Kia Abdullah - Take It Back

Amir flinched. ‘My parents are coming?’ His voice was tense with worry. ‘They’re going to kill me.’

Hassan next to him was a coil of anger. ‘This is bullshit,’ he swore. His last syllable climbed a register, creating the wobble he hated in his voice.

Mia watched them with interest, noting the change in mood at the mention of their parents. ‘Come on.’ She tugged Amir away and turned him towards the exit. He wrenched around and looked at his friends. Before he had a chance to speak, Mia pulled him back and gave him a gentle shove. As he began to walk, he heard Najim behind him. ‘Don’t worry,’ he shouted. And then, in Urdu: don’t tell the pigs anything.

Hashim Khan hurried up the stairs but failed to catch the door held briefly open. At sixty-one, his legs were far wearier than even two years before. He had increasingly begun to ask himself if it was time to wind down his fruit stall but his state pension was a few years away and could he really support his wife and three children without the extra income? He pushed open the wooden doors to Bow Road Police Station and followed Yasser Rabbani to reception.

Yasser, dressed in a tailored pinstripe suit with a woollen mustard coat slung around his shoulders, looked like he’d stepped out of a Scorsese movie. Despite approaching his sixties, he was powerfully built and strikingly handsome – clearly the source of Amir’s good looks. He placed a firm hand on the counter. ‘Excuse me, I’m looking for my son.’

The receptionist, a heavyset woman in her late forties, glanced up from her keyboard. ‘What’s his name, sir?’

Hashim leaned forward, his solemn eyes laced with worry. ‘Woh kiya kehraha hai?’ he asked Yasser to translate.

Yasser held up an impatient hand. ‘Ap kuch nehi boloh. Me uske saath baat karongi.’ He urged the older man to let him handle the conversation. He spoke with the woman for a few long minutes and then, in a muted tone, explained that their sons were under arrest.

Hashim wiped at his brow. ‘Saab, aap kyun nahi uske taraf se boltay? Mujhe kuch samajh nahi aaygi.’

Yasser shook his head. In Urdu, he said, ‘They don’t have interpreters here right now. And I can’t go with your son. Who’s going to look after mine ?’

The older man grimaced. What could he – an uneducated man – do for his son? Thirty-five years he had been in Britain. Thirty-five years he had functioned with only a pinch of English. Now he was thrust into this fearsome place and he had no words to unpick the threat. He wished that Rana were here. His wife, who assiduously ran her women’s group on Wednesday afternoons, could speak it better than he. For a long time, she urged him to learn it too. Language is the path to progress , she would say, only half ironically. The guilt rose like smoke around him. Why had he spent so many exhausted hours by the TV? There was time for learning after a day on the stall. Cowed by embarrassment, he let himself be led away, along a corridor, into an austere room.

Farid sat alone under the fluorescent light, fingers knitted together as if in prayer. He looked up, a flame of sorrow sparking in his eyes. He offered a thin smile. ‘It’s okay, Aba ,’ he said in Urdu. ‘Nothing happened. They just want to question us.’

Hashim sat down with his hands splayed on his knees and his joints already stiffening from the air conditioning. He stared at the wiry grey carpet to still the nerves that jangled in his limbs.

Hashim Khan had learnt to fear the white man. After moving to England in the seventies, he had learnt that wariness and deference were necessary in all dealings with the majority race. Now, called upon to protect his son, he knew no amount of deference would help. The door shut behind him with a metallic thud. He closed his eyes and whispered a prayer.

‘Mr Rabbani, please take a seat. Would you like a drink? We have coffee, tea, water.’

‘No,’ said Yasser. ‘Tell me what this is about or I’m calling a lawyer.’

Mia was unruffled. ‘If your son is guilty, he probably needs one. If not, he’ll likely be out of here in an hour.’

Yasser scowled. ‘Then tell me what this is about.’

Mia pointed at a chair and waited for him to sit. She explained that the interview was being recorded and ran through some formalities.

Amir shifted in his seat, feeling unnaturally small next to his father’s frame.

Mia began, ‘Amir, can you tell me where you were on the evening of Thursday the twenty-seventh of June?’

‘Yes. I was at home until about 7 p.m., then I went to a party with some of my friends.’

‘What time did you get there?’

Amir shrugged. ‘I don’t really remember.’

‘Okay, what did you do after the party?’

‘I went home.’

‘What time did you get home?’

‘I’m not sure. About 1 a.m.’

Mia made a note. ‘And you went straight home after the party?’

‘Yes, I just said that.’

Mia smiled coldly. ‘Well, what if I said we have reports of you attending an after-party of sorts at seventy-two Bow Docks, a derelict warehouse approximately seventy metres from the location of the party?’

Amir frowned. ‘That wasn’t an after-party. We were just fooling around on our way home.’

Mia glanced at the father. He was like a nervous cat, poised to pounce at any moment. Perhaps a soft approach was best here. ‘Okay, it wasn’t an after-party – my mistake. What did you boys get up to there?’

‘We just hung out.’

Mia tapped the table with her index finger. ‘And by that you mean?’

‘We just talked, played music and …’ He swallowed hard. ‘We had a smoke.’

Amir’s father snapped to attention. ‘A smoke? Of what?’

‘Dad, I’m sorry, it’s not something we do all the time. Just sometimes.’

‘A smoke of what ?’

The boy stammered. ‘Ganja.’

Yasser shot back in his chair. ‘Tu ganja peera hai? Kahan se aaya hai? Kis haraami ne tujhe yeh diya hai?’

‘Aba, please. It was just once or twice.’ Amir tried to push back his chair but it was bolted to the floor.

‘I work all hours of the day to give you the life you have and you’re going to throw it away on drugs?’

Amir shrank beneath the ire as if physically ducking blows. ‘Dad, I swear to God, it was only once or twice. Kasam .’

His father’s voice grew stony. ‘Just wait until your mother hears about this.’ Yasser shook his head in disbelief. ‘We’ll deal with this later.’ He exhaled slowly and turned to Mia. ‘I’m sorry, officer. Please continue.’

Mia felt a flicker of grudging respect. It was obvious he cared about his son’s mistakes. Too often she saw young men trudge through here like ghosts, floating from one place to another with nothing at all to tether them. Yasser Rabbani clearly cared about his son.

‘So you were smoking cannabis,’ said Mia. ‘Was there alcohol?’

Amir vigorously shook his head. ‘No.’

Mia made a note to ask again later. ‘Who else was there?’

Amir nodded at the door. ‘Mo, Hassan and Farid.’

‘Did anyone join you throughout the course of the night?’

‘No.’

Mia caught the fissure in his voice. ‘Amir, you should know that our officers are collecting your computers as we speak and we’ll be examining your phones. If you or your friends are hiding something, we’ll find out.’ She smiled lightly. ‘Don’t you watch CSI ?’

Amir blinked. ‘Okay, there was one other person there but I really don’t want this to get out. I’ve been trying to protect her forever.’

‘Who’s that?’