CHAPTER 26
Silvia Welbeck was not how Roger had imagined.
Kevin’s mother looked older, greyer, paler, thinner. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she wore a thick knitted cardigan over a pair of faded blue jeans that were too large for her. As Kevin stood aside, she held out a small cold hand, and Roger grasped it. “Roger Smith,” he said, snatching off his beanie and hiding it behind his back.”
“Come in,” she said. “Kevin told me about you earlier.”
The place was small. The front door opened straight into a living room with an old sofa, a wooden table, and two chairs on a worn carpet. A small transistor radio and a CD player stood on a simple white crocheted mat on a chest of drawers. But it was the music coming from it that struck Roger.
“Frederick Delius,” he said. “Brigg Fair.”
“You like it?” Silvia Welbeck asked, obviously delighted. She held Kevin’s hand as Roger picked up the CD cover.
“I like English pastoral music,” Roger said, putting his knitted beanie next to the radio. “George Butterworth, Ralph Vaughan Williams. I listen to them as I drive.”
“Kevin said you are a truck driver.”
“And a rescue service for drivers of cars that should never be on the road.”
Silvia looked at Kevin. “That old car should have been scrapped. I warned Kevin.”
Roger shrugged. “Nevertheless, I’m glad I met him. Despite everything, I’ve actually enjoyed his company.” He punched Kevin’s shoulder.
Silvia Welbeck smiled. “He’s not a bad boy, Mr. Smith. Would you like a cup of tea?”
Roger accepted, and Silvia went to the kitchen. Roger tried to follow, but it was smaller than the cab of the truck, so he backed out. “It’s very compact,” Silvia apologised, “which is why Kevin wasn’t allowed to join me here. Single person accommodation. Housing regulations, you know?”
“Which is why he lives in the attic over Faisal World Travel.”
“I call them the mafia, Mr. Smith. Not to their faces, of course.”
“Call me Roger—Kevin does.” From the doorway, he watched Silvia drop tea bags into three mugs. “I’ve been trying to understand things,” he continued before deciding to quickly drop the bombshell. “It didn’t help seeing fake or stolen passports and detonators in the parcel Kevin collected from Edinburgh.”
Silvia, who was pouring boiling water into the mugs, almost dropped the kettle.
“Oh my god,” she said. “Oh my god, Kevin. Edinburgh? That’s hundreds of miles. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“My fault,” Roger said quickly. “I told him to wait until I met you.”
“Oh my god.” Silvia’s hands shook. She brushed her face, exhaled, left the tea in the kitchen, pushed past Roger, and flopped onto the sofa next to Kevin. Kevin put his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t get upset, mum. Listen to Roger.”
Roger took one of the hard-backed chairs and leaned forwards. “You can trust me, Silvia,” he said. “But why can’t you trust the police to do something? Kevin has told me a lot, but I don’t think he understands everything. He’s a young man now, Silvia.”
She took a deep breath. “I know. I seem to forget that. It’s just that . . .” Tears welled up in her eyes, and Kevin looked helplessly at Roger.
“Finish making the tea, Kevin,” Roger commanded. “Don’t forget my two sugars.”
Kevin went to the kitchen, and Roger leaned towards Silvia and whispered to her. “Why I didn’t just call the police or abandon him to his fate, I don’t know, Silvia, but I took a liking to him. I trust him.”
“He’s not a bad boy, Mr. Smith . . . Roger.”
Roger then described everything from his first sight of Kevin standing in the snow while waving his arms, their meeting with Hamish, the opening of the package, and Kevin’s emotional outburst after calling Mr. Khan. In between, Kevin returned with the mugs of tea and put them on the floor. “Interrupt me only if I get something wrong, Kevin,” Roger instructed.
Kevin nodded, and Roger continued. He explained his understanding that Silvia was raised as a Christian in Pakistan and had been an aid worker, that Kevin’s father was a Moslem and was a Pakistani, that she had returned to England to give birth to Kevin, that there was disagreement between her and Kevin’s father over Kevin’s name and her refusal to convert to Islam, that Kevin’s father boasted of being a member of the Taliban who had known Osama Bin Laden, and that he often returned to UK under different names and different guises. “Is all that true?” he checked.
