n Scotland, the snow had stopped.
I By dawn, the temperature had risen above freezing, but deep snowdrifts still lay around the truck. Before daylight, Roger had decided to detach the trailer part of the truck and leave a note on it for the police. Then, in the narrow mountain road that Kevin could now see fell away on one side into a steep valley, Roger turned the tractor unit around with just inches to spare to face the way they’d come the night before.
Kevin was mightily impressed.
“Right then, Kevin. Now that’s sorted it’s time for ablutions.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ablutions, Kevin. Shit, shower, and shave. Whatever the circumstances, set some standards for yourself and keep them.
It’s time for a refreshing wash and shave preceded by the emptying of bowels.” With that, he pulled a towel and a small zipper bag from behind the curtain, jumped down into the snow, and disappeared.
Ten minutes later, he was back. “By Jove, that was invigorating. Your turn, Kevin. You can borrow my razor if you like.”
“What about water?”
“Snow, Kevin. Snow. Never heard the saying, “The best a man can get” ? Feel the tingling sensations as the needle-like splinters of ice stimulate your extremities and peripheral circulation. Feel like a real man afterwards. Tell your mates that hot water is for girls and old ladies.”
When he returned five minutes later, shivering uncontrollably, Roger was sitting back listening to music. “Aaron Copland, Kevin. Heard of him? American composer. Listen to him while reading Steinbeck. Good for the imagination . . . Are you that cold, Kevin?”
Kevin’s teeth chattered. “Y-Y-Yes. A little.”
Roger switched the music off. “Right, settle yourself. Let’s see if we can find your car. How was John Steinbeck?”
Kevin was still shivering. “I’m h-h-halfway.”
Roger nodded and grinned at him, impressed. “Very good.
Enjoying it?”
“Is it true about the g-g-great depression?”
“Oh yes. American poverty and a desperately poor family of white folks struggling to survive. In this day and age, it should be read more widely, don’t you think? White privilege? Puts things into perspective. Yes?”
“Yes.”
Twenty minutes later, Roger pointed through the front windscreen. “There she is, Kevin, sitting and waiting for you like a faithful girlfriend.”
Roger stopped the truck. Kevin opened the door and jumped down. Roger came out the other side and pointed. “Tyre tracks. Someone’s been here to take a look.”
The tracks were those of a farm tractor—wide and deep treads doing a three-point turn and then returning the way it had come. And amongst the tracks were boot prints. Someone had gone to the car door, maybe opened it, walked around, and then walked away. Roger thought he knew who.
Kevin sat in the car and turned the key. Nothing. Roger looked through the open door. “Expecting a miracle. Kevin?”
Kevin went to the boot, brushed the snow off, and raised the lid. There it was—the package.
“Is that what’s been making you so nervous?”
Kevin touched it with his finger, but nothing jumped out, and it didn’t burst into flames. “What shall we do?” he asked.
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, it’s your package until you hand it to Mr. Khan, Kevin.
Then it becomes Mr. Khan’s. You decide.”
“I can’t.”
“In that case, just leave it there for the time being. First things first, as my mother used to say. First, you need to fix your car.
But you can’t drive it, so someone will either have to come here and fix it or take it away. But we can’t phone because there’s no phone signal. Agreed?”
“Yeh. You think it’s the crankshaft?”
“A crankshaft? In the parcel?”
“No. The problem. It was in the book I was reading.”
“Ah, the Joad family’s ancient old Hudson held together by prayer, determination, and an adjustable spanner. The crankshaft failure.”
“They stripped it on the roadside.”
“But they had a few basic tools, Kevin. You don’t. Do you even know what a crankshaft looks like? Where it is? What it does? You see, what I do in situations like this is to list all the possible problems, eliminate them one by one, and what’s left must be the most likely. But if you still don’t know, then you start the same process for finding a solution. Do you want to make a start, or shall I?”
“You can.”
“Well, judging by the symptoms you described, Kevin, and by eliminating a dozen impossibilities, I can only think of one likely cause. Electrical. But it still needs checking, and we can’t do anything until we contact a garage.”
Roger noticed he’d been saying “we.” He’d started saying
“we” the night before. Resolving the problem of this broken-down old Golf with its rusting twin exhausts and custom steering wheel had somehow become a shared responsibility, as had what to do about the parcel.
