Dogstar Rising (31 page)

‘It’s not easy, trying to run an operation like this,’ Dena said.

‘As a woman, you mean?’

‘We think of ourselves as being enlightened, but the same prejudices run through this country as anywhere else in the Arab world. People don’t like their daughters to be mixed up in the tourist trade, and certainly not spending the night on a boat full of them.’

‘You’re the exception.’

‘My father used to be in charge of this boat. There was a lot of respect for him. I’ve been on these boats up and down this stretch of the river since I was a child.’

‘So you’ve known Ramy since you were small.’

‘Oh, no. We only really became close in recent years. Ramy didn’t come into the family until a few years ago.’

‘You mean he didn’t come into the business?’

‘No,’ Dena was adamant. ‘I mean, he wasn’t part of the family.’

‘But he’s Faragalla’s nephew.’

‘Yes, but . . .’ Dena frowned. ‘I thought you knew.’ She turned and walked abruptly out of the room. Makana followed her up on deck. The pulsating beat of the music from below was dampened and punctuated by the occasional shrill scream. Dena stood with her arms crossed in the middle of the forward deck. There was a cool breeze whipping at her hair.

‘I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ she began. Then she took a deep breath and told him anyway. ‘Faragalla used to work down here a lot more in the old days. He had a wife and family in Cairo but, as he had to stay here for weeks at a time and, well . . .’

‘He became lonely?’ offered Makana helpfully.

‘He married a local girl informally. There was never any suggestion that she become his official wife. When she became pregnant he paid money to the family and divorced her. The family subsequently disowned her. She killed herself.’

‘What became of the child?’

‘He was an outcast. The family had disowned the mother and on top of that she had brought more dishonour upon them by killing herself. The child . . . Ramy, was taken into an orphanage run by priests. It was the only place that would take him. Somewhere in the desert.’

‘Wadi Nikeiba.’

‘Yes, I think that’s it.’

‘So how did Ramy come to be Faragalla’s nephew?’

‘Ramy knew who his father was and he went to him. He begged him for a chance to prove his worth. That was all he wanted. He didn’t want an inheritance, just a chance to work.’

‘So Faragalla took him in and pretended he was his nephew.’

Dena sighed. ‘I probably should not have told you, but I am afraid for Ramy. He’s in a lot of trouble. He is . . . wounded.’

‘You have to trust me, Dena.’

‘I know,’ she said. Then, with a brief nod she turned and disappeared down below.

Makana turned to face the breeze. The
Nile Star
sailed onwards. There were no lights along the shore. The river filled him with calm. Makana realised this was the closest he had come to home in ten years. He had forgotten what it was like here. How the pace of life was different from the hectic race of Cairo. The moon slipped through the silky black waters beneath his feet like a guilty secret. He could keep going. What was to stop him? The border was only a few hours away. What did borders matter? Lines in the sand drawn by draughtsmen in the pay of emperors and kings. It was the symbolism of it. He was no different from anyone else. The need to belong was perhaps no longer as powerful as it might have been but it was still there, like an appendix, an evolutionary relic that served no real purpose but was lodged in the body as a reminder you had to live with.

Chapter Thirty

The moon was a copper coin tossed into the air. It hung there suspended in the clear sky as if trying to decide their fates. It was so bright it was almost like walking in broad daylight. The felucca was moored along the jetty just beyond the stern of the
Nile Star
. A gnarled figure stood up in the boat as they approached and Makana recognised the hunched outline as Adam. He held up a hand to help Dena step down. She settled herself on one side, arranging a scarf around her head to protect her hair from the cool breeze.

Makana waited until they had cast off. The tall white sail unfurled, fluttered, and then tautened in the wind. The creaking of the mast carried easily over the silent water as the felucca leaned one way and then the other. He moved along the jetty until he found an old rowing boat tied up to a mooring post. Would it bear his weight? It listed badly to one side and silvery water sloshed about in the bottom but there was no other option, the felucca was already slipping away from him, dissolving into the shadows. Stepping down he tripped over a pair of oars. Makana’s skill with nautical craft was fairly limited. Still, how difficult could it be? He felt he ought to be able to handle a simple rowing boat. It took him several minutes before he could untie the mooring rope. And then the boat rocked alarmingly as it began to drift away downstream by itself – in the wrong direction. Fighting the urge to panic, he settled himself in the stern and set the oars in place, trying not to make any noise and failing miserably. The distant sail was shrinking like a white tear falling smoothly down a silky obsidian cheek.

He heaved on the oars and promptly tipped over backwards. Righting himself, he set the oars back in place and tried again. They seemed to have little effect, other than splashing water everywhere. As his grip slithered about he peered at the oily looking puddle between his feet and wondered if it was growing. Was it possible he was sinking? The boat was old, heavy and wide. It resisted his efforts to move and seemed to begrudge him every metre it conceded, as if it was rooted to the spot. He forced himself to focus on just lifting and pulling the oars, trying to find a rhythm. It didn’t help that he was trying to go against the current. In a matter of minutes he was sweating and his back ached and when he looked over his shoulder the white crack in the darkness that was the sail had all but vanished. He could only just make it out.

He lost track of time as he wrestled with the cumbersome oars which seemed to want to go in any direction but the one he tried to direct them. Whenever he eased up he could feel himself slipping back downstream the way he had come. It wasn’t until he was almost level with the felucca that he realised it had stopped moving. How much time had gone by? It felt as though he had been rowing for hours, but a glance at his watch told him it was less than fifteen minutes.

