Date with a Sheesha (19 page)

As I glanced around, the Spice Souk seemed to me to be an odd location for a party. Maybe there was a restaurant or bar nearby?

“Qasid saw nothing else until early the next morning,” Rahim kept on. “You see, many of the dogs were congregated in the spot we just came from. Qasid went to see what they were doing there.

Then he saw the young man again. Dead.”

“Was he able to identify the friends for the police?”

More Arabic conversation. As Alastair and I stood there, watching and hoping, we could feel the heat escalating by the minute as the close quarters of the souk became more congested with shoppers.

“No,” came the unrewarding answer. “Qasid knows nothing else. But wishes you his sympathy.”

“Thank you,” we both muttered.

“And now you shop in my store,” Rahim announced with joy.

“Nothing for us, old chap,” Alastair said.

“
Baharat
, turmeric, the best saffron…”

“Wait,” I put a hand on Hallwood’s departing shoulder. My mind replayed what I’d read in the last email Neil sent his ex-lover, Darrell Good: “
I still havent found saffron i need saffron.
”

I turned to Rahim, and said, “Saffron. I think the young man might have been looking for saffron. Are you sure he didn’t come to your store looking for some that night? Maybe you saw him, or who he was with? Maybe you heard something they said?” I was desperate for something.

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Rahim shook his head. “No. I’m sorry to say so.”

“Is there another store nearby where he might have bought saffron?”

The man hesitated, then smiled. “Only I have the best saffron.”

“Save it, Russell,” Alastair chimed in. “They all sell saffron.

All three hundred of them. I don’t understand where you’re going with this, mate. Why get your knickers in a knot over saffron?”

Had the police already been over this? Had they taken a photo of Neil to all the merchants to see if anyone knew anything about the crime? Had they exhausted all possibilities here? Did I care? If it needed to be done, I’d do it myself. I just wasn’t sure the time-sucking activity would get me anywhere. All these guys wanted to do was sell some spice.

“Can you show me the saffron?” I asked, thinking I should at least know what the stuff Neil was so anxious to get his hands on looked like.

Rahim reached to a nearby shelf and retrieved a small container of reddish yellow threads. He encouraged me to smell. They had a faintly grassy, hay like aroma.

“Perhaps you are feeling tired? My saffron will help you,”

Rahim promised.

I nodded. “Thank you.”

I purchased a small amount (the stuff was pricier than I expected). I pledged to return for all my spice needs while in Dubai, and we said farewell to the shopkeeper.

The afternoon call to prayer followed Alastair and me through the souk’s narrow passageways, and darts of sunlight found their way through the battered coverings of the marketplace, sten-cilling our skin. More slowly this time, we retraced our steps back to the
abra
station. Umar was waiting to pick us up on the other side of the creek.

“Alastair, when you identified the body…”

“Back to that, are we?” he interrupted me with a voice that was tinged with a mirth I didn’t buy for a second. “You’re like a hound on a fox, aren’t you mate?”

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market, rather than the morgue, to identify the body. Seems a little macabre, don’t you think?”

He shrugged his narrow shoulders, so thin I could see the bones protrude at the top of his lightweight shirt. “Dunno. Just the way they do things around here, I suppose.”

“It’s funny...” I began.

“What’s that?”

“I thought for sure when I asked Qasid if he recognized the friends Neil was with the night he died that he was going to point at you.”

I heard a choking sound, then Hallwood came to an abrupt halt. His voice exploded next to me. “Bollocks! Are you accusing me of murder?” And then came some unintelligible stuff made more so by his accent and use of words I’d not heard before.

I too stopped in my tracks and stared at him. When the outburst was over, I cleared my throat of surprise and said, “Alastair, no, of course I’m not accusing you of murder. What gave you that idea? I just assumed you were one of the guests at the party. As one of his best friends and a colleague, it would make sense for you to be one of the people Qasid saw with Neil that night.”

“Russell, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Neil was killed in the marketplace,” I said, as if explaining things to a not very bright student. “He was there in the first place because he was attending the surprise farewell party given by his colleagues at the University of Dubai. You said you were his friend. I thought for sure you’d have been there.”

The Brit’s face was pinched with confusion. “Russell, you’ve been given some rubbish information. There was no such party.”

I felt my heart go pitter-patter.

“Whatever Neil was doing in the marketplace that night,” he said, “it had nothing to do with me, or the University of Dubai.”

Via a lazy waterway winding its way from one hotel’s picturesque beachfront property to the next, an
abra
delivered Hema and me from the Madinat Jumeirah to the Mina A‘Salam boutique hotel.

She’d booked us an outdoor table at Zheng He’s, which promised 131

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(and delivered) “new Chinese” cooking—a blend of Western tastes and Far Eastern ambience. Over a Peking duck appetizer, a few dim sum selections, a to-die-for spicy chili prawn dish, and with Hema’s ever-present BlackBerry as a third dinner companion, we discussed our day. She proudly announced that she’d made contact with a number of the rug merchants we would be visiting. I easily topped that with my shocking revelation that the

“surprise” party that had lured Neil to the marketplace—and his death—was actually a fake.

We (or rather, me, with Hema only half-listening) tried out the many permutations of how the whole fake-surprise-party-thing could have gone down. Neil intimated to his ex-lover, Darrell Good, that he’d been tipped off about the party. But who had planned the party in the first place? And who let out the big secret? Or, was Neil telling a lie? Did he know the party was a fake? Did he think the party was something it wasn’t? An assignation perhaps? Something he didn’t want to admit to Darrell, because maybe he hoped they might get back together upon his return to Canada?

