Don't Let Me In Read online

  I fear our Farrow and Ball mumps breath or whatever it’s called will be forever scarred by the Blu-Tack outbreak – when she changes allegiance to the next boyband the walls will look like a smurf with smallpox… How are Finn and Henry?

  Finn and Henry? How are they, I truly don’t know how to be truthful with my answer so I avoid the question.

  Finn is still the most beautiful boy, I spend all of my time thinking I’ve failed him.

  I know what you mean – every time I tell Natasha not to do something I worry if my nagging will leave her with deep psychological scars which she will take out on some unsuspecting boy or girl in a few years time – but seriously Finn will be fine, you just need to make him loved when he is there which I know you will do. And Henry? Dare I ask?

  I pause, thinking of the right words, ones that don’t make me feel like I am betraying him all over again.

  Still nothing – I just don’t know how to be intimate, since the incident. He wants to but I’m not sure how I feel about that anymore.

  Is there someone else?

  Not here, not now, but there is a ghost but I can’t tell Hannah about that, I can’t tell anyone about that.

  God no! I’m a born again nun!

  Not even that hunky doctor?

  I don’t recall telling Hannah about Mo, but there have been so many drunken texts exchanged between us I often wonder what else I may have told her that I just can’t remember.

  I hear Henry’s footsteps from upstairs, he will be walking from the en suite and climbing into bed, wondering where I am.

  No! That’s work. Listen I’ve got to go – work calls. Take care and I’ll text you later.

  The reply is almost instantaneous.

  Take care Fucktart No.2

  8

  Faith

  When Khalil was jailed, Katy Perry was number one with “I Kissed A Girl”, I hadn’t met Henry yet and Finn was five years and a reckless evening and two bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon away.

  I couldn’t even tell you whether there are still number ones never mind what the current one is today. Which is what I am thinking when I read Khalil’s one and only letter to me. He sent it to me shortly after I started looking into his case.

  Dear Sarah

  I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for agreeing that I could write to you, and thank you for taking an interest in my case.

  It’s been twelve years since I was put in this place. I would like to tell you that time for me has passed easily here, that I have found some focus, found God, found anything of value here, but I am afraid I cannot. I don’t even have a poster of Rita Hayworth on the wall.

  When I first entered prison I still believed in things. I believed in God, not in a particular creed, though culturally I always will be a Muslim, but I believed in a plan, a design for us all. I also believed in other things, things you may think quaint. You may laugh, as my brother does when I mention this, but if I told you I believed in English justice and a sense of fair play I would not be lying to you.

  When I heard the verdict at my trial I still believed that someone would realise that a mistake had been made, that someone watching, someone who hadn’t been paying proper attention, would see an error had been made and would make themselves heard. “I’m awfully sorry there’s been a terrible mistake” and then we would all go home. For a long time I waited, expecting that voice. Even when my appeal failed I didn’t lose hope, no, not hope, a belief that things would be put right and the ship righted.

  On the third day I was in here, whilst queuing for food a prisoner standing in the queue behind me – they never found out which one – jabbed a prison-made shank, a sharpened biro case, into my calf. I heard a prison guard laugh as I screamed.

  As I lay in the hospital ward recovering I didn’t doubt that all this would be cleared up. Daada-Jaan, my grandfather, a retired lawyer in Islamabad, who loved this country and its ancient institutions, would write to me, assuring me that British justice was the best in the world, “not like the corrupt bhenchoods judges we get here”.

  Daada-Jaan wrote every month; often the letters contained yellowing pages from an old Halsbury’s Statutes which he had torn straight from the book in his own small library. There would be sections of the Homicide Act underlined and notated. All out of date and useless, but to him, they were sacred texts and if only he could arrange the words and clauses in a certain way, if the spell could be formulated just so, then the magic would happen – “open sesame” and the doors of this cage would spring free. Every month one of these letters would arrive and he always ended them the same way.

  “Believe Naadaa.”

  Naadaa means innocent one in Urdu. He believed in justice, he believed it would be served.

  He died three years ago, and I wonder, as he lay dying, did he still believe or was his belief the last thing to be eaten by his cancer?

  And with his death I think my belief died, or so I told myself.

  Others have tried to fill the gap where that belief used to be. I see it here every day, the men with big dreams and visions, who sell those dreams and visions to others who have none. When I was first in here, the dreams were big scores, life-changing jobs but over the years things have changed and the dreams are bigger, eternal life, seventy-two virgins, everlasting paradise. When you have nothing to believe in, then believe in something bigger than yourself: redemption and sex.

  I thought my belief had died but these things, like religion, are hard to remove. I still believe that someone will call time, that a flag will be raised, that someone will hold up their hand and ask, who really killed Lauren, we must find out, the guilty must be punished, a great wrong has been done. Are you that voice Sarah?

  I have seen, we have all seen, what can happen with the media when they get involved in a case. I don’t expect the same results here but I believe that you will make it happen. I hope you can see the difference. It is faith.

