Pashazade a-1

by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

  'Yesterday I was as you, tomorrow you will be like me ...' Hani recited from memory the inscription on the base. 'How old do you think it is?'

  Raf looked round at other, more ornate tombs. A few of which had similar square roofs, though most had little domes, cupolas of stone decorated either with starburst motifs, herringbone patterns or intricate, intertwined arabesques. Even the newest ones looked as if they'd been there for centuries.

  'I've no idea,' he said, 'tell me.'

  Hani's lips twisted. 'Twenty years ... Donna told me. My aunt built it for her husband. The pillar broke in the first year and she made the builders replace it for nothing.'

  'But the site ..." Raf scanned the necrotic jumble that crowded in on itself, bent by age and gravity, some of the funerary monuments so close to collapse they looked as though they were trying to shoulder neighbouring tombs out of the way.

  'Bought an old tomb and pulled it down.' The child shrugged. 'Of course, she had to pay someone to carry away the old bodies.'

  'Of course...'Raf nodded at a heavily bent cork tree nearby. 'It's too bright for me,' he said. 'Are you all right with moving?'

  They walked over to the shade together, Hani never once releasing her grip on his hand. She'd been holding on without break from the point they stepped into Rue Cif and climbed into the back of Felix's open-top car. Quite what she thought would happen to her if she let go Raf had no idea, but it was equally obvious Hani didn't intend to find out.

  Just getting her out onto the street had been difficult enough. Getting the kid into the car had taken a major miracle. Though it wasn't until Hani had appeared in a dress, her straight black hair carefully tied back, that Raf even realized he had a problem.

  She'd walked easily enough from the qaa through the courtyard, and less easily from there into the oven-like heat of the covered garden, which was already beginning to wilt after only one day without Lady Nafìsa's attention. But by the time she'd reached the madersa's final squat passage out onto Rue Cif, Hani was shaking with fear.

  'Come on,' Raf had said, tugging slightly on her hand. Her answering yank almost took his arm out of its socket. And as he stared down to where her face was setting into a mask of stubbornness made flesh, realization hit.

  He didn't hear her whisper first time so she said it again.

  'I've never ...' Hani's voice trailed away into silence.

  'You've never left the house?'

  The truth was confirmed in the eyes of the old Sudanese porter who stood watching the anxious girl stand frozen on his doorstep. Self-imposed boxes, that was what life produced, thought Raf bleakly. Simple and basic or complex and jewelled, it made little difference. Prison was still prison and exile was exile, internal or not.

  'Are you afraid?' he asked Hani.

  Her answer was a fierce scowl.

  'Well,' said Raf, 'are you?'

  'No. Of course not.' She bunched her fingers into fists and pressed her hands hard at her side. 'I'm never afraid.'

  He would be. Nine years without leaving the madersa where she'd been born. Without stepping beyond the rear door into Rue Cif, never mind using the carved front portal that led from the house to the busy mayhem that was Rue Sherif. Not that anyone still used the Rue Sherif portal, of course. The sun-blasted street doors might remain in place, but the actual archway behind them had been bricked up ten years before Hani was even born, on Lady Nafisa's orders. The few visitors Lady Nafisa had allowed into the madersa since her husband's death use the entrance in Rue Cif.

  Dropping to one knee, Raf forgot about his new suit. 'Not afraid?' he said. 'Everyone's afraid ..." He was aware of Felix watching him from the waiting Cadillac. 'It's what keeps us alive.' He'd almost said human.

  Hani looked doubtful.

  Raf sighed. He didn't want to run the duty routine, but he was going to anyway, because that was what would work. He and the kid shared a number of the same buttons in common.

  'She was your aunt ...'

  'Your aunt too,' Hani said sullenly.

  Yeah, right. That was somewhere he didn't plan to visit. 'But you knew her properly. Much better than I did.'

  The nod was tiny.

  'And everyone will expect you to be there ...'

  Hani looked doubtful.

  'I'm sorry,' Raf said softly. He stood up, slipped on his dark glasses and struck a pose, one hand tucked into his silk jacket, as if holding a gun. Imperial Assassin V.

  'Hey,' he said, 'Stick with me. You'll be safe.'

