A Killing Sin, page 2
Aafa hasn’t finished.
‘They take you into a room and they ask all sorts of questions trying to catch you out. Whether you drink alcohol or watch Hollywood films, which mosque you go to, what you think about this or that so-called atrocity, is Britain right to ally itself with the US, who am I voting for. It goes on and on. I tell them I’m just a student but they’re following me to Friday prayers now.’
I know he’s telling the truth. He’s not wired to do anything else. He’s just confirming everything Millie’s been saying for years. My guts are churning. I need to check, though. Something’s been bugging me for a while. Something about Aafa is different. Is it just that he’s been unlucky or is there something more?
‘Aafa, is there anything I should know?’ I try to catch his eye. ‘We hardly see you these days and you seem to be spending a lot of time at the mosque and the Education Centre.’ I play my trump card, knowing how close he is to our parents and how he hates to upset them. ‘Mum and Dad are worried too. Dad says you’re no longer going to Friday prayers with him.’ I look right into his eyes and say quietly, ‘We’re all worried.’
Aafa looks annoyed. ‘Listen, Mals, I’m not involved in anything bad and I’m not a kid anymore. Where I pray and where I spend my time is up to me. You think the issue is that I spend too much time praying. You don’t think it’s a bit rich that you ask me that, but you don’t ask about the bastards picking me up day in and day out. I like the Education Centre. The clue is in the title. It’s about education. Educating people that Islam is a peaceful religion. I am trying to spread that message but no one is listening.’ He swallows. ‘Not even you.’
He is leaning across the table. Talking in a loud whisper. His indignation clear with every word.
‘I don’t have a record. I don’t go around threatening people. I don’t even go around shouting my mouth off, but the PPC guys are nothing short of racist, bully-boy vigilantes. Did you see the poor guy that died of an asthma attack last month? Allegedly of an asthma attack. If he had been white would it have been shoved under the carpet in quite the same way? I don’t think so. Did you see the headline today?’
I shake my head.
‘Beautiful seventeen-year-old girl destined for Oxford radicalised on line. I wonder if they would be quite so interested if she was an ugly hairdresser with parents on the dole or, God forbid, a nice Asian girl.’
He’s right. The papers are full of it. Nice white girls are the big target.
I have real sympathy for him. He isn’t the only one asking difficult questions. I am guessing that Millie would have seen the headline today and said exactly the same thing. Many of the ex-military running the PPCs have been chosen for their strong work ethic, commitment and unquestioning discipline, but a significant number of them have lost good mates in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia. I had seen what they had seen first-hand. It isn’t simple. The enemy isn’t so easy to spot. Right and wrong, black and white, good and bad are lost in a quagmire of history, politics, money and big decisions that are often based on power and expediency, rather than principle. The squaddies are sometimes ruthless, particularly around those they suspect of being involved in any extremist activity, and it is easy to understand why. They are in a no-win situation. Damned when they pick someone up just because they are brown with a beard, and damned when they don’t and some monstrous act is committed by a brown person with a beard.
Aafa rubs a hand across his face, stroking his newly acquired beard back and forth. His eyes are shining and his hands are trembling. He moves to pick up his espresso then changes his mind. I go to take his hand.
He looks up, does a double take, and stares at me.
He leans across the table and in a fierce whisper asks, ‘Mals, what the hell happened to your eye?’
I realise I had had my hair and hand over the bruise.
As casually as I can, I say, ‘Oh, some big gob wanker threw a punch at the Comedy Café on Saturday night.’ I smile. ‘You should see the other guy. Millie banged his head on the bar.’ Aafa doesn’t smile back. I pull my hair back down. ‘It’s no big deal. He was just a nutter.’
I am not sure how convincing I sound. My voice catches and I gulp down some water. I feel acid rise to my throat and I swallow hard.
