The Ghost Runner (24 page)

Sadig straightened his beret and produced a set of handcuffs.

‘Is this really necessary?’ asked Makana.

‘It’s nothing personal. I’m just following orders.’ A claim that was flatly contradicted by the thin, sadistic smile that crossed Sadig’s face as he tightened the cuffs around Makana’s wrists before leading him out into the street.

‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see.’

Despite the early hour a crowd had gathered. Makana recognised a few faces. Wad Nubawi stood in his doorway with folded arms. Bulbul’s sad donkey staggered up alongside.

‘Ha,
ya basha
, have these pigs started with their usual tricks on you too?’

‘Get away from here, boy.
Yallah!
’ Sadig thumped the side of the karetta and Bulbul took the hint, skidding away on unsteady wheels.

‘Just say the word and I’ll get you out,’ Bulbul called over his shoulder. Makana watched him go. He was in no doubt that the boy probably could manage such a feat. Nothing about this place surprised him any more.

Chapter Eighteen

They walked up the hill into the ruins of Shali, along almost the exact same route Makana had taken the previous evening. No sign of the young boys this time, nor of the lone woman. The crowd tagged along behind them, perhaps hoping for a lynching. More people were waiting further up the narrow street as they turned a corner. Boys clambered onto unstable walls. Women rocked toddlers on their hips. Where had they all suddenly appeared from? Sadig had to thrust people aside, which he did with some relish, enjoying exercising his powers. And people obviously knew him. When they saw who it was they moved aside swiftly enough. Beyond the rubberneckers was a police cordon made up of a couple of uniformed men. In the distance Makana could make out the skinny, nameless officer alongside the stout figure of Sergeant Hamama. In the background, leaning on a wall was the rumpled shape of Doctor Medina. They were staring intently at something that was hidden from view. It was only when he reached them that he saw what it was.

‘Why is he handcuffed?’ Hamama rolled his eyes.

Sadig shuffled his feet. ‘I thought you told me to seize him, sir.’

‘I told you to bring him here, not arrest him,’ grunted Hamama. He chewed his gum fiercely while the sullen Sadig stared at the ground. Then he barked, ‘Take those things off him. I can’t apologise enough,’ he said to Makana. ‘This is an embarrassment to all of us.’

It still took Sadig time to find the key on the ring he carried on a chain attached to his belt. Makana wasn’t paying much notice, his attention was elsewhere.

The man was sitting upright against the crumbled remains of a wall. There was a good deal of blood on his head and down his face. It soaked into his clothes, which were cheap, ragged and worn. Grey trousers and a brown shirt with a faint pattern of dots and dashes. Makana wasn’t the only person in town with an exhausted wardrobe. In this case, cast-offs handed down to him by his employer no doubt. The blood had formed a darker stain in the shirt, running down in an irregular shape that pooled in his lap. His hands lay in the dust on either side of him. Some kind of creature, a dog perhaps, had chewed at his fingers which were raw and exposed. The whiteness of bone protruded on which black and blue flies glistened in frenzied movement. It took a moment to recognise Ayman, the hotel porter. His head was tilted to one side and one might have concluded from his appearance that he had simply sunk down to the ground exhausted and fallen asleep. If not for the blood, that had congealed into a stiff sheet on his chest and on his head, where more flies glistened and buzzed furiously. They grew more intense the further down the body they moved. Makana followed the trail downwards. The man’s trousers had been pulled down and the genital area mutilated savagely.

‘Was it the dogs that got to him?’

‘I thought that at first,’ Doctor Medina said with a heavy sigh. He had designated himself official crime-scene photographer, the murders having stirred a professional streak in him that had not been seen in years. ‘Some pieces are undoubtedly missing,’ he said as he snapped a couple more shots of the lower body.

A shudder went through Sergeant Hamama as he met Makana’s eye. Then he turned to his men. ‘We have to keep this quiet. Do you hear what I say? Not a word of this outside this circle.’

Doctor Medina tutted and rolled his head. ‘How long do you think that’s going to last?’

‘It’ll last until I say so.’ Sergeant Hamama stared at his men. There were grunts of obedience. ‘Poor kid, he wasn’t right in the head, you know?’

