Poppy Day (27 page)

Miles, bless him, was telling her not to be scared, that it would soon be over. It went against all her instincts to stand still, allowing the man to cover her eyes. She wanted to pull it off and shout in protest.

The scarf man then took her hand and placed it on Miles’s shoulder. Poppy could tell it was Miles’s shoulder by the fabric of his shirt beneath her fingertips, thin corduroy. This was how they walked the rest of the way, in a blind conga without the music or leg kicks. This would have made Poppy laugh under any other circumstances, but she was too scared to find
anything
funny.

It was a further twenty minutes before they were inside and their blindfolds removed. Poppy found herself in a large hallway, with a wide staircase and a wrought iron banister that wound around in a circle. It reminded her of an entrance to one of those posh hotels that you saw in the West End. There were several doors leading from the hallway, each had a guard with a gun. There were more men with weapons on the stairs and one or two hanging down over the ornate balcony; they were surrounded. Poppy couldn’t have spoken if she’d wanted to, her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and there was no spare spit to loosen it.

One of the doors opened and a tall man in traditional Afghan dress came out. His beard was really long, almost down to the middle of his chest and on his head was one of the scarves that all the men seemed to own, but it was wound around into a turban. He stepped forward,

‘Hello and welcome. I hope that your journey was a good one.’ With palms upturned and hands splayed, he looked and sounded like the perfect host, not the fearful warlord that she had been expecting. It was surreal; he seemed oblivious to the guns and the tension. Poppy stared at him.

Miles took a step forward. ‘Thank you for your welcome. The journey was fine, although we are glad to arrive.’

‘Glad to arrive, yes I am sure,’ he laughed in
acknowledgement
of the shitty roads and the whole blindfold incident. It was bizarre, the whole thing. Poppy had pictured him as a monster, but he was chatting to Miles like an old friend of the family, someone you might meet in the supermarket that you only know a little bit. So you talk about traffic and the parking, enquire after their health… Then hope that you don’t bump into them again in the fruit and veg because you have exhausted everything you might possibly have to say to them. It was like that, they stood making small talk. It was the weirdest moment for Poppy. He shook Miles’s hand. ‘I am Zelgai Mahmood.’

‘I am Miles Varrasso.’

Zelgai bowed his head slightly. Poppy knew he was coming to her next. She knew it, anticipated it, yet Miles hadn’t told her that she could speak. But it was too late; he was there, in front of her, with his hand outstretched, ‘You must be Nina.’

She placed her shaking hand into his. ‘Yes, I am Nina Folkstok.’

Again he bowed slightly. ‘I have never been to Denmark. It can be very cold, I understand.’

She drew breath and spoke quietly, not wanting to give away too much of her accent, ‘Yes it can be very cold but beautiful.’

‘Your homeland is always the most beautiful place in the world, is it not? No matter where it is.’

Poppy nodded and glanced at Miles, who winked at her quickly. It told her all that she needed to know; so far, she had done well.

Zelgai put his arm out to indicate the rest of the house. ‘Shall we go into my office?’

‘Thank you, yes.’ Miles was happy to speak on their behalf. Poppy was happy to let him.

Zelgai walked slowly, the two followed at an almost
reverential
pace. The man from the car with the gun walked behind them, another conga-like procession. They approached some double doors made of dark wood with elaborate carvings. The armed guard who had been blocking them turned the handle and pushed them open. The room was vast and could have been Tristram Munroe’s office, if you replaced the rugs with pictures and the tiled floor for carpet.

There were two Arab men already seated at either side of the desk. Zelgai took the vacant leather seat in the middle, Miles and Poppy sat on smaller chairs in front of the trio. Poppy crossed and uncrossed her legs before clasping and unclasping her hands. Zelgai laid out the rules of the interview, ‘You may make notes with a pen and paper, but not use any electronic equipment.’ The two were still without their bags and their pockets were empty; where he thought they might be hiding electronic equipment, God only knew.

‘We will tell you what questions to ask and we will refuse to discuss anything that we do not wish to discuss. The interview will be over when we say it is and you will be taken back to the base in the same way that you arrived. Is that all straight forward?’

