Nazir called goodnight and she followed him out a few minutes later, turning out the lights by the shop’s entrance, then tapping in the numbers to activate the alarm before closing the heavy door behind her. She set off along the street, noting that Kassim’s newsagent’s was still open as usual. I work hard, she thought, but Kassim seems never to sleep.
She turned on to a side street and began the long uphill walk that would take her to her father’s house. Funny, she realised, she never thought of it as her mother’s. Whatever happened to her, she was determined not to follow her mother’s path; Tahira vowed to have a life of her own.
At Slocombe Avenue she hesitated, realising she had been putting off the decision. She turned round abruptly to see if she was being followed. No one. Then she turned into the street.
‘She’s on her way. All clear,’ said a voice in Dave’s ear as he waited under cover of a line of tall trees outside the gate of the small park further up the street. The A4 surveillance van parked in Slocombe Avenue was monitoring Tahira’s walk from the shop and Dave was ready to abort the meeting if any sign of danger was observed.
Tahira walked on, passing a line of semi-detached houses, lights on in their sitting rooms, the noise of televisions plainly heard in the street, until the houses gave way to the park, a favourite of mothers with toddlers, now gloomy and deserted, its gate shadowed by the line of trees set back from the street. At the gate she hesitated.
‘Tahira.’ The voice was soft and English. It startled her. She turned and there was the man in the parka again, standing ten feet in from the pavement, under the branches of one of the lime trees. He was still smiling and looked entirely unthreatening, but she felt frightened nonetheless. How did he know her name? What did he want? She looked around, but there was no one nearby, and the light was fading now that the sun had set.
‘Can I have a word, please?’ the man said.
‘Who are you?’ Tahira demanded, trying to project an air of confidence she didn’t feel. Then a woman emerged from the shadows behind the man. Tahira recognised her at once – it was the same woman who’d come to her father’s house to tell them about Amir. Tahira had liked her directness. She relaxed slightly, though she still wondered what they wanted from her.
The Englishwoman said, ‘Tahira, there’s a bench over here, behind me. If you go in and sit there, I’ll join you in a minute.’ When Tahira didn’t respond, she added, ‘My friend here will keep watch. No one will see us, I promise you.’
Tahira thought hard. It was all very well to say there was no danger, but she knew that was nonsense. If she were spotted talking to this woman, word would get around right away – if not to the young men from the mosque, then to her father, who would be furious that she’d met the officials who had come to see him, off on her own. There would be no explanation for it that he would accept.
But the note had said they wanted to talk about Amir. Her adored younger brother Amir. She realised now how worried she had been about him, how much she had wanted to know where he was, how fearful she had grown that something had happened to him. It had been a relief to learn he was being held in Paris – at least he was alive – but a new wave of worries had set in then. He was alive, but she had no confidence she would see him again soon.
Concern and plain curiosity won over caution. Tahira took a deep breath and turned into the park through the open gate. She went to sit on the bench, trying to slow down her breathing.
She heard a step behind her, then the woman was sitting on the bench beside her. ‘It’s quite safe, Tahira,’ she said soothingly. ‘There’s no one else around.’
‘What has happened to Amir?’
‘He’s fine. Still in Paris, but there’s a good chance he will be coming back to this country. Then it might be possible for you to visit him.’
‘Really?’ she asked, hope overcoming the suspicion in her voice. ‘When?’
‘Soon. I can’t tell you an exact date. Weeks rather than months. But you can help him before then.’
‘Me? How?’
‘We need to know what happened to your brother. Someone got to him; someone persuaded him to leave home. We think it might have been at the mosque.’
‘Of course it was at the mosque,’ hissed Tahira crossly. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind. ‘He should never have switched.’
‘To the New Springfield Mosque?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did some of his friends switch as well?’
‘Not that I know of. But he made new friends there. That was part of the problem – none of us knew any of them, or their families. Suddenly he was with a different set.’
‘Did they go to Pakistan as well?’
‘Yes.’ She had learned two names and said them aloud now.
‘What happened to them?’
‘I don’t know for sure. But neither has come back to Birmingham.’
‘Were they students of the same imam?’ The woman’s voice was calm but insistent.
