Finally, gone seven, Clay emerged from his hide, wrapped his keffiyeh around his face so that he too was veiled, and started down the stairwell.
He walked slowly, bent at the waist and using his stick, as an old man would, drifting through the streets as if in a morphine-induced coma.
What had happened at the flat? Rania had been there while the pervert was still alive. The photographs proved that. But then something had gone wrong. There had been a struggle. Rania’s dress had been torn. Had she been there when the Egyptian was killed? Or had she witnessed the whole thing, been taken hostage by the killers – the Consortium perhaps, the AB, or those acting for them? Or maybe she had left before the killer or killers arrived. And if she had, had the pervert conveyed Clay’s message to her before he was killed? Would she be there, tomorrow, waiting on the square outside Groppi’s? There were a thousand possibilities, each more opaque than the last.
Soon he was pushing through the evening crowds in the Giza market, through streets runneling blood and sewage. He kept walking and at last found himself on the west bank of the Nile. He turned north, followed the river walkway towards Zamalek, where he looked out across the dark water at the smog-blurred lights of the big towers, the red-and-white streams of traffic across Cairo University Bridge. She was out there, somewhere in this city of twenty million souls. Somewhere. Perhaps hers was the spirit to guide him, now that everything and everyone that had defined his life was gone.
Maybe. But first, he had to find her. And then they had to get out.
It was at that point in his philosophising that he realised he was being followed. A dark figure, fifty metres back on the other side of the road, was matching his movements, stopping when he stopped, accelerating when he did. Clay came to a place where the river walk was well lit. He stopped, leaned back against the railing, faced the road, glanced at the figure then looked way. The figure had stopped also, was standing under a tree, behind a parked car, in the shadows, face obscured. Clay reached into his pocket, checked the Glock, put his stick under his left arm and started towards the figure.
Clay didn’t run. But the old-man guise was gone. His pace was determined, quick. At first the figure held its ground. Clay crossed the road on the oblique, closing straight on the target. He was to the median when the figure took a couple of steps backwards, stumbled over a loose paver and moved momentarily out of the shadows. Clay jumped back as a car blared past. Egyptian invective spun in the slipstream. The figure turned and ran. By the time Clay reached the other side of the road, the figure had disappeared into the Cairo night.
10th November 1997. Cairo, Egypt. 08:40 hrs
This morning I took Samira and her daughter to the clinic to visit Eleana again. She is much better, and the doctors say she can be discharged tomorrow.
I sit in my shelter now, staring out across the rubbish-strewn ground at the neighbouring buildings. Yesterday evening I went to see the Kemetic.
He was waiting for me in the same long white robe he had been wearing before. He had tidied the place a bit. He’d lit incense and a few candles. The place looked more like a shrine to Horus than ever. When I arrived, I hung my burqa on the hook at the front door. Underneath I was wearing the most fetching of the dresses that I have kept – a simple cotton shift that flatters my figure. I could see he liked it.
He made us tea, very dark and sweet. We sat in the main room and drank. After a while I asked him about the call he had received.
Ah yes, he said.
Did he give a name? I asked.
It seems you are very popular, good lady. He smoothed his robe across his knees. I can understand why.
I lowered my eyes, smiled. This works well with certain types of men. Thank you.
Ra has made you this way, he said, starting with the ancient Egyptian rubbish again. The sun and the stars and all the gods have created the world and everything in it, and you are yet another example of their perfection.
I tried again, attempting to forestall what I knew was coming. The man who called, what did he say?
Not one, he said.
Pardon? I didn’t understand. He could see this.
Three different men called for you.
I gasped, just a little, giving away my surprise. Three? I asked. Are you sure it was not the same man calling?
Yes. I am very sure. Three different men.
Please, I said, tell me who they were. Did they leave names? What did they say? You know my situation. You have seen. It is very important. Please help me. I must have sounded very desperate, speaking this way, very quickly and out of breath. I could feel the colour coming to my face.
