Ride or Die

The hotel room phone trilled in my ear. Shut the fuck up! I lifted the edges of the pillow tightly over my ears. The trill dimmed but just would not quit. Defeated, I reached out to it, blindly knocking a bottle of water off the side table as I located the phone.

‘Good morning, Mr Qasim,’ the smoothest of voices said. ‘This is your eight-thirty wake-up call.’

‘Yeah, I’m up, man. I’m up,’ I slurred. My tongue felt as though it was wearing a fur coat and my breath bounced back at me off the phone. I turned my face away in disgust and noticed that the bottle of water that I had knocked over was actually a bottle of beer, steadily dripping onto the carpet. That damn minibar had broken my defences.

‘Fuck’s sake!’ I groaned to myself as I straightened the bottle. That was going to cost me about seven quid in Qatari money!

‘Excuse me?’ the voice said, losing a little smoothness.

‘No, not you… Thanks. Bye.’

I replaced the receiver and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for my vision to clear, trying to piece together my movements before sleep had eventually found me at… who knows when. The last time I had glanced at the clock, it was four something, closer to five.

The thought of meeting Imy had twisted me up inside, and I just wanted to forget about him, just for a minute. I think I had a moment of madness. Me. On my own. Wanting to let the fuck loose with total abandonment before I faced up to my responsibilities.

Not sure what happened after that.

I lifted my heavy head off the pillow and took in the state of the room as it sadly recounted the story of my night.

Yeah, it was coming back to me.

I remember wanting a drink but being too mentally drained to leave my bed. Rather than walk the three steps, I’d crawled to the foot of the bed and reached out to the minibar, which was just tantalisingly out of reach. I hung halfway off the bed, stretching, my shoulder screaming at me as I managed to pull open the door. The light illuminated my face and the miniature bottles neatly lined up greeted me like a surprise party. I started with a vodka.

I’d stayed at the foot of the bed, on my back, my head hanging off the edge as I watched the brilliant Mean Girls upside down, whilst knocking back drink after drink, unable to get Imy out of my head.

I’d pictured standing in front of him, meeting his eyes and letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that I recognised my part in his loss. I’d welcome whatever he threw at me. I’d fucking take it all.

Oh man, I got so wasted. Dotted around the bed were empty miniature bottles lying sadly on their sides, as though they’d been abused. I dropped my head back on the pillow, the pounding in my head taking the attention away from the ache in my stomach caused by all the food that I’d ordered from room service!

I knew that I should be getting up and packing, but I gave myself five more minutes just to get myself together. It’s always five more minutes – How many times had Mum said that to me? Feeling sorry for myself, I turned on my side and curled up in a ball. Beside me was a chocolate gateau, some eaten, some spread across my pillow. I rubbed the side of my face. Some there, too.

I turned my back to it and flopped to the edge of the bed. I thought about how much of a tip I should leave for housekeeping to clean my mess. Next to the bed was a bin, that I’d placed there in case I vomited. Next to that, a pool of vomit!

I groaned loudly and shot myself out of bed and went about carrying out a pre-emptive clean before housekeeping clocked on and, through Chinese whispers, Mum found out. I couldn’t have that.

Satisfied, with the room looking semi-respectable, I spent record time brushing the crap out of my teeth and tongue whilst hopping around in the unpredictable shower. I had used the bath towel to soak up the vomit, so with an impossibly small hand towel wrapped around my waist I set about packing my holiday clothes before getting into my shitty-weather England clothes.

I had a flight to catch.

There was no way I was calling a bell-boy. I had already spent a small fortune on tips, so I belled Idris and asked him to help me with my luggage. He was at my door a few minutes later, looking annoyingly fresh and rested in his shorts and lairy Bermuda shirt. The total opposite of me.

‘You sure you don’t mind me staying on a few days?’ he said, entering my room, sniffing and making a face. There was nothing I could do about the smell, but crack open a window. Idris took me in, jeans and Jordans where shorts and flip-flops should have been. A hoody on the bed to carry onto the plane, and my parka jacket in my hand luggage. Prepared for the wet, windy, vicious weather back home, back in Hounslow.

