Dogstar Rising

by Parker Bilal

  ‘I don’t think he actually did it himself. I think he got his boys to do it. The one that turned up in Imbaba that night. He has a small army of young kids. He trains them. The older ones he runs as his lieutenants.’

  ‘The one who did the shooting and the one on the motorcycle? But why?’

  ‘Somebody wanted her out of the way. Someone who knew that she was about to expose their money-laundering activities.’

  ‘Someone high up. An official. The armed forces?’

  ‘Maybe. Probably not directly, of course, but through an agent of some sort, a hired thug.’

  ‘According to Ramy, Rocky set himself up running the café in the building for his own purposes, which placed him perfectly so his boys could watch Meera and plan their attack.’

  ‘A bit risky, wasn’t it? I mean someone might have recognised the killer.’

  ‘There were a number of boys coming and going. Abu Salem the bawab couldn’t have told them apart. I spoke to one, Eissa, whose arm was broken after the attack.’

  ‘You think he was one of the shooters?’

  ‘The motorcycle crashed into a ditch, maybe that’s where he broke his arm. What is it?’

  Sami was grinning self-consciously. ‘Rania and I put our heads together and started thinking about Nasser Hikmet.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Whoever killed Nasser took any files he had with him in Ismailia, but we were talking about him and both of us remembered that he was a very cautious person. You could say he bordered on the paranoid. Always seeing conspiracies everywhere. He didn’t trust anyone, even close friends.’

  ‘So he was paranoid.’ Makana wasn’t sure where this was leading.

  ‘He kept copies of everything.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The only place he knew was safe. His mother’s flat. We like to keep things close to home, you know.’

  ‘Very good. So we need to speak to Hikmet’s mother. Will she talk to me?’

  ‘She’ll talk to Rania. She’s very good at getting people to open up,’ Sami grinned. ‘She’s with her now.’

  ‘Rania went to see her already? How long ago did she leave?’

  ‘A couple of hours ago.’

  The look on Makana’s face made Sami wince. He lifted a hand and thumped it on the bed, forgetting the wound and crying out in pain.

  ‘I’d better give you the address.’

  Nasser Hikmet had lived with his widowed mother in a small flat in Bulaq. A humble building that was nevertheless clean and well kept. A narrow entrance led to an inner courtyard that rose up two floors. Open galleries ran around all four sides, with the doors to the flats facing onto these. Looking up, Makana saw the sky divided neatly by freshly washed sheets hung out to dry on lines that ran on pulleys strung across the yard. Small children in ragged clothes had followed him in from the street and now chased each other around, hopping over a stream of blue, soapy water that drained across the uneven ground. Climbing to the first floor he enquired about the Hikmet family. A woman who was busy hanging out more laundry pointed to a door on the second floor. A small boy of about seven appeared at her side, tugging at her elbow.

  ‘I can show you,’ he said, and without waiting for an answer he led the way.

  A woman with enormous eyes opened the door on the second floor. In her fifties and small in stature, she held herself back, peering through the narrow opening as if afraid of the light.

  ‘Yes, who is it?’

  ‘My name is Makana. I’m . . .’

  The door opened wide and Mrs Hikmet leaned out, looked quickly left and right before grabbing Makana’s arm and pulling him inside.

  ‘Quick!’ she said. ‘Before anyone sees. They are always sticking their noses in my business.’

  The interior of the flat was gloomy. The windows were plastered with newspaper for some reason and Makana had trouble not bumping into the furniture. The air was damp and smelled of wet cloth. The little woman moved energetically past, leading the way into the kitchen. A table in the corner was covered with sheets of wilted newspaper on which leaves of cabbage were spread out as if in preparation for some magical ritual. They didn’t linger as Mrs Hikmet rushed straight though into a living room and switched on the light. In the weak glow from the low wattage bulb, Makana saw a table and a sofa, one leg of which was propped up on bricks, and a television set. All of these had been pushed back to make space for the object which occupied the middle of the room: a gleaming white washing machine, still wrapped in cardboard and sheets of plastic.

