you telling me that your former editor in chief, James – what's his name?"
"Welland."
"Are you telling me that this James Welland told you how to hack into your son's phone?"
"Yes."
"Well, this changes things a bit. He's clearly implicated. Why would he tell you? You're not exactly best friends."
"Something that Raff has on him, I think. He said he was putting his job on the line but it worked."
"Who's Raff?"
"He's my buddy from the paper. We were junior reporters together. Been friends for years."
"I'd better talk to this Raff and see what he's got on Welland. We might have found a chink in their armour."
Another visit which Doug both dreaded and looked forward to was from Rachel. 'Dreaded' because he knew she would blame him for Nick and Aleena's disappearance. 'Looked forward to' because he could never actually rid himself of a wanting her, even though they had been separated for three years.
"How could you let all this happen? I asked you to help Nick, not to get him involved in a religious war. And where are they?"
"They disappeared in the confusion."
"Then they're both still in danger. We've got to find them."
"The police are looking for them now. They need to interview them both."
"Why?"
"Aleena's the victim and they need a statement from her. And Nick's a possible suspect."
"A suspect?"
"It's still not clear who fired the shot. The fake Imam had the gun but I tackled him. So how was it that the shot went through my arm and hit Aleena's father? It seems implausible that the Imam could do that as he was falling to the floor. The police are doing forensic tests to see if anyone else picked up the gun."
"So, who are suspects?"
"Me, of course. The police think I might have tried to grab the gun from the Imam and inadvertently shot myself."
"That's impossible."
"The two nearest people were Nick and Hakim. One of them could have grabbed the gun and fired. It was chaos in there, Rachel. No one knows what happened."
"Christ, Doug! What the hell have you got our son into?"
A week after the incident, Doug was released into police custody. Bail was refused on the grounds that he might abscond, justified by his failure to appear for a previous police interview. He was driven by police car to Wandsworth Prison in London and incarcerated in a tiny cell. His only consolation was that he wasn't sharing the cramped space with any other felon. He was visited on a number of occasions by detectives investigating both the hacking affair and the shooting. They wanted to go over his account of events. He knew they were checking each detail of his account with that of Hakim and the fake Imam who had now also been arrested.
Sitting alone for long hours in his cell, staring blankly at the green wall opposite, Doug brooded over the turn of events. In a few short months he had travelled from successful features editor on a national daily to a prisoner suspected of phone hacking and implicated in a murder. In addition, he was blamed by his former wife for his son's disappearance. For the first time in his life he felt at a loss. Normally, he would pull himself together and start fixing things. But locked in this cell, he was helpless. Desolation engulfed him. He had reached the bottom. He slipped once more into a restless sleep.
In that in-between state he heard Kate's voice again. It was as if she was lying on the pillow next to him – whispering – teasing. Her words soothed and engulfed him.
"Open your mind, Douglas. You can change the past to shape the future."
"How can I change the past?" he shouted silently in his mind. But her warm breath had gone and he was alone once more in the cold isolation of his cell.
The next day he was allowed a meeting with Julia. They sat either side of an empty table in a room with other prisoners and their visitors.
"Julia, I know this sounds like madness," said Doug hesitantly. "But I think I know how we can find out what's happened to Nick and Aleena."
"How? The police say they have no leads."
"I think we have to find out what happened to Kate and John that night at Penhallam."
"We know – they died."
"What if they didn't die?"
"You're not making sense, Douglas. This place is getting to you."
"Look, I heard Kate's voice again," he said qui
etly, as if afraid that anyone else should hear his admission.
"You mean you imagined you heard her."
"Julia, she said something about changing the past. Suppose we can somehow affect what happens to Kate and John?"
"Doug, you're crazy. The past is the past. You can't change it."
"Please, Julia. Just do this for me. Let me observe the re-enactment. I need to see what happens. I need to see what Freddie saw."
"But look what happened to Freddie. He's in a mental institution."
"Please, Julia. The true anniversary date is only three weeks away."
"But you're in prison. How can you?"
"Then we've got to get Winston to pull his finger out. He's got to get me out of here."
Two days later, as Doug tried to read in his cell, he heard the window in his door being opened. A guard peered through.
"Penhallam. You've got a visitor."
"Who?"
"Not sure. Could be your brief."
Winston was already in the room when Doug entered.
"Douglas. It's looking good. I spoke to that friend of yours – Raff – and got him to tell me how he persuaded your managing editor to reveal what he knew about phone hacking. It seems that your friend wasn't quite as innocent as he led you to believe. He was regularly hacking into civil servants' phones to get information for his stories on immigration. And he has evidence that Welland sanctioned this."
"What evidence?"
"Emails authorising Raff to go ahead and monitor voicemails. He told him to be discreet but to get the story. You'll understand that Raff didn't want to reveal this at first because it implicates him. But when I explained your predicament he agreed to talk. Co-operating will get him a light sentence – probably just a fine. He seemed glad to get it off his chest."
Doug felt strangely betrayed to learn that his oldest friend had been caught up in the phone hacking debacle but hugely indebted to him for putting his job on the line.
"I'm going to talk to Halshaw's legal team this afternoon. I don't see how they can pursue you in the light of this evidence. They're clearly implicated. It won't be long."
The Voice Within Page 17