The Ghost Runner

by Parker Bilal

  ‘I don’t know. It almost feels as if something happened back then. Something that changed everything.’

  ‘Something like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m just speculating.’

  How long they talked he couldn’t say, but it must have been close to an hour. It felt good to be able to share his thoughts with someone. Despite this, Makana slept uneasily, waking in the early hours, disorientated, listening to the sound of a lone dog barking in the distance. What was he doing here? For a moment he was puzzled. He tried to imagine Nasra’s life. The image to which he found himself returning was of her face, the last time he saw her alive, through the window of the car as it plunged through the rails and down into the river below. Could she really have survived?

  The following morning the lean, hard Sadig was waiting in one of the armchairs in the lobby, eying Nagy’s daughter, who was serving him coffee in a cup with a saucer, the way they did for the tourists. The porter, Ayman, an oddly misplaced giant with a perplexed expression, was also watching the girl, although slyly, out of the corner of his eye from across the room where he was mopping the floor in his bare feet. Sadig whispered something to the girl, grinning like a cat. Catching sight of Makana wiped the smile off his face. He came to his feet and rushed over to block his exit.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  ‘Why, am I under arrest?’

  Sadig hooked his thumbs into his belt and stretched himself to his full height. ‘The sergeant sends his compliments. He asks if you will assist with interviewing foreign visitors in the hotels.’

  ‘Why? You need more time to search my room?’

  The corporal nodded towards the street. ‘The sergeant is waiting.’

  Hamama rolled up as they emerged from the hotel.

  ‘There’s no time to waste. You have to interview them all before they have breakfast and disappear. I’m counting on you.’ He pointed at Makana as he rolled off.

  The exercise proved a waste of time. They drove round half a dozen hotels and attempted to interview a selection of tourists, most of whom were either half asleep, or trying to eat their breakfast in peace. It became obvious that a number of them suspected the appearance of Sadig and Makana as the prelude to some kind of a scam designed to relieve them of their holiday savings. Some did not speak English – or if they did it was not a form of the language known to Makana. Others claimed to understand it but clearly did not. Throughout all of this Makana had to contend with Sadig’s sarcastic comments about how shameless these people were, how they had no respect for the customs of the country they were in, which of course did not prevent him from leering at the women, which in turn did nothing to decrease the tension and caused a good degree of bad feeling in some cases. It made Makana wonder all over again at Sergeant Hamama’s wisdom in sending this man along.

  ‘It’s a waste of time,’ Sadig announced as they emerged onto the street for the tenth time. ‘I knew it would be.’ The tall officer climbed back into the police car and started the engine. Makana leaned down to the window on the passenger side.

  ‘You talk as if it doesn’t matter who killed the Qadi.’

  Sadig leaned back and stared at Makana. ‘Everyone says you’re so smart, well, let me tell you something, in case you haven’t worked it out for yourself already. Nobody is ever going to come to trial for this murder.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Because it’s the way things work around here. People protect their own. And besides,’ grunted Sadig. ‘The old fool had it coming if you ask me.’

  With that he slammed his foot down and the battered car veered away, very nearly taking Makana’s arm with it. Across the street, he saw Wad Nubawi leaning in the doorway of his supermarket. When he noticed Makana watching him he disappeared inside. Makana crossed the street.

  When Makana came in Wad Nubawi was staring at a shelf of tins and marking something on a sheet with a pencil stub as if it was of immense importance.

  ‘I see you’re making friends,’ he murmured, without turning his head.

  ‘A man was killed. They asked for my help. I can’t really say no.’

  ‘Everyone knows you’re here to help the police. No secrets around here.’

  Makana stared at a packet of biscuits level with his eyes. On the shiny label a long-haired blonde prince waved a sword. He couldn’t quite work out the connection between contents and image.

  ‘I get the impression he was an unpopular man.’

  ‘Who, the Qadi?’ Wad Nubawi stopped his counting and went back to the start of the row to begin again. ‘He interferred in people’s business. Around here people don’t like that.’