  ‘There it is,’ she gestured. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’s very nice,’ said Makana tentatively. ‘But wouldn’t it be better off somewhere else?’

  ‘This is where they left it. I told them I couldn’t decide where to put it and they said it would all be taken care of when the engineer arrived.’ She folded her arms and smiled at him.

  ‘I’m not the engineer.’

  ‘You’re not?’ Mrs Hikmet frowned. ‘But I thought . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘But when are they going to send someone?’

  ‘I really can’t say. I have nothing to do with washing machines.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘No. I’m looking for a friend of mine who may have come to talk to you about your son.’

  ‘A friend?’

  ‘A woman named Rania Barakat. Her husband Sami was a colleague of your son’s.’

  ‘Rania? Of course, she was here earlier.’ Mrs Hikmet laughed. ‘It’s strange. Everyone is so interested now. All those years when I had to listen to him complaining that no one cared about his work. He had to fight to get it published, you know?’ Mrs Hikmet leaned forward, lowering her voice. ‘After the police had been here I had a visit from some other men. Not the kind who wear uniforms, but you can smell them. In the old days the police were on our side, now we are all criminals to them, just for breathing.’ Mrs Hikmet glanced at the doorway as if expecting to see her visitors standing there again. ‘They went through the whole place, looking everywhere. They took anything with writing on it. Boxes full of papers.’

  ‘How about his computer?’

  ‘Only the big one,’ she smiled. ‘I don’t like security people. I don’t trust them.’

  ‘But you trusted Rania?’

  Mrs Hikmet nodded. ‘I was waiting for her, you see.’

  ‘You were?’

  ‘Of course. I knew that sooner or later, one of his friends would turn up, somebody who cared about the same things he did.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I don’t believe a word of it.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘Not my son. Not Nasser. My husband died when he was only a small baby. Nasser was all I had. They say he killed himself.’ She clutched her hands together. ‘They say he fell off the top of a building.’ She pointed a finger at the ceiling. ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Did he go to Ismailia for work?’

  ‘Oh, he never did anything but work. Always travelling, always working.’ She broke off to stare at the washing machine again. ‘Why did they say someone would come to fix it?’

  ‘I’m sure it just takes time.’

  ‘That’s what people always say, but it’s not true. Things could be done much quicker. People are lazy, that’s the trouble. Nasser was never lazy.’ The wrinkles around her eyes deepened as she blinked away tears. ‘That’s why I was determined his death should not have been in vain. If he died for a story he was working on then I owe it to him to give that story to the world. That’s why I gave her the other one.’

  ‘The other one?’

  ‘The computer, of course. It’s very small, you see, not much bigger than a box of dates.’

  ‘And you gave it to Rania?’

  ‘I showed her where he kept it.’

  Makana gamely traipsed behind her into the kitchen and squatted down to look into the cupboard under the sink as Mrs Hikmet pulled back a warped sheet of plywood, cracked and rotten in
places to reveal a narrow space underneath, now empty. ‘It’s his secret hiding place.’ Mrs Hikmet smiled. ‘You lift up the bottom of the cupboard. They never found it.’

  ‘Very clever,’ he said, admiringly. ‘When exactly was Rania here?’

  ‘This morning. I’m surprised you haven’t seen her, if you’re such good friends.’

  ‘Well, I’m trying to find her actually. I think she might be in danger.’

  ‘Oh, dear.’ Mrs Hikmet put a hand to her throat.

  ‘Did she say anything about where she might go?’

  ‘Oh no. But then they arrived with the washing machine and I had to deal with that.’

  Makana was about to straighten up when something caught his eye. Lodged against the side of the cupboard was a scrap of white card. He reached in and plucked it out. It was folded down, trapped between the floor and side of the cupboard.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Mrs Hikmet.

  ‘It’s a business card,’ said Makana, turning it over. There was a telephone number scrawled on the back. A number he had seen before.

  Mrs Hikmet was on the move again, talking over her shoulder as she led the way back through to the tiny living room.

