The Ghost Runner

by Parker Bilal

  ‘If this is your expert line of questioning,’ the Qadi’s wife shot at Hamama, ‘I see no improvement from the usual incompetence.’

  ‘I assure you, madame,’ Makana appeared to try and make amends, ‘I had no intention of casting doubts on your husband’s integrity.’

  ‘What is this?’ she snapped. ‘I will not have the good name of my husband sullied by a nobody whom I have never set eyes on in my life before this day.’

  ‘It seems like a reasonable question,’ said Makana. ‘But perhaps you were not involved in your husband’s business dealings. Is there someone else we can approach with these questions?’

  ‘You will not approach anyone with these questions.’ She glared at the sergeant who coughed to cover his embarrassment and then, realising she could expect no help from that quarter, she turned on Makana. ‘My husband was an honest man. It is true that he found his official salary somewhat limited when it came to providing for his family the quality of life he wished them to have. He supplemented his income with consultancy work.’

  ‘Consultancy?’ Makana’s eyebrows rose slightly. ‘Legal counselling. Who for?’

  ‘There is nothing unusual about this. Strictly speaking, my husband’s private matters are not something I feel I can discuss with someone who has just walked in from the street.’

  ‘I can assure you, madame, that Mr Makana meant no offence,’ Sergeant Hamama sniffed. ‘Forgive me if we have strayed over the line of good taste.’

  ‘Not at all,’ said the Qadi’s wife, with downturned eyes.

  ‘As Sergeant Hamama says,’ Makana went on, ‘no stone shall be left unturned. There is one obvious matter we have not entered into . . .’ Sergeant Hamama frowned at him in warning, but Makana proceeded as if he did not grasp the meaning of this expression. ‘As you are no doubt aware, there has been a second victim. A man named Ayman, a porter in a hotel.’

  ‘I heard something about it,’ she murmured.

  ‘Do you know of any relationship between this man and your husband?’

  ‘Relationship?’ Her eyes darkened again.

  ‘I mean, is it possible the Qadi knew this man? Did Ayman ever come to the house?’

  ‘A hotel porter? Why would he come here?’ She looked genuinely appalled at the idea.

  ‘Ayman took an interest in young girls,’ Makana went on.

  ‘Makana!’

  ‘You’re not suggesting that my husband and this porter shared such a common interest?’ Her eyes widened as her jaw dropped. She turned to the sergeant, but he too seemed at a loss. ‘I must say that I had my doubts when I heard that you were being considered to step into the shoes of Captain Mustafa. On the basis of what I have seen today, I would hasten to remind you that the rank of captain of police carries a great deal of responsibility. If this is the kind of expert you bring to the investigation of such a grave matter, I wonder whether you have the necessary qualifications.’ When she had finished with Hamama she turned to Makana. ‘If the man was a delinquent who preyed on young girls then he would have crossed my husband’s path as a felon and no doubt was convicted as such.’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing, there is no record of Ayman having been charged or convicted.’ Makana paused. ‘Is it possible that they knew each other at school? Could they have been friends?’

  ‘My husband was raised in Alexandria where he was educated at one of the finest schools in the country. He did not associate with hotel porters.’ Pressing the handkerchief to her upper lip to dab at a drop of perspiration, she addressed Sergeant Hamama. ‘I think I have provided enough entertainment for one morning. If you have any further questions please go through my husband’s assistant. I am sure he can answer far better than I, and Sergeant . . . a nasty rumour reached me that my husband’s mortal remains are being stored alongside frozen vegetables. I put this down to the work of malicious tongues, but having witnessed your performance today I wish to convey to you personally that I want to bury my husband before the week is out. I would appreciate it if you would order the doctor to release his body as soon as possible.’

  ‘As soon as it is at all possible, madame.’ Hamama bowed low.

  ‘Good day, gentlemen.’

  She glared at Makana as she swept from the room.

  Outside they stood on either side of the Chevrolet pickup, Hamama trying to reconstruct his cap.

  ‘You’re a liability, Makana. I thought you were going to solve this case for me in record time, but all you are doing is digging my grave.’