Kevin stood up, nodded, and blew a puff of white steam into the cold air, as if that might help.
“Guthrie’s Farm is my suggestion,” Roger went on, pointing somewhere over the hill to the east. “I reckon those are Hamish Guthrie’s tractor marks and Hamish’s boots. What do you say about driving up to the farm to see if his phone’s working? If nothing else, I guarantee we’ll be offered a cup of tea.”
They returned to the truck, and Kevin, with his nose pressed to the side window, continued his study of the remote snowy
landscape. He might have enjoyed it had his mind not kept jumping from his car, to the parcel and Mr. Khan and then back again.
“You know the Mark Twain quote, Kevin?” Roger said, looking at him. “There’s no sadder sight than the face of a young pessimist.”
For Kevin, the expanse of nothingness that was the Pentland Hills felt like a different country—miles of open hill country covered in fresh snow and a wide expanse of icy-looking clear sky. The track curved right then down into a dip, and there stood Hamish’s old grey stone-built farm house with a warm, cosy-looking light shining from one of the downstairs windows. Parked outside the barn was Hamish’s green tractor.
Two minutes later, Hamish himself emerged followed by two dogs. Then, with introductions and short explanations over, Hamish invited them both inside. “So ye caught a bit of weather, eh?” he said to Kevin.
“It broke down.” Kevin said rather obviously.
“We’ve come to ask if we can use your phone to summon some help,” Roger said.
“Of course. A mobile phone is no good up here. The only way is a fixed line.” Then, while Hamish made tea, Roger explained what had happened. “We got over Clelland’s but then hit a deep patch, so we sat it out.”
“So where had ye come from, Kevin?”
“Edinburgh.”
“You decided to take the scenic route?”
“Satnav,” Kevin said.
“Take no notice o’ them things,” Hamish said. “The phone’s over there. Just help yourself.”
Kevin looked at Roger. “Who should I call?”
“You want me to decide, Kevin?”
Kevin sniffed. “A garage?”
“As a first step, that sounds a very good idea. Who should he call, Hamish?”
Hamish put three mugs of tea on the table and sat down. “Try Galbraith’s in Blackhall. He’s got a breakdown truck.”
“Do you have the number?” Kevin asked.
Hamish went to a drawer and took out an address book.
“Aye, there you are.”
Kevin pressed numbers. “Yes, I’ve broken down . . . a Golf GTI . . . I don’t know. It just stopped . . .” He sniffed and turned to Roger. “He wants to know where I am.”
“You’re at Guthrie’s farm. He’ll know it.”
“Guthrie’s farm . . . Yeh . . . So, when could you come?”
Kevin looked at Roger. “He says sometime this afternoon.”
“You decide, Kevin. Your car. Your responsibility.”
“Yeh, OK. Uh, how much? . . . Oh! I see. Does that include fixing it? Jesus . . . I don’t know. Hang on.” Kevin turned to Roger again. “I can’t afford it,” he said with a look of dismay on his face. “It’s a hundred and fifty just for the vehicle recovery.”
“Then tell him you need to think about what to do.”
“Yeh, I’ll think about it and call you back. Thank you.”
“So?” Roger asked when he’d put the phone don. “What now?”
“I don’t know.”
Hamish looked at Roger but spoke to Kevin. “Are ye in a rush to get home?”
“There’s a parcel in the boot.”
“In that old Golf? Did ye talk to Roger about what to do?”
Kevin nodded.
“And what did he say?”
“Phone the customer and decide.”
“Then call him. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Kevin wiped his mouth but lifted the phone cautiously whilst looking at Roger. A few seconds later he put the phone back down. “There’s no reply,” he said as if relieved.
“Then forget it. You’ve tried. Wait for him to call back.”
“What shall we do about the parcel?”
“We?” Roger said. “Your parcel. Your decision.”
“I don’t like that parcel.”
“Why?”
Kevin said nothing, but Roger did. “Right. Well, I need to call Carlisle and then Borders Police to report the abandoned trailer. Hopefully, the road will be clear soon, so I can get on my way.”
Hamish looked at both Roger and Kevin and shrugged.
“Well,” he said, “I need to get some wood in.” Then he left and the dogs followed.
