Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti)

by Mogford, Thomas

  ‘Always the voyeur, Riddell.’

  ‘How much she set you back?’

  Spike stopped. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Your Bedouin whore. I hear they fuck like bitches in season. Arseholes even wider than their –’

  Spike slammed Riddell back against the wall, one hand on each shoulder. His balding sandy head knocked against the stucco. He looked shocked for a moment, then grinned his stained teeth. With a double sweep of the arms, he pushed Spike’s wrists away, using the heel of his hand to jab at the lower part of Spike’s stomach. Spike felt his lips open as a pocket of air puffed between them. He tried to breathe in but nothing happened. Riddell kicked his feet away and he fell to his knees. Riddell kicked him again; he slumped to his side.

  Men in djellabas bustled by, eyes carefully averted. ‘You Gibbos are all the same,’ Riddell said as he stood over Spike. ‘Piggyback on the garrison for three centuries, then on the banks once the garrison’s gone. Inbred camp followers. Leeches.’ Spike felt something warm spatter his cheek.

  ‘Now run along and catch your boat, little Gibbo, and go get your kike out of jail.’ He walked away, leather soles ticking on the cobbles.

  There was spittle on Spike’s left cheek. He wiped it off and staggered to his feet, leaning against the wall until he got his breath back.

  Chapter 68

  ‘A mere two days late,’ Inspector Hakim Eldrassi said as he stood up from his desk. ‘Ouch. I hope that barman didn’t catch up with you.’

  ‘May I?’ Spike said as he sat down.

  Hakim cleared the clutter from his desk, then pushed a sheet of paper towards Spike. ‘The translation on the top is my own.’

  Spike scanned through. ‘Suicide?’

  ‘I was a little surprised myself,’ Hakim said, screwing a cigarette between his lips. ‘Especially as handwriting samples suggested Mr al-Manajah was left-handed and the knife was found in his right. But there you have it. He was a Bedouin. They go a bit crazy when they leave the desert. Hence all the . . .’ Hakim waved his cigarette over the room; seeing the state of his own furniture, he drew it back to his mouth.

  Spike read the rest of the statement. ‘And the Arabic corresponds to the English?’

  ‘No doubt you will extricate yourself on a technicality if there are any problems.’

  Spike signed, then handed it back. ‘Any chance of a copy?’

  ‘In . . . theory.’ Hakim turned to lift two styrofoam cups from the antique photocopier. ‘I’ll telephone the port authorities and have your name removed from the list,’ he said. ‘You should be pleased. Passage home. Trial in Gibraltar. No extradition for your client.’ He dropped the blurred copy onto Spike’s lap.

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘I celebrate the Eid ul-Fitr with my wife and daughters,’ Hakim replied as he sat down. ‘Watch the fireworks. Come back on Monday to deal with a tourist mugging.’ He turned up the corner of a piece of paper. ‘Round up a few of the more persistent sans-papiers.’ He turned up another. ‘It’s most odd. All the big crimes seem to have disappeared.’

  ‘Have you heard of a man called Nadeer Ziyad?’

  Hakim grinned through his fug of smoke. ‘Do you remember the advice I gave you when we first met?’

  ‘Remind me.’

  ‘There’s a catamaran to Gibraltar at 3 p.m.’ Hakim reached into the bin for a scrap of paper. ‘I’ll need to liaise with your friend, Sergeant Navarro,’ he said. ‘The Hassan file will have to be conveyed to Gibraltar. This is my mobile number. Tell her to call me.’

  Hakim clipped the scrap of paper to the photocopied statement. Spike read it as he came out onto the street. Beneath the digits were the words ‘CATCH THAT BOAT’.

  Chapter 69

  A bandstand and bunting-clad Bedouin tent were being erected on the beach below the police station. Spike walked away up the coast road, pausing as a lorry rumbled by, its rear compartment stacked with crates of wide-eyed lambs. He passed a travel agent on the Place de la Marche Verte, where a poster advertised twice-weekly ferries from Genoa to Tangiers. He wondered how things might have turned out had his forebears made that journey across the Mediterranean instead of to Gibraltar.

  As he climbed the winding alleys of the Medina, the hawkers recognised him, steering their approaches elsewhere. ‘Uzbek,’ one of them said. ‘Ma ka’in mushkil.’

