Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti)

by Mogford, Thomas

  Spike moved round to his side. ‘You all right there, Solly?’

  Solomon lay on the floor in the foetal position, snapped chair beside him.

  ‘Here, let me help. Have mine.’ Spike hauled him up and brought his own chair round. Solomon sat down carefully, shaking his head.

  ‘I’ll perch,’ Spike said, sitting on the table. ‘So are they treating you OK?’

  ‘I have a slop bucket in my cell.’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘And the guy next door keeps praying. I can’t sleep.’

  ‘It is called the Moorish Castle, Solomon. You didn’t care for Drew Stanford-Trench, they tell me?’

  ‘He was vague on extradition treaties.’

  ‘Well, I’m briefed on those. Want to hear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s good and bad news. The good is that you won’t have to see Drew Stanford-Trench again.’

  Solomon gave a nod.

  ‘Nor me for that matter.’

  Solomon wrinkled his nose as though confronted by a sudden stench.

  ‘Because the bad news is that there’s a new Order-in-Council, extending the Extradition Act 1870. Only passed at the start of the year, part of a broader deal made by the Gibraltar government. Trying to seem squeaky-clean to the EU – any fraudsters skip across the Straits, we get them back. But it cuts both ways. So if the Kingdom of Morocco requests the company of Mr Solomon Hassan, they need only say the word.’

  ‘But I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘They just need a prima facie case.’

  ‘They don’t even have a proper justice system.’

  ‘Oh, I hear Moroccan public defenders can be pretty good. Some of them even speak English.’

  Solomon laid both hands on the table. His thumbs were criss-crossed with dark-flecked scabs. ‘Why are you –’

  ‘They’ve still got the death penalty in Morocco, you know that, Solly? Not used much, but in your case, a defenceless girl, a foreigner –’

  ‘I’m innocent, Spike.’

  ‘You ran.’

  ‘I told you, as a Jew –’

  ‘Where are the witnesses who saw you leave? Where’s your alibi?’ Spike dismounted and came round to Solomon’s side. ‘Let me tell you what I think,’ he said. ‘Stop me if I veer off track.’ He crouched down to Solomon’s level. ‘You’re on the beach, right? The sun is setting; it’s romantic, almost.’

  Solomon stared into the middle distance, picking at his thumbs. Spike leaned in closer. ‘This girl’s new in town, and she likes you, you can tell. You’ve had a few drinks, you’re sitting on the sand, and then suddenly you realise. This is it. This is why you left Gibraltar. This is what you’ve been pumping iron for all those nights alone in your flat. So you lean across and kiss her. And it was that way round, wasn’t it, Solly? But she just laughs. She doesn’t say “Sorry” or “Can’t we just be friends?” She just laughs in your face. And it all starts to come back. Solly the Wally. Simple Solly. Shoved around the playground by the younger boys. You thought you’d left all that behind, the big shot who went to Africa to make his fortune, but now you see that’s how it’s always going to be, and something inside you snaps. You smash your bottle of beer, or maybe you use something on the beach. You jab forward and suddenly she’s not laughing any more. Stop me if I’m wrong, Solly.’

  Solomon blinked behind his spectacles; Spike reached to the floor and picked up the broken chair leg. ‘Take it,’ he said, wrapping Solomon’s thick fingers around the shaft. ‘How does it feel? That weight in your hand. Is that how the knife felt?’ Solomon’s right fist gripped the chair leg, veins rising on the back like worm casts. ‘She was laughing at you, Solly, and she’s Spanish, and God knows, we Gibbos have all had enough of that. So you lunge at her, and now you’re staring at a corpse, and something takes over, an instinct, and you’re rolling her into the water, but she’s heavy, you can’t get her far, but the tide will come in, won’t it, so you’re running from the beach, slowing as you reach the coast road, then it’s home safe to a football match, just to say you’ve done something, and in the morning even you can’t believe it, did you do it? Except the police turn up. They’re all corrupt in Tangiers, who wouldn’t run? And here we are.’

  Solomon was trying to speak.

  ‘Sorry?’

  He shook his head, blinking.

  ‘When did your father leave?’ Spike said, moving in closer. There were flakes of dandruff in Solomon’s hair, dazzling against the greasy blackness. ‘Twenty years ago, was it? Left you and old Mother Hassan behind. She came to see me, Solly.’

