‘Of course.’ Rob sat in the chair opposite Craig’s. He had a clear view of the papers on the permanent secretary’s desk; he started reading, then looked away. Craig was gone some time.
‘No sign yet, never mind. Well, I shouldn’t detain you any longer.’
Mariscal stood and turned to leave, then stopped. ‘Mr Craig?’
The civil servant raised both eyebrows. ‘Yes, Robert?’
‘These offers that Mr Bellquist makes?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you think he honours them?’
Craig studied Rob. ‘I’m sure he does, but …’ He paused then took the papers from his desk and banged them back into a tidy pile.
‘But?’
‘Nothing.’ He waved Mariscal away. ‘Close the door, on your way out, will you?’
35 Sabry Street
DATELINE: The Orchard Apartments, Matariya, Cairo, Egypt, February 10 2011
Zahra woke early. Only her mother was awake – awake and busy preparing breakfast in the small kitchen. Zahra was keen to get going and not at all hungry, but her mum insisted she wait and have something.
‘Sit, sit. One minute it will take.’
Zahra sat. The flickering TV screen in the corner of the kitchen was showing the President’s most recent public address – another attempt to calm the people and save his skin. He was standing at the entrance to a grand, gilded ballroom and, just behind him, a few feet away, Zahra saw a familiar face – Abdul Balit. The President was reassuring his people that he was listening, acknowledging that mistakes had been made and promising that change was on the way. Outside the open window, Zahra heard a few boos and whistles coming from the neighbouring flats.
As she watched, it seemed to Zahra that Colonel Balit was edging closer to the centre of the TV screen – closer to the President and the thicket of microphones. Closer to power.
She kissed her mother and hurried from the apartment, breakfast in hand. As she walked round the stairwell and down half a dozen flights to the courtyard she checked her phone. She’d arranged to meet Jean Fitzgerald outside the Sabry Street address at eight. Setting off now she was certain to be early but she could decide whether to wait or go in by herself once she got there. Jean had urged caution and said she planned to assemble a posse.
Zahra strode through her neighbourhood in the direction of the bus station; it was a bright morning and the smell of fresh bread was in the air. She heard a bicycle bell and looked as a boy in a red T-shirt went coasting past her down the hill – feet lifted. She felt well for the first time in a long while. She was doing something positive, something that Nawal would have been proud of.
As she rounded the corner into Sabry Street, Zahra stopped. She saw, to her slight annoyance, that one of Jean’s posse had arrived before her. An Egyptian by the looks of him.
‘Hey.’
He turned sharply and stared at Zahra but said nothing.
‘Are you here with Miss Jean?’
The man nodded slowly. ‘Yes.’
‘Is that number forty-three?’
He nodded again.
Zahra wondered how he’d managed to find it; looking around she could see no sign of any street numbers. She walked closer. The guy was tall and wore jeans and a purple shirt, and had a burlap bag slung across his shoulder. ‘So do we wait for Jean and the others or just go in?’
The tall man smiled, stretching the thick scar that ran down the left side of his face from ear to jaw. ‘Just go in. Two is enough.’
He let Zahra move past him and watched while she hesitated before knocking on the thick wooden door.
The man laughed. ‘That door is open already.’
Zahra pulled it wide open and walked in with the tall man following close behind.
‘Number forty-three is on the left.’ He had lowered his voice and moved even closer. Zahra could feel him at her back. She turned and glared at him and he took a step back. She knocked firmly on the apartment door and waited until she heard movement and then a voice from the other side of the door.
‘Hello?’
It was a thin sound, an older woman’s voice. Zahra explained who she was, she apologised for disturbing her and told her about Nawal and the message she’d sent her. She asked if the woman remembered meeting anyone who fitted Nawal’s description and whether there was any chance that she could have left something in her apartment? As she spoke she could sense the man behind her becoming impatient, although he said nothing.
The old woman heard Zahra out then asked ‘Are you alone?’
She turned and looked at the tall Egyptian, who nodded.
‘No, no, I have a—’
Purple shirt knocked Zahra down with one knuckled punch to the side of the head. A firm kick at the door and he was inside the old woman’s flat. He dragged Zahra’s unconscious body in by her collar and laid her down next to the sofa. Her skirt had ridden up and this distracted him momentarily. Perhaps he would do something about that later. The old woman was standing by the kitchen door, holding her mangy dog back by its collar. The animal was barking furiously. Purple shirt reached into his bag and brought out a new hunting knife – bought with this dog in mind. He was readying himself for the animal to attack when the old woman did something strange. She pushed the dog gently but firmly back into the kitchen then jammed the door shut with a chair, locking the angry animal inside. She picked up an old-fashioned-looking telephone and threw it at him – missing by some margin.
He killed her quickly then set about searching her flat, turning drawers out and lifting the furniture until he found what he’d been sent to find. Wrapped inside an old bed sheet, tied into a parcel with yellow rope, was Nawal’s collection of gas canisters, batons and bullets. The package had been hidden underneath one of the armchairs; he doubted the old woman even knew it was there.
