Free If You Were Me by Sam Hepburn

dusty plastic dog in the back window and a dent along the side. She told me to lie across the back seat while she fetched an old rug from the boot.
    â€˜Here, when I give you the word, put this over you,’ she said. ‘It won’t be for long.’
    She got into the front, pulled off her jacket and cap and shook out her curly fair hair so it stuck up around her head like one of Mina’s dolls. Two uniformed policemen leapt into a van parked nearby and roared up the ramp and through the exit with the roof light flashing and the siren screeching. A burst of voices shouted my name, screaming filthy words. It made me sick inside. They were so angry, so full of hate. The voices grew louder. I wanted to shout back and tell them it wasn’t right what they were saying. The shouting faded as the crowd chased after the van.
    â€˜OK. Stay down,’ said WPC Rennell.
    I heard the clunk of the door locks and I lay down flat, pulling the dusty rug over my head. It was itchy and smelt of dogs. My mouth was dry. My heart was thudding.
    â€˜All right,’ she said. ‘Here we go.’
    I felt the rumble of the engine and the bump of the ramp. The car stopped.
    â€˜Don’t move,’ she whispered. ‘There’s still a few stragglers hanging around, looking for trouble.’
    The car edged forward. The shouting started again. Afist thumped the roof, we swerved sideways. I pushed my face into the sweaty plastic, fighting the urge to vomit, and I thought of Mina throwing up in Captain Merrick’s jeep. Voices came right up to the car. I could feel the people out there. Hating me. Wanting to find me and hurt me. Knuckles rapped on the window. The car turned sharply and we sped away.
    â€˜It’s OK,’ she said after a few minutes. ‘We’re clear.’
    I slipped the rug off my face.
    â€˜There’s a lot of angry people out there.’ I could see her looking at me in the mirror. ‘But don’t worry. We’ll be around, making sure you’re all right.’
    â€˜There’s no need,’ I said, trying to sound sure of myself. But I wasn’t sure of anything. I was so lost and scared it felt as if my body had broken into pieces.
    All I knew was that I had to help Behrouz, and I couldn’t do that with a policewoman standing over me, watching everything I did.

DAN
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    I t was nearly four o’clock when I finally dragged myself downstairs to make a sandwich. On my way past the living room I heard the murmur of the TV and, looking round the door, I glimpsed a grainy, blown-up passport photo on the screen. The shock made my skin burn. It was him. The man who got kidnapped from Meadowview. The one whose petrified face had kept me up all night. I took a deep breath and kept walking. I didn’t want to know. My head was still urging me into the kitchen when my feet swivelled round and turned back down the hall. I pushed the door wide. A bright-eyed, smiling weather forecaster was pointing to a map predicting rain. I gripped the doorframe. ‘Hey, Mum, that bloke on the news just now. What’s happened to him?’
    She was ironing, with her mobile clamped to her ear, gossiping to one of her friends. When I started mouthing at her and pointing to the TV, she frowned, shrugged and shook her head. I ran upstairs and checked the news online. It didn’t take me long to find the story.
    The man on TV was making headlines on every channel. He was a nineteen-year-old Afghan minicab driver who’d nearly died when his bomb-making equipment exploded in a lock-up in Kilburn at four a.m. that morning. I broke out in a sweat and rocked back on my chair, staring at his face on the screen, trying to work it out. Two hours before the explosion I’d seen him being whacked round the head and dragged off in a van. He’d have had trouble standing up after that, let alone getting himself to Kilburn and cooking up a bomb. Cement Face must have