Silvia had been sitting hunched up on the sofa, as if she didn’t want to hear what was being said, but she nodded.
“Kevin says that when his father is here, you are harassed and threatened. You are also often threatened when he’s not here. Is that also true?”
“Yes. Not only when he’s not here.”
“And Kevin thinks his father still has links with terrorist groups in the Middle East.”
“Mum,” Kevin interrupted, “explain to Roger. Explain to me. I need to know everything. How does Khan fit into all this? Why does he use me?”
Silvia grabbed Kevin’s hand. “When does he use you?”
“All the time.”
“Oh, my poor baby,” Silvia said, and she hugged him.
Roger detected embarrassment in Kevin at being called a baby by the sideways look he gave him, but he disguised it well and went on. “Do you remember my friend Cass? I haven’t heard from him for two years, but he phoned today. Cass was abducted in Turkey, Mum. He’s . . .”
Suddenly, Kevin found he had so much to say, and he didn’t know where to start. “It’s Khan, Mum. Cass was forced to work with Khan’s friends in Turkey. Forging passports. He was then in Syria. He got caught up in all that ISIL stuff and nearly died. He was forced into it, but he’s just escaped. He’s in Thailand.”
It was disjointed but no worse than what he’d gleaned from Cass’s call using Jon’s phone.
Silvia sat up straight. “What are you saying? I remember Cass. He was your best friend. He lived a few doors along in Shipley Street with his mother and grandmother.”
“That’s him, mum. He was forced to join a terrorist group.”
Silvia put her hands over her face, and Roger heard her sob. “Oh god. No one ever listened. It’s still going on.”
Roger knelt down and touched Silvia’s shoulder. “Silvia,” he said. “What happened when you spoke to the police and the security people?”
The hands came from her face, and she looked at him almost angrily. “Fifteen years ago. Twelve years ago. Ten years ago. Five years ago. A year ago.”
“And what happens?”
“Nothing. They listen. I try to explain. They say they will look into things Then, because it makes me upset, they shake their heads and go away. They call social services who say I’m an obsessive. I’m a neurotic. I don’t know what they think, but I know they do nothing because, or so it seems to me, they don’t want to. They don’t want to upset the community. It’s sensitive. It’s politics. There was a lot of resistance once when the police started asking questions and entered the mosque. They came with search warrants, and there was a street demonstration. Khan’s threats also increased. We were evicted from Shipley Street. The local council leader is Mohammed Basra, an Iraqi Moslem and close friend of the Khans. He was behind the demonstration claiming religious and racial discrimination. But no one, Roger, feels it’s sensitive or discriminatory to check my medical records and see that I’m supposed to be delusional and irrational and filled with crazy conspiracy theories. My medical records suggest I’m paranoid.”
“But you’re not,” Roger said.
“Oh no,” she said defiantly. “Let me try to explain. Kevin’s father uses many different names and passports. After twenty years, I still don’t know his birth name, but he is related somehow to Khan who owns Faisal World Travel. They are from the same village or close by. In my opinion, Faisal World Travel is a cover. That is why I call them the mafia. There are many so-called sons, daughters, brothers, and cousins and not just around here. They are scattered. Khan owns many properties. He owned the house on Shipley Street. There was no rental agreement even though I asked for one, so he evicted us. He also owned the house that Cass’s mum and grandmother lived in.”
Roger stopped her. “Where are Cass’s mum and grandmother now?”
“They are not here. I heard they returned to Pakistan. In which case, Khan probably fixed it.”
“You see, Roger?” Kevin said. “Cass knows nothing about that.” He looked at his mother. “Do you know one called Wazir Khan?”
His mother sighed. “Kevin, my love, there are too many. There are thousands of Khans.”
“Wazir Khan was the one who gave me the parcel in Edinburgh. Cass met a Wazir Khan in Turkey.”
“It could be the same one, but—”
Roger stood up. “Tell me if I’m being intrusive, Silvia, but explain more about Kevin’s father.”
Kevin looked expectantly at his mother. “It is not intrusive,” she said, touching Kevin’s hand. “One of the many names Kevin’s father uses is Khokhar. Kevin’s birth certificate shows his name as Kareem Khokhar, but I’ve always called him Kevin.”
