Dogstar Rising (28 page)

‘Are you paying me to go away?’

‘You and that stupid kid.’ Faragalla’s jowls shook with fury. ‘How I ever got involved with you, I’ll never understand. And do me a favour, tell him to stay away from my daughter.’

‘Talal has nothing to do with this. You asked me to find out if there was a threat against you or your business. It turns out the threat was aimed at one of your employees, who might have been killed because of something she uncovered here.’

‘That is ridiculous nonsense and I have a good mind to throw you out on your ear.’

‘Did you know Yousef is running a little sideline in forged passports? One phone call from me and you will not only be out of business, you will probably find yourself in prison.’

Faragalla licked his lips, then he reached into the petty-cash box and tossed another bundle of cash onto the pile.

‘I don’t want any trouble. Take that and get out. Consider our arrangement terminated.’

‘It’s not as easy as that.’ Makana left the money where it was.

‘I hired you to look into the threats, nothing else. What business of yours is any of this?’

‘Who exactly is running this company, you or Yousef?’

‘Okay, fine. I’ll tell you, but then you have to promise to leave me alone. All this is in confidence. I’m your client remember?’

‘I thought you just terminated our contract?’

A weariness came over Faragalla’s slack face, causing it to look even more shapeless. His eyes dropped until they were fixed on the bowl of his pipe.

‘About ten years ago I was in a spot of trouble. Business was slow. You remember what the country was like then? Maybe you don’t. Anyway, after Saddam invaded Kuwait the foreign workers fled and our economy sank. No more dutiful husbands sending money home. And the war scared the tourists away. Then we had the crazy fanatics. Remember the killings in Luxor? Well, that pretty much destroyed us.’ Faragalla gazed into the bowl of his pipe. ‘Anyway, one day I get a visit. Old army types. You can spot them a mile away. They are dressed in civilian clothes but their spines are as straight as spears. They said they had a financial proposition for me. They were interested in the tourist business.
Marhaba
, I said, you’re welcome. You could probably buy up the whole country for a song. These people have no sense of humour. They told me they represented a private fund that wanted to invest in the company. It was the answer to my prayers.’

‘Where does Yousef come into it?’

‘Well, all was fine for a time and then they started to get nervous and insisted they put their own man into the office, just to keep an eye on their interests. I wasn’t too keen on the idea. On the other hand, what choice did I have?’

‘So he came to work for you.’

‘Exactly. And if you let him know I told you this, I’ll be the next dead person you see.’

‘Your grandfather would have been proud of you.’

‘You can sneer if you like, but I had no choice.’ Faragalla set his pipe down. ‘They promised me that they would increase their investment, that in time I would see the company grow. But they don’t care about the company. They are just using me.’

‘And Yousef takes care of business for them.’

‘Money flows right past my door, but none of it stops here.’

As Makana got to his feet Faragalla reached over and slid the pile of cash towards him.

‘I’m not going to forget what I know.’

‘It’s not a bribe,’ said Faragalla quietly. ‘You earned it. Not many people have the nerve to tell me the truth. You told me a few things I would rather not hear.’ The dull eyes lifted from the desk as Makana picked up the bundle of money. ‘You still haven’t asked me the name of this investment company. Aren’t you curious to know?’

‘I think I already do,’ said Makana. ‘The Eastern Star Investment Bank.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sindbad had the radio on in the car as they drove to Giza. It was tuned to a phone-in show discussing the murders in Imbaba. Several callers were eager to comment on a newspaper story which carried an interview with someone who claimed to know who the killer was.

‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ said the first man. ‘This is just fairy tales for small children. They make them up to sell papers. And you’re doing the same thing right now.
Haram aleyk.
’

The next caller added his support for this view. ‘It’s a shame people are making money out of the murder of these children.’

‘These aren’t children,’ said the following speaker, a woman, ‘they are animals. They live in the street. We should applaud this killer for cleaning up the city of these vermin.’

This was too much for the host of the programme. ‘Please, everyone. Let’s try to keep this dignified.’ He cut to an expert, or at least as close to one as he could get. A senior journalist with a state-run paper who provided the conservative view.

‘As we have seen recently with the brutal attack on our colleague Sami Barakat, there appears to be a team of senseless killers preying on innocent people. And as the honourable Sheikh Waheed has pointed out, a man who is much more knowledgeable on these matters than myself, there is a tradition for such ritual slaughter in certain religious beliefs, such as the Jews, and the Christians.’

‘Shame on you for broadcasting such nonsense,’ said the next speaker, quite irate. ‘We have to ask who benefits from us killing one another. Ask your esteemed studio guest that question. Who benefits? While we are all fighting amongst ourselves, his friends are stealing this country from under our very eyes.’

The point was disputed of course and for a time it went back and forth until Makana, unable to bear any more, reached over and switched off the radio.

‘He was right though,’ said Sindbad. ‘That last one. They wouldn’t let him speak, but it’s true what he said. We have to stick together. One thing is for sure,
ya basha
. You couldn’t pick a better time to leave. Let’s hope the city is still here when you get back.’

‘We can only hope.’

The platform at Giza station was gloomy under the faint glow of a few sparse lights. It was almost deserted at that hour. Makana wandered along the open platform among the odd figures standing around in the shadows. Most passengers went into Ramses main station, leaving only a few stragglers waiting here on the city’s southern edge. He lit a cigarette and looked up at the stars. In the narrow gully of the tracks the light was thin enough to allow a glimpse of the heavens. The longer he stared upwards the more seemed to appear, as if seeing them was more a matter of faith, of believing they were really up there.

