A bright morning in mid-July. Alan was standing in a small shrubbery with roses and carefully tended lawns. In the distance he could hear the hum of traffic on the Leicester bypass and the occasional cries of children from nearby houses. Schools were now out and the holidays had just begun.
He was observing a small group of five men in the distant Muslim area of the Saffron Hill municipal cemetery. They were looking down at an open grave. After a few minutes they raised their heads and stood still. Then the robed figure shook the hands of the two dark-suited men and slowly returned to the small octagonal Prayer House, behind them. The suited men then turned and walked along the path towards the gate into the car park to Alan’s left. The other two men waited a few minutes, then picked up shovels and began to backfill the grave.
The suited men approached the gate and Alan stood back, deeper in the shadows. Their body language was warm. Sympathetic. Alan couldn’t be certain, but he thought he detected a glint on Indajit’s cheek, of tears. Little Mehmet looked less little now. And stronger. In the car park Indajit produced the keys and unlocked the car as they approached. One car. Alan hadn’t expected that. Sofia had brought them together.
As the car pulled away, Alan turned to leave, too. Slowly he walked along a mown path, then found himself sitting on a wooden seat, deep in thought. Why, he wondered was he always on the outside, looking in? Always the observer. He remembered sad little Tiny and that hopeless succession of dead babies and shattered dreams. Then he found those expressionless eyes of the psychopath coldly watching him at that first talk at Blackfen. But most of all he couldn’t stop thinking about Sofia’s scream. But what were they all telling him, those spectres from the past: to engage? To meddle? To interfere? No, he despised busybodies and people who thought they knew better than others. But surely there had to be a middle way – or was there? Then he realised that his subconscious knew the answer all the time, and for a moment it was as if he was on the other side of that horrible grille, in Ali’s place, and looking out at freedom.
Slowly he rose to his feet and headed towards the car park, seeing, feeling nothing, as he allowed the truth to enfold him. He stood stock still beside his mud-spattered Daihatsu, took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He knew now that he was not unusual, that he acted as he did because he had no choice: it was the way he was – and there was no escape. The strongest prison walls are in our own minds.
Like it or not, we are all members of The Lifers’ Club.