CHAPTER ONE
Swat Valley, Pakistan, 2007
Raza lay on his stomach on a flat rock, peering out towards the horizon where the sinking sun covered the mountains in flares of red and gold light. He held a piece of wood that he had carved into the shape of a gun and he was making soft ack-ack noises in the back of his throat as he fired.
His enemy was unseen. The invading hordes of infidel soldiers lying crouched in the shadows of the mountains were conjured and fuelled in his mind by the apocryphal but blood-curdling stories brought back from Afghanistan by his two older brothers, Ajeet and Fakir.
His father, Zamir, climbing the narrow path from the village to find him, paused at the outcrop of rocks and stood silently watching. Raza was supposed to be minding their herd of goats, but he was playing one of his endless imaginary games instead.
Smoke rose lazily from the stone houses in the valley below. The sound of the child’s voice mimicking gunfire was muffled by the echoing bleat of goats.
In Zamir’s imagination he heard real gunfire, saw the hardened face and gnarled hands of an older Raza, wielding a Kalashnikov with the same zeal and fanaticism as Ajeet and Fakir.
The sun began to cast shadows over the dry earth as Zamir gazed out into the dying of the day. How little had changed in his lifetime. The Russians invaded, western nations made war on the Talibs, but he was still poor, his sons were still uneducated.
Unaware of his father, Raza sat cross-legged watching the sun drop and gild the mountain peaks. The gold of sunset tinged his hair like a halo. The stillness of his small body touched Zamir. There was a yearning in him that was familiar. A longing for something the heart could not fathom; a curiosity that extended beyond his known world. It was a sensation that had no form or shape. It was a shiver that entered a man’s soul, as seductive as the pull of the mountains or a woman. It was an absence in what lay before him, an intuitive thirst for something more.
Zamir turned away. He knew what he had to do. The Talibs had taken both Ajeet and Fakir as soon as they could hold a gun. He was not going to let that happen to his youngest son. He must not waver; he had made his decision. If he did not take action now, it would be too late. If Ajeet and Fakir heard of his plans they would snatch Raza while he slept.
His older sons considered Raza, and all village boys his age, as bound to the Taliban. Raza’s life was theirs to mould as they wished. It was too dangerous to speak of his plans to Raza. Or prepare him for what was to come, for the boy hero-worshipped his brothers. But tonight, as they ate their meal, he must tell the boy of their trip to Rawalpindi.
Zamir let out a piercing whistle as he saw his goats beginning to wander. Raza jumped and leapt off his rock, his baggy shalwar kameez flapping in the wind. He began to herd the goats towards his father.
Behind his beard, Zamia hid a grin. He should be angry and beat the boy for being careless with the herd, but he knew he would do no more than scold.
The sky was crimson behind Raza and the small climbing figure was etched as a dark silhouette amongst the white goats. The boy had jammed his kufi back on his head and iridescent threads caught the last of the light.
Zamir saw how thin Raza was. The goats and sheep were also thin. This drought was ruining the crops. Starvation was a step away. His heart ached with the loss to come, but he knew there was no other decision he could have made to secure his son’s future.
As Raza reached Zamir he called out, laughing. ‘Allaha’Akhabar. God is great. All the goats are here, Baba.’
Zamir swiped at the boy’s head. ‘No thanks to you,’ he muttered, pulling his turban close and wrapping his face in the thick cloth against the cold wind as night slid over the mountains.
CHAPTER TWO
Cornwall, 2009
Finn sat on the garden step of his grandparents’ house in Penzance on the first day of his summer holidays. He was watching a buzzard wheeling over the trees. It was making a high mewing call as two crows tried to mug him. The large birds, weaving and soaring to avoid each other, reminded Finn of his house in Germany. The woods that surrounded the army quarters in Hohne were full of birds of prey.
He should have been flying home to Germany today, but there had been a sudden change of plan. Ben, his father, had rung to say the regiment were leaving for Afghanistan two weeks earlier than planned so his leave would begin next week.