The darkness moaned, long and low, announcing the train’s approach. At the last minute a portly woman came scurrying through the narrow station building from the street accompanied by a taxi driver weighed down under enough luggage to slow a small elephant. He set down one trunk after another, wiped the sweat from his brow, then went back out for the next lot. The woman counted the items of luggage repeatedly, as if afraid they might sprout legs and run away. The other passengers were mostly single men. A newly married couple heading home after a honeymoon in the city of lights. The bride still wore her new clothes, the palms of her hands were decorated with whorls and flowers painted in henna. Three pinpricks of light grew steadily as the big flat-nosed locomotive rumbled out of the gloom from under a flyover with a heavy, reassuring grumble. A plaintive cry sounded as it rolled by like a wounded beast.

Makana carried a small holdall with a change of clothes. His provisions consisted of two packs of Cleopatra and a cone of peanuts wrapped in newspaper stuffed into the pocket of his jacket. He hauled himself up the steps and shuffled past the eager passengers until he found a compartment that was empty. Choosing a seat by the window, he settled himself down in the upright seat.

Whenever he left this city a part of him wondered if he would ever return, as if it was not real at all, but simply a figment of his imagination. Perhaps he would find a new life for himself in Upper Egypt – land of his forefathers. Nubia, the fabled kingdom, straddled the borderline. Not that he was sentimental about such things.

When he closed his eyes he saw the orange glow of the lights on the bridge, felt the thump of the car as it hit the railings and the slow, tortured screech of the metal as it gave way and the car began to tumble, ever so slowly, down into the dark water. Surely Nasra could not have survived that fall? Makana fell asleep, his mind feverish with the events of the past few days. It felt a relief to be moving, as if all that was being left behind him, as if the train’s purpose was to distance him from a troubled world, when in actual fact it was supposed to be the opposite.

When he opened his eyes he realised he was not alone. The compartment was dark save for the light of the moon which infused it with an indigo glow. A man sat diagonally opposite him, facing the other way, close to the door. He appeared to be asleep, sitting stiffly upright. An innocent passenger, or something more? A State Security agent perhaps, sent to keep him company? Or something more dangerous? The Beretta was wrapped in a shirt at the bottom of the bag that his foot rested on. Makana wriggled upright and looked out at the rural landscape that shuffled past the window. Fields flew by to be replaced by more fields. They changed in length and breadth, in the placement of the little square buildings on them, but otherwise little. Here and there a crack of light split the darkness as a window shot by affording a fleeting glimpse of domestic life, or the flicker of a fire, embers shooting into the starry sky to vanish without trace. Whether it was the gentle lulling of the train, or the sense of being in motion, Makana fell into a fitful sleep. When he opened his eyes again the sky was lightening and a family was spread out on the seats facing him: father, mother and three children all nodding soundly in sleep.

Makana stepped out into the corridor and pulled open a window to let the air in. He chewed peanuts and watched scraps of stray paper turning over lazily in the air until he realised they were herons. When you looked at these fields it was hard not to think that little had changed since the days of Hatshepsut. Less than an hour later they were ticking through the points on the outskirts of Luxor, the train juddering from side to side.

As he walked through the sleepy town towards the river, Makana recalled coming here years ago with Muna. In the time before Nasra’s birth. The trip had been a wedding gift from her father. A man Makana still recalled with some affection. Unlike some in the family, including Muna’s mother, he had never voiced disapproval of his daughter’s choice. Perhaps she should have listened more closely to her mother. His daughter might still be alive and married to a banker or businessman. Who would want their daughter to marry a police officer? Not even Makana’s father wanted him to join the force. He had not done badly in school. There were other options open to him. Makana grew up with the privilege and the curse of having a teacher for a father. Privilege because it got him out of the government schools and into one of the best schools in Khartoum for a fraction of the price. And a curse because, well, if your father was a teacher what could you expect but the regular taunts and occasional beatings? It was his father’s dream for his son to attend university, something he himself never had the opportunity to do. So he stood in front of the blackboard day after day and stared out of the window listening to fifty boys repeating their times table and imagined his son an engineer or doctor. A father should be allowed to dream.

The market was coming slowly to life. Merchants yawned as they greeted one another. In a few hours it would be crowded with people trawling up and down for the loofahs that hung in strings like desiccated fruits; tubs of spices heaped like miniature hills; peppery vermilion, coppery turmeric and dusty cumin, little brown pearls of coriander and heaps of dates, of which there was an encyclopaedic variety. These were separated by other stores packed with items shipped in by container from distant continents; brightly coloured plastic tubs, upright fans and plastic slippers, huge underpants flapping in the breeze like flags, towers of shiny metal bowls. On and on it went.

When he reached the Corniche, the air lifted and the palm trees bobbed gracefully in greeting. A battered and faded metal sign announced Blue Ibis Tours with a handpainted version of the strange bird logo he knew from the Cairo offices. Their centre of operations comprised two rusty boats shackled in parallel. In the gully between the two hulls golden ripples of sunlight on water outlined a man perched on a wooden bosun’s seat refreshing the paint on the name,
Nile Star
. His dark skin stood out against the oversized grubby white vest he was wearing. The brush hovered in mid-air as his eyes followed Makana crossing the gangway above him.

In the centre of a lobby area with a low ceiling, a large vase stuffed with plastic roses stood on a circular table. The colours were faded and dusty, proving that even artificial flowers had a finite lifespan. In one corner of the room was a high counter with the word
Reception
above it. There was no one behind it. Doors opened to left and right. He had no idea where they led. The sound of voices drew him to a sign marked
Dining Room
where he observed tourists having their breakfast. He was about to go in when a voice behind him said:

‘Can I help you?’