Now, seven months later, Pierre Claudel still couldn’t forget that day in the desert. And he never would.
Chapter Fifteen
Cairo
Al Qâhirah. The name meant ‘The Conqueror’ in Arabic. Fourteen hours after takeoff from the south of France, the 747 made its descent out of the blazing, red-gold sunset.
Peering out of the windows across the aisle, all Ben could see on one side was the endless expanse of desert. On the other, the city looked like a gigantic oasis in the sands. A seething megapolis of eighteen million people, the largest city in Africa and the Middle East. The Nile wound through its heart, sparkling under the setting sun, its waters flanked by the vast urban sprawl that had grown up on its banks for thousands of years. High-rise blocks, domes and minarets stood silhouetted against the dramatic reds and golds of the sky. More than any other North African capital, it was a city of contrasts. The ancient and the modern. Extremes of wealth and poverty. A melting-pot of beauty and culture, filth and pollution.
It had been a few years since Ben’s last visit here, when he’d been searching for a missing girl. That had been a tough assignment, but he’d made a few contacts. One in particular might be useful to him this time around. That could wait, though. He knew where he had to go first. He reached into his pocket for the address Harry Paxton had given him.
Dusk had fallen by the time he cleared the airport. The city was coming to life as the temperature cooled and night fell over the skyline. Ben’s taxi sped down a multi-lane highway that snaked through the urban sprawl, past giant billboards in Arabic and English and the lights that shimmered on the dark waters of the Nile. The taxi cut across town, skirted the fashionable and wealthy areas and then headed into districts that were rundown and neglected. The driver pulled up in a narrow street. Ben paid him, thanked him in Arabic and got out.
A wind was gusting in from the Sahara, bringing squalls of sandy dust that drifted across the pavements. Ben walked to the apartment building that had been Morgan’s last place of residence and gazed up at the plain concrete façade. It was about as remote from the luxury of the Scimitar as you could get. The thump of hard rock and a blaring TV drifted down from open windows, blending together into a discordant mess of sound.
He tried to imagine Paxton’s son in this place. It was going as native as a man like him would dare. Slumming it, as far as a sheltered middle-class guy on a cushy university salary could slum it. Checking into a hotel would have been too much of a tourist thing to do. This must have been Morgan’s idea of being adventurous. Maybe he’d entertained some schoolboy explorer fantasy, some romantic notion of what it meant to be coming to Africa in search of…what, exactly? Ancient secrets? Academic fame and glory?
And out in these streets, with his gold Rolex and dapper little blazer, the hapless Morgan Paxton would have stood out like a beacon for every opportunist crook for miles around. The complete opposite of his father, a man who could speak a dozen languages and blend in just about anywhere in the world.
Ben stepped inside and walked to the foot of a curving staircase. Graffiti on the wall had been thinly painted over, as though someone was making a halfhearted effort to maintain the place. He climbed the staircase to a landing. There were four doors off it, scratched and worn. One of them opened. An angry-looking young guy came out and walked past him and headed down the stairs, followed by a teenage girl who looked like she’d been crying.
Happy place, Ben thought. He checked the numbers on the doors and walked up another floor. The heavy bass of music throbbed through the walls. A baby was howling somewhere, mixed with the sound of a woman screaming, a door slamming, something breaking. He paused, listening. It sounded like a couple having a violent row. The music thumped on. It was a noisy place. The kind of place you could get stabbed to death in your own room and nobody would hear. Or care.
He climbed another flight. Checked the numbers on the doors again. This was it.
The door to what had been Morgan’s apartment was ajar. He pushed it open quietly and walked in. Whatever police investigation there had been, it was done with now. Although shabby, the room was clean and tidy and looked all ready to move into.
‘Can I help you?’ asked a voice in English.
Ben turned. A burly guy was coming out of the kitchenette. He was heavily bearded, and the dark eyes were locked aggressively on Ben. He wore a vest with a suit jacket over the top of it. In one chubby hand was a metal toolbox with a hammer and a wrench sticking out of it. He might have been a caretaker, but a small-time landlord spotting a Westerner in his place would be more likely to start talking English in the hope of making a quick sale.
