The Ghost Runner (37 page)

The sun was gently losing itself in the crowns of the palm trees on the western edge of the town as Makana turned into the narrow side street behind the hotel and stopped.

Coming towards him was a driverless karetta. Makana recognised the knock-kneed stagger and the flayed haunches. As it drew level he saw Bulbul stretched out in the back, his lumpy feet resting on the raised seat. With a click of his tongue the donkey drew to a halt and stood there twitching.

‘Cigarette?’

Makana tossed him the packet. Delighted, the boy sat up and waited for a light.

‘You look disappointed.’

Bulbul shrugged. ‘I thought he would last longer.’ He puffed away meditatively. ‘What can you expect from someone like that?’ He shrugged.

‘I suppose this means you lose some business, if his place is closed.’

The boy’s face scrunched up in pain. ‘The girls . . . I’m going to miss the girls. They used to smell so nice.’ He closed his eyes at the memory.

‘Still, I suppose other people like to take trips out into the lake for romantic rides.’

The prospect didn’t seem to cheer the boy. He gave another shrug.

‘Like the Qadi, for example.’

This produced a sneer. ‘You’re still asking questions? It’s all over. The Qadi and the man who killed him are dead.’ He handed back the cigarettes.

‘Keep them,’ said Makana. ‘You once asked me if I wanted to go to Abu Sharaf.’

‘I didn’t mean the place.’ Bulbul rolled his eyes. ‘It’s a way of referring to certain girls who are willing to sweeten your time for a little money.’

‘The Qadi used to know these girls.’ Makana saw the frown on Bulbul’s face. ‘He’s dead, remember? You told me yourself, the man who killed him is dead. I’m just curious.’

‘I don’t know what to make of you.’ Bulbul shook his head. ‘I’m just a little fish. I get by because of what the big fish leave for me, but that doesn’t mean they don’t respect me. Ask anyone. They all know Bulbul. Even the Qadi. I used to fix things for him.’

‘You drove him when he didn’t want to draw attention to himself with his big car.’

‘Exactly. Everyone needs Bulbul sometime.’

‘So you drove him out to the lake that evening, with a woman.’

‘I didn’t know the woman. He must have found her himself, don’t ask me how.’

‘So you drove them out there in the open?’

‘Sometimes out in the open is safer.’ Bulbul shrugged. ‘There are quiet places in the dunes beyond the lake.’

‘And you came back to fetch him?’

Bulbul nodded. ‘One hour, he said. But when I got back and saw what I saw, I didn’t hang around.’

‘You didn’t tell anyone either,’ said Makana.

‘That’s how Bulbul is. He doesn’t like to get involved in other people’s business.’

As the karetta trotted away, Makana turned and slipped along the street, deep in thought. He climbed the hill into the old city. The fronds toiled like dark waves in motion. Crows, black against the deep red, twisted in the air like tightly knotted thoughts. Looking down over the back of the hill he could see that the Lada he had noticed the other day was gone now. He settled himself in the corner of a ruin that was reasonably comfortable and well concealed. With only half a pack of Cleopatras for company he decided to treat himself to one, which he cupped in his hand to shield the glow, and settled down to wait for dark. The edges of the buildings stretched themselves out as shadows flooded in beneath them, pushing the daylight before them. It was soon dark and Makana decided to give it another hour or so. His hand throbbed with pain. He fumbled for the bottle of painkillers the doctor had given him the night before. It reminded him that he had unfinished business with Doctor Medina.

Luqman’s death would mean that officially the case could be sealed up. The question of what had been done with Rashida’s body still bothered Makana but he knew that it was bound up with everything else that was happening here. Whoever killed her had set the wire across the road to decapitate him. They wanted him out of the way. And since Rashida’s death was quite different in style than the other two, there was a strong possibility that it was done by somebody else.

Shadows rose up about him as he stirred. The walls were dark echoes of the homes they had once been. Down below he could see the back of the hotel and the watery green glow of the light at the end of the street. The entrance to the old abandoned mosque was guarded by two grey cats playing in the shadows. They observed him curiously as he moved past them into the interior. Makana drifted through the rooms with the aid of his flashlight. There was a chamber to one side of the entrance which contained a narrow bathroom. Taps stuck out of the wall. Broken tiles were scattered around the floor in little heaps, like shells on a beach. The main area of the mosque had become a storeroom at some stage. A stack of old chairs that nobody had any use for leaned against one wall. The floor was bare, as were the walls. The mihrab was cracked and chipped. The wooden pulpit or minbar rising from the floor resembled the prow of an abandoned ship. There was no sign of anyone having been in here for months.

Disappointed, Makana followed the corridor round past the bathroom. He was forced to climb over another pile of broken furniture to reach a staircase that wound its way up into the minaret. Pigeons scattered wildly as he stepped into narrow space, barely high enough to stand up in. A tiny window looked down onto the street behind the hotel.

The shadow moving down the street was little more than a line that traced itself along the far wall. With great care not to make any noise, Makana moved closer to the window to get a better look. Light entered the narrow street only through a couple of gaps along its course. At the far end was a street lamp that washed the darkness with a pale-green glow. With some difficulty, Makana followed the progress of this curious shape as it slid along the walls. He could just barely make it out. The long garment swayed, and it was this movement more than anything which allowed him to see her. Luqman and the German girl had spoken of a woman out by the lake that fateful evening. He himself had spied a lone figure from his hotel room window. Could this be the person he was looking for? As the figure passed by beneath him Makana moved, without using the flashlight, feeling his way with his feet until he reached the stairs. He edged his way down, making slow progress. He was just beginning to think he was doing well, congratulating himself on not having broken any bones, when one of his feet caught on the leg of a chair at the bottom of the stairwell. It triggered an avalanche, with chairs tumbling over one another. By the time he reached the entrance to the mosque, whoever had been out there would have fled to the distant hills. He stood for a moment. A minute went by, then another, then a third. Five full minutes by his rough estimation went by before he saw it. A faint change in the nature of the darkness at the far end of the street. He moved out and began to follow, staying close to the wall, keeping one eye on the darkness ahead of him and one eye on the uneven ground. Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he could make out a faint darkening against a white wall in the distance. As the figure disappeared around the corner up ahead, he allowed himself to move more quickly, breaking into a jog. When he reached the corner he thought for a minute that he had lost her. Then he spotted her again, as she crossed another street. Light from the main square sketched her outline as clearly as a cut-out against a screen. Makana moved again, keeping close to the wall.