There was a silence for a while as the door opened and shut. A blast of cold air wafted through the kitchen and blew a cloud of wood smoke from the fire. Kevin seemed not to notice but sniffed and wiped his nose as Roger watched his lips moving, as if he was working towards saying something else.
It came eventually. “So will you go to Carlisle?” he asked.
It was Roger’s turn to sniff. “What’s to keep me here, Kevin?”
“I don’t know.”
Roger sighed. “Kevin, my friend, you need to be more decisive. And another thing . . .” For a moment, he played with his beanie. “You still haven’t told me your real surname.”
Kevin took a deep breath. “Khan,” he said quietly. Roger almost laughed.
“Another Khan? Kevin Khan?” Roger asked.
“Yeh. No.”
Roger shook his head. “For crying out loud, Kevin.”
Kevin bit his lip. “It’s not Kevin either,” he said. “My ma calls me Kevin.”
For some reason, Kevin wanted to talk. To admit to things. To explain. To share something. He was at his wit’s end. Lost.
Vulnerable. Nervous. Unable to think what to do.
“So, what the blazes is your first name?”
“Kareem.”
“Kareem Khan? Can I safely assume that’s Pakistani? That you might look English, but you’re actually Pakistani?”
Between his long black eyelashes, Kevin’s eyes widened.
“I’m English, OK? My ma’s English. Her name is Welbeck—
Silvia Welbeck.”
“OK. So, what’s the Pakistan connection?”
“My father was from Pakistan. His name is Khokhar.”
Roger frowned. “Why is it not Khan, Kevin? And why are you not Kareem Khokhar?”
“I’m Khokhar, but my father calls himself Khan.”
“For goodness’s sake, Kevin. My head’s swimming. Do they all call themselves Khan when it suits them? Can I call myself Roger Khan? And what’s your father’s first name? The name his parents gave him when he was small enough to be bounced on their knee and suckled. What is it?”
Kevin shrugged. He didn’t know.
“So, what does your birth certificate say?”
“Kareem Khan.”
“Could you not change it to Kevin Welbeck?”
“I think so. My mum wants to but—”
“But what, Kevin? What’s going on? Is Edinburgh Wazir also a Khan? We already know that Faisal World Travel Khan is a Pakistani Khan, and so it seems is everyone else in Park Road.
Might they all be Khan’s, Kevin? Or even Khokhars?”
“Why is it important?” Kevin said, but it was a mistake.
I remember Willie once was telling us, in school, never to retreat before you know what’s around the corner. Perhaps Kevin already knew what was around the corner, so it was excusable. But it wasn’t to Roger. He stood.
“Right. Well. It’s not important to me, so I’ll be on my way, OK? I hope you get the car fixed. Nice to meet you.”
Kevin stood. “Pease Roger. Don’t—”
“Why not? I’m only trying to understand things. But it’s obviously none of my business, so I’ll be on my way. I’ll drive back to the trailer and wait for the plough to come through.”
Kevin was struggling to say something but Roger waited.
“Khan from Faisal World Travel is my uncle, I think.”
Roger removed his hat to scratch his head. “Oh, my word. I’m tempted to ask who Faisal is, but let’s not discuss that now.
But, of course, you only think he’s your uncle. What a tangled world we have created through infidelity and promiscuity, Kevin. And here’s me thinking it was only Anglo-Saxons who played at wife-swapping and similar sorts of evening entertainment.”
Roger now saw that Kevin’s eyes were sparkling. He blinked and wiped his face with the back of his hand, and Roger immediately felt sorry for him again. “And why are you so nervous about that parcel, Kevin?”
The door opened, and Hamish came through with an armful of cut logs. “It’s clouding over. Looks like rain. Not cold enough for snow.” He dropped the logs by the fireside, tossed one on the fire, stood up, and stretched his back with his hands on his hips. “Did I interrupt something?”
“We were talking,” Roger said. He paused, looked at Kevin, and decided to explain.
