Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti) (16 page)

‘A big book. With phone numbers.’

The receptionist turned to a shelf behind the computer point. ‘A book is a garden you carry in your pocket,’ he said as he heaved the directory onto the counter.

‘You’d need pretty big pockets for this one.
Merci
and . . .
bonne nuit
.’

‘
À vous aussi
.’

Silence from Jean-Baptiste’s door, the frosted panel above it dark. Spike unlocked his own room. The bed was as he’d left it: no turndown service at the Continental. He pulled off his T-shirt, opening the shutters to breathe in the warm spiced air. A pale crescent moon hung above the Straits.

After clearing a space on the dressing table, he selected Caprice No. 16 in G minor, composed by Paganini in Lucca in 1805 while he was working as court musician for Napoleon’s sister, Elisa Bonaparte. Paganini had conducted an affair with Elisa while also giving private violin lessons to her husband, Felice. The Devil looks after his own . . . The cadenzas seemed to clamp Spike’s temples like a vice. He forced himself to keep listening, shutting his eyes and seeing Arabic script and musical notes flit interchangeably beneath his lids. The caprice ended; he snapped back to life and picked up the phone directory.

Half the names were in Arabic, half in French. The same names in both languages? No ‘al-Manajahs’ anyway. He searched for ‘Abdallah’ as a surname and found two entire pages.

Reaching for his notebook, he began making a list.
Ángel Castillo. Nadeer Ziyad. Toby Riddell. Marouane. Abdallah al-Manajah. Zahra
. . . He tore out the sheet, crumpling it into a ball and basketball-pitching it into the bin. He was here with a simple task: delay an extradition demand. And what was he doing? Drawing up a list of suspects like some backwater Poirot. His penultimate night in Tangiers and he’d achieved nothing save for a possible meeting with the local governor. The prison . . . He needed to go to the prison, seek out some hard evidence.

Grabbing the phone book again, he flicked through for the most common Jewish surnames: Benunes, Israel, Larache, Levy . . . His mobile phone was ringing; he hit ‘pause’ on the iPod. Number withheld. ‘Hello?’

‘It’s Galliano.’

‘
Qué pasa?
’

‘I’m afraid there’s been some news.’

Spike shot up from his chair. ‘Dad?’

‘What? No, no. Nothing like that.’

Spike felt his lungs deflate as he sat back down.

‘They’ve done the second post-mortem in Madrid.’

‘And?’

‘Traces of DNA.’

‘I thought they’d been degraded by the salt.’

‘Not on the body.’

‘The knife?’

‘No.’

‘Underwear?’

‘It seems that no good deed goes unpunished, Spike,’ Galliano said. ‘The girl was two weeks pregnant. And there’s a ninety-nine per cent genetic match with Solomon Hassan.’

Chapter 37

After a night of disturbing dreams, Spike awoke to find the city back in Ramadan mode. The Mendoubia public park was strewn with
sans-papiers
face down on the grass, as though there’d been a street festival the night before and they hadn’t quite made it home. Tethered goats grazed around outstretched limbs.

Once through the commercial zone, the
petit taxi
drove past various small-scale industrial concerns – brickworks, sawmill, bus depot. Spike assumed they’d reached the prison when he saw a gate topped with razor wire; instead, the hand-painted Coca-Cola billboard above the walls revealed it as a bottling plant.

The road grew narrower, flanked by scrubland and the occasional caved-in building. Past the next hill, Spike saw Chinatown nestling in its sweaty hollow. The taxi began to slow, stopping at another set of gates. A Moroccan flag dangled from a pole, blood red with a green star in the middle. A metal car barrier was presided over by CCTV cameras.

Spike paid the driver and got out. Two women in burkas were chatting on the pavement, each with a child tugging at a black-cloaked arm. Spike buzzed the door panel. ‘
Visita
,’ he said as a Coca-Cola lorry lumbered behind.

As he reached to buzz again, a jeep with tinted windows turned off the road. The barrier bounced up and the gates began to open. Spike waited, then followed the jeep inside.

The gates clanked closed. The air throbbed with stillness. Somewhere a cicada buzzed.

Passing the entrance the jeep had taken, Spike saw a courtyard of parked cars. He stopped at a wooden hut, occupied by a heavy man sharing a spicy dish with the flies.

‘
Visita
.’

The man stashed his carton guiltily out of sight. His face was so fat that the flesh pushed his eyes shut, reducing his vision to a slit of skin.

‘
Visite
,’ Spike tried, guessing at the French. ‘Levy,’ he added, handing over a sheet of paper on which the receptionist had written out the surname in Arabic. The guard slimmed his eyes still further, then picked up a Bakelite phone and waited for the connection.

Just past the hut, a two-tiered gate gave onto one of the yards of the prison. The ground was dusty and sun-drenched; in the only shady corner sat a group of men hugging their knees.

