The Ghost Runner

by Parker Bilal

  The needle went into the back of Makana’s ear and he managed to suppress a cry. Still, the pain left him gasping for breath.

  ‘She died, or rather, I thought so until a few months ago.’

  ‘Interesting.’ Doctor Medina dragged the thread through and stuck the curved needle into Makana’s skin again. ‘When was this?’

  ‘About ten years ago.’

  ‘Don’t talk while I do this.’

  ‘You asked me a question.’

  ‘That was just to keep your mind occupied.’

  ‘My mind is plenty occupied, I don’t need distraction.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Doctor Medina carried on, finished sewing, tied off the thread and clipped it with a pair of scissors. After that he turned to the cut on Makana’s right hand. The wire had sliced in at an awkward angle between middle and index fingers. It was deeper than he had realised.

  ‘You are a troubled man,’ murmured the doctor while he worked. ‘Every society is filled with dread or hope when an outsider enters a little community. Dread that he might bring change, and hope that he will do just that. You brought murder. You can’t expect people to love you.’

  ‘It’s not as if this place was the Garden of Eden before I arrived.’

  ‘What do you think Rashida wanted to tell you?’

  ‘She said Ayman had seen a ghost.’

  ‘A ghost?’ The doctor looked amused.

  ‘The ghost of someone he had known a long time ago.’

  ‘I’m going to give you something to prevent infection.’ Makana gasped as the syringe was inserted into the raw wound. It felt as though a hot needle were being pushed into his bone. Makana felt his head swim with the pain. ‘Sure you don’t want that drink now?’

  ‘Perhaps a small one,’ confessed Makana.

  ‘Excellent.’

  Delighted, the doctor got up and went over to the refrigerator from which he produced a tray of ice from the freezer compartment and a bottle of clear liquid. He poured himself a good three fingers into his glass, dropped some ice and half a lime in and tasted it before preparing a more moderate version of the same which he set in front of Makana. ‘Try it. It’s very special. Only a special kind of date is used to make it.’

  The dates may well have been special, but it was hard to tell why anyone would go to the trouble of turning them into alcohol. People went blind drinking this stuff. They lost the feeling in their limbs. Makana sipped cautiously at the icy spirit. It burned its way down his throat and lit a flame under his heart so that it started beating twice as fast.

  ‘I think the ghost Ayman thought he saw was Musab Khayr,’ Makana said, realising that the alcohol had induced a certain recklessness.

  ‘I thought he was abroad.’

  Makana bit his lip as the doctor pushed the curved needle into his hand. His skin felt numb but some of the nerve endings must still have been awake. A sense of invincibility had come over him, tempered by a touch of indifference so that it was almost like watching somebody else being stabbed repeatedly with a needle. As he watched the thread being pulled through he felt like a dead man watching his own carcass being sewn up from a great distance. Makana drained his glass.

  ‘You may be right about this stuff, Doctor, it does help.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Doctor Medina held up his glass to the light in an admiring fashion.

  When the doctor went back to work, however, he seemed distracted, operating with more impatience than caution. His hands were trembling. Perhaps there was a limit to the benefits of his potent wonder. When he had finished he tied off the thread and tossed the needle into the metal dish. Makana looked at the jagged line running along the palm of his hand. He managed to get hold of another cigarette and light it one handed. He looked over at the doctor who had moved around the table to the open window where he too was smoking.

  ‘There is something that ties all of these deaths together. Ayman, the Qadi, Captain Mustafa and now Rashida. And it’s all connected to what happened around the time Musab left here.’

  ‘That was twenty years ago.’ Beyond where Doctor Medina stood, glass in hand, the graceful fronds of the palm trees were visible as dark, slick waves, undulating slowly in the night air. ‘What makes you think Musab would come back here?’

  ‘So, tell me. What was he like?’

  ‘He was a nobody, a small-time thug with big ambitions. He left here in disgrace. He couldn’t come back even if he wanted to.’

  ‘What happened?’ Makana peered into the bloodshot eyes.