“Kevin’s in a spot of bother,” he said. “And it’s not just his car. Kevin has a parcel in the back of his car that he picked up in Edinburgh. Kevin doesn’t know what’s in that parcel, and Kevin would prefer not to know. Kevin would like to drive back home and hand the parcel over to his landlord who, we’ve just established, might be a relative of his. Then Kevin would like to carry on living his life of ‘hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil’ like the three monkeys. But Kevin, Hamish, is like the fourth monkey who would prefer to feel no evil and also the fifth monkey who would prefer to walk away from evil. Five monkeys in one. How lucky we are to find such a rare specimen stuck in the snow with no idea what to do next.”
Kevin stood, with an unusual look of annoyance on his young face. “Shut the fuck up, Roger. Talk, talk, talk.”
Roger glanced at Hamish and managed a wink that Kevin didn’t see. Then he turned to Kevin.
“Fine. I’ll be on my way then. But you called me, Kevin.
There I was driving along, minding my own business, happy as a bunny, and suddenly, there you were, standing in the road, quivering like a jelly, completely lost, with a dead car and scared stiff you would freeze to death if someone didn’t show you some pity. Now, here you are in my friend Hamish’s house being offered kindness, hospitality, and yet more help, and all you can manage is a string of obscenities. I told you last night that swearing is a sign of a lack of vocabulary and many other weaknesses that do not befit a real man. Now apologise to Hamish.”
Kevin sniffed, walked to the window by the sink, and stared out. Then he turned. “Sorry,” he said.
“Come and sit down,” Hamish said. “Tell us what’s going on.
Then we’ll go and check your car and bring it up here.”
It was late morning by the time Hamish knew as much about Kevin as Roger. The only new bit was when Kevin called Khan a bastard.
“Right then, laddie,” Hamish then said, “Let’s take a ride down the road, bring the car back here, and we’ll take a look.”
They took the Land Rover and towed the car up to the house.
Kevin then retrieved the package, carried it into the barn, put it on a bale of hay, and returned to the car to find Roger and Hamish peering into the engine.
“Battery,” said Hamish, “and probably an alternator fault.
Everything needs checking. You also need new tyres, laddie.
You’re lucky you weren’t stopped. But this is as far as this car
is going before everything’s fixed. Come inside again. Let’s have a bite to eat. Cheese sandwiches, Kevin?”
They were sitting around the farmhouse kitchen table once more when the phone rang. Hamish answered it and passed it to Kevin. “Someone asking for you, Kevin.”
Kevin took it, glanced at Roger and Hamish and the spoke almost inaudibly into the phone. “Yes?” Then: “Delayed, Mr.
Khan . . . Very sorry . . . Snow . . . At a farm . . . I picked it up yesterday, but the car broke down. Sorry, Mr. Khan. No signal. I got to fix it. Maybe tomorrow, maybe . . . Why so urgent, Mr. khan? Not my fault . . . No guarantees ‘cuz I gotta get it fixed . . . There’s no train, Mr. Khan . . . This is like some big open country. Mr. Khan? Mr. Khan?”
He stared at the phone and looked at Roger. “He’s mad with me.”
“So, it seems. Why?”
“It’s urgent. He says come by train.”
“Better go back to Edinburgh and catch one then, Kevin. But you got no money and no way to get to Edinburgh.”
The phone rang again, and the colour drained from Kevin’s face but he seemed to know it was for him. “There’s no way, Mr. Khan . . . I got no car. I told you . . . I don’t know. I need to check, but I got no money . . . not even enough to fix the car. How can I buy a train ticket?”
Kevin wandered to the window, and looked out while Hamish pulled a bottle of whisky and three glasses from a cupboard.
He poured himself one and offered the bottle to Roger. Roger shook his head.
Kevin was still talking. “Believe me . . . I can’t. Believe me, Mr. Khan?” He then stared at the silent phone, wiped his face,
and continued to stare out of the window across miles of wild snow-covered hills.
“What is it, Kevin?” Roger asked from the table. There was no answer, so he tried again. “What’s up?”
Kevin turned; his eyes wet and sparkling. “He warned me before. If anything goes wrong or I fucked up, he’d—” He suddenly turned, sniffed and ran outside. Roger followed with Hamish and the dogs right behind. He ran across the snowy yard to the open barn and stood staring at the package lying on the straw bale. “I want to open it!” he shouted.
Spotting a pair of sheep shears hanging on the wall, he slit the tape and tore open the brown paper covering. As Roger and Hamish leaned over, he then pulled out a cardboard box and slit open the lid.