  But there is a difference with my faith now; it has become personal and hidden deep even from myself. I can’t think of it, I cannot live it, not for me the waiting for the call that never comes; every moment lived through the prism of that expectation, and its non-arrival crushing the spirit. I have seen what that does. I saw what it did to my grandfather and so I won’t be listening to the podcast, I won’t be waiting on news, I will be living my life in here, reading, listening to music and surviving. I hope you do not think this rude but I will not be in touch again and I won’t be waiting to hear from you with good news or bad.

  One last thing. I know Mo thinks Tom Ellis was responsible for Lauren’s murder. He has told me about Tom’s life since we were at school. I just can’t see it, he loved Lauren and I can’t believe he would be responsible. But then I know that’s what everybody said about me when I was convicted.

  Have faith, Sarah. I do.

  Khalil Bukhari

  I put the letter back in the folder. Faith that something will happen. I don’t have that faith. If you want to make something happen you have to do it yourself. Even if it’s just pushing a small pebble over a cliff face, causing a bigger stone to move, you can hopefully cause an avalanche if you are lucky.

  I don’t have the motive but what I do have is the time, the context. I need to throw a pebble.

  I dial Cathy’s number. Whilst the phone is ringing Lil’Bitch looks at me, unblinking, from the worktop. She shouldn’t be up there, Henry would go apeshit if he saw her there, but I just haven’t got the energy or rather the inclination to shoo her down fifty times a day. In truth I admire her stubbornness and desire to get up to a height where she can see what’s going on. I stare back and then Lil’Bitch blinks once, jumps down and heads out through the cat flap.

  “Lucky bitch,” I say out loud.

  “Nice to hear from you too,” says Cathy.

  “Sorry hun, I was talking to the cat.”

  “Not necessarily an improvement in the saneness stakes than calling me a bitch.”

  I giggle. Cat
hy always lightens my mood.

  “Listen, I think I have a way forward.”

  “Don’t tell me Emma cracked? Have you got a motive?”

  “Nothing that good but I’ve got enough for the next podcast.”

  “I’m all ears; blow me away SK.”

  “Islamophobia.”

  There is a pause on the line and I can hear a noise that I know is Cathy tapping her lighter on something. She always does this when she is thinking.

  “Islamophobia,” Cathy says, enunciating each syllable as though it were a particularly juicy item on a fancy restaurant menu.

  I don’t know whether this means she likes my idea or not.

  “I like it. You know I wrote an article for The Guardian on Islamophobia and media representation. Basically, I just copied and pasted a load of Daily Heil headlines and wrote ‘duh’ underneath.”

  I did know it, of course. I banked on it.

  “I was thinking that this investigation took place at a time of increased Islamophobia. Did that skew the investigation; did it affect the witnesses’ testimony? Remember this all took place in the summer of 2006 – the year after the tube bombings, de Menezes, you remember what it was like. Maybe Khalil was doomed from the start.”

  “I like it. I bet I could get The Guardian to let you write an opinion piece on this week’s episode.”

  “And I haven’t mentioned the best bit.”

  I hear Cathy make a sucking sound; that will be her taking a drag on the e-cigarette she uses in the house.

  “Go on.”

  “I can prove that the prosecution’s main witness is an Islamophobe. How do you like them apples?”

  “I’m Eve and I’m ravenous. What have you got?”

  What have I got? Guilt, shame and something else much more valuable. I have information.

  I got the information from Mo of course. His team of PI’s had dug it up but it was after the trial and was useless for the appeal as it didn’t classify as appealable new evidence. But for the show? Well, let’s face facts, it’s dynamite. I wasn’t sure I would ever use it, but without the motive I promised, what can I do?

  9

  Shiver

  I push away the plate. The shiny Danish pastries on it remind me of the eyes I saw in my dream.

  Mo looks amused.

  “Are you on a diet? My wife, she is always dieting. I say to her, Yasmin, you look great already and what can you expect after having four kids!”

  He laughs uproariously and pats his knee. It’s grossly sexist and if it was one of my male friends I would be pulling him up over it, but it’s said with such love and warmth which comes off him like a furnace that I find myself letting go and just laughing with him. With him I don’t police my own mind and it’s refreshing.

  “No I am not. I’m just not hungry right now, I had a rough night to tell you the truth.”

  The laughter is gone, replaced by a look of concern that I think is genuine. I’ve seen a lot of concerned looks over the last year and you’d be surprised how many are just pasted on as a matter of form.

  “Is it the troll? I can see on Twitter how he abuses you. You should let me do something about it.”

  I’m touched that he wants to help. Maybe it’s in his character; he’s a doctor after all and he’s also dedicated the last twelve years of his life to helping free his brother from prison. And it’s not just time – he let slip in one of our first meetings that he had re-mortgaged his house to fund Khalil’s legal fees and the costs of the private investigators he’s had on the case.

  “What could you do?” I ask him.

  He frowns.

  “Maybe nothing, maybe something.”

  I shrug. There’s nothing he can do, trolls live under bridges for a reason. I change the subject.

  “Why do you do it?”

  He looks perplexed. “Do what?”

  “Spend all this time, this money, on this case. It’s been twelve years. Don’t you ever get disheartened?”