  Hani's lips twisted. Only the briefest twitch, but it was almost a smile.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Seattle

  The long blade shone silver. Not as bright as sun on the water in the harbour beyond the shop window where a new Japanese super-yacht sat looking smug and sleek, but bright enough to make the newly arrived English boy glance away.

  Behind a wooden counter at the back of the shop was a Chinese woman hard at work removing a scratch from the mirror-black lacquered scabbard of a Honshu wakizasi. Her shop mostly sold reproduction Japanese swords because that was what tourists in Seattle seemed to want and could afford. The sword held by the boy was real, a fact reflected in its price.

  Cotton bound the ray-skin hilt, its tsuba was pierced and simple, the scabbard was lacquered wood with traces of crazing, where an under-lacquer showed through. But it was the shinto blade that made that particular sword special. Even the fact her great-grandfather died at Nanking wasn't enough to stop her appreciating the katana's stark beauty.

  Hu San Liang had already decided the young tourist would walk out empty-handed. He liked the sword but couldn't possibly afford it. If he'd had that kind of money the boy would have bought the weapon already.

  Instead he was taking a last, regretful look. A few more minutes and he would be gone. Buying a coffee at Starbucks next door, most probably. Some small consolation for not being able to afford what he really wanted.

  Hu San was used to it. The prices in her shop were higher than elsewhere. Partly that was because harbour-front sites in Seattle were expensive, occupied mostly by hotels, franchise chains and exclusive bars. The other reason was that Hu San didn't sell rubbish. She shipped the reproductions from Osaka to Seattle through her own small import/export company. Cheaper reproductions could be bought from Spain or Taiwan for a fraction of the price but she had her own motives for sourcing material from Osaka. Quite apart from an obvious one, which was that her lover was Japanese.

  'How old is this?' The boy's voice was polite, his accent definitely not local. Hu San had watched him come into her shop every day for a week and silently pick up the same sword and pull it respectfully from its simple scabbard to examine the hamon: that wavy temper line where the blade was coated with clay before firing, so that variations in heat would produce a hard but brittle cutting edge, backed by softer but more flexible steel.

  It was the best sword in the shop. Hu San suspected the English boy knew that. She also knew the boy had blanched the first time a price was mentioned, but still kept coming back.

  'How old? Three-fifty years, maybe a bit more.' Hu Son's voice placed her as second-generation Chinese-American. More Seattle than anything else.

  'And the scabbard?'

  'What do you think?'

  The boy picked up the scabbard thoughtfully. When he thought Hu San wasn't looking he flicked a thumbnail across a gold man on the scabbard's side. The circle peeled rather than flaked away.

  'New,' said the boy, looking at the handle. It was all new except the blade.

  'The blade is the sword.' Hu San said shortly. She waited for the question but the boy just nodded.

  'Beautiful,' said the boy. Then, to Hu San's relief, he put the blade back in its scabbard, put the scabbard back on its daisho stand and left her shop. Which was as well, because the Chinese woman was expecting a visitor. And not one she looked forward to meeting.

  Taking a pen from its tray, Hu San moistened a block of ink and began to practise writing her nam
e. She'd practised every day since she was four, which was now just over thirty-five years ago. One day she would get it exactly right, but hopefully not too soon.

  Her Korean visitor wore a dark suit, white shirt and red tie. The uniform of money-men or gangsters. He came in just as Hu San finished her third attempt. Neither bowed to the other and the Korean made no effort to hide his contempt at the smallness of the shop or at how Hu San was passing her time.

  'Try writing an epitaph,' he suggested, 'if you must do that ethnic crap.'

  But Hu San had no intention of dying. At least, not that day and not to any timetable worked out by a Korean. She knew the Korean's name, of course, but wasn't prepared to do the man the honour of using it, not even in her head. She'd known his father and that one had also been stupid.

  'You know why I'm here?'

  Hu San gave the briefest nod.

  The Korean put his hand into his jacket pocket. 'Agree our terms,' he said, 'or else ...' The rest of what he planned to say was lost in the ring of a bell as ZeeZee walked back into the shop and headed straight for the sword. Hu San had been right. The boy had gone next door to Starbucks and nursed a regular latte — at the shelf by the window — while he came up with his proposal. He would put down a deposit on the katana, pay every week and collect the sword when its price had been met.

