Alias

by Tracy Alexander

‘If you’ve seen enough, do you want to come for a drink?’ he asked, not unexpectedly – the well-groomed Saffron Anderson got a lot more attention than Samiya ever did.

  No, I’d rather cut someone else’s toenails.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll buy, to thank you for the tour.’

  He didn’t let me, insisting that it had been his pleasure. I think he was hoping for some more pleasure, but after a half of cider I said I had to go.

  ‘If you want to know anything else, just give me a call,’ he said.

  I took his number, knowing I wouldn’t be ringing it.

  Based on what I’d seen, one visit to the lab on my tod and the three chemicals I needed – a catalyst, a depressant and a primer, to ensure the bomb exploded rather then fizzed – would be in the lock-up with the rest of the components. Good job.

  Back at Freddie’s, there was a copy of Metro on the kitchen table with a familiar face on the front page.

  No way!

  One day and everything had changed. Slippery Dan Langley wasn’t going to be extradited after all because the American government had withdrawn its request. Good. No extradition meant no court case. No court case meant Dronejacker got archived with the rest of yesterday’s news.

  Until the next time …

  For a second I allowed myself to imagine the day when the Americans finally acknowledged that firing missiles at innocent people had consequences. Major consequences. It was electrifying.

  I reined in the feeling. It was dangerous to focus too much on the prize. It wouldn’t happen unless the planning was meticulous. And this time, no loose ends.

  48

  The plan was complete in that I understood how to get everything I needed to make the bomb, how to parcel it, how to send it and to whom, and how to detonate it. But I still didn’t have enough ammonium nitrate. So I went foraging three lunchtimes running, telling Elisa I was looking for a present for her birthday.

  Just before I left work on Friday evening, I typed the warning letters again, printed them and put them in my rucksack together with seventeen cold packs from the little cabinet under my desk. I got a bus to the lock-up, entered the code for the main door and went in, glancing up at the CCTV as I walked along to my unit.

  I took out my key and let myself in, shutting the door behind me and locking it. I emptied the rucksack, putting the cold packs with all the others and the letters in my file. I was keen to get home in time for a bath because Liam and I were going clubbing. But I didn’t leave straight away. I sat on the pressure cooker that was still in its box and leafed through my notes. In theory there was nothing to stop the bomb from flying over the Atlantic in the next two weeks. Being so close, for the second time, evoked conflicting feelings.

  I didn’t want to think about leaving Leeds. Never seeing Liam again, or Mack and Elisa … even Freddie. Having mates and being Liam’s girlfriend was nice, but it could never be enough – I needed closure. Recognition that cold-blooded murder had consequences.

  Starting again would be Strange, capital S. What would I do? I had no plans to become a career activist. As soon as the world recognised that the drone wars were illegal, irresponsible, indefensible, my job would be over and —

  There was a tap on the door. I froze. People weren’t meant to come calling. I checked the time. Six-fifteen.

  ‘Yes?’ I shouted.

  ‘It’s Alan, the manager.’

  I didn’t care who it was. The door was staying shut.

  ‘Hi,’ I shouted.

  ‘Can I have a word?’

  No.

  ‘OK.’ I opened the door just wide enough to slide out.

  ‘Afternoon,’ said the bloke I recognised from before – pale and skinny with an attractive blend of body odour and fags.

  ‘Hi,’ I said again.

  ‘Still stockpiling?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, there’s a way to go.’

  I’d told him I was studying art and design at the college and needed the space to collect materials for an installation based on flight. It explained my frequent comings and goings with different-sized bits and bobs.

  ‘There’s an offer,’ he said. ‘Thought you might be interested.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  He outlined the deal – if I moved upstairs, I could have a month’s extension free of charge.

  ‘I’m happy here,’ I said.

  ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a customer who wants three units next to each other on the ground floor.’

  ‘I really can’t move,’ I said. ‘There are pieces of work half finished, and stuff gluing …’

  ‘I could help you move,’ he said.