‘Here, grab that,’ I said, pushing my trolley his way.

‘I still don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why’d you have to rush back?’

Why? A man’s family had burnt and perished and I had a part to play. I had to find out how far a simple sorry would take me in easing the fucking guilt that I was drowning in.

‘I just have to, that’s all, Idris,’ I said, knowing how unfair it was to keep my closest friend in the dark. It wasn’t the first time, and I’d started to realise, the way my life was turning out, that it wouldn’t be the last, either.

‘Obviously, this is about Imran Siddiqui,’ he pressed, and I couldn’t deny it but I could ignore it. I handed him my rucksack. ‘Okay, fine! Be like that. Least tell me what bullshit you told your mum, just so we’re on the same page.’ Idris couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice, or maybe he didn’t want to.

‘Told her that…’ I hesitated, knowing how it was going to sound.

‘Go on. Told her what exactly?’

‘Told her that I’d received an email inviting me for a job interview and that I really couldn’t afford to miss the opportunity,’ I said, looking suitably sheepish at the lame excuse.

‘What job?’ Idris asked.

‘What’s it matter what job?’

‘Jay!’

‘Project manager,’ I mumbled.

‘And she believed you?!’ Idris scoffed, clearly not convinced that I could be a project manager.

‘The fuck’s not to believe?’ I said, more than a little offended that he didn’t think I could be a fucking project manager. I could easily be a project manager. Give me a project and I’ll fucking manage it. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the hangover, or the prospect of flying back home and into fuck knows what, but Idris was getting on my last nerves. He always found a way – I know not on purpose – to make me feel a lot less important than him. As though being a Detective Inspector puts him on some elite level.

The fuck’s he know!? I’ve done a shit load more than manage fucking projects. You ain’t the only one making a difference. I did, too. A big fucking difference. Global. Fucking international! Not just plodding around after junkies in Hounslow.

I wanted to tell him just to shut him up.

‘What is it?’ Idris sensed. He edged closer, eyes on high alert.

It would have been for the wrong reason. Just so that I could prove to him that I was somebody, and I was worth something, and not just the fuck up he clearly thought I was. I shot him a look that said, Sorry mate.

‘Alright.’ He sighed, then like a friend he smiled. ‘I’m coming to the airport with you.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, looking back at the room where I’d spent the last couple of weeks pretending all was okay. ‘I thought you might be.’

The lift doors opened and I saw Mum before she saw me. She had taken position behind the reception desk and was dealing with a hotel guest. She’d already told me, on the phone the night before, that she wouldn’t be able to accompany me to the airport as she couldn’t get the time off at such short notice. It was better this way. I tend to get overly emotional at airports.

I moved myself in her eye line and gave her a small wave, she beamed when she saw me and I recognised the sadness behind it. She palmed off the guest to a colleague, picked up a large boxy paper bag and hurriedly walked around the reception desk. She placed the bag by her feet and threw her arms around me, one hand cupping the back of my head, the other hand lightly gripping my shirt.

I was going to miss Mum so fucking much, but I was determined not to show it. The last time we had said goodbye it was a cocktail of tears and snot and uncertainty. I couldn’t show her that I was still that person. She had to know I’d be alright.

‘It’s cool, Mum,’ I said, as she released me, my smile coming easily as she straightened my hair. ‘I’ll come visit soon.’

‘Or I can come and see you in the New Year.’

And see the mess that my life has become.

‘I’d rather come back to be honest, Mum. Keep the sun going for me.’

‘Andrew is going to drive you to the airport, Jay. He’s just bringing the car around.’

‘He didn’t have to do that,’ I said. The last thing I needed was stilted conversation, but at least it would stop Idris from interrogating me further.

‘If you need anything, anything, I’m here, Jay. I’ll be here.’

I know what she meant. She would always be there just as my father wasn’t.

‘Oh, almost forgot.’ Mum picked up the boxy bag and handed it to me. ‘I popped into the mall this morning before my shift and got this for you.’