  ‘He was a good boy. Always took care of me.’ She patted the gleaming white washing machine. ‘I told them I couldn’t accept it, that an old woman like myself could never pay for such a thing, but they said he had arranged it all,’ she beamed like someone who had won the lottery. ‘The neighbours will be very jealous.’

  Makana examined the machine with renewed interest, for some clue as to what might have happened to Rania. On the side he found a label which gave the address of an outlet in Mohandeseen and the name of the company: Beit Zafrani.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  While many establishments settled for upbeat music to lull potential customers into a relaxed state of mind and thereby trigger an unrestrained spending spree, Beit Zafrani preferred to use the sound system to fill their stores with edifying religious readings. Young boys sung the sacred verses through Chinese speakers fitted into the ceiling. The ground floor of the Zafrani brothers’ flagship enterprise on Shihab Street was a brightly lit space dedicated to domestic appliances: washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners. The floor space was taken up by rows of rectilinear white units all lined up to suggest some kind of order. The few people in sight, mostly wide-eyed couples, wandered through this maze of marvels, their faces set with expressions of awe more akin to visitors at a museum displaying the treasures of past civilisations. Here instead was a museum of modern life. Evidence that Egyptian women were no longer prepared to stand up to their knees in the river scrubbing their clothes on a flat stone. Now they lifted lids and opened doors to marvel, peering cautiously inside as if expecting a djinn to reach out and drag them down inside. Men frowned at the prices and at specifications that might have been written in hieroglyphics for all they understood.

  What Makana knew of the Zafrani brothers was little more than rumour and hearsay. Between protection rackets, smuggling, prostitution and a string of other enterprises, they presided over a small empire, descended from an extended family of small-time criminals and dealers in contraband. In prison, legend had it they had undergone a religious conversion. Seeing the error of their ways they vowed to dedicate themselves to furthering the Islamic cause. This didn’t mean that they entirely abandoned their criminal ways overnight, simply that they determined to straighten themselves out. The chain of white goods and clothing stores was the most vivid manifestation of this will to go legitimate. The straight side was run by the younger of the two, the clean-living Zayed, while Ayad, generally took care of the less palatable business.

  Makana was greeted by the gently undulating tones of a young boy singing the sacred verses of the Quran. The religious tones seemed to sit well with the clientele. Men whose faces were lost in long, straggly beards and women wrapped in conservative long sleeves and skirts, their hair bundled under scarves bound tightly under their chins. Their clothes were simple, in plain dark colours. Some of the women wore long coats that buttoned from chin to ankle while others had their faces veiled, sweeping through the room in their black robes like vengeful spirits among the white metal appliances. Children of all shapes and sizes ran about with wild abandon. Parents and children alike remaining oblivious to the frowns of the shop assistants, who in turn stared blankly at Makana when he told them the purpose of his visit.

  ‘Tell Zafrani that Mr Makana is here to see him.’

  ‘To which Mr Zafrani do you refer?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter which.’

  With a look of disdain the assistant, a slim man with a neatly trimmed beard, disappeared and five minutes later two others appeared. One of them looked familiar. An old man with a hennaed beard. Last time Makana saw him he had his hand wrapped around his throat.

  ‘Come with us.’

  The assistant dropped his eyes to the counter in front of him as if Makana had instantly performed the miracle of becoming invisible. A staircase with chrome railings and glass sides led up to the first floor and Ladies Apparel. Women pored through the racks impatiently with gloved hands. The second floor was the men’s department, deserted but for a couple of bearded assistants who stood around idly as if waiting for a train to come by. Makana’s guides led him wordlessly to a black door with a chromed porthole in the middle of it. The bald head that bobbed up to fill this nodded in recognition at Makana’s companions and the door clicked open. On the other side was an empty corridor. They walked down to the end in silence. A turn brought them to an open doorway and a room furnished with carpets. Two sofas against the wall. There were no windows.

  ‘Sit,’ said the hennaed man, without elaborating. Makana sat. When he reached for his cigarettes the man clicked his tongue and shook his head. Makana sat and stared at the walls as the two guards took up positions on either side of the doorway.