He grabs my hand again and gives it a squeeze. ‘Amala, you know you really do need to watch out. Those comedy routines of yours – they’re getting more and more outrageous. Honest to God, you think you can get away with it because you’re rich and your friends are important, but you know what? That might not be enough. You have to be careful. I am not pissing about. There are mad people out there who want to do you harm. All these fatwas. It’s serious stuff. You make this big point about not wearing the veil, your right to choose whatever partner you want, male or female. Have you any idea what most people think?’
I look down. I see my hands are shaking. I move them from the table and clasp them tight between my knees. I don’t want to tell Aafa how much it has spooked me. I don’t want to tell anyone. Not even myself.
Friday 21st May 10.50
ELLA
I click on the file. I scan the notes from the anonymous source. Whoever he is, he is well connected. This story is dynamite. I reread the latest material and create a new sub-file with the title ‘Citrussister’. I am buzzing. It’s coming together and I know it’s a good story. It has everything: intrigue, money, power, corruption and dirty secrets. A good story. Maybe a prizewinner?
I feel energised. This really feels like my time. I know I can write both these stories.
I look over at the collage Millie and Amala had made for me for my birthday last year. Headlines from articles I had written from student magazines, journals and some of the freelancing stories that had been picked up. Only a few had really had any impact. And here I am on the verge of breaking two huge stories.
I look at one from The Teviot, the Edinburgh student magazine. It was funny. I smile as I remember. I had written it as a protest letter, headed ‘Bloody Lame-entable’. The idea was to have high heels classified as an instrument of torture. I had woven in part of a Wilfred Owen poem, ‘I know many of you women out there have limped on blood shod, in future they will say it was a time we all went lame.’
Citrussister isn’t funny though. It is deadly serious. I password protect it and close it down
Friday 21st May 10.52
AMALA
Aafa is still looking at me. ‘Mals you have got to stop with this comedy stuff. At least for a while. Let things settle down for a bit. You know, I hate it when you keep shouting your mouth off. Making jokes about what it is to be Muslim. They’re not funny, they’re just offensive. You know this guy last week won’t be the end of it. There will be other guys and next time it might not just be a fist. You’re going to get seriously hurt.’
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Watch your mouth. I am not shouting my mouth off. I’m trying to be funny and maybe make people think a bit at the same time.’ I glare at him. ‘And by the way, hundreds, in fact thousands, of people come to my shows and they think I’m funny. They laugh and maybe, just maybe, they go away and think a bit more. Maybe they stop seeing the world as just the good guys and the bad guys.’
I’m on a roll. ‘And maybe it’s you who needs to stop and think. Do you ever really think about the Education Centre, or any of those so-called sharia communities, because what I see is a bunch of misogynist pricks turning them into some haven of seventh-century barbarism. I look at Tower Hamlets, and what I see is a place where women can’t drive or go to school. For fuck’s sake, they’re wearing burqas that they can’t even see through and they are getting forced into marriage to some asshole who thinks he’s a jihadist. Maybe a little bit of harassment is a price worth paying if we’re going to stop the spread of sharia. I’ve seen for myself what that does to people. Men and women.’
Aafa doesn’t say anything. He knows how much I was affected by my time in Afghanistan and Syria, talking to women who had been raped at the hands of jihadists, then forced to live like a chattel.
I stare hard. I feel my anger rise and squash any fear for the moment. ‘That’s what comedy’s for; to make people laugh and to make them think.’
He’s twitching his knee in agitation, ready to jump in, but I don’t give him the chance. I am fed up of everyone telling me to be quiet.
‘You know this situation has been years in the making. Ten years back the political right just wanted to send people home or stop them coming in. They pointed the finger at Islam to say look at how badly they treat their women. Whilst the liberal left couldn’t say anything for fear of being culturally insensitive. After Brexit, it just got worse. Then the xenophobia in the States just fanned the flames of racism even more. Those voters in the rust belt managed to corrode the rest of the country. Liberals were suddenly the enemy. Thompson was so focused on showing how he was controlling the borders and sucking up to the Americans to win trade deals, he missed what was right under his nose.