By the time the last dish was finished, we had more questions than answers. Hema was showing signs of being bored with me.

And I was ready to leave for an assignation of my very own, with the mysterious Aashiq—whoever or whatever that was—at the Burj Al Arab.

A handy golf cart—they’d thought of everything—ferried me along a lovely seaside route away from Mina A’Salam. Only minutes later I was being delivered to the cordoned-off entrance to the causeway leading up to the imposing Burj Al Arab, sitting on its own artificial island off Jumeirah Beach. As we approached, the light of day long gone, I saw that the hump side of the grand hotel was lit up. Every minute or so, it changed from one colour scheme to another. It looked, for all the world to see, like some kind of magical, many-hued butterfly, metamorphosing in its mighty cocoon. According to the hotel’s imaginative PR team, the Burj Al Arab is the world’s only seven-star hotel. Hyperbole aside, for about the millionth time, as I sat there looking up at this magical castle that oil bought, I thought to myself: what a place, this Dubai.

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I stepped off the golf cart, thanking the driver and approached a guard who was in the process of politely turning away a foursome of tourists. They were in their seventies, and appeared to be seasoned travellers. But even they had never come across anything like this. I smiled at the guy and told him I had a reservation at the Skyview Bar. He checked the number I’d pulled from Neil’s PDA against some master list. Once I was cleared, he waved me over to yet another waiting golf cart. This one, a little snazzier than the first, carried me down the bridge to the massive front entrance hall of the hotel. I felt like Cinderella in her carriage. I hoped I’d get in and out of this place before my glass slipper turned into a flip-flop.

I entered the Burj Al Arab’s towering atrium, feeling a bit like a visitor from another planet. All the gold and glass and razzle and dazzle of the place was enough to make a Donald Trump joint look like a Motel No Tell. But I didn’t have time to dawdle in the shops and little bars, or admire the pools of water, or the twenty-two-karat pillars holding up the place, or gawk at the dizzying array of beautiful people who looked as if their sole duty in life was to be admired. I had work to do.

Up a set of escalators and to the rear of the hotel I found a sign that indicated I’d found the elevator to the top floor. Too late, I also realized that I’d stepped into a panoramic elevator. Dealing with dizzying heights at great speed has never been a favourite activity of mine. As the little metal box with glass walls hurtled me up, two-hundred metres above the Persian Gulf, I was glad to be alone. Lest anyone hear me whimpering.

About three months later, the hell ride came to an end. Glad to be outta there, I giddily stepped out onto the cantilever that hangs off the top of the building where Al Muntaha restaurant and the Skyview Bar reside. (It sounds scarier than it is.) While giving my knees a moment to resolidify, and my heart time to settle back into my chest, I was both chagrined and relieved (for later) to see an entire bank of elevators promising the same ride but with four solid walls. I made note of their location and headed off to find Aashiq.

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the welcome desk at the Skyview Bar would have been a famed movie actress, supermodel, or Queen of the Nile. But here, in the surreal high-in-the-sky world of Dubai, she was a seating hostess in a bar. I gave her my valuable reservation number and, with a million-dollar smile and boobies to match, she offered to lead me to my table.

As we slowly wended our way through the lively cocktail lounge, I was ever so glad I had accepted Anthony’s offer to send me on my way with a few pieces of what he calls “gentleman’s finery.” According to Anthony, during the course of any trip, be you visiting Dubai, Denmark, or downtown Deadwood, a fellow must always be prepared to present himself impeccably groomed and dressed with distinction. Tonight’s Ungaro slim-fitted Prince de Galles dove grey suit, with a pale blue shirt, and Nicole Farhi Brushed Nobuk laced shoes were just what I needed to fit in. Or at least do a good job pretending.

I was disappointed to see that because the sun had long ago headed to another, no doubt less charmed, part of the world, the view outside the floor to ceiling windows was little more than black sky over black ocean. After the amusement park ride to get up here, certainly I deserved more than this. I couldn’t help think that somewhere there was an architect, hitting his forehead and saying: “Doh! I knew I shoulda pointed that cantilever thing towards the city instead of out to sea!”

But never mind that. Miss Universe was bringing her four-inch stilettos in for a landing. I slowed up behind her. We were about to stop next to a table for two. One seat was already occupied by a man I was guessing was going to tell me his name was Aashiq. With a strong jaw, dimpled chin, and precise moustache above shapely lips, he was the spitting image of a young Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor best known for playing Sherif Ali in
Lawrence of Arabia
and the title role in
Doctor Zhivago
.

The man must have noticed our approach, looking up as we neared. When he realized the hostess was intending to introduce me as his companion for the evening, what I saw in his dark, intense eyes was not at all what I expected. It wasn’t surprise. Nor confusion or uncertainty. It was horror.

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Chapter 10

After confirming that no one was going to keel over, nor was an outbreak of fisticuffs imminent, our hostess, a perplexed pucker marring her perfect features, sashayed off with the promise of sending someone over to offer me a drink. I hopped onto the stool across from Aashiq and his grim face. The horror that greeted me upon my arrival had now become something new—resignation and sadness. I had no idea what was going on with this guy, but I was determined to find out.

“You’re Aashiq?” I started out with an easy question.

He nodded, his liquid eyes fastened on my face, as if he was hoping I was some sort of mirage that would soon disappear.

“I’m Russell, Russell Quant,” I told him. The news didn’t seem particularly exciting to him.

Another impossibly beautiful woman presented herself at our table. With a breathy, sex kitten voice, she asked if she could bring us something. Aashiq wordlessly indicated he wanted a refill of his Manhattan. I ordered a glass of Chardonnay.

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