Roger interrupted. “But your husband, Kevin’s father, is—”
“He is not my husband, Roger,” Silvia said. Her eyes were shining with anger. “But he is Kevin’s father.”
Kevin looked at Roger, as if to remind him of his suspicions, but there was no need. Roger remembered exactly what he’d said, “I think she was raped.”
They were silent for a while.
“Where’s the terrorism link?” Roger asked. “What, for instance, might have happened to the fake passports that Kevin delivered to Khan this morning? What’s going on around here, Silvia?”
“They have probably disappeared into the community, Roger. Kevin is the one who would have got into trouble if something went wrong. Khan would deny everything and rely on Mohamed Basra and others for protection.”
She took a sip of tea and brushed strands of hair back. “You want the full story?”
It was Kevin who nodded.
“I first met Kevin’s father in a hospital in Northern Pakistan. He had been injured, not seriously, but he was brought in wearing the uniform of a Pakistani army general. His papers said he was General Shah Massoud, but while he was under anaesthetic, I discovered other papers and two Afghan passports naming him as Abdul Rahim and Mohammad Mohaqik.” Silvia almost smiled. “He arrived here once in a suit and tie with an Italian passport—Pascale Marinello. Can you believe that? But what can I do? I’m powerless.
“It seems to me that the security people, MI6 and the CIA, find it impossible to keep track of people like that. At the time leading up to Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, the political situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan was incredibly complicated. Let us not forget that, around that time, the CIA and Saudi Arabia were giving military aid to the Afghan mujahedeen, and the Pakistani armed forces were actively supporting the Taliban. It was a political and military nightmare. I know because I lived there. I was born there. I learned to speak and write Urdu and Punjabi. My father was an oil worker. My mother was a nurse, and I helped the wounded. Pakistan is an overpopulated mess, Roger. Many of its people are skilled and peace-loving, but many more live in abject poverty, often relying on support from family living abroad like here. It’s a breeding ground for terrorism. Nevertheless, I had good Pakistani friends who I left behind because I fell pregnant.
“I came here to have Kevin. His father followed me. He’d already found us the house in Shipley Street, but he wanted me to return to Pakistan, for Kevin and me to become Moslem. I refused. There were problems. I was threatened not just by him but by others including Khan at Faisal World Travel. Since then, they have constantly hassled me and threatened me by saying things will happen to me or Kevin.”
They sat without speaking for a while. Roger was trying to digest it; Kevin was trying to unravel it. Silvia, on the other hand, was nervously twisting and untwisting the sleeve of her cardigan, one minute looking at Roger, then at Kevin, and then at the floor.
“So,” she said eventually, defeatedly while holding her hands out. “Here we are. What can you do, Roger? Your tea has gone cold.”
Roger didn’t answer because she’d just asked the obvious question. What could he do? He was just a truck driver who just happened to be passing by when this woman’s son waved him down for help. Instead of minding his own business, he’d got involved. Instead of backing off and leaving the boy to solve his own problems, he’d assumed a sort of fatherly responsibility, which he now felt reluctant to relinquish. Even more worrying was that Kevin seemed to be relying on him to help.
“How has Khan managed to acquire so much property?” Roger asked. “I wandered past the travel agency today. It’s shabby. It was shut. Anyone passing would think it’s closed for good.”
Silvia shrugged. “I can hazard a guess.”
“Go ahead—hazard.”
“It’ll be the same guess I offered the police, but of course, they prefer to say I’m paranoid.”
“What was the guess?”
“That it’s not the front of the shop, Roger. It’s what lies at the back. They visibly shudder at the suggestion that there is something sinister or illegal going on behind the scenes.
“I’ve never suggested that every Pakistani on Park Road is guilty, and I’m certainly not racist, which is what they imply. Unlike those who’ve come here and drawn conclusions about my health and my sanity, I’ve actually lived and worked amongst Pakistanis and Afghans. I’ve spent time in India, Iran, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. I had many good and honest friends, many of whom I still remember and miss deeply, but criminals exist within every community in every country. They come in every size, shape, colour, and religious conviction.
