Strangers

by Carla Banks

  The professor nodded slowly. ‘Truly we discourage openly political topics. There are some hotheads who do not understand about debate. Otherwise, why should the girls not discuss what they wish? You must be aware that sometimes they talk without thinking. They are very young, very inexperienced. There are a lot of wrong ideas about women in this country. I don’t pretend for a moment that all is well, but women have their difficulties everywhere, and sometimes things can be made worse when they are brought into the open.’

  Roisin noticed that Yasmin had withdrawn from the discussion and was sitting quietly studying her hands. ‘You think they shouldn’t discuss it?’

  ‘I think that the–what is the word? The status quo–the status quo can be the best. For example, it has long been the rule in the Kingdom that women are not allowed to drive, but attitudes were perhaps starting to change. Then there was a protest here, and a group of women drove. All they achieved was to lose their jobs, anger the clerics and draw attention to a law that may have been quietly repealed in a year or two. Instead, their defiance made attitudes harden. So where was the value in the protest? All it did was to make life more difficult for everyone. Is that not so?’ She turned to the silent Yasmin.

  ‘It caused trouble, certainly,’ Yasmin said after a moment.

  ‘And now,’ the professor continued, ‘there are the elections. It can worry the students. They say things they do not understand.’

  ‘Some women,’ Yasmin said in her quiet voice, ‘expected to be given the vote—’

  ‘Ah, the vote.’ Roisin got the impression that this was a topic the professor was used to dismissing. She turned to Roisin. ‘Tell me, does your vote make any difference to who rules you, who makes the laws you must abide by?’ She was smiling as she looked at Roisin, her head tilted like an interrogative bird.

  Roisin evaded the question. ‘I thought that Islamists believe laws come from God.’

  ‘Ah, but you are not an Islamist, as that remark shows. Come now, what do you believe?’

  Roisin shrugged. ‘People make laws. Men make laws. One vote, no, it makes no difference. But…’ She had a vague memory of an Arab proverb and she was trying to remember it: ‘One small thing is…small. But a lot of small things together…The women could make a difference if they voted.’

  ‘And you support the government that rules you?’

  ‘Not entirely, no.’

  ‘And did you vote for them?’

  ‘No. I voted for someone else.’

  The professor nodded slowly. ‘So in this much-praised democracy, your vote counts for nothing and you are governed by someone you didn’t choose? As these girls are governed by someone they didn’t choose?’

  ‘The government knows that not everyone supports them. That limits what they feel able to do. I was able to express my choice. I feel unhappy about a system that denies so many people that right.’

  ‘When my children disagree with me, I let them tell me why. I let them have their say, I let them “express their choice”, and then their father and I tell them what they must do. If I had a democratic family, it seems that the children would rule.’ Her eyes gleamed as she watched Roisin’s reaction.

  ‘In a democracy, children don’t have the vote.’ Roisin saw the trap as soon as she had stepped into it.

  ‘So you, like us, decide who can and who can’t choose. I see we are not so different after all. At last I understand this democracy. Now, it’s time to meet your students. Yasmin will take you to the seminar room.’

  ‘Will you stay for the class?’ Roisin asked as they left the room.

  ‘If you are happy for me to,’ Yasmin said.

  As she followed the younger woman along the corridor, Roisin wasn’t sure if she’d just participated in a good-natured debate, or if she had been given a warning. She had no doubt that everything she said to the students would reach the diligent ears of the professor.

  11

  Damien was sufficiently concerned by Amy’s sudden interest in the Patel case–especially as it seemed to have been triggered by Joe Massey–to do a bit of digging on his own. He wasn’t interested in the rights and wrongs of it–Patel had made a bad choice and had had the misfortune to fall foul of the Saudi legal system. Any crusade to get the case reopened would be a quixotic waste of time. The courts of the Kingdom didn’t make mistakes and anyone who suggested they did was asking for a fast ticket out. He didn’t like the system, but it wasn’t his system. It was up to the Saudis themselves to clean it up.

