Riddell escorted Spike down the corridor. ‘Give ’em half an inch,’ he muttered.
‘I’ll walk from here,’ Spike said as the lift arrived. ‘Get my bearings.’
Chapter 14
The tight, whitewashed streets of the Medina were a hotchpotch of religious dress. Men wore beige hooded cloaks, or candy-striped djellabas, or immaculate white robes with perforated kufi caps; the few women wore black veils with eye slits, or embroidered kaftans, or jeans with bandannas over mouths and chunky black Ray-Bans perched on noses. Sub-Saharan Africans strode among them, broad-nosed Nigerians in tribal dress, gangly Masai with tartan blankets draped over shoulders. It was as though the continent of Africa had been tipped upside down and shaken like a pepper pot.
Schoolboys in tunics poured from a side door of the Grand Mosque. Seeing a shadow beneath a scooter trailer, one of them jabbed in a sandal. A kitten darted away as the boy high-fived his friend.
Rugs had been laid out on the road, heaped with pyramids of prickly pears, baskets of star anise, packets of crispy sunflower seeds. The rugs were for sale as well, judging by a merchant thumbing the weave at Spike. A barefoot man in rag trousers staggered by with a tray of samosas on his head, brown chair hooked over a browner arm.
Spike continued up the concentric circles towards the Kasbah, the fortified complex at the top of the hill that had once been the Sultan’s palace. When he saw the white, crenulated walls, he knew he’d gone too far. He tried a different route down, passing an American woman of a certain age arm in arm with a handsome Moroccan youth. The irresistible pheromones of the green card.
Just around the corner was an alley lined with beggars. Spike dropped all his coins into the lap of a cowl-draped amputee. As he rounded the next corner, he found a woman with glaucous eyes, rocking on her hunkers.
Hawkers appeared, the first tapping at a bongo. Offers were made in a babel of languages but Spike strode away, dragging the more persistent in his slipstream. He was closer to the sea now, the air fresh and saline, blending with the fragrant smoke of joss sticks that were wedged in the shutter hinges of leather shops. The owners sat on stools outside, fiddling with prayer beads, watching the sky, waiting.
A cross-eyed man crawled by on his knees, scouring for cigarette ends. Spike watched him stop and pick up a twig, then jam it upright in a drain as though it were the centrepiece of some elegant flower arrangement. Two boys in fake Barcelona football shirts crunched it down as they passed by hand in hand, chatting.
At last Spike saw the sign, painted on a stucco archway. Hotel Continental. Rufus had made the recommendation. ‘An institution, son,’ he’d promised, ‘good enough for Winston Churchill.’ Spike entered the courtyard, where a uniformed security guard sat in a fogged-up hut watching football. He glanced over at Spike, then returned to his black-and-white TV.
Two men stood together at the reception desk. On the counter in front of them sat a triangular cardboard sign: Together Against Terrorism. The floor was of chequerboard marble, with a grand piano with the lid down and a smoked-glass art deco chandelier hanging from the wooden latticework ceiling. The curved staircase looked like it hadn’t been dusted since Churchill’s last visit.
The receptionist was jotting down directions on a free map. The guests said ‘Shukran’ in a Spanish accent, then walked away. One had a shaven head with sideburns like drips of dried blood, the other peroxide hair and sugary aftershave. Both made a moue at Spike as they left.
‘Single, please,’ Spike said. Though old and grey, the receptionist had a chubby, beatific face. He wore the standard white djellaba and sandals but with silver stubble rather than full beard.
‘Is the restaurant open?’ Spike asked once he’d checked in.
The receptionist handed over the key. ‘Hunger is housed in the body, satisfaction in the soul.’
Spike waited for further enlightenment, but the receptionist returned to his seat to pick up a book.
The third-floor landing was decorated with framed maps of Tangiers through the ages: as a Roman provincial capital, a Portuguese colony, an English naval base, and more recently as a hedonistic international freeport, independent of the French and Spanish protectorates that ruled the rest of the country until 1956. Tangier, Tanjah, Tanger, Tangiers – even the present-day name seemed hard to pin down. As Spike passed a doorway, he heard a film blaring within. The adjoining room was his; groaning slightly, he slid his key into the lock.