  ‘It’s a Qadi’s job to interfere, isn’t it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’ Wad Nubawi grunted. He sighed and started on the same row for the third time.

  ‘Did you know him?’ Makana moved along the shelves, following a trail of images. A giant tuna fish leaping from a foaming sea. A chesnut tree covered in red blossom on a hillside. A beaming wife holding up a bowl heaped high with steaming okra to cheer a weary husband. Each item seemed to contain its own built-in plot, bringing adventure and good fortune to your dining table. Happiness and well-being in return for the consumption of their contents.

  ‘Everyone did. Look,’ Wad Nubawi gave up all pretence of trying to work. He tossed the pencil and paper onto the counter alongside the cash register and helped himself to a date. ‘I don’t know what you are getting at. There was no fight between me and the Qadi, understood? He did his job and I did mine. That’s my freezer the old fool is lying in even as we speak. How do you think people are going to feel next time they come to put their hand in there for a bag of falafel?’

  The image of the dead Qadi lying frozen in Doctor Medina’s garage was still fresh in Makana’s mind. He could see how it might not sit well with customers and keeping the news quiet around here was probably not an option.

  ‘Did you ever come across a man named Musab Khayr?’

  ‘Musab Khayr? Let me see . . .’ Wad Nubawi sucked his teeth and stared at the ceiling for a moment. ‘No, I can’t say that I recall that name.’ He fished for a cigarette under the counter and lit one in a single move. The smoke seemed to change the colour of his eyes, making them even more grey and evasive than they had been before. He was lean and efficient in his movements, with no excess use of energy.

  ‘I thought everyone around here knew everyone else.’

  ‘We know how to mind our own business. It’s not like in the big city.’ Wad Nubawi watched Makana as he smoked. ‘What has any of this got to do with the Qadi’s death?’

  ‘Nothing. Everything. You know how it is with this kind of investigation. It’s almost impossible to say how things are connected.’

  ‘They say you’re an expert.’

  ‘I’m not here to find out who killed the Qadi.’

  ‘But you’re helping Hamama.’

  ‘As long as the sergeant feels I can be useful then I am happy to assist.’

  ‘But you’re really here about this other man?’

  ‘Musab Khayr was married to a girl from here. Nagat. They ran away together.’

  ‘It happens.’ The grey stubble on Wad Nubawi’s lean face vanished in a cloud of smoke. His eyes turned the soft colour of honey as he looked off through the window at the sky. ‘People think life will be easier for them out there. They have no idea. Usually, it’s worse.’

  Maybe anything was better than being trapped in a place like this, thought Makana, but he didn’t say it. He was staring out of the window at the square, trying to imagine a young couple planning to run away to a new life. Or were they running away from something?

  ‘You think this Musab fellow is mixed up in what happened to the Qadi?’

  ‘It’s probably just coincidence,’ said Makana, turning back to him. ‘But I’d like to talk to someone from his family.’

  ‘I don’t see how that might help.’

&nbs
p; ‘It’s the way this kind of thing works. You never know what you’ve got until you pull it out of the water.’

  ‘Not much fishing goes on around here,’ said Wad Nubawi, exhaling through his nostrils. He flicked the cigarette butt out into the street. ‘We prefer meat that is so fresh you can still feel the animal’s heart beating.’ He grinned, showing off his gold tooth.

  As he approached his hotel, Makana spotted Hamama’s pickup parked outside with the second of the sergeant’s adjutants, the skinny police officer without a name, leaning on it smoking and staring forlornly at the ground. In the doorway stood Ayman, the hotel porter, looking as if he’d been left behind by life. He grinned when Makana held a finger to his lips and watched as he slipped around the corner, down the narrow side street which took him behind the hotel. Looking up Makana saw the window of his room was open. The corner of a cloth flew out, slapping against the shutter to produce a tiny explosion of dust. Cleaning his room sounded like an historic event, although probably it was simply an excuse for Nagy to go through his things in case there was anything of value that Sadig had overlooked.

