Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti) (6 page)

Riddell drove with a single, freckled finger on the wheel. ‘So how is old Solly-man?’ he said.

‘Bearing up.’

‘At least he’s back among his own –’ Riddell broke off to hoot at the moped in front, on which two men in tunics were perched, one clamped to the other. A container lorry was blocking the right-hand lane; Riddell drew up so close to the moped that his bumper was almost touching its back wheel. The driver glanced right before wobbling sideways, wing mirror inches from the lorry’s rusty steel slats. Spike saw wide, terrified eyes as they passed.

‘Give this mob half an inch,’ Riddell said, ‘and they’ll half-inch a mile.’ He adjusted the wheel with a fingertip to avoid a
petit taxi
. ‘So how’s business in Gib? Economy booming?’

‘Ticking over.’

‘I suppose there are enough Solomons and Abrahams to keep it that way. Angry Friar still open?’

‘Was yesterday.’

‘Quite a boozer.’

Spike didn’t need to ask how Riddell knew the Rock. Gibraltarians had sensitive antennae when it came to spotting the British military. The sun reflecting in Riddell’s over-polished black shoes had spoken eloquently.

Spike looked out at the beach below the coast road. Hand-painted signs protruded from the sand. Before Spike could read them, Riddell had veered right and they started to climb a cross street up the hillside. An entire block of buildings had collapsed here, leaving a landslip of rubble and weeds. Some entrepreneurial opportunist had taken advantage of the unexpected exposure to the coast road by scrawling ‘
Garage mécanique: 933317
’ on the wall of the house behind.

They turned onto a broader, French-style boulevard. Rather than plane trees, date palms lined the pavements. The windows were barred with wrought-iron balconies, while interspersed with the apartment blocks were
pâtisseries
,
épiceries
,
pharmacies
. On the roof of one, a billboard proclaimed ‘DUNETECH’. Beneath its logo was a phrase:
Powering a Greener Future
. The next hoarding advertised a failed bid for Tangiers to host the international Expo. Spike checked the date: four years ago.

Riddell drove the Mercedes into a large commercial square. A fountain trickled in its centre, a bare-chested old man washing his prayer robes in its stone dish. ‘This is us,’ Riddell said, breaking sharply. ‘You get out and I’ll park the steer.’ His accent was a carefully neutral English, as though a posher edge had been planed off.

As Riddell sped away, Spike realised why he’d been dropped in this position. Distance was needed to take in the scale of the Dunetech building. It dominated the entire south-facing end of the square, rising at least ten storeys higher than the shabby concrete office blocks on either side. Blue-tinted mirror glass burnished all four walls, gleaming in the mid-afternoon sun as though God had just finished buffing it with His own chamois leather.

Spike watched his reflection elongate as he approached. The revolving doors were mirrored, the Dunetech logo etched above them in a tastefully discreet font. It didn’t need to be any larger; the point had been made.

Chapter 12

Spike sat on a cream-coloured sofa at the edge of a cavernous atrium. The Dunetech headquarters had a hollow centre, offices rising up around the sides, fewer than might have been expected from outside. Three potted palm trees stretched towards a skylight roof, newly arrived, judging by their greenness. The floor was of black polished limestone, the desk manned by a deeply tanned girl sporting excessive lipgloss. Behind her, an electronic turnstile protected a bank of glass-fronted lifts.

The receptionist shot Spike a smile. He’d been sitting for ten minutes and not a phone had rung nor a person come or gone. From the far wall issued a hi-tech whirr: one of the lifts had started to descend. A moment later the glass doors opened to a tall man in an immaculately cut pinstripe suit.

Spike rose.

‘So sorry,’ the man called out, rotating the turnstile with a clip of his hip. ‘Nothing worse than being kept waiting after a long journey. I’m Nadeer Ziyad. How do you do?’

Spike shook a dark, slender hand.

‘So very pleased to meet you,’ the man said. He looked mid-thirties, Spike’s age. His face was long and angular, his nose hooked like a hawk’s and his eyes sparkling with the green and yellow glints that were the hereditary mark of the Berbers, the original inhabitants of North Africa. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he said. ‘You all right with your case?’