  He phoned Majid using his work number so that Majid would know this call was business rather than social. After the necessary exchange of courtesies–one of the things that had attracted Damien to Saudi culture when he first arrived was the voices calling the blessings of God upon their colleagues as a matter of routine–he introduced his topic: ‘Majid, I came across an old case yesterday, one of yours, from earlier this year. A Pakistani man called Haroun Patel was…’

  Uncharacteristically, Majid interrupted him. ‘You, too, my friend? Why does everyone involve themselves with this man? He stole drugs. He paid the penalty.’

  You, too. ‘I think we’re asking the same question. I’m asking you because someone asked me. I’ve forgotten the details. Remind me what happened.’

  ‘My friend, there is no mystery and no secret. We did a check on the hospital drugs supply. All was in order except in the main pharmacy where two packets of morphine had gone.’

  ‘They were stolen, not lost?’

  ‘They were stolen. The hospital had done an inventory just the night before, because we had warned them we would be visiting. The drugs were there then.’

  So the thief hadn’t just taken a risk, he had been stupid.

  ‘And then…?’

  ‘We searched the hospital and we found the missing drugs hidden in one of the lockers in the accommodation block where the technicians lived.’

  ‘Haroun Patel’s?’

  ‘Haroun Patel’s.’

  ‘And it was Patel who had put them there?’

  ‘The lockers have code numbers. No one but the user can access them.’ Majid’s voice was cooler.

  No one but the user and the hospital authorities. But Damien kept that thought to himself. He chose his words carefully. He didn’t want to offend Majid. ‘I knew Haroun Patel. It seems to have been a very unintelligent crime, and Patel was not a stupid man. It puzzled me…’

  ‘It wasn’t so stupid,’ Majid said. He sounded more relaxed now he understood Damien’s concern. ‘He did extra hours as a driver. He had been away the day before, delivering supplies round the villages. He didn’t know there was going to be a check.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Damien said formally. After he hung up, he reflected that this conversation had removed some of the doubts he’d had himself about the case. He still didn’t know why Patel had taken the risk of stealing the drugs, but if he thought he had time to get them away…Patel’s confession to the other crimes, the ones he probably hadn’t committed, had never surprised him. The Saudi police had interrogation methods that didn’t bear close scrutiny. It was another sore in a system that was chronically diseased, and it distressed Damien that a man like Majid was touched by that contamination.

  But someone was stirring things up. Majid, too, was aware of questions around the case. If the authorities were starting to pay attention, then that curiosity was dangerous and it was up to Damien to stop it. He needed to find out who was at the root of it, and why.

  The who he had some ideas about. This had started after Joe Massey had arrived. Massey had actually been talking about the case to Amy. It was possible that someone else could have been asking questions that had prompted Massey to talk to Amy, but Occam’s razor said that Massey was the who. The why eluded him completely. Why would anyone want to dig around the Haroun Patel case?

  He went back over the conversation in his mind. Amy had queried Haroun’s guilt, at least as far as some of the charges went. What was it she had said? The case a
gainst him never made a lot of sense…But sense was exactly what it had made. Patel had been a technician. He’d had access to the pharmacy. Means, motive, opportunity. Patel had the means and he had had the opportunity. The only thing Damien didn’t know was the motive. But if Patel was putting in extra hours as a driver, then he clearly needed money and had taken a fatal gamble.

  Damien shrugged off his doubts. People did stupid things when they panicked. It was academic. His concern now was to find out who was asking questions, who was about to cause some serious trouble in the ex-pat community, and put a stop to it.

  The best way to find something out was to go straight to the source. He picked up the phone and found the name on his address list: Arshak Nazarian. Majid’s father-in-law had cornered the lucrative Saudi market in migrant workers. By means of sweeteners, pay-offs, subtle pressure, and when all else failed, threats, Nazarian had gradually incorporated all the disparate groups who were recruiting third world migrants into his own agency. His organization would almost certainly have brokered Haroun Patel’s presence in the Kingdom.

