Dogstar Rising

by Parker Bilal

  ‘Well,’ Father Macarius stared down at the floor. ‘I made a mistake. I was given a second chance and I wanted to do my best.’ He looked up at the church that gleamed before them in the moonlight. ‘It has not been easy, but I think we have achieved something.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘It is a tragedy about Meera. I cannot tell you how sad we all are.’

  ‘Did she ever talk to you about threats she had received? Some letters?’

  ‘Meera knew about threats.’ Father Macarius fixed Makana with a stony gaze. ‘We all do.’

  ‘You mean, because of her husband?’

  ‘I mean, because of her faith, which I believe prepared her for the difficulties she was to encounter with her husband.’

  ‘How do you feel about the fact that she married outside her faith?’

  ‘If a person decides to marry outside their faith it is no business of mine.’ Father Macarius had the even smile of a man to whom such questions were not new. ‘She was a Copt, first and foremost. The rest is’ – a philosophical shrug – ‘formalities.’

  There was a commotion by the door behind them and a group of boys burst into sight with Antun at their head.

  ‘Abouna, Abouna!’

  ‘What is it Antun?’

  The frail boy’s face was flushed. ‘They’ve found another one.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the time they arrived, the alleyway was already choked with people. Makana stuck close to Father Macarius who cut straight through the crowd. But even his authority wasn’t enough in the end. Macarius had to physically throw himself into the fray until people grudgingly stepped aside.

  The house was nothing more than a shell. The roof had long gone and the walls were crumbling, doorways and windows only gaping mouths. There was little street lighting in this part of town and the alley was narrow and dark, lit only by a faint lamp fixed to a wall at the far end. Wires looped through the air overhead. People shuffled around in the dark, jostling for a better view. The road itself was narrow and uneven, slick with centuries of mud and waste so that it now resembled the hide of a strange animal that gave off a warm, thick stench.

  ‘Did someone call the police?’

  A large man in a checked shirt laughed. ‘Police? They won’t dirty their shoes round here.’

  ‘Who is he, Abouna?’ someone else asked, pointing at Makana.

  ‘He’s an investigator,’ explained Father Macarius. ‘He’s here to help.’

  The priest’s authority again seemed to carry weight. Makana found himself in the unusual position of having privileged first access to the victim. It was something of an honour, he reflected. Once upon a time, in what he had come to think of as his previous life, this had been his work. It was ten years now since he had been an inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department. Most of the crimes he had dealt with back then were straightforward batterings. Murderers were not as sophisticated as their fictional counterparts liked to make out. People killed their wives and husbands, their brothers and in-laws, and they did it wildly and without much forethought or planning. Blunt instruments, broken bottles, kitchen knives and rat poison being the weapons of choice. Taking a torch from the man in the checked shirt, Makana stepped closer and leaned in over the body. The man waved people back.

  ‘Give him room to work!’

  Touching a hand to the forearm, Makana estimated that rigor mortis, the stiffness that sets in when oxygen no longer flows through the body, had barely begun. The boy was taller than he had expected and older, perhaps thirteen years old, maybe more. He had been dead less than three or four hours. His face had been bludgeoned with a hammer or some other blunt instrument. Identifying him by his features would be impossible. Makana moved slowly around the body. There was a strong smell of kerosene, the body was doused in the stuff.

  ‘Who found the body?’ he asked over his shoulder.

  The large man in the check shirt seemed to exercise some sort of local authority.

  ‘My son, Emad, he stepped in here . . . to answer a call of nature.’

  ‘It’s disgusting!’ someone yelled out. ‘They use this place like a common toilet.’

  ‘He’s just a boy.’ The man defended his offspring.

  ‘And who taught him to behave like that?’

  ‘Where is your son?’ Makana interjected, before it degenerated into a fully fledged brawl.

  ‘I sent him home. This is no place for a child.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of you, but I shall need to speak to him.’

