The Golden Scales

by Parker Bilal

  At some point, Makana must have dozed off. He remembered staring at the sky, trying to pick out the stars above the carnival blaze of the city, then his eyes must have closed. When he opened them again he felt the cold night breeze blowing in from the water. He remained where he was for a long time, listening to the world around him.

  Makana sat up slowly. He knew something was wrong. Someone was moving around down below. As quietly as he could, he picked up the handy length of piping he kept by his chair. At the head of the stairs he looked out at the embankment. There were no lights showing from Umm Ali’s shack. Nothing was moving and at this hour there was little traffic up on the road. A solitary car went by, trailing a snatch of a popular song, before being swallowed by the silence.

  Moving down the stairs, stepping cautiously, Makana reached the lower deck and paused to listen. A cool breeze blew in from the river. He heard the water lapping gently against the sides of the hull. He edged along the outside, feeling his way carefully with each foot. Then he froze. A ray of light had just brushed the slats of the window shutters in front of him. Someone was moving about inside with a flashlight. For a long time Makana stood waiting. Then the awama stretched itself in one of those long, weary movements that he had become used to. A creaking that started somewhere down inside the hull and transmitted itself through the entire frame with a shudder.

  The intruder was not prepared. The light went off with an audible click. Makana opened the door with his left hand, grasping the heavy piping in his right. He sensed rather than saw the figure coming towards him. He swung the pipe and felt it connect. There was a groan and then the full weight of the man crashed into him, sending Makana backwards against the wall. He heard the wood crack in protest. Struggling to his feet, Makana pushed himself up and out. The other man was moving quickly. He dropped over the side of the railings and on to the river bank, his shadow dissolving into the tall reeds and grass that lined the water’s edge. By the time Makana reached the rear of the awama there was nothing to see. There was no moon, only the glow of the lights on the road above, which threw more shadows than light on the matter. After a time he heard the sound of an engine in the distance.

  Back inside, Makana surveyed his quarters. There was little to show that they had been visited. The intruder had been looking for something, but quietly. A simple burglar? It wouldn’t be the first time. But Makana couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was something more than that. As he switched off the lights and began to climb the stairs he heard the telephone ringing, which in itself was something of a miracle as it hadn’t worked for weeks. Umm Ali again? he wondered as he lifted the receiver. Before he could speak his name a voice began screaming in his ear.

  ‘What took you so long? Don’t tell me you were asleep. Get dressed. I’m sending a car over for you right now.’

  Within a few minutes he heard the sound of an approaching siren. When he looked up he saw the flashing lights coming across the bridge for him. With a sigh, he got to his feet and pulled on his jacket again. By the time he got up to the road the police car was already in sight.

  Chapter Eight

  With lights and siren going it took them under ten minutes to get downtown to the Al Hassanain Hotel in the Khan al-Khalili. Makana still had no idea what this was all about, but he supposed that Okasha would not send for him in such dramatic fashion unless it was called for. At this hour the streets were deserted, but still, the flashing lights had managed to draw a small crowd and the uniformed officer who accompanied Makana to the door seemed to relish the opportunity to shove people out of the way, yelling in a manner that seemed both alarming and ineffective.

  The hotel had seen better days. The stairwell gave off a fetid air of decay as Makana climbed it, deciding not to take his chances in the lift. A familiar figure awaited him on the landing of the third floor. Inspector Wasim Okasha of the Department of Criminal Investigations was a tall, big-shouldered man with a wave of jet black hair combed stiffly back from his broad forehead, and a thick moustache. His dark face seemed to be made up of flat planes and knobbly bones. A stubbly, hard nut of a man, he wore a grey woollen shirt underneath a heavy police overcoat against the January cold. In his hand he held a mobile telephone. When he had finished talking he waved it in Makana’s face.

  ‘When are you going to get one of these and save us all a lot of trouble?’

  ‘I told you, they’ll be out of fashion before I get round to it.’

  Makana surveyed the small hotel room from the open doorway. Inside, several men in blue jumpsuits were moving around. There was a chemical smell in the air, and another odour that brought back all the bad memories. He glanced at Okasha, who snapped his fingers for the others to make room for them and then indicated for Makana to follow him inside. The lab technicians, their faces covered with white masks, stood to one side with an air of irritation.

  The chair was lying on its side. The woman strapped to it was in a seated position. Her hands were twisted behind her back and bound together with a strip of bloody towelling. Other strips had been used to tie each of her ankles to the chair legs. That was what he saw first. He could not as yet see her face. A European, he thought. Her body was a mottled blue colour, with heavy bruising to her face and arms as well as along the thighs. She was wearing a yellow T-shirt, the front of which was stained with blood, and white underwear. Nothing more. A necklace of blue marks ringed her throat. As he moved around he saw that her eyes were open and her tongue protruded into the air, like a rigid purple beak. Flies buzzed around her nose and mouth. Makana crouched down for a better look at her face. In death, the woman was barely recognisable as the one he had spoken to in Aswani’s restaurant less than twenty-four hours ago. The light had faded from her eyes, which were now as lifeless as glass. They stared blindly at the window as if seeking the stars beyond.