Wooden-framed bed, cracked dressing-table mirror, en-suite bathroom with inevitable dripping tap. Spike took off his suit, feeling the office lift away as he stripped down to his boxers to unpack his overnight bag: fresh white T-shirts, loose cargo trousers, crisp linen shirt. He’d forgotten his sunglasses, he realised as he stowed the empty bag inside the cupboard. The shutters were closed; he pushed them open to a rooftop vista of water tanks, aerials and washing lines. Doves cooed. The sky was pink, the sun finally gone.
Sitting at the foot of the bed, he picked up the TV remote and found it mummified with yellowing Sellotape. He took out his phone instead as the film soundtrack throbbed through the walls.
‘Been to prison yet?’ said Peter Galliano.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Is that your squeaky fiddler playing?’
‘It’s the next-door room.’
‘Good hotel?’
‘Charming. Listen, Peter . . .’
Spike told Galliano about his meeting with Nadeer Ziyad. ‘He was talking about getting me an audience with the governor of Tangiers. I promised him a media blackout as long as the trial takes place in Gib.’
‘What does he care?’
‘There’s been nothing so far in the Moroccan papers. Dunetech won’t want any bad publicity, particularly as an eco company.’
‘So what’s he like, this Nadeer Ziyad?’
‘Not short on confidence.’
‘To those who have, Spike, shall be given. And you really feel we can keep the media at bay?’
‘All that matters is they think we can.’
‘I’ve already had the Moroccan authorities on to me. They want a DNA swab.’
‘Do it. Keep ’em sweet on the small stuff.’
‘Still no bail though. Flight risk.’
‘Ask Alan Gaggero to schedule me a phone call with Solomon. If Alan’s off duty, try Jessica Navarro. Just don’t say it’s for me. Anything from the Uzbeks?’
‘They liked the vodka bar.’
‘Grevi. I’ll call you later then.’
‘Careful, Spike. I know that tone.’
‘Non me voy de weeken.’
The soundtrack next door had taken on a pornographic slant: moaning, panting. Spike hoisted the shower head to the top of its mast, washed, changed, then descended into the Tangerine dusk.
Chapter 15
The sand felt warm between Spike’s toes. Seeing a discarded syringe ahead, he dropped his espadrilles back to the ground and kicked them on. The breadth of the beach had been a surprise, more than half a kilometre wide, continuing all along the inlet of the bay, port to the left, hills to the right, bright wasps’-nest city rising behind.
Waves lapped at Spike’s feet, propelled by their cross-mix of currents. A shelf of sand rose at the tidemark: if someone had wanted to sit by the sea they could lean on the sandbank and be out of sight of anyone walking behind. Washed up against it was a mêlée of debris: punctured lilo, toothbrush, a plastic doll with a melted face.
Spike took a bite of sandwich. The flat, semolina-dusted bread was spread with a sour and rather delicious goat’s cheese. He looked out at the late sun, spray-painting the crests of the wavelets blood orange. It was a still evening, the beach a biscuity colour in the fading light. In its hard-packed centre, street kids were playing football – the ball spilled to Spike and he side-footed it firmly back. Beyond, the lights of Spain gave a watered-down glow. There was something tantalising about that view, Spike thought, close by yet out of reach.
He walked past the footb
allers towards the road. The row of beach bars was set beneath it, most of them little more than concrete bunkers. Some had gone for a Miami deckchair look, others fenced-off dance floors. Spike took in the plagiarised names: ‘Snob’, ‘Pasha’, ‘Ritzys’. Most looked defunct – boarded-up windows, trussed parasols, tubs of dead hydrangeas with fag butts jammed into soil.
Spike was about to climb back up to the road when he stopped. Thirty metres ahead, a whitewashed customs depot marked the end of the beach. Just in front, sunk into the sand at an angle, was a wooden sign. Half a setting sun surmounted by a curving word, ‘Sundowner’.
The terrace was enclosed by screens of palm fronds and gated by a plywood panel. Spike gave it a shove. It swung open and he crouched through past crates of empty beer bottles and a teetering stack of plastic chairs.