  ‘A falling out between thieves. Musab had no choice but to leave.’

  ‘Do you know why exactly, or who he fought with?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ Doctor Medina gulped his drink.

  ‘And Nagat, why did she go with him?’

  ‘I suppose there was nothing left for her here.’ The doctor shrugged. ‘She had nothing to lose, and like so many young girls she dreamed only of the big city lights.’

  Makana left the Norton parked in the doctor’s driveway and walked back to the main square and the Desert Fox Hotel in about ten minutes. He had taken the key with him when he went out, a precaution that in the first instance had been pointless as someone obviously knew he was not in his room. The front door was locked. Was that the usual procedure, or was Nagy not expecting him back? As he stepped into the silent interior Makana was reminded of Rashida. The vision of her enshrouded body in the dark water floated before him. The lobby was already illuminated by the faint slivers of light that had begun to break open the sky outside. Exhausted, Makana climbed the stairs to his room where he dropped onto the bed fully clothed and fell instantly into a deep sleep which seemed to last all of five minutes.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Someone was knocking at the door. Insistently. A pause, followed by another urgent rap.

  ‘Makana, open up! I know you’re in there.’ Sadig was standing in the hallway. ‘Let’s go. The sergeant wants to see you.’

  Without waiting for an answer he started off towards the staircase. Makana assumed they were going to the police station but when he got downstairs he found Sergeant Hamama outside, leaning against the side of his Chevrolet pickup with his arms folded and a matchstick in the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Did I wake you? I apologise. No, actually, I don’t.’

  ‘What is this all about?’ Makana asked.

  ‘It’s about time for you to be leaving us.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Makana said. ‘Did you find the girl?’

  ‘Ah, yes, the girl. The reason you woke me and my wife up in the early hours of the morning and got me to drive out to Cleopatra’s Eye?’ Sergeant Hamama held Makana’s gaze. ‘Sadig, tell Mr Makana what we found out there.’

  ‘Nothing,’ sneered Sadig. ‘There was nothing out there.’

  ‘Nothing,’ repeated Sergeant Hamama. ‘We looked. We were very careful about that. I had people inside the water, dragging it with chains.’

  ‘Someone must have moved her,’ said Makana.

  ‘Naturally. They left the body there for you to see and then waited until you were gone to move her again.’

  ‘It must be something like that. What does Nagy say?’

  ‘Mr Nagy says his daughter is not missing.’

  ‘Then where is she?’

  ‘According to her father she is staying with her cousin in Mersa Matruh.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ Makana said, turning to go back inside the hotel. Sadig put a hand out to restrain him. Makana shook him off. ‘I haven’t finished my work here.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Believe me, your work here is done.’ Sergeant Hamama straightened himself up from the side of the car. ‘I gave you twenty-four hours and you came up with nothing except a lame story about a missing girl. I have guests coming from Mersa Matruh to see this case closed. I can’t afford to have you running about like a mad man screaming about dead girls.’ He tilted his head to one side. ‘You can see that, can’t you?’

  ‘Whoever
killed Ayman and the Qadi is still out there. Rashida is proof of that.’

  ‘So you say,’ Sergeant Hamama shrugged, reaching for his snuff pouch. ‘But according to your own theory, the killer was putting his victims on display. Now, all of a sudden, he is hiding them. Does that make any sense?’ He tucked a large pinch of tobacco under his lip. It gave him a dull, bovine look, but Makana was beginning to see that underneath those heavy-lidded eyes Hamama was anything but stupid.

  ‘Fetch his things.’

  ‘Key.’ Sadig snapped his fingers in front of Makana’s face. He was having a hard time hiding his amusement. Makana ignored him and instead addressed Sergeant Hamama.

  ‘Luqman is innocent. He can’t have killed them.’

