Dishonour

by Helen Black

  She scooped up a yoghurt-coated two-year-old and held him to her bosom.

  ‘This is Rogon,’ she said. ‘Zahara’s baby boy.’

  Lilly exchanged a look with Jack. He was as confused as she was.

  ‘Zahara,’ Lilly repeated.

  ‘That’s right.’ Mrs Roberts wiped a thick finger under the child’s sticky chin.

  ‘Maybe we’ve made a mistake,’ said Jack. ‘Come to the wrong address.’

  Lilly shook her head. Rogon was unmistakably Taslima’s son, with the same smile and cheekbones as his mother and the woman in the photograph.

  If Taslima lied about having a family, was it really that hard to believe she lied about her name? But this was all so confusing. Lies and secrets. Lilly’s head was spinning and she felt sick. It made her want to lie down.

  Yet whatever her name was, it was the same brave young woman out there and in need of help.

  ‘Do you have a mobile number for Taslima?’ asked Lilly. ‘I mean, Zahara.’

  Mrs Roberts handed the child to Lilly. He beamed up at her, leaving a vanilla trail across her jacket with his chubby fist.

  ‘I’ll get my book,’ Mrs Roberts reached into a kitchen drawer. ‘Which one do you need?’

  Jack stepped outside to call the station with Taslima’s second number. God knows what the chief super would say when he explained what they had done. That he’d been careering around trying to find Aasha with his pregnant girlfriend in tow and that Jack had involved someone else in their crazy scheme. That that someone was a vulnerable Asian woman.

  Lilly couldn’t bear to listen and stayed with Mrs Roberts and Rogon.

  ‘Do you have any idea why she used a different name?’ Lilly asked.

  Mrs Roberts shrugged. ‘It don’t often pay to ask too many questions,’ she said. ‘I usually find people have their reasons.’

  ‘But don’t you think she owed it to you, to tell the truth?’

  ‘You sound just like her, always saying she’s going to pay me back for minding her boy.’ Mrs Roberts kissed Rogon’s head. ‘Zahara don’t owe me nothing. She needed help, I gave it.’

  Lilly felt a stab of guilt that she could never just let people be themselves. Unlike Mrs Roberts, she felt the need to uncover stones and peek underneath.

  When Jack came back inside the colour was bleached from his face.

  ‘How did it go?’ she asked.

  Jack gave a weak smile. ‘Well, I haven’t been promoted.’

  ‘Can they find Taslima for us?’

  Jack opened his hands, palms to the ceiling. ‘They’re trying the networks now. If there’s a signal they might be able to locate it.’

  ‘How close can they get?’ she asked.

  ‘A couple of square miles.’

  Lilly sighed and bit her lip.

  ‘She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?’ asked Mrs Roberts.

  ‘Of course,’ said Jack, but Lilly couldn’t look at him. They both knew there was no way he could promise that.

  At last his phone bleeped with a text and he showed it to Lilly.

  The number you gave is currently active in St Stephen’s Green.

  ‘Where the hell’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘A village on the other side of Harpenden.’ Jack checked his watch. ‘We can be there in twenty minutes.’

  Lilly jumped to her feet and they headed for the door.

  ‘Take care now,’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘And bring Rogon’s mama back safe and sound.’

  Lilly didn’t trust herself to answer.

  Fear. That’s what was on the girl’s face. The sort of fear that, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t escape.

  Taslima knew how that felt. She couldn’t remember where or why but she recognised terror that sickened you to the very core.

  She turned instinctively to see the cause, her body begrudging the order to move, hard, cold tiles pressing into her lifeless shoulders as she attempted to turn her head.

  From her place on the floor all she could see was a bare wall and a closed door.

  Again she fought the urge to laugh. Who could be frightened of that?

  But there was something else. A cloud forming in the tiny gap between the two. She would have thought nothing more of it, closed her eyes and given herself up to the wonderful darkness, but for the smell. Like the distant memory of her own fear it galvanised her. What was it? She breathed in a deep lungful, desperate to reach the far recesses of her brain.