‘We stopped looking at the rot that had already taken a grip here. We let those sharia communities take root, we let them set up schools and slowly but surely they’ve established their own cities within cities. They have a grip on everything. Schools can’t talk about homosexuality or even sex at all. Women can’t get a divorce. They go to the Sharia Council and say they are being beaten by their husbands and they are told to shut up and go back to them. You know, they’re also practicing FGM in those communities? That’s just another word for torture. Aafa, I know things aren’t perfect. But if we can’t tell people how completely hypocritical they are, then it never stops. Never.’
Aafa looks deeply uncomfortable. We have never spoken like this before. Normally we have a bit of banter, I buy him lunch and then slip him £20. He speaks carefully but forcefully. ‘You are just picking on a few extremists. Violent extremists. Most people are practicing Islam as it should be, as it states in the Quran.’
‘Aafa, there’s nothing in the Quran that says you should mutilate a vagina. That’s made-up, misogynist hatred. It’s bollocks. It’s barbaric. You know we got somewhere in the last decade. It was reducing and now it’s back with a vengeance. You show me where it says in the Quran you should cut out a woman’s clitoris and more. Not even women. Little girls. It’s an affront to Islam and it is happening on our watch. Don’t get me started on the fucking burqa. You know that’s not in the Quran either. You’re not the only one who’s read it. It says both men and women should dress modestly. It says women should cover their bosom. It does not say wrap her in a fucking tent so she can’t walk, she can’t breathe, she can’t eat or drink. She can’t smell the roses and she can’t fucking see.’
I sit back, drained. I realise I have raised my voice and people are looking over, clearly uncomfortable. I catch the eye of the man at the next table; I glare at him, and he looks hurriedly away. Typically English, appalled but not enough to make full eye contact or actually say anything.
‘Come on, Aafa, you can’t believe that stuff. Look at me, look at Mum and Farah and Leila. Do you really want us locked away so we can’t speak or move? Can’t even buy a pint of milk without an escort, never mind get a job.’
When I look up I can see Aafa’s eyes dart all around. They are searingly bright and his pupils are like pin holes. I feel my heart thump as I look into his face for clues.
He leans further across the table so he is within inches of my face. ‘You’re a bad example. You don’t even cover your hair. At least Farah has some modesty and acts like a good Muslim girl. But you, you are out every night in those filthy comedy clubs taking Allah’s name in vain. You’re a disgrace, Amala. You’ll find yourself in trouble if you don’t stop. Someone is going to take real offence and make an example of you. You better be warned.’
I am stunned. Aafa has never spoken to me like this before. He has never said anything like that to anyone before. There is something else too. I can smell it. Fear. He’s scared. More than that. Terrified. Whether for me or himself, I can’t tell.
‘Amala, you are one of the richest women in the country. You are telling jokes that cause deep offence. You are funding programmes for girls that not everyone believes are right and you are always in the media. Your business partner is chief technology adviser to the prime minister, for God’s sake. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. I am not kidding. It’s dangerous.’
‘Well, I’ll take my chances.’
‘You are so stubborn. You are playing with fire and someone’s going to get hurt.’
I am shocked to see tears in Aafa’s eyes. I can’t bear it. ‘Hey, little bro, it’s ok, I’m really not that big a deal. I think there are bigger fish.’
He starts to get his stuff together. Pulling on his backpack he gives me a quick, fierce hug. ‘Look why don’t you come to the Education Centre? I’m meeting a few people there on Tuesday. There’s a women’s study group. They would really like to talk to you and I would really like you to meet them.’
He sees my look of deep scepticism and says, ‘Hey, don’t. Don’t look like that. Why don’t you just give it a go? Meet me there. I can be there from about 9 or 9.30. They’re not fanatics. They are serious people, concerned with the world. Good people trying to do the right thing. Just like you. I’ve talked to them about you and a lot of people want to meet you. They don’t understand you, so why not give them a chance. Get to know them. Let them get to know you. You might even find you have something in common. It’s a special session on Tuesday. Open to all women to foster understanding.’
I sigh. ‘I’ll think about it.’ But I know I’ll go. I never can resist Aafa. He knows it too. We both smile, albeit half-heartedly. I watch him walk away. Head bent, backpack slung over one shoulder. I feel a shiver. Why do I feel like someone has just walked over my grave?
