by Parker Bilal
Shaddad greeted them in the doorway of his office on the first floor. A tall, fleshy man in his forties, he had a large gut, long, rather unkempt wavy hair and reading glasses that were twisted out of shape. His shirt was crumpled and a button was undone. A cigarette dangled in one hand.
‘Sorry to bother you at this hour,’ Okasha, on his best behaviour, apologised. ‘I felt it best that no time be wasted.’
‘No trouble at all. I understand completely. Please, come in.’ Shaddad looked weary, his eyes bloodshot, but he stepped aside to usher them in. The office was dark but for a desk lamp. Stacked along the corridor and around the walls of the room were cardboard boxes and stacks of brochures and medical journals. Okasha was distracted by his telephone.
‘We were worried you might not be awake,’ Makana said.
‘Oh, I tend not to sleep more than four hours a night. I usually work until about two.’ Omar Shaddad glanced at his wristwatch before stubbing out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray on his desk and gesturing for them to take a seat.
‘Please, tell me what this is about. I understand there has been an accident.’
Okasha snapped his phone shut with a decisive click. ‘A van registered to your company was involved in an incident just off the Cairo–Ismailia road, close to 10th Ramadan City.’
‘Was anyone hurt?’ Shaddad turned from one to the other in bewilderment.
Okasha ignored the question. ‘Can you tell us what your van was doing out on that road?’
‘No idea.’ Omar Shaddad held his hands up towards heaven. ‘I can check.’
‘The van was registered to your company, but we haven’t been able to identify either of the men in the car.’ Okasha’s eyes met Makana’s.
‘The driver would have been carrying papers.’
‘Nothing was found on his body. There may have been a second man in the car, but he seems to have disappeared.’
‘Disappeared? This makes no sense.’ Shaddad stopped himself. He glanced at Makana, who had remained quiet through all of this. ‘What exactly is this all about?’
Makana glanced at Okasha, who nodded his consent. ‘In the back of the van there is a metal chest, fitted to the floor.’
‘All our vans have them. Sometimes we have to carry expensive items or equipment. The drivers often leave the vans to make a delivery. It makes sense to have a special compartment for valuable goods.’
‘In this case it was carrying a body.’
‘A what?’
‘A young man, perhaps sixteen years old. He was dead.’
Shaddad removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. ‘How can that be?’
‘That’s why we came straight to you, Mr Shaddad,’ said Okasha. ‘I’m sure you’ll agree that it is best to sort out these irregularities as soon as possible.’
‘Are you telling me that they were up to something illegal, in my van?’ Shaddad looked back and forth from one to the other.
‘You keep a record of all of your vehicles, I suppose?’ asked Okasha.
‘Naturally. Everything is above board, I can assure you of that.’ Shaddad was reaching for the telephone. ‘We monitor all our vans carefully. We have to.’ He dialled a number, and fished his cigarettes from a jacket slung over the back of the chair. ‘How exactly did this happen?’
While Okasha explained about the tanker and the fire, Makana took a moment to examine the room. One wall was covered in bookshelves, heavy tomes that appeared to be medical journals, leather-bound volumes in sequence that stretched along entire shelves. In frames hanging behind the desk were certificates, starting with Ain Shams medical school and progressing through to institutions further afield – the University of Fribourg in Germany, and Buffalo, New York. Clearly Omar Shaddad was a highly qualified man. A number of pictures showed Shaddad in the company of distinguished-looking men from the world of business and high finance. Makana spotted at least one government minister. Shaddad was tapping the telephone receiver urgently with his fingers.
‘Did you say there were two men in our van?’
‘We believe there was a passenger also,’ Okasha confirmed.
Shaddad put down the phone. ‘There appears to be no one there. Maybe they’re asleep.’ He slumped back with a perplexed look on his face. ‘None of this makes any sense. Are you quite sure the van is one of ours?’
Okasha produced his notebook with the registration number and description of the minivan. Shaddad sat up and began clicking at the computer that took up one side of his desk.