  It was hot. It hurt.

  Suddenly, her eyes opened wide. She knew exactly what it was and what the girl had been trying to tell her.

  ‘Faaa.’

  Fire.

  She struggled to sit, her arms barely able to take her weight. The numbness that had been so seductive now gave way to the ripping fingernails of pain. The base of her neck erupting in agony.

  Groaning, she pressed her hand under her hijab to what felt like a fireball. When she brought it back to her face, her vision, although still blurred, had cleared enough for her to see her fingers stained red. The pain was so excruciating, she had expected white-hot lava.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ said the girl, her words still muffled as though she were behind glass.

  Taslima knew she couldn’t speak but nodded.

  She tried to push herself to her feet but her hands couldn’t get purchase, sliding across the wet floor. She seemed to be sitting in some sort of puddle.

  Again, she brought her fingers to her face but this time the liquid was clear. She sat mesmerised by the feel of it on her skin, the way it evaporated like…petrol.

  The thought slipped towards her, gently at first, then gathering momentum, increasing its mass, until it hurtled towards her like a freight train.

  Outside the door, not four feet away, there was a fire—and she was sitting in a pool of petrol.

  She scrambled to her knees, her sodden trousers clinging to her legs. She looked around wildly at the bath, toilet and basin.

  Where on earth was she and what was she doing here?

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, like a long forgotten dream, she recalled arriving here. She could smell the fresh grass of fields and hear the sound of animals.

  The girl interrupted her with a wide-eyed scream. What had been a whisper of smoke was now billowing under the door, filling the room with a thick, choking fog.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  Taslima tried to think but it was as if her mind was a room full of people all talking at once.

  Who are you? Where are you? What’s happening? Each question piled on top of another in an unanswered tangle.

  ‘My brain hurts,’ she said, because it did.

  The girl began to sob and beat her hand against the window. ‘It’s locked.’

  Taslima looked from the window lock, to the door and back again. Behind the door she could hear the roar of flames that would soon make their way inside the bathroom.

  The girl began to wail, the sound pressing deep into Taslima’s head, like a sickening migraine.

  ‘We’re going to die,’ the girl screamed.

  Jack screeched through the main street in St Stephen’s Green, the wheels of his car mounting the pavement.

  ‘They could be anywhere,’ he shouted.

  Lilly didn’t answer but kept her eyes peeled for Jalil’s car, or Jalil himself. Jack had called the station for more details put the police had only the name of the village.

  ‘It was definitely St Stephen’s Green?’ she asked.

  ‘And the outskirts,’ Jack answered.

  Lilly groaned. That could stretch well into the outlying countryside.

  Jack reached a crossroads. ‘Which way?’

  ‘God knows.’

  ‘This is hopeless.’ He smacked the side window with his elbow.

  Lilly squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to think about what might be happening to Taslima and Aasha.

  ‘Someone must have noticed them,’ said Jack.

&n
bsp; Lilly looked around her at the pretty village, much like her own. The whitewashed pub, with a scarlet headband of hanging baskets, nestled in the dappled shade. The post office stood proud with its glisteningly clean windows, the door held open with an old iron horseshoe.

  Jack was right. In a place like this where everyone knew everyone, someone must have seen them.

  ‘Let’s ask,’ she said.

  He crunched the car into reverse and shot back up the high street.

  ‘You take the shop,’ he slammed on the brake, ‘and I’ll do the pub.’

  Lilly was about to point out that a group of extremist Muslims were hardly likely to be found sharing half a lager in the Spotted Dog but Jack had already disappeared.

  She hauled herself out of the car and approached The Old Village Shoppe. A woman in her sixties was already at the door, her thinning, yet overly red hair framed by the window behind her, which was completely covered with posters advertising local fetes, dog groomers and amateur dramatic productions.

  ‘You can’t leave it like that.’ The woman pointed to Jack’s car, parked with two wheels on the kerb.

