The Sand Men (24 page)

There was no wake for Rachel. Awkward in company at the best of times, her son and daughter-in-law clearly had no desire to spend time with the other compound residents. Three days later, without a further word to anyone, Ben and Colette sent Abbi back to the USA.

L
EA AND
R
OY
were invited to dinner with the Larvins at Peruglia, an expensive Italian seafood restaurant with overwrought gold and crimson seventies décor some twenty kilometres further along the coast, where occasional Gulf breezes gave some respite from the overheated nights.

They were surprised by the invitation, but figured Colette was making an effort to be friendly now that time was weighing more heavily on her hands. Her youngest daughter and mother-in-law had gone, Norah was rarely home and her husband worked far into the night.

The restaurant was filled with Westerners. Two tables over, Hiromi Morioka and her husband Dan were eating lobster spaghetti. Hiromi had designed the elegant sushi kitchens in the Persiana, and was one of the few female executives brought in by DWG. She gave a friendly wave when she saw Lea. On the other side of them sat the electronics manager Richard McEvoy and his wife.

Ben and Colette arrived late and were out of sorts. Despite the stifling heat of the night, Colette was overdressed in dowdy winter colours, and had thickly applied makeup as if seeking to hide behind it. Struggling to maintain an interest in the evening’s small talk, she sat quietly drinking, letting the others hold up the conversation. Ben looked tired and preoccupied.Considering the long hours he’d been working lately, Roy was in a surprisingly good mood, and Lea was anxious to honour the truce between them.

‘Did you hear what happened last night?’ he asked. ‘Elena Ribisi and Ramiro Gonzales were arrested for adultery.’

‘You’re kidding. How? Where?’

‘The police stopped them while they were out walking together in a park in Al Muraqqabat. They took them to headquarters for questioning. They both tried to deny it.’

‘So what happened?’

‘The police confronted them with two signed witness statements. They’ve been released on bail pending a court hearing.’

‘But who acted as witnesses?’

‘Bruno, her husband, and the pool man, who’s fed up with the situation because he’s sleeping with Ramiro’s wife and wants him out of the way.’

‘So the stories are true,’ said Lea. ‘Who’d have known Dream Ranches was such a hotbed of vice? I never see anything from my window.’

‘You should get out more,’ said Roy. ‘Actually, maybe that’s not such a good idea. You should definitely stay away from the pool man.’

‘He’ll be staying away until the pool is fixed,’ Lea reminded him. ‘I suppose I could go to the golf club if I fancy a dip. And they still can’t seem to fix our sprinkler system.’ She set down her fork. ‘God, listen to me. You’re sorting out multi-billion dollar stuff and all I do is complain about luxuries.’

‘It’s okay,’ said Roy. ‘You’ve been really patient with me lately. I want you to know I appreciate it. Alexei really liked you. He told me he thought you were “feisty”. Then he suggested I should keep you more under control.’

‘He said that?’

‘In so many words.’

‘He’s the one whose wife charged a white wolf fur coat to his credit account without telling him?’

‘The very same.’

‘Then he’s hardly in a position to offer advice.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Did Roy tell you the bad news?’ Ben asked suddenly. ‘We’re having problems on delivery dates. We’ll be going through weekends from now on.’

Ben already looks like he’s about to have a heart attack,
thought Lea.

‘Even Tahir Mansour’s wife has been giving him grief,’ said Colette. ‘She says they don’t do anything together, and it’s making them unhappy. I keep thinking we should have been around more for Rachel. I don’t accept the coroner’s verdict. The whole thing stinks. The business with the car door just doesn’t make sense.’

‘Few accidents really make sense,’ said Roy. ‘People have them because they don’t pay enough attention to what they’re doing. They stop concentrating for a moment and end up falling off buildings. How’s Norah?’

‘Teenagers are pretty resilient,’ she said, picking at her food. Looking up, she saw Mrs Busabi heading their way with a folder under her arm and a look of determination in her eye. ‘Oh God, not tonight. Does she have to be everywhere we go? She keeps coming around with petitions.’

