The Ghost Runner

by Parker Bilal

  ‘The husband’s name is Musab Khayr.’

  ‘I haven’t heard that name around here for a long time. I think he left.’

  ‘He was married to a woman named Nagat Abubakr, maybe you remember them?’

  The old man stepped forward out of the shadow. When he spoke, his adam’s apple jumped up and down and his voice was as high pitched and jittery as a bird’s.

  ‘Everyone used to know the Abubakr family. But they are gone now. None of them are left.’ He was dark and bony, and knotted like a withered palm that had lost its luxuriant crown. One eye was blue and sightless while the other fixed you like a pin.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Makana asked.

  ‘They were one of the richest families around here. Owned a lot of land. But they’re all gone now. You must remember that, Sergeant?’

  Hamama gave a laugh. ‘If I could remember as much as you, uncle, I’d be the one living out here with the birds.’

  Amm Ahmed muttered something that Makana couldn’t catch. He heard the sergeant hack loudly and spit into the soft earth.

  ‘What was that?’ Makana asked.

  ‘Squandered their wealth. Married badly.’ Amm Ahmed chewed on his toothless gums.

  ‘Is there anybody left who might have known them?’

  But Amm Ahmed’s attention appeared to have wandered. He turned away.

  ‘I’m sorry that wasn’t more helpful,’ Sergeant Hamama sighed when they were back in the car. They watched the spindly figure disappear inside the mud house. ‘His family came here as slaves years ago. Brought up from the south, your part of the world, on a caravan.’

  ‘Is that singing?’

  ‘The men working the palm trees sing and others working nearby reply. It’s a tradition.’

  The Chevrolet creaked and groaned as they bumped their way through the ruts. Hamama drove with one hand on the wheel, the other bunched into a fist on his thigh. He threw a long sideways glance at his passenger. The engine wheezed as they climbed the incline onto the metalled road and shuddered back in the direction of civilisation.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what this is really about? Why are you asking about Musab Khayr? And I don’t mean that nonsense about your wife’s family.’

  ‘A young woman died,’ Makana began, considering the wisdom of lighting a cigarette. Hamama seemed to be trying to make up his mind whether to trust him or not. ‘Karima was their daughter. I was hired to find out who killed her.’

  ‘Why not leave all that to the police?’

  ‘The police aren’t interested. They are dismissing it as suicide.’

  ‘Oh, now I see.’ Hamama chuckled to himself. ‘You’re one of those people who think they know better than the police, eh? Sounds like you’ve done this kind of thing before.’

  ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘Very good.’ Hamama seemed amused. ‘You were a policeman once yourself. How would you have felt if civilians started interfering in your work back then?’

  ‘I’m not interfering. Like I said, the police aren’t interested.’ Makana looked at the sergeant. ‘It’s a girl from a poor family. Nobody cares.’

  ‘But you obviously do. I’m guessing somebody is paying you for this.’

  ‘Right, somebody who cared about the girl enough to want to know why she died.’

  Sergeant Hamama shifted his bulk as if making himself comfortable. ‘So you tell him the girl was murdered and he pays you to come here on holiday. Not a bad game you’re in.’

  ‘Almost as good as this folklore trip you’re taking me on,’ said Makana. ‘You have records of births and deaths like anywhere else in the country. I’m not here as a tourist.’

  The pickup rolled to a halt. Hamama took a long time to regard Makana.

  ‘All right, we’ll make a deal. There’s nothing for you here, but I can show you around. You can take in the sights and go home to your master happy.’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’

  Hamama scratched his nose. ‘This person who hired you, what do you call it, your client?’

  ‘He’s a lawyer.’

  ‘Okay, so the man is paying you, right? And I’m guessing he’s not short of money. So, we come to some kind of arrangement that is mutually beneficial.’

  ‘I can’t see how that is of any advantage to me.’

  ‘This is a small town. You won’t get anywhere without help. If I put the word out nobody will say a word to you, and besides, you heard the old man. That family died out years ago. There’s nothing here for you to find.’

  ‘Amm Ahmed said the Abubakr family were once big landowners. Do you know where they used to live?’