Miles again leant forward, the official spokesman. ‘Yes, that is all understood. May I please take this opportunity to thank you for speaking to us today, Mr Mahmood?’

Zelgai nodded. The man in the chair to the left of the desk spoke in a low whisper. Zelgai turned around and listened. They spoke in the throaty Arabic that barred Miles and Poppy. The conversation was brief. Zelgai suddenly stood, as did the man sat to his right; this man now addressed them, as he and Zelgai did a form of do-se-do and swapped seats. Poppy glanced at Miles who kept his eyes facing forward.

‘I must apologise for the subterfuge. I am Zelgai Mahmood.’

Miles seemed totally unfazed, whereas Poppy was thinking, what the shitting ada is going on here?

Miles bent forward slightly, with the hint of a bow. ‘I am most grateful for the opportunity to meet with you, sir.’

The real Zelgai just nodded as if to say, ‘Yes, you should be’. He was fastidiously groomed, his beard close and neat, his brows trimmed, his nails had the perfect almond shape and lustre of a recent manicure. His eyes were like tiny chips of grey flint, cold and blank. Whether it was because Poppy knew who he was and what he was capable of, or whether it was the truth she would never know, she was certain that she had never seen such malevolence in any eyes. It was as if she could see into his soul and the colour was black. A shudder ran along her spine, causing her shoulders to jerk.

He turned to Miles and said, ‘I am familiar with your writing, Mr Varrasso. I like your work.’ His voice was
accentless
, with the clear-cut precise vowels of a BBC announcer. His perfect English placed him firmly on the playing fields of a good public school; he might even have been in the first fifteen with Tom and Tristram…

Miles piped up, ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I think that your view is balanced, which is not something I can always say of your colleagues.’ Zelgai and his associates laughed. Miles chortled softly so that he wasn’t left out; although Poppy bet that he didn’t find it that funny.

‘Tell me, are you a rugby man, Miles?’

‘Err… not overly. I’ll watch if it’s on, six nations, that sort of thing.’ It was diplomatic, concessionary.

Zelgai nodded, noting there was little point in asking Miles for an update on the Harlequins’ progress. It was the thing he missed most.

Without warning, he sat back in his chair, resting his chin on his hand. He turned to Poppy. ‘Who are you?’

She lowered her head slightly; when she spoke her voice was again quiet, ‘I am Nina Folkstok.’

He stared at her for some seconds, before exhaling loudly with a low, irritated hum. When he spoke again, it was as if time stopped; her stomach shrunk around her intestines, which had turned to liquid. She clenched her buttocks to prevent an accident. Her heart had moved into her throat, which she could not only hear beating, but which prevented her from breathing. He smiled at her, now sitting upright with his long fingers forming a pyramid over his lap. ‘No. No you are not.’ He shook his head. ‘I asked you a question and I would like an answer. Who are you?’ He was still smiling, but it was the sadistic smile of a madman, not the friendly smile of someone trying to put you at ease.

‘I… I… am…’

Miles started to speak, ‘She is a journalist, she—’

‘You shut up!’ Zelgai’s voice boomed around the room. He stood as he shouted, pointing at Miles. He conversed with the guards in his native tongue, the double doors opened; the
gun-toting
, blindfold man came in. He marched over to Miles as Zelgai fired off short bursts of instruction. The guard yanked Miles from his chair and spun him around until he was facing the door; with his gun in Miles’s back, the man began to push him from the room.

Miles stammered over his shoulder as he was forcibly removed, his sentences fragmented as the pleas stuttered in his mind, ‘Please, she… I, let me, it’s not… please…’

Poppy didn’t move, couldn’t move. She sat repeating in her head, ‘Please don’t kill Miles. This is my fault, it’s nothing to do with him, please don’t kill him!’

‘What are you going to do with him?’ Poppy hadn’t realised that she’d spoken aloud until Zelgai answered.

‘That depends on how honest you are. If you lie to me, I will kill him.’ She could tell by his tone that he meant it. Poppy was terrified. Zelgai sat down, all the while looking her squarely in the face. ‘I ask you for one final time, who are you?’

