Tehrin Kozem smooths back his shower-wet locks, then walks into the bedroom with a towel slung around his hips.
‘Morning babe,’ he says.
His girlfriend Kara is sleeping still, covers pulled around her as she tries to hold onto the dream she’s having. She hasn’t heard his soft greeting and doesn’t respond. She’s like this every morning and Tehrin finds it endearing how reluctant she is to wake.
For months now he’s been living in London with Kara. She has an expensive apartment in the Docklands, and Tehrin knows he’s fallen on his feet in every way. Kara is smart, beautiful and has personal wealth.
They met six months ago when he was visiting relatives in London, and it was a shocking whirlwind that he still hasn’t quite got his head around. Though she’s white and his parents didn’t approve, he just had to be with her and so he didn’t return to his home in Syria. Instead Tehrin came to live with Kara, turning his back on everything he’d always known.
Every day he receives an email from his mother begging him to return to his rightful home, and to marry a fiancée he’s never met. But Tehrin has found love and nothing, not even his considerable inheritance, will entice him back to take part in a life he no longer believes in.
Thanks to his English mother, he has dual nationality. He also has a trust fund, that neither of his parents could keep from him. Not since he turned 21 and his grandparents’ money came into his own control – all four million pounds of it. Though his father had tried tying up his inheritance in court – as an attempt to pull him back in line – this only succeeded in making Tehrin more determined to live as he wished.
Tehrin dries himself and then, naked, goes to Kara’s side of the bed. He looks down at her lovely sleeping face. Such pure skin. So white and smooth next to his warm brown flesh, and those beautiful blue eyes that never appear cold. Tehrin’s heart swells with pride until he almost imagines it bursting from his chest. How has this happened? He is so fortunate. Allah was smiling on him the day they met. He is the luckiest man in the world.
Kara moves and groans as though she objects to his intense scrutiny, but she doesn’t wake and so Tehrin pulls on some boxer shorts and goes out to make his strong aromatic Arabic coffee, while she holds on a little longer to sleep.
The apartment is large and open plan in the main living areas. It reminds him of the TV shows Kara sometimes watches on home improvements. It’s clean and modern, no character at all, except for the slight touches of feminine glitter here and there.
He’s never asked her about her style but now, as he waits for the small metal pot to bring his coffee to the right temperature, he thinks about the home they will one day buy together: when he finally persuades her to marry him.
The pot begins to boil, and Tehrin takes it off, pouring coffee into a miniscule cup. He adds sugar and then, sitting at the breakfast bar, sips the hot drink.
From the bedroom he hears Kara’s mobile phone ring and her half-grumpy response as she answers. Probably her mother, he thinks. Kara is close to her, and they often talk on the phone. Tehrin has yet to meet his future mother-in-law, but Kara says she’s happy for her daughter nonetheless.
Life is good. Tehrin has everything he could ever want and he’s never been happier.
His own mobile phone is charging on the kitchen counter. He switches it on and begins to wade through his emails, pushing aside the pleading ones from his mother. He sees one from his solicitor asking him to call. Then he receives a notification for voicemail.
He calls the message service and listens.
‘Tehrin, I’m afraid your payment didn’t arrive. Can you call me? This account is a little overdue now.’
Tehrin frowns. He set up the BACS payment himself, ready to go yesterday. He opens his bank account app and logs in.
The account opens and Tehrin is shocked to see the balance of his account reduced to zero, and a message from the bank telling him his account will be closed now that he’s moved his money to another bank.
‘Father! Damn you!’ he says, but this is irrational. His father couldn’t touch his money, that would be fraud! He can’t believe he’d resort to that.
‘Is that coffee I smell?’ Kara says.
‘Yes,’ says Tehrin, but he’s distracted and doesn’t look at her.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asks. Kara comes over to the breakfast bar.
‘The money. My inheritance. It’s gone.’
‘What do you mean, gone?’ she asks.
‘My bank account is empty.’ There’s an edge of panic in his voice.
‘That must be an error,’ she says.
‘Yes, of course. It must be,’ he smiles at her in an attempt to dispel his own anxiety. ‘I’ll call the bank.’
He searches for the helpline number and rings it but as his phone connects to the call centre, Tehrin looks up and sees that Kara is holding a gun and pointing it directly at him.
He almost laughs, thinking this is some kind of joke.
‘You’d better hang up,’ she says. ‘I know exactly where your money is. I opened a new account in your name. An account that only I have the access codes for.’
Tehrin disconnects the call. He stares at the gun. A feeling of anxiety replaces the emotion of love and pride that he’d been enjoying just moments before.
‘How?’ he asks.
‘Remember the parcel you signed for last week? You gave your money away in that very second.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Tehrin says. His mind flashes to their loving sex the night before, but this woman, with such coldness in her eyes, does not feel like the same one he made love to.
‘Oh Tehrin. It would have been so much better if you hadn’t checked today. I was going to take you out somewhere. Now you’re going to make a tremendous mess on my rug. Mother won’t like that at all. Plus, it means I’ll have to bring a cleaner in to dispose of you. Such unnecessary trouble.’
Kara sighs.
Tehrin climbs off the breakfast-bar stool and backs away from her.
‘You’ll kill me? After all we’ve meant to each other? All you had to do was ask. My money would have been yours if we married…’
‘I don’t love you, Tehrin. I can’t feel anything like that about anyone. But for what it’s worth, I never faked it in the bedroom,’ Kara says.
‘Kara…’
She smiles and then in a moment of elucidation, he knows: this isn’t even her real name. His mother had warned him about women like this. She’d known who he was and had gone after him. Everything about her is a lie.
Flight mode kicking in, he turns and runs for the bedroom.
The gun goes off: two near-silent pops. Sharp punches smash into his back. By his own momentum, and from the impact of the bullets, Tehrin is propelled forwards. His legs give under him and he drops hard onto the hardwood floor. He tries to get up but his legs won’t work. His arms are weak and he can barely move.
Kara walks towards him.
‘You’re such a pretty boy,’ she says. ‘It was fun while it lasted.’
She presses the gun against his forehead.
Fear surges up into Tehrin’s chest as he realizes this is the end of his life: 21 and he’s barely even seen the world…
He closes his eyes but it doesn’t stop Kara from pulling the trigger and plummeting him into darkness.