Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti)

by Mogford, Thomas

  ‘This is where they make –’

  ‘The concrete for the bases?’

  ‘I see you’ve picked up Bedouin dialect.’

  ‘Ask him how many more units they’re going to put in.’

  Zahra translated, then listened to the answer. ‘He doesn’t know the exact number. But they start the day after Ramadan.’

  ‘How many workers?’

  She asked again. ‘Hundreds. Half from the village and half on their way back from the desert. The Bedouins can work in the heat.’

  Othman was beckoning to Spike to admire the cement mixer, but he went back outside. A clicking came from overhead: he looked up and saw a heliopod’s mirrored panel rotating. Dust trickled down. There were more clicks as the rest of the row followed.

  Spike squinted into the distance. The sand dunes blocked off the route to the foothills of the mountain range they’d crossed on the bus. ‘Is there a back road that leads to the site?’ he asked Zahra when she came out.

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Could you ask?’

  Zahra called back to Othman, who was marching out of the hangar, gait stiff. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘nothing but desert between here and Algeria.’

  ‘Can you move the sand dunes? Dynamite them?’

  ‘They’re protected by law. Anyway, the wind would blow them back.’

  ‘Rendering your burial ground rather a valuable point of entry,’ Spike said.

  Othman began climbing into the pickup, clench-jawed. From behind came more clicking as the next row of heliopods followed the movement of the sun.

  Chapter 54

  The intervening hours had not improved the goat stew. The front door was closed – the wind was getting up – and the room eye-wateringly smoky, illuminated by oil lamps which gave off waxy, aromatic fumes.

  Othman had taken to staring at Spike as he spoke, using Zahra as an unacknowledged interpreter. Spike kept hearing the word ‘Visa’, the ‘V’ pronounced as a ‘W’. ‘Just tell him I’ll sort everything out,’ Spike said, getting to his feet.

  Salem sat up at once on his cushions. Both he and Othman followed Spike with their eyes, moustaches gleaming with oil from their hastily eaten meal. Salwa and Fatiya were on stools by the stove, bowls on their laps like air hostesses in the galley. They started in surprise, then bowed their heads.

  ‘Disculpe,’ Spike said.

  ‘De nada,’ Fatiya murmured in Spanish, hand over her pink cleft.

  ‘It’s the other way,’ Zahra called from the opposite side of the curtain. Spike re-emerged and walked into the tunnel at the far end of the chamber, unlatching the back door and entering the desert night. An outhouse stood in an open yard; he navigated through the darkness, stumbling in a foxhole. Those heliopods were not doing their job yet – at least not in Zagora Zween.

  The lavatory was just a drop into the earth; Spike smelled faeces disturbed as his urine spattered. He threw down a scuttle of sawdust, then set off back for the house. The wind had started to gust, warm as a hairdryer. A nice Saharan southerly . . . Spike wondered how long it would take to reach Gibraltar and his father.

  A hatchway off the corridor was ajar, light filtering from within. Spike eased it open and saw a handmade wooden crib inside, presumably containing little Rami. Propped on two nails above the crib rested a heavy-looking rifle. Spike listened for a child’s breathing, then returned to the main chamber.

  The crockery had been cleared and a shisha pipe lit. Spike settled back onto his cushions as Othman bubbled smoke through cloudy water. The odour was of apples and cloves; Salem inhaled, then passed the tube to Spike. It didn’t taste like cannabis; didn’t taste like tobacco either. Coals glowed; Spike offered some to Zahra, sensing the gaze of Othman and Salem as she accepted, sucking in and coughing.

  Salwa appeared with coffee. She pursed her lips in disapproval as she gave a glass to Zahra. When the pipe came back, Spike drew in more smoke. This time when he passed it to Zahra, he wasn’t sure who was watching.

  The coffee was granular: pungent and strong. Salem lit some incense in a chalice lined with mother-of-pearl. Outside, the wind swept through the desert. Spike caught Zahra’s eye and they both smiled.

  Othman was speaking; Zahra kept her gaze on Spike. ‘He wants to know what your father does.’

  ‘Retired.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘Teacher?’

  ‘Correct.’

  Othman spoke again.