  There was a charge in the air, the streets even busier than usual, shopkeepers swabbing foamy terraces, trailer mopeds making deliveries. Spike took out his phone; Galliano picked up at once. ‘Spike! Cacarruca. Where have you –’

  ‘Out of reception.’

  ‘Are you home?’

  ‘Almost.’

  ‘All OK?’

  Ahead, a man with a lank ponytail was queuing at a butcher’s shop. His flaccid double chin quivered as he haggled over price . . . Spike wheeled into a back alley.

  ‘Spike?’

  ‘Did Nadeer Ziyad call the office?’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Didn’t leave a message?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Listen, Spike, I’ve been looking into Dunetech. I even winkled some info out of Napier. It’s not millions we’re talking about. It’s billions.’

  ‘Dirhams?’

  ‘Euros.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘A brace, and that’s just the first round of investment.’

  Threads of silk wound down the alleyway, taut against the tiled walls; Spike followed them until they disappeared through the doorway of a fabric shop.

  ‘How’s the fund structured?’

  ‘From what I could tell this is Nadeer’s chance to persuade Daddy he can run the show on his own. I went down to Companies House, and you’re right, the holding vehicle is registered in Gib. Forty-nine per cent held by third-party outside investors. Thirty per cent by the Ziyad Family Settlement – that’s Nadeer and his old man. Ten per cent by Ángel Castillo. Six in a charitable trust called the Ziyad Foundation. And the remaining five has been siphoned into a separate vehicle called “Interzone Holdings”.’

  ‘Who’s behind Interzone Holdings?’

  ‘Couldn’t penetrate it. Senior management, perhaps.’

  ‘Or the governor of Tangiers. Any mention of Toby Riddell?’

  ‘Checked Google, Lexis. Nothing.’

  Spike jumped at a whip-crack: a woman emptying a bucket.

  ‘Spike?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think you should come home.’

  ‘You’re in good company. Did you check on my dad?’

  ‘Alive and well. Bit bolshie.’

  ‘Taking his medication?’

  ‘So he says. Look, Spike, you’ve done what you set out to do. There’s talk of getting Solomon bail.’

  ‘I’ll give you a call when my boat gets in.’

  Chapter 70

  From the terrace of the Café Central, Spike watched as a chef took receipt of a lamb and led it bleating by a string through the kitchen back door. The Petit Socco hummed and bustled, shoeshine boys doing a brisk trade, elderly fish seller completing a sale. Spike turned up his iPod.

  The last caprice, No. 24 in A minor. Spike listened to the crazed pizzicato, thinking about how Paganini’s sun had started to set from this point on. His life as a travelling virtuoso had taken him to Paris, where he’d poured his earnings into setting up the Casino Paganini. The venture had been such a disaster that he’d had to auction off his musical instruments to pay the debts. With failing health he’d returned south, refusing the last rites of a priest and dying alone aged fifty-seven, spindly arms draped over his last remaining violin, before being buried – toothless and emaciated – in unconsecrated ground.

  Spike checked the time, wondering what aphorism the receptionist might have for this career arc. The boat for Gibraltar left in an hour. He didn’t even have Zahra’s phone number. Another girl cut adrift.

  He switched off the music; the bustle of the Petit Socco refilled his ears. After paying
up, he set off towards the Kasbah.

  Chapter 71

  The maid jabbed upwards with her broom as Spike climbed the spiral staircase. When he reached the door, he slid the small brass key out of the lock. The sun dazzled his eyes as he stepped out onto the terrace. Closing the door, he locked it and slipped the key into his pocket.

  The hot tub burbled, murkier than before, a decomposing lump bobbing in the surface scum. Ángel Castillo was slumped in the same wooden chair.

  ‘Profesor Castillo?’ Spike called out.

  Ángel’s polo shirt was streaked with sweat and whisky. His beard had grown thicker and his deeply tanned cheeks drooped beneath the rose-coloured blotches under his eyes. At his feet lay a half-empty bottle of J&B and a round cardboard box of Moroccan sweets and pastries.

  Spike touched his shoulder and he gave a groan. He shook him and there was a sudden intake of breath, followed by a hacking clearance of the throat. Then he smacked his lips and lowered his head again.