Poppy could hear Miles’s words in her head, ‘Don’t speak! You are Nina, don’t say a word, you are Nina Folkstok.’ She didn’t have the strength to lie; too frightened to think straight, let alone concentrate on an elaborate story. She took a deep breath. ‘My name is Poppy Day. I am English. I’m a hairdresser. No one knows that I’m here, no one has sent me. I came here because I believe that you have taken my husband and I want him back, please.’

No one spoke for what seemed to Poppy like an age. She felt as if her legs did not belong to her body. She was shaking. Zelgai spoke to his compatriots without averting his gaze. They stood and left the room. Poppy thought that without the
scrutiny
of the audience it might be less scary, but it was quite the opposite. She did not want to be alone with him. He stroked his beard. ‘Tell me one more time, exactly who you are and what it is you want.’

Poppy held his gaze and told him the truth, ‘My name is Poppy Day. I am married to Martin Cricket, a British soldier. I am English, I’m a hairdresser. No one has sent me or knows that I am here. I have come because I believe that you are holding my husband hostage. I felt that nothing was being done to get him released and I want him to come home. I really want him to come home.’

He waited until Poppy had finished before starting to laugh, a real belly laugh as though she had told him the funniest joke in the world. He thumped his thigh, trying to regain composure and then wiped at his eyes.

Poppy felt small and helpless. She was six again, there was no one to look after her and no one cared. She missed Martin more than ever; she wanted to be at home. She wanted them both to be home as though none of this had ever happened, as if he had never been away.

‘Oh my goodness. Why do you think that I will listen to you? Why do you think that I will do anything to help someone like you? Why do you think that you can come before me in my own country and make any demand at all?’ He spoke quietly, with menace. Poppy had always associated anger and
aggression
with loud, violent speech. She now knew that this was not always the case.

She shook her head in an attempt to clear her thoughts. ‘I don’t know how to answer you. I hadn’t thought about why or how you should help me. I just knew that I couldn’t sit at home and do nothing. I am not one of these girls that can sit by the phone and hope the problem will sort itself out. I am smarter than that, I wanted to take control and I wanted to fix it. I thought if I could get in front of you and tell you that I miss my husband and that I want him to come home, that this mess is nothing to do with us—’

He interrupted her. ‘You are right, Poppy Day, it is a mess. But don’t be so ignorant as to believe that it is nothing to do with you. It is you that have voted in your government in your democratic society. It is your husband that chose to join an army whose weapons are trained on Afghan families every minute of every day, killing innocent women and children, destroying communities. It is you that live in a society that is sliding into moral decay without looking over its shoulder or pausing for breath. So do not sit there and try to tell me that it is nothing to do with you. It is everything to do with you!’

Not for the first time in her life, she felt very alone. Poppy didn’t know what to say or do next. She didn’t have to; he was in control, calling all the shots.

‘Do you love your husband?’

The question took her by surprise. ‘Do I love him? Yes, of course I love him! I love him more than anything.’

‘More than anything?’

‘Yes, more than anything.’

‘More than you love yourself?’

Poppy paused for a moment. Martin was her whole world, the only person who had made her crappy life bearable and without him she had no life. ‘Yes. I love him more than I love myself. I have since I was a little girl.’

‘I like that.’ He nodded his approval.

He stood then and walked around to the front of the desk, as though in deep contemplation. He was wearing a long, pale blue cotton kaftan and black leather slippers. He leant on the desk and folded his arms across his chest. ‘OK. You can take your husband home. You are both free to go.’

Poppy daren’t trust what she had heard. She sought
confirmation
, ‘Really?’ She didn’t want to give him the chance to change his mind, but similarly had to be sure that she had understood correctly.

‘Yes, really. You are both free to go. I will arrange for a car to take you both to the base that you came from.’

‘Is he here then? Is Mart in this building?’

‘Yes, he is in here in this building. Only a few walls and a couple of guards separate you right now.’

‘Oh my God! I can’t believe it. Can I see him? Can I see him please?’ Poppy felt her tears pooling. She placed her shaking hand over her mouth, unable to hide her absolute joy, relief and happiness. She was overwhelmed, simultaneously beaming and crying. She felt the weight lift from her shoulders, her spirit as light as a feather. Martin was here! She had done it, she was taking him home!