Jameel and Syed Hassan sat in the corner of the supermarket café, neither of them touching the coffees they had ordered. Syed looked as though he hadn’t had much sleep; his eyes were heavy and his focus shifted uneasily, not knowing where to rest. He ripped open a sachet of sugar and tipped it into his coffee before staring at the surface of the drink, lost for a moment in the direction of his thoughts. ‘Gavin Jones,’ he said eventually.

‘What about him?’

‘Well, what are we going to do about him?’

Jameel’s delayed response was met with his brother’s trademark impatience. Syed leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the table. ‘The fire,’ he said slowly, as though Jameel had somehow managed to forget about it. ‘Obvious who started it, don’t you think?’

‘Gavin?’

Syed rolled his eyes. ‘You two get into a fight and a few hours later the shop is torched. I wouldn’t call that a coincidence, would you?’ He sat back and looked around, making sure no one was near enough to overhear the conversation. ‘So what are we going to do?’

It was meant to sound like a challenge; they both knew it. For a long time now Jameel had needed to start sticking up for himself, and with Syed’s help that was exactly what he was now beginning to do. He was getting better, but he still had a long way to go. Gavin Jones seemed as good a place as any to start.

‘We don’t have any proof, though.’

In his lap, Syed’s hands curled into fists. ‘Who else would have done it, eh?’

Jameel, tall and slim, stretched his long legs from beneath the table, shifting uncomfortably as Syed’s focus bore upon him. ‘Well … like you keep saying … we’re not exactly popular round here.’

He watched his brother’s jawline tense. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Jameel. If you’re not man enough to deal with the problem, I will.’

‘I didn’t say that, did I? Okay … let’s deal with it. What are you suggesting?’

Syed stirred his cooling coffee aimlessly and glanced down at the shoppers moving around like ants on the ground floor of the supermarket. ‘Hallowe’en coming up,’ he said, not meeting his brother’s eye. ‘And what does everyone love to do for Hallowe’en?’

Jameel stared at him vacantly and shrugged. ‘Eat sweets?’

Syed ground his teeth. Sometimes he wondered whether Jameel really was this stupid. That was why he needed help and guidance. He could look after himself when he had to, but he never had the foresight to realise when he needed to put his guard up. He needed to learn when to stop a situation before it became one. That was where Syed was happy to step in. His mother saw it as goading. Syed preferred to call it the teaching of self-preservation.

‘Dress up,’ he said, expelling the words through gritted teeth. ‘People like to dress up at Hallowe’en.’

Jameel’s dark eyes widened as the possibility of what his brother might be suggesting began to sink in. ‘So what do we do?’ He looked at the shop below. ‘You want to get some outfits today?’

‘Not from here,’ Syed said, rolling his eyes. ‘You want a hundred witnesses to be able to say they saw us leaving this place with them?’

For a moment Jameel fell silent, burned by the scathing tone of his brother’s criticism. Syed was always putting him down, trying to make him look stupid. He was sick of it. It was about time he showed him just what he was made of.

‘Okay,’ he said finally. ‘Tell me what you think we should do.’