Jon Grimwood - Felaheen

Hypersensitivity was one description. Hani knew this because she'd done a quiz on a medical Web site. It suggested childhood stress might have made changes to an area of her brain called the cingulated gyrus . Or rather, her time with Aunt Nafisa had ensured changes were not made: reducing Hani's ability to filter out life's raw mixture of competing noise and demands.

Persistent stress-response state was a term she got fed by the site in Santa Fe. And Hani had all the symptoms; stomach ache and sleepless nights, a tendency to focus on nonverbal clues rather than speech. A preference for animals over humans.

"Ifritah," Hani said suddenly.

"What about Ifritah?"

"I've got to find her . . ." Hani was heading towards the stairs down into the house before Murad had time to move.

"Wait," he said, louder than he intended. "Let me see what's going on." Putting his head above the parapet Murad watched a man far below glue something to the front door. "I don't think it's safe," he said.

"We can't leave her behind." Tears had started in Hani's eyes and her face was set. Her cheeks pulled back as if battling through a wind tunnel of misery. "She'll be in danger."

Murad sighed. "I'll go," he said.

The cat wasn't on the top floor or the floor below. Just to be sure, Murad looked under beds and inside cupboards, fighting with the rickety shutter of a mashrabiya to check that Hani's kitten hadn't some how got inside, even though the mashrabiya's bolts were rusted almost solid and there was no way this was possible.

She wasn't on the floor below that either, where Raf, Hani and Murad had made camp in a huge room containing two sofas woven from rattan and a drinks cabinet still full of half-empty bottles of liqueur. Old copies of New Scientist and The Ecologist sat in a magazine rack. Someone had left a paperback facedown and open under a stool so long ago that most of the pages had rotted away or been eaten by beetles, but there was no Ifritah.

"Any sign?" The question came from above.

"No. Not yet."

Murad was halfway down the last flight of stairs when the door blew in. A pressure wave threw him back so he landed in a ragged heap. One of the steps caught his spine as he landed and it hurt.

The first soldier through the door shot the cat.

Get up , Murad told himself and was relieved to discover that he could. Taking the steps two at a time, he raced away from the black shadows tumbling through smoke, their weapons at the ready. At the very top of the house, at the foot of the stairs leading to the roof, Murad removed the key from the bottom door and used it to double click the lock from the other side. Then he did the same for the top door, the one that led out onto the roof and took that key as well.

"Ifritah . . ."

"Not there," he told Hani. "I'm sorry."

"You're bleeding." It sounded as if she'd only just noticed the fact.

"What?"

Hani touched her nose and Murad touched his own, fingers coming away sticky. "And your ear," she said. That turned out to be sticky too.

"We'll be in worse trouble," Murad said, "if we don't hide." Which proved to be easier to say than do, as there was only one exit to the flat roof of the dar and it was already locked.

"Down there," suggested Hani, pointing over the rear parapet to a dusty garden which obviously belonged to a neighbour. "We can use that."

Below them, built so that its nearest end joined the back wall of Dar Welham was the tiled roof of a fourth-floor balcony. The drop from where they stood to the tiles was maybe twice Hani's height.

"Unless you're afraid?"

Instinctively Murad's chin went up. "Of course I'm not," he started to say, then met Hani's dark eyes and stopped. "Okay," he said, "I admit it. I've been scared ever since we left Tunis."

"Me too." Hani reached out to wipe dirt from his face, as if that was just a natural thing to do. Maybe it was, Hani didn't know and probably wasn't the person to ask about stuff like that. Until six months ago she'd believed that keeping a toy dog in her room deserved the slaps it invariably earned her, because Ali Din was male and her Aunt Nafisa had rules about such things.

Only now Hani lived with Raf, whose rules were less strict. Which made life easier but doing the right thing more difficult, because most of the time Hani just had to guess what that was . . .

"Like now." Hani said to herself.

"Like now what?" demanded Murad.

"We need to move."

She nodded to the sloping roof of next door's mashrabiya. "You first," she said.

"Wait . . ."

"No time."

"But I'm not ready," Murad protested. And that was when Hani realized that both his ears must be damaged. Someone was trying the handle of the door at the bottom of the roof stairs. A fact that seemed to escaped Murad.

"Do you want Kashif's men to catch us?"

Sliding over the edge, the boy twisted round until he hung by his fingers, then she heard a clatter below as Murad flailed for a grip to stop himself tumbling over the edge.

Hani's landing was rather better, although less catlike than she'd have liked; her knees coming up to hit her chest as she met the tiles. Something else to add to the list of bits that hurt.

"This way," Hani said, dropping to her belly so she could peer over the edge of the mashrabiya. Its original carved screen was stolen and whoever had ripped it out had tacked a rotted tarpaulin in place to hide what they'd done. There was a market for architectural salvage, particularly at the top end. Back in El Isk, Hamzah Effendi had a houseful of the stuff. Hani was about to explain this to Murad but decided to save her words. He looked a bit preoccupied.

"I'll go," Hani said. "You went first last time."

The difficult bit turned out to be lowering herself over the edge, what with tiles scraping against knees, legs and tummy until the pull of gravity left her hanging. And that was before Hani edged rapidly along the drop looking for a tear she'd seen in the tarpaulin. Swinging once for luck, Hani flipped through the gap to land inside the mashrabiya.

It was all she could do not to miaow.

"Now you," Hani hissed, ripping aside some of the rotted canvas. "That should make it easier."

She saw his shoes first, scuffed oxfords followed rapidly by socks, turn-ups from his flannel trousers and then the length of his body up to the waist. She thought for a second Murad was about to freeze but he kept coming until he hung, eyes shut high above the courtyard.

"Do it," Hani said.

So Murad swung once, jackknifing like a gymnast and when he landed it was on his toes.

"That was okay," Hani admitted and Murad almost smiled. Together they refixed the rotten canvas as best they could. Hanging the tarpaulin from the holes that Hani had made when she ripped some of it down.

The empty house had two exits, a main one onto an alley and a small door, cupboardlike, that opened into a cul-de-sac so tight it was little more than the gap between two barely separate walls, one obviously much newer than the other. They chose the narrow way and finally exited on a street called Rue des Jardins, walking quickly with their heads down until they passed through a car park behind a hotel.

Walking slowly would have made more sense. Only neither one quite had the nerve so they hurried instead, trying hard not to run. And when they finally reached the market on Rue Ibn Chabbat, Hani made Murad stop in the shadow of a lorry.

"Let me," she said. Her handkerchief was unused and still held creases from where it had been ironed by Donna. Just looking at it made Hani want to cry. Licking a corner, she steadied Murad's chin with one hand and wiped crusted blood from the side of his mouth with the other. When she tried to wash blood from his left ear Murad began to cry as well.