To the Lions

by Holly Watt

  Who are you? Tell me who you are.

  ‘You’re OK,’ Ed said, so firmly she almost believed him.

  And she expected Rory to appear, any second, blotting out the light. The caves were bait, she realised suddenly. No coincidence, those leaflets on the coffee table. And ignoring the bait might have been enough for deadly suspicions.

  Everything, a trap.

  So slowly, Ed walked them back to the entrance, glanced around. Rory was nowhere to be seen. They stood in the sun, side by side. Ed pulled her to him, looking down into her eyes, and kissed her, quite suddenly, so that she lost all her thoughts. And then stopped and smiled again. ‘You’re OK.’

  They hesitated. A small path ran towards the top of the cliff, high above the cave entrance, and Ed began to climb. Casey followed, slipping in her flip-flops. They climbed, pausing casually to look at the view. Rory could not follow them here, not without being seen.

  Because maybe that was all he wanted. To be glimpsed in the corner of her eye.

  You won’t survive, if I don’t believe. And there will be no mercy.

  Be brave, she thought, and learn his mind.

  At the top, they found the rocky lookout point. Ed sat down, back against the rock, and she curled herself into his side. A beautiful couple, on a strange sort of holiday. Believe what you see, Rory. Believe your eyes.

  ‘It’s stunning up here,’ said Ed, in her ear. ‘And yet, God, I can’t wait to get away.’

  ‘I know.’ Casey tried too. ‘So many beautiful places in the world, and when I think of them, I feel only fear.’

  She ticked off war zones like a Japanese tourist with the Mona Lisa. But there was a strange sort of joy too, even now. I’m here, I’m really here. Even with Rory in the shadows.

  ‘We’ve got almost everything we need, don’t we?’ Ed was whispering in her ear. ‘We’ve got them on tape. We can get out of here soon, can’t we?’

  Casey let the silence drift. She could use this solitude. Needed it, even.

  For a second, she saw their silhouettes through Rory’s eyes.

  ‘Ed,’ she said. ‘We aren’t going to be able to run this story based on hearsay.’

  He digested this.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that we’re not going to be able to do this story on the basis of a few guys chatting about something terrible. It’s too easy for their lawyers to pull it apart, to say they were only joking, or fantasising, or spinning us a line. And we would never be able to prove that it wasn’t a lie, especially with Milo dead.’

  ‘But they’ve said . . . They’ve said it over and over again.’

  ‘I know,’ she faltered, just for a second. ‘But we need real evidence.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ His voice was hard. ‘Real evidence?’

  ‘I mean’ – she steadied her voice – ‘that we will have to go up there, to Salama, and see what they do.’

  ‘See what they do . . .’ A long pause. ‘You mean, see them shoot someone? We’re actually going to watch Selby fire a gun into the camp?’

  She felt him push her away. He stood up, took a few steps.

  ‘Yes,’ said Casey, so there was no going back. ‘That is what I mean.’

  A wild dust devil blew across the desert. She watched it twisting and twirling, spiralling and coiling.

  Far below them, the cave gaped, and just for a second her mind lurched. You’ve got to go into the cave, to know. You go into the dark, to find the monsters. That’s what they said. That’s what they said.

  ‘We can’t watch that.’ Ed broke through. ‘We can’t watch him kill someone, and say nothing. We can’t not try to stop him.’

  He was edging away from her.

  ‘We have to.’ Casey rose and followed him, with casual steps, her voice a whisper. ‘That’s what we’re here to do. To see it, and write it down, and make it real. And then go home and tell everyone, and make it stop. It’s what I do.’

  ‘Someone will die.’ Ed turned back to face her, his voice low and urgent. ‘That’s more important than any story. That’s a human being, Casey. That’s a life. That’s somebody else’s story.’

  ‘I know,’ said Casey. ‘I know.’

  She stepped away from him, pulled out her camera, took deliberate photographs of the view.

  ‘And you knew all along.’ He was angry now, only just hiding it. ‘You and Miranda knew every single step of the way. And you let me believe . . . You got me out here, to spring it on me like this, up by some cave, so I don’t have a choice . . . You played me like you play everyone else.’