He tugged on that little waxed beard of his, stroking it from chin to tip with his fingers, very slowly and deliberately as he had done before when I had seen him. I could see he was enjoying having put me in such a state of excitement.
Yes, he said, of course. But first, perhaps you would again like to use my shower? You have worn a becoming dress for me, but still, you smell of the street.
I blushed, even more than I already had, and he noticed. No woman likes to be told that she smells, no matter what the circumstances. No, thank you, I said in my best formal Arabic.
He crossed his arms – crook and flail – and stared at me. Please, he said. Wash. And then we can talk.
I knew where this would lead. Of course, I did. I would be lying to you, my love, if I wrote anything else. I had known since before I went there. And yet I had to keep going. There were other ways, of course. But you know I abhor violence. No descent is deeper, no fate worse. How you live with yourself, I cannot imagine. I have other powers even more compelling, and I had already decided I would use them. So I stood, smiled and walked to the bathroom. I disrobed, as before, stood naked looking at myself in the mirror, this other person preparing herself – the other side of me, perhaps. I knew he was out there, thinking about me, about what I was doing, inflaming himself. I knew. And yet I continued. I got into the shower, ran the warm water across my body, soaped myself, washed my hair, rid myself of the filth. It felt good. I took a long time. I thought of you, Claymore. I did not want to come out.
When I emerged, he smiled and asked me to sit. His face was flushed, as if he’d run downstairs for something and back up while I was in the shower. We drank more tea. Then he stood and moved to the cushion next to me. He sat close.
Please, he said, his voice thicker than before, almost a whisper. Let me. He reached his hand towards the front of my dress, the buttons down the front.
I pulled away. Who called for me? Did they leave a name?
He was staring at my chest now, all pretence gone. One of them called from France.
I straightened in surprise, pulled away. Are you sure? I said.
Yes, from Paris.
He reached up again. This time, I did not move away. My mind was spinning. He sighed, undid the top button of my dress, then the next. Cold seized me, despite the heat. I pushed him away. As I did, the button he was manipulating came away, tearing the fabric of my dress.
What was his name? I said, holding him at arm’s length. Was this fool lying about everything – making up these calls to lure me in? Perhaps there had been no calls.
He did not say, the Kemetic breathed. He reached for my dress. I will tell you everything. Please. Lower your arm. For just a moment.
I let my hand fall into my lap. He slid my dress from my shoulders, breathed something I could not understand. He reached up and touched the underside of my bra, ran his fingers across the silk. Heat poured from his body. His arousal was clear and substantial.
Beautiful, he whispered. The most beautiful of the gods’ creations.
Before he could go further I grabbed his hand and turned it into the beginnings of a wristlock. Jiujitsu was compulsory in the Directorate, and even though I barely passed the course, a few techniques have stayed with me. But I have learned, as I have gained experience of life, and of myself, that Allah did not put me here to cause pain, but to del
iver those less fortunate from it.
His wrist was thick, his forearm big, and I had to use all my strength to get the lock to come on. He looked up at me in surprise – that something he considered so beautiful and delicate could wield such power, perhaps. Or perhaps it was just the pain he was starting to feel.
Tell me, I said, continuing to apply as much pressure as I could.
The Kemetic gasped. He said to tell you that you should call him immediately. That he had news.
I released his hand. He rubbed the wrist.
Did he leave a name? I said, hoping that the pain he was feeling might act as a warning. A telephone number perhaps?
No. Only this. A friend. No name. From Paris. He said you would know.
And the others? I asked, beginning to doubt everything he said. The first call could have been from my friend from the Directorate, but how would he have obtained the Kemetic’s number? And besides, I had stated clearly that I would contact him. We were trained never to break protocol. No. It could not be him. The Kemetic knew I was from France. Paris would be a good guess. He was playing with me, keeping me interested so he could indulge his lecherous fantasies.
Amenhotep looked down at my chest. Please, he said. I have told you. Now you must allow me.
I let go of his hand and pulled my dress back up over my shoulders. No, I snapped. You are fabricating all of this, I said. There have been no calls.