  He wasn't about to mention that he didn't yet have a job.

  Taking the sword from its rack, ZeeZee slid free the blade and held it out in front of him, feeling the perfection of its balance. Only then did he notice Hu San was not alone and that her visitor was gaping bug-eyed at him like some fish out of water.

  'Go,' ordered Hu San. 'I'm shut now. Come back tomorrow

  'You heard her,' said the suit. 'Move.'

  ZeeZee was never quite sure why he didn't just walk out of the shop. Stubbornness, maybe. Disappointment at not being able to make his eminently sensible proposal. Sheer chance, perhaps. Some half-remembered butterfly stamping its foot way back when he was born. Although, later, the fox told ZeeZ.ee it had snapped awake, sniffed the air and tasted something sour. Tiri was like that, unpredictable. Whatever the reason, ZeeZee lowered the blade and started towards the counter. There was something he really needed to discuss.

  'Out,' said the Korean, jerking his head towards the door. He had a gun in his hand that hadn't been there a second before.

  Inside the boy's head an animal growled and ZeeZee heard a low whisper that hadn't spoken since he was seven.

  Raise the sword ...

  Without pausing to think, the boy lifted his blade, cavalry-sabre-style, and stepped forward. 'Are you being robbed?'

  Hu San glanced from the boy to the Korean and then nodded.

  The growling got louder.

  'Call the police,' ZeeZee's voice was hoarse, way too high. He took a slow breath to steady himself. 'Call them ...'

  Most of his weight ZeeZee rested on his left heel, leaving his right leg forward and heel slightly raised, as he took up the two-handed position taught at school. Man with gun versus man with sword. In theory it was a straight stand-off, but the idea he might actually have to use his blade raised questions of the kind the boy didn't want to answer.

  'Fuckwit,' the Korean said flatly. He was talking to ZeeZee, or rather he was talking at ZeeZee, because his hand was already bringing up the revolver.

  Sun flashed on metal, time slowed, and a katana blade slid through flesh and bit through bone showering the boy with hot rain.

  'Bow,' ordered Hu San.

  For a second the Korean's severed head remained on his neck. Then it tipped forward and fell to the floor. Death smoothing away the man's sudden expression of disbelief.

  The Korean would probably have crumbled forward anyway, though to ZeeZee it looked as if the blood pumping from the man's neck was what forced him to his knees. It rained down around ZeeZee as he stood staring in shock at the razor-sharp blade resting unused in his hand.

  'Could you have killed him?' Hu San asked as she wiped her own blade on a comer of her jacket.

  Could he? ZeeZee didn't find the question odd. But then there was very little in life that he found odd. And it was a good question, even if he didn't yet know the answer. He'd never killed anything, not a fish from a lake or a sparrow with a BB gun, and yet...

  He shrugged.

  'No matter.' Hu San, elder sister of the Five Winds Society, pulled a tiny Nokia diary from her blood-splattered jacket and flipped it open. Her conversation was soft, unhurried and authoritative. ZeeZee didn't understand a word. Just as he didn't really understand how a middle-aged Chinese woman could manage to vault a counter and unsheathe a sword in less time than it took the Korean to raise his gun.

  Stepping round the blood-splattered boy, Hu San walked to the shop door and flipped round a simple sign, from open to closed. Then she pulled down two bamboo blinds and locked the door. 'Shut for stocktaking,' she announced lightly.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  7th July

  Lady Jalila blinked as the crypt's darkness gave way to sudden daylight. Beside her walked Madame Mila, head turned slightly towards the older woman. There was probably only five years' difference in their ages, but the Minister's wife had a confidence that came with money, good clothes and power, even if that power was vicarious and by right belonged to her husband.

  By contrast, Madame Mila felt ill at ease and bitterly resented the fact. She had intellectual brilliance, striking looks and an unbroken run of victories in court from her recent career as a public prosecutor. What she lacked was connections. Lady Jalila knew that. They talked, or rather the Minister's wife talked and the younger woman listened intently, occasionally nodding.