  The dust devil was fading now, dying against the blue of the sky.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pointless little words people use like a charm. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She stepped up to him, put her arms round his neck. He was rigid, almost pulling away from her.

  ‘And you’re even using Rory, aren’t you?’ He put his mouth right next to her ear. ‘Because you know I can’t walk away from you, not with him watching. I can’t escape you, up here.’

  ‘No,’ meaning yes.

  He arched his head away from her, watching her as if he had never known her at all.

  ‘We can’t do this.’ Ed’s words were abrupt. ‘Tomorrow, Oliver will go up to those hills, and lie down on the ground. And then he will look through those sights and kill someone. And you know that, and you’re not doing anything to stop it. We can’t let it happen, Casey. We can’t. It’s wrong.’

  She let him go, turned to the view, hating the feel of his eyes on her.

  ‘They would do it whether we were here or not.’ The wind whisked her words away. ‘The only difference is that this time, we will be there to see it. To witness it. We can make this the very last time.’

  With her back to him, she smiled as she spoke, an empty smile to satisfy Rory, wherever he was.

  ‘But this person’ – Ed was pleading now – ‘whoever they are, is out there in that camp right now. This person we will never even meet. They’re walking around the camp, smiling at friends, and wondering about tomorrow. We can save this one person.’

  ‘Miranda went out to cover the last big famine,’ said Casey, still smiling out at the desert. ‘She was out in Kenya, as the people were pouring over the border from Somalia. They hadn’t eaten for weeks, those people. Miranda told me how she watched a baby dying, and made damn sure the photographer got the shot. I saw that photograph. The tiny baby with the huge eyes and the huge stomach, and almost nothing else. That baby died right there, and then Miranda and the snapper went to get lunch. And people cried over that photograph, and sent millions to charity. But, out there, in the middle of nowhere in Kenya, Miranda had to eat her lunch. Because otherwise, she couldn’t do the job. We’re observers, Ed. That’s what we do.’

  ‘But we’re not just observers, are we?’ Ed’s voice was quite cold. ‘You go in and say things and do things and be things, and people respond. You and Miranda, you don’t just watch, do you? It’s not that simple.’

  ‘No,’ said Casey. ‘It’s never that simple.’

  You’re an agent provocateur, the office lech had said once, rubbing his hands. She flinched at the memory.

  ‘We can’t just watch this happen,’ said Ed. ‘No one can just watch this sort of thing. We can’t be complicit. It isn’t human.’

  ‘It is, though,’ said Casey ‘isn’t it? And we have no other way. I know this, Ed. You have to trust me.’

  ‘How far can you walk in another man’s shoes,’ said Ed slowly, ‘before you walk with his stride? And where does it end? When I hit Isa . . . It changes you, every move, and I don’t think I believe in your cause, Casey.’

  They stood silently in the wind. I never wanted to hurt you, she thought. And you’ll never believe that, now.

  ‘We’re not going to stop it, are we?’

  ‘We are not going to stop it tomorrow. But afterwards . . . Afterwards, we are going to stop it for ever. Or try, at least.’

&
nbsp; ‘I can’t let you do this,’ he said. ‘I can’t be a part of this.’

  He turned away.

  She couldn’t be sure that he would walk up there tomorrow. Walk alongside her, and soldier the horror. She didn’t know.

  He swung away from her, now, walking back down to the cave, and its tiny ancient drawings. Casey watched him go, still smiling calmly. Then she sat down, against the rock, and pulled out a novel.

  She waited a long time, turning the pages in the sun, and at last he emerged from the cave. Walked up the hill to where she sat, and paused. He stood beside her, half turned away.

  ‘Shall we head back to Euzma?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  There was no sign of Rory as they walked back down the track. At the mouth of the cave, so that it would look like a mistake, she dropped a scarf into a crevice in the rock, one she had bought in the souk in Djanet. It lay, caught between the rocks, white embroidered with blue.

  One more glance at the desert, and they climbed down the hillside, back to the steady old Hilux. The wind was falling now, just the occasional drift of sand twirling across the landscape. The heat was stifling, and Casey’s shirt was glued to her back.

  They climbed into the car, and drove back to the white palace in silence.