“We all know about Italian, Chinese, and Russian mafia and South American drug barons. We know that Eastern Europeans run rackets like people smuggling or petty street crime like muggings and pick pocketing, and we all know that criminality amongst the so-called black community is endemic with family breakdowns being the main cause. Look at your two friends, Winston and Kurt, who also lived in Shipley Street, Kevin. Nice boys, but where was the family structure? But one word out of place these days against certain parts of our society and you’re branded forever as a racist or some other new-fangled term.
“But the worst and the most blatant discrimination is when, despite evidence, law enforcement bodies back away from criminal investigations just because someone in a community says it will cause racial or ethnic tensions to issue a search warrant.
“Surely, the law is the law. Like it or not, we must all obey it. Come here to live and you live by the law of the land. Is that not reasonable? But that is not what someone like Councillor Mohamed Basra, who gets voted on every few years, thinks.”
Roger found himself nodding in full agreement as Silvia took a deep breath before continuing.
“Businesses like Khan’s travel agency and other local backstreet businesses not just around here look innocent. But amongst the pawn shops, money lenders, clothes and ethnic food shops, life does not always change very much. Integration is slow. The old ways continue and often pass to the younger generations who do not understand. In some areas, they go to school and still mix with their own culture. And terrorism is not necessarily discouraged. Quite the opposite, in fact. If you check some of Mohamed Basra’s past comments, you will see that that is precisely what he supports.
“Simple day-to-day frustrations with life that could be countered with teaching tolerance are, instead, exploited and built on to generate deep anger. Anyone showing signs of being a suitable recruit is encouraged. They exploit the vulnerable. They think I’m vulnerable, that Kevin is vulnerable. Khan probably saw Cass as vulnerable, as innocent, easy picking for which someone else would be grateful and would return the favour.
“And it’s not just boys. They’re not choosy. There’s a high demand for poor vulnerable girls. But yet again, social services don’t want to be involved in case they’re accused of discrimination, and so the police walk on by. They’re all too busy. Hearsay is not enough they say, and they’re more than happy when things go quiet again. And why does it all go quiet? It’s because accusers like me get nervous. We feel powerless. We feel vulnerable.”
For a moment, she slumped in the chair. “I don’t know,” she said wearily, but then she sat up again and grasped Kevin’s hand.
“Cass looks like a victim to me,” she said. “It is not unknown for young men around here to go home to see family and not return. Someone organises it. And how easy is that for a backstreet travel agent? I’m sure they’d like to get Kevin out because they think I’d follow. They still think I’m a danger because I’ve spoken out. I know too much, you see, but they have their weak points. And one weak point is actually Kevin’s father. He plays the big shot, you know what I mean? People round here like people who brag because they don’t realise it’s bragging. They believe that someone who arrives in Park Road in a rented Mercedes, saying he’s a wealthy businessman who travels a lot, must be a wealthy businessman who travels a lot or how could he afford a new Mercedes.”
“I hate him,” Kevin suddenly said.
Roger grabbed his arm. “Hatred doesn’t solve problems, Kevin. What does he brag about?”
Silvia paused, as if selecting an example. Then she said, “He turned up once at the house in Shipley Street when Kevin was at school. Smart suit, haircut, the big shot businessman. It was the usual scene—shouting, arguments, and threats—though he’d always hold back on physical assault in case I ended up in hospital. But he loved to brag. He told me I’d always be poor. He’d make sure of that. But if I’d obeyed him and converted, I’d be living in luxury in Islamabad. To prove it, he threw a bank deposit receipt at me. It was for fifty thousand dollars courtesy of Faisal World Travel. ‘See? Business is good,’ he boasted. I’ve still got that receipt. When he threw it, it landed behind the cooker, and he left without it.”
“Did you show it to the police?”
“Why bother? They’d never investigate it anyway. Why should they? It looked like any receipt you’d get for depositing a week’s takings. It’s inner city, Moslem and a mixed ethnic community. It’s sensitive. Got to be careful. Mustn’t upset the natives.”
Roger looked at her. That last phrase hadn’t sounded like paranoia but more like well-founded sarcasm.
“A no-go area?” he asked.
“Not exactly no go,” Silvia said, “but interference in local affairs is frowned on. Mohamed Basra and a few friends would jump up and down so much they’d all back off.”
