Prologue

      The line was taut. The cord circles tightened into handcuffs, burning his wrists. He was propelled forward, dragged on the rope, stumbling over sand and stones on the leash. His neck craned backwards, his face towards the sky and the glare of the sun fired the cloth of his blindfold. His tongue flickered to his lips, tasted their dryness. Sweat blossomed on his scalp, trickled down his temples, stung chapped skin.

      He was sick with shock, his limbs convulsing. The man had jumped him from behind, from nowhere, and knocked him to the ground. He had pinioned him, his knee hard in his back, and bound his eyes before he could twist his face to see. Who was he? He caught the stink of male sweat; his own, bitter with adrenalin, and, overlaying it, the thick meaty smell of the man.

      He stretched the tendons of his neck and managed to move the cloth a fraction. The material was wound tightly round his head, pressing into his eyes and, as he lifted it, he created a narrow slit of light at the bottom. Light, there, below, just beyond his vision. His eyes bulged, forcing themselves downwards, straining towards his chin, to focus on the paper-thin line of brightness. Was that a blur of sand he could see, dancing with pinpricks of colour? His head was bursting with effort and fear.

      He tried to take control of his body, to steady his breathing and, with it, his mind. This man is taking me somewhere. He has a plan for me. With this thought, hope rose. He almost giggled, intoxicated with it. If he were going to kill me, he would have done it by now. Wouldn’t he? Yes. Alhamdulillah. Thanks be to God. He grasped this hope and hugged it to him, a lifebelt thought. Yes. If he—

      A sharp rock at his toes and he was tripping, his feet splayed. The cord closed its teeth more sharply round his wrists, biting into the skin. The rope jerked. Pain through his hands, a sudden white heat in his shoulder sockets, his arms. A rush of air on his face as he fell forward, crashing, bouncing hard against the ground. Air struck out of his chest, leaving him gasping. Fine sand rose in a cloud, filling his mouth, his nose, making him choke. The stink of grit close to his face, a smell of dead sand and desiccated dirt.

      A pause. He was alive, breathing noisily in, out. His nostrils ran wet with mucus or blood. He tried to lift his head and opened his mouth a crack to speak. His eyes, encrusted with sand, were trying to force themselves open beneath the cloth. His tongue was thick. He held his breath to listen. He heard the man, close to him, exhale.

      His head was held down, his face pressed into the sand. A weight on the back of his head. A foot. The hard sole of a boot. He bucked and twisted, trying to flip over, to turn his covered face to the man, to beg. The boot held him firm, standing on his skull, grinding his nose into the dirt, causing a hundred minute sharp stones to embed in his forehead, his chin. A wave of nausea brought bile into his throat, riding a swell of panic.

      A metallic click. A gun being cocked. He opened his mouth to shout but no word came. The sharp stink of piss, hot and steamy. The sudden wetness in his groin. A searing flash of white light. Cleansing and bleaching everything in an instant. The halo of the gunshot Jalil didn’t live to hear.