Strangers (9 page)

‘Will you stay for the class?’ Roisin asked as they left the room.

‘If you are happy for me to,’ Yasmin said.

As she followed the younger woman along the corridor, Roisin wasn’t sure if she’d just participated
in a good-natured debate, or if she had been given a warning. She had no doubt that everything she said to the students would reach the diligent ears of the professor.

Damien was sufficiently concerned by Amy’s sudden interest in the Patel case–especially as it seemed to have been triggered by Joe Massey–to do a bit of digging on his own. He wasn’t interested in the rights and wrongs of it–Patel had made a bad choice and had had the misfortune to fall foul of the Saudi legal system. Any crusade to get the case reopened would be a quixotic waste of time. The courts of the Kingdom didn’t make mistakes and anyone who suggested they did was asking for a fast ticket out. He didn’t like the system, but it wasn’t his system. It was up to the Saudis themselves to clean it up.

He phoned Majid using his work number so that Majid would know this call was business rather than social. After the necessary exchange of courtesies–one of the things that had attracted Damien to Saudi culture when he first arrived was the voices calling the blessings of God upon their colleagues as a matter of routine–he introduced
his topic: ‘Majid, I came across an old case yesterday, one of yours, from earlier this year. A Pakistani man called Haroun Patel was…’

Uncharacteristically, Majid interrupted him. ‘You, too, my friend? Why does everyone involve themselves with this man? He stole drugs. He paid the penalty.’

You, too
. ‘I think we’re asking the same question. I’m asking you because someone asked me. I’ve forgotten the details. Remind me what happened.’

‘My friend, there is no mystery and no secret. We did a check on the hospital drugs supply. All was in order except in the main pharmacy where two packets of morphine had gone.’

‘They were stolen, not lost?’

‘They were stolen. The hospital had done an inventory just the night before, because we had warned them we would be visiting. The drugs were there then.’

So the thief hadn’t just taken a risk, he had been stupid.

‘And then…?’

‘We searched the hospital and we found the missing drugs hidden in one of the lockers in the accommodation block where the technicians lived.’

‘Haroun Patel’s?’

‘Haroun Patel’s.’

‘And it was Patel who had put them there?’

‘The lockers have code numbers. No one but the user can access them.’ Majid’s voice was cooler.

No one but the user and the hospital authorities
. But Damien kept that thought to himself. He chose his words carefully. He didn’t want to offend Majid. ‘I knew Haroun Patel. It seems to have been a very unintelligent crime, and Patel was not a stupid man. It puzzled me…’

‘It wasn’t so stupid,’ Majid said. He sounded more relaxed now he understood Damien’s concern. ‘He did extra hours as a driver. He had been away the day before, delivering supplies round the villages. He didn’t know there was going to be a check.’

‘Thank you,’ Damien said formally. After he hung up, he reflected that this conversation had removed some of the doubts he’d had himself about the case. He still didn’t know why Patel had taken the risk of stealing the drugs, but if he thought he had time to get them away…Patel’s confession to the other crimes, the ones he probably hadn’t committed, had never surprised him. The Saudi police had interrogation methods that didn’t bear close scrutiny. It was another sore in a system that was chronically diseased, and it distressed Damien that a man like Majid was touched by that contamination.

But someone was stirring things up. Majid, too, was aware of questions around the case. If the authorities were starting to pay attention, then that curiosity was dangerous and it was up to Damien to stop it. He needed to find out who was at the root of it, and why.

The
who
he had some ideas about. This had started after Joe Massey had arrived. Massey had actually been talking about the case to Amy. It was possible that someone else could have been asking questions that had prompted Massey to talk to Amy, but Occam’s razor said that Massey was the
who
. The
why
eluded him completely. Why would anyone want to dig around the Haroun Patel case?

He went back over the conversation in his mind. Amy had queried Haroun’s guilt, at least as far as some of the charges went. What was it she had said?
The case against him never made a lot of sense
…But sense was exactly what it had made. Patel had been a technician. He’d had access to the pharmacy. Means, motive, opportunity. Patel had the means and he had had the opportunity. The only thing Damien didn’t know was the motive. But if Patel was putting in extra hours as a driver, then he clearly needed money and had taken a fatal gamble.

Damien shrugged off his doubts. People did stupid things when they panicked. It was academic. His concern now was to find out who was asking questions, who was about to cause some serious trouble in the ex-pat community, and put a stop to it.

