Chapter 6: Sunday Morning

Sunday morning dawned, sunlight streaking through the crack in my bedroom’s curtains.

I truly acknowledged that the day had come, and the world in which I lived was ripe to be set to rights.

This was Sunday.

I looked at the alarm clock – nine a.m. In just over two hours time I had the business meeting which I had told Brian Bowfield was the reason for my not attending Church. I had booked in to see Mary Thomas, the woman whose piano I had tuned as my last job in that business a year earlier.

I bent over and kissed a sleeping Grace, who awoke and turned to me. She beamed.

“Today’s the day,” she whispered. “We’re moving out.”

I looked at her, a love for her natural, human beauty overwhelming me. Yes, we were moving out. Cleaning house. I moved closer to her and kissed her, the kiss long and passionate.

Somewhere, the bell for the early Church service sounded, echoing through the town.

The man known as Aaron stood on a doormat, ringing a doorbell. He wore a smart navy suit, with a white shirt and a sky-blue coloured tie, and his dirty blond hair was slicked back against his forehead. He looked out of place in this rough council estate. At first there was no answer. He rang a second time. He listened and heard footsteps cluttering around behind the door, approaching nearer and nearer. A suspicious-looking woman, clearly foreign, opened the door ajar, but not fully.

“Yes,” she asked, dark eyes narrowed.

“Mrs Maria Negrovich?” Aaron questioned.

The woman nodded.

“I am here to help you,” Aaron assured her in a calm voice. He said his next words with a slow deliberation. “I know of you and your family’s illegal immigration to this country from Bosnia-Herzegovina. You need my protection or you shall instantly be deported back home to Bosnia without hearing, as is this country’s current policy on illegal immigration. Please … let me come in and I shall explain what must be done.”

Aaron watched as the weight of realisation contorted Maria Negrovich’s sharp face. She stood in her barely-opened doorway, clearly at a complete loss for words. Her hand, Aaron saw, shook slightly as it held her front door ajar. She paled. Then the swung the door open.

Aaron met her and her husband in their small dining room. The couple awkwardly invited him to sit down, as if they did not entertain often. He did so, and they followed suit. Aaron crossed his legs and cleared his throat.

“I must be frank,” he said. “Illegal immigration is a very serious matter in this country. You have flouted our system of law and order. However. There is no need – yet – for you to worry. I am one of only two people who know your secret – “

“How do you know we’re here illegally?” interrupted Mr Negrovich, overtones of fright in his thick accent.

“Are you denying it?” Aaron shot back. The Bosnian man was silent. “In which case,” continued Aaron, “it is enough for you that we know.”

He let this sink in, and he observed both of them in turn. Mrs Negrovich’s beady eyes were brimming with tears, while her husband’s already sallow face had gone ghostly white.

Aaron gave them a moment before speaking again.

“The other man who knows your secret, my employer, is not much inclined towards you, as you have allowed your son to get away with assaulting his son on numerous occasions. Such information, may I add, would not endear you to the authorities, if by some miracle you managed to get yourselves a court hearing for your deportation. Do you know the man of whom I speak?”

There was a lengthy silence as the Bosnian couple appeared to ponder this. Then Mr and Mrs Negrovich shared a significant look, and Mrs Negrovich buried her face in her hands, starting to sob.

“David … David No-Name,” croaked Mr Negrovich over his wife’s crying.

Aaron nodded at the man, and then waited patiently for Maria Negrovich to stop crying. She eventually got a hold of herself, turning her tears into sniffles. Aaron inclined his head.

“You know him as that. I know him as Tom when we do business together. As for his true name, who knows? But realise this – he is the one with the power over whether you are allowed to stay here or not. I am only his messenger; his emissary, but I must inform you that right now, you are in severe disfavour with the man you know as David.

“In my mobile phone I have the number of the police force who work on behalf of the Home Office and who I can call to arrest your family and have you deported at any point. But my employer, Tom, or David to you, wishes to assure you that the information of your illegal life here will remain a complete secret as long as certain conditions are met.”

The Bosnian couple did not move or speak – Aaron wondered if they were even thinking. Had their minds simply gone into meltdown with fear? Or were they simply waiting?

Aaron put the tips of his fingers together and leant forward.

“This is what you must do …”