Ahead of him the tall palm trees protruded high over the walls of the old Ottoman house like sentinels. Trees threshed high above. Makana watched the shadow slip into the next street. When he reached the corner she had disappeared. It was also fairly unlikely that she would have been able to cross the street or get away by some other route. He reached the next corner. Nothing. Retracing his steps, Makana examined the rear door of the big house. It was made of sheet metal, wide enough for a single person at a time. It was locked. He pressed it and got nothing in return. He stepped back to look up and down the street. It was impossible. Nobody could disappear into thin air. She had to have gone through this door. There was no other option. Turning back to the metal door he examined it again, this time more carefully. There was an old-fashioned keyhole for which either the woman had a key or some way of making it open. Makana began to probe around the sides of the door until his fingers encountered a loop of wire. It was set on the inside of the door and you needed slim fingers to reach that far. Makana could barely reach it but eventually he managed to hook the tip of his middle finger over it and push outwards until he was rewarded with a click. The door swung open before him.

The garden was extensive, overgrown in places, bare and ragged in others. An old Mercedes resting on its wheel rims added to the sense of abandonment. The whole setting seemed to have been forgotten for decades. Makana approached the house. The veranda steps and the balustrade were made of wood in some kind of elaborate style that he assumed was Turkish.

A short, narrow flight of steps led upwards from the path to a veranda that ran along the back of the house. Beyond this an archway led through to a central courtyard. A gallery ran around the first floor above. He stood for a moment, listening for the sound of anything that moved, but heard nothing save for the hiss of the palm-tree blades sharpening themselves against one another. He moved carefully, going through the house opening doors quietly and closing them again. It was clear from a glance, from the cobwebs and the layer of undisturbed dust on the floor, that nobody had been through them. On the far side of the yard he found a kitchen with a window facing onto the rear garden. It had been stripped of everything including lights and stove. A fireplace in one corner had painted black streaks of soot up the wall. A stone counter ran along under the window. On top of this were signs of more recent habitation. A small primus stove half full of kerosene, ringed by spent matches like a scattering of petals. Also, a tin teapot, some tea, a bunch of withered mint. High up on one of the shelves he found several plastic bags, carefully closed and tied, the cupboard tightly wedged shut to put paid to any inquisitive mice. The bags contained bread, biscuits, a tin of processed cheese from Holland, some soft tomatoes, dates, a couple of gently rotting bananas and a red onion. Makana left the items as he had found them and closed the cupboard quietly. He walked out of the kitchen and along around the ground floor until he came to a bathroom. It must once have been grand. Lined with marble and big enough to park a bus in. A bath was sunk into the floor, deep enough to stand waist deep in and a huge brazier, presumably for creating steam. The walls were decorated with carvings of animals and forests, palm trees and elephants, remainders of a brief flare of decadence that had been quenched by time.

He climbed the stairs, testing each one with his weight as he went, listening for signs of movement but hearing nothing. On the first floor he followed the gallery around trying each door he came to. The rooms were deserted with no sign of anyone having inhabited the place for years. At the rear of the house, however, the dusty, abandoned odour was replaced by a vaguely familiar scent that disturbed him even as it played tricks on his memory. Uneasily, he stepped inside a large room with a high ceiling and big wooden beams overhead. This would once have been the master bedroom. It had a raised dais on one side where presumably the bed would have stood. Now this area was littered with the personal objects of whoever was staying here. There were blankets and a few personal items. A nylon bag half filled with women’s clothes. There were candles and matches. Makana went through the bag finding a number of medical items in a side pocket. Disposable syringes. Swabs, bandages, surgical blades still sealed in their wrapping along with a startling array of drugs. Makana left all these things as he had found them.

As he turned, Makana glimpsed a shadow crossing the doorway to the gallery. He ran out and reached the balustrade in time to look down and see the figure disappearing under the staircase below. Moving quickly, Makana took the stairs two at a time. At the back of his mind a warning note told him he was being reckless and in that instant he felt the wood crack beneath him. His foot went through the splintered stair, the sharp edges digging into his ankle painfully and for a moment he was trapped. When he finally tugged his foot free he hobbled down to the bottom. He plunged out onto the veranda and down the steps. The door to the street stood open and when he reached it he looked both ways but there was nobody to be seen.

Makana limped back into the house and sank onto the veranda steps to examine his ankle. He sat there for a time smoking a cigarette while looking at the garden, thinking about the faint scent he had picked up inside the house. He tried to imagine the place in the old days, inhabited by pashas and Ottomans. Luqman’s old family. Glorious women and pompous men circulating through garden soirées where sumptuous feasts were served by lamps glowing on the backs of tortoises.

Rubbing his ankle, Makana made to stand up. As he turned to walk down he noticed something. He moved along until he came to a gap in the railing. Using his flashlight he examined the spot where a post appeared to have been broken off roughly and removed. It probably hadn’t been too difficult because the wood was fairly old, but that was what made the break interesting. It was recent. He played the light over the wood of the next post in line to see what colour it was. Green. The same colour as the object that had killed Ayman.