Authors: Parker Bilal
‘Something like that.’
‘They need all the help they can get.’ Kamal grinned. ‘You should see the sights. Iskander the Great came here, you know, famous Roman general?’
‘I think Iskander was Greek.’
Kamal frowned. ‘Greek, Roman, what difference does it make? In the end they left. Just like the British. Everyone leaves in the end. Except us.’ As he talked, Kamal was nervously going over the motorcycle, twisting the throttle, tugging the gear cable, stamping on the footbrake.
‘You want to leave?’
‘Me?’ The young man sniffed. ‘I would leave tomorrow if I could.’
‘Where would you go?’
‘Cairo, of course. I’ve never been. What’s it like?’
Makana considered how on earth to begin explaining a city like Cairo. It would be like the story of the blind men and the elephant. Each one touches a different part of it and imagines an entirely different creature. But Kamal wasn’t expecting an answer. He already knew.
‘I imagine it shines. There are a million lights, and beautiful girls, like the ones you see in Amr Diab’s videos. And no one ever sleeps.’
It would have been cruel to puncture the boy’s illusion, to remind him of those who lived in obscurity, hidden from view in the dark corners of the metropolis, the abject poverty, and the millions just like him who had watched their dreams crumble to dust. As they came back out into the sunshine a horn sounded as the battered police pick-up rattled and screeched its way to a halt and Sergeant Hamama leaned out of the window.
‘Get in,’ he called to Makana.
A
half-eaten
ful
sandwich wrapped in newspaper occupied the passenger seat. Hamama tossed it quickly up onto the dashboard as Makana climbed in. The car took off before he had even managed to pull the door closed.
‘People are not happy. I’ve been on the phone all morning. Everyone wants to know what happened. Naturally, they all seem to blame me.’ Hamama steered carefully around a family of goats that had taken up residence in the middle of the road. ‘The Qadi was a highly respected figure. Of course, everyone around here hated him, but what can you do?’
‘He must have made a few enemies over the years.’
‘A man in his position? Naturally.’ Hamama glanced over at Makana. ‘This case is important to me. I talked to Mersa Matruh this morning and I get the feeling my promotion depends on me catching this killer. Doesn’t make it any easier.’
‘It shouldn’t be that difficult, for a man of your experience.’
Sergeant Hamama narrowly avoided running over a donkey and several pedestrians.
‘You wouldn’t be laughing at me now, would you?’
‘I was trying to be encouraging.’
‘Well, keep it to yourself next time.’
‘What I really meant was that whoever did this had a motive. And that motive may lie in the Qadi’s old cases. The sentences he has handed down over the years.’
‘It’s a possibility. Still, it’s not going to be easy. What kind of a man can cut another up like so much basturma?’ The sergeant drew a hand across his substantial belly and shivered. He threw Makana an odd sideways glance. ‘You’re not here to keep an eye on me, are you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ the sergeant hesitated, apparently not sure what he meant. ‘State Security, the Ministry of Justice?’
‘I’m not here to spy on you,’ Makana said. ‘So you don’t need to send your men snooping around in my room.’
‘You mean Sadig?’ Sergeant Hamama sniffed. ‘He gets carried away. He thinks I’m too trusting and that it’s a little suspicious you turning up just when the Qadi gets butchered.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I think good police work is about eliminating possibilities. That means everyone is a suspect until proven otherwise. You’d do the same, right?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Now listen,’ Hamama went on, ‘I think Sadig gets overexcited. He doesn’t mean any harm, so there’s no need for this to go any further. The point is, if you help me to find out who butchered the Qadi I will be very grateful.’ He saw the scepticism on Makana’s face. ‘I mean it. Whatever you need is yours.’
‘So I shouldn’t expect him in my room again?’
‘You have my word on it.’ Sergeant Hamama settled himself back in his seat and stared ahead as the lake came into view, shimmering softly in the sun.