  He didn’t have long to wait. The two thugs exited discreetly. The first man to enter the room resembled a school teacher; bespectacled and with the obligatory beard, neatly trimmed. He was slim and delicate in appearance, clad in a pristine white gelabiya with a high collar that buttoned under a prominent Adam’s apple. He stood in the doorway and blinked. The other was short and hefty, with a shaven head. Makana had glimpsed him aboard the Binbashi that night with Talal and Bunny. The man who gave his permission for wine to be served. Makana guessed this was Ayad Zafrani, the elder of the two brothers. The slim version was Zayed. He did the talking.

  ‘How generous of you to pay us a visit, Mr Makana. We were just discussing you.’

  ‘I’m honoured.’

  ‘Indeed. All roads seem to lead back to you.’ Zayed Zafrani had a quirky smile on his face. His brother scowled at the floor. ‘People fall around you, friends, associates, and yet you’ – he made a movement like a fish with the flat of his hand – ‘find your way through unharmed. Why is that?’

  ‘Luck?’ ventured Makana.

  ‘Oh, come now, it has to be more than sheer luck. Why are you here?’

  ‘I’m looking for Rania Barakat.’

  ‘And what makes you think we know where she is?’

  ‘Your associates delivered a washing machine just before she disappeared.’

  Zayed Zafrani’s smile deepened. ‘You mistake an act of kindness for an aggression.’

  ‘Maybe. I happen to believe you have taken an interest in Nasser Hikmet’s work.’

  ‘Indeed. We believe his work is of great value to us.’

  ‘Which is why you tried to bribe his grieving mother?’

  ‘Merely a gift, to show our benevolent nature.’ Zayed Zafrani bowed.

  ‘But you still don’t have what you are looking for.’

  ‘We are confident it will come to us, one way or another.’

  ‘Is that what your boys were doing when they helped Hikmet out of a window in Ismailia?’

  ‘Watch yourself. Now you’re jumping to conclusions,’ growled Ayad.r />
  Makana recalled hearing a story about one of the brothers tearing a man limb from limb, dislocating shoulders, cracking ribs, reducing him to a bloody sack of broken bones with his bare hands. It would have to be Ayad. Hard to imagine the smooth Zayed tearing a roasted pigeon apart.

  ‘You’re saying you didn’t kill him?’

  ‘If that was the case then why should we be interested in Mrs Hikmet?’

  Makana considered the facts. It was possible the Zafranis were telling the truth. But if they didn’t kill Hikmet then who did, and why? Whoever it was they must have discovered the existence of the laptop after he was dead. They also knew that the police had not found the laptop. Which pointed towards someone with contacts inside the security services. Had they been watching Mrs Hikmet’s flat when Rania showed up and left carrying the laptop?

  ‘Just so we are clear. I don’t wish to interfere in your business dealings, passports or otherwise.’

  Zayed Zafrani threw an uncomfortable glance at his brother, who in turn lifted his eyes heavenwards. ‘That was a minor affair we were reluctant to get involved in and which has now been terminated.’

  ‘And Ghalib Samsara, what is your interest in him?’

  ‘I don’t know that name,’ Zayed Zafrani shook his head.

  ‘Let’s start again. Why are you so interested in the information on that computer?’

  Zafrani thought for a moment before going on. ‘It contains details of certain transactions concerning the operations of a certain bank.’

  ‘The Eastern Star Investment Bank.’

  ‘Frankly, Mr Makana, your knowledge of our dealings concerns me.’

  ‘Like I said, I’m not interested in your affairs.’

  ‘Are we supposed to believe that when you are working with Lieutenant Sharqi?’

  Makana recalled the motorcyclist with the television set who had been following him and felt a grudging respect for the Zafranis.

  ‘Sharqi wants me to help him out. He says I need a friend.’

  ‘Such a friend could be very useful to a man like you.’

  ‘Everything has a price.’ Makana glanced at Ayad Zafrani who opened and closed his fists as if he anticipated using them soon. ‘Why don’t you answer the question? Why are you interested in information about a bank you helped set up?’