Purple shirt was on his way out of the door when he heard the chair fall. Turning around, he saw that the dog had somehow forced his way from the kitchen. He barked furiously and took a few threatening steps in his direction before stopping and falling silent. The animal had seen the old woman – his owner – lying on the floor.
He pushed his muzzle gently into her face then turned again towards the man, teeth bared. Purple shirt stepped towards the dog, knife in hand. When he was an arm’s length away, the dog stopped his growling. He lowered his head and turned away. Purple shirt pushed the hunting knife deep into the dog’s neck. With his last breath, his last push of strength, the dog stepped away and died, lying across his owner’s slippered feet.
There was silence and then some sound from the street; he glanced down at Zahra, who was exactly where he’d left her. The noise outside was getting louder – any plans he had for the girl would have to wait. He left, closing the flat door behind him and walking out on to the street, his bag high on his shoulder.
He saw a small crowd of people, deep in conversation. A couple of westerners – a curly-haired older woman in a loose-fitting headscarf and a younger man were talking with locals, asking about both flat number forty-three and their missing friend. He turned his back and was attempting to walk past the group when the woman in the headscarf noticed him and shouted.
‘Hey you! Hold your horses, where’d you just come from?’
He stopped and turned, jutting his jaw in the direction of the flat. ‘I live here.’
Just then Zahra appeared at the door, unsteady on her feet and with a face like fury. ‘Yalla! Stop him. He has killed a woman.’
Purple shirt made to walk away but Jean was fast. He felt a hand on his arm, then two hands as Patrick grabbed his other arm.
‘Not so fast there, mate.’
He was about to shove the crazy woman away and grab for his knife when a jolt of crippling pain passed through him. Looking down, he saw the woman’s knee buried deep in his groin. His legs buckled and he collapsed to the pavement, swallowing for air.
Jean watched as he folded himself into a foetal position, his face a similar colour
to his shirt. She looked over at Zahra. ‘I haven’t had to do that in a while.’
The Way of Sorrows (xiii)
Thirty-eight nautical miles north of the Libyan coast
The dinghy chugged through the dark, in the direction that the smugglers had instructed them to take, the direction – they hoped – of the Italian mainland. As well as a hasty lesson in operating an outboard motor, the Ethiopian man had been given a phone and a handheld satellite navigation device, though he seemed unsure how to use it.
As night turned to dawn and a smudge of light appeared on the horizon, Gebre was relieved to find that the position of the sun suggested they were moving, albeit slowly, in the right direction. This was the only piece of good news that Gebre could identify; the horror and discomfort that he’d experienced while crossing the desert were already paling into insignificance next to life on board this boat. The passengers had been warned by the smuggling crew not to move in case the dinghy tipped, and the risk was obvious: the Zodiac was sitting low in the water and felt extremely unstable. For that reason people had no choice but to defecate and urinate where they sat or lay and this is what they did, muttering an apology to their families or neighbours as they did so. By mid-morning of the first day the stink was dreadful – piss, shit and vomit pooled beneath the wooden slats and sloshed around. Gebre found some small relief by shuffling closer to the outboard motor and letting the smell of petrol fill his nostrils in place of the reek of his fellow travellers.
Then there was the heat. There was no shelter, no shade apart from the little you might find in the shadow of the man or woman or child sitting next to you. Gebre could feel his exposed skin becoming blistered by the sun as the long day wore on. He was sure that sunstroke played a part in the first significant casualty.
It was around three in the afternoon when from the middle of the dinghy there was shouting, a man began flailing his arms and screaming that he could see devils at work.
‘Blue devils, they’re climbing from the sea! Push them back down!’ He pulled himself to his feet and, stepping between and over his fellow passengers, made his way to the side of the boat. He leaned over, pushing his hands out towards the water, pressing down on the heads of devils that only he could see. The people closest to the man tried to reason with him, they grabbed at his clothes as he leaned out further and further but to no avail; the man plunged headlong into the water. He vanished for several seconds before appearing again. One or two people sitting on that side of the dinghy tried to reach for the man as he bobbed up and down in the sea but he would not reach back. Soon he was being carried away by the waves and the current, out into darker, rougher water. Gebre watched all this from his place alongside Solomon; close to the outboard motor, he was one of several who argued with the Ethiopian holding the tiller that they should try and double back and rescue the man. But the louder, more nervous voices said otherwise, insisting the man was too mad to be saved, that he did not want saving. Gebre stared at the man – he could not help him, but he decided that he would not look away.
The cold water had shocked him back to sanity now and Gebre watched him trying to paddle his way back to the dinghy. When he realised this was futile, he tried to roll on to his back and float, arms and legs outstretched, but the waves were too big, they were pulling him under. Through effort or instinct he managed to keep his mouth locked shut for some time as the water rolled over his head but he was drowning. As one large wave lifted him, his eyes found Gebre’s and the man mouthed something, a handful of words. Gebre shaded his eyes and stared; the drowning man shouted again – two words, spitting water from his mouth, then shouting the same two words again and again. The man was shouting his own name. Gebre nodded, he had understood. He had his name. The last look he received from the drowning man before a final wave lifted him then took him down was something Gebre thought about for hours afterwards. It was not fear any more, instead a look of embarrassment and the hugest sadness.