The back door was of salt-corroded steel; Spike put his shoulder to it. Ahead, a corridor led to a screen of velvet. A muffled throb came from behind; Spike felt his way along the cool concrete, then separated the curtains.
Through rotating disco lights, Spike made out the long pale back of a woman. She wore a thong and black, knee-length PVC boots. Her hands cupped her breasts, crimson bra straps dangling as she perched on a small round stage, hip against a pole. Facing her in the middle of a cushioned, seraglio-style set of bench seats sat a suited man. It was too gloomy to see features beyond a pair of large black-rimmed glasses.
Opposite the stripper was another, unoccupied stage, while along the back wall ran a bar with five or six stools. A Moroccan in a leather waistcoat manned it, standing by the sink, topping up a vodka bottle from the tap. The air smelled of perspiration and essential oils.
Spike sat down, and the barman straightened up, replacing the bottle on the mirror-backed shelf behind. ‘Vous connaissez cette boîte, monsieur?’ he snapped.
‘Vodka. No ice. And no water.’
The barman was bald on top but had contrived to scrape together a ponytail from the lank crop on the sides. He reached behind for a different bottle as Spike swivelled his stool. The stripper was facing him now, hands still teasingly over breasts. She had Eastern European hair and a body so thin the ribs stuck out like the timbers of a shipwreck. She bent down, twitching the T-strap of her thong in her client’s bespectacled face. A smack rang out; Spike saw the stripper flinch, then reaffix her come-hither smile.
Spike listened as a techno version of an old Police number started playing, ‘Tea in the Sahara’. A thumb-smeared tumbler slid his way. He took out his wallet and let the barman drink in the notes. ‘Keep the change.’
A hundred-dirham note disappeared into the leather waistcoat with card-sharp dexterity. ‘You like a dance?’ the barman said. ‘Some . . . private room?’
Spike sniffed his vodka.
‘Karim, he dancing later.’ The barman flicked his flaccid double chin at the empty stage. ‘Two hundred dirham.’
Another slap from the podium, as the barman reached below the counter. Lifting out a crate of limes, he started cutting them into quarters with unnerving speed and skill. Spike looked beyond him to a pinboard of photographs: men hugging women, men hugging men, women hugging women. The blade of the kitchen knife ticked back and forth. The sliced limes rolled into a chrome bucket and the crate returned beneath the bar.
‘You know Esperanza?’ Spike said.
The barman smoothed back his ponytail.
‘Esperanza,’ Spike repeated loudly, eyes on the stripper, who tensed up her thighs, thumbs hooked beneath her G-string. The barman lowered his chin into a neck brace of fat. ‘So many girls.’
‘This one’s dead. Found on the beach last week.’
‘You from the Sûreté?’
‘No.’
‘Is like I say before – I never working that night.’
Another slap: Spike glared at the businessman, who was standing to get a better purchase. The stripper was naked now apart from her boots, crouching with one arm linked around the pole. Her face was still turned to Spike.
Spike laid three hundred dirham on the bar top. When it had disappeared, he stepped off his stool and moved to the end of the bar.
‘She come in often time,’ the barman said as he sidled over. Spike caught something sour on his breath that reminded him of the junkies he’d defended while working at the criminal bar in Gibraltar.
‘Western slut,’ he went on. ‘She go with man, woman. Drugs and drink. Oh yeah.’ He sucked in air through his widely spaced teeth. A gold molar glinted.
‘What about the night she died? Did you see who she was with then?’ Spike reached again for his wallet, laying down another hundred dirham.
‘Oh, the little Jew,’ the barman replied as he took the money. ‘He follow her to the beach. Then? Who knows.’
Spike made a feint at the barman’s waistcoat; he skipped back with the certainty of a creature which knows the dimensions of its cage. His hand moved upwards to adjust a spotted dicky bow.
‘You can do better than that,’ Spike said.
‘I never see the Jew.’
‘So someone told you. Who?’
‘No one.’
‘Did they argue?’
‘He quiet man. Good money.’
‘Did she argue with someone else?’