  ‘Our brothers are becoming more inventive in dealing with the tourist trade,’ Makana commented.

  ‘Torture is new. We can’t rule out any sexual motive until the pathologists do their work.’

  ‘What else, then?’ Makana looked round the room. ‘Robbery?’

  ‘It looks like she was asleep. Someone broke in.’

  ‘Cause of death?’

  ‘I would say a broken neck. It looks like someone was strangling her and then she struggled and went over. Bang.’ Okasha clapped his hands together.

  ‘An accident? Why torture her?’

  Okasha shrugged and nodded at the bedside table. ‘Money and passport are still over there. And we found this.’ He held up a plastic bag in front of Makana’s face. It contained his business card. Makana looked down at the dead woman and recalled their conversation.

  ‘She came here to find her daughter.’

  Okasha held up a hand to stop him. ‘Hold on, I can’t breathe in this stench. Let’s go downstairs and have some tea.’ He turned to address the others in the room. ‘Make sure you don’t miss anything, because if you do, I will personally make sure that you spend the rest of your life standing in Tahrir Square directing traffic, is that clear?’

  ‘Hadir, ya bash-muhandis,’ they all muttered obediently.

  Makana was examining the door. He flipped the lock back and forth and noted the splintered wood of the door frame. It had been forced so many times you could have blown on it and it would have opened. Okasha shouldered his way past.

  ‘I didn’t ask you here to give us a lesson in detective work. A child could have opened that door by pissing on it. Come on.’

  He was already on his way out, pushing his way through the crowd thronging the small reception area downstairs. There were a number of journalists and photographers among them.

  ‘Yallah! Clear these people out of here. I don’t want civilians dirtying up my crime scene.’

  ‘When are they going to let us up?’

  ‘Who did it, ya Kaptin?’

  ‘Who did it?’ Okasha turned on them, causing several to take an involuntary step backward. ‘I tell you, I woul
dn’t be surprised if it was one of you jackals. And you can take your pictures right here, because this is the closest you are going to get. A statement will be released in the morning, in the usual way. Now, my men are busy doing their work, and if I hear any one of you has been bothering them, you will have to read about this case in another paper from now on. Is that clear?’ He threw up one hand and, like Moses, a passage cleared for him as he made his way through the crowd with Makana in tow.

  When he had first landed here, seven years ago, it was Okasha who had put him in touch with his first clients, people whose cases had been dropped by the police, cases on which he couldn’t justify more time or expense. They’d met soon after Makana’s arrival. In his usual forthright manner, Okasha had come directly to the hotel where he was staying. It had not been very different from this one. He’d stated his case bluntly so there would be ‘no confusion’, as he put it.

  ‘We’ve been asked to keep an eye on you,’ he said as he paced round Makana’s room, peering into every corner. ‘Because you have a political history, and because, despite all this talk of our countries being brothers, actually we don’t trust you one little bit. But the fact of the matter is that I don’t much like what those people are doing to your country. I mean, what is it that makes them think we need reminding that we are all Muslims? Don’t we say our prayers, go to the mosque on Fridays and fast during Ramadan? That’s not good enough for them? Show me where it says that one Muslim is better than another and I will sign up. The fact is we have no right to stand in judgement on one another, and so I refuse to stand in judgement on you.’

  Makana had observed the performance in silence, not quite sure what he was dealing with.

  ‘Since you decided to come back to the modern world from whatever century you think you are living in down there, I take that as a sign of your good sense, which means I will help you with whatever you need.’ He’d leaned closer to Makana and given him a wide, wolfish smile. ‘It’s all about trust.’

  From that day on Okasha would look in on Makana from time to time. In those early days he was just a detective sergeant, but he had risen quickly. His methods, brash and at times ethically dubious, were nevertheless effective. Over the years Makana had tried his best to strike a balance between keeping Okasha happy and protecting his own interests. Sometimes it worked, other times not.

  Fishawy’s was closed at that hour, but that didn’t stop Okasha. He kicked a bench on which a figure bundled in a blanket was trying to sleep.

  ‘Get up and make some tea for those of us who have to work.’

  The figure, which turned out to be both a young boy and an old man, came awake and began rattling open gates and lighting stoves. Okasha settled himself down with his back to the wall.

  ‘Everyone tells me this Englishwoman was crazy. She’s here alone, she gets herself killed. So far, so simple. Then I find your card and somehow I’m sure this is going to be more complicated than I thought. How do you know her?’

  ‘I met her by chance in a restaurant. She was down on her luck. Told me she was here trying to find her daughter, who disappeared years ago.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Seventeen years, I think she said.’ Makana tried to recall as much as he could of their conversation. ‘She’d been coming back over the years, to look for her child.’

  ‘What for? The girl is either dead or so far away she will never come back.’

  ‘It was her daughter,’ said Makana quietly. ‘Maybe you’d understand if you had children.’

  Okasha took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Makana was one of the few people who could talk to him that way, and he still wasn’t altogether sure why that was. In this case, however, he knew.