‘Flat looks empty,’ Ben said. ‘Anyone staying here?’
‘It’s available.’
Ben pointed at the toolbox. ‘Problem with the plumbing?’
‘No problem. You need a place?’
‘Maybe.’ Ben walked around the room, glancing around him here and there. Through a doorway he could see the small, simple bedroom. The single bed was stripped to the mattress. A neat pile of white cotton sheets lay folded on a chair. A plain chest of drawers with a cheap lamp. Above the bed was a framed print of the Sphinx, to satisfy any tourists who might want to slum it the way Morgan did. The bedroom looked exactly like the photo in the police report-except for the sprawled corpse on the bed, the blood spattered up the wall and the slick of it across the floor.
Now, two months later, nobody would ever have guessed the place was fresh from being the scene of a brutal murder.
‘You got satellite TV and Internet,’ the landlord said. ‘It’s a good deal.’
Ben nodded. ‘Friend of mine stayed here. Know who I’m talking about?’
The big guy made a dismissive gesture. ‘Am I supposed to remember all the people that live here?’
‘What about the ones that die here? You remember them?’
The guy’s face crunched into a scowl. ‘Who are you?’
‘Nobody,’ Ben said. ‘Just someone who doesn’t like the idea that an innocent man got knifed right here in this building. Your building. I wouldn’t like to think that someone talked to someone about the soft Westerner with the gold Rolex. Easy money, if you know where to find it.’
The man’s face was reddening under the thick beard. ‘I don’t like these questions. You want the place or not?’
‘Just thoughts, that’s all.’ Ben reached for his wallet. Shelled out some of the banknotes Paxton had given him. He didn’t bother counting. ‘Is that enough for a week’s rent?’ he asked. He could see from the landlord’s eyes that it was more than enough.
The landlord reached out for the money. Ben pulled it back out of reach. ‘You live on the premises?’ he asked.
The man smiled, less guarded now. The cash had broken the ice. It had that effect on people. He jerked his head upwards. ‘Top floor.’
‘You found the body?’
The man nodded again. ‘The door was open. I could see the blood on the wall.’
‘Did you ever see my friend with anyone? Did he have visitors?’
‘Not that I know of. I never saw anything. But I mind my own business.’
It might be true, or it might not. Time would tell. ‘I’ll take the place,’ Ben said. He handed the guy the money.
When he was alone, he opened all the windows to let some air in. Traffic rumbled past in the street below. He took the slim folder out of his bag. He’d studied the coroner’s and police reports on the plane, and he pored over them again for a few minutes now. The police reports were signed by the officer in charge, whose name was Ramoud. It was just as Paxton had said. The investigation had been pretty cursory.
Ben put the reports aside and looked at the photos again. They weren’t pleasant viewing. It must have been terribly hard for Paxton to see the mutilation done to his son’s body. The pathologist’s assessment was that the murder weapon had been some kind of heavy blade, a machete or similar.
Ben chucked the photos down an
d looked at his watch. Time was passing and he didn’t want to hang around in Cairo any longer than he had to. He replaced the papers in the folder and slipped it into his bag. Slung the bag over his shoulder. Locked the door behind him and headed back down the stairs into the night air.
He knew exactly where he was going from here.
He hailed a battered Mercedes cab and the driver took him east of the river, to where the streets became narrow lanes and crowded tenements jostled for space among the hundreds of ancient mosques. Ben had the taxi driver pull up and wait for him near the slum settlement of Manshiyat Naser, the place known as Garbage City. He got out and walked through the long shadows of the cramped alleys.
He heard the plod of hooves on tarmac as a donkey cart passed under a faint streetlight. The cart was being driven by a young boy. It was stacked ten feet high with the stinking rubbish that was brought into this part of the city for the locals to sift through for anything they could recycle or sell. A whole industry built on the things people threw away. That was this boy’s future, Ben thought.
The boy’s eyes met his for a fleeting moment, and the cart passed on into the darkness.
Three minutes later Ben was walking in a familiar doorway. The place was worse than Morgan’s apartment building, a lot worse. It hadn’t changed much since he was last here. And he was pretty sure his contact wouldn’t have changed much, either.
