Abraham was woken by a dull sense of noise outside the shed, tyres crunching slowly on stones, and as he opened his eyes he saw the trees briefly lightening through the window. A car door slammed shut, and footsteps started in the dust. He didn’t need to consider his options to know he didn’t have any.
Arms feeling in front of him, he went to the wall by the door and reached for a tool of some kind from the dozens hanging there, setting them knocking against each other in the near silence. He came away with something, a hoe by the length and weight of it, and stood in the crook of the door with his mouth as dry as the field he’d been ploughing all day. The muscles in his arms ached as they tensed.
But whoever this was, they were in no hurry, and the footsteps took their time before stopping just outside. In the silence Abraham closed his eyes and forced his breath to come slow. Then a polite knock, one two three, like a neighbour worried about intruding.
‘Abraham.’
That voice. He knew the voice.
‘Abraham. Sorry to disturb. Please. Open door.’
Please God. Why couldn’t anything be simple?
Resting the hoe against the wall, he opened the door and stood back a pace. Vural was there, the dim silhouette of his form against the little light outside.
‘Hello, Abraham. Is good to see you.’
Abraham nodded in the darkness.
‘You have light here?’
‘No.’
‘Come. To car, there is light. Sit.’
‘I’m not coming with you.’
The familiar sound of Vural sniffing.
‘I can force. But okay.’
Checking each of his pockets, he finally found his phone, switched on its torch, and swept it across the shed.
‘Nice. Nice room this is. You are farmer now?’
‘How did you know I was here?’
‘Please, Abraham, I can sit? We must talk.’
Abraham knelt down, straightened out his bed and gestured for Vural to join him on his bedroll. With a groan Vural sat, holding his knees and ending up awkwardly cross-legged with the phone’s light shining on the patch of sheet between them. He smelled of garlic and his breath was sour in the clean cold air, but Abraham was strangely comforted by him being there. After a pause and a sniff, he spoke.
‘Abraham, what you do? Why not go home?’
‘I don’t have anything else.’
‘Is stupid move. Stupid move. Here police want you, Syrians want you. Now London police want you too. You know this?’
Abraham didn’t answer. He didn’t. He hadn’t thought about London for days.
‘You go home when I say, you okay – but no, you come back, you are like cat in the night and now even London police want your head.’
Abraham shrugged. He had given his explanation.
‘Okay, my friend, here is facts. Before, there was choice. You go on, you go back. Now choice is you go on or police find you here.’
‘Why are you threatening me?’
‘Not threat, facts.’
‘Okay. I go on.’
‘To Raqqa?’
‘Of course.’
‘And in Raqqa you talk to me. Yes?’
So we were back here.
‘I’m not joining them.’
‘You want your daughter, no other way.’
Lit dimly from below, Vural’s face looked severe, stony. His rheumy eyes were now black, and Abraham could see no way round him.
‘How did you find me?’
‘In Akçakale, good market for secrets. Only market now.’
Murat. Or one of Murat’s friends. Or one of their friends, God knew, but it wasn’t good.
‘Talk to you how?’
‘You SMS. I will tell you what I want to know.’
‘They’ll check my phone.’
‘Delete as you send. But they all use their phones, all the time. Abraham, they are clever. But they are stupid also.’
Vural was smiling now. It was meant to be a charming smile.
‘Will be good work, Abraham. Useful work.’
Abraham looked down at his hands, clean now but for the neat lines of black soil under the nails. The hands of a chemist turned fugitive now spy.