  ‘All right.’ He brushed a hand through the air in lieu of an apology. ‘So she was looking for her daughter. Now tell me why anyone would want to torture and kill her.’

  ‘She seemed alone. Completely. As if she didn’t really know anyone in the world.’

  ‘So again, why? The medics will tell us if she was interfered with, but it doesn’t look like a sexual attack. And not robbery either. So why?’

  The tea finally arrived, carried by the old man who was yawning as he set down the glasses.

  ‘About time,’ said Okasha. He started tipping spoons of sugar in until there was a thick layer in the bottom of the glass. Then he began stirring.

  ‘I don’t care what you say, a woman travelling alone will always end up in trouble. But this . . . We’re going to have difficulties with this one, I can tell.’

  Chapter Nine

  It was late the next morning when Makana stepped in through the scruffy front entrance of a building on a gloomy arcade near Midan Mustapha Kamel in the Tewfikiya area downtown. It wasn’t exactly the kind of address he’d expect to be associated with the cinema business. Instead of glamorous, it felt distinctly derelict and forgotten. A listless bawab shuffled into sight before disappearing again without a word, sucked back into the shadows of his hidden nook off the front lobby. Makana took one look at the lift and chose to climb the stairs in almost complete darkness, running a hand along the wall to guide himself. It was black as a tomb in here. Emerging on the third floor, he struck a match and held it up to a faded sign which looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned for years. He pressed the bell beneath and waited. After a long delay the door swung open to reveal a small woman in her forties. A round, puffy face buried under a thick dusting of powder and make-up peered inquisitively at him. A powerful reek of stale clothes and cheap scent assailed Makana as her eyes ran over him impatiently and her face set in a look of disdain. Here was trouble, she seemed to be thinking.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m here to see Mr Farag,’ said Makana.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘Do I need one? Saad Hanafi sent me.’

  The name apparently didn’t mean much to the woman. She blinked heavily lined eyelashes at him for a moment before returning inside her office and lifting the telephone receiver, only to drop it instantly back into its cradle. Then she waddled away down a long corridor. Makana watched her disappear through a door at the far end. A moment later she emerged and walked all the way back, not saying a word until she was seated behind her desk again.

  ‘He will see you now,’ she said, extending a hand in the direction from which she had just come.

  The office at the end of the corridor was dark and dusty. The air was thick with cigar smoke and the moist, fetid stench of decay. The window shutters, which had probably not been opened for decades, admitted only thin slivers of light. Makana could make out heaps of paper scattered about the desk behind which sat a large man with slack, flabby jowls and a scraggly grey beard. As Makana entered he heaved himself up and came round the desk, breathing hard. His hand when he offered it was as soft and clammy as a fish.

  ‘Salim Farag. Come in, come in. So, you work for Hanafi, eh?’

  His manner was breezy and over-familiar. He stood so close there was nowhere for Makana to move. The furniture in this office was crammed together and strewn with all manner of items. Farag reared back abruptly, his thick eyebrows clamping together like a vice.

  ‘You’re not a lawyer are you?’ When Makana shook his head, the jelly-like face relaxed again. ‘No, you don’t look like a lawyer. I’m generally an excellent judge of people. Please, sit. Tell me what I can do for you.’

  Makana looked around. Farag lifted a heap of paper from a chair and then lost his grip and the whole pile toppled over on to the already overloaded sofa by the wall.

  ‘It’s about Adil Romario.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ Farag chuckled heartily. ‘What kind of trouble has my friend got himself into this time?’

  ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me,’ said Makana.

  The man’s hand froze in mid-air, halfway towards the cigar that lay smouldering in an empty film can which stood in for an ashtray on his desk.

  ‘Not a lawye
r, eh?’ His tone changed as he retrieved the cheap cigar, scrutinising Makana through quick, nervous puffs of smoke. ‘So, you’re one of Hanafi’s dogs come to scare me off?’

  ‘You sound as if you were expecting him to send someone.’

  ‘Don’t play games with me.’ Farag leaned forward and pointed a finger at him. ‘Let me tell you, I don’t scare easily.’

  ‘I’m not playing games, so why don’t you cut out the melodrama?’

  ‘Who exactly are you?’ Farag’s sagging lower lip quivered like a dog’s.

  ‘I told you, I’m working for Hanafi.’

  ‘Anyone can claim to be working for Hanafi.’

  ‘All you have to do is pick up that phone and call him.’

  Farag stared at the phone as if it was a venomous snake coiled to strike. He made no attempt to touch it. Makana looked around him. It was hard to believe anything creative came out of this place, much less any films.

  ‘I’m curious, what exactly is going on between you and Adil?’

  ‘I don’t see how that’s any of your business, but it’s no mystery. We’re business partners.’

  ‘Why would someone like Adil Romario go into partnership with you?’

  If he took offence, Farag didn’t show it. Maybe he was used to such remarks.

  ‘Adil wants to get out of the game. Every player has to eventually. He’s twenty-eight. In a couple of years his knees will start to go. Adil has been playing since he was a kid. And besides, there’s no money in football, not real money.’

  ‘His face is plastered everywhere. He must be doing all right.’