Osama

‘There’s a dreadful knocking sound, Mr Ashe. I didn’t know what it was. I thought perhaps you were—’

‘It’s nothing, Mrs Jones. Come back downstairs. I’ll deal with it.’

Bethan found herself frowning slightly. She glanced up at the door of Mr Ashe’s room again. ‘Of course,’ she said finally. ‘Thank you, you’re so kind.’

Mr Ashe smiled again and, after he reset the power switch, the stairlift descended. Bethan unstrapped herself and accepted his arm as he helped her back into the sitting room. The knocking sound returned as they entered. ‘Probably just the pipes, Mr Ashe,’ she said. ‘My Gethin used to see to all that, you know.’

Mr Ashe helped her onto the sofa. Dandelion jumped back onto her lap.

‘I wonder, Mr Ashe, if you’d mind having a look?’

‘Of course.’

He inclined his head towards her, then walked towards the door.

‘Oh, Mr Ashe!’

‘Yes, Mrs Jones?’

‘It is good to have you back again. Isn’t it, Dandelion?’

But Jeremy Kyle was in full flow, and yet again Dandelion failed to reply.

Mr Ashe checked that the sitting-room door was firmly closed behind him. As he crossed the musty hallway, he heard the sound again. He calmly climbed the stairs, inserted his key into the door of his bedroom, and opened it. Standing in the doorway, he observed the source of the knocking.

The boy was where he had left him: his body and legs tied to a ladder-back chair, his hands bound behind his back and with packing tape stuck over his mouth. The bruises on his face were substantially worse than when Mr Ashe had inflicted them – great purple welts, some of them weeping a colourless liquid, like tears. The chair was tied to the ancient yellow radiator on the far wall. At first his abductor couldn’t work out how the boy was making this noise. He closed the door behind him and stepped into the room – past the single bed on the left with its patchwork quilt, past the round table bearing his laptop and satellite phone, along with piles of books and documents. Only when he was a few paces away from his prisoner did he see what had happened. The boy had managed to wriggle his left foot out of the rope that had previously bound his ankle. Now, knowing that it was his last chance, he started banging his free foot repeatedly and more rapidly on the floor.

Within twenty seconds Mr Ashe had silenced it, retying the rope so tightly around the boy’s ankle and the chair leg that he whimpered with the pain. Standing back, he examined the child’s face. Although he could see the fear in his eyes, he felt a measure of respect that he had tried to raise the alarm. Maybe he was, after all, his father’s son.

With a sudden swipe he slapped the back of his hand across the boy’s face, making sure to hit an existing welt.

Pulling a chair up to the round table, he sat down and removed his leather-bound copy of the Koran from his coat pocket. He then rearranged some of the books on the table to access a small radio, boxy and bright orange, which he switched on. The radio emitted crackly white noise. He fully extended the aerial, then minutely adjusted the wheel on the side until the white noise subsided somewhat and a male voice became audible. It said a single word – ‘Three’ – before the white noise returned.

Mr Ashe laid the radio on his laptop and looked back at the boy. The petrified child was staring at him, shaking with fear and pain. Mr Ashe raised one finger to his lips, but otherwise remained expressionless.

Two minutes passed. The male voice returned to the radio.

‘Fifty-five. Seven. Three.’

Mr Ashe picked up his Koran. He turned to page fifty-five, then carefully counted down seven lines before reading the third word. It was ?????? – sabr. That made him smile. It meant ‘patience’.

He opened the laptop, concentrating hard, deaf now to the white noise of the radio, and switched it on. He did the same to the satellite phone to which it was connected. Even if there had been ordinary internet connectivity in this out-of-the-way location, he would not have used it. The encrypted satellite connection was many times more secure, and without the decryption key, the online conversation he was about to have would be quite meaningless.

A window appeared on the screen, and at the top a blank text-entry box with a flashing black cursor. Below it, a virtual keypad displayed the Arabic alphabet. He used the trackpad to fill in the word ?????? , then pressed ‘enter’. The screen went black. And then, after ten seconds, a line of white text appeared at the top: ‘Confirm UK strike to proceed?’

Mr Ashe stared at the screen. Very slowly he looked over his left shoulder. The boy was watching him. Staring with what was perhaps a foolish lack of understanding. It didn’t matter either way. He wouldn’t have the opportunity to tell anybody.

‘Repeat: confirm UK strike to proceed?’

The words appeared for a second time and he sensed his correspondent’s impatience coming down the line. He turned his attention to the keyboard. Using his two forefingers, he typed slowly but deliberately: ‘C… O… N… F… I… R… M… E… D’.

He pressed ‘enter’. Two seconds later the screen went black again. The connection had been broken remotely.

It was the miaowing of a cat that warned him. Dandelion, on the other side of the door. He glanced up and saw the handle opening slowly. He was still calculating whether he could get to the door quickly enough, when it became academic anyway. It swung open. Dandelion was there. So was Mrs Jones.

She was leaning on her stick, and the stairlift was visible just behind her.

‘Fifty-five. Seven. Three.’

Mr Ashe’s eyes shot towards the radio and he silently berated himself for not having turned it off and so not hearing the stairlift ascend. He stood up, just as the boy, who was in full view of the old lady at the door, started to make desperate, inarticulate sounds from beneath the tape that covered his lips.

‘Mr Ashe…’ stammered Bethan. Her watery eyes darted between the boy and her lodger. ‘I… I don’t understand…’

Mr Ashe remained calm. There was, he knew, nothing to be gained from panicking. Ignoring the boy’s helpless noises, he stepped towards the doorway, put his hands on Bethan’s shoulders, and encouraged her to turn round.

‘But Mr Ashe… that… that poor boy.’

‘There is no boy, Mrs Jones. You’re getting confused.’

He closed the door behind them.

‘But I saw…’

‘Sit down, Mrs Jones. I’m sure you’d like a nice cup of hot Ribena.’

‘The knocking, Mr Ashe. Was that… ’ she asked as she eased herself onto the stairlift.

‘You don’t need to worry about the knocking any more, Mrs Jones. Let me help you down.’

He pressed the control and the stairlift started to descend, then he followed.

‘Mr Ashe!’ cried Bethan. ‘I’m not strapped in. Mr Ashe! Please stop the chair.’

He did as he was asked.

The old lady was flustered. She looked back up at the open door of the bedroom, from which the boy’s muted cries were still audible, but her hands were fumbling for the strap without which she clearly felt so nervous.

‘Let me help you,’ Mr Ashe said.

Perhaps it was something in his voice that startled her. She stared as though she was looking at him through new eyes. ‘There is a boy in your room,’ she whispered. ‘You think I’m confused, but I’m not. I… I can still hear him.’

He bent down and seized her around the waist. She started to whimper and shake her head. She was tiresome, he thought to himself, but not a complete fool because she seemed to know what was coming.

Mr Ashe spoke very softly, his lips just a couple of inches from her ear. This time, however, his precise English had fallen away, to be replaced by the harsh, guttural accent of his native Arabic. ‘You should never forget, old lady,’ he whispered, cruelty dripping from his lips, ‘to strap yourself in.’