Never in our lives had we been so close.

Then I went to visit the imam in his basement. They’ve turned it into a bunker, steel-plated door, bars on the window, and there’s a wall of Kapos standing guard outside. They body-searched me and brought me to the imam like a prisoner of war. So there he was in the flesh, the One-Eyed fucker, he was fifty-something, his hair was completely white, he was wearing a green gandurah, a black jacket, he had a beard that comes down to his belly button and one piercing eye. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his back against the wall. In front of him, on a low table, were the tools of his trade, the Qur’an, a pile of blank fatwas, a seal, a phone and fax machine. Flicha, the new emir, was next to him, a young guy with a beard, built like a brick shithouse, carrying a gun under his jacket, the butt was deliberately sticking out to make sure any visitors didn’t try anything.

The imam said, ‘Come here, my son, come here. Sit opposite me. I believe you know Mujahid Si Omar – the ignorant young thugs on the estate call him Flicha. Talk to me, tell me about yourself, tell me what you thought of our beloved Algeria, an Islamic country suffering under the yoke of a heathen government.’

I said, ‘What do you want?’

‘Your happiness, my son, your happiness and that of our faith. When I heard that your parents had been savagely murdered, it grieved me, truly. I immediately got in touch with our brothers in Algeria, who are fighting for Allah, for His religion.’

‘I didn’t ask you for anything.’

‘I did it for Allah, and for truth, that is my duty as a Muslim, as an imam. I need to tell you that your parents were murdered by the Algerian government, not by the holy warriors of Allah. It is their way, to kill people and put the blame on us.’

‘Them, you, what’s the difference?’

‘There is a great difference. Had this been done by our soldiers, I would have told you so regardless of how you might feel, we proclaim our jihad before the world. They are the guilty ones, you must avenge your parents, Allah provides for Qisas – for exact and equivalent retribution.’

‘I don’t need you, I don’t need anybody.’

‘Pride is a virtue, but now you need Islam to strengthen your heart and your hand.’

‘I don’t need anything.’

‘What you say is blasphemous, but you will think better of it and join us, we can give you solace, we can help you and your adoptive parents financially, and we can find some useful work for your friends who hang around all day in defiance of the law.’

‘I don’t think you heard me, Imam, I don’t need you!’