The house was set on the western shore of the river in a broad, flat bay of open ground, trimmed by a thin ribbon of trees. Palm fronds stirred noisily in the breeze, fluttering with silvery light. It stood alone with no other buildings nearby. Just upstream from it lay the rubble of former dwellings whose walls had long since started to crumble into the water. Behind it the land rose in a languorous wave of smooth sand, a hint of the desert that lay beyond to the west. In the moonlight the sand was as flawless as silk. There was no one in sight. The felucca swung in the current, the loose sail flapping like a restless jinn tied in a sack, the wood creaking.

A few lights flickered faintly around the square outline of the house. The nervous flames of oil lamps were vigilant eyes trained on the river. Makana leaned all his weight on the tiller until gradually the boat shifted and conceded to slide in towards the shore. He had been aiming for the ruins, thinking they would afford him some cover, and was unlucky enough to run aground long before the keel struck on the beach. He climbed cautiously over the side and found that the water came up to his knees. He waded up trying not to think of the damage to his clothes. The thick mud sucked him down. His shoes picked up sand, swelling to the size of a clown’s flapping feet as he walked. The broken line of withered trees afforded him some cover as he skirted along the incline to approach the house from the upstream side. As the shadows closed in he moved more carefully, more out of fear of disturbing some nocturnal creature. This was a perfect area for snakes and the last thing he wanted at this point was to step on a cobra.

The house was a simple construction. The front walls were plastered and painted and had been decorated with drawings and ornamental clay plates hung here and there according to Nubian tradition. The front gate stood open to a courtyard that was dark. A solitary lamp burned within, throwing shifting shadows across the walls as he stepped inside. It was the kind of place where tourists could stop on their felucca ride to sip something cold. A stuffed crocodile in a lamentable state provided atmosphere. Dried out and cracked in places, it hung at a lopsided angle from loops of rope over the entrance. The main building was shuttered and locked. The bare earth of the yard was dotted with chairs and metal tables. Down a staircase rising along the wall to his left, the faint whisper of voices trickled from the upper floor.

Elongated skulls, also of crocodiles, were set into little recesses along the staircase wall; more atmosphere for the tourists. Halfway up he could see over the walls. The beach was bathed in white moonlight. The river was like oil, dark and glistening with menace. He could make out the felucca Dena had arrived in. He felt disappointed that she had not trusted him.

The upper floor was a terrace where you could sit and look out over the river. There were chairs and tables and grubby divans along the walls. On the far side was a small bar that looked as though it had been knocked together in a day by a blind man. The bricks were uneven and the plaster had been inset haphazardly with angular shards of broken mirror for decoration. Makana stepped up and the voices went silent.

‘Hello Ramy.’

They were sitting over in the far corner, in the shadows, against the wall. A single oil lamp rested on the low table in front of them. Neither of them said anything. Dena lowered her head and clenched her fists together. Ramy’s face was partially hidden. There was something about it that seemed not quite right. As Makana drew closer Ramy pulled back, further into the shadows.

‘You’re not an easy man to find.’

‘Who are you? What do you want from me?’ he hissed.

‘It’s the man I was telling you about,’ said Dena.

‘I know that,
ya beleeda
. He followed you here.’

‘Why did you come?’ she implored. ‘Why didn’t you give me a chance?’

‘You mean, you arranged this?’ Ramy was incredulous.

‘No, no,’ protested Dena.

‘I’m not here to harm you,’ Makana said as he approached. Ramy was like a nervous horse that could bolt at any moment. ‘I just want to ask you a few questions.’

‘Questions about what?’

‘Well, for a start, what are you doing here?’ By now he had reached the corner where they were sitting. Ramy slipped a hand under a cushion and when it reappeared it was holding the Beretta.

‘I wondered where that had gone.’ Makana glanced at Dena who looked away.

‘Did Yousef send you?’

‘Yousef?’

As Ramy leaned forwards, the light from the lamp illuminated his face. In the flicker of the flame Makana could make out the curiously twisted surface of the right-hand side of his face. A long, curved welt ran down from his ear, and the flesh around this was covered with a scar that made it scaly and uneven. A gleam of satisfaction came into his eye at Makana’s expression.

‘Why are you here?’

‘I wanted to meet you,’ said Makana. ‘You’re an interesting man. What did you run away from?’

‘Who said I was running from anything?’

‘You know that Meera is dead.’

Ramy jerked the gun at Makana. ‘What have you got to do with Meera?’

‘I think you know who killed her.’

‘Why would you think a thing like that?’

‘I was there when she was shot. I tried to help her,’ said Makana quietly, easing himself down into one of the low chairs facing the divan they were sitting on. ‘I wasn’t fast enough.’

‘You’re the one who went for the gunman?’ Ramy asked. ‘And now you are here. Why? What do you gain out of this?’

‘Nothing,’ said Makana. ‘She was a good person. I don’t think she deserved to die like that.’

‘What has any of this to do with me?’

‘I think you know why she was killed. I think you were helping her.’

‘You seem to think a lot.’ Ramy’s hand opened and closed on the butt of the pistol as if it was becoming slippery from sweat.

‘You can help me out.’ Makana reached into his pocket for the photograph of the three soldiers and placed it on the table between them. ‘I found that in Meera’s study.’

Ramy leaned forward and peered at the picture. After a moment he began to laugh, the loose, crazy laugh of a man whose mind no longer makes sense to him. Makana and Dena exchanged glances.

‘Who is the man in the middle?’ Makana asked.

‘He was a conscript named Abdallah Hamid. A nobody.’ Ramy looked up. ‘He’s dead. Rocky killed him.’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’ echoed Ramy. ‘Because he’s insane. Because hurting people is what he does best. No, I’ll tell you why, because this man called him a name. A bad name, but nothing worse than you hear any day of the week in the streets. So Rocky killed him with his bare hands. We were in the desert. On a training exercise. There were only three of us. Navigation training. Moving in the night with nothing but a compass and a map. Rocky made me swear not to tell. We made it look like an accident.’