Dogstar Rising (44 page)

‘Try to sit up,’ he said. Then he managed to lift himself and shuffle forwards. His feet were untied. He made it in about ten moves, sliding the chair across the deck, trying to make as little noise as possible. By now Rania had managed to turn over on the bed. She twisted until she had her back to him and was almost sitting up, her shoulder against the bedstead. It didn’t look like much, but at least she could move her fingers.

It didn’t take long to discover that it wasn’t going to work. The knots were too tight and Rania couldn’t get a proper grip. She tried and tried and then with a cry of frustration she fell back. In her eyes he read resignation; the realisation that death was inevitable. Makana could hear Yousef down below, moving around the lower deck, splashing fuel over everything.

Then a glint of light caught his eye and looking towards the gangway he saw a figure crouched there in the half shadow. Aziza. The little girl looked around the room carefully and then stepped boldly up and came slowly towards him. In her hand was a nasty-looking curved knife that Umm Ali and her able children used for slicing the stems off artichokes, freeing aubergines from the earth. A general all-purpose tool. It had a rough wooden hilt wrapped tightly with grubby cloth and a blade that was sharpened on a stone. Aziza, despite her young age, handled it like a professional but it still seemed to take ages for her to slice through the ropes holding Makana’s left wrist. When it was done he took the knife from her and cut his other hand free, then he released Rania.

‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget the computer.’ He took the knife and slipped off his shoes, then went down the metal steps as quietly as possible. At the bottom he waved them both down and pointed towards the gangway. He waited until they were ashore. He still had the knife, but there was nothing to indicate where Yousef was. Then he heard a sound that stopped his heart in mid-beat – the faint rasp of a lighter. It came from the stern of the boat. He leaned around the side and saw the figure standing close to the railings at the far end. Yousef’s face was briefly illuminated by the glow from one of his cigarettes. A few puffs and then he would casually toss it aside as he stepped ashore to watch the whole thing burn. There wasn’t time to think and no way of separating Yousef from the glowing end of his cigarette. So Makana charged, gaining speed with every step. Yousef had time to look up, his face registering surprise as the curved knife buried itself in his shoulder and Makana thudded into him. There was a whoosh and Makana recalled that his clothes were doused in kerosene. He felt the heat flare up around his face, enveloping him in blue flame, but by then his momentum had propelled both of them over the railing and into the water.

The river was a great muddy fish that reached up to swallow them whole. He felt Yousef wriggling in his arms, sinewy and strong, like a powerful reptile that he couldn’t contain. A cold current seemed to suck both of them deeper and deeper until finally Makana knew he was going to drown. He was no longer fighting to contain Yousef, but to break free of him. The water was cold, far colder than he had imagined. Beneath the calm surface of the river he knew there were turbulences, stirrings, undercurrents that could whip even a strong swimmer down. Miraculously, Yousef’s grip loosened. One arm disabled, he was flailing about like a man who could not swim. Makana felt the creature release its hold and he began to rise just as Yousef was drawn further into darkness. He kicked and clawed his way towards the surface.

Chapter Forty-Two

Aswani’s was strangely deserted at that hour. They had the place almost to themselves. Okasha arrived late, huffing and puffing, blinking at the odd assortment of strangers gathered around the table wondering who all these people were. In deference to the presence of a lady, Aswani had produced a plastic tablecloth from somewhere. It was red with cartoon drawings of yellow ducks and green puppy dogs. Where he had kept it hidden all these years, Makana could not imagine, let alone why. The cook himself was busy at work behind the counter yelling orders as his assistants ran back and forth to do his bidding.

‘At least they have television now,’ Talal said, nodding at the set up on the wall. Makana followed his gaze. A set had indeed been perched rather precariously on a lopsided shelf high on one of the pillars. It looked as though it might fall at any minute.

‘It won’t last,’ Makana said. Although it wasn’t much of an improvement, he wasn’t sure he was right. Talal made no attempt to reply. He seemed subdued. No doubt still mourning the loss of his love. In time, perhaps, he would see that he had been lucky to get out of Bunny’s clutches in one piece. Makana still hadn’t really said anything to him about Damazeen, but that loss too must clearly have been weighing on the young man’s mind. Before they sat down, Makana took him aside. He reached into his pocket and produced the diamond that Damazeen had been clutching in his hand when he died.

‘I can give you the name of someone reliable who will buy it off you at a fair price. That should cover a year in Vienna.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Don’t ask,’ Makana said. ‘Damazeen would want you to have it.’

After that they all sat down. Sami sent his regards. He was holding a pen this morning, Rania reported, and was busy working on their story. It would appear under joint names, and would no doubt create a small tidal wave of scandal, engulfing numerous people including Sheikh Waheed. Okasha was more than happy with the way things had turned out. He had closed the case of the murders in Imbaba, managing to show up the much more high-profile counter-terrorism unit. He seemed to think his chances of promotion were greatly improved, he said, as he gave them the closing details:

‘Eissa, the boy in the café, confessed once he was told Rocky was dead. He was the one who drove the motorcycle. He broke his arm when it crashed.’