  I should have gone to Big Yellow. It was bigger, more anonymous, not run by Alan.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I turned away and attempted to disappear back inside. He rammed his steel-capped boot into the gap so I couldn’t shut the door.

  ‘Miss … Anderson, isn’t it? Listen —’

  He leant forward. I had no idea how much he could see. Thanks to the Boston bomber, even a moron would realise I was up to no good if they saw the pressure cookers.

  ‘Take your foot out of the way,’ I said, with more confidence than I felt.

  ‘No need to get antsy,’ he said. ‘I just —’

  We both heard the tapping of the digits on the entry pad and the main door crank open. Alan turned to see who it was. I took advantage of the slight movement and pushed him.

  ‘I’ve got to get on.’

  He tipped backwards and I slammed the door, immediately locking it.

  Phew!

  He uttered something uncomplimentary, then turned his attention to the person who’d let himself in. I couldn’t catch all the words, but it sounded like he was offering them the same deal. I took a few deep breaths, talking to myself as I did so. I needed to make sure Alan understood that my contents couldn’t be disturbed, just in case he got any ideas that I was a drug dealer or harbouring asylum seekers. I slipped out of the door and walked towards the two of them.

  ‘Don’t worry, Miss Anderson,’ said Alan. ‘This gentleman’s agreed to move, so your flappy birds or whatever are safe in there.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it’s my art,’ I said in a lovey voice. ‘It’s very precious to me.’

  ‘Looked like a pile of saucepans to me,’ said Alan.

  Despite my instinct telling me to let it go – his voice had no hint of suspicion – I said, ‘I use them for glue. Saucepans with handles are much easier to hold than bowls.’

  ‘Get sodding Picasso here,’ he said.

  I left Alan and the gentleman laughing, wishing I’d factored in the bombing of a storage facility in Leeds.

  49

  Liam and I went to The Warehouse. My first ever nightclub! Going straight from eighteen to twenty-one meant I’d missed out on the social life that usually starts when you get legit ID. I was absurdly excited.

  He could dance really well, and somehow his rhythm infected me. A typically English rosy-cheeked girl was watching us, and it took a while to realise that it wasn’t because we looked odd, but because we looked good. I’d thrown on a bright-red skater dress with bare legs and ankle boots and somehow that worked. Liam was, as always, kitted out like a model for Next. We had a couple of drinks, and then Liam had a couple more, but I was wary of being out of control.

  It was late when we left the club, and Liam was tired and emotional.

  ‘Why can’t I ever come to yours?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I live in a hovel with an idiot.’

  ‘Come live with me,’ he said, wrapping his arms around me.

  The first I knew of Saturday was the smell of bacon. Delicious. I yanked back the stripy duvet and pulled on one of Liam’s T-shirts that I found on the floor – it said ‘Free the Bears’.

  ‘Free them from what?’ I asked, padding into the kitchen-diner-lounge, which was the only other room in his studio flat.

  ‘They’re kept in horrible conditions, with catheters st
uffed in their gall bladders to milk the bile.’

  I made an appropriately disgusted face. He kissed it.

  ‘What the hell do they do that for?’

  ‘They use it in traditional medicine – like they use rhino horn. Witch-doctor stuff!’

  He did a weird jig, which was clearly meant to be a dance to the gods of Mumbo Jumbo.

  ‘Is this what you’re like with a hangover?’

  ‘No. This is me being happy,’ he said, and then rugby-tackled me onto the chequerboard lino.

  Children with no brothers and sisters don’t get to wrestle. I liked it.

  I should have gone home, bought more cold packs and taken them to the lock-up, but I didn’t. I stayed at Liam’s. Saturday merged into Sunday and before I knew it we were getting a bus to his parents’ for Sunday lunch – Liam was keen for me to meet his dad.

  We sat on the top deck at the front, like kids. My head on Liam’s shoulder.

  After he’d given me the run-down on his extended family, he said, ‘Can I ask about your family?’