Makana massaged his wrists as he took a closer look. He hadn’t paid much attention to the stooped figure who shuffled around in the gloom behind the reception counter, or along the dark corridor beneath the stairs. Ayman was usually to be seen carrying crates in and out of the storeroom at the back, or dragging a dirty rag over the floor.

‘Trying to pretend you don’t know your own victim?’ Sadig grunted impatiently.

Makana stared at the corporal and wondered what the source of this hatred was. Had he done something to offend him, or was there something here that he wasn’t seeing? He turned to Hamama.

‘Am I being accused of something?’

The sergeant shifted his weight, hands on his ample hips. ‘There are witnesses who say they saw you near here last night. Someone give me a cigarette.’

‘I thought you’d given up, Captain,’ said the weedy officer, producing a packet from his tunic.

‘That’ll have to wait, and don’t call me that.’ His eyes flickered towards Makana as he spat out his gum. ‘I’m not captain.’

‘Not yet,’ grinned the toothy officer as he struck a match. Sergeant Hamama drew the smoke into his lungs and exhaled slowly.

‘What witnesses?’ Makana asked.

‘Some local boys who were playing up here.’ Sergeant Hamama studied the tip of his cigarette. ‘These things taste worse than ever. I must be getting old.’

‘And that makes me the murderer?’

‘Are you going to try and deny it?’ Sadig demanded.

Makana turned to face him. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of being wrong?’

Sadig went for him then but somehow the skinny officer managed to get in the way and the blow hit him in the side of the head, sending him reeling. Sergeant Hamama then grabbed Sadig by the scruff of his neck and threw him backwards with remarkable ease. Underneath the thick layer of padding there was still a good deal of muscle.

‘What kind of fools do I have working for me?’ Hamama yelled, snapping his lighted cigarette at the man. Embers popped off Sadig’s tunic. ‘Why am I surrounded by idiots?’

‘Captain,’ the skinny officer murmured. ‘Ya Captain.’

‘What is it?’ Hamama snapped.

The skinny officer nodded down the hill to where the crowd was watching the show with their mouths hanging open. Hamama turned on him.

‘I told you to get those people back!’

The sergeant turned to Makana. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can keep this thing under control. This is the second murder in a week. We’ve never seen anything like this.’

‘It’s the same killer.’

‘And you’re going to help me catch him.’ Hamama brought his face close. ‘I don’t want you going anywhere. I want you to remain right where I can see you.’ With that he took a step backwards and tried to compose himself. ‘Doctor,’ he said quietly over his shoulder, ‘what can you tell me?’

‘It’s hard to say anything at this point,’ began Doctor Medina.

‘I don’t want to hear that!’ Sergeant Hamama yelled. ‘You understand me? I need you to help me here. Give me something.’

Doctor Medina pushed his glasses back up his nose. His eyes darted from side to side. ‘Whatever your men have not managed to contaminate has been disturbed by animals and the kids who found the body. I mean, in terms of forensic evidence, I don’t know.’

‘It’s not the evidence,’ said Makana. Everyone turned towards him. ‘Forensic evidence can only tell us so much. We don’t have anything to compare it to. We don’t have the resources or the time. The killer has struck twice within three days.’

‘What are you saying?’ Sergeant Hamama held up a hand for silence. All attention was focussed on Makana now.

Makana took a deep breath. ‘I’m saying we need to ask ourselves why – why was he killed this way?’

Sergeant Hamama lowered his head and stared at the ground. ‘Why? What does that tell us?’

‘He means we need to pay attention to the method used,’ said Doctor Medina. ‘I agree with him. This looks like a similar type of mutilation as we saw on the Qadi.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Hamama. ‘What is this person doing?’

Makana looked down at the sad figure on the ground. There was something pathetic about the exposed feet, gnarled and callused from years of going barefoot. It didn’t seem like much of a death. Makana turned to Sergeant Hamama.

‘Most murders are committed in a domestic setting. In the home. The husband hits his wife too hard, or the wife gets tired of her husband’s bullying. It takes place in a heated moment, with no thought or calculation. The killer loses control. There is no thought of how to cover it up, how to hide, that comes later if it comes at all. Most murders are solved, as you know, Sergeant, by the murderer walking into a police station and confessing. What we have here is different.’