  Spike slapped him hard across the chops; this time his head shot upright, bloodshot eyes blinking as they took in Spike’s backlit presence.

  ‘Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?’ Spike said.

  A smile spread across his cracked lips. For a moment Spike saw he must once have been very handsome. ‘It got to you too,’ he said.

  ‘What did?’

  ‘This city. It got to you in the end.’

  Spike moistened his blistered tongue. ‘I suppose it did.’

  Ángel began to laugh; Spike picked up his glass and sloshed it full of whisky. The smile died. ‘I told you not to come back, Heebralta.’

  ‘Today’s different. I’ve got the tape.’

  Ángel squinted upwards.

  ‘The tape from Zagora Zween.’

  His sunburnt knuckles whitened as he clenched his glass.

  ‘So I’ll ask you one last time: who killed your stepdaughter?’

  ‘You,’ Ángel sighed, whisky dripping down his stubble. ‘Me. Everyone.’

  Spike took out his mobile phone. ‘Just one call,’ he said, holding it up. ‘One call and the tape goes to the police in Gibraltar.’

  ‘What tape?’

  ‘Abdallah al-Manajah’s tape.’

  Ángel clumsily put down his glass, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

  ‘Tell me the truth,’ Spike said, ‘and you get the tape. Lie, and I make the call.’ He stepped forward. ‘You raped her, didn’t you? You raped your own stepdaughter, then murdered her.’

  Ángel made a sideways chop with one hand, sweeping the tumbler off the table where it skidded unbroken into the hot tub. He made a grab for the whisky bottle but Spike got to him in time, digging a forearm beneath his throat and pressing a knee into his thigh. He spoke quietly: ‘When I send that tape to the police everything you’ve worked for will end. Your Dunetech legacy will die. No more Sun King, just a common criminal.’ The hot tub came back on. ‘Nod if you understand.’

  Ángel’s throat made a rattling like Abdallah al-Manajah’s.

  ‘Nod . . .’

  Ángel nodded and Spike withdrew, hearing him gulp in air then cough it back out. He held up a hand as though asking for time; Spike walked back to the bar, returning with a fresh tumbler which he filled to the brim.

  Like a priest giving communion, Spike held the whisky to Ángel’s mouth. He gulped it down as easily as apple juice, then shivered his head, spitting twice onto the decking. ‘Vale,’ he said. ‘We went to meet the Bedouin ourselves.’ He coughed. ‘At Zagora Zween.’

  Spike held up his mobile phone as if to remind Ángel of the threat. Feeling for the recording function on the side, he slid the button forward with a thumb. ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Me and Nadeer. And the site manager, Abdallah. We assumed he wanted more money. Drove him down to the land, told him we would only widen the road, a road that was already there. But that stupid peasant cabrón wouldn’t listen.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘We took him to the site. I showed him a heliopod, explained how much larger the power field could become if only we had the proper access. But still he refused. We had the cash ready, thousands in US dollars. When I opened the briefcase, he shoved it back in my face. Cut my lip. Banknotes everywhere, blowing in the wind. He slipped, hit his head on the base of one of the units. At first we thought he’d just knocked himself out, but then I saw the blood.’ Ángel’s hands were steady enough now for him to feed himself.

  ‘Go on,’ Spike said.

  ‘We panicked. This was Ibrahim al-Mahmoud, the Bedouin elder. The leader of his people. Abdallah told us he knew where the concrete was still wet. We threw the body into the foundations of the hangar, waited until it sank. Abdallah gathered up most of the cash. We told him he could have it if he kept quiet. Then we drove back to Tangiers.’

  ‘But he didn’t keep quiet.’

  ‘There was a video – CCTV from the storage tower. Abdallah said he wanted a monthly stipend or he would take the tape to the villagers. He didn’t ask for much. We paid up and that was the end of it.’

  ‘Until now.’

  Ángel grinned. ‘Abdallah heard about our expansion plans. He got greedy. Came to my office; came here, we argued. Then he saw Esperanza.’

  Spike paused. ‘So Abdallah killed Esperanza because you wouldn’t pay him more money?’