  ‘Nothing to say,’ I said. An image of my mum waiting for me to come out of school, a smile at the ready, appeared in sharp focus. If I could have magicked myself back to being eight, I would have.

  ‘What happened?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Saffron, we’ve got close, haven’t we? You can tell me. I’d like to know.’

  I was comfortable, pressed against him. It would have been easy to invent some story – an abusive father, a messy divorce with stepsiblings – but I didn’t want to lie to him at that minute. I wanted to tell him that I had a family every bit as loving as his …

  ‘Not now,’ I said.

  He left it, of course, because Liam was a genuinely nice guy, involved with someone he knew nothing about.

  I was usually good at blocking things out that weren’t helpful, but as the bus trundled along the streets of Leeds, all I could think about was how Liam made me feel.

  Happy.

  For so long I’d been like Spock, machine-like, focused on the job, plotting all the time, watching my back, never relaxed, never content …

  ‘What are you thinking?’ said Liam.

  Good question.

  ‘That I’m happy,’ I said.

  He looked like I’d presented him with a Porsche 911, wrapped up in a silver bow. My heart did something out of character. So out of character I couldn’t find a word for it. But I had a word for what came next. Guilt – because he thought what we had was real, and I knew it wasn’t.

  He kissed me, and I concentrated on that instead. It was easier.

  Liam’s brother was waiting for us, standing on the wall outside their house wearing an absolutely filthy T-shirt.

  ‘Hiya, Saffron.’

  ‘Hi there, Luke,’ I said.

  ‘No, she doesn’t want to come and see your Lego,’ said Liam.

  ‘I might do,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t,’ said Liam.

  ‘I don’t want to show her my Lego,’ said Luke. ‘I want to show her my robot. Are you coming, Saffron?’

  ‘OK,’ I said, suddenly in no hurry to meet Liam’s dad. What the hell was I doing, getting all cosied up with Liam’s family when in a few weeks I’d be gone? Would I end up wrecking his family? Like those undercover cops.

  Stop it, Saffron.

  There was no point dwelling on the casualties of my plans – they were the price. I cleared my head and concentrated on Luke’s fabulous robot.

  It was as tall as Luke, made entirely of junk, and standing upright thanks to a string suspended from the ceiling of his bedroom.

  ‘It’s brilliant,’ I said.

  ‘It’s for my Artist’s Badge.’

  His step-by-step explanation of ‘the build’ took us up to dinnertime.

  ‘Here’s the mystery girl,’ said Liam’s dad, hand outstretched.

  I shook it.

  ‘Hello, Mr —’

  ‘Frank,’ he said.

  Frank was large round the middle. He also had a large face, a large smile and a large glass of beer, as did Liam.

  ‘Can I get you a glass of wine?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I said, even though most wine tasted like salad dressing. It was funny to think how much of my life I’d spent doing what I thought people wanted me to, rather than what I wanted.

  We went through into the dining room where the table was laid for five.

  ‘You’d think the Queen was visiting,’ said Frank. ‘It’s usually a tray in front of the telly.’

  ‘He’s joking,’ said Liam’s mum. ‘He’s not funny, but he tries. Bless him.’

  It was nice, listening to the chat, spotting the similarities between the four of them, and a treat to have another home-cooked meal. The potatoes were crunchy, the meat was carved in thick slices and there was a vat of gravy. I stuffed myself. And then the conversation, which had trickled along quite nicely, shifted.

  ‘Where are your folks, then, Saffron?’ asked Frank.

  ‘I don’t see them,’ I said.

  ‘Are they abroad?’ he asked, missing the point.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We fell out.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said Liam’s mum.

  ‘Where did they come from, then?’ asked Liam’s dad, determined to establish my provenance.

  Liam rolled his eyes.

  ‘I’m half Spanish,’ I said.

  ‘We love Spain. Don’t we, Luke?’

  ‘Is that where the water park was?’

  Everyone laughed. A perfect moment to move on, but …

  ‘You know, Saffron, everyone round here used to be English, but now you can’t turn a corner without bumping into a mosque.’