  A few minutes later he turned a corner and saw the row of bicycles lined up outside the rental shop. A figure emerged and he recognised Nagy’s daughter, Rashida. She stopped and looked back to exchange a smile with Kamal, before moving on.

  When Makana walked in Kamal waved him through to the rear of the shop. A small door led out of the back where the motorcycle stood. He had done a lot of work on it clearly, but it still looked as though it ought to be in a museum.

  ‘What’s this?’ Makana pointed to an axle sticking out at right angles from the rear wheel.

  ‘It used to have a sidecar. They used them to carry guns and attack the Germans.’ Kamal shrugged as if all of that made as much sense as anything.

  ‘Will it run?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ There was something slow and patient about the boy that Makana liked. ‘I took it to pieces. It’s as good as new. Better even.’ He grinned.

  ‘Better? Where did you get spare parts?’

  ‘Sometimes you find them, others you have to improvise,’ shrugged Kamal, rubbing a rag over the dial of the speedometer.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’

  ‘You don’t have to pay anything. The doctor has been paying me for years to fix it.’

  ‘Take this anyway.’ Makana thrust a handful of notes into his hand. ‘You might not get the chance again.’

  Starting the machine up brought all of Makana’s doubts back. The thing was unwieldy and heavy, but when Kamal showed him how to turn the throttle up the engine seemed to settle into a steady, reassuring thump, and once on the road it felt solid beneath him. By the time he had got out to the lake he was beginning to enjoy himself. He hadn’t ridden a motorcycle since he was in the army signals corps and then too, by some strange quirk of fate, it had been another English machine. A Triumph.

  Luqman was sitting out by the water’s edge when Makana got there. He smiled when he saw the Norton.

  ‘It takes a brave man to trust his life to a machine like that.’

  ‘Either brave or stupid, I’m not sure which,’ agreed Makana as he managed to haul it up onto its stand.

  The lake was serene. Still and calm. Far off in the distance two dark rags flapped low across the water. Impossible to say what kind of birds they were.

  ‘No customers today?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Luqman glanced around the collection of junk that passed for furniture and turned back again. ‘They tend to do their sightseeing in the morning. Sunset. That’s the time for them to come out here. You know, relax after a hard day.’

  ‘It must be exhausting.’

  ‘There’s a lot to see. The oracle of Amun, where Alexander came to ask his fate.’

  ‘Sounds like you know a lot about it.’

  The narrow shoulders lifted and dropped. ‘People expect me to know everything. A Coke and a smile, isn’t that what they say?’

  ‘I’m the wrong person to ask,’ said Makana. ‘What is that?’

  Luqman turned to look at the faded poster of the flute player and the tortoises. He smiled.

  ‘Topkapi in Istanbul. Have you ever been?’ Makana shook his head. ‘Well, in the seventeenth century they would have very elaborate parties in the palace gardens. These creatures would wander around with lamps on their backs. It must have been magical.’ Luqman shrugged. ‘I just like the idea of the tortoise keeper with his flute. Why are you here anyway? More questions?’

  ‘Not really. I just thought I’d come out here and look around.’

  ‘Is this really what you do for a living?’

  ‘It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve always done.’

  Luqman offered his American cigarettes. ‘This land,’ he began, gesturing around them with his lighter before holding the flame for Makana, ‘it has been in my family for centuries. There’s something honest about working the land, you know.’

  ‘You mean, in contrast to running a tourist café?’

  ‘For example. In the old days it felt like clean money. I grew up with that. My whole family working the land. We weren’t rich, but we survived.’

  ‘Times change.’

  ‘It’s human nature. Someone sees an opportunity to make some money and work a little less, so they sell it off piece by piece. But the money doesn’t last for ever and one day it runs out and there’s no land to work and the hotels close down, or they only employ people who are young and have a certain training.’ Luqman stared off into the distance. ‘People don’t think ahead.’