  ‘Sorry,’ Lilly shrugged. ‘I don’t have the keys.’

  The woman let out a theatrical sigh and went inside. Lilly followed.

  The shop was a cramped hotchpotch of newspapers, croissants and boxes of tea, the counter piled high with charity collection tins, the village magazine and discount chocolate.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the woman barked.

  Lilly attempted a smile. Mrs Singh ran the off-licence In Little Markham with a similar lack of warmth, but no detail of anyone’s life passed her by.

  ‘I’m trying to find someone,’ said Lilly.

  The woman looked unimpressed. She sniffed and began rearranging a shelf of cigars.

  ‘Some people actually,’ Lilly explained. ‘A guy called Nawed Jalil.’

  The woman shook her head. ‘The name doesn’t ring a bell.’

  ‘He has a friend called Abdul Malik and a few days ago they would have had an Asian girl with them, about fifteen years old.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said the woman.

  ‘And today they would have had another woman with them in her twenties, wearing a hijab.’

  ‘A what?’

  Lilly circled her head with her finger. ‘A black headscarf.’

  ‘Oh, one of them things.’ The woman gave a little snort. ‘Bleeding ridiculous, if you want my opinion.’

  Lilly reined herself in from pointing out that indeed she did not want this woman’s opinion.

  ‘Have you seen anyone in the village wearing one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Lilly.

  The woman cocked her head to one side. ‘This isn’t bleeding Afghanistan. We don’t get that sort here.’

  Lilly gritted her teeth, nodded her thanks and stumbled outside. Jack was crossing the road towards her.

  ‘Any luck?’ she asked.

  He shook his head. ‘You?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop saying that.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She waved away his apology. She was being unreasonable again and she knew it. Perhaps it was the stress, perhaps it was the text, perhaps a culmination of everything, but she couldn’t stop herself so she turned to the window and read one of the posters.

  ‘Christmas Will Be Late This Year. An uproariously funny comedy from the St Stephen’s Players.’

  Somehow she doubted a bunch of retired accountants pretending to be Santa’s helpers would ever be hilarious. Similarly, she doubted that an organically reared goat, as described in the next poster, would ever be the perfect gift for the birth of a child.

  ‘Come on,’ she snapped. ‘We’re wasting time.’

  But when she got to the car she stopped in her tracks.

  ‘I thought you didn’t want to waste any more time,’ said Jack.

  She put up her palm for quiet. Something was tickling the back of her mind. Something she’d seen before.

  ‘That’s it.’ She hurried back and tapped the window.

  ‘I don’t think tickets to a musical can help us now,’ said Jack.

  She rolled her eyes at him and tapped the next poster along. ‘I saw something just like this in Paradise Halal.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And Malik delivers the meat there,’ she said. ‘Perhaps this is something to do with him too.’

  ‘Bit of a stretch,’ said Jack.

  ‘What else have we got to go on?’ asked Lilly, and shot back into the shop.

  The woman glanced up at her. ‘Have you moved your car yet?’

  ‘What?’

  The woman flapped her hand at Jack’s car. ‘I’ve told you already, you can’t leave it there.’

  Lilly took a deep breath. Now was not the time to lose her temper. ‘The poster in the window about the meat,’ she said. ‘Is it halal?’

  The woman narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re not from Health and Safety, are you? Because it has absolutely nothing to do with me.’

  ‘No,’ said Lilly, ‘I’m—’

  ‘People ask to put things in my window all the time and I charge them a few quid. Everything else is down to them.’

  ‘I understand that,’ said Lilly.

  ‘If they’ve done anything wrong then I’m not responsible.’ The woman wagged a finger. ‘If you’re not from Health and Safety, you’re not a bleeding lawyer are you?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Well, listen to me. I’ve done nothing wrong.’ She jabbed her chest with her thumb. ‘Not liable. It says so in the small print. So you stick your writs and your summonses where the sun don’t shine.’

  ‘Will you stop talking and listen!’ Lilly shouted.