  ‘Of course, Effendi, I shall summon him immediately.’

  Makana turned his attention back to the corpse. He wondered how long it would be before someone asked to see his credentials.

  ‘Can you tell anything?’ Macarius seemed eager for Makana to prove his abilities.

  ‘It’s hard to tell without a forensic investigation, but it looks as though he died from the beating he took.’ Makana ran the beam of light over the ground around the boy’s body but it had been so firmly trampled that any evidence left by the killer would have disappeared by now. He turned his attention back to the body.

  ‘The bruises indicate that he was still alive when these blows were administered. My guess is that he choked on his own blood.’

  Makana examined the underside of the body. It looked as though he had been killed on the spot. He moved in closer, fanning away the flies that clogged the boy’s nose and mouth. Behind him he could hear more shouting coming from the street. A scuffle that had been going on for some time, he realised, was growing in intensity. He pushed it from his mind and concentrated on the body again. The boy’s clothes were relatively clean. He was wearing jeans and a ragged coat. His hands were filthy. Not just from the place he was lying, but dirt was engrained in the skin, under his broken nails. The beam of light traced the length of the body and Makana’s eyes were drawn to the wrists. There was evidence of old scarring, as if he had been tied up for long periods. But not recently.

  ‘He was held against his will somewhere,’ said Makana. ‘And then he was released.’

  The torch beam stopped on a spot halfway up the boy’s calf. Makana leaned closer and touched the torn fabric.

  ‘May God have mercy on his soul!’ Father Macarius instinctively crossed himself. The gesture provoked an angry response.

  ‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’

  A group of burly men were now clustered tightly around the entrance to the ruined building. Makana recognised a couple of faces who were outside the mosque protecting Sheikh Waheed. Their progress was hampered by the people inside the building who pushed back instinctively, not seeing who was trying to get by them. For a time there was confusion and it wasn’t clear what was going on. Father Macarius tried to make amends.

  ‘I meant nothing by it.’

  ‘Keep your rituals for inside your church.’

  ‘Don’t let him speak!’ yelled one irate man from further back.

  ‘They want to close our eyes to the truth!’ added another.

  Everyone seemed eager to get involved in the fight. Faces peered out of the gloom, like miners trapped deep inside the earth’s crust. The light from torches and hurricane lamps grazed their eyes as if from an approaching storm, lighting up their fear.

  ‘Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.’ Makana regretted speaking the moment the words were out of his mouth. The burly men turned their attention to him.

  ‘What kind of an investigator are you exactly?’

  ‘The kind that can recognise insolence when he hears it.’

  ‘What unit are you attached to?’

  These were the same men he had seen outside the mosque, or at least some of them. He was sure of it. More than likely they were local men, thugs attached to the Merkezi, the Central Security Forces, by some obscure, loosely defined bond. They would be reluctant to reveal their identity, although probably everyone around here knew who they were and what they did.

  ‘This ar
ea must be secured for the scientific unit. Instead of spouting nonsense about religious sacrifices, why don’t you make yourselves useful?’

  ‘Who are you to give us orders?’

  ‘I don’t have time for this.’ Makana stepped boldly forward until he was standing in front of the one he took to be the leader. A large man with a moustache. He had, as far as he could tell, nothing to lose. ‘I never forget a face,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Me neither,’ replied the other.

  It seemed like a good moment to move on, so Makana turned to make sure Father Macarius was right behind him before leading the way out into the narrow alleyway. The crowd made way for them and the burly men took it upon themselves to secure the crime scene. Somewhere in the distance sirens could be heard drawing nearer. Any minute now the riot squad would come charging through waving batons and beating back the crowds.

  ‘It’s better to be gone,’ he whispered. Father Macarius, his confidence shaken, agreed with a simple nod. As they reached the end of the alleyway the man in the checked shirt appeared.

  ‘Let me take you to my son.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Makana asked.

  ‘My shop, just around the corner.’