Abdou was a guy you went to if you needed something. All kinds of things-as long as they were shady enough. Ben knew a little about his business. He was an entrepreneur with all nine fingers stuck in a lot of dirty little pies across the Cairo underworld. The tenth finger had been the one he’d stuck into the wrong person’s affairs. That someone had snipped it off a long time ago with a pair of bolt croppers-a gentle reminder of his station. Ever since then, Abdou had shied away from dealing in the hotter stuff-the dope, girls and guns-but he still knew all the angles and a lot of people who didn’t always want to be known.
The crumbling apartment building stank worse than the garbage-laden air outside. A yellow light bulb flickered on and off, and the walls dripped with condensation. Ben took the stairs two at a time and didn’t slow down for the door. It burst in and smashed off the wall as he strode into the dark hallway.
Abdou came darting out of his office, a pistol cocked and ready in one wizened hand, his finger-stump clawed around the grip. The bald, gaunt old man might have looked wasted and harmless, but Ben knew appearances were deceptive. Hidden in the shadows, he ducked into a doorway as the Egyptian came running down the hall. He stepped out suddenly. Knocked the gun flying from the old man’s hand.
Abdou swore as he recognised him. Quick as a cobra, his other hand darted inside his jacket and Ben had to twist out of the way as the knife flashed across his ribs. He caught the wrist and spun the old man around into an armlock. The knife dropped to the floorboards.
‘You’re slowing down, Abdou,’ Ben said in Arabic.
Sweat trickled down the old man’s bald skull as Ben held him powerless. ‘Bastard,’ he spat. ‘You promised me you’d never show your face here again.’
Ben shoved his wiry frame back towards the office and sat him down hard in a chair. The walls were peeling. Fat black flies buzzed around the single naked bulb that hung in the middle of the ceiling. Abdou’s desk was littered with the stuff of his trade-curled-up sheaves of money, photos, blank passports. Behind the desk, a safe was bolted to the wall. Ben didn’t even want to know what was in it.
Keeping an eye on the angry old man, he scooped the fallen pistol off the floor. The Czech CZ75 9mm semi-auto fitted snugly into his hand. It was an old school kind of weapon, the kind Ben liked. All steel, rugged and solid, high-capacity magazine, clean and oiled, silencer fitted. Useful. He checked the chamber and magazine. It was fully loaded.
‘Looks like I lied,’ he said. ‘Nice to see you again, Abdou.’
‘I had a hell of a lot of heat on me after the last time,’ the old man grated. And you knew there would be. English bastard.’
‘Half Irish,’ Ben said. ‘That’s a hazard of your chosen profession, my friend. If you’re going to inform on kidnappers, you have to expect they might get upset.’
Abdou was rubbing his wrist. ‘What do you want?’
‘This is my last ever job. I want to get it done and go home. So let’s make this easy on both of us. All I want from you is a name or two. Maybe three. Then I’m gone. I was never here. And you’ll be a little richer. Easy money.’
The gaunt face wrinkled in disgust. ‘That’s all you wanted last time, too. Almost got me killed over it.’
‘You still have nine fingers left,’ Ben said. ‘It can’t have been that bad.’
‘And I plan on keeping it that way.’
Ben smiled. ‘Nothing so hot this time, Abdou. I promise. I just want to know where I can buy a watch.’
‘That’s it? A watch?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Looks to me like you already have a watch,’ said the old man pointedly, looking at Ben’s Omega.
‘But say I wanted something a little more special and I wasn’t inclined to pay the full price. Where could I go?’
Abdou shrugged. ‘Anywhere in Cairo. Any one of a thousand guys. Take your pick. How should I know?’
‘Come on, Abdou. You can do better than that.’ Ben took out a wad of money and held it there under the old man’s hungry gaze. ‘The watch I’m looking for would have hit the market in the last couple of months. A gold Rolex Oyster. Very distinctive. I’m prepared to offer top dollar for it. No messing around.’
Abdou’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Why?’
‘Let’s just say it’s of personal interest to me. I’d like it back.’