Then, from amongst the crumbs of polystyrene packaging, he pulled out a pile of passports - one with a dark green cover, the others maroon. He scattered them across the straw bale and picked up the green one: Pakistani.
Roger picked up three maroon ones—European, British.
Hamish picked up the others—one Greek, one German.
Kevin turned the box upside down, and out fell more packaging and then three clear plastic bags with copper tubes the size of pencils inside. Hamish pounced on one.
“Miniature detonators,” he said. “Christ almighty. We need to call the police.”
Kevin looked at him, with his eyes wide. “No,” he said.
“Please.” He crouched down and put his head in his hands.
“You don’t understand.”
Roger bent down and grabbed Kevin’s shoulder. “There’s a lot I don’t understand, Kevin. What are you involved with?”
Kevin said nothing but stared ahead with his elbows on his knees and his head clasped between his hands.
Hamish was not so patient. “What the hell would anyone want with detonators?” he shouted. His face was flushed with anger. “Come on, man, talk.” Kevin looked up but still said nothing. “Right, I’m calling the police. This can’t happen on my property. Do ye hear?”
Hamish marched off towards the house, but Kevin ran to catch him and grabbed his arm. “No. Please. They’ll hurt my ma. If I cause a problem, my ma suffers.”
They were through the door and into the kitchen, and Hamish was still heading for the telephone, with Kevin still dragging on his arm, still pleading.
Roger caught up and put an arm over Kevin’s shoulders.
“Kevin,” he said quietly. “Think, man. You’ve got a lot more explaining to do. Otherwise, Hamish is right. We need to call the police.” He held out a hand to Hamish to calm him.
“I don’t need explanations,” Hamish said angrily with the phone already in his hand. “Someone’s up to no good here, and I don’t want to be dragged into a police investigation that starts here. on my farm. This has all the hallmarks of a bloody terrorist plot to me. For God’s sake, Roger, this is serious.
There’s only one thing to do, and that’s to call the police.”
Roger nodded. He fully understood Hamish’s opinion, but he also had the growing feeling that Kevin was one of life’s victims. Behind the sullenness, the uncertainty, and the lack of confidence, Roger saw a likeable but mixed-up lad with a serious problem hanging over his head—a problem Roger didn’t yet understand but one that he felt Kevin needed to share with someone he could trust. Roger could feel him trembling.
“Give us a minute, Hamish,” he pleaded.
Kevin shrugged Roger’s arm from his shoulder. “Please, sir,”
he said to Hamish. His voice cracked, and he wiped his eyes.
“Let me call Mr. Khan again.”
Hamish, struck by the passion and the unexpected politeness, put the phone down. “And what’re ye going to say, laddie?”
Roger prayed Kevin wouldn’t say he didn’t know because if he did, he knew Hamish would immediately call the police.
“I’ll tell him I’ve fixed everything, and I’ll be in London later.”
“But that’s not true, laddie. Ye got no car, and ye got no money. And even if ye did, I’m not going to sit here, knowing what I’ve just seen. If I’m not mistaken, they’re fake passports. One of them has no photograph.”
Kevin looked at Roger, as if pleading for help. “I understand, sir, but I’m not a bad person, Mr. Guthrie. Believe me. I need to protect my mother.”
He picked up the phone, pressed numbers, went to the window, leaned on the sink, looked out, and took a deep, trembling breath. Then, “I just fixed things, Mr. Khan,” he said.
His voice was calm and clear—no tremors, no sobs, nothing to suggest he’d just been at the point of a nervous breakdown.
Then came a few words that Roger thought were Punjabi mixed with English expressions that didn’t match Kevin’s normal way of speaking.
“Chinta coro na, Mr. Khan. No worries. Everything’s sorted.
Things are back in play. I’ll be down your end in a few hours .
. . Believe me, Mr. Khan. La taklak. Don’t worry.”
There was a short silence as he nervously brushed a hand through his hair. Then the panic started again.
“What? Where’s my ma? Why? Why, Mr. Khan? Why did you call her? You know she worries too much, Mr. Khan. I’ll be there. Chinta coro na. Please . . . please, Mr. Khan . . . Yeh.