‘Hello there you strangers, I don’t want to interrupt your meal, I just thought you might be interested to know how we’re progressing,’ said Mrs Busabi, patting her paperwork. ‘I’ve presented our requests to the British Consulate and to the prefecture of police. We’re all at risk until they stop the immigrants having access to the compound. I’ve seen them down by the nursery at night, hanging around and smoking. I’ve picked up their cigarette butts.’

‘The air’s cooler in the compound,’ said Lea reasonably. ‘There are more trees.’

‘The underpass can’t be sealed off at the moment,’ said Roy. ‘Even when the main work is finished, the construction teams will still require access to the road.’

‘But that could be two or three years away. Who knows what could happen in the meantime? We could all be murdered in our beds. The other day one of them spat at me, just because I told him to pick up his litter. Harji and I don’t feel safe in our own houses. We always felt safe in Delhi.’ She looked down at the crab linguini cooling on their plates, and checked herself. ‘I’m sorry, I’m keeping you from your meal.’

Lea watched her waddle back to the table where her husband was draining his second bottle of red wine. ‘Poor thing, I almost feel sorry for her. It’s all she ever talks about. She’s hardly seen Harji in weeks. I know.’ She smiled and raised her glass. ‘Let’s toast. To the end of Dream World.’

That night they made love for the first time in weeks. Cara was on a sleepover at the beach house with Norah and they had the house to themselves. Lying in cool air without clothing was a rare luxury. ‘We could move from Chiswick if you like,’ she said. ‘Wait for Cara to get fixed up at university and get a place at the coast. How about France? Normandy, perhaps?’ The street was a vacuum of silence. Only the clock could be heard ticking on the bedside table. It was twenty to two. ‘It’s so quiet out there. You’d think we were the last people left alive in the world.’

She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder.

Her dreams were odd and unsettling. Some time later she muzzily awoke and raised herself on one arm. She felt the sheet. The other side of the bed was empty. ‘Roy?’

Silence.

‘Roy, where are you?’

Roy was outlined in the doorway, pulling on his shorts. ‘I got up to get myself a glass of water.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Early. Lea, you’d better come and see this.’

She slipped a T-shirt over her head, freed her hair and joined him on the landing. ‘What’s the matter?’

A crimson glow pulsed in the windows opposite. ‘I think something’s on fire,’ he said.

PART TWO

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.

– Joseph Heller

Chapter Thirty

The Dark

T
HREE GLEAMING RED
trucks still stood around the house, hoses snaking to hydrants. Lea watched as the firemen cleared debris away from the site. They had been at work for the last two hours, making sure that no cinders drifted to other parts of the compound. Several other neighbours had come out of their houses, but although it was only 6:45am it was already hot, so most stayed indoors and watched from their windows.

There was nothing left of the Busabis’ house. Lea could see the blackened contours of the rooms and some loose timbers, but no more than that. The air was acrid with the tang of smouldering varnish.

Tahir Mansour alighted from his Mercedes and spoke with the fire officers. After a few minutes, he headed back to his car. Lea stopped him on the way. ‘Mr Mansour, do you know what happened to the Busabis? Are they all right?’

Mansour turned and stared at her, as if trying to recall her face. ‘Mr Busabi is being treated for smoke inhalation. He will probably be kept in the hospital for a day or two, just for observation. They were very lucky.’

‘Have they said what happened?’

‘Mr Busabi is a smoker,’ said Mansour with disapproval in his voice. ‘A terrible misfortune.’

‘We saw them in Peruglia last night.’

‘I heard he had been drinking earlier in the evening. It appears he may have failed to put out his cigarette properly when he came home. This is why we discourage smoking in the compound or at the resort. Please excuse me.’ Having performed his official duty as perfunctorily as possible, he returned to his waiting car. He seemed to find the tragedy distasteful, another sign of foreign sloppiness.

Lea felt it was her duty to visit Mrs Busabi. After Roy headed to work, she drove over to the Dubai Hospital and found her seated alone in a perfectly white visitors’ waiting room, sipping from a Starbucks cup. The icy air smelled antiseptic. There was no sound of life anywhere.

