Chapter 37
He’s home eight minutes later, his chest heaving with fear and shame and the full-pelt run back to Cedar Walk with the sound of sirens ringing in his ears.
His hand shakes as he silently unlocks the front door.
The smell of lighter fluid clings to him, but he daren’t risk waking Nadeeka by having a shower, so he bundles his clothes into a plastic bag and stuffs it under the sink.
Then he slips into bed, where he lies awake, consumed with guilt.
He plays out scenarios in his head, each one ending with no one getting hurt.
Maybe the fire burned itself out by the door.
Maybe the shop has a sprinkler system. Maybe the fire engines got there before the flames took hold.
At breakfast, Nadeeka is shocked to read about the fire on Facebook.
‘The police say it was arson,’ she says.
‘Apparently, they’re not yet classing the incident as racially motivated.
’ She reads this from the press release, her tone loaded, then shakes herself like a dog ridding itself of unwanted water.
‘I thought things were better now than when I was growing up, but maybe it’s just better hidden. ’
‘I’m sure it was an isolated incident.’ Jamie’s phone – on silent permanently now – flashes with a message from Carrie. ‘Try not to worry.’ He wonders if his words sound as hollow as he feels inside.
Nice work, the message reads. The boss appreciates you working out of hours to get the project signed off. You’ve proved yourself to be a real team player.
‘Are you still okay to walk the girls to school this morning?’ Nadeeka says. He often takes them when she’s working from home.
‘Actually, no. Sorry.’ Jamie stands. ‘I have to go in early today.’
‘Oh. Right.’ She turns and tips the dregs of her coffee into the sink, and for the first time since Jamie moved in, he leaves without kissing her goodbye.
He isn’t going to work. At least not yet.
He walks instead to the corner shop, where a single strand of police tape has been tied across the front of the shop.
A yellow fire service notice is tacked to the charred front door.
The door and both windows have been boarded with sheets of plywood, and the pavements beneath them sparkle with the crushed remnants of shattered glass.
Jamie walks around to the shop’s small concrete yard, where black plastic crates are neatly stacked next to a white van.
Checking to make sure no one is around, he pushes ￡300 in cash – the maximum he was able to withdraw from the ATM on the way – through the back door.
The next few days pass in a blur. At home, the atmosphere continues to be strained.
Jamie sees the confusion and hurt on Nadeeka’s face when he turns away from her at night, but he can’t bring himself to accept her embrace when he’s leading a double life, and he can’t tell her the truth.
She’ll insist on Jamie leaving New Dawn right away, but he won’t do that until he knows what they’re planning.
The only way he can come to terms with what he did to Surinder is by using it to bring down New Dawn.
At work, the picture is only slightly better.
He stops himself snapping at his colleagues by avoiding them as much as possible, stretching out his site visits and eating lunch at his desk.
Adam Bennington makes a point of seeking him out and asking if everything is all right at home.
‘You’ve seemed a bit out of sorts lately. ’
Jamie brushes it off. ‘I think I’m coming down with something.
’ It feels like the truth. Maybe even is the truth.
He wakes every morning with a tightness in his chest and a scratchy throat that makes swallowing an effort.
Every night he lies awake in the dark, listening to the blood rushing in his ears; every day he struggles to focus on his work, trying to avoid Carrie, who seems to revel in conspiratorial glances during meetings.
On Monday morning, she stops by Jamie’s desk on her way back from Adam’s office. ‘All right for tonight?’ It will be the first meeting since the arson. Jamie is both dreading it and anxious to learn more about New Dawn’s new target.
‘See you there.’ He tries to smile.
‘Great.’ Carrie glances around, then lowers her voice. ‘The boss wants to thank you personally.’
‘I don’t need . . . He doesn’t need to do that.’
‘I’m going straight from work if you want a lift,’ Carrie says. ‘We could have a cheeky drink with Alan and Chris first.’ She starts walking away. ‘It’ll be nice!’ she calls over her shoulder.
Nice is not the word Jamie would use to describe his current situation. They’re in the function room of another pub, dingy and damp-smelling, and presumably owned by a landlord who asks no questions as long as the right amount of cash passes hands.
Once again, Jamie is sitting in the middle of a row, surrounded by men and women in an array of balaclavas, scarves and hats.