  Solomon’s head turned a fraction. The red lines in the whites of his eyes were back.

  ‘That’s right,’ Spike went on. ‘Came to my office this morning, low-cut top, legs akimbo.’

  Solomon’s fist clenched more tightly around the chair leg.

  ‘After your dad left, ima kept you close, didn’t she? No one good enough for her boy. But you got away. Made it over the Straits, promised to send her money, got to Tangiers where no one was watching. Somewhere you could make a move on a girl. Somewhere you could punish a girl.’

  Solomon’s teeth gritted. The chair leg rose, angling towards Spike.

  ‘Away from old ima nothing counts as much, so when a girl laughs at you, the one girl you thought might actually like you, you can shut her up and it won’t matter at all.’ At the periphery of his vision, Spike checked the dimensions of the room. ‘Murders happen all the time in Tangiers, who’s going to notice some Spanish chochi who drank too much and –’

  There was a clatter as Solomon’s grip slackened and the chair leg dropped to the ground. His head slumped down, two oily lines exuding from behind his spectacles. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’

  Spike moved behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder, feeling the surprising tautness of the muscles. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I just had to check.’

  As soon as Solomon’s sobs subsided, Spike sat down on the table and hit ‘record’ on the tape recorder. ‘Twenty-first of August, fifteen twenty hours,’ he said into the speaker. ‘Room 2, Moorish Castle Prison. First client interview.’

  Solomon glanced up.

  ‘Mr Hassan, why, in your opinion, is it unsafe for a Jew to be held in prison in Tangiers?’

  ‘Is this –’

  Spike nodded.

  ‘But you –’

  ‘Answer the question, please, Mr Hassan.’

  Solomon took off his glasses, dabbing at the teardrops with his denim shirt. ‘There was a home-made bomb. Six months ago. At a synagogue in Casablanca.’ He sniffed moistly. ‘The King rounded up all the Islamists. There’ve been reprisals in the prisons.’

  ‘Presumably Jewish inmates are held in separate wings.’

  ‘The attacks happen in the yard. In the canteen.’

  ‘Is this documented?’

  Solomon slid his glasses back on. The lenses were still mottled. ‘The media still gets censored. But people know.’

  ‘And you’re a Sephardic Jew?’

  Solomon nodded.

  ‘Speak up, Mr Hassan. The machine doesn’t register gestures.’

  ‘Yes-I-am-a-Jew.’

  Spike clicked off the tape as Solomon’s lips peeled back. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘My peace of mind.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘If I’m going to represent you.’

  There was fresh blood on Solomon’s thumbs. He continued to pick at them, oblivious. Spike reached over to stop him and he snatched both his hands away, hiding them beneath the tabletop. ‘So I won’t have to go back to Tangiers?’

  ‘We can try and stall them on the Jewish angle,’ Spike said as he walked over to the wall buzzer, ‘but no promises.’

  After counting to ten, Spike peeled the flake of tissue from the camera lens. Thirty seconds later, the metal bolt began to slide.

  ‘Find out the time of death,’ Solomon said hurriedly as the door creaked open.

  Spike
looked round.

  ‘The precise hour. Someone from that bar must have –’

  ‘Twelve and a half minutes,’ Gaggero said as he came in. ‘You’ll tell your old man that, won’t –’ Gaggero broke off, seeing the carcass of the chair on the ground.

  ‘One too many halal burgers for Mr Hassan, I’m afraid,’ Spike said, giving the chair back a prod with his shoe. ‘It just went.’

  Gaggero frowned, then tapped Solomon on the back. As Solomon rose, Spike thought he saw the ghost of a smile on his mouth. Maybe it was a grimace. ‘The girl’s name,’ he said. ‘It was Esperanza.’

  Spike nodded, then put away the tape recorder and returned to the office.

  Galliano was still out to lunch. Spike sat motionless at his desk until the harsh staccato notes of Caprice No. 9 reached their climax. Then he picked up the phone and placed a call to the court of assizes in Tangiers.

  Chapter 8

  Spike watched the paintbrush swish back and forth: the cyan sea, the outline of a boat. A moment later, the Rock of Gibraltar began to loom from the centre of the canvas as Rufus’s long thin fingers worked the brush, each tapering down to a dainty nail.

