Her unease soon vanished. Sabin and Mohid were both so friendly, so erudite and Sabin was, well, so beautiful. His face was angelic, with piercing eyes and flawless skin, a wisp of beard on his chin. They were students, Sabin explained, and had recently returned from a study trip abroad. Now they needed solitude to complete their PhDs in time for the end-of-year deadline. What were they studying, she enquired. Mohid’s PhD was to do with astro-something-or-other. Astrology? No, that didn’t sound quite right. Never mind. She remembered Sabin had said he was examining the Islamic diaspora. She didn’t know what diaspora meant, but Islam…
‘What do you mean, not white?’ her friend Sybil said when she told her about her new tenants.
‘They’re a couple of those…’ Irene said. ‘You know. Muslims.’
Sybil brushed aside Irene’s concerns. ‘I slept with one once. It was in Turkey. You remember the holiday I took a few years back? Well, it was then. A young Kurdish man. Very nice. Very… um… very… good.’
Irene’s mouth dropped open. ‘That was the holiday you took for your sixtieth!’
Sybil nodded, smiling. Something about her face. A warm glow. As if vitality could spring forth from a memory. ‘Yes.’
Irene showed Sabin and Mohid the annexe and explained it was completely separate from the main house. They’d be able to come and go as they wished. They both seemed pleased and asked if they could move in right away. And they’d pay cash, if that was OK?
OK? It was fine!
‘One thing,’ she said when they were back outside but before she accepted the money. ‘You wanted peace and quiet and solitude, but you do know what’s just over there?’
She pointed over the roof of the bungalow and as if by magic a huge shape loomed in the air, engines on full power, the fuselage seemingly close enough to reach up and touch. As several hundred tonnes of aluminium and passengers and aviation fuel crawled into the sky above them, the windows rattled and the ground beneath their feet shook.
‘Heathrow airport.’ Irene cocked her head. ‘Are you sure the planes won’t worry you?’
‘No,’ Sabin said. He glanced at Mohid and smiled as he looked up. ‘They won’t worry us one little bit.’
First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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London W1T 3JW
United Kingdom
Copyright © Mark Sennen, 2020
The moral right of Mark Sennen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788639811
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Epilogue
Copyright
