Free If You Were Me by Sam Hepburn Page A

dumped him in that lock-up. That’s what he’d meant about making him famous! I closed my eyes, feeling trapped, cornered, guilty as hell.
    You could have saved him, Dan. You could have called the cops .
    Then the reporter said his name: Behrouz Sahar.
    I jerked my head up. Sahar! He had to be the brother of that girl in the flat! I kept hitting replay so I could take it all in. It looked like Sahar was in intensive care with half the anti-terrorist squad camped round his bed waiting for him to come round.
    Shots of the entrance to the hospital and an aerial view of Meadowview gave way to pictures of tankschurning up dust in Afghanistan and a reporter saying Sahar had been an interpreter for the British army. There were photos of his time with the troops: Sahar laughing with a bunch of grimy, sunburnt soldiers, Sahar leaning out of a tank giving the thumbs up, Sahar with all these men in suits at some big meeting, and one of him getting a medal pinned on his chest by a posh-looking army officer. The picture cut to the same man pushing a trolley through Arrivals at Heathrow. A slim woman with long shiny hair was running towards him, trying to shake off a mob of reporters. They were all shouting at him: ‘Colonel Clarke, did Sahar ever show any signs of instability? Colonel Clarke, did you ever have cause to trust his loyalty? Is it true you were planning to use him as a goodwill ambassador for Hope Unlimited?’
    Clarke leant in to the nearest microphone. ‘I cannot find words to express my astonishment at this horrific news. The Behrouz Sahar I knew, or thought I knew, was a brave, upstanding young man who risked his life to save three injured British soldiers under my command. When his army colleagues discovered that he was on a Taliban death list, they urged me to intervene personally to bring him to Britain. Which I duly did. I can only assume that his decision to plan an act of terrorism against this country came about either because of some deep-seated mental disorder triggered by the traumas he experienced in Afghanistan, or because he had been subjected to intensive brainwashing and radicalized by Al Shaab militantsintent on exploiting his youth and vulnerability. We can never condone what he has done, and he must of course be punished. But the way forward is to support all those who have been touched by the horrors of war, civilian and military alike, which is why organizations like Hope Unlimited, the charity my wife and I set up some years ago, are so important for the future peace and stability of our world.’
    His wife, who’d been gazing up at him, nodded and turned a pair of soft brown eyes to the camera. That’s when I recognized her. She was that actress, India Lambert, the one who spent half her time making films and the other half roaming round war zones banging on about injustice. She squeezed his arm and with a murmured, ‘Thank you,’ the two of them turned and walked off towards the exit.
    The whole of me felt numb as I clicked on a live update of the story.
    â€˜. . . A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police has just confirmed that Behrouz Sahar’s mother, Farah, forty-two, and his sister Aliya, fourteen, were taken in for questioning soon after the explosion. While they are in custody his four-year-old sister Mina is being cared for by the authorities . . .’
    How was that spaced-out little kid I’d seen on the Sahars’ couch going to cope with a load of strangers looking after her? As for the mother, they’d have a hard time getting any sense out of her. Which left that girl,Aliya, facing the police on her own. I leant forward and dropped my face in my hands.
    â€˜The police are anxious to talk to anyone who has information about Behrouz Sahar’s activities since he came to the UK, or who can help trace his movements over the last forty-eight hours, particularly between one and four a.m. this morning. If you have any