– Mr Fergusson, the judge had expostulated when I explained why I’d posted bail for the terrified creature in the dock: I believed him to be innocent. We are really not interested in your views. As a journalist of great experience, you know perfectly well that standing bail for someone has got nothing to do with their innocence or guilt. That is for the jury to decide; you know that.
I hadn’t banked on my testimony having an adverse effect on the case. The consequences of losing it were so appalling that the Afghans hadn’t even dared contemplate them. From the cramped public gallery I watched Gulabuddin stooping in the dock, flanked by yellow-shirted Securicor guards. He looked hopelessly out of place, a big man oddly diminished by the expanses of light oak and pompous Edwardian brass. He shifted his weight and smiled uncertainly back at me. It had been a bad idea after all not to get rid of his awful suit and dress him up in something smarter. The idea had been to present him as a respectable maths professor down on his luck, but in fact he looked more like the seedy sex-offender he was accused of being. His eyes were red and haggard, the bags beneath them dreadful proof of his weeks of fear and insomnia. He’d been crying quietly in the cafeteria during lunch. His cousin Mir, the Kandahar Cockney, this story’s starting point and the reason that I was here at all, was sitting in the row in front of me with his head between his knees and his fingers in his ears. Courtroom 17 was unusually small for the Old Bailey and had no separate public gallery, so that onlookers were escorted into the back of the courtroom itself. The tiny public benches were so like the pews of an English country church that Mir almost appeared to be praying. Then again, he probably was. If ever there was a moment to invoke the mercy of Allah, this was surely it.
The usher entered from a side door and whispered something to Lenora, who flinched and shot a sickly smile across the silent courtroom. It wasn’t a technical question: the jury were ready to deliver their verdict after all. She was as nervous as the rest of us now, her earlier bravado all gone. We stood as the jury filed in, radiating the gravitas of their task. We searched and searched their faces for a sign of their decision but they avoided eye contact with any of us.
Ihad told Mir in Islamabad that I would help him into the country but that once he was here he would be on his own, barring emergencies. That was our deal – and as far as I was concerned the sooner he started taking responsibility for his new life in the West, the better.
Even so, I grew anxious as the date of his flight drew nearer, because the question of where he would stay in London had not been resolved in advance. In truth I had no idea what I would do if he simply turned up and threw himself on my mercy. I might have been justified in holding him to the strict terms of the deal and turning him away, but we both knew I wouldn’t do that, not now. I could end up having to put him up, and it wasn’t hard to envisage a night on my sofa turning into two nights, three nights, weeks. After all, he had made a corner of the Live News offices in Islamabad his home for well over a month. I certainly didn’t want that happening to me. My flat was simply too small.
He had told me that he would find somewhere all right. I had asked him about it several times but he always gave the same vague answer, that he thought he knew some Afghans who would help him, no problem. So with two days to go I was relieved to hear via the Live News office telephone that he would be staying with Hamid, a family friend from his hometown of Mazar-i-Sharif who was already resident here. What was more, he did not want me to meet him at the airport because Hamid would be collecting him himself. His plane would not be landing until midnight, he said, and since it was far from certain how long it would take him to clear immigration I should stay away because he did not wish to inconvenience me. Although this was precisely the outcome I had connived at, I couldn’t help feeling a little cheated. Mir’s first landfall in the West would have been worth witnessing. I imagined him shambling through the sliding doors at the end of the customs and excise chicane, wide-eyed at the size of the place, the high-tech travelators, the carpeted hush, the adverts for booze, the lights and the clean steel lines and the unequivocal Western-ness of Heathrow Airport. His expression would have been something to see. But I made myself be glad instead that he had responded as intended to my arm’s-length attitude, that he seemed after all to have understood the terms and spirit of our agreement. On the day of his flight therefore I merely made sure he had my telephone number and instructed him to ring immediately once he had arrived at Hamid’s, whatever the time of night.
– No problem, he said, a little too cheerily for my liking.
– And you know what to do? You’re a tourist until they ask for your passport. Then you ask for political asylum.
– Ask for passport – then say, ‘political asylum’. I understand.
I enunciated slowly, and not just because of the crackling on the line to Islamabad, nor even out of consideration for his imperfect English. It was mainly nervousness at all the things that could still go wrong. There could be a spot check by immigration officials at Islamabad airport, for instance. Such things had happened before, and there was a serious risk that his story would not hold up under close interrogation. I thought again of my letter of sponsorship, carefully designed to persuade the British High Commission in Islamabad to grant him a tourist visa. This document had gone through many drafts, but thinking back it still struck me as clunkingly bogus.
Dear Mirwais. I am very much looking forward to seeing you again on your short holiday to London. I can’t wait to show you Big Ben, Tower Bridge and the other sights you wanted to see. Our time will be short but I’m sure we will manage to fit them all in. Also, I have many journalist friends here who are anxious to meet you. Some of them could be very helpful to you in your career as a media worker when you return to Afghanistan…
– You will be unobtrusive, won’t you?
– Unobwhat?
– Unobtrusive. Never mind. Just act natural – try to look like everyone else, OK?
I had already told Mir to go straight to his seat when he boarded the plane, to talk to no one, to stay put throughout the flight. Now I told him again.
– No problem, no problem, he sang.
It was hard to tell if he had really understood. He had an Afghan’s happy-go-lucky attitude to life, a shoulder-shrugging approach born of the certainty that nothing on this earth happens without God’s say-so. I had seen this doctrine of insha’allah in action many times in his homeland. It caused pedestrians to stroll out into fast-moving traffic without a glance to either side; it led soldiers to ignore totally the warning whistle of an incoming shell. This Muslim mindset had its philosophical charms, but these would probably be lost on the average Heathrow immigration officer. For that reason I had gone over the drill with Mir three or four times, including in writing. The timing was vital. If he claimed asylum too early he could quickly find himself on a plane back to Pakistan; too late, and the entire long process of immigration could be declared invalid. It had to be done at British passport control and there would probably be no second opportunity. We went through other last-minute arrangements. Did he have enough money? Phone numbers? How much had