  It seemed like a good idea. Two minutes later they were sitting in the back of a small grocery shop surrounded by sacks of rice and heaps of red onions. The boy had a defiant look in his eyes.

  ‘Are you Emad?’ Makana asked. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell,’ the boy said. ‘I often go in there, if I have to.’

  ‘You were alone?’

  Another nod. ‘I didn’t see him at first. I mean, I had my back to him. You know, I was facing the wall. But I heard it moving around.’

  ‘Heard what moving around?’

  ‘That would be a cat or maybe a rat,’ the father offered helpfully.

  ‘No, no!’ The boy’s eyes widened. ‘It was the angel.’

  ‘What angel?’ Makana was confused.

  ‘The Angel of Imbaba,’ said Father Macarius. ‘Everyone knows about it. Go on, my son.’

  ‘Well, I started to take a piss and then suddenly I heard it moving and I nearly died. I swear it flew right past me over my head!’

  This earned him a swift cuff around the ear from his father.

  ‘Don’t lie! I told you about that.’ He shrugged at his visitors. ‘He’s generally an honest boy. Ask anyone. He takes care of the shop when I have business to see to.’

  Outside helmeted policemen were milling about in the alley. Batons lifted and fell as they cut a swathe through the crowd. Makana glimpsed the thugs around the entrance. One of them was pointing in their direction.

  ‘We should probably move swiftly along, Father. You must tell me about this angel.’

  ‘Yes of course,’ said Father Macarius as they hurried back towards the church. ‘And there is something else about these killings, something that happened a long time ago.’

  They had just reached the main road when an unmarked car cut them off and two men jumped out and grabbed hold of Makana, one on either side.

  ‘Inside,’ they said, and bundled him into the rear of the car.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘What do I do with you?’

  Okasha sat in the back of the car, hidden from the view of the pedestrians outside by curtains along the windows.

  ‘Since when did you begin to travel like a minister?’

  ‘These are dangerous times. I need to take precautions. And don’t change the subject. We were talking about you.’

  ‘Forgive me, I don’t find the subject particularly interesting.’

  ‘Why are you here, Makana? What is your involvement with this case and how did you manage to arrive before the investigating team?’

  ‘I just happened to be nearby.’

  ‘Coincidence? You’re asking me to believe in coincidence?’ Okasha barked at the man behind the wheel who started off like a racing driver who has just seen the flag go up.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Makana asked.

  ‘Nowhere, but it’s easier to talk like this, on the move. Less chance of being disturbed.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t interested in these murders?’

  ‘I had a phone call this afternoon.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘Who is not your concern. All you need to know is that someone high up in the order Allah imposed on this world wants me to oversee what is happening here, and what is the first thing I find?’

  The driver was weaving the car through the traffic as if he had a death wish. Makana clutched the armrest on the door which naturally came away in his hand. Okasha didn’t seem to notice. There was a distracted air about him.

  ‘Does he have to drive this fast?’

  Okasha ignored the question. ‘This is not coincidence? I’ll tell you what it is, it’s a bad sign, you showing up like this. First the shooting of that woman and now this.’

  ‘Are you being transferred to this from Meera’s case?’

  ‘Meera’s case is still in the hands of the so-called Counter-terrorist Unit. We have to wait for Sharqi to get bored before he hands it over.’

  ‘In the meantime, you are on these child murders? Are you supposed to solve them or keep things quiet?’

  ‘You’re walking a fine line, Makana. We have serious problems in this neighbourhood. A lot of tensions.’

  ‘Which are being increased by people like Sheikh Waheed and his men.’

  ‘You have no interest in Sheikh Waheed, and I tell you this as a friend. He is not someone you want to trouble.’

  ‘Are you saying he is not trying to stir up bad feelings towards the Christians?’

  ‘What is this? Conspiracy theory?’ Okasha circled his hand in the air. ‘Is that what you want to hear? Someone is trying to create chaos inside the country to take our minds off the political problems? You have been spending too much time with your dissident friends.’