Spike caught an infinitesimal flicker of the eyelid. He laid down another two hundred dirham. The stripper was on her front now, boots apart as the businessman crouched forensically behind. The barman made a grab for the money but Spike got there first, slamming his palm down. ‘Who?’
‘One girl,’ the barman said, backing away.
‘Her?’
‘Different. Maybe two week ago. This one, she throw a drink at Esperanza. They shout so I pull them apart, like two dogs fucking. Few days later Esperanza dead. Throat open like a baby lamb at the Eid. Yessir.’
‘Which girl threw the drink?’
‘She gone now. Owes me money.’
‘Her name?’
Spike crammed the note into the barman’s hand, folding his clammy fingers around the paper. With a smile and surprising grace, the barman pirouetted to swipe a photograph from the pinboard. Two shiny-faced jocks had their arms around a dark-skinned girl. Spike could see only part of her face: high cheekbones, serious expression, black hair tied back with a single strand over one eye. ‘Her name?’
‘Zahra.’
‘Zahra who?’
‘Bedouin bitch. No family name.’
‘Dancer?’
‘Waitress.’
Another slap; the stripper was trying to stand but the businessman had a fist on the small of her back. The barman gazed on, polishing an earhole with a twisting index finger.
‘Second thoughts,’ Spike said. ‘I will have that dance.’
The barman’s pink gecko tongue flapped up and down. ‘Five minute.’
‘Now.’
‘Mo’ money.’
Spike gave a nod and the barman reached below to stab a button beneath the bar top. The businessman glanced up as the music stopped. The stripper drew in her bony knees.
‘What’s your name?’ Spike said.
‘Marouane.’
‘Did you tell the police, Marouane?’
The barman shook his ponytail.
‘When Zahra comes back,’ Spike said, taking out his business card, ‘you give me a call. Understand?’ He picked up the photograph and walked towards the stripper.
Chapter 16
The girl was climbing onto a tiny plywood podium. There was barely room for the pole.
‘Sit with me,’ Spike said.
‘Cost extra.’ Her accent was French with a rough-grained Arabic underlay.
‘Just to talk.’
The girl stepped down, stilettos scraping the porcelain. Spike glanced around. The ‘private’ room appeared to be no more than a converted lavatory: red drapery on the walls, two plastic chairs by the stage, floor-to-ceiling tiles exuding an ammoniac tang of a thousand drinkers’ pit stops.
The girl took one
of the chairs, spun it and pleated her long, smooth legs around. Close up, Spike could see the dark roots of her platinum hair. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Tatiana.’
‘Real name?’
‘Tatiana,’ the girl replied with a smile.
‘Don’t hear that one so much in Morocco.’
The girl arched an over-plucked eyebrow. Spike held out a note which she rolled and slid into her boot. ‘From Algeria. Annaba City. Ten year ago.’
‘How much do you make a night, Tatiana?’
‘You like to take me home?’ She stroked her chin. There was a short, deep scar at its base which no amount of foundation could mask. ‘Five hundred dirham, maybe I –’
‘I’ll give you five hundred just to talk.’
Tatiana started to stand, but Spike caught her wrist. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’m a friend of Esperanza’s.’
She glared down, then draped herself uncertainly back over her chair. ‘You from Spain?’
‘Nearby. You knew her?’
‘I dance for her.’
‘She liked women?’
‘She liked . . . everyone.’
‘Did you see who she was with that night?’
‘I no working.’
‘It seems the club was running itself.’
She smiled again. ‘You friend for Marouane?’
‘No.’
‘Marouane here . . . all times.’ She reached over and ran a long, fake fingernail up and down Spike’s inner forearm.
‘Marouane sells drugs?’
‘If you like, I can –’
‘He sold drugs to Esperanza?’
She folded her arms over the chair back, hiding her chin on top.
‘Do you know who killed Esperanza?’
The coquettish expression slipped. In repose, her face looked very young. ‘Esperanza go to the beach,’ she said. ‘There, avec les sans-papiers –’
‘Sans-papiers?’
‘They coming into Tanger. Pour passer le détroit. All of Africa, waiting. No place for sleep. Sleep in park, cemetery, beach. Dangerous abid man. Eating cats and dogs.’
Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti) Page 5