  ‘And what makes you so sure of that, eh? You see, that’s the problem with you, Makana. You build all these little theories up, but you can’t accept the truth when the facts refuse to line up.’ The sergeant put his hands on his hips and ejected a long stream of tobacco into the dirt at his feet. ‘Luqman has made a full confession.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Believe it.’ Hamama’s face was bloated and crumpled at the same time. As tough and weary as an old waterbag. He nodded over Makana’s shoulder. ‘See that fancy old house on the corner. Everyone thinks it’s haunted, and in a way it is. Haunted by the old ghosts who used to rule this country like it was their own. Well, Gamal Abdel Nasser put an end to that and confiscated most of it. Since then they have been trying to get it back. Luqman is no different from the rest of them. If poverty is all you know you can manage, but if you are used to finery, why that’s a different proposition.’ The sergeant’s mouth twisted. ‘And there he is serving beer to tourists when he should be the lord of everything he surveys. A glorified waiter. That must be humiliation enough to kill a man, don’t you think? The Qadi turned down his claim for a plot of land and that must have been the last straw.’ Hamama took off his hat, examined the inside and then set it back in place, cocked at a jaunty angle on his head. ‘Case solved. You can go home now with your conscience clear.’

  ‘It still doesn’t explain why he killed Ayman.’

  ‘Once a man has turned that corner and killed, you can’t reason why. You ought to know that.’ Sergeant Hamama spat again. ‘Ayman might have said something, or seen something. We’ll never know. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. Now, either you can hand your key over to Sadig here or you can leave without your belongings. It’s your choice.’

  Makana handed his room key to Sadig and tried to recall if he had left anything of value among his meagre belongings.

  ‘What happened to your hand?’

  ‘I had an accident.’

  ‘Lucky you weren’t killed. That’s the problem with riding around on a dangerous machine like that.’ Sergeant Hamama grunted. ‘You might have had a nasty accident.’

  ‘What if I’m not finished here?’

  ‘Take my word for it,’ Sergeant Hamama opened the car door, ‘you’re finished. Sadig will put you on the bus. I have settled your bill. Consider it payment for your efforts in assisting us in our investigation. Have a pleasant journey.’ A cloud of dust rose up around him as he sank into the driver’s seat, the Chevrolet groaning in protest.

  Makana looked back and saw Nagy standing by the window in the hotel lobby, careful to remain just out of sight. Sadig appeared carrying Makana’s holdall, which he tossed into the back of his own pickup, parked behind the sergeant’s.

  ‘Get in the car, Makana. I’m not going to tell you again. That bus leaves in five minutes and you’re going to be on it.’

  Makana didn’t see that he had much choice at this point. Sadig went round and started the engine. The pickup began moving almost before he had time to close the door. Without exchanging a word they rattled around the square and sped through town to reach the bus station where the driver greeted Sadig warily as he pulled up beside him.

  ‘This is a special case,’ Sadig said. ‘Orders from the sergeant. You’re to get moving right away.’

  ‘But we still have ten minutes to go.’ The driver tapped his wristwatch.

  ‘I don’t care. I want this man out of town as soon as possible. So unless you want to start causing trouble for yourself you’d better get a move on.’

  The driver looked unconvinced. Leaving early would mean losing passengers. Nevertheless, he could see he had no choice. Dawdling as long as he could, he climbed aboard and sounded three long bursts on the horn to hurry people up. Along with his assistant they managed to bundle the last bits of luggage into the bay underneath the bus. Last-minute passengers appeared out of nowhere, hurrying along, weighed down with bags, or trundling up in taxis loaded up with astonishing numbers of suitcases and mountains of sacks trussed and bound to the roof. Makana stood aside to allow them to fuss over their things and get aboard, then he climbed up and sat just behind the driver with his holdall on the seat next to him. Through the front windscreen he saw Sadig leaning against the side of his pickup grinning to himself as the big engine growled and they swept away from the square.

  As the old bus groaned and wheezed its way up the incline, Makana wondered just how deeply Sergeant Hamama was involved in everything. With a full confession Luqman would be sentenced to death in no time and the real killer would get away. Hamama would get his promotion and everything would carry on as before.

  ‘Stop the bus.’