  ‘I didn’t come here to solve your case for you. I came to find someone.’

  ‘Yes, I know, a man no one has seen for decades. Why don’t you just admit you’re barking up the wrong tree. Go home, Makana, and leave us in peace.’

  Chapter Twenty

  The bearded man behind the counter at the telephone exchange was engaged in a discussion with two earnest young men who wore neatly trimmed beards and carried briefcases. At first Makana thought they were debating some detail of religious praxis, but it emerged their complaint was of a more technical than theological nature. They wanted to know why his computers ran such an outdated system. The bearded man’s eyes blinked in the cold neon light.

  ‘You have no right to talk to me that way,’ he said. He gave a nod to Makana as he came in, complicity emerging in the face of hostility. Makana chose a booth at the end and dialled Sami’s number. No Quranic recitations over the sound system today. Since his last experience Makana had been wary of using the telephone in his room. He didn’t want his conversations to be reported to the whole town every time he put down the receiver. The connection was marginally better.

  ‘I was wondering when you would get back to me,’ said Sami. He sounded as though he had been asleep.

  ‘The line went. You were telling me about our friend and his troubles with State Security.’

  ‘They’ve lost him for sure. Right now they are trying desperately to get him back before the news gets out.’

  ‘It must be embarrassing.’

  ‘Well, as I understand it,’ Sami yawned, ‘there’s so much internal competition between one agency and another they say it might have been arranged between them.’

  ‘You mean one arm of the system trying to outmanoeuvre another?’

  ‘It’s impossible for him to have escaped without some kind of inside help. So either a sympathiser or something else.’

  Behind him Makana could hear the argument rolling on between the three men at the counter. There was a certain absurdity to it, almost as if the two younger men simply wanted to prove their superior knowledge.

  ‘They locked down the city but there’s still no sign of him,’ Sami was saying. ‘So, either he is lying low, which means someone is giving him shelter, or he’s already out of town.’

  Lying low would involve contacts. But Musab hadn’t been back for years. He would have been out of touch, plus he never planned to come back, he was brought against his will, which meant that he wouldn’t have had time to prepare. He might have been lucky and found somebody to help him, or he could have done what came most naturally, and run for it. Sami seemed to be reading his thoughts.

  ‘I’m beginning to come round to the idea that you might not be wrong going all the way out there,’ said Sami. ‘But you need to be careful.’

  After he hung up, Makana remained seated in the little booth. Everyone said Musab would never come back here, but didn’t that make it the obvious place to go? And besides, what choice did he have? Musab knew the old desert routes. It would be the best way of getting out of the country. He would need a car. Railway and bus stations would be watched carefully. To get hold of a car probably meant stealing it. Nothing too flashy. Something inconspicuous. Something that could manage the desert roads. A pickup perhaps? A jeep if he was lucky.

  When he came out he found the two men had vanished and the bearded man was behind the counter staring at his computer again.

  ‘You’re the one who came from Cairo, aren’t you
?’ he said as he took Makana’s money. ‘You’re looking for Musab Khayr.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I know of him.’ The bearded man grinned, a rare expression in a face that could only be described as wooden. ‘He went abroad to fight the jihad. We need more people like him.’

  The square was dimly lit by scarce lights. A single donkey karetta was making its way along, stacked high with butagaz bottles.

  The hotel lobby was dark. Makana retrieved his own key from the hook behind the deserted reception desk and climbed the stairs. The lights on the upstairs corridor had all gone, save for one weak bulb at the head of the staircase. If you didn’t break a leg on the stairs you risked thumping your knee into the walls. Makana stiffened as he felt rather than saw a shadow move ahead of him. It turned out to be the girl, Nagy’s daughter Rashida, who was crouched in front of the door to his room. She rose slowly as he approached. There was a bruise high up on her left cheek and her eyes had a wild, frightened look about them.

  ‘What happened?’ Makana asked.

  She swallowed, touched a hand to her face. A tear welled out of her eye, glistening briefly in the weak light as it trickled down over her fingers. She mumbled something that he didn’t catch.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Rashida!’ Nagy’s head appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Stay away from her!’