  31

  Oliver and Josh were waiting for them next to the huge bronze fist.

  ‘Hey,’ Oliver waved. ‘We’re going up to the rocks. A recce to see the camp.’

  Selby’s eyes rested on her for a moment. There was no choice. They piled into Josh’s pickup, and headed down the drive, back past the cypress skeletons. From nowhere, the Tuareg fell in behind, their secret shadows.

  ‘On your left’ – Josh put on a tour guide’s tone – ‘is the little track up to the cave. I trust you enjoyed your expedition, Ed and Carrie?’

  ‘Five stars,’ Casey somehow managed to joke. ‘I would highly recommend it to other travellers.’

  ‘We’re thrilled you enjoyed your trip,’ Josh laughed at her. ‘And thank you for all the positive feedback.’

  In another world, he would be attractive, thought Casey. With his big sudden smile and knowing eyes.

  Ed was still silent, and Casey filled the silence with giggles.

  The pickup purred expensively down the avenue, making nothing of the potholes. As they were pulling out on to the main road, an open-topped truck hurtled past, so many people on board that it was almost invisible. Sacks and bags were tied on like fenders. Men and women and children clung on as the truck shot down the road. With their faces wrapped in rags to protect them from the sun, Casey saw a blur, not people.

  ‘There they go, another few dozen,’ Josh waved. ‘Off to make it out of Africa, or die trying. Most likely die.’

  He turned on to the road, following the truck east.

  ‘What happens to them?’ asked Casey airily.

  ‘Bad stuff,’ said Josh. ‘All the time. Last year, a couple of trucks headed off out of Arlit, in Niger. They got a hundred miles north, up towards Tamanrasset, right down the southern end of Algeria. Then one of the trucks conked out. So the second one turns round, heads back to Arlit, to get a spare part or something. That one gets forty miles back towards Arlit, before it flatlines too. They found them scattered about, over quite a wide area. A few under trees. Some out in the sun. Some had been eaten by jackals. They were in groups, mainly. But there were a few kids out there too, on their own. Ninety-two dead.’

  ‘God.’ Ed had forgotten himself. ‘My God.’

  ‘A few of them made it all the way back to Arlit,’ Josh added. ‘Which was fucking hardcore by them. Some of them even got as far as Tamanrasset, fuck knows how. And that lot got sent straight back to Niger anyway.’

  The pickup had effortlessly caught up with the truck. A small girl, maybe seven years old, was clinging on at the back. She was wearing a purple vest and pink trousers, hair whipped to wildness by the wind. Hungry eyes, and skin, and bone.

  Where am I? Why am I here?

  The little girl waved at Casey, from some forgotten habit.

  ‘Snakes and ladders.’ Casey waved back.

  ‘Mostly snakes out here,’ said Josh. ‘The West sees those pictures, of the boats in the Med, and they think that is the worst. But that’s just the bit they see, and they don’t see much of that. And it’s not even the worst part of that journey. No one knows how many the Sahara takes.’

  ‘Survival of the fittest,’ said Oliver briskly.

  ‘Quite.’ Casey’s laugh almost broke.

  ‘Why do they go then?’ Oliver asked, sounding cross. ‘Why don’t they just bloody stay where they started? Where they belong.’

  ‘They can’t really.’ Josh waved at the dust still in the air. ‘The Sahara gets bigger and bigger every year, nibbling away at the surroundings. Back in the sixties, there were two dust storms a year in Mauritania. Now there are eighty a year. Eighty. You can’t grow a thing any more. There’s nothing left down in these countries. They literally just have dust. The people have to leave. It’s not a choice.’

  His voice was practical.

  Casey felt her heart skip as Josh skidded the car to the right, heading back towards the mountains. Here, the red sandstone rose up sharply, the track picking its way up through huge jagged rocks.

  ‘The main entrance to Salama is further along the main road,’ Josh explained. ‘This is the back route up to the hills around the camp. Salama started in a sort of valley, with mountains on three sides, and then sprawled.’

  He slowed to drive up a steep path. The wind had dropped now, dust settling. There was still a haze in the sky, a smear against the sun.

  ‘There was an oasis here, which is probably why the camp started,’ Josh went on. ‘It must have been quite nice, once.’