  ‘Does this mean we’re partners?’

  ‘It means, I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Hamama. ‘I can work with that. But don’t wait too long. I’m not known for my patience.’ He pushed the car into gear and they rolled along. They drove in silence through the town and out through more trees into an area where the road became dusty and bare as it curved around a small hill. The house, or what was left of it, was on the edge of a dry, neglected field.

  ‘There it is,’ said Hamama, climbing out and leaning against the front of the pickup.

  Makana walked over to take a look. It was clear that no one had lived here for years although it must once have been quite a splendid place. Stepping up onto what might have been a front veranda, Makana wandered through into the rubble-strewn remains of a large courtyard.

  ‘How long has it been like this?’ he called over his shoulder.

  Sergeant Hamama, who was busy tucking a pinch of snuff inside his lower lip, glanced up. ‘Oh, years,’ he said, dusting off his hands. ‘The family owned all of this, as far as the eye can see.’ He ejected a long stream of tobacco-coloured spit.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The usual.’ The sergeant waved vaguely. ‘They died out, I suppose.’ He went back to staring off into the distance.

  Makana finished his walk around the perimeter of the ruined house. It was probably built in the 1920s or 1930s. The Abubakrs would have been landowners back in the days of King Farouk before Nasser came to power and seized the land to give back to the people. When he arrived back at the car, Sergeant Hamama was still leaning on the front of it, watching him with folded arms. There didn’t seem to be much to occupy the local police around here.

  From the pocket of his jacket Makana produced the fragment of the photograph he had found in Karima’s flat in Cairo. He moved around, holding it up until he found a position where he thought it might fit. The photograph was several decades old, but the line of the horizon was largely unchanged.

  ‘What is that?’ Sergeant Hamama craned his neck to look over Makana’s shoulder.

  ‘I think it’s a memory they took with them when they left here,’ said Makana.

  ‘You say this girl died in a fire?’ Hamama asked. Makana nodded. ‘And you think the reason has something to do with this place?’

  ‘I think it has something to do with Musab Khayr. Do you remember him?’

  ‘It rings a bell. Very faint and far away.’ Sergeant Hamama leaned over to eject another jet of tobacco into the dirt. ‘If he’s the one I’m thinking of he had a reputation as a trouble maker, always getting into fights.’

  ‘Do you remember what happened to him?’

  ‘I think he left and no one heard anything more about him.’

  ‘That sounds like the man I am looking for. This would have been when?’

  ‘Around the time Sadat was killed.’

  ‘Nineteen eighty-one. Twenty one years ago.’

  ‘Like I said, a long time.’

  ‘Who owns this land now?’

  ‘This land?’ The sergeant turned to survey the plot stretching away behind the house as if he had never seen it before. ‘I don’t know. I can check. It might still belong to the family.’

  ‘The house must have been something. Shame it fell into ruin.’

  ‘It’s hard l
and to work. It’s the salt, you know, in the soil.’

  ‘Right.’ Makana returned the singed picture to his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. ‘Who is the senior officer in charge here?’

  ‘Well, right now that would be me.’ Hamama scratched his belly.

  ‘Who was in charge before?’

  ‘Captain Mustafa.’

  ‘Do you think I could speak to him?’

  ‘You could,’ grinned Sergeant Hamama, ‘but you’d have to go to heaven first.’

  A squawk from the interior of the pick-up alerted Hamama to a radio call. He was still smiling at his own humour as he reached in through the window on the driver’s side. Makana sighed and surveyed the ruin. This was Karima’s family home, but she’d never seen it. The photograph would have been her mother’s. She kept it as a memory, or did it signify more than that? It wasn’t a lot to go on. A fallen-down house full of birds’ nests.

  Hamama straightened up, tossing the radio handset in through the window onto the seat. He raised one hand to shield his eyes from the sun.

  ‘I knew you were trouble when I first set eyes on you,’ Hamama grunted as he wrenched open the door of the car. ‘Get in.’ Makana climbed in as Hamama started the engine. They pulled onto the road and started back towards town at what seemed like recklessly high speed.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Makana asked.

