The Ghost Runner

by Parker Bilal

  ‘Better change lanes,’ Makana said.

  Since he had begun to work for him on an irregular basis a few months ago, Sindbad had learned the futility of objecting to Makana’s requests, no matter how unreasonable they appeared. He still had to fight the reflex to protest, but he now knew that trying to convince Makana to see the world the way most people did was like trying to make the Nile flow the other way. Sooner or later you had to accept it wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘Hadir, ya basha,’ he muttered, swinging the wheel to cut into the next lane, causing consternation and some hooting. Makana could see Ragab tilting his head to watch them in the rear-view mirror. If he didn’t already realise he was being followed it wouldn’t take long at this rate. The switch to the right lane proved to be a wise move. Ahead of them the cars were moving, filing past a stalled minibus whose passengers were standing around. Some admired the view, lighting cigarettes as if they were on an excursion to an exotic planet, oblivious to the discordant serenade from the cars stacked up behind them. Others observed the driver and his young assistant, no more than a boy, as they knelt behind the vehicle and rapped optimistically on the motor with a hammer, as if hoping to scare it back into life.

  ‘Stay close to him,’ Makana warned, as his resistance caved in and he reached again for the packet of Cleopatras in his jacket pocket. Something told him they didn’t need to be too careful. Ragab had almost looked right through him.

  Once off the overpass the traffic resumed its usual insane dance, cars hurling themselves into the fray with reckless abandon. Makana was reminded once more that he was still a stranger here, even after all these years. The Khartoum he had grown up in was really no more than a rural backwater compared to this. Sparsely populated with cars, there always seemed to be enough room to get around at a leisurely pace. The truth was that he preferred Sindbad do the driving, despite the added expense, if only because it left him free to think.

  The Bentley slid away from them, passing swiftly through the streets. The dazzle of bright lights reflected in its shiny surface as it sped past the window displays, the flashing neon, and startled mannikins. Bulbs swarmed into arrows, names, invitations: Rahman Fashions, Modern Stylish, Happyness, BabyBoom. A polyglot babel of movie titles, brands, logos, all swimming together in the fluorescent glow like a form of delirium. Then the lights cut away and the Bentley flitted off beneath the trees, slipping into the dark like a moving shadow.

  ‘He’s not taking his usual route,’ Sindbad announced, speaking Makana’s thoughts aloud. They had turned west, towards the river instead of continuing south in the direction of Maadi. A few minutes later they found themselves doubling back, travelling again in the direction of downtown along the Corniche. Ahead of them the big car pulled in to the side of the road.

  ‘Slow down as you go past him and let me out up ahead,’ said Makana. When they rolled to a halt under a tree he indicated for Sindbad to stop. ‘Wait for me here,’ he said. Then he got out and walked back along the busy road.

  The Bentley was parked in front of an ugly modern building with a smooth façade that stood out against the lower, more aged apartment blocks on either side. The car was in an area marked off from the road for visitors by an arrangement of chains and metal posts. Makana watched as Ragab ignored a greeting from a uniformed doorman who rushed eagerly about securing the Bentley in place. Makana entered a lobby that ran straight through the building from front to rear. Two lifts stood on either side. When Ragab stepped inside one, Makana followed suit. He could have played safe and waited in the lobby, but by now he was fairly confident that Ragab was preoccupied enough not to notice him. Moving past, Makana stood quietly in the corner behind the other man. Ragab stared at the floor, oblivious of the world around him. On the eighth floor the doors pinged open and Makana hesitated only for a second before following Ragab out. To the left were a set of glass doors on which the words Garnata Health Clinic were painted. The woman on the reception desk glanced up and, when Makana pointed discreetly at the rapidly disappearing Ragab, went back to her work.