Spike swung his leather bag onto his shoulder and followed Nadeer towards the desk. As Nadeer passed, he whispered something in Arabic to the receptionist, who lowered her head before opening a drawer and taking out a remote. A rich air-con whoosh came from on high as they moved through the turnstile.

Nadeer adjusted his carefully crafted Windsor knot as he stepped into the lift. ‘These country girls,’ he said with a smile. ‘They rate forty degrees as mild.’

The speakers were piping out an instrumental version of ‘Candle in the Wind’. As the lift began to climb, Spike saw the receptionist stand from her desk. Her black pencil skirt rucked up her thighs as she crossed the marble to a cabinet beyond the palms. ‘So Tobes picked you up OK?’ Nadeer said.

‘Seemed most efficient.’

The lift stopped and Nadeer extended an arm for Spike to exit. A row of doors ran along one side of a white-carpeted corridor, with a waist-high Perspex screen giving onto the atrium below. Cream-cushioned chairs with plastic covers still on seats had been placed between each doorway. ‘Developers are the same the world over,’ Nadeer said as he strolled away. ‘Take the estimate, double it and add a year. Don’t you find?’

At the end of the corridor, Nadeer held open the door to an enormous corner office. Two of the walls consisted of floor-to-ceiling glass, the others solid and decorated with Rothkoesque sunscapes: burning reds, yellows, tangerines. In front of the tinted glass stood a heavy mahogany desk, to one side of which, propped against the skirting board, leaned a framed photograph of the King of Morocco.

‘On a clear day we can see your homeland from here,’ Nadeer said, striding over to the glass. ‘Like God reaching out for Adam’s fingertip, as my father likes to say. The continent of the past giving its blessing to the continent of the future.’ All Spike could see through the haze was a parasailor being towed around the bay, motionless in his harness like a hanged man. ‘Does the mirror glass power the building?’ he asked.

‘It will do,’ Nadeer said, pressing his palms together. He smiled, eyes glittering like a tiger. ‘Have a seat, Mr Sanguinetti. Please.’

Spike sat down on a stool opposite the desk, as Nadeer settled into a high-backed swivel chair. Spike caught a monogrammed flash of ‘NaZ’ on the lower left side of Nadeer’s shirt. He checked the cuffs of Nadeer’s blazer: the last button was undone, a subtle signal that the suit was bespoke.

Nadeer clicked down an Apple laptop, planting his elbows on the desk and resting his narrow chin on interlaced knuckles. ‘So,’ he said, ‘how is he?’

‘Still in a state of shock.’

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply. ‘It’s unbelievable. If there’s anything we can do. Anything.’ He opened them again, watching.

‘We’re going to fight extradition on human rights grounds,’ Spike said. ‘Article 5, Security of Person. We’ll argue it’s unsafe for a Jew to be held in custody in Tangiers.’

‘Would that my country were a signatory to the Convention.’

‘Gibraltar is. And so long as Solomon remains on Gibraltarian soil it applies.’

Nadeer tapped a nail against a pearly front tooth. ‘You’d need proof of a genuine threat, of course.’

‘That’s why I’m here.’

He canted his head. ‘Morocco is not Gibraltar, Mr Sanguinetti. It is perhaps a little less about what you can prove than who you know.’

Spike glanced over to the picture of the King of Morocco; Nadeer followed his gaze. ‘Cup of tea?’

‘Not for me, thanks.’

‘No, no. I insist.’ He lifted the phone without pressing a button and murmured in Arabic. ‘All this sunshine,’ he said, cupping the receiver, ‘and I still miss England.’ He smiled and hung up. ‘The grey skies. The theatre. Annabel’s. Do you get to London much?’

‘Enough.’

‘And Gibraltar’s always been home?’

‘University and law school in London. Since then, yes.’

‘Doesn’t it get . . . claustrophobic? Same size as Hyde Park, I seem to recall.’

