For at least half an hour nothing had happened, and then she had begun to feel simultaneously nauseous and fearful. Control of her reactions seemed to be sliding away from her; her limbs and her heaving stomach were no longer her own. And then suddenly the fear lifted and it was as if she was drowning in sensation. The sounds of the forest, previously a barely audible chorus of distant birdsong, shifting branches and insect twitterings, were amplified to levels of almost unbearable intensity. The muted pricking of the light through the pine branches, meanwhile, became a phalanx of rainbow spears. Her nose, throat and lungs seemed to fill with the sharp turpentine-scented resin of the pine. After a time-minutes perhaps, but maybe hours-these heightened sensations had begun to shape themselves into a kind of sublime architecture. She seemed to be wandering through a vast and constantly evolving vista of cloud-topped ziggurats, hanging gardens and dizzying colonnades. She seemed to be both inside and outside of herself, a spectator of her own progress through this strange, exotic realm. Afterwards, with the vision’s slow dissolution, she had felt an intense melancholy, and when she had tried to discuss the experience with Megan that evening, she had been unable to find the right words.
Deep inside herself, however, she had known that the images she had seen were not accidental, but meant. They were a sign-a glimpse of the celestial. They had confirmed her in her path, and in her determination.
“Yes,” she said, “I was happy there.”
“So how did it end?” he asked. “Your parents’ tale?”
“Divorce. The family smashed. Nothing unusual.” Lifting the handle of the kitchen knife between two fingers, she dropped it so that its point stuck into the wet chopping board. “And your parents?”
Walking across the room Faraj picked up one of the cheap tumblers on the table, examined it absently, and replaced it. Then, as if shrugging off the Western culture that he had assumed with the clothes she had bought him, he sank to his haunches.
“My parents were Tajiks, from Dushanbe. My father was a fighter, a lieutenant of Ahmed Shah Massoud.”
“The Lion of Panjshir.”
“Just so. May he live for ever. As a young man my father had been a teacher. He spoke French and a little English, which he learned from the British and American soldiers who came to fight with the mujahidin. I went to a good school in Dushanbe and then, when I was fourteen, we moved to Afghanistan, following Massoud, and I went to one of the English-language schools in Kabul. My father hoped that I would not have to live the life that he had lived, my mother’s family had a little money, and both saw education as the means of my betterment. Their dream was for me to become an administrator or government official.”
“What happened?”
“In ’96 the Taliban came. They had money from the United States and from Saudi Arabia, and they laid siege to Kabul. We managed to escape from the bombardment at night, and my father went north to rejoin Massoud. I wanted to go with him but he sent me south with my mother and my younger sister towards the border country. We had hoped to enter Pakistan from there, to escape the Taliban altogether, but many others had had the same idea, and after months of wandering we finally settled with other displaced Tajiks and Pathans opposed to the Taliban in a village named Daranj, east of Kandahar.”
“What did you do there?”
“We dreamed of leaving. Of finding a better life in Pakistan.”
Falling silent, he appeared to sink into a reverie. His eyes were open but his expression was blank. Finally he seemed to rouse himself. “In the end, it became clear that there was no way that we could legally cross the border. We could have found a way through-there were couriers who would take you over the mountains for a price-but we had no wish to be stateless refugees. We considered ourselves better than that.
“After several years of nonstop warfare my father returned. He had been wounded, and he could no longer fight. With him, though, was a man. A man whom my father had persuaded to take me with him, across the border to Pakistan. A man of influence, who would enroll me in one of the madrassahs-the Islamic colleges-in Peshawar.”
“And this is what happened?”
“This is what happened. I bade goodbye to my parents and my sister, and together with this man I crossed the border at Chaman and journeyed north. A week later we were in Mardan, northeast of Peshawar, and I was taken to the madrassah. As at the border, I was admitted without question.”
“So who was this man? This man of such influence?”
He smiled and shook his head. “So many questions, so little time. What would you have done with your life, had things been otherwise?”
“They were never otherwise,” she replied. “For me, there was never any other path.”
28
Liz insisted that she and Mackay travel in her car. The meeting with Zander was her operation and she wanted Mackay to realise that he was a passenger, there strictly on sufferance.
Mackay, sensing her determination, did not argue. Instead he made a point of deferring to her, even going so far as to check his appearance with her. This she okayed. It wasn’t the clothes by themselves that would attract attention, although the tan leather jacket and chinos were visibly of better quality than most; it was the clothes in combination with the personality. In a crowded room, he was the sort of person you noticed straight away. He looked flash.
In Pakistan, Liz guessed, a European was a European. Different by definition. In Essex, however, there was an infinity of subtle distinctions in the way that people presented themselves. Liz had brought her work wardrobe with her, and had changed into the leather jacket and jeans. The jacket, in particular, was cheap-looking and unfashionable. Single mum doing the shopping. Dab of make-up, lank hair, sharp expression. Invisible in any high street.
Soon they were making their way southwards towards the town of Swaffham. Liz drove carefully, pointedly observing the speed limits.
“Tell me again why Zander should exert himself on our behalf,” said Mackay, reaching back to adjust the Audi’s headrest. “What’s in it for him, apart from your approval?”
“You don’t think that’s enough?”
He grinned ruefully. “Well, I guess it’s not so easily won; I could certainly do with a little of it myself. But yes, apart from that.”
“I’m his insurance policy. He knows that if he comes across with good product then I’ll stir myself on his behalf if the drugs squad or the CID march in and scoop him up on a charge. That’s why he wouldn’t talk to Bob Morrison. Morrison’s the kind of hard-nosed Special Branch officer who despises the Zanders of this world on sight, and Zander knows it.”
“Seems a bit short-sighted of Morrison.”
“Well, I suppose it’s a point of view. My suspicion is that sooner or later the police are going to pick up Melvin Eastman and make something stick, and when that happens they’re going to need someone like Zander to go into the witness box and testify against him.”
“From what you say, this guy Eastman wouldn’t be too happy about that. He’d take out a contract on him, and Zander must know that.”
“He does, I’m sure. But if he trusts me-and I’ve always played fair with him-then maybe I can still persuade him to give evidence.”
They arrived in Braintree with forty minutes to spare, and followed the signs to the railway station.
“Can we just run through again how you want to play this?” asked Mackay.