Author’s Note

      I hope my story is inspirational for those who might find themselves in similar situations and think there is no hope and no way out. There is always a way out, even when the odds are stacked against you and the wall seems very high.

      I’ve been there, scared, not knowing who to ask for help. It’s not a nice feeling.

      www.alexander-khan.co.uk is a website that offers confidential help and advice to people in similar situations to those described in this book.

      Prologue

      1988. HAQQANIA MADRASSA, NORTH-WEST PAKISTAN

      The mullah bends down, his long grey-black beard brushing against my feet as he unlocks the leg brace. I’ve been standing rigid in it for at least three hours, unable to sit, kneel or even squat for fear of snapping my ankles. I could cry with relief, but I’m too frightened to cry. At least not yet.

      He points to the blackboard in front of me with his bamboo stick, the one he uses to whack us all with when we can’t pronounce something from the Holy Book. My Arabic is rubbish; I’m very used to that stick.

      ‘Read it,’ he commands, glaring at me with dark eyes.

      All the lights have gone out across the madrassa and the only illumination in the room is a lantern with a tiny wick. I read the chalked scripture slowly, trying to pronounce all the words right:

      ‘La ilaha illallah Muhammad rasul Allah’ (‘There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is His Messenger.’)

      Whack! The stick comes across my shoulders. Wrong again. Hearing Arabic spoken is one thing, trying to read it quite another, and my northern English accent easily wins out. The mullah glares at me with undisguised contempt.

      ‘Go back to your room,’ he says. ‘We’ll see each other in here again tomorrow. You’re a disgrace to Islam.’

      I stumble through the darkness to the dormitory and feel my way across the room to my blanket. Most of the boys are sleeping. I lie down and start to cry, as quietly as I can. The question goes through my mind, the same question that nags me night and day: how the hell have I ended up here? An ordinary lad from Lancashire stuck in some kind of weird medieval fairy story, but with no sign of a happy ending …

      Back home, my mates are secretly listening to Bros or Guns n’ Roses in their bedrooms, hoping their dads won’t catch them and send them for an extra session of prayer at the mosque. That is as bad as life gets for them; why have I been singled out for such harsh punishment so far from home? What have I done to deserve this?

      Chapter One

      I see a face, a white face, but I don’t recall any features other than dark eyes and a smile. What I remember most is her long dark hair. As she bends down, it tickles the sides of my cheeks and I laugh. She laughs too, then the sun comes out and streams through the thin curtains of the living room. She turns away and is gone. This is the only memory of my mum I have from childhood.

      I’ve no idea what she was like as a mother during those brief first few years. I can’t recall the stories she told, the food she cooked, the games she played or even the sound of her voice. There is no scent in this world that evokes her smell, no object or place that brings back those precious moments in time. Dark hair and a white face are all I have, and while that hasn’t been much, it has been enough to hang on to in my worst moments. I always knew she was out there somewhere, even when she’d apparently vanished from the face of the Earth. All I wanted was her to come back and take us home.

      What I know about Margaret Firth is what I’ve pieced together over the years and what I’ve learned more recently. She was born near Manchester, the youngest of three sisters living in a house of poverty and pain. Her parents had little time or regard for her. Although she looked up to her sisters, it wasn’t the easiest of relationships. When her elder siblings moved out and made lives for themselves she would go to live with them from time to time, returning to her parents’ home when they’d had enough of her. It