Spike moved towards the bars. One of the men shielded his eyes then stood. He took a step forward as another prisoner yanked him back by the tunic. He broke free, loping across the yard. His beard was russet, his forehead pink and flaky. He hurled himself at the bars, one sandal still on, the other left behind in the dirt, shouting in a language Spike did not recognise.

‘
Hellas
,’ he yelled, just inches from Spike’s face. ‘
Hellas, Hellas
 . . .’

One of the other prisoners was striding over, dark tufty beard down to his chest.

‘Greece,’ the sunburnt man shrieked, ‘
ambassada, ambassada
 . . .’

With a creaking of hinges, the guard emerged from his hut. Drawing his truncheon, he strolled towards the gate, shouting as he swung at the bars. The man gave a bird-like cry as the truncheon crushed his knuckles, and fell to the ground. The prisoner behind him laughed as the guard raised his truncheon again.

‘Hey!’ Spike called out, stepping between the guard and the gate. ‘
Visite
.’

Tucking the truncheon under his arm, the guard took Spike’s piece of paper out of his pocket and tore it neatly in two. Spike swore at him in English, then turned to the sound of a clank from the opposite end of the walkway. Another jeep was driving in.

The gates were starting to close. Spike set off rapidly towards them, hearing the guard shouting behind him as he slipped between the gap.

The ladies in burkas were still on the pavement. Spike walked past them, waving down a
petit taxi
on the other side of the road. ‘Medina,’ he said, and the cab performed a U-turn and headed back to town.

Chapter 38

‘Right then, you
charavaca
,’ Spike swore down the phone, ‘one more lie, one more half-truth, and I throw you to the wolves. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long do we have?’

Solomon gulped at the other end of the line. ‘Twenty minutes.’

‘Then get ready to talk. Did you kill her?’

‘God, Spike.
No
.’

‘But you were sleeping with her.’

‘Yes.’

‘How many times?’

‘Twice . . . once.’

‘Which is it?’

‘I don’t know. The first time didn’t . . . work.’

‘Didn’t work?’

‘Couldn’t.’

‘Where?’

‘We went to the Museum of Ethnography. Then to a hotel bar, the El Minzah. She had a few drinks, then went crazy. Pulled me into the toilet but I was too . . . taken aback. So I asked her to dinner at my flat. I’d ordered up some pills online. Things went . . . better. I told her I wanted to see her again. When I asked her if she was sleeping with other people, she just laughed.’

‘Which other people?’

‘Men she picked up. Women.’

‘Their names?’

‘I don’t know, Spike, I just know there were others. A few days later, we arranged to meet at the club. We watched a woman and a man dance. I didn’t like it so we went outside. The rest is as I told you.’

‘So who killed her?’

‘I don’t know. Someone on the beach. Or from the club.’

‘The barman?’

‘I really don’t know.’

‘Why did you lie before?’

‘I thought you might not take my case.’

‘Why?’

‘If you knew I was sleeping with her you’d think I had motive.’

‘You do have motive,
cortapisha
. Did you know she was pregnant?’

Solomon paused. ‘If I’d known . . .’

‘You wouldn’t have killed her?’

‘No! I wouldn’t have left her on the beach.’

‘Why didn’t you use a condom?’

‘We did. It broke.’

‘Did you use a condom the night she died?’

‘It never went that far, Spike. We argued then I left.’

‘Argued?’

‘About her not wanting to be faithful.’

From next door came a leonine MGM roar. ‘
Bezims
,’ Spike cursed.

‘What’s that?’

‘Who’s Zahra?’

‘Who?’

‘Waitress from the Sundowner Club?’

‘Never heard of her.’

‘Did Esperanza talk about people trying to hurt her?’

‘No.’

‘Friends of hers in trouble?’

‘She didn’t have any friends.’

‘Did you hear anything about a Bedouin going missing?’

‘Sorry?’

‘To do with Dunetech?’

‘A Bedouin? No . . . I mean, Bedouins are important to Dunetech, we employ them on-site. They’re good workers, rank and file.’

‘What about Abdallah al-Manajah?’

Solomon went quiet.

‘Abdallah al-Manajah!’

‘Please,’ Solomon said, ‘I’m trying to think. Yes . . . he came into the office a few times. I remember him, fat guy in his sixties. Dirty clothes.’

‘Bedouin?’

‘I think so . . . He was dark like a Bedouin. He used to work in Zagora Zween in the early days. Before my time. Phase 1 site manager, something like that.’

‘What’s his connection to Dunetech now?’

‘Probably consulting on the expansion programme.’

‘You didn’t ask?’

‘Why should I? People came and went the whole time.’

‘Did Esperanza know Abdallah?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Could she have done?’

‘It’s possible. She came to the Dunetech offices. That was how I met her. She could have seen him there, I suppose.’