‘It’s definitely our van.’ Omar Shaddad’s eyes were fixed on the screen in front of him. The light illuminated his face with a blue glow.
‘Does it say who the van was assigned to?’ Makana asked.
‘I’m afraid we’re not that organised. These things tend to be arranged on a day-to-day basis.’
‘So how do you keep track of your vans?’
‘There’s only one person with that information.’ Shaddad clicked off the screen. ‘Abu Gomaa. He’s the caretaker of the car pool.’
‘And where do we find this Abu Gomaa?’ demanded Okasha.
‘Well, that’s who I was trying to call.’ Shaddad made a show of examining his watch. ‘At this time of night he might be asleep. I mean, he is a little deaf. He’s rather an old man.’
‘Then we can save him a trip to the station by interviewing him now, don’t you think?’
Shaddad glanced at Okasha and got to his feet. ‘You are right.’ A smell of stale sweat came with him as he brushed past Makana. ‘Why don’t we go down and see him right away?’
They took the stairs down past the entrance lobby and down to the first level of the basement. The stairs continued downwards, vanishing into shadow. A badly fitting metal door brought them out into the underground car park. Neon strip lights glowed white and faint at the far end, blinding them and throwing shadows around the cavernous space. The watery glow barely penetrated the gloom. Beyond the lights a ramp rose up towards the street. On both sides darkness thickened into impenetrable blackness. A row of cars was parked along the wall, some of them clearly abandoned. A couple were covered by dusty canvas tarpaulins that gave the place the air of a forgotten tomb. Dogs were barking somewhere.
Shaddad called out again and again until a dishevelled man in his seventies shuffled out from behind a wall, rubbing his eyes.
‘Abu Gomaa, where have you been? Were you asleep?’
‘No, I was just watching the television.’ He waved a hand in the vague direction of where he had come from as if expecting the apparatus to step up and confirm his statement. A white flicker echoed from a corner that had been fenced off by uneven rows of breeze blocks.
‘These men are from the police,’ said Shaddad. ‘They have some questions for you.’
‘Questions? What kind of questions?’ He turned to snap at the two dogs. They whined and settled down. The garage was rich with the smell of them. Abu Gomaa was unshaven and missing several teeth. He wore a dark blue gellabiya that was almost as decrepit as he was. Okasha motioned him into a pool of dim light and held up his notebook with the number of the van written on it.
‘You know this van?’
Abu Gomaa barely glanced at the page. ‘Of course, I know all of them.’ Rheumy eyes flickered towards Shaddad. ‘That’s my job.’
‘You remember the numbers of all the vans?’ Makana asked.
‘Nothing wrong with my memory.’ Abu Gomaa sounded irritated.
‘You know where they all are at any given time?’
The old man squinted at him. ‘I know who’s driving them and when they will be back.’
‘So where is this one?’
Reluctantly Abu Gomaa consented to glance at the paper Okasha held out.
‘That’s easy. It’s here.’
‘Here, where?’ Okasha looked around.
‘I’ll show you.’ The old man straightened up and the three men followed him around the side of the building to where a row of vehicles was stationed. T
he three of them spent five minutes looking, but the number was clearly not there.
‘I don’t see it,’ said Okasha, irritated. ‘Try again. Maybe you’re confusing it with another.’
Abu Gomaa took offence. ‘Are you saying I don’t remember?’
‘This is a waste of time,’ declared Okasha, turning to Shaddad. ‘Are you telling me that with all of your valuable instruments and pharmaceuticals, this is the most secure system you have to register your vans?’
With a pained look on his face, Shaddad led Okasha and Makana off to one side. He lowered his voice.
‘Abu Gomaa started here as a child in the days of my grandfather. He’s practically family. We’d be lost without him.’
‘The way I see it, you’re lost with him,’ Okasha grunted and turned to Makana. ‘You have anything to say?’
‘Maybe we need to proceed more slowly.’ Makana returned to address the watchman. ‘How many vans do you have?’