  ‘They’ve always based themselves round the oases, haven’t they?’ Ed was staring out of the window. ‘The people of the Sahara.’

  ‘You’d think the old caravan trails would be straight,’ agreed Josh. ‘From point A to point B, like the borders. But of course, they’re not, because they had to go from one oasis to another. And if something went wrong with an oasis, and you were days and days from any other water, it was a disaster. The end, really. They used to fight to the death for control of an oasis.’

  Casey thought of one oasis after another, strung out like pearls on a long and delicate necklace. The Bedouins risked it all to trade the ebony and the salt, the ivory and the ostrich plumes. People died to traffic ostrich plumes? Yes. Yes, they did. Gold for salt. And a little bit later, God made his way down the very same routes.

  And slaves too, of course, millions and millions of them.

  ‘Do you see the swallows?’ she asked. ‘In the spring and the autumn.’

  ‘Sure.’ Josh spun the wheel to avoid a rock. ‘They fly hundreds of miles a day, the swallows, from one oasis to another. All the way from England to Africa in a couple of weeks. That’s how the plants appear around the water in the first place, of course. Bird shit.’

  They climbed and climbed, the pickup’s engine churning. Finally, Josh slowed. He parked the car, and gestured for them to follow him.

  It was a narrow track, barely used. They walked, kicking up dust, and dodging round boulders before, quite suddenly, Salama opened up beneath them. The ground fell away sharply from where they were standing, in almost a sheer drop. For a second, Casey felt like a kestrel, turning idle in the breeze, and searching for the kill.

  From the rocks, hundreds of feet above, the camp looked almost endless. Rows of tents sprawled into the distance. Dwarfed by the cliffs, these tents were tattered now, bleached by the sun.

  Down below them, larger buildings interspersed the tents. In among the maze of paths, people had built shacks of corrugated iron and wood, tarpaulin and anything. Pallets were everywhere. Because even pallets are precious, out here.

  It was oddly colourful, the camp. Some people had run up shreds of flags, brave against the sky. Scraps of garden had been
scratched from the dirt. The big blue United Nations logo blew in the wind.

  A scruffy fence ran round the camp, a rambling barbed-wire barricade. Here and there, Casey could see a few tiny people. Some striding with purpose, others just sitting, staring. Children were playing a haphazard game that might be tag.

  It always surprised her, the size of the tents. So small, for a family of seven or eight. The sleeping mats rolled up in the corner during the day, so neatly. And not always enough blankets, for the cold Sahara night.

  Casey remembered an aid worker, at Zaatari, crying over a simple question from one of the Syrians.

  ‘How?’ a mother had asked. ‘How do I decide which of my children to keep warm? Please tell me. How do I decide?’

  I am Malak.

  ‘It’s about five hundred metres to the camp from here.’ Josh was efficient. ‘People gather around that building there at this time of day, can you see? The one with the big mural down the side.’

  The distances would matter for the calculations. Casey concentrated on the mural, of a smiling Tuareg child holding a huge bunch of pink flowers. No one in this camp could ever have seen a bunch of pink tulips, not in real life.

  ‘I see.’ Oliver squinted in the light. ‘No problem.’

  He lay down on the ground.

  ‘There are lots of possible viewpoints, because of the hills,’ Josh waved round the shallow bowl. ‘Lots of angles. We haven’t been to this one for a while. We need to go for somewhere right at the edge of the camp, of course, because otherwise they’d hear the bang as the bullet went overhead. It creates a sort of supersonic crack, might arouse suspicions. But, as you can see, it’s a big camp. There are plenty of places. We never go to the same place more than once a year, twice at the outside.’

  ‘How many people have come out here?’ Casey asked carefully. ‘With you.’

  ‘Thirty? Forty? Something like that.’

  ‘And don’t people notice the refugees being shot?’ Casey made it a joke. ‘The corpses lying around?’

  ‘Sure they do. But there are guns all over this camp, so no one wonders too much about a stray bullet. They make a mess, the big-calibre bullets, but it’s not like they’re doing post-mortems out here. And what are they going to do about it? It’s not like they can call in the cops anyway.’