They fell into another silence, interrupted only by the sound of a bus pulling up at the bus stop outside. Kevin was looking from his mother to Roger and back. Silvia abandoned the twisting of the cuff of her cardigan and sighed. “I don’t know what anyone can do, Roger, but thank you for rescuing Kevin.”
Roger shrugged, as if to say it was nothing, but something was badly wrong here. The more he heard, the more he wanted to do something to help, and he’d long planned to take a few days off work. There was someone else he also wanted to check out: Mr. Greg.
He thought about it for a moment and then said, “Kevin, why didn’t you remind me? I left something on the doorstep. Go fetch it.”
Kevin came back holding something behind his back. “It’s for you,” he said to his mother, holding out a colourful bouquet of fresh flowers tied with ribbon. “It’s from both of us.”
Silvia was clearly touched. She kissed and hugged Kevin, and Roger thought she might kiss him as well, but he was already edging to the door.
Once outside, he scanned the line of closed doors, Silvia’s neighbours, and he asked her if she ever got away from here even for a few days.
“Never. I’d prefer to work, Roger. Maybe I will someday. I tried but Kevin was at school, and my health suffered for years. Paranoid personality disorder (PPD) is what they like to call it, but they forget I’m a trained nurse. PPD is imagined fear. I don’t imagine anything.”
They said goodbye, waited for Silvia to close and lock the door, and then walked away to find the car Roger had borrowed from Mick Edgeley Transport.
“What do we do now, Roger?” Kevin asked. It was nine thirty.
“Sleep,” he said. “Why? What do you suggest?”
“I don’t know. It depends.”
Roger stopped walking, turned, faced him, and held him by the shoulder.
“Tell me, Kevin. What does it depend on? More importantly, who does it depend on? Let me tell you something, Mr. I Don’t Know. If I was eighteen years old and my mother had just kissed me goodbye after I’d given her a bunch of flowers and I was as mad as hell about what’s been going on around here all these years and I’d watched my mother go through all that trauma since I was wearing a nappy and throwing up my milk and no one seemed to care enough to do something, I’d know exactly what I wanted to do.”
Kevin stared “What?”
“I’d invoke a spirit of determination, Kevin. Know what that is? I’d get off my fat ass, gather some indisputable evidence, and then insist that that great army of law enforcers whose salaries and pensions we all pay for do what they’re paid to do.”
“Yeh,” Kevin said thoughtfully. “So can you still stick around and help?”
“I thought I already was, but you could always ask me nicely.”
“Then please would you stick around and help, Uncle Roger?”
Roger removed his hand from Kevin’s shoulder. “That’s better. So where do we start, young man? And don’t say you don’t know, or I’m taking Madge straight home to Yeovil where she belongs.”
Kevin sniffed and wiped his cheeks. “Well,” he said, “I think I like Mr. Greg. I can’t believe he’s involved.”
“Well fancy that. What a good idea. And do you know what, Kevin? I feel exactly the same. So what do we do?”
“Check him out.”
“Agreed. It’ll be the first job in the morning. Anything else?”
“Maybe I should take a look inside Khan’s room behind the shop.”
“And how will you gain access without him finding you, putting a stick of dynamite up your shirt and detonating it with one of his new detonators?”
“I don’t know.” He paused. “Just yet.”
“Anything else?”
“Ask around. I’ll talk to Bash.”
“Does he run a street gang by any chance?”
“Bash at Bashir’s Oriental Foods.”
“Ah, your employer with the halal butchery.”
“Bash hates Khan.”
“Why?”
“Khan always owes him money, and Bash is Bangladeshi.”
“Do Bangladeshis and Pakistanis tell jokes about each other like the English and the Irish? Don’t answer that. Anyone else you can think of?”
“Winston.”
“Does Winston hate Khan?”
“Winston has got some Nigerian mates, and they hate the Pakistanis.”
“We don’t want a war, Kevin. Anyone else?”
“Walid. Walid works for Gordon, and Gordon hates Khan.”
“It’s a very rough plan, Kevin, but I feel we’re starting from a rather low level, don’t you? And what exactly do you expect Bash, Winston, and Walid to actually do?”