  ‘It comes to eight pills a day,’ Spike said, looking back down at his list. ‘Four lots of two.’

  Rufus began smudging the area beneath the Rock with his thumb, creating the impression of a dark, foreboding shadow cast over the Straits.

  ‘Dad?’

  Rufus winched up his head, frowning like a hermit disturbed.

  ‘I’ve written down all the times.’

  ‘Pills, pills, pills,’ Rufus said. ‘Pure buggery quackery.’

  ‘The fridge is fully stocked, Dad. Any problems, just give me a call. Day or night.’

  Rufus peered from behind his bifocals, blue eyes freakishly magnified. Silver hair curled onto his shoulders like the tendrils of the spider plants that grew upstairs in his study. ‘It’s you we should be worrying about, son.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Tangiers. Easy place to get entangled.’

  ‘I’m just gathering evidence for an extradition hearing. Three nights, max.’

  ‘City of Perfidy, Jean Genet called it.’

  ‘I’ll bet he did.’

  Rufus laid down his paintbrush. ‘I used to go there every month in the seventies. When the generalissimo had closed the border with Spain. Ferry to Tangiers, transfer, wait, ferry to Algeciras. Ten-hour round trip to go the best part of a mile. A man needs to watch his step. Could run into trouble like the Hassan boy.’

  ‘I really wouldn’t worry about it.’

  ‘There’s always baksheesh, of course. Financial inducement. Foul and filthy lucre.’ Rufus combed his fingers through his hair. ‘Maybe I’ll pay a visit to Mrs Hassan. Damned handsome woman.’

  ‘You just take it easy, Dad.’ Spike stood to help him tidy away the watercolours. He slipped an arm beneath Rufus’s shoulder but he shrugged it away. ‘I’m fine, son. Entro en pala.’

  Beneath the table, General Ironside’s tail tapped out a steady tattoo before he appeared with a scratch of unclipped claws on cork. Spike fell in behind both man and Jack Russell as they creaked upstairs.

  ‘Get some sun in Morocco,’ Rufus said, turning once they reached the landing. ‘You look worn out.’

  ‘I’ll bring you up a cup of tea, Dad.’

  Chapter 9

  Spike stood in front of the mirror, pushing his dark hair back from his forehead and forcing a smile. Jessica was right. Crow’s feet crinkled the corners of his eyes. He let the smile fall. The resemblance to Rufus was there in his height and blue irises, but his full mouth and dark Latin skin were his mother’s. He rotated his shoulder blades, searching for traces of pain. Fifty-fifty, the Spanish doctor had said, that Marfan syndrome passed from father to son.

  Setting the music to low, Spike stretched out on his bed, watching the curtains swirl as the violin strings hit an uncomfortable pinnacle. He’d always been more of a Mozart man, much to Rufus’s disapproval, but now that he’d reached Caprice No. 10, he had to admit there was something haunting in those shrill, tremulous notes.

  Through the open window, the terracotta roofs of the Old Town concertinaed down to cranes and high-rise apartments. Luxury tax-exile accommodation built on land reclaimed from the sea. On the far side of the Straits, the lights of Africa pulsed, as though flashing out signals that Spike was supposed to decipher.

  He tucked his hands behind his head, thinking back to the doctor’s lame attempts at reassurance. The list of famous people who’d managed to thrive with Marfan’s had not been long. Initially the name of Niccolò Paganini had not stood out; indeed, it was only when Spike had learned that Paganini had originated in Genoa that he’d taken an interest, ordering a collection of the caprices online, twenty-four solo pieces designed, so far as Spike could tell, to showcase the composer’s unnatural capabilities. According to the CD sleeve, he could play up to twelve notes a second, handspan stretching over three octaves.

  No. 11 was a caprice too far; Spike reached over to kill the music. A cacophony of karaoke drifted up from Casemates on the levanter. Folding his hands across his chest, Spike pushed the image of Solomon’s bespectacled face to the back of his mind, then willed himself to sleep.

  Part Two

  Tangiers

  Chapter 10

  Spike Sanguinetti stood on the wooden deck of the catamaran, watching the Bay of Tangiers emerge from the heat haze. He’d been here once before, perhaps a decade ago, accompanying an English girlfriend on a quest to buy some authentic Moroccan saffron. They’d arrived in the morning and left by the afternoon. Spike hadn’t stuck around long enough to find out if the mother had liked her present.