Sure. This time tomorrow. Yeh. No bullshit, Mr. Khan. You know how she gets . . . Mr. Khan?”
Kevin lowered the phone but continued staring out the window. Hamish paced the kitchen floor. The two dogs, sensing a problem, watched.
“Kevin,” Roger said, “explain about your mother.”
“If I tell you, will you believe me?”
“I’ll try. We both will.”
Kevin replaced the phone, sat down and looked at Hamish.
“Thank you, Mr Guthrie,” he said.
“Well?” Roger asked. “Your other. What’s it got to with her.
Come on. Explain.”
“Yes,” Kevin said. “My mother,” he said slowly, his voice breaking. “My mum. My mum is English but she was born in Pakistan. Her father, my grandfather, was an oil worker in Pakistan. My grandmother was a nurse. My grandfather was killed in a gas explosion. My grandmother died later. I don’t know how.” He looked at Hamish who was shaking his head.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Guthrie. It might take a while.”
Hamish raised his hand. It was only Kevin’s politeness that was stopping him from phoning the police.
“You see, my mother was born in Pakistan. Her father, my grandfather, was an oil worker in Pakistan. My grandmother was a nurse. My grandfather was killed in a gas explosion.
My grandmother died later. I don’t know how.” He looked at Hamish who was shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Guthrie. It might take a while.
“My mother worked with an aid agency on the border with Afghanistan when she met my father, a Pakistani. and became pregnant with me. She returned to England because my father said he had family there. I was born here. My father came to England when I was born and said I should be named Kareem Khan. My mother didn’t agree.”
Kevin took another deep trembling breath. “My father was a devout Moslem. My mother was Christian. My father wanted her to convert, to dress like a Pakistani, and to live in Islamabad. She refused. There were arguments and big problems.”
Roger interrupted, “How do you know all this, Kevin?”
“From my mother. She told me a few years ago when I was about fifteen. She was often very depressed and sometimes suicidal. She had many problems that I still don’t understand.
I often missed school because I couldn’t leave her. I . . .” He paused. “I think . . . I think she was raped, but she never said.”
Hamish sat down next to Roger. The dogs sat at his feet.
“My father was with the Taliban in Afghanistan. He boasted to my mother that he knew Osama Bin Laden. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s not. When Bin Laden was killed, he began to link with ISIL, and my mother believes he’s now with a militant group somewhere. I don’t know, and I don’t even think my mother knows, but he often returns to England.
Maybe once or twice a year. He has other family here—
probably Mr. Khan—but nothing is clear. He uses different names, different passports. He just turns up. I think maybe I saw him once outside the mosque, but he didn’t speak. I don’t go to the mosque. I am not Moslem. I am not Christian. I am nothing. But whenever he is here, he threatens my mother.
Even when he’s not here, she gets phone calls. She is stopped in the street by strangers with messages. He would arrive at
the old house when I was at school. I would come home and find her crying. She has spoken to the police who have passed things on to the security people, and she was interviewed, but there is no evidence. They say it’s a domestic situation, so nothing is done, and the threats continue. He tells her if she says anything, I will suffer or just disappear.”
“Disappear?” Roger interrupted. “What do you mean?”
Kevin waved him away. “You see, my father is not known.
Therefore, according to the police and social services, he doesn’t exist, and so she is not believed. I think people in the community know him, but they won’t talk. Mr. Khan definitely knows him. We know the security services keep a watch on the local community, but you see, my mother now suffers from . . . no one takes her seriously.”
Kevin’s eyes watered, and he wiped his face with his arm.
“My mother . . . she—”
What followed was a long and tortured tale of social services of self-harming, of hospital appointments, of running away and being unable to hold down a job.
“The last time she ran away was when I was fourteen, maybe I was fifteen, but she always came back the next day. The council then offered her a single-person flat, but I had to move out. That’s when I discovered that Mr. Khan or maybe my father owned the house on Shipley Street we’d lived in since I was born. Whoever owns it, Khan managed it like a landlord.
He had threatened to evict us.”
Kevin talked for an hour.
“Why don’t you and your mother just leave and go to live somewhere else?”
