Abdi Mahad has entered a terraced cottage that’s painted pink. The tiny gap between the bay window and the boundary wall has been planted with bamboo that’s tall enough to obscure most of the window. PVC doors and windows have been installed at some point. They’re grubby but intact, unlike the roof, where tiles have come away in an area around the chimney stack.
The property is on one side of a block of similar terraced cottages, most of them redbrick. The back gardens all meet in an enclosed area behind. I can identify only one or two easy exit points, though it would be possible to escape through any of the houses if you could gain access.
I call Woodley.
“What’s happening?”
“They’re in position,” he says, “about to go in. Fraser’s asked for backup to go to you, but they’re not going to be quick.”
I look out the window. Everything seems quiet at the property, except that there’s a man walking down the street toward it. He looks Somali.
“They’re entering the building,” Woodley reports from his end.
Abdi enters the house and closes the front door behind him. Inside, the tiny front room’s furnished with two stained armchairs and a futon mattress that has a sleeping bag on it.
The man who he thinks is his father looks him over, as if Abdi’s not what he was expecting. He offers Abdi a hand and they shake perfunctorily before he gestures for him to sit in one of the chairs. Abdi finds the skin contact electric. He stares at the man, sees the line of his scar. What makes Abdi feel very afraid is the quality of menace the man exudes. It’s in the way he carries himself and in the way he looks at Abdi: part contempt, part challenge.
He speaks Somali when he asks Abdi, “So did you bring it?”
Abdi finds he can’t reply at first. Everything he rehearsed in his head in advance of this moment has dissolved into a feeling that he’s made a terrible mistake.
Part of him had hoped that this man would know him for who he is, that they could experience some kind of mutual recognition, but now he sees how stupid he was. Abdi knew that this man was violent, but he hadn’t thought that it would be an almost palpable quality, or that he would feel such a powerful sense of danger in his presence.
Abdi makes a break for the hallway, but the man’s quick on his feet and slams the door shut before Abdi makes it out of the room. He pushes Abdi back into his chair with just the palm of his hand on Abdi’s chest.
“Sit,” he says.
Abdi has no choice.
“I’m not who you think I am,” Abdi tells him in Somali. He blurts it out, as if he’s been challenged by a teacher. He doesn’t know what else to say. He just wants to leave.
“Then who are you?” Every word he says sounds thickened. Abdi can only just understand him.
“Abdi Nur Mahad.”
“How old are you, Abdi Nur Mahad?”
“Fifteen.”
“And why are you here?”
“I came to the wrong house.”
Abdi’s sweating. He knows it’s obvious that he’s lying.
“Try again.”
Abdi swallows. “I have some business with you.”
The man laughs. “I’m a busy man today, Abdi, but I’m curious. What’s your business?”
“You’re my father.”
Whatever Abdi hoped might happen at this moment of revelation, it wasn’t what followed. He’d imagined all different kinds of emotions, but not an absence of them entirely.
The man sighs, as if he’s contemplating doing something that he doesn’t want to do. “Then I should have you beaten,” he says eventually. “Because you do not know your place.”
He stands, and Abdi recoils back into his chair.
The man grabs him, pulls him up, and shoves him against a wall.
Abdi cries out and feels the man’s hand clamp over his mouth, pushing his head back painfully. With his other hand he pats Abdi’s pockets. The expression on his face is one of distaste.
“If I’m your father, then it must have been a sorry whore who mothered you.”
His face is so close to Abdi’s that Abdi can see the open pores on his nose and the bloodshot veins in his eyes.
“I’ll go,” he tries to say, his lips smearing against the palm of the man’s hand.
Somebody knocks on the door.
The man puts his other hand on Abdi’s neck and applies pressure.
“Not a sound,” he says. “Don’t move.”
He lets go and Abdi’s back slides down the wall until he’s kneeling. He gasps for air.
The man leaves the room and a key turns in the lock.
Abdi hears the front door opening.
“Who is it?” he says.
“Mohammed Asad Muse.”
“Come in.”
Woodley stays on the line as I clatter back down the steps to the bottom of the church spire.
“Ground floor clear,” he says. “It’s very dark in there.”
“Abdi Mahad’s still in the house,” I say. “I think I need to go in.”
“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t be hasty.”
“I think Abdi’s in danger. Another man’s just entered the property.”
“Be patient. Support will be with you soon.”
“It’s not soon enough!”
“They’re going upstairs,” Woodley reports from the raid footage. “It’s grim. Rubbish and drug debris everywhere. Staircase treads broken.”
“I’m going in,” I say.
“Don’t, boss. Remember.”
He doesn’t have to say more. I know what he means. I remember a foggy dawn when he and I drove deep into the countryside to interview a suspect and I ended up puking in their front garden, facing the fact that the choice I’d made had the potential to be very destructive and to cost a child his life.
“First floor clear,” Woodley adds. “One more floor. Oh, fuck!”
“What’s happening?” I ask, though I recognize immediately that what I can hear on the other end of the line is the sound of gunfire.
Sofia, Maryam, and Nur are left at Kenneth Steele House feeling uncertain.
Detective Inspector Clemo reassured them and told them to go home, then departed in a hurry, but he didn’t explain precisely what his actions would be.
Nur and Maryam are worried he’s fobbed them off.
As they leave the building, a man arrives with his wife and both report at reception. The man stares openly at the Mahad family, but they barely give him a glance. He wears sweatpants and trainers, but his wife’s in kitten heels that clack as she walks. He has a hand on his lower back, as if he’s in pain.
As Nur parks outside their flat, Maryam says, “I want to go back to St. Werburgh’s.”
Sofia says, “I think we have to trust the police. We told them where we think Abdi is.”
Maryam and Nur exchange a glance. They know they should trust the police here, but what if Clemo hasn’t taken their information about Abdi seriously?
“Abdi could do something stupid,” Maryam says. “We don’t know what he thinks he’s going to do if he finds . . .” She can’t bear to describe the man. “He won’t understand the danger.”
“We’ll drive there and have a look, and if we can see the police, we’ll leave,” Nur says.
They don’t talk much on the way there. All three feel strung out with fear.