‘No point coming home for a week, Finn. Stay where you are with Delphi and Ian and help get the beach house ready for our holiday. Can’t wait to get into the water with you.’
It made sense but what if Ben’s leave was cancelled? It had happened before in a crisis. What if Ben had to suddenly fly off to Lashkar Gah and he did not get to see him before he left?
Finn felt the knot of anxiety begin again in his stomach. At half-term, the atmosphere between his parents, in the dark quarter surrounded by trees had disturbed him. He had felt a guilty relief in staying put with his grandparents. With Delphi and Ian, the days unfolded in a peaceful and predictable fashion. They did not constantly snap at each other.
Delphi lowered herself beside him on the step. After a bit she said, ‘You know, darling, the hardest bit for you all is waiting for Ben to go. Try not to worry about your parents. I know half-term was a bit tense, but adults do bicker. Hanna and Ben both need a break and you’re all going to have a wonderful, relaxed holiday together at the beach house before Ben leaves …’
Finn dared not tell Delphi what was in his mind. If he spoke his thoughts out loud, he might make them happen. It was true that his parents often bickered, benignly, but Finn had sensed a subtle difference in the tone of their bickering.
Hanna and Ben had taken care to smile and joke as usual in front of their children, but Finn noticed they rarely looked at one another or hugged anymore. His sister Izzy was probably too young to pick up bad vibes, but he wasn’t, and his parents must think he was pretty stupid not to realize something was wrong. Finn was afraid to ask them in case it meant DIVORCE. The word filled him with dread and foreboding.
Delphi placed a small package on Finn’s knees. ‘I found one of my unused travel journals lurking about in a drawer. I wondered if you would like it. It’s undated and the cover is rather lovely. If I’m feeling troubled about anything, I find that it helps to write my thoughts down on paper.’
Finn looked at his grandmother. She might be a witch. She always seemed to know how he was feeling. Delphi nudged him with her elbow to make him smile. Finn grinned. His grandmother felt solid against him; warm and safe. He began to unwrap the journal from the tissue paper. It had a blue cover with serrated edges. There were small photographs of foreign cities on each page. He could smell Delphi’s scent on the paper. She must have kept it in a drawer for years. He loved it. It was a beautiful, typically Delphi present.
‘Oh, cool!’ He turned the pages slowly until he got to July. ‘Thanks, Delphi.’
The photograph was Rome. Finn wanted to write in it straight away, but he decided he would wait until the four of them were all together again at the beach house. He would start to keep a diary of the summer. The summer before Ben left for Lashkar Gah.
That night Finn lay in bed in the room that had once been Ben’s. His father’s old school photos still hung on the walls. An old heavy cricket bat stood in a corner of the room. One of Ben’s Iraqi service medals was pinned to a bald teddy bear on the dressing table.
Finn lay in the narrow bed, his mind constantly returning to his parents and Izzy back home in Germany. He wanted to erase the disturbing feeling he had been left with after half-term.
Hanna and Izzy had met him at Hanover Airport. Hanna was wearing a white shirt and red jeans with a large scarlet scarf wound elegantly around her shoulders. His mother was beautiful. People always turned to look at her. Her brown, shiny hair was the colour of conkers, cut sharp and straight to her chin.
Hanna had tucked his hand into her arm as they walked to the car park. ‘Sorry, Ben couldn’t come to meet you. He is always working. He is always home late … You will be lucky to see much of him this half-term, I’m afraid …’ Hanna’s voice could not hide her annoyance.
Finn had said quickly. ‘It’s okay. Ben can’t help working, Hanna. He rang and warned me …’
Hanna looked as if she was going to say more but concentrated instead on getting out of the airport and onto the autobahn. Silence fell as she drove. Hanna did not do small talk. Izzy fell asleep. Finn had stared out at the straight roads lined with forests flashing by. He only relaxed when Hanna turned off the autobahn to Hohne and headed into suburbia. Rows of identical army quarters lay in secure, tree-lined roads. Army wives walked black Labradors and small children under the dripping trees. Sentries guarded the gates to the barracks. Soldiers in combats yomped through the woods. They were entering a world of uniforms, military jargon, and acronyms. Finn loved it. It was a world he had grown up in, as familiar as breathing, but anathema to Hanna.