  The clinic was quiet, modern and empty. At the far end of the corridor lay a waiting area complete with a view over the busy road; beyond that lay the dark gleam of the river and the lights of Dokki on the other side. Ragab had continued down another corridor to the right. Halfway down he entered a room on the left. Makana sat down and picked up a magazine filled with pictures of smiling celebrities he had never set eyes on in his life. The only other person in the waiting area was a man with a mottled head and a tube going into his arm. His nose and mouth were covered by a transparent mask. Beside him stood a tall canister of some kind of gas. Makana flicked through the magazine. After a time a male nurse appeared and wheeled the other man away without a word. When they had gone, Makana got up to stroll over and take a look in the direction of the room into which Ragab had disappeared. The two men almost collided.

  Ragab stepped aside without looking up. Makana was fairly certain that he was crying. Tossing the magazine into the heap on the coffee table Makana made his way down the corridor to the room Ragab had emerged from. It was slightly ajar. He could hear nothing from within so he knocked lightly and when there was no reply he pushed the door gently open and stepped inside.

  Chapter Two

  In the middle of the room was a single bed. The figure lying in it appeared to be covered by a tent of transparent plastic. Makana pushed the door quietly behind him and paused a moment to take stock of the situation. There was no movement from the direction of the bed. No sign that his presence had been detected, only the hum of the machine alongside it which appeared to be some kind of pump. A thick tube fed from this into the side of the plastic tent. Above the machine a screen registered the patient’s heartbeat as a series of beeps that drew a green line running from right to left. Makana stepped forward to where he could get a view of the patient and felt his heart momentarily stop pumping the blood in his veins.

  At first he thought he was looking at a mummy. It was hard to tell if the figure inside the tent was a man or a woman. Even being certain it was human took some measure of the imagination. Makana had seen corpses smoking in the aftermath of a fire. The skin charred black and the features dissolved in melting fat. In this case, the face looked like a wax mask carved by a sculptor with an unsteady hand. The eyes were thankfully closed. Most of the hair had been burnt clean off the skull, leaving only the odd tuft of fine blackened wool here and there. An alien from another planet. The blackened hand that rested on the clean sheet was small and crisscrossed with livid scars. Around the tiny wrist a strip of plastic had been fastened with something written on it. Leaning closer, Makana could make out the name, Karima Ragab, and today’s date. Who was she? A second wife? The child of another marriage? The fact that Mrs Ragab was not here, nor any other member of the immediate family, suggested this was Ragab’s own private matter. So who or what was he looking at? He leaned in for a closer look. It was a young woman, her forehead was broad and her features more rough than delicate. It was the face of a peasant girl, simple and open. What was she to Ragab, and what had happened to her? Before he had much time to think the door opened behind him.

  The woman who stood in the doorway was tall, not much shorter than Makana himself. She wore a long coat buttoned up and down. Underneath this she appeared to be wearing dark trousers and a polo-neck jumper. Her head was wrapped in a tightly bound scarf, a dark-blue colour. Her eyes were quick and intelligent.

  ‘Doctor?’

  Makana shook his head. Something told him he wouldn’t manage to pull that one off with this woman. But she too seemed keen to avoid confrontation. In a matter of seconds she had sized him up and apologised before backing out again. In the time it took for Makana to cross the room and step into the corridor she was already at the far end and turning the corner by the waiting area.

  Makana made his way back to the reception desk. The woman sitting behind it looked up at him. She had seen him come in with Ragab and assumed
, naturally enough, that they were together.

  ‘There was a woman here a moment ago. You don’t happen to know who she is?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, sir. Is it important?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Makana looked concerned. ‘It’s just that Mr Ragab has asked me to take care of matters and I don’t want him to be bothered any more than necessary at this time.’

  ‘Of course,’ she nodded, eager to comply. She was young, in her late twenties he guessed, and she was working late which suggested she was not married.

  ‘Were you here when she was brought in?’

  ‘Oh, no. That was this morning. I work the nights.’

  ‘Always? Isn’t that difficult for you?’

  ‘No, I prefer it. It is quieter, generally.’ She observed him carefully. ‘You work for Mr Ragab?’