‘How many?’ Abu Gomaa stared at his feet for a moment. ‘Eight usually. One of them’s got a broken clutch. The garage is waiting for a spare part.’
‘Okay,’ said Makana slowly. ‘That leaves seven. How many have you got here?’
Abu Gomaa wandered up and down in the gloom, counting on his fingers. Okasha, who was muttering curses under his breath, finally lost patience.
‘We’re wasting our time.’ He slapped the notebook into his hand. ‘The van is not here. You know why? Because what’s left of it is out on the road to Ramadan City.’
‘Anyone can make a mistake.’ Abu Gomaa appealed to Makana for understanding.
‘Can you remember the last time you saw this particular van?’ Makana watched the old man’s face register loss and confusion. It was clearly hopeless.
‘It’s all right, Abu Gomaa,’ Shaddad said. ‘We’ll deal with this. You go back to your television.’ As the old man shuffled off to one side, his employer whispered, ‘My apologies. He’s fine for the day-to-day things. You know, not much happens around here. Drivers come and go. He knows them all and they know him.’
Makana pointed towards the exit ramp. ‘Can anyone just walk in here from the street?’
Shaddad gave a light shrug. ‘Between Abu Gomaa and his dogs they wouldn’t get far.’ As if in response the two dogs began to bark and howl once more. They were tethered to long chains wrapped around a pillar surrounded by a scattering of bones. After a time they grew bored and sat down to start gnawing away again.
‘What about keys?’ Makana asked. ‘Who keeps them?’
Shaddad turned to Abu Gomaa again, who was staring at the ceiling.
‘I keep all the keys safe,’ he said, thrusting his chest out with pride.
‘Show us,’ said Makana.
Abu Gomaa led the way across to a door set into the far wall. His manner suggested he had taken offence at their treatment of him. Using a key that hung on a string around his neck, Abu Gomaa unlocked the door. It swung inwards on creaking hinges to reveal a gloomy cell. The floor was strewn with crushed cardboard boxes, the walls scarred with nails and holes where cupboards or shelves had once been mounted. There wasn’t room for all four men at the same time. Okasha and Shaddad stood in the doorway. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling. Beyond its glow Makana could make out a hatch high up in the wall.
‘It’s the bottom of the lift shaft. They never finished it.’
Each building in this city seemed to have its own tale to tell. There was a clutter of broken office furniture, dusty plastic crates, cracked display cases. Things that someone had decided to store away rather than dispose of.
‘Where did all of this come from?’ Shaddad looked like a man who’d never set foot in the place in his life.
‘It’s been like this for years,’ Abu Gomaa shrugged. ‘People put things here and never come back for them.’
A white metal medicine cabinet with a faded red crescent painted on it was fixed to the wall next to the door. Another key on the string opened it to reveal a row of hooks on which presumably keys were hung. Abu Gomaa stepped back, a conjuror who has performed his last trick. Shaddad leant through the doorway and ran his hand along them. Some bore tags, others scraps of brown card, yet others had no identifying marks on them at all. Shaddad seemed shocked.
‘What is all this?’ he asked.
‘Looks like a museum,’ said Okasha.
‘Some of these are for cars we don’t use any longer,’ said Shaddad as he examined the keys.
‘It’s not here.’ He turned to the old man. ‘Look, one of our vans has been involved in an accident and we need to know who took the key out.’
Abu Gomaa looked from his boss to the two others but said nothing.
‘Do you remember who last used this van?’ Makana asked. Abu Gomaa stared at the ground and shuffled his feet. ‘Abu Gomaa, please, this is a serious matter.’
‘Ya, sidi, please, it is shameful enough to admit this matter. I’m not young any longer. Your father, may Allah have mercy on his soul, was always good to me.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Shaddad looked exasperated. ‘We’re not going to get any further here, but rest assured that I shall get to the bottom of this matter.’
‘I hope so,’ said Okasha.
‘I’ll get on to it right away. As soon as it’s light. I can make some calls. Don’t worry, Inspector, we’ll soon sort this out.’