  Both of them were headed towards where Raf and Hani sat in the shade of their borrowed cork tree, backs pressed hard against another family's tomb. Reluctantly Raf climbed to his feet and brushed gravel from his suit. Hani clambered up after him.

  She didn't look at her aunt or the coroner-magistrate.

  'You have my sympathy,' Lady Jalila told Raf. 'And, of course, if there's anything I or the Minister can do to help ..." She smiled, then shrugged as if to stress she wished there was more she could offer. But Raf still caught the point when her eyes slid across to Hani and noticed that the child was clinging to his hand, her fingers glued firmly inside his.

  'Thank you,' Raf said politely, nodding first to Lady Jalila and then at the stony-faced woman stood beside her. 'I'd better get Hani home ...'

  'Your Excellency ...'

  He was the person addressed, Raf realized, turning back. The coroner-magistrate was staring after him, her elegant face at once flawless and utterly cold. Her eyes between darkness and a void.

  The woman was attractive and regretted it. Her brittleness a warning at odds with the warmth of a perfume that featured musk mixed with some botanical element so elusive Raf decided it had to be synthetic. Chemical analogues that fell midway between spices and fruit were big business, even in a city that prided itself on having the finest spice markets in North Africa. He'd seen the hoardings on his way through Place Orabi.

  '... Yes?' Raf said finally.

  'You didn't know your aunt very well, did you?'

  'I hardly knew her at all.' Raf kept his voice cool, matter-of-fact. 'Why?'

  'Madame Mila was just wondering,' Lady Jalila said.

  The younger woman nodded. 'She must have been surprised when she first heard from you. Pleased, obviously ...'

  'She didn't hear from me,' said Raf. 'Until last week I didn't even know she existed ...' And here came today's understatement. 'My father's family isn't something my mother talks about ...'

  'So how did your aunt know where to find you?'

  How indeed?

  'Good question.' Raf let his gaze flick over Madame Mila, taking in the neat row of tiny plaits, her perfect skin and her scrupulously simple suit, which was immaculately pressed but nothing like as expensive as Lady Nafisa's outfit or the suit he was wearing. It was a gaze Raf had
watched Dr Millbank use at Huntsville to bring unexpectedly difficult inmates into line. And the beauty of it was that its effect was almost subliminal.

  'I believe my father keeps an eye on my progress.'

  This time when Raf walked away no one called him back.

  Felix offered to drive them home from the necropolis. But his drive home turned out to be an extended tour of the city that involved a slow crawl along the Cornìche, beginning at the crowded summer beaches at Shatby and taking them past the grandeur of the Bibliotheka Iskandryia (where a rose-pink marble faqade hid 125 kilometres of carefully ducted optic fibre) round the elegantly curved sweep of Eastern Harbour so Hani could see the fishing boats and horse-drawn caleches and then north along the final stretch of the Corniche towards the new aquarium and out along the harbour spur towards Fort Qaitbey, which had once been the site of the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the world.

  Pointing with one hand and steering with his other, the fat man kept up a running commentary that made up in jokes for what it occasionally lacked in historic accuracy. He didn't stop or even suggest they stop, except once on the return trip, when he pulled over an ice-cream van and Hani was given her first ice cream.

  Heading south down Rue el-Dardaa at the end of Felix's impromptu tour they hit afternoon traffic. Squat, brightly carapaced VWs, sleek BMWs, the odd Daimler-Benz mixed in with an occasional bulbous-headed Japanese vehicle, apparently designed around some idealized memory of a Koi. By then, the kid was asleep on the back seat, her head against Raf's side, and Raf was running over his future options and getting nowhere fast.

  There'd be a will to be read. Legal requirements to be observed. But he already knew from something the fat man had said that he was the sole heir. The house was his and so, it seemed, was responsibility for Hani.

  'Sweet Jeez.' The fat man grabbed a hip flask, gulped and put it back under his seat. 'Can't be doing with this.' He spun the wheel hard and Raf suddenly found himself out of the crawling traffic and cutting the wrong way up a one-way route. The fish van headed in the other direction very sensibly mounted the sidewalk and scraped a wall rather than tangle with Felix.