  ‘Yes.’ In a manner of speaking it was true, although Ragab wasn’t aware that his wife was using his money to pay Makana. ‘For legal reasons, I shall need a copy of the full report from when she was brought in.’

  ‘You mean our register or do you want the police report as well?’

  ‘Both please,’ Makana smiled and glanced at his watch. ‘So long as it isn’t too much trouble?’

  ‘Not at all,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll do it straight away.’

  It took her five minutes and Makana had a moment to take another look around. It was an expensive private clinic. There were dozens of them around the city, of varying standard, but this was clearly one of the nicer ones. When the report came, Makana took a moment to glance over it. ‘What are the chances of her recovering?’

  ‘Perhaps you should talk to one of the doctors.’

  She lifted a phone and a moment later a young man in a white coat appeared.

  ‘This gentleman works for Mr Ragab. He wants to know about his daughter.’

  The doctor frowned. ‘I explained all of this to Mr Ragab earlier.’

  ‘I understand that,’ Makana insisted, ‘but I will be dealing with the legal side of things, so I need a full briefing. Of course, if you’re too busy, Doctor . . . Hamid,’ Makana leaned forward to read the name tag on the doctor’s coat, ‘I can ask Mr Ragab himself. Although obviously, considering the pain he is going through . . .’

  ‘Oh, no, that won’t be necessary.’ The doctor cleared his throat. Working for a legal company had a certain effect on people. Clearly the doctor knew he was on to a good thing working here. He also knew that Ragab was an important client. He didn’t want to upset either.

  ‘Well, obviously, it’s a very serious situation, I’m afraid. The chances of her surviving are frankly not good. She has eighty per cent burns as well as extensive lung damage. The skin is a physical organ, just like the heart or liver. The body can only regenerate so much.’

  ‘You’ve seen cases like this before?’

  ‘You’re asking how much experience I have?’ The doctor snapped, then he reconsidered. ‘I have seen cases like this before. Perhaps not quite so extreme. They occur quite often in the state hospitals. This method of suicide is quite common among the lower classes.’

  ‘Suicide?’

  ‘That would be my conclusion, yes.’ The doctor glanced at the receptionist. ‘If you need a second opinion . . .’

  ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Mr Ragab has full confidence in your work. He knows you are doing your best.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you,’ the doctor murmured.

  Makana sat on the top deck of the awama and watched the lights of the traffic on the bridge as it swept by, the gravelly roar of engines broken by the occasional flutter of a musical horn on a microbus or a taxi. It was close to midnight and it showed no signs of relenting. He found it had a hypnotic, almost calming effect on him. At a distance the hectic, nervous energy became a mild distraction, like the stars in the sky. Aside from the traffic, the night was calm and cool. Nearby the faint sound of studio laughter reached him from the little shack on the embankment where Umm Ali and her children were gathered around yet another tireless game show.

  On his lap lay the copy of the report prepared for him by the reception at the clinic. The fire in which the girl, Karima, had been so badly burnt had occurred at an address in the old part of the city, close to the Ghuriyya mosque. An area where the heart of the historic city was ground down on a daily basis by modern decay and neglect. Neighbours had alerted the emergency services when smoke and flames were seen coming from the location in the early hours of the morning. The victim was still conscious when she was removed from the wreckage and she was the one who had given the police the name of the lawyer Magdy Ragab. When contacted, Mr Ragab had insisted that the victim be transferred to a private clinic whose services he subscribed to.

  What connection was there between this girl and Ragab? The police report was inconclusive. A cheap household kerosene stove was believed to have been the cause of the fire. Whether it had been started deliberately or not, they couldn’t say. Nobody else had been in the location, given as a first-floor flat over a shop at number 47, Sharia Helmiya. Not the kind of neighbourhood you would expect to find a man like Ragab.