  ‘They’ve found a body in the lake.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Birket Siwa was a long flat sliver of water that lapped gently at the soft white sand now tinged with red. The air was oppressive and there was barely a ripple on the lake’s placid surface. Seagulls flapped impatiently at a distance. The fish had also already had their fill. The face was ravaged where between them they had torn away strips. Both eyes were now empty pools half filled with grey matter and brakish water. The dead man lay on his side in the sun. His knees were folded up and he looked as if he had been tipped over as he lay kneeling. His belly had been split open and a slithery mass of intestines and vital organs had spilled out. Coated with sand they resembled fat worms coming out of the earth. The stench was suffocating, trapped within a wave of heat. Not a breath of air stirred the water and a strange, almost supernatural stillness hung over the scene. A policeman with a caved-in face and the frame of a scrawny dog stood watching as they arrived, holding a small group of onlookers at a distance.

  ‘Stay here.’

  The springs gave a squeak of relief as Hamama climbed laboriously out of the Chevrolet and balanced his cap on his head. Hitching up his trousers he made his way over. The onlookers consisted of a man and a donkey, on the back of which was perched the impassive figure of a woman, or a girl, perhaps. Impossible to say when she was completely dressed in black and her face was covered. The donkey’s ears twitched. Makana climbed out of the car and immediately felt his feet sinking into the damp sand. As he straightened up the skinny policeman gave a groan and bent over to start retching all over his boots. Sergeant Hamama gave a sigh of disgust, whether at the body or this sign of weakness wasn’t clear. The cause of the officer’s nausea became apparent as Makana drew near. The dead man’s intestines appeared to be alive, wriggling and twisting as handfuls of grey salt eels squirmed and plopped into the sand out of the cavity in the man’s belly. A stench like rotting fish broke over them, a suffocating, sulphorous reek that seemed to stick in the throat. Makana lit a cigarette and at the sound of the lighter Hamama glanced sharply back at him. Then he spat on the ground and hoisted his baggy trousers back up.

  ‘Who found him?’

  Wordless, the skinny police officer gestured in the direction of the couple with the donkey before being overcome by another wave of nausea and he bent over and vomited again.

  Sergeant Hamama muttered something to himself and then approached the couple. The donkey shied away and the old man tugged it back into place. The woman sitting side-saddle on the back didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘Well, what have you got to say for yourselves?’

  ‘I don’t usually come this way,’ the man began. ‘As Allah is my witness I don’t know what made me do so today. I just saw him there.’

  ‘All right, okay,’ Hamama was impatient. ‘Did you see anything, anyone at all?’

  The man shook his head. The woman remained motionless and silent.

  ‘Did you touch anything?’

  ‘No, of course not. I could see he was dead.’ He turned to point over his shoulder to a finger of land that jutted out into the water. ‘I went to the hut over there, to use the telephone. I called my nephew Abdelrahman who sells chickens in the market and told him to go to the police station.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call the police directly?’

  ‘I didn’t know the number.’

  ‘You didn’t know the number?’ Sergeant Hamama repeated incredulously. ‘Okay, does she have anything to say?’

  The man turned to the woman and murmured something to her, leaning close to receive her answer. Then he turned to the sergeant.

  ‘She has nothing to add to what I have just said.’

  ‘Al hamdulillah. Now you get along, but I don’t want you telling everyone in town what you’ve seen here. Is that understood? I don’t want people coming out here and trampling over everything, you understand?’

  ‘Yes, effendim. We won’t say anything.’

  ‘And don’t forget to give your details to the officer there, just as soon as he’s finished wiping off his face.’

  The skinny officer was trying to rub the vomit off his boots by scuffing them into the sand. He sauntered over finally. Hamama rolled his eyes at Makana, then he nodded his head in the direction of the body.

  ‘Where you were before, as a policeman, did you ever see anything like this?’

  ‘Some,’ said Makana.

  ‘You were a detective? You dealt with homicides?’

  ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘Do you believe in fate?’ Hamama regarded Makana carefully.