36 The Old Ways
DATELINE: Caversham, Reading, England, February 10 2011
Carver got slightly lost on the walk from the bus stop to McCluskey’s house. He was fine as far as the allotments and the field where the same old horse was busy cropping the grass, tearing up noisy mouthfuls, but he took a wrong turn just after that. A sign pointing towards the golf course and in the direction of McCluskey’s estate took him the other way instead and he had to double back.
The message from Jemima McCluskey had been as cryptic as ever but Carver knew better than to ignore an invitation so he’d had his suit pressed and caught the train.
‘Some little toerag turned the fingerpost around in its moorings. It’s been confusing folk all week.’ McCluskey was leaning on the flint wall at the front of her garden, obviously waiting for Carver. She had a pair of yellow rubber gloves on and was holding a thick black plastic sack. ‘Now you’re here, I need a wee hand with something.’
William held the sack open and as far from his face as possible while McCluskey shovelled the sediment from the bottom of her pond into the bag.
‘God, it stinks!’
‘It’s fish shit, what did you expect it to smell like?’
William turned his face away. He hoped McCluskey hadn’t summoned him here just to help with the chores.
‘Hold the bag wider, you big sissy! I’ll talk to you to take your mind off the smell.’
‘Okay.’
‘What do you know about the Horn of Africa – Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, all of those?’
Carver shrugged. ‘Same as you, probably. Dirt poor, fragile. A fair bit of nasty jihadi business with al-Shabaab but no serious warring for a while. It’s mainly frozen conflicts down there.’
McCluskey looked up from her shovelling. ‘Is that right? Well, they’re not going to stay frozen much longer.’
Inside the house, Carver was put in charge of making the tea while McCluskey changed out of her gardening clothes. She re- appeared at the kitchen door wearing a tweed skirt and green polo neck and holding a sheath of handwritten notes. ‘I’ve been listening to a fair bit of shortwave radio recently.’
Carver nodded. ‘That’s very old-fashioned of you.’
‘Digital’s getting too easy to search and bug. People are going back to the old ways.’
‘What kind of people?’
‘All sorts.’ She waved the notes in his direction. ‘Bring the tea through and I’ll tell you all about it. You’ll need to read all this, see if you can make some sense of it.’
It took that pot of tea and one more plus a plate of fondant fancies for Carver to digest McCluskey’s notes. The information she’d collected was intriguing but confused. Carver felt like he was looking at a hundred pieces from half a dozen different jigsaws. When he’d finished reading he put the papers to one side and said as much.
‘So someone’s sending arms down through North Africa – to Sudan and Somalia.’
McCluskey nodded. ‘There and beyond: Ethiopia, Eritrea.’
‘But there are no names in any of this’ – he pointed at her notes – ‘or none that I saw.’
She tutted. ‘I can’t do bloody everything for you, Carver. That there gives you a pretty good idea of what’s going on. The kit they’re talking about is hard to get hold of and all of a sudden these characters are getting it by the truckload.’
‘What kind of characters are we talking about? Who are you listening to?’
‘All sorts: middlemen, warlords, rag-tag armies and some proper armies too, I reckon.’
‘They’re buying. Who’s doing the selling?’
McCluskey shook her head. ‘I don’t know, not for sure. But there’s no way that all this is coming from China or the Russians. Not moving the way it’s moving.’
Carver nodded.
‘And if it’s not them – if it’s European, or American – then they’re breaking half a dozen international conventions, breaking the law.’
Carver picked up the papers again and flicked through t
hem. An incredible amount of work must have gone into gathering all this. God knows how many hours McCluskey must have spent knob twiddling and listening.
‘Have you shown this to anyone at Caversham?’
‘No, I haven’t. And you know fine well why I haven’t. I’m showing them to you.’
‘You think it’s British?’
McCluskey finished her tea and said nothing.
‘I’m looking into a firm that sent a few boxes of anti-insurgency kit out – broke the export ban, or at least I think they did. But nothing on this scale – nowhere near.’
‘Maybe you need to think again.’
Carver picked up his plastic bag. ‘Can I take all this away with me?’
‘’Course. I’ve made copies.’
He tucked the notes down at the bottom of his bag. Inside he saw a parcel, the present he’d brought her.
‘I almost forgot. I got you something.’ He hauled himself to his feet and handed her the gift – a snow globe inexpertly wrapped in the front and back pages of yesterday’s Daily Telegraph.
She opened it. ‘Cleopatra’s needle?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘With Waterloo Bridge in the background?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where’d you get it?’
‘Embankment Tube. I couldn’t find one in Cairo.’
‘How hard did you try?’
‘Not very.’
Carver was on the train back from Reading to London when an untitled message landed in his Gmail account.
Buy yourself a pay-as-you-go and get the number to our mutual friend on reception.
A Single Source Page 28