‘We’ll need a list of all your drivers.’ Abu Gomaa had retreated into the background, silently dissolving into shadow. ‘Also any of your drivers who don’t show up for work. As soon as we get a proper picture of the man in the trunk my officers will be paying your company a visit.’
‘We will cooperate in any way,’ Shaddad stuttered. ‘We have a reputation to think of.’
‘Well, at least that means something to you,’ said Okasha.
Makana glanced at Abu Gomaa as they walked out. The old man met his gaze with something that looked very much like contempt.
Chapter Thirteen
The moon was almost full, listing in a cold, clear sky as Makana made his way down the narrow path to the awama. He had no need of lights to find his way, nor to climb the stairs to the upper deck. Sleep was an appealing idea, but he knew it wouldn’t get further than a thought. His mind was preoccupied. Somehow the image of the young man lying out by the roadside had stuck with him. Events seemed to be conspiring to draw him back in time, to the world he had left behind all those years ago. Settling himself into the big wooden chair, he wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and sat back.
Directly in front of him the table that ran the width of the room constituted his office. It was reassuringly solid and quite large, an anchor to cling to. And although he rarely sat at it pondering his fate, it did serve to accommodate any amount of paper he threw at it. As a result it tended to be forever on the point of collapsing beneath the weight of books and paper that washed up there. At one end was a heap of blank scrolls that he purchased cheaply from a printer nearby. The paper was quite rough quality but there was plenty of it and it often served when he felt a need to try and make sense of a case. He would draw up the lines rather like a general planning for a battle. In the end it often resembled the ramblings of a demented mind, and served perhaps a more therapeutic purpose rather than providing useful insight. Scraps from some of these were taped to the wall behind the desk, along with clippings from newspapers, photographs, diagrams, cuttings from maps. Altogether it added up to a kaleidoscopic chart of his life over the last decade and more.
From time to time his eye would fall on some object and it would bring back the past. A papyrus painting, given to him by an old forger, showed the Hall of Judgement where the heart of the dead king is weighed against an ostrich feather. Anubis, the jackal-headed god, presided over the golden scales. Further along was a photograph of Daud Bolad, a very dangerous man whose path Makana would be glad never to cross again.
There were other things, too: a street plan of Siwa and alongside a larger map of Egypt
, the Western Desert and the Nile as it traced its way south, snaking back into the continent and his past.
Whenever a face from his former life surfaced in Cairo, it would amaze him that people still sought him out, that he hadn’t simply been consigned to forgotten memory. They were invariably disappointed, dismayed at how he could have cut all ties to his homeland. There was never any satisfactory answer to give them. The theory was that he was here because it was too dangerous to return. He still had enemies inside the halls of the Jihaz, the National Intelligence and Security Service back in Khartoum. But that wasn’t the only reason. A country was little enough reason to return. He no longer believed that there was a single place he could ever feel completely at home, and so this was as good as anywhere.
At the centre of the wall was a creased and faded snapshot of a woman and small child: a girl nearly three years old at the time. His wife Muna and daughter Nasra. It was no coincidence that it was placed there, at the middle of everything, because it seemed to him that this was where it all began and this, too, was what it was all returning to.
As he sat there smoking and looking out over the river, Makana forced his mind back to what he had seen earlier that evening, the dead boy lying by the side of the metal locker. Who was he and how had he died, and why? The autopsy would, he was sure, show that he had been dead before the accident. What had he been doing inside that locker? What was the motive? Not money. If you have your eyes set on a fat ransom you might kidnap a wealthy actress, a businessman’s son, or maybe his wife, but not a boy from South Sudan who, by the look of his clothes, had little to his name. So what was the motive? Sexual, perhaps? Usually it was women who prostituted themselves, but it wasn’t unheard of for men to follow that path. So then what, a fight of some kind? An accident? Someone had been taking him out of town to get rid of the evidence. It wouldn’t be hard. Find a spot, dig a hole in the sand. The body would vanish for ever, or at least until someone had the bright idea of building another factory out there.