  ‘Fate?’

  ‘I don’t think your turning up here was coincidence. I believe you are here to help me solve this thing.’

  ‘Is this part of our deal? I mean, if I help you I suppose that cuts down what I owe you for helping me?’

  ‘This man who has been butchered is not just anybody. He’s our Qadi, or he was.’ Hamama glanced at the remains of the judge. ‘I think that trumps any missing persons case you have.’

  ‘So we’re even?’

  ‘Yes, all right, we’re even. Now what can you tell me?’

  ‘Do you have a forensic team?’

  ‘Yes, along with our helicopter and specially trained dogs. I imagine they’ll be along in a minute.’ Hamama produced a packet of gum and stuck a piece in his mouth and began chewing.

  ‘A doctor, at least?’ Makana asked.

  ‘I suppose it’ll have to be Doctor Medina.’ Hamama tilted his hat onto the back of his head and stared at the ground beneath his feet. ‘It couldn’t have been an accident, could it?’ It wasn’t so much a question as a drowning man clutching at straws. ‘It wasn’t suicide either.’ Hamama rested his hands on his ample hips and stared at the sky. ‘We don’t get many murders here. It’s a peaceful place. People settle their differences quietly.’

  They both turned as another car came rattling fast up the stony track. A similar pickup to the sergeant’s, except the bonnet on this police car had been repaced by an olive-green one, from a military vehicle no doubt. The man who climbed out was a rangy, hard figure of a man in his thirties. He reached into the back, lifted out an old canvas stretcher and carried it over.

  ‘Sadig, this is Mr Makana.’

  The new arrival’s face remained impassive. He had one stripe on his arm. Glancing briefly at Makana he nodded in the direction of the body.

  ‘It’s true then, someone cut the Qadi to pieces? I thought he was making it up when I heard.’ ‘A lot of people are going to be upset about this,’ muttered Hamama. Sadig just grinned.


  ‘And a few people will be celebrating tonight, that’s for sure.’

  Sergeant Hamama sniffed. ‘I didn’t explain. This is Mr Makana.’

  ‘So you said.’ Sadig took another sideways look at him.

  ‘He’s come all the way from Cairo to ask some questions about the Abubakr family.’

  ‘The who?’

  ‘You know, the big old house out there by the Dakrur road.’

  Sadig took a longer look at Makana, in case there was anything he might have missed. ‘I haven’t heard anything about them in years. Didn’t they all leave?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sergeant Hamama nodded. ‘The place has been abandoned.’

  ‘Can’t see why anyone would be interested in that.’ Sadig set down the stretcher alongside the dead man. ‘My, my, the Qadi. Who would want to do a thing like that?’

  ‘You knew him?’ Makana asked.

  ‘Everyone knew him,’ replied Sadig, without looking up.

  ‘Let’s try and get him on here,’ said Hamama. ‘Call that idiot over to give us a hand.’

  ‘You think we should move him?’ Makana asked. Both Sergeant Hamama and Sadig turned to stare at him. ‘Aren’t you going to at least take photographs of the crime scene?’

  ‘We don’t have time for that. If we leave him out here much longer there won’t be anything left to photograph.’ Hamama nodded upwards where vultures were circling. Already crows were hopping closer.

  ‘What about the doctor? Shouldn’t we wait for him?’

  Sadig chuckled. ‘Doctor Medina? We could be here a week. We’ll be lucky if he’s capable of standing on his own two feet without support.’

  ‘We need to move him,’ Sergeant Hamama concluded for Makana’s benefit.

  It took all four of them, including the skinny policeman. The Qadi was a heavy man and would have been hard enough to handle while still in one piece. The guts spilled out behind them as they wrestled with the slippery body, coated with a layer of brine that gave it a white sheen. By the time they had finished there was blood, guts and sand everywhere including all over their clothes. A yellow plastic sheet was fetched from the coffee shop out on the point and draped over the body to stave off the flies that were closing in despite the afternoon heat beginning to fade. The red globe of the sun flattened itself against the horizon like a balloon from which the air was slowly escaping.