Salim had tried to see Malik again, but the other man had proved elusive. He had not been at prayers at the New Springfield Mosque and he hadn’t attended the latest session of the imam’s study group.
As Salim had left Friday prayers, he’d spotted Malik in front of the mosque, talking to a Yemeni man who had arrived only the month before. Salim had decided to wait on the front steps until Malik was free. But there had been a distraction – some white boys had passed by and shouted obscenities at the robed worshippers, and by the time they’d been driven off by a group of angry Muslims, Malik had disappeared.
Today, Salim left work slightly late, delayed by a lingering customer in his uncle’s hardware shop – an Asian man, young and bearded, who’d walked slowly up and down all the aisles. When Salim had asked if he wanted help, the man had brusquely said no. Then, a minute later, he’d left empty-handed.
Out on the High Street, seeing the bus approach, Salim ran to the stop. The effort made him pant and he realised how tired he was; he worked long hours for his uncle – 6.30 to 7 on weekdays; 8 to 6 on Saturdays; only on Sundays did they close a little early. As a single man he hadn’t minded; now he was married he found himself watching the clock, eager to get home to Jamila, his bride.
He smiled to himself at the thought of her. Four months ago he had not even seen her face; now its beauty lingered with him like a perfume. She was a good wife as well as a beautiful one; she had learned quickly how to run the household, even though she had only been in England for a few months. She was very bright – not much formal education, but full of a curiosity that Salim found exhilarating. The likes of Abdi Bakri would not approve, but Salim thought she should go to college.
Malik had been right about Jamila’s beauty, but he was wrong about many other things – so badly wrong that Salim had no compunction about spying on him, and on the others at the mosque who thought the same way. To Salim, violence was not only futile, it was also wrong – and utterly alien to the true spirit of Islam. He’d been taught this as a little boy, by his parents and by his grandmother, whose brother had been one of Pakistan’s most distinguished clerics, revered for his interpretations of the Koran. So how dare these others claim that Allah condoned what they wanted to do? Islam, in Salim’s view, would only conquer the world through its beauty and its truth, not through force.
The bus was crowded and he went upstairs, where he managed to find an empty seat halfway down the bus. He sat next to an older white woman with a nose the colour of beetroot; when he smiled at her she shuddered and looked out of the window. Ignoring her, Salim was soon lost in his own thoughts.
He had been trying to see Malik for days because he wanted to find out more – about the strange Westerner in London and about where Malik would be going after Pakistan. And he wanted to find out about the young man in the photograph he’d been shown – the man called Amir Khan. He could tell that K had been particularly interested in him. The face had certainly been familiar, though Salim hadn’t known he was called Amir Khan. But he did know the young man wasn’t around any more; he was one of those who had just disappeared from the mosque. If he could find out where he’d gone, K and the lady he’d brought up from London with him, his boss, would be pleased.
But Salim hadn’t been able to talk to Malik, so he’d decided to approach the one person who would surely know the answer to his questions – Abdi Bakri himself. When the meeting of the study group had broken up the previous day, and before prayers started in the large assembly room of the mosque, Salim had lingered in the small classroom with its cracked plastic chairs and cheap Formica-topped table, until only he and the imam were left in the room.
Bakri was tall and very dark, towering in his long white robes; his big sepia-coloured eyes were staring out from behind simple gold-rimmed spectacles. Salim had heard he was Sudanese, but he had never spoken to the imam alone before, and felt nervous in the presence of this daunting figure. He hoped the cleric would put his nervousness down to his being alone with him, rather than to anything else.
‘Yes?’ Abdi Bakri’s voice was mild.
‘Forgive me, but I was wondering if you had ever had a student called Amir Khan,’ Salim replied, stuttering slightly.
Abdi Bakri’s eyes studied him carefully. Then he said, ‘The name is not unfamiliar.’
Salim nodded and tried to smile. ‘I was hoping to make contact with him. It turns out he is a cousin of mine.’
Abdi Bakri did not return the smile. ‘We are all brothers here, as I have taught you.’
‘Of course,’ said Salim hastily. ‘But I thought… it would be polite to say hello.’
The imam shook his head. ‘I do not know where he is now. He left the city some time ago.’ He paused then said pointedly, ‘I would suggest you make no further enquiries.’
Salim felt the strange sepia eyes scrutinising him, and sweat beaded his upper lip. He thanked the imam and left the mosque in a hurry, not waiting for prayers. He was sure now that the imam knew where Amir Khan had gone; sure also that he was not going to pass the information on. But at least Salim could tell K when they met the following evening that, yes, Khan had definitely been a student at the mosque.
His thoughts drifted then to K and the woman he’d brought with him last time they’d met, his boss. Salim had been surprised by the level of security they’d insisted on for meetings and had wondered if it was all done to impress him. But the more he got into his work for K, the more he saw the point of it. For the first time he was beginning to feel anxious, scared even. It wasn’t just because of Abdi Bakri’s frostiness and the way his pale brown eyes seemed to bore into Salim, looking for his secrets. In the study group the others had never been particularly friendly or welcoming, but the previous day they hadn’t spoken to him at all, just turned their backs on him with barely concealed hostility. Yes, he felt scared, and suddenly he thought of Jamila; he didn’t want to put her into any danger. He decided he must tell K about all this and look for reassurance. He sat up slightly taller in his seat. He didn’t want to stop his work for K and his lady boss. It was worth the danger if it kept innocent people from being killed.
Salim’s stop was approaching, and he got up from his seat and edged towards the stairs. The whole bus was packed. People were even standing on the upper deck and on the stairs themselves. He worked his way slowly down, muttering repeated apologies as he trod on toes and elbowed other passengers. At last he reached the steel-ridged platform at the bottom where he found himself wedged between a fat black woman with shopping bags to either side of her, and a businessman in a suit and tie, who was holding a briefcase in one hand while his other gripped the pole on the platform. Salim slid his hand on to the pole awkwardly, just above the man’s, and steadied himself as the bus bumped along.
Then they slowed down, and he turned to the back edge of the platform, ready to get off. But there was still a hundred yards to go, and the bus suddenly accelerated, lurching forward so that Salim had to struggle to keep his balance. He was being pressed from behind by the small crowd of people standing around him on the platform. He gripped the pole more tightly, but the pressure didn’t ease, and when he tried to turn, he found his shoulders were wedged tightly against the fat woman and the businessman. Swivelling his head, he caught a glimpse of a man behind him: an Asian, bearded, young as Salim himself, and familiar. Was he from the mosque? Or was he the man Salim had just seen in his uncle’s shop? He tried to get a better look, but the pressure on his back was growing more intense and he simply couldn’t move.
He turned to the fat woman to ask her to move over, but stopped when a sharp shove in the small of his back made him arch backwards. Then he felt an excruciating stinging sensation in the hand that was gripping the pole. Automatically he let go, and at the same moment felt one of his feet slide on the steel platform. To his astonishment, he realised that he was being swept off the back of the bus.
He hit the street half-standing, landing on one foot as if he had jumped off the bus. But his leg crumpled underneath him and he fell heavily to one side, his elbow cracking against the kerb. And then his head hit the hard asphalt surface of the road.
A dim recollection of an egg being cracked ran through his mind as pain seared through both temples. The breath was knocked out of him as he rolled over the street. He was dimly aware of lights coming towards him. It’s a van, he thought vaguely, and managed to lift up one arm, half in protest, half in self-defence, just before he blacked out.