  Makana tossed the report onto the desk and got to his feet. The image of the girl lying in the hospital bed had been seared into his memory. The sight of her ravaged face floated in the air before him. Going over to the railing, Makana lit another cigarette and leaned over to look down into the dark swirl of moving water.

  For ten years Makana had been haunted by the memory of his departure from his old life and his entry into this one. Over and over he had run through events in his head, the moment when the car containing his wife Muna and his small daughter Nasra had toppled over the side of the bridge into the river; the same river that ran now beneath his feet, although over a thousand kilometres further upstream in Khartoum. Was that what had drawn him to this precarious houseboat, the need to be near the memory of them, he wondered?

  His recollections never produced any astounding insights or revelations, except the obvious one; that he ought to have been able to find another way to escape, particularly from Mek Nimr – the man who had stepped into his shoes, taken over his office and dismantled the criminal investigations department Makana had run. That one moment seemed to define him. Then, eight months ago, out of the blue, came the possibility that Nasra was still alive.

  At the time he hadn’t known what to make of it. There seemed to be no way of verifying the rumour. Makana realised now that he had never quite believed the story, until this evening. The moment he had stepped up to that bed in the clinic and looked down into the oxygen tent to see the frail, tortured body, he understood that deep down inside of him he knew Nasra was still alive. This evening, as he looked down into the disfigured features of that poor girl in the hospital clinic his mind had fused the two together; his daughter and the girl who lay dying before him.

  Chapter Three

  Mrs Ragab was waiting for him in Groppi’s garden the following morning. A trio of waiters were fussing around her table. The place looked forlorn and abandoned. The ground needed sweeping, the tablecloth had a tear in it. The tea provided was not of the right sort and the staff lacked the proper training. Mrs Ragab appeared to have taken it upon herself to correct all of the obvious defects and was pointing out in no uncertain terms what needed to be done.

  ‘You can’t employ people who look like poor relatives recently arrived from the rif.’

  As if summoned to stand as evidence, a young man with a club foot sidled up with a fresh pot of tea that hung at an angle so that it dribbled from the spout onto his shoes. Mrs Ragab pointed.

  ‘Look, just look at him. It’s not his fault, but you have standards to maintain. This place has a reputation, or at least,’ she cast a withering glance over her surroundings, ‘it used to.’

  The man she was lecturing was a bald, nervous man wearing a salt and pepper moustache and an oversized waistcoat that made it look as if he had lost weight overnight. Wringing his hands
he began waving the club-footed waiter away, who started to go and then seemed to lose purpose and so loitered, uncertain what to do with the teapot he was holding.

  Mrs Ragab was a formidable woman. She could, Makana was certain, be fairly terrifying under the right circumstances. A large-boned woman with an oversized head and dyed blonde hair that appeared to be clamped in place by an invisible net. There was nothing particularly feminine about her. The heavy make-up she wore rendered her face more grotesque than appealing. She looked as if she might eat the waiters for breakfast if there was nothing better on the menu. The head waiter scowled at Makana as he scurried away, herding his flock of minions before him.

  Clutching a perfumed lace handkerchief to her nose, Mrs Ragab ushered Makana to be seated. Leaning towards him, her powdered chin almost brushing the tablecloth, she spoke in a dramatic whisper, despite the fact there was nobody within hearing distance.

  ‘They don’t wash their hands after doing their business.’

  Unable to come up with a suitable response, Makana opted for silence.

  ‘That’s why I insist they boil everything. Never eat anything that isn’t boiled.’

  ‘Mrs Ragab, perhaps we could get to the matter of your husband?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I assume that the reason you asked to meet in this place at such short notice is because you have something for me?’ She fixed him with a wary eye. Mrs Ragab had come to him by a roundabout route. It seemed she had a cousin who owned a number of hotels and news had reached him of a certain person in the tourist trade whom Makana had helped out with a problem. Even then it had taken some time and not a little effort on Makana’s part before she was convinced he would be capable of undertaking the task in hand.