  ‘But you’re still here.’

  ‘I tried living abroad, but I came back.’ Luqman gestured at the lake and the desert beyond. ‘I never get tired of looking at it.’

  A chattering of voices brought their attention to the road where a group of three tourists appeared, with sunglasses and hats, the boys in shorts, the girl sensibly dressed in long trousers.

  ‘I’m sorry, business calls.’

  ‘Looks like you have enough to keep you busy.’

  ‘It’s peanuts.’ Luqman shook his head. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but it was the Qadi and his friends who make the big money. We eat the crumbs that fall from their table. And now, with all this in Palestine . . .’ Luqman clicked his tongue. ‘People in America think that it’s all one place and after the 9/11 attacks the only people who dare to come here are the brave ones, or the crazy ones who don’t care.’

  Makana watched him transform himself as he walked away, smiling and greeting the newcomers, helping them to decide where they wanted to sit. It was easy to see why they trusted him. He had a charm and worldliness about him that set him apart from the other people Makana had met so far, all of whom could lightly be characterised as provincials. Luqman had travelled, certainly to the big cities of Alexandria and Cairo, and further afield. It seemed like a pleasant existence, just sitting by the lake waiting for people to come by and give you their money, but Makana knew it wasn’t quite as idyllic as it looked. He sensed a bitterness about Luqman that suggested an underlying resentment. He wondered how deep it ran. There was no doubt that Luqman was smart, but was he capable of violence? Aren’t we all, Makana thought, given the right circumstances?

  The tourists had stopped to examine the Norton. Luqman pointed and Makana felt obliged to wander over.

  ‘Is it yours?’ one of the men asked in accented English. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with the healthy look of one who drank a litre of fresh milk every morning. The three were chattering amongst themselves in their own language. The one who had asked the question was clearly an aficionado.

  ‘It’s not mine,’ Makana admitted. ‘I just borrowed it.’

  ‘Ah.’ They were German and seemed to appreciate machines.

  ‘Have you been here long?’ Makana thought that he hadn’t seen them on the hotel round he had done with Sadig that morning.

  ‘This is our last day. Tomorrow we take the bus back to Cairo.’ This time
it was the girl who spoke. She had an alert expression. She wasn’t interested in motorcycles. The two boys were still walking around the machine, commenting on this or that, as if they had come across a living specimen of an extinct life form.

  ‘You didn’t happen to be out here the other evening?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘You mean when there was that accident?’

  ‘Yes, a man was killed.’ Makana could see her expression change. She called to the others, but they waved her off, too busy fussing over the Norton.

  ‘We heard it was an accident. He drowned, no?’

  ‘It is still under investigation.’

  The woman examined him with a wary eye and glanced over at the boys, who were completely engrossed in the matter of the motorcycle. She had the manner of the well-seasoned traveller. Short hair and practical clothes. She had also clearly learned to be wary of local men trying to impress her and regarded Makana with some caution.

  ‘We’re trying to gather all the information we can get.’

  ‘You are with the police?’

  Makana skipped over the question. ‘We visited all the hotels this morning, I didn’t see you.’

  ‘We left early. We wanted to see the sunrise from above the Temple of the Oracle.’

  ‘The temple, of course.’

  He was about to turn away when she said, ‘We cycled past here the other evening.’ She hesitated, calling more insistently to the boys. A conversation ensued between the three of them. The girl grew visibly more agitated. Makana glanced at Luqman who shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘He was already dead,’ the girl blurted out. The boys let out cries of dismay.

  ‘They don’t want me to speak. They think it will complicate things for us. We don’t want to get involved.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Makana. ‘There’s no need to worry,’ he said to the boys who were becoming more aggressive now, trying to draw the girl away. She fended off their hands, starting to cry now.

  ‘The man was already dead. We didn’t do anything wrong!’ The two young men turned their backs on her. She faced Makana. ‘There was . . . a woman.’