‘Thank you, but I think I can see that,’ snapped Hamama.

Makana went on. ‘Both here and in the case of the Qadi, the body has been left out in a public place. That tells us the killer wants the bodies to be found. He wants them to be seen.’

‘You mean like a public execution?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Maybe they were surprised?’ suggested Doctor Medina.

‘No. The bodies were arranged. The Qadi was bowed over in a position of prayer.’

‘The hypocrisy of religion,’ said Doctor Medina.

‘Perhaps,’ conceded Makana. ‘And here we have Ayman exposing himself to the world.’

‘Someone set them up on display,’ said Doctor Medina.

‘But why?’ Sergeant Hamama looked back and forth between the two men. ‘Why go to all that trouble?’

‘Perhaps because there is some kind of message in all of this staging,’ said Makana.

‘Message?’ cackled Sadig, thrusting himself forward. ‘What kind of message do you think there is in cutting a man’s balls off?’

‘That’s enough insolence!’ Hamama stood between them. ‘Get down there and keep those people back. And stay down there.’

As Sadig marched off down the hill, knocking aside anyone who got in his way, Doctor Medina spoke.

‘It could almost be some kind of sacrifice.’

‘We don’t live in the dark ages any more, Doctor.’

Doctor Medina ignored Hamama. He turned his back to the body and faced down the hill at the crowd. ‘He wanted everyone to see.’ He glanced over at Makana. ‘He’s trying to scare us all.’

‘The whole town?’ Hamama was incredulous. ‘What about the Qadi? He was out by the lake where no one was going to see him.’

‘Except the tourists who ride out there,’ said Makana.

‘None of the tourists saw anything,’ protested the sergeant.

‘They were afraid of coming forward, afraid of getting involved,’ said Makana. ‘But that road is usually busy. People go out to Luqman’s place all the time. It could have sent them fleeing from town.’

‘Which would be bad for business,’ concluded Doctor Medina.

‘There must be something that ties the two victims together,’ said Makana, lighting a cigarette. Sergeant Hamama put out a hand for one. Makana lit it for him.

‘We’ve been over this,’ Hamama said. ‘I’ve put in a request to see the Qadi’s records.’

Doctor Medina was thinking aloud. ‘One is a powerful and wealthy man, well respected and educated, while the other is a nobody. A poor, uneducated man with the mind of a child.’

‘So what do they have in common?’ repeated Sergeant Hamama.

‘Between them they cover the entire span of society,’ said Makana.

Sergeant Hamama looked at a loss. ‘How does that make any sense?’

‘The killer is accusing the whole town,’ said Doctor Medina.

‘The whole town? What does that mean?’ asked Hamama.

‘The only person who can tell you that is the killer,’ said Makana.

‘Aren’t you jumping to conclusions? We don’t know how many there are, and the moment we start making assumptions is the moment we start making mistakes.’ Sergeant Hamama was clearly struggling. He threw his cigarette down and spat on the ground. ‘How you smoke these things, I do not know. Now listen. We have to get the body out of the sun,’ he said, tilting back his hat to look at the sky. Makana could make out ragged scraps turning in the air. ‘It’s going to start getting warm soon and then this is going to stink. Find out where that stretcher is.’

The shout went down, with the skinny officer yelling at everyone. With Sadig out of the way he seemed to relish his new-found authority. Eventually two ambulance men made their way up through the crowd. When they arrived there was some discussion about how best to transfer the body. By the time they had finished the stench and the buzz of the flies in the dry heat was beginning to give Makana a headache. He stepped aside to make way for the circus. Everyone had a view and each time something had to be done everyone chipped in with their opinions. How best to cover the body. How to get it onto the stretcher. Sergeant Hamama was giving orders left and right, directing people like a traffic policeman. He alone seemed to command enough authority to cut through all of this. Long bloody tendrils of flesh dragged in the dust, hanging down from between the man’s legs as they lifted him onto the stretcher. Makana caught a final glimpse of the cracked flesh on the bare feet and felt a twinge of regret. Ayman had been a simple fellow. It was hard to imagine what he had done to deserve this fate. Rigor Mortis had set in and they struggled to get the stiff body strapped to the stretcher. In the rising heat tempers began to fray.