The best way to find something out was to go straight to the source. He picked up the phone and found the name on his address list: Arshak Nazarian. Majid’s father-in-law had cornered the
lucrative Saudi market in migrant workers. By means of sweeteners, pay-offs, subtle pressure, and when all else failed, threats, Nazarian had gradually incorporated all the disparate groups who were recruiting third world migrants into his own agency. His organization would almost certainly have brokered Haroun Patel’s presence in the Kingdom.

Nazarian was a powerful man with friends in high places. He was also, by Damien’s definition, a crook, though in Saudi terms he had done nothing illegal. Through a network of agents in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Sri Lanka–countries where levels of poverty and unemployment were high–Nazarian recruited workers desperate to feed their families and to secure them some kind of future. He found them Saudi sponsors and offered them contracts that, by the standards of their own countries, were very well paid. But those contracts did not come cheap: the workers had to pay exorbitant sums for their sponsorship and visas. When they arrived in the Kingdom, they were made to sign contracts written in Arabic–the only contracts that were legally enforceable–only to find that their promised salaries were much reduced and the length of time they were required to remain in the Kingdom much increased. If they broke their contracts and left early, the cost of their transportation would be added to the already substantial debts they had accrued. It was probably a debt
of this nature that had driven Patel to take his fatal shortcut.

Once they were in the Kingdom, Nazarian took no further responsibility for the migrants. Their employers were free to act as they wished. In a country that had only abolished slavery in 1962, this form of labour exploitation raised few eyebrows. Nazarian’s empire had never been challenged. He knew the game backwards, knew who had the power and who didn’t, who to flatter, who to pay. Damien had tried several times to try and break the stranglehold he had on the unskilled labour market, but Nazarian was too well connected.

But maybe the ‘good times’ were finally nearing an end. The system was breaking down as the Islamists in Saudi recoiled from the exploitation of fellow Muslims, turning away from the corruption in the heart of their society and back to older, stricter ways. A few months earlier, an attempt had been made on Nazarian’s life.

The Armenian was a difficult man to contact, but Damien’s name got him through the barriers that he surrounded himself with. He left some messages and waited. After half an hour, his phone rang.

‘O’Neill!’ Nazarian’s voice was deep and warm. Along with his other assets, he had a great deal of charm. ‘Good to see you the other night. How are you? Well, I hope.’

They exchanged the usual courtesies, then
Nazarian said, ‘I’m glad you called. I wanted to talk to you.’

‘So you said.’ Damien waited to see what Nazarian wanted.

There was silence on the other end of the line, as though Nazarian was choosing his words carefully. ‘The hospital,’ he said after a moment. ‘You recruit many of the doctors, am I right?’

‘Yes.’ Hospital recruitment was high on Damien’s list of responsibilities.

‘Obstetricians,’ Nazarian said abruptly. ‘Do they get the best here, or…?’

Damien suddenly understood what the problem was and, for the first time in his association with the man, he found himself feeling some sympathy towards Nazarian. Social restrictions made it close to impossible for male obstetricians and gynaecologists to work in the Kingdom. Nazarian was worried about the standard of care that would be offered to his daughter. ‘They get the best,’ he said. And it was true. Saudi trained its women to a high standard in women’s medicine, and the Kingdom had always recruited and paid for the best when they couldn’t fill posts from their own schools and universities.

Nazarian grunted, only half convinced. ‘I keep thinking about taking her to Europe. That’s where she…’

Majid would never permit that, but it was something that the two men would have to sort out between themselves. He felt a stab of sympathy
for Yasmin who apparently was not allowed any say in this issue. ‘She’ll get excellent care here,’ he said.

‘OK.’ Nazarian closed the subject abruptly. ‘You wanted to talk to me.’

‘Yes. Something’s come up.’ Damien saw no reason for subterfuge. Whatever had happened with Patel, Nazarian would have nothing he needed to hide. There was very little he could have done to the man that the authorities would have worried about. ‘I’ve had a query about a man called Haroun Patel,’ he said. He wanted to see if the name–one of thousands on Nazarian’s books–would be recognized.

There was a moment of silence. ‘A query about Patel? From whom?’

‘That’s what I’m not sure about.’ Damien didn’t want Amy in Nazarian’s sights.

There was another beat of silence. ‘Maybe we need to talk about this. Can you come to my office? Say…around two?’

After the call, Damien sat for a moment, his eyes unfocused as he thought. Nazarian hadn’t even tried to feign ignorance. He’d recognized the name Patel as soon as Damien had spoken. Which was bad. The edginess that Damien had been feeling for the past few weeks intensified. There was something going on, and this something was associated with the long-dead Haroun Patel.

And now Amy had got herself involved.