  The driver, who was busy struggling to coax the old machine to the top of the escarpment, threw a worried glance over his shoulder.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘You must stop. I have to get out.’

  The driver waved him off. ‘Forget it. Orders are orders. They could take my licence away, then where would I be?’

  ‘Sadig told you to drive me out of town, which you have done. He didn’t say anything about how far you were to take me.’

  ‘No, no. He was pretty clear about it.’

  ‘If he wants to get off the bus, then let him off,’ an elderly couple sitting to Makana’s right decided to get involved. The woman more vehement than her husband, who adopted a more statesmanlike demeanour, thumping the floor with the tip of his stick.

  ‘I’ve never heard anything like it,’ added the man for good measure.

  ‘He’s a customer like anyone else. He has a right to get on or off where he likes,’ went on the woman.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the driver hesitantly.

  ‘It’s like the government. You put people in office to do a job and they end up thinking they can do what they like.’ The husband was getting into his stride now.

  ‘I am paid to drive the bus, nothing more.’

  There were murmurs of dissent from further back. The driver studied his passengers in the big mirror over his head and decided he had a mutiny on his hands.

  ‘All right, all right. Look, I’m stopping, khalas!’

  The bus was already slowing down as the road levelled out. There was no other traffic in sight. The driver shifted down through the gears and hauled on the handbrake.

  ‘Go on then, if that’s what you want,’ he said, pushing the button to open the door, letting in a gust of warm, dusty air. ‘Only get on with it. I can’t stay here all day.’

  Makana caught a glimpse of curious faces. A row of passengers looking down at him in wonder as the bus started up again, growling away, grating its gears in haste. Then Makana was left alone with the wind and the sand. He breathed in deeply and once again felt that familiar tugging at his insides. Then he gazed down the long incline that led back towards the town and the canopy of palm trees through which a breeze passed like a wave, the fronds bobbed in the dusty air like a soft green ocean. It couldn’t be more idyllic, he thought, as he picked up his bag and started walking.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Madame Fawzia was not surprised to see him. News of his expulsion could not have reached her yet. She turned around to find him standing there on the school veranda.

&n
bsp; ‘I thought you might be back,’ she said, fiddling with her hijab. She cast a nervous glance at his holdall, wondering perhaps if he had come to stay.

  ‘I needed to ask you about a couple of things.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to be quick,’ she said, unlocking the door she had just shut and ushering him into her office before closing the door behind him. ‘I have a meeting in ten minutes.’

  ‘It won’t take long.’

  ‘Very well.’ Glancing at her wristwatch to remind him that she was taking note of the time, Madame Fawzia settled herself behind her desk in the same stiff upright position as on their first encounter, hands raised in front of her, fingers interlocked.

  Makana produced the folded photograph from his jacket. Madame Fawzia looked dismayed at the tattered state of an object that had once been school property.

  ‘Last time I was here you very kindly provided me with this picture.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she said, not without some regret. ‘I was trying to be helpful.’

  ‘And you were, indeed, most helpful. You remember the girl I was looking for, Nagat?’

  ‘What about her?’ Madame Fawzia’s eyes darted left and right.

  ‘You said there were three sisters. The eldest Butheyna went abroad early on. The second, Nagat, moved away around the time the third sister, Safira, disappeared.’

  ‘It’s all ancient history.’

  ‘That’s the problem with history, sometimes it just refuses to go away.’

  Madame Fawzia inclined her head. ‘So, what do you want from me?’

  ‘Tell me about Safira.’ Makana remained standing, close to the wall where the pictures of the schoolchildren were arranged in neat rows.

  ‘What can this possibly achieve?’

  ‘Three people have died so far and I believe their deaths are connected to what happened back then.’

  ‘Three people?’ Madame Fawzia looked mystified.

  ‘Nagy’s daughter, Rashida.’

  ‘May Allah have mercy on her. Such an unlucky man. His wife left him, you know. He says she died, but I think that was just to hide his shame. I don’t think he ever recovered from that.’