But Bashir had made Jax a project. Made him his pet. Halim refused to even admit it to himself, but he was jealous. He hadn’t been a soldier, he didn’t know how to make bombs, and he couldn’t obtain mobile phones. All Halim had was money, which he’d been reminded of the day before when Bashir told him he had to pay Jax for the phones. Apparently Jax had a phone! And a mate who could get more. Halim had been furious when Bashir had told him he wouldn’t be getting one of the first two, which were coming the following week. He was paying for them, but Mahmud would get his first.

Halim felt like a piece of shit.

He’d once been able to use his money in a way that made people think he was important. In fact, he had become accustomed to always being the most popular man in the room. He would never let anyone pay, always buying the drinks, the dinners, and sometimes, if he really wanted to show off, the restaurant. He liked the way people looked at him when his chauffeur dropped him off at the mosque in his Mercedes-Benz AMG S-63, when they saw the twenty-four-carat gold around his neck and the Rolex on his wrist, when he rolled out his $50,000-dollar prayer mat. He looked important, and that made him feel important.

But in here, Halim wore green like everyone else. He dressed the same as the drug addicts, the thieves and the filthy homosexuals. The same as the infidel. He hated how the cheap material felt against his skin, but most of all he hated how it made him look. Normal. Just like everyone else. He had asked if he could have custom-made clothes sent in. He would have them made green of course, but they would be cut from the finest material and tailor-made to fit, not synthetic and saggy. When they flat-out rejected his request, he appealed, through his lawyer. This time he said he was allergic to the fibres in the synthetic blend and required custom-made clothes on medical grounds. The sons of bitches asked for proof. He saw the prison doctor but he was also a son of a bitch, refusing to make a false report, no matter how much cash Halim offered. They’d even rejected his bid to have orthopaedic shoes for his genuinely bad feet brought in, telling him to wear inserts instead.

So Halim wore the same clothes as everyone else, and that made him feel ordinary, and this newcomer, this Jax, made it worse. Bashir thought Jax was special, and he was getting all the attention. But not for long. Not if Halim could help it.

Halim told the others he was feeling ill and could not go to prayer group that morning. He told them he would pray in his cell. But he didn’t. Instead, he stood in the wing. Waiting. Watching.