  Makana ignored him. ‘What is it?’ he asked the girl. ‘What do you want to tell me?’

  There wasn’t time for more as Nagy rushed over and pushed him roughly aside, grabbing his daughter by the arm.

  ‘You stay away from my daughter!’ he yelled, wagging a finger in front of Makana’s face. ‘You hear me?’ Then he turned and dragged her away down the hall. He caught a final glimpse of her as she glanced imploringly over her shoulder, her eyes floating liquid and dark as they were swallowed up by the gloom.

  Makana unlocked the door to his room. He sat down on the side of the bed and reached for the telephone. He dialled Zahra’s number and let it ring. After four times it passed him on to a message service. Three times he listened to the recording of her voice but couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Finally, he hung up and lay back in the darkness, trying to think. Reaching for his cigarettes, he switched on the bedside lamp. On the table beside the bed lay the picture Madame Fawzia had given him. The class photo he now carried around with him everywhere he went. He brought the photograph close to the light and studied the rows of faces. There was something about that picture of those little girls which was important. He felt sure of it, he just couldn’t see it. As he fished his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, something else fell out into his lap. The blue ribbon he had found in Ayman’s room. He held it closer to the weak light from the bedside lamp. Each of the girls was wearing one identical to it. He stared at the photograph for a long time. Who was he really looking for, he wondered. He was no longer sure.

  Breakfast in the Desert Fox Hotel had proved such a dreary disappointment that after the first day Makana had sought out an alternative, which had led him to a place on the corner of the narrow street behind the hotel. It wasn’t particularly fancy. On the contrary, the arrangements could only be described as rudimentary at best. It was off the tourist track and so had a neglected air about it. White plastic tables and chairs sank like forgotten monuments into a sand-covered floor. The kitchen was a sophisticated version of a desert camp. A narrow, uneven brick counter built by someone clearly unfamiliar with the concept of walls, fenced off an area dominated by a large clay funnel out of which spewed a fierce gas jet. The small, energetic couple who ran the place juggled pots and pans over this single flame with amazing dexterity. Nobody ever seemed to complain about having to wait. Indeed the place was generally so busy it was hard to find a seat, which Makana took as a good sign. In any case, the food was far better than the stale bread and tinned jam provided by Nagy at the hotel. Makana collected a newspaper lying on the counter and found himself a seat. It wasn’t long before the woman, who was so short he didn’t even have to tilt his head to look into her face, was standing beside him. She came up to somewhere around his chest height when he was on his feet. Umm Hamida. What she lacked in stature she more than made up for in spirit. She flew around like an impetuous jinn, carrying on a non-stop conversation with her husband, who seemed to have been consigned to a silent existence in another, parallel universe in which everything moved much more slowly.

  ‘You’re still walking around, so that must mean you’re a free man,’ Umm Hamida offered as she went by his table. Tea arrived before he had time to open his mouth. ‘We have liver today. You can’t resist it. We do it the Alexandrian way, with hot pepper.’ Makana was allowed time to nod his agreement before she was gone. He read through the newspaper. The Palestinian intifada went on. The front pages were dominated by a picture of an Israeli Defence Force Caterpillar bulldozing houses in Jenin. US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had delayed a meeting with Yasser Arafat, until he condemned a suicide bombing in Jerusalem in which six Israelis had been killed. The violence seemed to be spreading. A bomb had exploded outside a synagogue in Tunisia, killing twenty-one people, fourteen of them tourists. Elsewhere Lloyds of London had raised estimates of their losses incurred by the attacks on the World Trade Center to almost 2 billion pounds sterling. Worldwide it was believed insurance costs would reach some 50 billion US dollars. And British Prime Minister Tony Blair had told Parliament that the time for military action against Iraq over weapons of mass destruction had not yet arisen.

  ‘If it was any fresher it would have legs on it,’ said Umm Hamida as she set the plate of fried liver in front of him. Plates of eggs and white cheese also arrived along with warm flat bread and a bowl of mashed fava beans on which a shield of golden olive oil floated. Pushing aside the paper, Makana began to eat, suddenly aware that he had not eaten since lunchtime the previous day.