‘Nobody gets hurt?’
‘Nobody who didn’t bring it on themselves,’ Ben said.
The old guy thought about it for a moment. Then his old face crinkled. Ben knew what he was thinking. What the hell. I still have nine fingers left.
‘I can give you a list of names,’ Abdou said. ‘If your watch is still in Cairo, someone will know.’
Ten minutes later Ben was back out in the street with the CZ75 pistol in his waistband. In his pocket was a notepad page with five names, five addresses. He walked to the waiting taxi.
It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Sixteen
Within an hour, five names had dropped to three. Abdou’s list wasn’t turning out as productive as Ben had hoped. The first address he went to, west of the river, was just a sea of rubble with Portacabins and cranes throwing long shadows in the moonlight. A billboard told him the area had been demolished to make way for some new retail development.
When the second place turned out to be deserted, derelict, Ben was beginning to suspect the old man had tricked him, and began to think about paying him a return visit.
But then the third address raised his hopes again. Ben got the taxi to drop him off a few hundred yards away and walked the rest. The pawnshop was just as Abdou had described it, tucked away from the street. There were enough furtive-looking guys hanging around in the neighbourhood to make Ben think it was exactly the kind of place a certain type of opportunist thief would go to dispose of an especially hot item. Abdou had said the proprietor, Moussa, was one of the best fences in Cairo. The hanging Fender guitars and digital camcorders in the barred window were just a front. The choice stuff was locked away upstairs in Moussa’s private quarters.
The place was easy to break into through a side entrance. Ben entered silently, followed the sound of the beeping alarm keypad to the control box and ripped it off the wall. He took a mini Maglite from his bag and flashed it discreetly around him. The shop was an Aladdin’s cave of bric-a-brac, most of it useless junk. Raking through the place, Ben found a glass cabinet stuffed with watches: Sekonda, Timex, Casio, Citizen. Nothing too prestigious on open display-but he hadn’t expected there to be.
Through a bead curtain, up a flight of steps, movin
g silently in the darkness. He drew Abdou’s pistol from his belt. A yellow streak of light under a door, the sound of a TV-canned laughter, some imported comedy show. The volume was turned up high enough to have drowned the beeps of the alarm. Ben smiled in the darkness. Careless.
The door was flimsy and gave way on the first kick.
Moussa was alone. The room around him was strewn with fast-food packaging and bachelor debris. He was sitting on a sofa in his underwear facing the TV, a big spoon in one hand and a tub of ice cream in the other. He spun around in panic as the door crashed in, long black hair whipping around and his thick beard parting in a gape of horror. The spoon and the ice cream dropped out of his hands as Ben strode up to him, grabbed his beard and dragged him down off the sofa onto the floor. The pawnbroker sprawled on his back, blinking, too shocked to make a sound.
Ben was a big believer in simplicity, and the approach he used to get the truth out of people was as simple as he could make it. It was a system that had worked for him many times, in a lot of situations, and when it was the appropriate course of action it never failed. It was the ultimate test of sincerity.
He planted a foot on Moussa’s chest, pointed the CZ75 in his face and watched his eyes. ‘I have a couple of questions,’ he said softly.
Five minutes later, Ben’s heart was sinking again. The man knew nothing. He was slumped against the wall, his hair slicked with sweat and tears, mouth hanging open in shock. He’d passed the test. All Ben could do was move on to the next name on the list.
He laid a couple of banknotes on a table as he walked back to the shattered door. ‘Thanks for your time,’ he said, and left.
It was after midnight by the time he made it to the fourth place on his list. As the taxi rolled up, Ben did a double-check that the address was right. It was.
He opened the car door and stepped out into the sultry night air. Not the kind of environment he would have expected to find one of Abdou’s contacts. It was a nice, respectable, middle-class street of neat white houses and trim little gardens. The pavement was lined with trees, and the cars parked along the kerb were relatively new, clean and well cared for. The kind of place a schoolteacher would live. Not rich, not poor, not particularly exciting and completely safe. It might have been the perfect cover for someone in Abdou’s line of work. Or then, Ben thought, it might be a complete wild card.