'That's why he was on the last plane out, because he stayed to help. But someone shot the plane down. We don't know who or why. Cowardly thing to do, shooting down the last retreating plane. It was a Hercules, full of troops. It crashed over by the river and only your father and two other men survived. He is very lucky to be alive. Assuming he is still alive.'
'He's alive,' I said, trying to persuade myself.
Tariq looked at me curiously. 'What was it like in England?'
I sighed. 'I heard it was chaos in the cities. Fires and mobs and mass graves. But where I was, in the countryside, it was kind of civilised. Lots of old ladies locking themselves away, desperate not to be a bother to anybody. The odd farmer started shooting anyone they saw on their land, but that was about as bad as it got. The trouble only really started after the plague burnt itself out.'
'It was not like that here,' said Tariq, shaking his head wearily. 'Exactly the opposite. The British got orders to pull out and leave us to die. There was talk of a big operation back home.'
That triggered a memory: a dead man, tied to a chair screaming.
'Operation Motherland?'
'Yes, that was it. Your father never told me what it was, but the army just packed up and left. The Medhi army tried to take control for a while. There were some massacres, lots of fighting. It was horrible. But then Sadr died of the plague and eventually there weren't enough of them left and it just sort of dribbled away.
'For us, the plague ended the fighting. The big armies were gone and there was more than enough room for all the religious and racial groups to stay out of each other's way. The Kurds have their own homeland now, in the north. The Shi'ites and the Sunnis have their own towns and holy places and they leave each other alone. And although there are only a few hundred of them left, it's the first time in living memory that no-one's been trying to wipe out the marsh Arabs up in Maysan.
'The Cull was the best thing that ever happened to Iraq. It achieved what no army ever could: it brought peace.'
I couldn't help but laugh. The irony that so much death could end the killing.
'So what went wrong?' I asked.
'After the British had gone, the Americans came to Basra.'
'What was so bad about that?'
Tariq looked at me in amazement, as if I'd just asked the stupidest question of all time.
'Did you not see the pictures from Abu Ghraib? Hear about the murders in Haditha?'
'Of course, but you're not going to tell me that all American soldiers are like that. I mean, those were isolated incidents. Bad apples.'
Tariq inclined his head, as if to say 'maybe'.
'You may be right. We have Brett with us, and there were others who deserted rather than follow the orders they were given. Brett is American and he has saved my life more than once.'
'Well then.'
'But what they did here, Lee. It was awful.'
'Then tell me.'
He thought for a second and then shook his head.
'No,' he said. 'I will show you.'
'Start at the beginning,' said Dad. 'And tell me everything.'
So I did. From the moment I arrived at the school gates, to the explosion that levelled the place. I left nothing out. All the decisions I'd made, the consequences of those choices, the lives I'd ended or destroyed. The blood and the guilt. When I finished he just sat there and stared at me, tears rolling down his face. It took him a long time to find his voice.
'I don't…' he whispered. 'I'm so sorry.'
I shrugged. 'Not your fault.'
We sat there in silence for a few moments, neither of us knowing what to say.
'Remember all those arguments you and Mum used to have about Grandad?' I asked, forcing a grin, changing the subject.
He smiled and nodded, wiping his eyes.
'He thought the army was the only place for a young man,' he said.
''Just look at your father,'' I said, imitating Grandad's round, fruity, upper class vowels. ''It made a man out of him.''
'And the way he said that, so you knew that he meant 'and he was just a bloody guttersnipe'.'
'Never liked you much, did he?'
'Oh, he was all right I s'pose. He could have been a lot worse, believe me. It's just, well, he was a bloody General and he thought his little girl married beneath her. She should have married an officer, but he ended up with a Black Country grunt for a son-in-law and he didn't really know how to talk to me. He had this idea that if you joined up you'd go straight to Sandhurst and the Officer's Club, and at least the next generation would sort of get things back on track. He could pull some strings, make sure you'd never end up a squaddie. Not like me.'
'You used to get so angry when he started banging on about me joining the army, especially when Mum didn't tell him to stop.'
'I never wanted you to become a soldier,' said dad, seriously.
'Well, look at me. That's what I am now, Dad. Sorry. At least Grandad would be proud of me.'
He started, looked surprised, made to say something, but I cut him off.
'He died early,' I said. 'Him and Gran. First wave.'
'I know, your Mum told me on the phone.'
There was an awkward silence, then he said: 'About your mother.'
'I don't really want to talk about it.'
'But it must have been…'
'It was what it was.'
I avoided his eyes as he searched my face for clues. Eventually he nodded, accepting my refusal to talk about her death. I was grateful for that.
'So the school was destroyed and you just, what, stole a plane and flew here on your own?'
I nodded. He whistled through his teeth.
'Nowhere else for me to go,' I said.
'You could have stayed there. Gone with them to the new place. They're your friends, surely you'd have been welcome?'
I didn't feel like explaining myself any more, so I just shrugged.
He gestured to the cell walls. 'And how…?'
'I surrendered. Thought they'd know where you were. Which, as it turns out, they did.'
'Oh Lee, you shouldn't have come here. You really shouldn't.'
'Why are you a prisoner?' I asked.
But I knew damn well why.
There were skeletons everywhere, picked clean by predators and bleached by the sun. Charred, tattered clothing still hung off most of them.
The low stands of the rickety football stadium were mostly free of bodies. A few people who'd tried to escape were sprawled across the wooden benches, but the majority of the dead lay in piles on the pitch itself. They were grouped in tens and twenties, as if neighbours and families had huddled together when the shooting started.
'The adults tried to protect the children,' said Tariq, following my gaze. 'Used their bodies to shield them from the bullets. Told them to play dead. Didn't work. The soldiers went through the bodies, finishing off survivors. Then they poured petrol over them and set them alight. One man had been missed by the sweep but he ran, screaming and burning out of the bodies and was shot. That's him, there.' He pointed to a small heap of disarticulated bones.
In the face of such a sight all I could manage was the obvious question.
'Why?'
'Orders. Secure the town, evict the survivors, kill anyone who wouldn't leave willingly. All these people wanted was to be left alone, to rebuild their town.'