Kevin sniffed and almost said he didn’t know but, thankfully, Roger spoke first. “Who’s your local member of Parliament?” he asked.
Kevin shrugged.
“Did you vote at the last election?”
“I wasn’t old enough.”
“Did you know you can use your phone for more than playing battleships or whatever it is your generation does to keep fit? Why not spend what’s left of the evening checking out local history: troubles, scandals, comings and goings, street riots, arrests. Call me in the morning to tell me you know everything that’s happened around Park Road since you gave up milk and moved to solids.”
“I need internet and Wi-Fi.”
Roger took a deep and noisy breath. “Jesus wept. Surely, a streetwise guy like you knows where to find that at night even around Park Road. Meanwhile, Hamish has already fixed your car. It’s still unroadworthy due to the tyres, but you might like to call him to say thanks for everything so far. Who knows, perhaps a phone call might stop him having second thoughts about calling the police.”
“Yeh,” Kevin said thoughtfully.
“Yeh,” Roger imitated. “And you might like to consider the fact that Hamish was once in the police force.”
“The police?”
“Yeh,” Roger said slowly and deliberately, as if it was unimportant. “He was in the London Metropolitan Police as a matter of fact. He only resigned when his father died, leaving him the farm. Then his wife died. Life can be tough, but people have got interesting backgrounds, Kevin. He knows a bit. He knows people. One call from him and . . . well, I’ll leave you to use what little imagination you’ve got. Go to work, Kevin. The night is young.”
“What are you going to do?”
“An old man needs his beauty sleep.”
***
The only place Kevin knew where he could access free, all-night Wi-Fi was Osman’s Launderette on Brick Street. The laundrette closed at 8:30 p.m., but Kevin had the password, and there was a wall around the back to sit on and where the signal was good enough.
Walking towards Osman’s, he checked his phone. Walid had left a message earlier, and so, as he walked, Kevin called him back. Before he got to Brick Street, Kevin had changed his mind and, instead, headed to number 9, Shipley Street and Walid’s first-floor bedsitter. He called him again from the road outside, and Walid came down and let him in.
Upstairs in Walid’s tiny room, they sat on the floor and talked. Walid, ever the good host, even broke open a fresh litre bottle of diet coke. Within an hour, they’d both learned something new.
Kevin learned about Walid’s passport problem and his suspicions about Khan, and that Gordon was trying to sort it out.
Walid learned about Kevin’s trip to Scotland, the parcel of forged passports, and was then sworn to secrecy with high fives about Roger and Hamish.
Then, suddenly finding some long-hidden confidence, Kevin mentioned his mum and that she’d worked in Pakistan and knew a lot about Khan. He was even tempted to mention his father but chickened out at that point because it seemed almost embarrassing. And anyway, Walid had jumped in by mentioning his own mother and how the hospital she worked in had been bombed.
Kevin had not even told Cass about his father yet, but it felt good to share things with Walid because he seemed to understand the Middle East better. Perhaps he’d say a bit more later. But he ended up saying, “If Khan breaks into your place, then why not break into his, Walid? What do you think? Shall we see what’s in that room at the back of Faisal World Travel?”
High fives fixed that with details to be discussed later.
Kevin then moved on to the call from Cass.
“It was so cool, man. We’d only been discussing him a few hours before and then—BOOM!—the phone rings, and there he was. After two years. He went to Turkey with a parcel for Khan and was abducted and imprisoned and forced to forge passports for ISIL. But he’s just escaped. He’s in a bad way right now, but it all started with Khan.”
Walid was shocked. “Yalahi,” he said. “Oh my god, Kevs. You mean Khan is like some big mafia boss?”
“Oh definitely. I told you, Walid. Park Road and Shipley Street are some dangerous locations. These streets are run by Pakistani mafia.”
“So where is Cass now, Kevs?” Walid asked.
“Thailand,” Kevin said.
“Thailand?” Walid exclaimed, knocking over their coke bottle and spilling what was left onto the bare floorboards. “Kurt’s in Thailand. He flew there about two days ago. There was a message about mosquitoes the size of American F16 jet fighters. Shall we tell him about Cass?”
They agreed. Things could not be made any worse by involving mates.