  There’s a look on his face like a shadow cast by a passing car and then it’s gone.

  “You know I’m not a believer, right? Allah, God, all sky fairies to me. You work in A&E for a week and any faith you did have left will soon be kicked out of you, trust me. But what being a Muslim means to me is family. Family is all we have. When you’re dying, lying in that bed covered in green sheets, plugged into a machine counting out the last moments of your life, you know what people call out for? It’s never God, trust me, they always call out for family. That’s whom they want near them in those moments because that’s what they know in those final moments. That all this life is about is the people you love and who love you, even if that love was dead many years before. An old lover, husband, wife, someone they haven’t seen in fifty years; that’s who they want to be near them. And we all understand this. That’s why people jump on planes and travel halfway around the world to be by a bedside. We understand that need. But you see people understand it when it’s far, far too late. Working as a doctor I’ve seen it a thousand times, the regret of words unsaid, deeds not taken, and what I’ve realised is that those few moments at the end of life, when things become clear, they are always there, but hidden out of sight by the promise, the illusion of more time to come. People live their lives like it’s a credit card, putting off reality whilst they spend their time like they can afford to waste it. I won’t do that with Khalil. I will spend it now letting him know each moment that he’s my brother and that I love him.”

  He leans back in his chair as though this – the most intense I have seen him be since I have known him – has cost him serious effort.

  “And as for his guilt. He’s my little brother, I’ve known him all my life. He couldn’t kill anyone, especially not Lauren. He loved her.”

  “You know that’s what a lot of murderers’ relatives say.”

  “Do you believe he killed her, Sarah?”

  The question almost shocks me. If I’m truthful it’s a question I’ve usually thought of as entirely irrelevant. I couldn’t possibly ever know. All I was interested in was the story of how a young Muslim boy could have become the focus of a sloppy police investigation and potentially been the victim of a miscarriage of justice, so I’m almost surprised to hear it’s my voice saying, “No, I don’t think he did it.”

  Mo smiles sadly. “He didn’t do it. My brother couldn’t hurt anybody. Thank you, that means a lot.”

  And then he reaches over and takes hold of my hand and the sensation that this sends through my body, every part of it, makes me shiver. I close my eyes and feel tears coming so I blink hard and then slowly move my hand away.

  When I open my eyes Mo is looking at me with an amused sadness.

  “Are you ok, Sarah?”

  I nod.

  He starts to say something but reconsiders and although I want to ask him to continue – so much – I know if I do he will, and that I’m at the absolute limit of my strength right at this moment and with one push I will fall.

  “Okay,” he says, and stands up. “Don’t worry. I’ll let myself out.”

  I let him, but as soon as I hear the door slam I rush to it and slam home the bolts and slide the catch down on the industrial-sized latch.

  “Shit,” I say aloud. I need to speak to Henry, and not in the language we have developed since the incident, the unspoken code of something unsaid, but directly, and soon.

  If I could only find the right words, put them in a sentence. I know they are out there. I can make things right again, but I’ve been silent, the words hidden in the darkness. No longer, I tell myself.

  Instead I do what I always do. I WhatsApp Hannah.

  You know that hunky doctor?

  As usual there is almost no delay.

  Yeah? Did he take your temperature in the old-fashioned way?

  I blush even though I am alone.

  No, but I think we just shared a moment, he made me shiver with a look.

  This reply takes a little longer:
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  Well he does have eyes to die for, will you do anything about it?

  I hesitate but then type:

  No, I wouldn’t hurt Henry.

  An instant response … again…

  That cuts. Hannah, cruel and truthful, but the only friend I can rely on for this necessary combination. She doesn’t know the details, no one does, but she knows I hurt him, and that I carry around a house-sized load of guilt as a consequence.

  The doorbell interrupts our WhatsApp conversation but it’s only Henry and Finn back from the park, so I don’t jump out of my chair as I would have done had I not been expecting the doorbell to ring.

  I can see Henry looking exasperated, phone in one hand, Finn holding on to the other. The phone means he will have rung out for pizza as he doesn’t want to cook, and I never do.

  I tell Hannah I will ping her back and go and let them in.

  Finn is grinning and his pupils are dilated which can only mean Henry has given him sweets.

  “We are getting pizza!” Finn shouts.

  “As a dessert?”

  Henry gives me the look that I know is his warning not to go there. “It was that or I was leaving him in the park,” he says under his breath. “I ordered you a margarita, is that okay?”

  I shrug.

  Finn dodges around me, running towards the kitchen, and I turn and start to go after him. “Don’t run darling.” Then my foot clips something heavy and slips and I fall heavily, landing on my arse, hard.

  “Fucking bastard!”

  I look up and see Finn staring down at me in shock.

  “I don’t mean you, darling.” But the truth is I do. I tripped on his fire engine that he dropped behind me as he ran. I see his eyes fill up because the truth is you can’t lie to children, not really. He knows I, his mother, meant it and this kills me in a thousand new ways.

  Henry shakes his head. “You’ll be okay,” is all he says.