Hashim sat down with his hands splayed on his knees and his joints already stiffening from the air conditioning. He stared at the wiry grey carpet to still the nerves that jangled in his limbs.
Hashim Khan had learnt to fear the white man. After moving to England in the seventies, he had learnt that wariness and deference were necessary in all dealings with the majority race. Now, called upon to protect his son, he knew no amount of deference would help. The door shut behind him with a metallic thud. He closed his eyes and whispered a prayer.
‘Mr Rabbani, please take a seat. Would you like a drink? We have coffee, tea, water.’
‘No,’ said Yasser. ‘Tell me what this is about or I’m calling a lawyer.’
Mia was unruffled. ‘If your son is guilty, he probably needs one. If not, he’ll likely be out of here in an hour.’
Yasser scowled. ‘Then tell me what this is about.’
Mia pointed at a chair and waited for him to sit. She explained that the interview was being recorded and ran through some formalities.
Amir shifted in his seat, feeling unnaturally small next to his father’s frame.
Mia began, ‘Amir, can you tell me where you were on the evening of Thursday the twenty-seventh of June?’
‘Yes. I was at home until about 7 p.m., then I went to a party with some of my friends.’
‘What time did you get there?’
Amir shrugged. ‘I don’t really remember.’
‘Okay, what did you do after the party?’
‘I went home.’
‘What time did you get home?’
‘I’m not sure. About 1 a.m.’
Mia made a note. ‘And you went straight home after the party?’
‘Yes, I just said that.’
Mia smiled coldly. ‘Well, what if I said we have reports of you attending an after-party of sorts at seventy-two Bow Docks, a derelict warehouse approximately seventy metres from the location of the party?’
Amir frowned. ‘That wasn’t an after-party. We were just fooling around on our way home.’
Mia glanced at the father. He was like a nervous cat, poised to pounce at any moment. Perhaps a soft approach was best here. ‘Okay, it wasn’t an after-party – my mistake. What did you boys get up to there?’
‘We just hung out.’
Mia tapped the table with her index finger. ‘And by that you mean?’
‘We just talked, played music and …’ He swallowed hard. ‘We had a smoke.’
Amir’s father snapped to attention. ‘A smoke? Of what?’
‘Dad, I’m sorry, it’s not something we do all the time. Just sometimes.’
‘A smoke of what?’
The boy stammered. ‘Ganja.’
Yasser shot back in his chair. ‘Tu ganja peera hai? Kahan se aaya hai? Kis haraami ne tujhe yeh diya hai?’
‘Aba, please. It was just once or twice.’ Amir tried to push back his chair but it was bolted to the floor.
‘I work all hours of the day to give you the life you have and you’re going to throw it away on drugs?’
Amir shrank beneath the ire as if physically ducking blows. ‘Dad, I swear to God, it was only once or twice. Kasam.’
His father’s voice grew stony. ‘Just wait until your mother hears about this.’ Yasser shook his head in disbelief. ‘We’ll deal with this later.’ He exhaled slowly and turned to Mia. ‘I’m sorry, officer. Please continue.’
Mia felt a flicker of grudging respect. It was obvious he cared about his son’s mistakes. Too often she saw young men trudge through here like ghosts, floating from one place to another with nothing at all to tether them. Yasser Rabbani clearly cared about his son.
‘So you were smoking cannabis,’ said Mia. ‘Was there alcohol?’
Amir vigorously shook his head. ‘No.’
Mia made a note to ask again later. ‘Who else was there?’
Amir nodded at the door. ‘Mo, Hassan and Farid.’
‘Did anyone join you throughout the course of the night?’
‘No.’
Mia caught the fissure in his voice. ‘Amir, you should know that our officers are collecting your computers as we speak and we’ll be examining your phones. If you or your friends are hiding something, we’ll find out.’ She smiled lightly. ‘Don’t you watch CSI?’
Amir blinked. ‘Okay, there was one other person there but I really don’t want this to get out. I’ve been trying to protect her forever.’
‘Who’s that?’
He hesitated. ‘Her name is Jodie Wolfe. She’s a girl from school. She has something called neurofibromatosis which messes up your face. We had a class about it at school but the kids called her the Elephant Woman anyway.’
‘What was she doing at the warehouse?’
Amir shifted in his chair. ‘She’s a sweet girl but she can be a little bit … sad. She’s had a crush on me since year seven and even now, five years later, she follows me around – pretends she just bumped into me.’
‘Is that what she did that night? Pretend to bump into you?’
Amir shook his head. ‘No, even she wouldn’t be that sad. She said she was looking for her friend Nina. She’s always going off with different boys so Jodie must’ve lost her. She said she saw a bunch of us heading here and figured there was some kind of after-party.’
‘Did you invite her to join you?’
Amir scoffed lightly. ‘No, she just turned up. We were hanging out – just the boys.’
‘So she turned up at the warehouse or joined you before?’
‘Yes, she turned up at the warehouse.’
‘Then what happened?’
Amir frowned. ‘She asked if she could have a smoke. The boys didn’t want to share one with her. I didn’t say anything. I mean, she’s not diseased or anything but she’s scary to look at because of her condition so I could understand why they said that. She seemed upset so I tried to comfort her.’
‘How?’
He shrugged. ‘I put my arm around her and told her to ignore them.’
Mia couldn’t place his emotion. Guilt? Shame? Embarrassment?
‘Then she …’ his voice trailed off.
‘Then she?’
The boy’s face flushed red. ‘She whispered in my ear and said she would do something for me if we got rid of the boys.’
Amir’s father stood abruptly. He turned to the door and then back to his son. He opened his mouth to speak but then closed it again. Finally, he sat back down in silence and trained his gaze away from his son, as if the space between them might swallow the mortification of what was to come.
Mia leaned forward. ‘You said that Jodie