“How? She has no money other than benefits. She’s genuinely frightened that they’d find us and kill her, or me. And now I
find I’m living in another place that Khan owns. After my mum was given a place by the council, I had to look for somewhere to live. Someone told me there was a cheap place above Faisal World Travel so I moved in. I didn’t know Khan owned that as well until he turned up and laughed. He said that if I did a few jobs for him, they’d leave my ma alone and the rent would stay low.”
“So, what has Mr. Khan threatened to do if you don’t turn up with his parcel in the next few hours?” Hamish asked.
“He’ll call on my mother and tell her that I have failed to honour my duty and to remind her about what happens when I fail.”
“And what will happen?”
“They tell my mother I will disappear.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Roger said. “No one can just disappear.
Do you mean he’d kill you?”
“Maybe. They know I won’t leave my ma. But my best friend, Cass, disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Roger asked. “When?”
“Two years ago. Cass was my best mate. He went to Turkey and was given a box like that one.” He pointed towards the barn outside. “He was told to give it to Khan’s brother who’d meet him at the airport in Istanbul. I saw him off on the bus, but I’ve never seen him since. He just disappeared.”
Roger looked at Hamish. Hamish shrugged.
“Neither has Cass’s mother seen him. When he didn’t come back, I went to see her. She told me she didn’t know where he was. She thinks he’s joined a radical Islamic group, but she doesn’t seem to care. That seems OK with her. But that’s ridiculous. I knew Cass better than his mum. Better than
anyone. Cass was almost anti Moslem. He was like me—
nothing. And I think Cass’s mum also has a problem with the Khans.”
Kevin stopped. He looked at Roger and then at Hamish.
“Is Cass Pakistani?” Roger asked.
“Cass’s mother and grandmother are, but Cass is as British as you are, Roger.”
“Where’s Cass’s father?”
Kevin shook his head. “He doesn’t know.”
“Is his father Pakistani?”
“I suppose so. Cass never talked about it. Why should he? He was born here, like me. His name is Qasim Siddiqui, but he preferred Cass. Everyone called him Cass. And he’d just got himself a British passport because he said he wanted to go traveling and see the world. That’s why he went to Turkey for ten days on a cheap ticket bought from Khan at Faisal World Travel. I often think of Cass. Where is he? What’s he doing?
Is he OK? What happened?”
“And just before Cass went away, Khan gave him a parcel to take with him?” Roger checked.
Kevin nodded.
“Did Cass know about your own problems? Your father?”
Kevin shook his head. “We didn’t talk about families. He knew my mum was often sick, and that sometimes I didn’t go to school. It was like private, you know? We were mates. He knew I’d never known my father, but he didn’t know his either. We were similar. Cass came from a Pakistani family, but he thought I was English because I looked English and my mum was white. I think he thought my mum was just a single white mother.”
“He didn’t know your other name?”
Kevin shook his head. “We always used English names. He was Cass, and I was Kevin. I knew his real name was Qasim Siddiqui, and that’s what was in the British passport he showed me. But I didn’t tell him I also had a Pakistani name because I don’t like it. I suppose we were both mixed up, unsure where we belonged.
“But people like Khan, or my father, have no intention of being English. Their hearts are three thousand miles away. It’s tragic. That’s what Cass always said about his grandmother.
‘She’s stuck, Kevs. Stuck in the old village, carrying buckets of water from the well and won’t come out.’ We laughed, of course, but it’s serious. A lot of them don’t change. It’s the same with a lot of those who live around Park Road—the Somalis, Afghans, Bangladeshis. It’s language, it’s culture.
Perhaps the more educated ones integrate better, and the younger ones are changing slowly, but they still stick together like family except it’s never real family like mother, father, children. The old women are harmless enough stuck in the kitchen, but the men? I suppose things might change, but what about now? Look at my mother.”
Kevin paused. Roger and Hamish were silent, just listening.
“Cass’s grandmother used to tell him he was a bad boy. In Punjabi, of course, because she didn’t speak English and never left the house. Cass used to joke about it. ‘I’m a bad boy, Kevs. You know why? Because I mix with bad boys like you. You’re a bad influence.’
“We used to watch that old movie with Will Smith called Bad Boys. You know it? We watched it on the TV at the back of Bashir’s. Bash liked it too. We watched it so much we got bored until Bash got a copy of Bad Boys 2, then 3.