  ‘He wants to know –’ Zahra began.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If your mother is respectful.’

  Spike forced a smile. ‘Was respectful . . . Not especially, which was one of her most endearing qualities.’

  Othman started to stand, grunting at the curtain as Salwa appeared, headscarf off, black hair halfway down her back. Fatiya followed, hair also loose, a strand gripped in her cleft mouth.

  Othman grabbed Spike’s hand. ‘Yalla ruh,’ he said, shoving it into Zahra’s.

  Fatiya giggled as Spike and Zahra entered the tunnel in the rock.

  Chapter 55

  Zahra sat down on a cushion at the edge of the chamber. Spike turned up the oil lamp, catching his fisheye reflection in its tarnished amber: cheeks dark-stubbled, forehead still shiny with unguent. He sat down heavily beside her, their shoulders touching momentarily as the waxy smell of burning carbon crept through the room. One of the women had tidied away Spike’s bag: his clothes were folded carefully by the wall.

  ‘Embarrassing,’ Zahra sighed.

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  They stared ahead, chests sinking and rising in time.

  ‘I’m sorry about your mother,’ Zahra said.

  Spike altered his position on the cushions.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ There was a pause. ‘She killed herself.’

  He sensed Zahra’s gaze but refused to meet it. He knew how earnest her look would be. They always were. Lying back, he stared up at the dirty, red-draped ceiling. ‘She was a musician,’ he said, ‘Maltese, originally. Twenty years younger than my father. They worked together at the same school in Gibraltar. After I was born, she changed to giving violin lessons at home. Bit by bit, she stopped practising altogether. She used to like a gin and tonic in the evenings; after a while she’d be drunk by lunch. One afternoon, she cancelled a lesson and took the car out. Drove off the edge of a cliff.’ Spike made a sharp whistling between his teeth, indicating the sound of the wind rushing over the bonnet. ‘My father always said it was an accident. Banned alcohol from the house. Bought a dog and that was the end of it.’ He glanced over at Zahra, who’d drawn up her knees beneath her kaftan. ‘Everybody has their tale of woe, Zahra. How about you? Where’s your mamma?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Giving birth to me.’

  He softened his tone. ‘So it was just you and your father here?’

  ‘It was different then. Everyone knew everyone. In the mornings we used to climb the sand dune behind the house. You can bathe in sand before it gets too hot.’

  ‘And now your cousins have taken over the house?’

  An echo came, a groan of sexual activity – Spike thought back to his room at the Continental. Zahra waited for the noise to fade. ‘When my father went away, yes.’

  ‘What do they think happened to him?’

  ‘They don’t want to know. They’re both illiterate anyway.’ She undid her headscarf and her inky hair came free. ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘How does a Gibraltar lawyer end up in Chinatown? That was a strange thing to do.’

  ‘Blame my father.’

  ‘The teacher?’

  ‘Last year he was diagnosed with a rare illness. He needs special medication so I have to go to the Spanish pharmacy each month in La Línea de la Concepción.’

  ‘La Línea de la Concepción,’ Zahra repeated.

  ‘It’s a town just over the Spanish border. It’s
dirt poor so they hate Gibraltarians. They wake up every morning and see the Rock with all its expensive new buildings. They see a car with Gibraltar plates, they scratch it. They find a Gibraltarian alone, they shout abuse.’

  ‘I thought Gibraltarians were basically Spanish.’

  ‘We’ve been cut off from Spain for so long that there’s not much Spanish blood. Italian and Portuguese, Maltese and Jewish. A bit of British, with all the soldiers who’ve been there.’

  ‘Is that where you get your blue eyes?’

  Spike gave her a quizzical look. ‘So one evening I was taking a short cut home. A gang of Spaniards followed me. I saw one flash a switchblade and thought, Run. But they knew the streets better than me. So I walked right up to them. Offered them a cigarette. And nothing happened. People always expect you to run. So I do the opposite.’

  ‘Luck can run out,’ Zahra said. ‘And we had to run, didn’t we?’ The grunts became more urgent. ‘What do you think happened to Abdallah?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘We’ll find out when the post-mortem comes in.’