  The car lurched sideways across three lanes of traffic to come to halt with a screech centimetres from a lorry loaded with sacks of cement that was creeping along at a snail’s pace. Okasha was jerked forward in his seat and then back again.

  ‘Do you have to drive like a madman!? Can you not drive like a decent human being?’

  ‘A thousand apologies, ya basha.’

  ‘Where do they find these people? I have no idea.’ Okasha straightened his tunic. ‘I am advising you not to get involved in this case.’

  ‘Advising me or warning me?’

  ‘Listen to me, put your conspiracies aside. In this case it is pure common sense. We need to avoid a conflict.’

  ‘What about Meera?’

  ‘I told you. We have to be patient. When Sharqi and his men get tired of running around they will throw it back to me in the hope that I will fail. In the meantime’ – Okasha could not suppress a smile – ‘the motorcycle has been found.’ From a pouch, Okasha produced a thin folder which he opened to read: ‘Suzuki 350cc. Expensive machine. About ten years old. Off-roader model with reinforced frame. Somebody pushed it into a ditch. The plates are missing, and somebody was clever enough to file the serial number off the engine, only they didn’t do a very good job of it.’ Okasha beamed at Makana. ‘Always rely on the criminal mind to make mistakes. So we have a partial number and considering the rarity of the model we may have a chance of tracking it down.’

  ‘And you’re not thinking of sharing this information with Lieutenant Sharqi?’

  ‘He has informants everywhere, so I don’t doubt he will find out sooner or later. Probably later than sooner though, wouldn’t you think?’

  ‘And you don’t think it was political?’

  ‘A Christian woman married to a prominent intellectual and all-round controversial figure? Very possible. You can say what you like in this country, most people have heard it before, but this is not Europe where they are free to burn holy books and crucifixes as they please. Start insulting the Quran and you are touching p
eople in a very private place.’

  ‘So his wife deserves to be shot?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Consider the possibility that she had a lover.’ Okasha’s thick fingers dug into the upholstery as they swerved yet again. The interior of the car was olive green, probably passed on from the army who were never short of funds or equipment thanks to the Americans.

  ‘You’re not saying the husband carried this out? Then what, a jilted lover?’

  ‘The criminal mind is a twisted thing, Makana. You ought to know that.’

  ‘What about the weapon?’

  ‘Ah, now that is interesting. We have shell casings. Nine millimetre.’ Okasha looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Sharqi’s men didn’t get all of them. It seems one of them fell into the pocket of a uniformed officer.’

  Makana tried lighting a cigarette just as they went over a deep rut. It snapped in two, leaving the filter between his lips and the rest in his fingers. Tight-lipped, the driver said nothing. He clung to the wheel like a jockey with a runaway camel beneath him.

  ‘Now, listen to me. Sharqi will come to you and ask you to help him.’

  Makana tossed the filter out of the window and lit the raggedy end of the cigarette. Flakes of burning tobacco launched themselves into the air.

  ‘Why would he need my help?’

  ‘He’s being groomed by Colonel Serrag of State Security Investigations. They are forming a new elite unit. High profile, playing to the crowd. Slow down before you kill us!’ Okasha snapped, brushing embers from his trousers as they were tossed ungainly up and down by yet another bump. The driver remained silent but he did manage to slow to a semi-normal pace. ‘Whatever he tells you, be careful. I can’t help you against someone like Sharqi, and he only cares about getting ahead, up where the air is sweet. So, whatever he promises you, don’t trust him.’

  ‘What if I give you something Sharqi would kill to know?’

  ‘Something like what?’ Okasha frowned.

  ‘The dead boy back there was older than most of the others. About fourteen. And he had a hole cut in his leg by a sharp object.’

  ‘He cut himself shaving.’

  Makana ignored Okasha’s attempt at humour. ‘I think that wound was made by a sliver of window glass that he picked up when I fell over him.’