  ‘No,’ Ángel said forcefully. ‘I think Abdallah told the Bedouins in the village. The relatives of Ibrahim. He told them what we had done, and they killed my stepdaughter to avenge the death of their leader. And to punish me.’ Ángel poured himself another glass, eyes starting to glaze. ‘So you are right, Heebralta. Maybe I did kill her.’ He gazed through the trellising. ‘They will come for me next. They are down there, waiting. I have always known it. Los beduinos.’ The hot tub stopped bubbling, exposing a clatter from the doorway. Ángel finished his drink and lowered his head.

  Spike was still on his feet, phone held out. ‘I’ve just come back from Zagora Zween. The Bedouins couldn’t give a fuck about Ibrahim’s disappearance. They only want to keep their jobs. Abdallah didn’t avenge himself by telling them what you did to Ibrahim. It was Esperanza he told. After that, Esperanza threatened to go to the police, so you cut her throat before she could.’

  Ángel’s neck began to sag.

  ‘You killed your own stepdaughter, then had Abdallah killed as well.’

  ‘No,’ Ángel murmured. ‘La quería.’ I loved her.

  The terrace door shook. Spike switched off the record button and returned to the bar, placing the last two bottles of J&B beside Ángel’s chair leg. As he unlocked the door, he found the maid huddled behind it. He passed her the key then went downstairs, Ángel still repeating in the background, ‘La quería . . . la quería . . .’

  Chapter 72

  Spike strode up the rue de Belgique. He’d listened to the recording twice but all that was audible were his own questions and the steady burble of the hot tub. Too much ambient noise. He swore under his breath as he inputted a number.

  ‘I was about to call you,’ Hakim said. ‘We need you to come back to the station. There’s been a problem with your statement.’

  ‘Forget my statement,’ Spike said. ‘I’ve got a body for you.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘In Zagora Zween. Sunk into the concrete beneath a hangar at the Dunetech site.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘A Bedouin elder called Ibrahim al-Mahmoud. Killed by either Ángel Castillo or Nadeer Ziyad. They may be responsible for the murder of Esperanza too. Do you understand me?’ Grilles were rattling up from shop windows. People kept staring.

  ‘There is a witness,’ Hakim resumed, ‘who says she saw you and a girl enter Abdallah al-Manajah’s flat. You never mentioned any girl. You told me you were alone.’

  ‘I’m giving you the solution to a murder and you’re quibbling over witness statements? If you’ve got all this time on your hands, why not drive down to Zagora Zween with a pickaxe and sm
ash up some concrete?’

  ‘Are you at the Hotel Continental, Mr Sanguinetti?’

  Spike stopped. ‘How did you know I wasn’t on the boat?’

  Silence at the other end.

  ‘You asked me to catch the 3 p.m. boat,’ Spike went on. ‘Who told you I wasn’t on it?’

  ‘Where are you, please, Mr Sanguinetti?’

  Spike switched off his phone and continued up the rue de Belgique, hearing the distant wail of a police siren as he neared the Café des Étoiles.

  Chapter 73

  The café was empty save for the same white-haired barman washing glasses. Spike checked the time: 3.50 p.m. Zahra was due at four, Jean-Baptiste at five. He ordered a Coke and sat at a stool, looking ahead at the door through which Jean-Baptiste had disappeared the last time they were here. Moving his drink to one of the low round tables, he waited until the barman had his back turned.

  After knocking on the door, Spike heard the sound of chains being removed as a young Moroccan with severe acne appeared in the gap. Behind him, Spike sensed the familiar glow of monitors. ‘Jean-Baptiste, por favor?’

  The boy shook his head, then closed the door. Spike looked back at the barman, who was staring at him. ‘Mon ami,’ Spike called over.

  The chain jangled to reveal Jean-Baptiste, tall and stern in his white prayer robes. ‘We say 5 p.m., no?’

  ‘Have you seen Zahra?’

  ‘Qui ça?’

  ‘The girl. Zahra.’

  Jean-Baptiste shook his head.

  ‘Does the tape work?’

  ‘I do not try. Later.’

  ‘Can you try now?’

  Someone called from behind him in Arabic. ‘I go,’ Jean-Baptiste said. ‘I find you, uh?’

  The door closed and Spike returned to the table. Another police siren droned outside. The barman continued to stare.

  Spike pressed in his solar plexus, bruised from where Riddell had hit him. It was after four . . . maybe he should just hide out here until the night boat. He drank some more Coke. His phone rang. ‘Zahra?’