I snaked my hand into the bag and pulled out a smart, sandy coloured mac. I nodded dumbly at it.

‘For your interview, Jay. You can’t turn up in your parka.’ Mum smiled and in that moment the hard fought determination not to cry threatened to crumble as my bullshit lie gained momentum. Not wanting Mum to see me break, I moved back into her, holding her tightly, releasing a deep breath over her shoulder, as Idris averted his gaze to the floor. I steeled myself and released her as she planted goodbye kisses all over my face. I took it all in, the smell, the touch, the comfort. A weird feeling swept over me – I couldn’t shake it off – that a time was coming when I would desperately need to reach out and recall this moment.

Chapter 9

Imy

It wouldn’t bring back my family, but pulling the trigger felt right. I didn’t entertain the idea of disposing of the bodies. I left them where they fell and walked out of their home. The immense feeling of satisfaction was fleeting and I was overcome with an almighty tiredness as I struggled through the now torrential rain. Burying my wife and my son, followed by the long drive to Blackburn with nothing on my mind but avenging my family, had consumed me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten. Slept. The adrenaline that pushed me was gone, leaving me feeling more exhausted than I’d ever been.

The rain hindered my vision as I swayed and staggered and once stumbled to my knees as I tried to remember where I’d parked my car. I eventually found it after walking obliviously past it, before recalling that I had stolen Kumar’s company Mondeo and not travelled in my own Prius. My mind and body, that had worked together perfectly to exact my revenge, had deserted me and the sharpness was replaced by a mist.

I turned up the heating the moment the car came to life, and held my hands close up to the vents, the seat beneath me shaking in rhythm to my body. I hunched over the steering wheel for support and gripped it tightly as I drove out of Parkland Avenue. With my phone at home and the absence of a satnav I drove aimlessly from one empty street to another until signs led me to the M6.

Thirty minutes on the motorway and I was startled back to alertness as headlights filled my car. I looked in the mirror, and saw a big BMW X5 with fluorescent markings. My heart thumped in my chest. They flashed again. What had I done to give myself away? I looked down and saw that the needle was hovering at forty-five mph, which on a motorway is almost as dangerous as speeding. I put my foot down, taking the car to sixty and beyond, hoping they wouldn’t feel the urge to pull me over and ask me any questions or search my car.

The car slipped into the middle lane. Their eyes on me as they moved past. I noticed then that it was a Highways Officer – plastic police, not the real thing. Even so, I was shaking long after I lost sight of their tail-lights.

I released a sigh of relief which turned into a yawn. The heavy patter on my windshield was hypnotic, and yet again I found my eyelids starting to betray me. My body flagged and my shoulder moved towards something to lean against, causing the car to veer into the middle lane. The blare of an SUV shook me. I pulled back hard and the car swerved before settling back into its lane. As I straightened up in my seat I caught a glimpse of a young family, eyes wide and faces white with fright. I threw up a hand in apology.

There was no way I could complete the four-hour journey in that state. I had to take a risk before I became a risk to other drivers. I had to get off the motorway before somebody got hurt.

I managed to stay alert for the next five miles, and pulled into the first service station. I kept my cap low and my head down as I walked across the forecourt and followed the inviting light through the automatic doors. Despite it being the early hours of the morning, it was busy with families and groups of friends coming or going. Living a life that I would never have. I headed straight to the bathroom and splashed and scrubbed my face with cold water. I ran a wet hand through my hair, letting the water drip down my back.

Leaning against the sink I stared at myself in the mirror. The black suit I wore to bury my family. The same black suit I wore to kill another. I squeezed my eyes shut and questioned my actions. That of judge, jury and executioner.

I had no regrets.

Without making eye contact I purchased a black coffee, a chicken sandwich, and picked out the coldest bottle of water from the back of the cooler. I took a seat alone at a round table and tried not to focus on the two empty seats across from me. I removed the lid and emptied three sachets of white sugar, then took a sip of hot coffee followed by a bite from the sandwich, and then another before I’d swallowed the first. As I broke it down in my mouth I watched from under the peak of my cap. Two kids – brothers, judging by their features – were messing about at an internet kiosk under their parents’ watchful gaze. Their eyes were darting between their children and me, as though they sensed a threat. As though they could sense that I had a gun tucked into the waist of my trousers.