  ‘You put a lot of faith in the Tangiers police.’

  Spike turned to look at her. ‘I think I found that jeep,’ he said.

  She propped herself up on one elbow. The oil lamp projected long, wavy shadows onto the stone walls, intermingling with Spike’s own.

  ‘It belongs to a man called Nadeer Ziyad,’ he said. ‘Heard of him?’

  Zahra shook her head.

  ‘Co-founder of Dunetech.’

  ‘You think he was driving?’

  ‘Not personally.’

  ‘Then what. . . ?’

  Spike propped himself up too. ‘I’ve got a couple of theories.’

  Their eyes met.

  ‘The first is the obvious one. Esperanza dislikes her stepfather. You bump into her at the Sundowner Club and make her even more suspicious. She goes and talks to an ex-employee, Abdallah al-Manajah, trying to dig the dirt. Abdallah is crazy – you saw his flat. He’s so thrown by this pretty girl coming to see him, he kills her then himself a few days later.’

  ‘And the other?’

  ‘The other is more . . . complicated.’

  Their eyes locked.

  ‘That burial site between the sand dunes,’ Spike said. ‘It’s in a strategic position. Dunetech would have needed it to build their road. Otherwise they couldn’t get in construction supplies. I don’t know your father but . . . let’s just say they did pay him off. That’s an illegal bribe. Maybe Esperanza found out about it. Contacted Abdallah to learn more. That’s why they ended up dead.’

  ‘You think Dunetech would kill them for that?’

  ‘They’re about to sign a massive deal. They can’t afford for anything to surface about the company. Especially as they’re pitching themselves as such a socially responsible business.’

  Zahra moistened her lower lip as she thought. ‘But why go after us?’

  ‘After you, I’m afraid. They knew you’d met Esperanza. They were worried Esperanza might have told you about the bribe.’

  ‘How did they know I’d met Esperanza?’

  ‘Maybe they were following her. Or they spoke to Marouane, found out about your argument. Anyway, yesterday afternoon I mention Abdallah’s name to Nadeer. Three hours later, Abdallah is dead. There’s a pattern emerging.’

  ‘How about your client?’

  ‘Solomon? He just happened to be the last person seen with Esperanza.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s involved?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I know him.’

  ‘You’re very confident about people.’

  ‘We were at school together. Twelve years.’

  ‘So he’s your friend.’

  Spike’s mind drifted back. ‘He used to get a hard time in the playground. I helped him once – got punched a few times, punched a few people back. After that he wouldn’t leave me alone.’

  A louder moan rang out, as though the two brothers were competing.

  ‘How long will you stay here?’ Spike said.

  ‘A week or so. See if I can get any answers about Ibrahim.’

  ‘Ibrahim?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Back to Tangiers to apply for another visa.’

  ‘You’ve tried before?’

  ‘Five times.’

  ‘No luck?’

  ‘You think they want some Bedouin girl in Europe?’

  ‘But your English –’

  ‘Means nothing.’

  ‘Well, I probably ought to get back tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Zahra said tersely. ‘I’ve spoken to Othman. He’ll drive you to the bus stop in the morning.’

  Spike reached for the oil lamp. ‘Mind if I turn this down?’

  ‘Off is better.’

  Spike extinguished the flame. In the darkness he heard a swish as Zahra removed her kaftan. He caught a waft of citrus perfume, then rolled over to face the wall.

  Chapter 56

  Spike woke after dreaming of a thunderstorm. His bladder felt taut, his lungs shrunken and dry, reminding him of why he’d given up smoking. After a minute of trying to go back to sleep, he pushed himself up, cursing under his breath.

  A faint glow was coming from the tunnel; Spike used it to locate his trousers, espadrilles and a fresh white T-shirt, glancing, as he dressed, at the heap of blankets on the far side of the room. He was impressed by how silently Zahra slept, until he realised she was gone.

  He walked through to the main chamber. The open doorway spread a runner of lemony light over the mud-packed ground. The stove was still smouldering as a man lay on the central cushions, arms splayed, cotton nightdress revealing hairy ankles. Spike heard a loud, moist snore: Salem, flat on his back, unmarked bottle by an outstretched hand.