  Much of the city resembled a wasps’ nest – box-shaped, paper-white houses clustered on a hillside. The steepest and brightest part was the Medina, a walled zone that still followed the contours of the ancient Roman settlement, stone towers and minarets jutting towards a blurry skyline. Stretching around the bay were the more modern tenement buildings and broader boulevards of the Ville Nouvelle. Curving in front of both was a dark yellow scimitar of sand.

  The breeze fell as the catamaran slowed. The crossing had been calm, belying the dangers Spike knew lurked beneath. British sailors nicknamed this stretch of water ‘The Gut’, due to its hidden, churning currents. The rivers flowing into the Mediterranean replaced only a third of the water lost through evaporation – as a result, extra water was needed from the Atlantic, so speeding up the movement on the surface of the Straits. The denser, more saline waters of the Med, meanwhile, sank down to the seabed and spilled out into the Atlantic, causing the currents at the top and bottom of the Straits to flow in opposite directions. It was what one couldn’t see that needed to be feared.

  An announcement crackled through in English on the tannoy. By the time it had been repeated in Spanish, French and Arabic, its information was outdated. They were already at their destination.

  Grizzled Moroccans in Western dress began filing onto the deck, yawning as they shielded their eyes from the glare – manual workers who’d spent most of the crossing asleep on the bench seats inside. Gibraltar had opened her borders to them in the 1970s, when Franco had shut the frontier with Spain, and labour had been needed in the commercial dockyard. The younger ones were still employed, and this Friday afternoon catamaran brought them home to their families, bundles of Gibraltar pounds sewn into their trousers, plastic tartan holdalls zipped at their feet.

  After passing an industrial mole – cranes, bunkering equipment – the catamaran eased into a buoy-marked lane. From the lower deck, ropes weighted by miniature cannonballs were flung onto a jetty by unseen hands, collected by dark-skinned men in white djellabas, who lashed them to iron ringbolts, creating a creak as the hull battled its restraints.

  The air smelled of diesel and woodsmoke. Spike leaned his forearms on the railings and looked down into the murky water. Just below the surface, a large grey mullet was swimming
in a circle. It kept stopping and flipping onto its side, white belly glinting in the sun. After sinking down a foot or so, it would right itself and swim back up to continue its circle. Its spine was kinked, Spike saw, injured by a boat propeller or malformed through pollution.

  The jaws of the catamaran began to gape as the vans and lorries rolled out. Painted on the side of one, Spike saw a cartoon tomato in sunglasses. As he waited for the passenger gangplank to lower, he took a notebook from his leather overnight bag. Below, the kinked fish still described its circle.

  Chapter 11

  On the far side of customs, families were gathered, women in headscarves trying to sneak a look past each other’s shoulders, toddlers pincering their legs like stag beetles. Spike slid over his passport. The immigration officer had a mongrel look, oily dark hair hanging over a pallid, sunken-eyed face. A Gibraltarian kind of look, Spike thought. ‘Nulli expugnabilis hosti,’ he said as he stamped Spike’s passport.

  No enemy shall expel us – the Rock’s official motto. ‘I’m surprised you left then, compa,’ Spike replied in a thick Gibraltarian accent.

  The officer gave a smile, rubbing his thumb on his first two fingers in the universal gesture of money. Spike pushed on through to arrivals.

  The moment Spike entered the hall, a crowd of hawkers surrounded him like a celebrity lawyer leaving a courthouse. The swiftest on their feet wore knock-off Levi’s and trainers, those behind more traditional white tunics and sandals. ‘Hey, Jimmy,’ called one. ‘Hotel? Lovely price.’

  ‘Amigo!’ cried another, scrumming over his rival. ‘Guide for the Kasbah?’

  ‘DVD film, mein Herr?’

  A tangle of arms extended. ‘Uzbek,’ Spike said firmly.

  The hawkers stared up in puzzlement as a teenager with a downy moustache tugged at the sleeve of Spike’s suit. ‘Du kif, monsieur?’ he whispered.

  ‘Uzbekistan,’ Spike repeated, and the hawkers switched their attention to an American backpacker who’d just come in through the gate.