  ‘Don’t start, Frank,’ said Liam’s mum. She turned to me and said, ‘I’m sorry. He can’t get used to the fact that we’ve had a few Muslims move into the street.’

  ‘God knows why so many of them want to live here if they hate us.’

  ‘Dad, you’re being ignorant,’ said Liam. ‘They don’t hate us. In fact, there is no “they”. Muslims, Jews, Buddhists – they’re like you and me.’

  Frank didn’t like that one bit.

  ‘Tell that to the victims of 7/7,’ said Frank. ‘Could have been any one of us. Incinerated.’

  Incinerated like my grandma and Lamyah.

  The word was like a switch, turning on my memories of the clear skies above the village in Yemen, the sound of the adhan calling people to the mosque, the taste of the hot peppery sauce, the smiles of the people.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of him, Saffron. He’s miffed because the pub’s closing and an application’s been put in for an Islamic learning centre.’

  ‘My dad used to go to that pub,’ said Frank.

  ‘He used to get thrown out as well,’ said Liam, going on to tell a funny story about his granddad. Evidently he lived till he was eighty-nine.

  Lucky man.

  50

  Monday was a new start.

  Liam’s dad had done me a favour – reminding me that there were people who thought every Muslim was desperate to slip on a suicide vest. It was his kind of attitude that had set me on my path. Dad’s family were Muslims, living in Yemen – that was all the excuse the drone pilot needed.

  At lunchtime, despite Liam’s pleas, I said I had shopping to do and went on a serious cold-pack hunt. There was a balance between not wanting to raise any suspicions, and my amassing of them being so slow that I’d be a grandma myself before I had enough for a decent bomb.

  At three o’clock Liam brought me over a cup of peppermint tea.

  ‘Saffron, I know you said you’re not cross, but —’

  ‘Don’t do this at work,’ I said.

  He was worried his dad would come between us. In time he’d realise that what was going to come between us was a lot worse than some politically incorrect opinions.

  ‘Come for a drink, then? After work.’

  ‘T
omorrow,’ I said. ‘Let’s go to the cinema – after I’ve cooked for my undernourished housemates.’

  ‘All right.’

  He smiled, showing his perfect teeth. If only Mum could see what a nice chap I’d bagged. That was one of the many things that hurt – knowing that my first eighteen years would always remain separate from what came after. My mind was threatening to dredge up her face … her kissing Liam on the cheek … saying he was a lovely boy …

  Stop it.

  I hadn’t seen Mum for twelve and a half weeks. Instead of being angry with her, like I was when I left, I’d started to remember the nice things – teaching me to swim and going for hot chocolate afterwards, wet hair stuck to our heads … making flowers out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners … laughing at Miranda.

  It was like the drone strike had coloured everything in my life, stopping me from seeing properly.

  I tried to imagine living a normal life with yet another identity, but it wouldn’t take shape. I painted a mental picture of a little cottage in rural Scotland. I enrolled myself on a course, gave myself a bike and a boyfriend – but he looked just like Liam.

  Elisa stopped by my desk, interrupting my unsatisfactory daydream.

  ‘Saffron, I’m having a party,’ said Elisa. ‘Friday night. You have to come.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. Even if you’re pretending to be someone else, it’s still nice to be liked. ‘I’ll come if I can.’

  ‘You’d better,’ she said. ‘My parents have just told me they’re going away, so as far as I’m concerned it’s an all-nighter. Saturday’s hangover day and Sunday’s clear-up. Shall I invite Liam?’

  ‘Up to you,’ I said.

  ‘We all know,’ she said.

  ‘Still up to you.’

  By Friday I was ready for a party.

  I’d been shopping every day, either at lunchtime or after work or both, and bought loads of cold packs and a bright-blue dress.

  I’d cooked chicken fajitas for Polly and Freddie.

  I’d bumped into Mack and ended up buying him some athlete’s foot cream and a new pair of trainers because his skin was all peely.