Friday 21st May 11.15
ELLA
I close the last file and wander downstairs. I hear Neil talking. He has the phone on speaker and I hear Amala’s voice.
‘Listen, I’ve just seen Aafa and it’s got me thinking about Ezylocate again. We really need to make a move. Aafa keeps getting picked up by the PPCs and he’s pretty sure they’re tracking him. And it’s not just him. We’ve got enough ammunition to take it to the Home Office. We need it back on Thompson’s agenda.’
When Neil and Amala invented Ezylocate a few years ago, it was their second big product and, like the first, had the same Midas touch. They are a good team. Neil has the cool, structured brain of an engineer and can schmooze the birds from the trees. But Amala is the real genius behind Rockeem. Her brain is original and unbounded by convention. Neil is always the first to admit he is not the innovator, Amala is. He lacks her pure imagination, vision and creativity. She’s one of a kind.
Neil answers her. ‘You know I talked to him a few weeks ago at the reunion dinner. He’s pretty fired up at the minute. I think he reckons Norton’s circling for his job, which usually means he feels the need to be the tough guy. I’ve been thinking about it, too. You’re right, we do have enough evidence. Let’s put our heads together next week. Work out the best plan of attack.’
A thought strikes me. ‘Hey, Mals, it’s me. The other option is to just bypass Thompson and talk to Norton. The Home Office owns civil liberties and she’s always keen to grab the moral high ground from Thompson. She might be especially interested if it puts him on the back foot, and technically the PPCs sit with her.’
‘Hey, Ells, you ok? Are you up for a run later? Yeah, good idea. What do you think, Neil?’
As usual she never waits for an answer.
She ploughs on. ‘Yeah, underneath the frost, Norton’s pretty good and she’s less of a sound-bite master than Thompson. The whole sharia thing is really sinister too. It scares the hell out of me anyway.’
Neil and I exchange a smile. Amala on a mission is a force to reckon with. She’ll have done the analysis by the weekend, ready to clobber everyone over the head with it.
‘Ok, have a good day. See you later, Ells. Last one up the hill buys the beers.’ She laughs and then says, ‘Hey, by the way, I can’t believe you’re still going to those old Etonian dinners. For God’s sake, Neil it must look like something out of Dickens.’
Neil snorts out a laugh and says, ‘I have to go. Sure, I’m the token black guy. They love me. I give them edge. Makes them feel right on. Hey, and more than that, Mals, I was the guest speaker. Super trends in technology.’
‘Edge? I hardly think so posh boy. See you Sunday.’
I put my arms around him and say, ‘Come on, posh boy, what about some brunch?’
Pulling me close he mutters, ‘I have got edge. I’m not posh. I am a man of the people!’
‘Neil you went to MIT, which, by the way is one of the top universities in the world, and before that you went to Eton and Cambridge. You’re hardly a man of the people.’
‘Yeah, but look at me now messing with the Nofas.’
I give him a shove then snuggle in to his neck. He thinks he’s hilarious. Twenty years ago, in our first year at Edinburgh, the film Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle, had come out. I had been livid that in 2003 the Angels still needed Charlie. Millie, Amala and I had done a spoof version at Bedlam, the student theatre, for a bet. We called it NOFA: ‘No One’s Fucking Angels’. It had stuck. Ever since, we were known as the Nofas by all our mates. In our final year, we had all got a tiny tattoo of a naughty angel.
Friday 21st May 11.25
AMALA
Ella’s right. Norton is a much more likely option. I look around the café, full of young people looking at various devices, reading, listening to music, and working. Oblivious to the turmoil in my head. I look at the pain au chocolat still on the plate. I have crumbled it, in my agitation talking to Aafa, and it looks totally unappetising. I realise my fingers are greasy from the pastry and also that I feel nauseous. I decide to walk around and try to get my thoughts in order. I shrug on my jacket and pull the hood up, pulling the corner over my eye.