Roisin had arranged to meet her students in a series of small seminars. She knew that Saudi teachers tended to prefer formal lectures in which discussion was kept to a minimum, but she couldn’t teach unless her students felt able to talk to her and use the English they were trying to learn.

As she followed Yasmin into the classroom, she was aware of a faint whisper around the waiting group of young women. The teaching assistant greeted them in Arabic, then switched to English. ‘This is Roisin Gardner who is your teacher for this semester.’

‘Good morning,’ Roisin greeted them, and received a collective murmur of
Good mornings
in return. The room was light and airy with tiled walls and floor. There were no desks or chairs. The students, a group of eight, sat cross-legged, or knelt with their legs tucked neatly underneath them on a crimson rug that covered most of the floor. Their hands rested in their laps.

She was struck first of all by their similarity–they all wore the hijab, and they were mostly dressed in sombre or neutral colours–browns, greys and blacks predominated. They were sitting with their heads bowed, studying their clasped hands. Roisin thought about the glittering brilliance of the souk and the opulence of the university where these women walked in their drab attire and wondered why they chose to drain the colour out of their lives–if it was a choice. She followed Yasmin’s example and sat cross-legged on the carpet, relieved that years of yoga made her limber enough to do this without too much effort. The students were looking at her expectantly and she felt the slight adrenaline surge that always prefaced her first encounter with a new group.

They weren’t beginners. They were studying for an advanced qualification in English, which made her task easier. She thought about the number of times she had found herself in front of groups like this when they had no common language in which to communicate.

She gathered her thoughts, then started speaking. ‘Today, I’d like to introduce myself, and get to know you.’ She could see one or two of the students glance quickly at her and then down again. ‘My name’s Roisin,’ she said. ‘I arrived in Riyadh two weeks ago. Before that, I worked in London. I’ve taught English in Europe and in South America, in Mexico. Now I’d like each of you to tell me about yourself.’ She smiled
at the girl sitting closest to her. ‘Would you like to start?’

The girl glanced sideways at her companions, then said, ‘My name is Mujada.’ She giggled and glanced quickly at Roisin, who nodded her encouragement. ‘I am student,’ Mujada said. ‘I study to be…teacher.’ She ducked her head and Roisin smiled reassurance at her and moved on to the next student.

This girl was less shy. Instead of looking away with nervous giggles, she smiled when she met Roisin’s gaze. She was a pretty girl with a round face and big eyes. Despite the uniform appearance, Roisin could already see the differences between them. The quiet girl, Mujada, was thinner, with black, wavy hair that escaped from her scarf. This girl’s hijab was neatly draped, covering her head and framing her face. ‘Hello, Roisin,’ she said. ‘My name is Fozia. I study design and I want to start my own business.’

The third student had been watching Roisin as these exchanges went round the group. ‘I am Najia,’ she said. Her scarf was lighter and pushed back from her hair, which was heavy and dark. Her full mouth curved into a warm smile. ‘Roisin, where are you coming from?’

‘Newcastle. Where do you come from?’ Roisin added, carefully correcting Najia’s construction.

She saw the student’s lips move as she tried this out. ‘I do come…’ She caught Roisin’s eye and smiled. ‘I
come
from Jeddah. Roisin, where is being…where is Newcastle?’

‘It’s in the north of England.’ She had a map of the British Isles, and she stood up to pin it on the wall. ‘Here,’ she said. Then she showed them London. ‘That’s where I was working before I came here,’ she told them.

The students were a mixed group, studying a range of subjects, and all with their ambitions focused on different careers. It wasn’t what she had expected. Some of them seemed rather young compared with UK students of the same age, shy and inclined to giggle, others seemed far more mature and serious. One woman, Haifa, studied Roisin with cool hostility. Her face, which had the fine-boned, slightly avian beauty that was very prevalent among Arab women, was tightly framed by her scarf. She said very little, except when Roisin addressed her directly. ‘I study medicine. To be doctor,’ she said, in response to Roisin’s query. Then she resumed her silence.

As they talked, the students became more confident, joining in and adding to the discussion, even the shyer ones like Mujada. Towards the end of the session, the talk turned to the different customs of Western and Saudi culture. ‘Tell me about the hijab,’ Roisin said. She still hadn’t grasped the rules governing its use. ‘Is this…’ she tried to think of an English word they would know ‘…custom?’ They looked blank.
‘Sunna,’
she tried–as far as she knew, this word expressed the concept of custom rather than compulsion. ‘And what about…?’ She made a gesture of covering her
face. This elicited laughter round the group and the girls looked at each other as they tried to formulate a response.