I placed the cold bottle on the back of my neck and it sent an icy shiver down my spine as I glanced up at the security camera at the entrance. There were two more cameras on each side of the food court, plus the three that I noticed in the car park, that would have picked me up as I drove onto the forecourt. I had no choice. The state I had been in, I couldn’t have stayed on the road.

Regardless of my carelessness, I would’ve been the obvious suspect. It was inevitable that the police would knock at my door. But I wouldn’t be the only suspect. There had been numerous threats made to Saheed Kabir and his family. Vile threats, cowardly threats of death and rape and ruin from behind a keyboard by those looking to place the blame on them. It was a release of aggression, venting, trying to put the world to rights, but ultimately they were empty threats. Nobody was going to touch them. That right belonged to me.

The two brothers left their station at the internet kiosk and I watched them join their parents. They walked out of the food court, the father turning to look at me one last time. I held his gaze until he turned away, a protective arm around his wife.

I picked up my coffee and bottle of water and approached the internet kiosk. I slipped in two pound coins which allowed me thirty minutes of internet time and opened up a search engine. Sweat covered my back as I typed in his name. I hit enter.

The rage that had led me to kill Saheed Kabir and his family in cold blood was a different rage to how I felt about him.

He had social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram but his activity was minimal. The only recent activity was two photos that he’d posted on Facebook. The location was tagged – Qatar.

The first photo was in a restaurant. Him and his mother in conversation, their hands meeting at the middle of the table, unaware at the time that their photo was being taken. She was looking at him like Khala had once looked at me. Like a mother looks at a child.

The second photo, he was in a swimming pool, his elbows resting on the edge next to a colourful drink with a small umbrella. He was smiling broadly behind orange-tint sunglasses. Like a man without a care in the world.

I looked at the date stamp – 3rd December. It was the date that I was married. The date where I’d lost everything.

Chapter 10

Sophia Hunt’s alarm buzzed at 4.30 a.m., just as she was in the middle of a Beverly Hills shopping spree, a snobby shop assistant was questioning her means of payment, a-la Pretty Woman. But unlike Julia Roberts, she didn’t have to rely on a smug-faced Richard Gere to come to her rescue. She hated that bit. Always had. It wasn’t the fairy tale that she was looking for. This was different. A man and woman on equal footing, neither reliant on the other. A business deal, if a little crooked, but like her mum always used to say, usually as she slipped a trinket or two into her apron, Robin Hood was a national treasure, if it’s good enough for him… It wasn’t her best advice, but it wasn’t her worst.

Sophia lifted the duvet and her feet left the warmth of her single bed and found the laminate floor, cold enough to send a walking-over-her-grave shiver through her bed socks. She snaked her hand under the duvet and located the fake Gucci cardigan that she had slept beside, so that it stayed warm. She shrugged it on and wrapped it tight around her as she took in the day in front of her.

There’s crime and then there’s crime, from petty to full-on evil, and all the degrees inbetween. A couple of nights ago, Sophia had popped into Londis. She paid for the tiger bread roll, but pocketed the cheese spread. Nobody got hurt. It was a victimless crime. But what she was planning to do, wasn’t. But was it evil? Sophia didn’t think so. If all went to plan – and how could it not? – then nobody would get hurt, and the victim would be compensated through insurance. Everyone’s a winner. Okay, maybe not a winner, but, Sophia shrugged to herself, nobody loses.

Tonight, after her part was complete, she would have to face the police. She accepted that. It why Samuel Carter would be paying her so handsomely. The cops weren’t a problem; her story would be straight. They’d believe her because, even though nobody recognised it, Sophia Hunt was a damn good actress and this would be her breakthrough role, one that changed everything.