  ‘Are you going to find the animal who did it?’

  A man loomed over him. He had a large, oddly shaped nose with some kind of growth on it that resembled a cauliflower.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘The Qadi. Are you going to find the one who killed him before he gets the rest of us?’

  ‘We have families to think of,’ another chimed in. Makana slowly became aware that everyone in the place was looking at him.

  ‘I’m sure Sergeant Hamama is doing his best.’

  ‘Hamama,’ muttered the first. ‘He’s only interested in helping himself.’

  ‘We heard you were sent from Cairo to help us,’ another man sitting in the corner said.

  Before Makana had a chance to answer this, the first one broke in again, berating his friend. ‘What are you talking about, Cairo? You can see he’s one of us. He’s from the south. Am I right?’

  Makana didn’t have to speak, they seemed to have him all figured out for themselves.

  ‘I don’t have time for those fancy types from Cairo. They understand nothing about us. They just have their bits of paper.’ Dramatically, the man with the large nose pointed into the distance. ‘We know nothing of that. We live by our own rules. You know why? Because out there the only borderline is between you and the Lord.’

  ‘Let the man eat in peace,’ Umm Hamida shooed them out of her way, cutting between them like a stubborn ewe.

  ‘Let me ask you,’ Makana ventured before they moved on. ‘Does anyone remember the Abubakr family? They used to live on land over beyond the mountain.’ He noticed a look pass between them. The second man spoke up.

  ‘Is this something to do with the Qadi?’

  ‘One of the daughters married a man named Musab Khayr. Another went abroad. The third girl disappeared. Does anybody remember that time?’

  The man with the bulbous nose spat in the sand. ‘I remember the father. People said bad things about him, but I thought them unfair.’

  ‘What do you know?’ another interrupted.

  ‘They used to have lots of land,’ said a third man. The fi
rst man concurred.

  ‘It’s true. In the old days they owned most of the land on that side of town. The grandfather, or some such, maybe the great grandfather. He was a rich man. Everyone worked for him.’

  ‘He was an idiot. Nobody missed him when he went. The daughter died. Remember that?’

  ‘Yes, now that you mention it, I do remember. It was an accident.’

  ‘The eldest sister killed herself. I remember that. She drowned in the lake.’

  ‘No, she went away.’ The man rubbed his large nose. ‘One of them did, anyway. And one of them died. That I remember.’ A look passed between the two men. ‘It was all a long time ago.’

  ‘You think Musab killed the Qadi like that?’ asked the second.

  ‘Can you think of any reason why he would want to kill the Qadi?’

  ‘Musab never needed a reason to kill anyone. He did it for fun.’

  After that they seemed to lose interest in the subject. They busied themselves with paying and getting ready to leave.

  ‘You don’t want to pay any attention to what that lot say,’ said Umm Hamida. ‘They have no idea what day of the week it is. Ask them the same thing tomorrow and you’ll get a different answer.’

  When he had finished eating Makana decided to stretch his legs. He walked to the end of the narrow road thinking he might speak to Kamal at the bicycle shop, but the place was closed. Two tourists stood outside staring at the shuttered door.

  So Makana turned and made his way up the winding road that led into the ruins of the old town. What had lured poor Ayman to lumber up this hill that evening? Had he been on his way to meet someone? At the scene of the crime the ground was still stained with dried blood. A handful of flies buzzed lazily in the warm air. Over the houses Makana could see the blue-grey sliver of the lake in the distance and the distant hump of the hillside. Beyond that the desert stretched away into infinite nothingness. Lighting a cigarette, Makana turned his attention back to survey the town behind him. Just below him the uneven pillar of the mosque rose up. A strange clicking sound of electrical static was coming from the speakers as if someone had left a switch on. Why would Ayman come up here in the middle of the night? There was nothing to show that he had been dragged up here, or forced against his will. Such a place, remote and yet central. A meeting, an assignation? With a woman?