‘Where are we going by the way?’
‘The scene of the crime. Where else?’
They slowed and Sergeant Hamama pulled off the road. The two men sat for a time in silence with only the sound of the wind whistling by. It should have been peaceful, but Makana felt uneasy. He cracked open the door and stepped out. The salt in the sand formed a hard crust that cracked under his shoes. The spot where the Qadi had been found was marked out with a couple of poles from which plastic tape flapped in the breeze.
‘Any idea what he was doing out here?’ Makana turned towards Hamama who was leaning on the front of the car. ‘Perhaps we should talk to his office.’
‘Lucky for us you’re here, or I would never have thought of that.’
‘You’ve already done it?’
Hamama tried not to look pleased with himself and failed. He reached into his pocket for a packet of gum to celebrate and chewed away gleefully. Perhaps what he needed was less an expert to help him in his investigation as a witness to his own brilliance.
‘Some kind of business delegation was on the way out here to meet him.’
‘What kind of delegation?’ asked Makana, turning his back to the wind to light a cigarette.
‘The assistant I spoke to thought it was something to do with a tourist venture.’ Sergeant Hamama squinted at the lake. ‘They come here and smell money. They want to build fancy hotels and open up the airport, bring people in from all over the world.’
‘The town benefits, doesn’t it?’
‘Does it?’ Sergeant Hamama studied his scuffed boots. ‘We have a limited supply of fresh water and these tourists come from places where it rains for months. They still want their pools filled and three showers a day, and I don’t know what else. And besides, the big money goes right by us and into the pockets of the big fish.’
‘And the Qadi was involved in the sector?’
‘He was the Qadi, he took care of all the legal matters.’ Which was Hamama’s way of saying he really had no idea.
Makana looked out over the thin sliver of water that seemed to almost float on top of the sand. Beyond it the desert unfurled like a silken carpet. Where it ended was another story. You could literally drive for days and still not find the end to it. The desert made him think of home, and the long journey that had brought him here.
‘How did he get into the water?’ Makana wondered aloud as they walked back along the edge of the lake towards the car.
‘How?’ Sergeant Hamama straightened up and focussed all his powers. ‘His killer must have rolled him in, I suppose.’
‘It’s hardly deep enough here, and he was completely immersed.’
‘Well, maybe he walked further out.’
Makana pointed at the shack out on the point. ‘That’s where the farmer made the phone call, isn’t it?’
‘That’s Luqman’s place,’ said Hamama. ‘He sells snacks and things to the tourists. He’s all right. We questioned him but he saw nothing.’
‘Maybe we should try again,’ suggested Makana. ‘Sometimes things come back to people.’
Hamama planted his hands on his ample hips. ‘I told you, my men already talked to him. He didn’t see anything. It’s a waste of time.’
‘We won’t know that until we speak to him, will we?’
Hamama stared at Makana for a moment and then spat out his gum on the sand. ‘I’ll bet they really hated you,’ he said.
‘Who did?’ Makana was mystified.
‘The people who used to work with you,’ said Hamama over his shoulder as he climbed into the police car.
Makana was silent as they drove back a short distance before turning to follow a short track onto the point that jutted out from the shore. The sergeant had no idea how right he was. He thought of his former adjutant, Mek Nimr, and the lengths he had gone to to get Makana expelled, first from the police force and then the country.
Khalid Luqman was in his mid-thirties, a slim man with a pleasant face and an air of calm about him. His hair was shaved close to his head. There was an air of scruffy abandonment about the coffee shop. Two makeshift structures were built on the sandy patch of scrub. One of them appeared to be a storage room and the other was a shack open on three sides by means of panels that were lifted up and held in place by strands of frayed nylon rope. A warm but not unpleasant breeze blew in from the water. The area in front of the shack afforded an unimpeded panorama of the lake and beyond. In the distance a strange escarpment of striated rock rose like a whale against the horizon while further to the right a fringe of palm trees indicated the direction of the town. The water, pale with salt, lapped at the edge of the promontory where deckchairs and tables made of old cable reels had been spread out. Two of these chairs were occupied by a European couple wearing sunglasses. They stared out at the water and passed a cigarette between them. The sweet smell of hashish drifted in with the breeze. Nails held between his lips, Luqman was trying to repair a chair that looked beyond salvation. The plasters on his fingers suggested he was not the most skilled of handymen. Seeing them he put down the hammer and got to his feet, spitting the nails into his palm.