  Nazarian was a powerful man with friends in high places. He was also, by Damien’s definition, a crook, though in Saudi terms he had done nothing illegal. Through a network of agents in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Sri Lanka–countries where levels of poverty and unemployment were high–Nazarian recruited workers desperate to feed their families and to secure them some kind of future. He found them Saudi sponsors and offered them contracts that, by the standards of their own countries, were very well paid. But those contracts did not come cheap: the workers had to pay exorbitant sums for their sponsorship and visas. When they arrived in the Kingdom, they were made to sign contracts written in Arabic–the only contracts that were legally enforceable–only to find that their promised salaries were much reduced and the length of time they were required to remain in the Kingdom much increased. If they broke their contracts and left early, the cost of their transportation would be added to the already substantial debts they had accrued. It was probably a debt of this nature that had driven Patel to take his fatal shortcut.

  Once they were in the Kingdom, Nazarian took no further responsibility for the migrants. Their employers were free to act as they wished. In a country that had only abolished slavery in 1962, this form of labour exploitation raised few eyebrows. Nazarian’s empire had never been challenged. He knew the game backwards, knew who had the power and who didn’t, who to flatter, who to pay. Damien had tried several times to try and break the stranglehold he had on the unskilled labour market, but Nazarian was too well connected.

  But maybe the ‘good times’ were finally nearing an end. The system was breaking down as the Islamists in Saudi recoiled from the exploitation of fellow Muslims, turning away from the corruption in the heart of their society and back to older, stricter ways. A few months earlier, an attempt had been made on Nazarian’s life.

  The Armenian was a difficult man to contact, but Damien’s name got him through the barriers that he surrounded himself with. He left some messages and waited. After half an hour, his phone rang.

  ‘O’Neill!’ Nazarian’s voice was deep and warm. Along with his other assets, he had a great deal of charm. ‘Good to see you the other night. How are you? Well, I hope.’

  They exchanged the usual courtesies, then Nazarian said, ‘I’m glad you called. I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘So you said.’ Damien waited to see what Nazarian wanted.

  There was silence on the other end of the line, as though Nazarian was choosing his words carefully. ‘The hospital,’ he said after a moment. ‘You recruit many of the doctors, am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hospital recruitment was high on Damien’s list of responsibilities.

  ‘Obstetricians,’ Nazarian said abruptly. ‘Do they get the best here, or…?’

  Damien suddenly understood what the problem was and, for the first time in his association with the man, he found himself feeling some sympathy towards Nazarian. Social restrictions made it close to impossible for male obstetricians and gynaecologists to work in the Kingdom. Nazarian was worried about the standard of care that would be offered to his daughter. ‘They get the best,’ he said. And it was true. Saudi trained its women to a high standard in women’s medicine, and the Kingdom had always recruited and paid for the best when they couldn’t fill posts from their own schools and universities.

  Nazarian grunted, only half convinced. ‘I keep thinking about taking her to Europe. That’s where she…’

  Majid would never permit that, but it was something that the two men would have to sort out between themselves. He felt a stab of sympathy for Yasmin who apparently was not allowed any say in this issue. ‘She’ll get excellent care here,’ he said.

  ‘OK.’ Nazarian closed the subject abruptly. ‘You wanted to talk to me.’

  ‘Yes. Something’s come up.’ Damien saw no reason for subterfuge. Whatever had happened with Patel, Nazarian would have nothing he needed to hide. There was very little he could have done to the man that the authorities would have worried about. ‘I’ve had a query about a man called Haroun Patel,’ he said. He wanted to see if the name–one of thousands on Nazarian’s books–would be recognized.

  There was a moment of silence. ‘A query about Patel? From whom?’

  ‘That’s what I’m not sure about.’ Damien didn’t want Amy in Nazarian’s sights.