Please, he said again, as if shocked that I would accuse him of such a thing. It is the truth. We are allies. We fight a common enemy.
Convince me, I said.
He glanced at my chest, pure lust pouring from him. One of the others, he gave a name. It is a name I do not know. A strange name.
What was it? Tell me.
Nteclom. Yes. Nteclom.
His pronunciation so mangled the name that at first I did not recognise it. Declan? I said, at last, my voice giving away my excitement. Was it Delcan?
He nodded, reached his hand again towards my breasts.
I sighed, reached behind my back, unclasped my bra, let it fall away. He stared at my breasts for a long time, as if wanting to prolong the moment.
He whispered something I could not understand and raised his hand.
I sat, allowed him his pleasure. He squeezed and caressed both of my breasts, and I sat, shamefully passive, my hands at my sides. I felt no pleasure. Only sadness, and a strange sense of pity for us both.
After a short time, I moved away, broke his rapture. Declan, I said. What did he say? Tell me now.
I shall, I shall, he said, standing. Come with me, he offered me his hand.
I stood and made to pull my dress back up over my shoulders.
No, he said. Leave it, please.
I covered myself up.
I have written it down, he said. It was a long message. With an address. For you to meet him. He pointed towards the bedroom. In there.
Of course I knew what this meant. The bedroom. The consummation of our arrangement. If I wanted to know what was in the message, I would have to give myself. I suppose, upon reflection, that I could have tried to overpower him. He was much bigger than I, easily twice my weight, and much taller, much stronger. I know some techniques, but I have not practised them for a long time and the difference in size and strength would have made my chances of success low. I decided instead to lure him in, and if needed, dissipate him with my hand, or as a last resort, my mouth.
Please, do not be shocked, Claymore.
He stood aside, let me enter the bedroom. I turned and faced him, the bed behind me. He closed the door and stood staring at me, breathing hard.
The message, I said. The address. Tell me and I will do anything you want.
His eyes widened and gleamed. He will meet you tomorrow at noon, here in Cairo. At Groppi’s on Talaat Harb square. As he said it, he stepped close, enveloped me in his arms and pushed me to the bed.
I had not expected him to move so quickly. I struggled, but he pinned my arms over my head with one of his big hands and started pulling up my dress with the other. He was very strong. I thrashed my legs, searching for his groin with my knee, but he was too heavy. His weight crushed the air from my lungs. He ripped away my underpants, began positioning himself for entry. I screamed, lashed out with my head and caught him a glancing blow to the chin, which hurt me more than it did him.
Please, he whispered. Do not fight. This small thing, he kept repeating. This small thing. I gave you the message. We can be friends. All the time like this, talking as he placed himself against me and began his violation.
It was then that I stopped struggling. I let the tension go from my body, opened myself for him, lay back, closed my eyes.
Good, he breathed. Good, yes. He was very big.
He released my hands, reached for my breasts.
As soon as he did, I reached my right hand inside my dress and pulled my blade from its sheath around my waist. And then I did something I have never done before, in all my years.
This was a few hours ago. My hand shakes as I write this. Already I know the horror that you have lived with for more than a decade. For no matter the justification, taking another’s life remains the most heinous of sins. I am twice debased, and for these transgressions, I shall never be forgiven.
I curse myself. I curse life. All is sin. And evil is everywhere
In a few short hours I will see you again.
But how can I face you now, my love?
Always So Much To Lose
After crossing the bridge to the western bank of Zamalek, Clay slipped down the embankment into the narrow strip of vegetation that grew along the water’s edge. He moved along the packed silt, through little makeshift gardens and riots of untended bougainvillea and papyrus, the streets above suddenly quietened. Here the Nile was as it had always been, and he could see the lights from the opposite bank breaking apart on the water’s surface, rupturing through the dark leaves and hanging vines. He found a place under the cocooning branches of a young sycamore where the ground was dry, halfway between the embankment wall and the water. He dropped his pack, sat, leaned back against the tree’s trunk, closed his eyes and let the sounds of the river and the city flow over him.