‘They had tunnelled through the wall, where they kept their stolen goods,’ Makana explained. ‘That’s how he slipped out when the shooting started. But he was fond of Meera.’

‘And terrified of Rocky,’ Okasha agreed. ‘I had the feeling he was just waiting for someone to ask. He felt bad about what he had done.’

‘How sad,’ said Rania.

‘Ahh!’ sighed Sindbad, the last member of their curious little party, at the sight of Aswani’s assistants making their way across the room with large trays of food. Makana wondered at the wisdom of taking a man like this to a restaurant. He could probably eat the entire contents of the kitchen single-handedly. A silence fell over the table as everyone turned their attention to the business of eating. Plates kept coming.
Ful mudames
, fried kidneys, grilled sausages and eggs and tomatoes, with kebab and roasted lamb to come.

‘You’re spoiling us,’ Makana said to Aswani who oversaw the operation like a general surveying a battlefield.

‘Allah alone knows why I bother,’ he sighed, rolling his eyes skywards, forever convinced that people never fully appreciated the tenderness and love he put into his cooking.

Makana was almost too tired to eat. What he looked forward to most of all was sleep. The stench of kerosene seemed to have eaten its way through his clothes and the pores of his skin to his very soul. The heady fumes threatened to overwhelm him, flooding his mind with thoughts of Nasra. As he watched everyone begin to help themselves to the food, Makana knew he would not rest until he found out the truth. But perhaps that would have to wait for another day.

‘According to Sami,’ Rania was saying, ‘we are already living in a dreamland. A country that only exists in our imagination. We don’t know if we’re awake or sleeping. Lights, movies, music. It’s all a tune of enchantment, keeping the country asleep. Who is going to wake us up?’

‘Be careful what you wish for,’ said Okasha, chewing fiercely. ‘You have no idea what you might unleash once you let the djinn out of the bottle.’

‘That is so true,’ Talal replied absently. He wasn’t looking at them. Rania followed his gaze until both of them were staring upwards.

‘Isn’t that New York?’ she said.

They all turned to gaze up. A drama was being played out on the screen above their heads that would influence the next decade in ways none of them could yet imagine. Makana would look back on this moment time and again, sitting there in Aswani’s. The stunned expressions of confusion and bewilderment, and finally, fear.

‘That’s a really bad pilot,’ Talal said, only half-joking.

‘It’s not an accident,’ Rania said, as the scene was replayed, over and over again even though the tickertape along the bottom of the screen said ‘Live’.

In that moment a strange silence seemed to fall over the group, the restaurant, the city, the entire world. It was as if time was standing still. The image of the two dark towers rising into the clear blue sky seemed almost medieval, a throwback to a world of invincible fortresses and impregnable city portals. Out of one corner of the screen the arrowhead that was a jet airliner curved slowly, inevitably, towards its target. At the point of collision there was something incredibly graceful and tragic about its movement, as if this was part of a complex choreography, like the motion of the planets, an errant star that exploded into a ball of flame before their very eyes.

Makana found himself thinking about Ghalib Samsara. He wondered where he was at that moment. But it was Rania who spoke first, whispering the words that were on all of their lips, almost as if she were speaking their thoughts aloud:

‘Now there’s going to be trouble,’ she said.

A Note on the Author

Parker Bilal is the pseudonym of Jamal Mahjoub. Mahjoub has published seven critically acclaimed literary novels, which have been widely translated.
Dogstar Rising
is his second Makana Mystery. Born in London, Mahjoub has lived at various times in the UK, Sudan, Cairo and Denmark. He currently lives in Barcelona.

By the Same Author

(
writing as Jamal Mahjou
b
)

Navigation of a Rainmaker

Wings of Dust

In the Hour of Signs

The Carrier

Nubian Indigo

The Drift Latitudes

Travelling with Djinns

The Makana Mysteries

The Golden Scales

Also available by Parker Bilal

The Golden Scales

‘An enthralling read’
Guardian

Former police inspector Makana, in exile from his native Sudan, lives on a rickety Nile houseboat in Cairo, scratching out a living as a private investigator. When he receives a call from the notorious and powerful Saad Hanafi, he is thrust into a dangerous and glittering world. Hanafi is the owner of a star-studded football team and their most valuable player has vanished. His disappearance threatens to bring down not only the businessman’s private empire but also the entire country. Makana encounters Muslim extremists, Russian gangsters and a desperate mother hunting for her missing daughter, as his search stirs up painful memories, leading him back into the sights of an old and dangerous enemy...

‘
The Golden Scales
shows modern Cairo as a superbly exciting, edgy and dangerous setting for crime fiction. Parker Bilal has delivered an absorbing, complex, lively novel to match’
The Times

‘Richly evocative … It delivers much more than efficient intrigue. Via the experiences of a family exiled from Sudan, we see and feel all the drama of Egypt on the brink of change’
Independent

‘A vivid, energetic work … shows the extremes of wealth and poverty in Egypt before the Arab spring, while Makana’s personal history offers heartbreaking insights into loss and exile’
Sunday Times

‘Whisks the reader straight to the dark heart of Cairo ... His prose has a subtlety that is rarely found in crime novels’
Economist

Copyright © 2013 by Jamal Mahjoub

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