‘For us, it is required.’ This was Haifa. ‘You should wear the scarf, but you should not cover your face. You are not Muslim.’

‘You are wrong,’ Najia intervened. ‘It is not required. It is custom. In many countries, good Muslima do not hide themselves like this.’

Haifa responded in Arabic, too fast for Roisin to understand. ‘English, Haifa,’ she said. ‘That’s the rule. In this class, you speak only English.’ The student’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t say anything.

Yasmin, the teaching assistant who had been watching this exchange, stepped in suddenly. ‘Haifa was explaining that she believes we Saudis must set the best examples as we are the guardians of the holy places.’

‘This is the truth,’ Haifa said, addressing Yasmin. ‘Saudis are the guardians because our blood is pure. We carry no Christian blood,’ she said, her eyes flicking contemptuously to Roisin. ‘None at all.’

Saudi is another country
, Roisin reminded herself.
They do things differently here
.

By the end of the morning, apart from the slight
frisson
with Haifa, she felt pleased with the way things had gone, and much more relaxed about the prospects for her work at the university. Yasmin, who had stayed with her, waited until
the students had left, then said, ‘I enjoyed that. You are a good teacher.’

Roisin felt her face flush with pleasure. ‘Thank you.’

‘I must apologize for Haifa. She was discourteous.’

‘She has to say what she thinks.’

Yasmin studied her hands. ‘She is…well thought of. Her family is very traditional.’ Her gaze met Roisin’s, but she didn’t expand on her comment. ‘I am glad to watch you teach,’ she said. ‘I need to learn to help my own teaching.’

‘Here? In the university?’

Yasmin smiled. ‘Here, I am just trainee, just
assistant
. No, I am teaching women in the villages–it’s true what the professor says, we want to educate women here. But in the villages, it’s hard for them to find a class they can attend, so we take it to them.’

‘I’d like to see that,’ Roisin said.

Yasmin studied her face. ‘Maybe one day,’ she said. ‘Now, I have work to do.’

Roisin packed her bag and went along the corridor to the cloakroom to do battle with her scarf. The Saudi women were neatly, often elegantly hijabed, their scarves covering their hair and hanging in careful folds around their faces and shoulders. Souad’s had been an accessory as well as a cultural requirement. Whatever views anyone might hold of the Islamic head covering, it was an attractive garment.

To Roisin, however, it was a pain. No matter how carefully she tied it, it was either too tight and gave her a headache, or it slipped back, uncovering her hair and she had to keep grabbing at it. She stood in front of the mirror and fixed the scarf carefully in place.

But as she turned away, it slipped again, and she sighed with exasperation. She grabbed the ends and tied them firmly under her chin. Framed tightly by black, her face looked deathly white and at least ten years older. She loosened the ends, and the scarf slipped off. She pulled it off her head and swore out loud. There was a suppressed laugh from behind her.

She looked round. A woman was standing there watching her. She was dressed to leave the campus, her hijab hanging in meticulous folds, her face carefully veiled. Her eyes watched Roisin in the cool light. Roisin coloured, wondering if the woman had understood the obscenity she’d used. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘This thing is enough to make anyone swear.’

The woman lifted the veil away from her face, revealing herself as the student, Najia. Her eyes gleamed with laughter at Roisin’s embarrassment. ‘You do not do it right, Roisin,’ she said. ‘If you tie like this—’ she held her own hijab tightly under her chin to demonstrate ‘—you look like someone’s grandma.’

Roisin couldn’t argue with that. ‘So how do I do it?’

‘Here, I show you.’ Najia took the scarf from Roisin’s hand and unknotted it, tutting slightly at the creases the tie had made. She shook the scarf out. ‘You should get the proper hijab. This scarf is too small.’ She folded it into an unequal triangle to make the back longer, and put it on Roisin’s head, adjusting it to make the folds hang evenly. She tucked the sides behind Roisin’s ears, pulling the front flat, then drew the folds forward. She pinned it under Roisin’s chin, and pulled the ends round her shoulders. Then she pulled the scarf free from Roisin’s ears and loosened the tight band across her forehead. ‘With proper hijab, it hang down and you can pin,’ she said. ‘But now it is better, see?’

Roisin looked in the mirror and saw herself neatly hijabed, her face elegantly framed by the folds of the scarf. She moved her head cautiously. The scarf stayed secure. She moved her head again, starting to smile as the scarf remained in place.

‘Thank you.’

Najia’s eyes creased at the corners. ‘You look nice now. Pretty. Not someone’s grandma any more.’

Their laughter as they left the room echoed down the silent corridors where the light formed pools of gold among the shadows.