‘Oh, Lea, you shouldn’t have come, really,’ Mrs Busabi said, holding out her hand. For once she was wearing no makeup. She suddenly looked old and unprotected. ‘Harji’s in having tests and can’t have visitors until this afternoon.’

‘I came by to make sure you were all right,’ Lea replied. ‘If you want to stay at the hospital, I can pick some stuff up for you.’

‘Really, I’m fine. I’m going to stay with my sister tonight. We lost everything, Lea. There’s not a stick left. Mr Mansour virtually accused us—’

‘Mr Mansour says Harji left a cigarette burning.’

‘That’s an outright lie. Why would he say such a thing? Harji gave up smoking six months ago. He’d been having trouble catching his breath, and I begged him to stop before it was too late, so he did.’

‘Perhaps Mr Mansour didn’t know that.’

‘It’s true Harji was downstairs by himself, but I believe him when he says he wasn’t smoking. He called upstairs to say that he could smell something burning. The next moment, the hall was alight. If the back door hadn’t been open we’d have been trapped in the house. We’d have burned alive.’ She wiped her eyes, trying not to cry. ‘I asked the police to test for traces of petrol but they say they don’t need to, that it was obviously an accident. How can they possibly know such a thing? They’re not planning to investigate it at all. They’re just sweeping it under the carpet like they do everything else.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Isn’t it obvious? It’s because we’re so close to the resort’s opening date now. They don’t want any trouble. I know who did this. They wanted us out because we complained about them.
They
destroyed our home.’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘You know very well who.’ Mrs Busabi’s eyes hardened with hatred. ‘The Somalians, the Nigerians, the Indonesians, the mixed-race whatever-you-want-to-call-them, they want what we’ve got and when they see they can’t have it, they try to take it from us. We’re the minority here.’

‘But you were in the minority in India too.’

‘That was different. We once
owned
India. There was still respect for all we had done, despite all the damage that self-serving little lawyer Gandhi did, with his fasting and his fancy dress. Well, we took out plenty of insurance when we moved here. We’ll replace everything.’

‘I’m glad you’re not going to let something like this upset you, Mrs Busabi.’

‘Oh, we’re not going to be intimidated. We’re made of sterner stuff. Harji and I had a contract job in South Africa, where they think nothing of butchering a cow and leaving it on your front doorstep when they’re upset with you. That’s the trouble with these outposts, you always walk into someone else’s territorial disputes.’

‘Where will you live now?’

‘The company has already promised to sort out the compensation and rehouse us on the north side of Dream Ranches. There’s another nursery over there where I can work.’

‘What will you do until then?’

‘They offered to put us up in a hotel until then, but I told them I’ve made other arrangements.’

It was Lea’s last sight of Mrs Busabi for a while, seated on the white plastic couch in the waiting room, angrily shredding a paper napkin around her Starbucks cup.

The next morning, Harji Busabi was released and they left for his sister’s house on the far side of the city. When they returned to Dream Ranches two weeks later they stayed away from their old neighbours, only stopping to nod briefly at golf club dinners, as if everyone else was somehow to blame for what had happened.

Y
OU REALLY HAVE
no idea what’s going on, do you?

Cara’s words had stayed with her. Now Lea was starting to wonder if she was right. She thought about the Busabis and wondered if their house had been deliberately torched because they had become a nuisance. The idea seemed ludicrous until she applied it to all the accidents and disappearances. Then a paranoid pattern started to emerge.

The next morning, she presented herself outside Leo Hardy’s office at 8:45am and waited for him to arrive. When he walked into his office, she told him she was writing another article for
Gulf Coast’
s website, and needed five minutes of his time to conduct an interview.

Hardy let out a harsh mirthless laugh. ‘Is that still going? It’s not a magazine, Mrs Brook, it’s a bunch of perfume ads for rich old women.’

‘Andre Pignot has launched a new online edition.’ It was something of an exaggeration, but Hardy’s attitude irked her.

‘Has he now?’ Hardy seemed amused. ‘Pignot is a bankrupt womaniser and a drunk. He can’t have thought that idea up by himself.’

‘I thought that as the most respected security officer working for DWG, you could give me your take on a situation,’ she said. ‘Especially now that you’ve had a promotion.’