Sophia picked up the pay-as-you-go handset from the cabinet and slid it into the side pocket of her cardigan. That was her only concern. That phone, those conversations, the secrets between her and Samuel Carter. It was the link that could see her swap her one-bed flat for a one-bed jail cell. Regardless of Samuel’s somewhat casual attitude about the phone being unregistered, she would dispose of it as safely and securely as she deemed necessary.

Sophia got to her feet. The day had begun, and it was promising to be a long one. To help combat the cold, she pulled a pair of baggy jeans over her thin pyjamas and slipped on her navy blue coat, and matching bobble hat and gloves. At nearly five in the morning, armed with some burnt buttered toast, she walked ten minutes in the quiet and still darkness of the bitterly cold early morning, and made her way through Brentford Docks. Above her the rich slept soundly, the way only the rich can.

She arrived at the edge of the River Thames and leaned against the metal railing, her teeth chattering as the cold seeped from the slick, cold metal railing, through her gloves to her fingers. She faced the dirty grey, unimpressive river and shook her head as she wondered why people would pay hundreds of thousands for this crappy view? If she had that kind of money, would she? Absolutely, she decided.

Using her teeth, she pulled off her gloves and noticed her hands shaking. From the cold or from the nerves, she wasn’t sure, but it reminded her of her dear old Nana’s last years. She blew hot air onto her hands and rubbed them together hard and fast, before flexing her fingers and feeling the blood circulate. She removed the pay-as-you-go handset from her pocket and wedged a fingernail into the clip and released the battery. With a quick look over her shoulders, she lobbed the battery as high and far as she could, and lost sight of it before it had become part of the great river. She peeled out the sim card and lobbed the handset in another direction, again losing sight of it before it went under. Would it go under, or would the waves carry it until it flows into the North Sea, on the way to France or Germany or even Norway? Sophia impressed herself. Maybe some things had seeped in at school whilst she was scrawling her stage name – Simply Sophia – in pink and gold felt-tip all over her exercise book.

The last piece, the sim card, Sophia placed between her teeth and clenched down. She bent it back and forth until it weakened and snapped clean in half. Sophia placed both parts of the sim card on the palm of her hand and flicked one, and then the other, in two different directions, into the River Thames.

Chapter 11

Jay

I stepped off the aeroplane and cleared arrivals without any issues. More than could be said about the young Asian man that got hooked out of the queue and taken in for questioning, even though he was clearly Sikh judging by the turban wrapped neatly around his head. Fuck, man, how do these clueless fucks get these jobs, all they see is dark skin and a beard and it’s hunting season. I could be wrong, he could have been pulled for a whole ’nother reason, but I don’t think so. When the man appeared back, half an hour later, looking dishevelled and more than a little humiliated, I knew that he’d had his turban hand-checked and possibly removed. Do these clowns not realise how fucking offensive that is? It pissed me off, but was I surprised? Fuck no! If you’re brown and travelling, you best have your affairs in order because fuck knows where you’re going to end up. Airport security don’t think twice, barely think once, they just react on some unfounded instinct. Happens all the time. But that doesn’t mean we get used to that shit.

I could feel him, could feel the angst in his face. I watched him look around sheepishly to see if anybody noticed. We all noticed, mate. I caught his eye and nodded at him in solidarity He didn’t return it and turned his back to me. Fair play.

I swear these things never used to bother me until that is, they did.

I picked up my luggage from the merry-go-round, and on a whim slipped on the mac that Mum had gifted me. I buttoned it up to the hilt and stepped out of the terminal. Even though I’d braced myself, the weather was a shock to the system. Only twenty-four hours ago, I was on my arse sizzling in the sun as I made eyes at my girl on the other side of the pool. And now this. Sideways fucked-up rain pelting me, and a strong wind not letting me spark up a much needed post-flight fag. I popped the collar shielding my face, and took the shuttle bus to the long stay car park. Just to elevate my bad mood I was charged for the full four weeks, even though I’d returned two weeks early. Bad mood didn’t last long, though. Just for a minute everything was forgotten as, sitting there in Red Zone, Row 4, comfortably holding its own between a white Bentley and a silver Maserati, was my black BMW.