  Spike strode carefully past him to the corridor, catching a whiff of yeasty hooch. The back door was double-bolted; Spike turned round, poking his head through the hatch to check the peaceful shape of Rami, still sleeping in his cot.

  Outside, the light was pale and washed-out, the sun concealed, the stillness of the air oppressive. Desert mornings were not as chilly as he had been led to believe. Moving to one side, he saw a plastic tub soaking last night’s crockery. He unzipped his flies in a corner by a thorn bush. A cockerel crowed. Dew clung to prickly foliage. The rich orange sand dune formed a sharp contrast to the brilliant blue sky.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw a tall, shawled figure emerge onto the dirt track. He zipped up. The sun rose over the top of the dune, and he saw a headscarf sparkle: Zahra. She was walking quickly, glancing occasionally behind.

  Spike stepped out onto the track. Two stray dogs were lying opposite one another, touching paws, enjoying this tranquil, human-free moment. Zahra was about forty metres ahead, skirting the village along the line of the dunes. Spike thought about calling out, but didn’t.

  Approaching the rock face at the base of a dune, he caught the sweet-sour tang of sun-warmed rubbish: the village midden heap, carved into an indentation. A small fox with bat ears watched from amid the rubbish bags and oil drums. Hens pecked on the path. The fox followed Spike with its yellow eyes.

  Zahra had passed the prefabricated houses and was climbing the rocky mound that marked the end of the village. Spike saw her glance left and right; he readied himself to raise a hand in greeting, but she disappeared down the other side.

  A breeze tickled the nape of Spike’s neck as he reached the top of the mound. To his right ran the wide road that led to the heliopods – Zahra was walking parallel to it over arid, featureless scrub. A hundred metres ahead of her lay the green oasis.

  A single needle of light fired from the solar-power site. One became two, until an entire pincushion was gleaming back, bright as magnesium. The sun had mounted the dune behind and caught Spike up.

  He descended the slope, keeping his espadrilles square-on to avoid slipping
. Once on flat ground, he felt solid slabs of bedrock beneath the sand. Three-inch thorns grew between; a pale, translucent scorpion fled Spike’s foot, tail curved like a cracked finger as it plunged into a bolt-hole.

  Spike walked on, feeling the hot roughness rise through his rope soles as the sun teased a first bead of sweat from his brow. Zahra was fifty metres ahead now. He checked behind: the hillock he’d just climbed obscured the village, and for a moment all he could see was the crumbly orange rock and the smooth sand of the dune. This absence of human habitation caused a brief, seasick feeling before he turned back round, taking comfort in the distant tents pegged out around the oasis.

  He increased his pace. The sun troubled him less as the breeze picked up. It gave a sudden blast, like a blow from bellows, prickling his neck with grit. Then the air went still.

  Ahead, Zahra was almost at the oasis. She was jogging now, keen to escape the sun. Spike wondered if he should shout out; instead he looked back round to check his location.

  Head turned, he stared into the distance. The sand dune behind the village appeared to have changed position. It was as though it had stepped forward from the other dunes in order to move up the line. Spike’s eye muscles relaxed and he looked out more clearly. The momentary pleasure at being able to see without squinting ebbed when he realised that the sun had gone in. He glanced up at the sky. A cloud of dust was blotting it out.

  He swivelled back round and started running. The shadows grew darker. ‘Zahra!’ he called, and saw her glance over one shoulder before the dust cloud blurred her to brown.

  Visibility faded further until Spike could see no more than a metre ahead. He slowed down. Was he even going in the right direction? He tried to look around but the sand was too painful. The whistling grew shrill, like a train conductor’s signal. His damp, prickly T-shirt puffed out in front; the ankles of his cargo trousers billowed as he jumped in the air and felt himself carried a metre. The smell was of hot sawdust.

  He could barely see his shoes now. He shouted and felt sharp salty powder coat his throat and nose. An image flashed into his mind of the concrete bases of those heliopods: he crouched into a ball as the sand squalled on his neck and scalp. What if he were buried here? Shielding his eyes, he caught a glimpse of the dune ahead. That meant the road was in the other direction. If he could find the road, it would lead him back to the village.