BooksBarbecue
Back What You Did
Chapters (44)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. CONTENTS
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-One
  26. Chapter Twenty-Two
  27. Chapter Twenty-Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-Four
  29. Chapter Twenty-Five
  30. Chapter Twenty-Six
  31. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-One
  36. Chapter Thirty-Two
  37. Chapter Thirty-Three
  38. Chapter Thirty-Four
  39. Chapter Thirty-Five
  40. Chapter Thirty-Six
  41. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  42. Epilogue
  43. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  44. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I had been hoping that by now Jake would have understood my meaning and jumped in. But he just sat there, his eyes as flat as a shark’s. I decided to just say it, all in a rush. ‘The thing is, Jake, you might be a match. I realise this is all a shock and you’re very angry and betrayed, and you lashed out, but I’m sure you didn’t mean to really hurt him, and if he does – if the worst happens, you could be in here for a long time. If you do this thing – if you help him – it would help you too. With sentencing. You know.’ I couldn’t believe I was saying these words, so cold and clear, and yet there was a certain relief in it too. To finally say what I really meant. To say, give me a piece of you, cut yourself open, bleed, and atone for what you did and maybe I’ll help you get out of here. ‘So. Think about it. You’ll have questions, I know. We can . . . a doctor can call you, or come to see you and explain. But it has to be soon.’

I didn’t know if visiting time was over, or what the protocol was at all, but I knew I couldn’t spend another second in this room, so I stood up, scraping the chair over the floor. ‘Just think about it.’

He stared at me, unmoving. But he hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t laughed in my face, at the idea that he would give a part of his liver to the man he’d tried to murder. To his father. A father who’d abandoned him, who’d possibly raped his mother. It was small comfort, but I had to take what I could get. But I couldn’t leave without one final thing. Without pleading my case one last time. ‘I want you to know that I . . . I had no idea. That Mike was. That your mum. I really had no idea.’

He stared at me for a long time. His eyes were so blue. Just like those of my own kids. Karen had once hinted his father was foreign, Scandinavian maybe, someone she’d met on a night out and never seen again, but I could see now his eyes were Mike’s, clearly Mike’s. I’d been blind all these years when the truth was sitting right in front of me. ‘Then you’re a fucking idiot, Ali,’ he said, clearly. He’d never called me Ali before, not like this. And before I could go he stood up and walked away, towards the bowels of the prison.

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