Stephen Leather - False Friends

‘And you have him under surveillance all the time, right?’ said Malik.

‘Best you don’t know about the operational details,’ said Shepherd.

‘Now who’s treating us like mushrooms?’ said Malik.

‘There’s a difference, Harvey,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m doing it because I’ve got your best interests at heart. I’m on your side. Khalid just wants to use you.’

Even as the words were leaving his lips, Shepherd wondered just how truthful he was being. Yes, he was looking out for the two men and didn’t want them in harm’s way, but he was also being very selective about what he was telling them and in that respect he wasn’t much different from the men planning to use them as terrorists.

‘You’re doing a great job, and I’m watching your backs every step of the way,’ he said, smiling confidently.

Chaudhry and Malik joined the queue of men, mainly Pakistani, waiting to enter the Musallaa An-noorthe mosque in Dynevor Road. It was close to where they lived and catered for mainly Pakistani Muslims, with room for about a hundred worshippers at any one time. They nodded to those that they recognised but didn’t talk to anyone. The man in front of them was in his seventies, wearing a grey dishdash and a crocheted skullcap. He flicked a cigarette butt into the street before heading through the door at the side of a run-down sportswear shop. Chaudhry and Malik went down the stairs after him, keeping their hands on the walls either side for balance. At the bottom of the stairs they slipped off their shoes and put them in one of the wooden racks by the door. They were both dressed comfortably but respectfully in long-sleeved shirts and trousers and they were wearing ties. It had been drummed into Chaudhry as a child that the mosque was a place where men went to commune with Allah and that it was important to dress accordingly. But as he looked around he could see that most of the Muslims who had come to pray had not had the same upbringing. There were men in grimy sweatshirts and loose tracksuit bottoms, loose shirts and baggy jeans, stained overalls; there were even two teenagers wearing football shirts and shorts who were obviously on their way to a match. They were both chewing gum, and Chaudhry considered going over to them and admonishing them but he knew that it wasn’t his place to do that. He was there to pray, not to get into arguments with Muslims who should know better.

At just after sunset it was time for the Maghrib prayers, the fourth of five formal daily prayers that every good Muslim carries out. The man standing directly in front of Chaudhry rolled up his jeans to make it easier to kneel when praying, but he did it casually, one leg rolled right up to the knee, the other to mid-calf, and when he did kneel the jeans rode down and revealed his underwear. Chaudhry shook his head at the lack of respect.

He looked over at Malik and nodded at the uneven trousers of the man in front of them. Malik grinned. Like Chaudhry he had been born in Britain to hard-working middle-class Pakistani parents and had been brought up to respect the sanctity of the mosque.

The man’s toenails were long and yellowing and there was dirt under them. Chaudhry shuddered. He could never understand why people who followed a religion where shoes were always being removed didn’t make more of an effort to take care of their feet. It didn’t take much to clip nails and to wash before heading to the mosque. He took a deep breath and looked away. There was no point in worrying about the personal grooming habits of others.

He knelt down and began to pray. As his face got close to the prayer mat the stench of sweat and tobacco hit him and his stomach lurched. Whoever had last been on the mat had obviously been a heavy smoker and hadn’t been overzealous on the personal-hygiene front. He sat back on his heels and sighed.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Malik.

‘The mat stinks,’ said Chaudhry. ‘What’s wrong with people? Why can’t they shower before they come to pray? Or at least spray on some cologne.’

‘Do you want to move? There are spaces at the back.’

Chaudhry looked over his shoulder. The mosque was busy and moving would mean threading their way through the rows and even then he couldn’t see two places together. ‘I’ll put up with it,’ he said. ‘But I don’t understand why the imams don’t say something.’

‘I think they’re more worried about numbers than hygiene,’ whispered Malik. ‘Come on, let’s finish and get out.’

Chaudhry nodded and began to pray, as always forcing himself to concentrate on the words even though he had said them tens of thousands of times before. He knew that many of the men around him were simply going through the motions, their lips moving on autopilot while their minds were elsewhere, their thoughts on their work, on their families, or more likely on what they were missing on television or on what they would be eating for dinner. That wasn’t how Chaudhry had been brought up to pray. Prayer was the time when one communed with Allah and to do it half-heartedly was worse than not doing it at all. Not that he found it a chore. In fact he relished the inner peace that came with focused prayer, the way that all extraneous thoughts were pushed away, all worries, all concerns, all fears. All that mattered were the prayers, and once he had begun he wasn’t even aware of the stench of stale sweat and cigarette smoke.

When they finished they made their way out and slipped on their shoes. They headed up the stairs and out into Dynevor Road. It was a cold day and Malik pulled up the fur-lined hood of his parka as they turned right towards their flat, but they stopped when they heard a voice behind them.

‘Hello, brothers.’

They turned round. It was Kamran Khalid, their friend and mentor. And the man who had sent them to Pakistan for al-Qaeda training. Khalid was tall, just over six feet, and stick-thin. He had a close-cropped beard and a hooked nose between piercing eyes that rarely seemed to blink.

‘Brother,’ said Chaudhry, and Khalid stepped forward and hugged him, kissing him softly on both cheeks. He did the same with Malik.

Khalid claimed to be from Karachi but never spoke about his family or schooling in Pakistan. He spoke good English, albeit with a thick accent, but Chaudhry had also heard him talking in Arabic on several occasions. As far as the authorities were concerned, Khalid was an Afghan, a refugee from the Taliban. He had claimed that his family had been massacred by Taliban tribesmen and that had been enough to get him refugee status and eventually citizenship, but Chaudhry doubted that he was an Afghan. On the few occasions that he’d talked to Khalid about his background, the man had been vague rather than evasive and had smoothly changed the subject.

‘All is well?’ asked Khalid, addressing them both.

Chaudhry and Malik nodded. ‘We are all in mourning for what happened,’ said Chaudhry, keeping his voice low.

Khalid smiled tightly. ‘At least we know that The Sheik is in Paradise reaping the rewards of a holy life. And how lucky were you to be blessed by the man himself.’

‘There will be retribution, won’t there?’ asked Chaudhry.

Khalid smiled easily, showing abnormally large teeth that were gleaming white and almost square. ‘Not here, brothers,’ he whispered. ‘Walk with me.’

He took them along to Stoke Newington High Street and into a Turkish-run coffee shop. The Turks ran most of the restaurants and shops in the area and they guarded their territory jealously, which was why none of the major chains were represented. It was clammy and hot inside the shop and Malik and Chaudhry took off their coats. Khalid waited until a young Turkish boy had set down three espressos on their table and gone back to the cash register before leaning across the table and addressing them in a hushed voice. ‘The Americans will pay, the British will pay, they will all pay,’ he said.