He wonders if extremists have seasonal alternatives, or if they spend August heatwaves sweltering in wool.
Jamie is wearing his own balaclava, and even though everyone in the room has already seen his face, he still feels reassured by the layer of anonymity.
‘ . . . our new brother, Jamie.’
At the sound of his name, Jamie jerks his attention forward to where the boss’s moustached mouthpiece is looking expectantly in his direction.
Carrie elbows him. ‘Go on!’
‘What?’ Sweat prickles beneath Jamie’s collar. Around him, other members of the audience are turning to look at him and he realizes with horror that he’s expected to speak.
‘Was it you torched the Paki shop, then?’ The voice comes from somewhere behind Jamie. ‘How did that feel?’
‘Yeah. Good.’ He almost chokes on it.
‘Shame the barbecue didn’t get going,’ comes another voice. ‘What did you use? Petrol?’
‘Lighter fluid.’ How has this happened? He had planned to infiltrate the group quietly, to stay undercover, unobtrusively gathering evidence. Yet now he’s in the spotlight, fifty people staring right at him.
‘Petrol would have taken better,’ says a woman to his left, as casually as if they were swapping recipes. She smiles. ‘Great job, though. I can’t believe how many Paki shops there still are around here.’
‘Right.’ Jamie wishes he had more confidence in his voice, his body language.
Does he look nonchalant? Perhaps a little proud?
Or do his hunched shoulders betray the disgust he feels inside?
Disgust with the New Dawn movement; with everyone in this room; but most of all with himself.
A couple of rows in front of him, Alan and Chris are talking in low voices.
At precisely the same moment they glance at Jamie, before looking swiftly away when they see him watching them.
Unease forms a tight knot in Jamie’s stomach. Are they talking about him?
The agenda moves on – more celebrated acts of petty violence; more warnings about dissension in the ranks – but the information Jamie has come here for remains frustratingly out of reach.
‘Soon,’ the moustached spokesman says, ‘we will share the location of our next operation and allocate roles to those of you who have proved themselves trustworthy.’
Carrie nudges Jamie. ‘That’s us!’
‘Recent direct action has brought awareness at a local level,’ the spokesman says, ‘but the next target will put the issues that matter on the front page of every national newspaper.’ He raises a fist. ‘The New Dawn is upon us!’
‘We step into the light!’ choruses the audience. Jamie mouths the words silently, distraught that he can’t make this his final meeting. He’s not sure how many more he can bear to sit through; each one makes him feel more complicit.
As the meeting breaks up, Jamie heads straight for the door, but, just as he gets there, he hears his name. Every fibre of his body wants to run. He makes himself turn around.
‘You got a minute?’ Alan is walking towards him, Chris by his side.
‘Sure.’ Jamie tries to act casual, but his throat clamps around the word, releasing it several notes too high.
‘Chris here said a mate of his saw you in town with a Paki woman.’
All around them, people are moving, talking.
Their conversations bleed into a dull hum, as though Jamie is underwater, his own breathing seemingly louder than anything else in the room.
He forces his face to show confusion rather than the abject fear he’s feeling.
‘Paki?’ He supposes people like Alan and Chris apply the slur freely to anyone brown-skinned, which means they could easily be referring to Nadeeka.
‘Yeah. In Homebase,’ Chris says. ‘Saturday.’
Shit. Definitely Nadeeka. They’d gone to look at outdoor Christmas lights for the garden.
Sweat trickles down Jamie’s spine. ‘Yeah,’ he says, trying desperately to sound casual about it.
‘That was the woman from the corner shop. Call me sick, but I couldn’t resist asking her about the fire.
How it had shit them up, you know?’ He laughs, the action so unnatural he almost chokes on it.
Alan doesn’t say anything. His eyes narrow a fraction, as though he’s puzzling something out.
‘I’d better . . .’ Jamie looks at his watch.
‘See you next week.’ As he walks away, he bangs into a chair and sends it skidding across the slate floor.
Did they believe him? All his senses are on fire, his limbs awkward, as though they’ve forgotten how to work together.
He nods to the man on the door and then finally he’s out, gulping fresh air and taking deep, slow breaths in an effort to quiet his heart.
It’s fine, he tells himself. There’s no reason for them to know the woman was my partner.
But as he leaves the yard and glances back, Alan and Chris are standing there.
Watching him.