‘Here we are, back home.’ Hanna turned into their road and pulled up outside their quarter. For a moment she sat still without moving, as if she were putting off the moment of going inside. She unwound her scarf and shook out her dark hair so that it fell in smooth lines around her face. A sense of her loneliness, pungent and overpowering, had caught at Finn.
He stared out of the car at the dark windows of the empty quarter. The branches of trees were reflected in the glass. A strange foreboding had risen up inside him at the lack of light and warmth coming from inside. It was as if their house was suddenly devoid of life. As if his family had vanished leaving only black windows reflecting the wavering branches of trees.
Disturbed, Finn had jumped out of the car, lifted a sleepy Izzy from the back seat and swung her out with a whoop, making her giggle. It was an infectious sound and Hanna had turned and smiled at Finn as she locked the car.
‘Silly of me, I should have left some lights on.’
Finn lay listening to the whoosh of the sea slapping against the promenade. He could not forget Hanna’s bleak face as the trees made shadows dance in the windows of the dark house. In that second of panic, Finn had seen his home was just an empty German army quarter. Then Ben had driven up behind them gently tooting his horn. He had leapt out of his car in his combats and enfolded him in a bear hug. Hanna had gone around the house, switching all the lights on. The windows had reflected once more the lives they all led there together.
CHAPTER THREE
Peshawar, 2007
Raza was following Zamir through the crowds of the Qissa Khawani Bazaar (The Street of Storytellers). His excitement was countered by a niggling anxiety. Baba was not himself. He seemed nervous and he had made Raza pack his Friday shalwar kameez and fold extra clean clothes into his large bundle. His father had also taken unusual care in picking out two of his fattest sheep to sell.
‘We will spend one night with your uncle Hanif in Peshawar.’ Zamir told Raza as they rocked downhill in the bus packed with villagers taking fruit, vegetables, and fowl to market. Zamir’s sheep were following separately in a truck containing the larger animals. ‘Tomorrow, we will go on to Rawalpindi to meet your mother’s cousin, Sarah, and her British husband. They are visiting from England and wish to see you, but first we must sell the sheep …’ ‘Why do they wish to see me?’ Raza asked, although it explained all the clean clothes he was forced to carry. ‘They have never come to ’Pindi before.’
‘Cousin Sarah’s British husband, he does not like her to travel around Pakistan on her own. Usually, she stays with her relatives in Karachi. This time he has come with her …’ Zamir turned stern eyes on Raza. ‘I have told you. Your Ami and Sarah were children together in Karachi until her family left for England. Of course, she is interested in seeing you.’
They had now reached the bustle of the busy market and Zamir had tied his sheep to a post in what he hoped was a prime position by Hanif’s nut stall. He did not have high expectations for his sheep, but he needed enough rupees to buy bus tickets, food, and presents for the visiting cousins from England. He gazed through the crowds. He had felt anxious as soon as they stepped off the bus. Peshawar was Ajeet and Fakir’s territory; there was danger in making themselves prominent, but he needed to sell his sheep. Raza, picking up Zamir’s anxiety, wondered why his Baba was selling his sheep to buy presents for these distant cousins they did not know, instead of food to fill their bellies. It had been a bad season. The ground was dry and hard from the long drought. Their crops had been poor and shrivelled from lack of rain and their sheep and goats had not put on enough weight.
The noisy market and the sound of people haggling and shouting caught at Raza in a dizzying wave of sound. He eyed the food and fruit stalls with longing but knew better than to ask for anything to eat. His stomach was never full, but he had learned to get used to the sound of it rumbling.
Uncle ...