  The woman pulled a face. ‘Charming.’

  ‘Please,’ Lilly evened her tone. ‘I’m not here to cause any problems for you. I just want to know where the farm is on the poster.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you just say that?’

  Taslima put her hands to her temples to calm the traffic of her thoughts.

  Who was the girl? What were they doing here?

  She didn’t have any answers but one thing she did know: she didn’t want to burn to death in this unknown place.

  ‘Allah will show us the way,’ she said.

  ‘Allah?’ The girl was hysterical now. ‘Are you mad?’

  Taslima just smiled. Though right now she had no idea what it was, she knew that she had survived something terrible, and that she had done so by trusting in God.

  She made a dua, apologising for its brevity, and waited. The paint of the door began to bubble and crack as the flames licked through.

  ‘Do something!’ the girl screamed.

  Taslima nodded and went to the window. The lock was secure and the frame solid with layer upon layer of paint. She looked around the bathroom for something to break the glass. Nothing.

  The room was now filled with smoke and the girl began coughing wildly.

  Taslima ran her finger around the frame to see if there was any give, but it was firm.

  The girl’s coughing turned into a strangled wheeze and Taslima shouted, ‘Hold on,’ as the girl began to sink to the floor.

  Taslima pressed against the glass. It felt heavy, unbreakable. She pulled off her hijab, the pain at the base of her neck nearly cutting her in two.

  ‘Give me strength,’ she prayed.

  She wound the hijab around her hand and took a deep breath. Then she made a fist and punched.

  The jolt of agony running from her hand to her shoulder made Taslima gasp. It felt as if the entire limb were in a vice.

  She checked the glass but there was no sign of even a hairline crack.

  She held her hand to her chest, tears running down her face. The girl was now sprawled beside the bath, her head to one side.

  Taslima steadied herself, took another lungful of air and smoke, then punched again with all her mi
ght.

  There was a hideous snapping sound and Taslima screamed. The glass remained intact but her knuckle was broken.

  Her head spun both with pain and lack of oxygen. She could barely make out the girl through the smoke. They would both be dead within minutes.

  She was so tired, so confused. Perhaps it would be OK. She would slip away quietly and sleep. She began to feel her knees bend and her shoulders slump. The darkness beckoned again.

  ‘No.’

  Her own words jolted her back to life. She would not give up, she was better than that.

  She positioned herself, legs akimbo, back straight. She wound the bloodied hijab around her other hand. Then she closed her eyes, pulled back her fist and thrust it at the glass.

  She heard the smash, together with her own screaming. When she dared look she saw her entire hand had passed through the window. She pulled it back inside, wincing as sharp splinters lacerated her skin through the material of her hijab. She could feel the stickiness of blood pouring down her arm but bit her lip as she pushed out the rest of the broken glass.

  She bent to the place where the girl lay and shook her.

  ‘I did it,’ she said. ‘We’re getting out of here.’

  The girl stirred, murmuring gently.

  ‘Come on,’ Taslima said and pulled her to her feet. The girl leaned heavily against Taslima and another spasm shot through her.

  ‘Are we going home?’ the girl whispered.

  ‘En sh’Allah.’

  The address the woman gave to Lilly was ten minutes outside the village. Jack drove at breakneck speed through tight country lanes. Lilly held on to the edge of her seat.

  As they careered around a hairpin bend at seventy Lilly prayed they weren’t too late.

  ‘There,’ Lilly pointed to an iron gate in the hedge that flanked miles of single-track road.

  Barely slowing, Jack pulled in, the side of his car scraping against the gatepost.

  When they sped along the dirt track leading to the farm, the tyres hit a pothole with such force Lilly was propelled sideways into Jack, their shoulders clashing, the suspension heaving. Lilly’s hands flew to her bump.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jack shouted but she didn’t reply. Couldn’t reply.

  Instead she stared straight ahead.

  ‘Mary Mother of God,’ said Jack, and Lilly knew he had seen it too.