  There was another beat of silence. ‘Maybe we need to talk about this. Can you come to my office? Say…around two?’

  After the call, Damien sat for a moment, his eyes unfocused as he thought. Nazarian hadn’t even tried to feign ignorance. He’d recognized the name Patel as soon as Damien had spoken. Which was bad. The edginess that Damien had been feeling for the past few weeks intensified. There was something going on, and this something was associated with the long-dead Haroun Patel.

  And now Amy had got herself involved.

  12

  Roisin had arranged to meet her students in a series of small seminars. She knew that Saudi teachers tended to prefer formal lectures in which discussion was kept to a minimum, but she couldn’t teach unless her students felt able to talk to her and use the English they were trying to learn.

  As she followed Yasmin into the classroom, she was aware of a faint whisper around the waiting group of young women. The teaching assistant greeted them in Arabic, then switched to English. ‘This is Roisin Gardner who is your teacher for this semester.’

  ‘Good morning,’ Roisin greeted them, and received a collective murmur of Good mornings in return. The room was light and airy with tiled walls and floor. There were no desks or chairs. The students, a group of eight, sat cross-legged, or knelt with their legs tucked neatly underneath them on a crimson rug that covered most of the floor. Their hands rested in their laps.

  She was struck first of all by their similarity–they all wore the hijab, and they were mostly dressed in sombre or neutral colours–browns, greys and blacks predominated. They were sitting with their heads bowed, studying their clasped hands. Roisin thought about the glittering brilliance of the souk and the opulence of the university where these women walked in their drab attire and wondered why they chose to drain the colour out of their lives–if it was a choice. She followed Yasmin’s example and sat cross-legged on the carpet, relieved that years of yoga made her limber enough to do this without too much effort. The students were looking at her expectantly and she felt the slight adrenaline surge that always prefaced her first encounter with a new group.

  They weren’t beginners. They were studying for an advanced qualification in English, which made her task easier. She thought about the number of times she had found herself in front of groups like this when they had no common language in which to communicate.

  She gathered her thoughts, then started speaking. ‘Today, I’d like to introduce myself, and get to know you.’ She could see one or two of the students glance quickly at her and then down again. ‘My name’s Roi
sin,’ she said. ‘I arrived in Riyadh two weeks ago. Before that, I worked in London. I’ve taught English in Europe and in South America, in Mexico. Now I’d like each of you to tell me about yourself.’ She smiled at the girl sitting closest to her. ‘Would you like to start?’

  The girl glanced sideways at her companions, then said, ‘My name is Mujada.’ She giggled and glanced quickly at Roisin, who nodded her encouragement. ‘I am student,’ Mujada said. ‘I study to be…teacher.’ She ducked her head and Roisin smiled reassurance at her and moved on to the next student.

  This girl was less shy. Instead of looking away with nervous giggles, she smiled when she met Roisin’s gaze. She was a pretty girl with a round face and big eyes. Despite the uniform appearance, Roisin could already see the differences between them. The quiet girl, Mujada, was thinner, with black, wavy hair that escaped from her scarf. This girl’s hijab was neatly draped, covering her head and framing her face. ‘Hello, Roisin,’ she said. ‘My name is Fozia. I study design and I want to start my own business.’

  The third student had been watching Roisin as these exchanges went round the group. ‘I am Najia,’ she said. Her scarf was lighter and pushed back from her hair, which was heavy and dark. Her full mouth curved into a warm smile. ‘Roisin, where are you coming from?’

  ‘Newcastle. Where do you come from?’ Roisin added, carefully correcting Najia’s construction.

  She saw the student’s lips move as she tried this out. ‘I do come…’ She caught Roisin’s eye and smiled. ‘I come from Jeddah. Roisin, where is being…where is Newcastle?’

  ‘It’s in the north of England.’ She had a map of the British Isles, and she stood up to pin it on the wall. ‘Here,’ she said. Then she showed them London. ‘That’s where I was working before I came here,’ she told them.