He’d scared off whoever had been trailing him on the corniche. Had it been a policeman, following him from the murdered man’s building? Had it been a local resident, perhaps, a nosy individual who’d seen him on the roof or leaving by the back stairs and decided to follow him, be a hero? Whoever it was, he was inexpert, and sufficiently unsure to run when challenged. Just one more variable, among so many, that Clay could neither control nor define. All he could do was keep going.
He pulled the dead man’s camera from his pocket, switched it on and started scrolling through the photographs. More than three dozen of Rania in that bathroom in various states of undress. Despite himself, Clay could feel his heart accelerate, the blood pump through his extremities. That old ache beset him, would not leave. He took a deep breath, shook his head and kept moving through the images.
There were a few of her fully clothed, back turned to the lens, gazing into the mirror. From the angle the photo was taken, her face was partly visible on the mirror’s surface. Clay zoomed in, stared at the image.
Tears glisten on her cheeks. Her eyes are puffy and red. Her jaw, so delicate, is set hard. Her eyes are dark. There is sadness there. And there is menace.
He scrolled further back. Faces he did not recognise, men in turbans and long beards, a few of the sun at various stages of setting behind the pyramids, photos of the inside of an apartment, more faces, the usual crap people took. He kept flicking. And then, date-stamped March of that year, a series of very different photographs: wire-enclosed industrial compounds and factories with smokestacks belching dark clouds into the sky, armed guards hovering over heavy vehicles, and, where the memory ended, a last photograph of three men and a woman standing outside a public building of some sort. There was a sign displaying Arabic characters on the b
uilding. One of the men was quite young – Egyptian, handsome, dressed in a dark suit and tie. The other was slightly older, early forties perhaps. His skin was pale, sallow. There were dark stains under his eyes as if he had been working eighteen-hour days for a month, under stress. He too was well dressed, with a clean, white, open-necked shirt and dark suit. The woman’s face was partially veiled and she was looking away, as if she did not want to be photographed. The third man was dressed in a long white robe.
It was the dead man in the flat.
Clay turned off the camera, replaced it in his pocket and closed his eyes. Fatigue pushed up against him, tried to force its way inside. A deep emptiness flooded him, poured through the cracks in his defences. And despite the flickering imagery pulsing in his head – faces and breasts and bloody bedsheets – he felt himself slipping away onto that dark voyage, the foretaste of death.
When he awoke, dawn was just a promise on the eastern horizon. The city was quiet. Clay clambered back up onto the corniche and started towards the Zamalek Sporting Club. He knew what he had to do. Whatever had happened after the dead man had taken the photographs of Rania, Clay had to assume that he had already passed on the message and that she would do her best to make her way to the specified rendezvous at Talaat Harb Square at noon. And if she wasn’t there today, then she would be tomorrow. And if not then, he would try the day after. As long as it took. And between now and then, he needed to decipher the contents of the dead man’s journal and the Arabic signs in the photographs.
Whoever the dead man was, he had been close enough to Rania that she had trusted him, at least partially. And in that journal and those photographs there had to be something he could use. He had money, he could pay someone to translate it. Find a student at the university. Anyone. But there was no way he could share any of this with a stranger. He needed a friend. Someone on whom he could depend.
Atef’s flat was a few blocks from the Sporting Club, the home of the big Egyptian’s beloved Zamalek White Knights football team. He lived in one of the big, old, crumbling Cairo apartment blocks that dotted the city like anthills. He and Atef had become friends while working together in Yemen – Clay as an engineer, Atef as cook and manager of the oil company guesthouse in Aden. Clay had come to Cairo a few times back then, when they’d both been off rotation, and they’d spent some time together, walking along the Nile, taking in a couple of practice sessions and even a match. It had been almost three years since Clay had seen him last. At the time, fleeing into the Aden night, with no one else to go to, he’d entrusted Atef with the documents that eventually allowed Rania to expose the Medveds’ corrupt and murderous oil operations in Yemen. Three years that seemed to fill the space of thirty.
Absolution Page 19