‘Ah, Sergeant, let me just . . .’ He started off towards the couple. Hamama waved him down.
‘Leave them in peace. I’m not here for that.’
Luqman blinked at them both as he was expecting bad news. He had a bright, alert look about him, which somehow didn’t belong in this place.
‘How can I help?’ he asked, ducking under the counter to get into the shack. Tacked to the wall behind him was a reproduction of an old painting that showed a man in a turban playing a flute to a collection of tortoises gathered at his feet.
‘This is Makana,’ Sergeant Hamama indicated. ‘He’s . . . uh, helping us.’
‘Yes, I heard, from Cairo.’ Luqman allowed himself a moment to examine Makana before turning away and pouring two cups of tea. Makana wondered if there was anyone in this town who had not heard of his arrival. ‘I already spoke to Sadig and the thin one, I don’t remember his name. I told them everything I know.’
Hamama reached into a pocket for a tin and extracted a pinch of snuff that he tucked inside his lower lip. ‘We just need to go over it once more,’ he said.
‘How deep is the water off here?’ Makana asked.
‘It’s not too deep,’ replied Luqman. ‘We used to have a boat for people to go out on.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder where a small rowing boat lay overturned on the ground. ‘But it needs fixing.’ The wooden hull was a patchwork of repairs. It would have taken a miracle for it to float, and another one to get a sane person to climb inside. The sound of high-pitched laughter drifted back from the couple out by the water. Perhaps in a certain state of mind safety was not of primary concern. Hamama muttered something and ejected a long brown stream of tobacco and spit into the dirt at his feet.
‘Like I said, I told them everything I know,’ said Luqman.
‘Yes, yes. Look, we need to establish his exact movements prior to . . . being killed. You have nothing to worry about, this is standard procedure.’
‘I thought he was found over there.’ Luqman pointed.
‘The body had been immersed in water for many hours,’ said Makana. Luqman studied him while he produced a packet of Marlboro from under the counter and lit one.
‘The Qadi was a respectable man, hard to know why anyone would want to kill him.’
‘Did you see him that afternoon?’ the sergeant asked.
‘No.’ Luqman smiled at the sergeant. ‘You’re doing real good with this detective stuff.’
‘Just answer the question,’ Sergeant Hamama snapped.
‘Sorry.’
‘Yoo hoo!’
All three of them turned to look at the two tourists sitting out on the water’s edge. The woman was smiling and waving her hand in the air. Luqman excused himself.
‘It must make him feel like he’s better than the rest of us somehow, the fact that he’s always dealing with rich Americans or wherever they’re from.’
‘They’re French,’ said Makana.
Hamama frowned. ‘Now how would you know a thing like that?’
‘I recognise the language.’
‘French,’ muttered Sergeant Hamama regarding Makana from beneath sunken eyelids. ‘Of course they are.’
Luqman returned, ducked under the counter and then ducked out again with two cans of beer and a couple of plastic cups in his hand.
‘I’ll bet he makes a good living out here,’ said Sergeant Hamama. ‘And I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few perks in dealing with all those foreign women,’ he added, spitting more tobacco and hitching up his trousers. ‘
Haram
. A young man can easily be led astray.’
‘I don’t imagine the Qadi approved of all of this,’ Makana indicated the tourists sunning themselves. ‘Drinking, smoking, associating with the opposite sex.’