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and held up a baseball bat, only to have it snatched out of his hands by a bigger boy.
    Jamal’s father was very devout. Growing up had been a constant struggle, trying to reconcile the values of home with those of school and the outside world. His father had had such high expectations. ‘You’re his first-born,’ was his mother’s explanation. ‘He wants you to be an example to the others.’ Jamal had won some battles, like playing football for the school, which had meant going away with the team, once as far as Wigan. But there always followed a long interrogation, not about the match but what had happened on the trip, even who he’d sat with. His father was so easily disappointed, it had become his default mode. Jamal’s good grades and glowing reports were only to be expected, as far as he was concerned. ‘Always room for improvement,’ was his usual comment. Staying out late or meeting girls was strictly forbidden. Jamal’s friends ribbed him for being so obedient.
    The atmosphere in the house had got more oppressive. His brothers had told him he was making it worse for them, but their father was not so hard on them. In his last year at school Jamal rebelled – went clubbing, got drunk, smoked weed and even partied with some girls. But he never truly enjoyed himself – it was all just a fuck-you gesture to his father. His sister pointed this out to him. Adila knew him so well. She urged him to be patient: soon he would be going to college. How he wished he had listened to her. But his patience had run out. Going to Syria had been a last resort, a dramatic gesture to prove what a good Muslim he could be, prepared to give his life to help other Muslims, in accordance with Allah’s desires.
    In the wing mirror he caught sight of their commander, Abukhan’s black eyes staring back at him. He told himself not to look away just yet. Above all else, show no fear. Give nothing away of his intentions. But he had come to hate those eyes. Four months ago he had looked into them for courage, for certainty, for reassurance of the rightness of their cause. All he saw now was hatred. Abukhan, a soldier since childhood in Chechnya, claimed to have made his first kill when he was six. He had never known peace, had no concept of it. His war was for its own end, a never-ending battle waged against any available enemy. The commanders higher up the ISIS hierarchy respected his appetite for killing – they even deployed him against their own, to dispatch other leaders who had resisted the call to accept ISIS’s authority, or to exact vengeance on any who had strayed from the group.
    Jamal and the three others who had travelled with him from Croydon had carried with them such conviction; they were liberators, come to save the people from their oppressors, to carry out the holy orders as defined by their teacher, Emil, who had arranged their passage. Emil, the self-appointed cheerleader for the Syrian rebel cause, who rarely strayed beyond the street in Croydon where his barber’s shop was yet claimed to have links with jihadis from Kazakhstan to Nigeria. The man seemed ridiculous to him now, which was a measure of how much Jamal had changed. What he had seen in Syria went way beyond anything they had been led to expect. And today would be no exception.
    As they neared the square, he saw the people who had gathered. Another detachment was already there, holding them back. He could hear a strange keening coming from the women. As the pick-up slowed, he scanned the crowd, his heart hammering so loudly he was sure it could be heard outside his body.
    The vehicle lurched to a halt. As Abukhan stepped out of the cab the sound died away. The crowd fell silent and stared. With his black headdress and long black robe under his parka, he was unmistakable.
    Abukhan turned to them and beckoned. ‘Come.’

7
    08.00
Westminster, London
    Tom spotted Phoebe slipping into her office. She shut the door behind her but he opened it and