‘Minus the Rock.’

‘Ah yes, the Rock, the great symbol of –’

A tap at the door mercy-killed the small talk as the receptionist teetered in with a silver tray. Nadeer remained seated as she lowered it onto his desk; he reached forward, raising the teapot lid, then dropping it with an icy clatter. Within the faint, rasping Arabic Spike recognised the words ‘Earl Grey’. The girl began to slide the tray backwards.

‘Mint tea’s fine.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I’ve come all this way so it’s a shame not to drink it.’

Nadeer nodded and the girl crept away. Smiling flatly, he arced a caramel spout of liquid through the strainer into Spike’s cup. ‘Human rights grounds,’ he repeated as he poured a cup for himself. ‘I suppose I could have a word with our local governor. Though he might not welcome accusations of anti-Semitism.’

‘Nor global media coverage of a murdered Spanish girl on the beach.’

Nadeer puffed on his tea.

‘Has there been much coverage of the death?’ Spike said.

‘Not thus far.’

‘Of course,’ Spike went on, blowing on his tea as well, ‘one good thing about the size of Gibraltar is there’s only one proper newspaper. The editor’s a close friend.’ He took a sip: sickly sweet, sugared in advance in the pot.

‘Too sweet for you?’

‘I like it that way.’

‘Have you got a business card, Mr Sanguinetti?’

Spike put down his cup and reached for his wallet.

‘ “Somerset J. Sanguinetti”,’ Nadeer read aloud. ‘ “Barrister at Law”. Your people Italian?’

‘Genoese, originally.’

‘Escaping Napoleon?’

‘In 1798.’

Nadeer turned the card over where the same information was written in Spanish. ‘You know,’ he said, tucking it beneath his phone, ‘we’re like blood brothers, Moroccans and Gibraltarians. Colonised. Oppressed. How many wars have you had against the Spanish?’

‘Ten sieges and counting.’

‘Ten sieges . . . I used to talk to Solomon about it. Ours are more recent – 1860 and 1926. Then there’s the Spanish Civil War. Franco press-ganged 100,000 Moroccans to fight for him. Wiped out half my family.’

‘But you work for a Spaniard, don’t you? Esperanza’s father.’

‘Stepfather. We work together. But we can forgive him that. He’s a phenomenal engineer. A visionary.’

‘Is he in town?’

‘Still in Madrid. Mourning.’

Spike sipped at his dark brown tea. ‘Did you know Esperanza well?’

‘She came by the office once or twice. Something of a wild child, I believe. Hardly Solomon’s type.’

‘Did you see her the day she died?’

Nadeer narrowed his green eyes. ‘Toby and I were at a board meeting in Rabat with my father. Why?’

‘Trying to piece together her final movements. Is Solomon’s office in here?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I take a look around?’

Nadeer put down his cup. ‘The police have already been through it with their usual grace but . . . I don’t see why not. I can trust you not to remove anything?’

‘I’m a lawyer, Mr Ziyad. Trust is our watchword.’

The frown translated into a smile.

‘I couldn’t use your . . .?’ Spike stood, motioning to his teacup.

‘Of course. Through there.’

Spike crossed the white shagpile carpet to a doorway. The cubicle had a porcelain sink at one end and a wooden-seated lavatory at the other. The walls were papered with red-and-green stripes; propped on the gleaming cistern was another picture still to be hung, a house photograph from Eton College, dating from twenty years ago. The names of the tail-coated boys were given in italics at the bottom. Spike scanned for ‘Nadeer Ziyad’ and found him at the back, small and shy with a neat centre-parted haircut. As he replaced the photograph, his eye was caught by the face of a boy in the bottom row, seated beside the housemaster. He had thick blond hair and a cool gaze levelled at the camera. His arms were folded across a polka-dot waistcoat, its garish design in contrast to the dull, uniform black worn by all the other pupils. Spike looked down at the list of names: ‘The Hon. Tobias Riddell, Capt. of House’. He flushed the cistern and left.