“Cass used to play Badnam Pakistani songs until he decided it was rubbish and definitely a bad influence, so he moved to Arab pop. Then he tried Nigerian music because Winston lent him old CDs. They’d share ear plugs and jig away in the corner at Bash’s place. Cass was just learning, checking things out because that’s what he wanted to do. Before he went to Turkey, he started listening to Turkish pop—someone called Ebru Gundes. He just wanted to experience new things.
Cass wouldn’t hurt anyone, Roger, let alone carry a gun.
“For God’s sake, Roger, living where I do, where he used to, we’re surrounded by Arabs, Pakistanis, Afghans, Iraqis, West Indians, Nigerians. I read somewhere that over thirty different languages are spoken in and around Park Road. It’s a mess, Roger. People get suspicious and nervous because they don’t understand each other enough. The only old white guy I know is Gordon, who runs Gordon’s Motors. My friend Walid, who’s from Syria, works for him. There were some white kids in school, but none lived around Park Road.”
“For God’s sake, Roger, living where I do, where he used to, we’re surrounded by Arabs, Pakistanis, Afghans, Iraqis, West Indians, Nigerians. I read somewhere that over thirty different languages are spoken in and around Park Road. It’s a mess, Roger. People get suspicious and nervous because they don’t understand each other enough. The only old white guy I know is Gordon, who runs Gordon’s Motors. My friend Walid, who’s from Syria, works for him. There were some white kids in school, but none of them lived around Park Road.”
Kevin began to ramble, things pouring out, jumbled and repeated as if he’d been waiting for this moment for years.
Roger and Hamish listened in silence but to Roger, it was as if Kevin had concluded that whatever was going on around Park Road wasn’t good but that you had to accept the way it was.
“No-one talks about it,” he said. ‘There were some problems a few years ago when the police tried to search the mosque.
They never did, of course but now even my mum has stopped mentioning it. ‘What can we do?’ she says, ‘No-one – the council, the police, the newspapers – no-one takes a scrap of notice. They all turn a blind eye. But…”
I think it was then that Roger realised that, probably because of his mum, neither did Kevin want to talk about it for fear of rocking the boat. Until now that was. Until he’d opened Khan’s parcel.
Kevin was right.
We didn’t discuss it. Writing about it now sounds unlikely for a bunch of bored, fed up seventeen or eighteen-year-olds but most of us just accepted the way it was. We did not even try to understand the concept of hypocrisy and political sensitivity,and for some reason never got mad enough to do something about it.
Perhaps it was the heat from Hamish’s big log fire but Kevin, hot and sweaty-looking, just kept on talking whilst blinking and glancing at Roger as if hoping he was still listening.
In turn, Roger could not take his eyes off of Kevin. Until then, all he’d witnessed was the hesitant, uncertain, doubtful Kevin.
At last Kevin paused. “I understood Cass,” he said. “He wanted to get away. To check things out and see how thing were somewhere different. He was only going for a few days.
It’s all he could afford on money he’d saved from odd jobs.”
He paused again, sadly this time. “Cass was my best friend, Roger, but he just disappeared.” He sniffed, wiped his face with his hand and took a deep trembling breath. “Sorry,” he said.
***
It was late afternoon.Winter’s early darkness had fallen, and just as the weather forecast had said, it was now raining. Slabs of wet snow slid from the roof and fell past the kitchen window. In the silence inside, Hamish poured himself another whisky, and Roger downed the last dregs of cold tea. “So, what are we going to do, Kevin?” he asked.
Kevin gave another wet sniff. “We?”
“We. Us. What do you think, Hamish?”
“Just so long as that parcel disappears, I’m not too bothered,”
Hamish said. “I’m sorry to have got a bit miffed with ye’, Kevin.” He patted Kevin’s arm. “Shall we see if we can repack that parcel so it doesn’t look like it’s been opened?”
Roger stood. “Do you have a photocopier, Hamish?” Hamish nodded. “Can you copy the passports before we repack them?
Then I’ll drive you home, Kevin. On the way, you can tell me some more. If we set off right now, we could be there sometime after midnight.”
“And when you’re gone, I’ll see what I can do about that broken-down old car of yours, Kevin,” Hamish added.