Read Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti) Online
Authors: Thomas Mogford
Spike sensed eyes on the back of his head. Someone hissed up, ‘Change money, friend?’ but he continued on by to an empty bar stool, where a white-haired barman was crushing mint with a pestle. Spike shouted out his order; a minute inclination of the head suggested the barman had heard.
He sat down. The two men on adjacent stools turned. One wore an ill-fitting suit, the other a hooded beige burnous. Spike took out his wallet; they glanced at one another then resumed their chat. He caught a glimpse of what looked like a European passport beneath the bar.
‘
Vingt dirhams, monsieur
.’
Spike paid up as a giant West African entered the postage-stamp-sized space by his stool. Gathering his drinks with a sweep of the arm, Spike withdrew to sit beside a poster advertising last decade’s visit of the
Cirque du Maghreb
.
After pressing his forehead against the tepid Coke bottle, Spike took a swig, then removed Esperanza’s mobile phone from his pocket. His fingertips looked large and clumsy on the keys. No more hashish – ever. The screen lit up – ‘Maroc Télécom’ – showing two bars of battery but a full signal. He checked the call list: nothing. The inbox contained four texts, each from Maroc Télécom offering hearty welcome in English, French, Spanish and Arabic. Three weeks old: evidently a local mobile had been a recent acquisition for Esperanza.
Another gulp of Coke, then Spike moved to ‘Sent items’. A single message this time, sent to a contact saved as ‘Abd al-Manajah’. Written out in Spanish: ‘
Vengo ma
n
~
ana como fijado
’.
I will come tomorrow as agreed
. Sent on the 16th, the day before Esperanza died.
Spike checked ‘Contacts’. One name again: ‘Abd al-Manajah’. He looked over at the bar: the two men on stools had been replaced by newcomers. Pressing the phone to one ear and cupping the other with his hand, Spike hit call back. Five rings, ten. . . He thought about Ángel Castillo’s account of Esperanza’s last movements. Tarot cards from a fortune-teller. A trip to the beautician. Fifteen rings, twenty . . . In the dark, uneven mirror on the wall, he saw Jean-Baptiste’s head bobbing towards him over the customers.
Spike hung up and reached beneath the bar stool. ‘
Merci mec
,’ Jean-Baptiste said as he accepted his drink. After downing it in one, he did a jig on the spot, dreadlocks clacking. ‘Now I buy for you,’ he said, turning to the bar. ‘Happy hour for
Chingongo et Abid
.’ His duffel bag wilted emptily on his shoulder.
As soon as Jean-Baptiste left his sightline, Spike saw something glitter at a table ahead. He crouched down, trying to catch a view through the tangle of limbs. A girl in a sparkly headscarf was passing something to a man with a bushy beard and shaven upper lip. The girl received a package in return, which she tucked into the pocket of her kaftan. As she drew back her hand, she met Spike’s eye, then looked hurriedly away, reaching over to touch the arm of her companion before turning for the exit. ‘Got to go,’ Spike said to Jean-Baptiste.
‘
Comment?
’
‘See you back at the hotel.’
Spike launched into the crowd as Zahra gracefully circumnavigated the table. He collided with a youth with gaps shaved into his eyebrows, who shoved him back, spitting out insults in French.
A channel opened up; Spike plunged into it. Zahra was almost at the door. ‘Wait!’ Spike called out.
A hush swept through the bar, broken only by the tuneless rendition of ‘Summertime’.
‘I’m a friend,’ Spike said. ‘I’ve seen Ángel.’
The bar hum began to reassert itself as Zahra exited. Through the misty window, Spike saw her hesitate on the pavement outside, then beckon with a hand.
Spike had forgotten how tall she was. ‘Come,’ she said in her husky voice, ‘not too close.’ He kept a few metres behind her, breaking into an occasional jog. Most of her face was hidden by her headscarf, the only clear features her flashing eyes and a loose strand of black hair, swaying in the breeze.
They entered the café-clogged Place de France. On the roof of a medium-rise building, backlit so as to be visible at night, Spike saw a Dunetech billboard.
Powering a Greener Future
. . . Beside it was a panel advertising ‘33 Export’ beer. Alcohol was banned within the Medina and Kasbah; outside, most things seemed to go.
Zahra exited the square along an avenue of palm trees, stopping as the pavement widened out to provide a viewing platform over the Straits. Four black ceremonial cannons were pointed out to sea, primed as though to repel intruders. Moored in the bay was a green-lit cruise ship, dull Europop throbbing from its deck.
Zahra sat down on the retaining wall, folding her kaftan beneath. Some Moroccan teenagers gathered further along glanced over. When Spike appeared, they resumed their
kif
smoking, inured to courting couples. Spike’s legs hung beside hers above a shadowy bed of bougainvilleas.
‘You know this place?’ Zahra said.
‘No.’
‘It is the
Terrasse des Paresseux
. The Terrace of the Idle.’ She stared out to sea. ‘Who are you?’
‘A lawyer.’
‘You don’t look like a lawyer. Where are you from?’
Spike pointed over the Straits to the lights of Gibraltar; Zahra inclined her eyes to see. ‘The magical island for the idle English.’
‘English speakers. And it’s not an island. It’s attached to mainland Spain.’
She turned her head properly. Her dark, almond-shaped eyes held Spike’s own, causing him a momentary, unfamiliar slide in his stomach. ‘Why are you following me?’ she said.
‘I want to talk to you about Esperanza.’
‘Why should I listen?’
‘I represent a man called Solomon Hassan. He’s the chief suspect in Esperanza’s murder.’
‘So this is about money for you. Tax-free, I assume.’
‘Do you know him?’
She shook her head.
‘You argued with Esperanza. Why?’
She turned back to sea.
‘Why did you throw a drink in Esperanza’s face?’
She pulled up the sleeves of her kaftan, giving Spike a glimpse of smooth, coffee-coloured skin beneath. ‘Esperanza used to come into the club,’ she said. ‘She was friendly at first. Then I processed her card and saw she was a Castillo.’ A muezzin began to wail from a distant minaret; Zahra waited for him to finish. ‘My father was head of the Bedouin council in my village. Eight years ago, some men from Ángel Castillo’s company came to see him. They wanted to buy some land. A Bedouin burial site. Two weeks later my father disappeared.’
‘Where?’
‘Nobody knows. The elders say he took a bribe. That he’s in Rabat, spending the money on women.’ Her voice hardened: ‘He liked women.’
‘And the land?’
‘Sold. Most of the Bedouins now have jobs on the site.’
‘Did you tell Esperanza about this?’
‘At first she just laughed. Then we fought.’
‘But you saw her again?’
‘She came back to the club. She was upset. We went for a drive and she told me she’d confronted her father. The next day she was dead.’
‘Stepfather,’ Spike murmured. ‘So who killed her?’
Zahra shrugged. ‘When I found out what happened I kept away. Then you turned up in Chinatown and we had our fun with the jeep.’
‘Do you know who was driving?’
‘I thought you might.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ she said, turning again, ‘it looked like it was trying to hit you.’
Spike paused. ‘A police vehicle?’
‘Maybe.’ Her gaze returned to the European shoreline.
‘Where were you the night Esperanza was killed?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Could Marouane have killed her?’
‘He tried to touch me once. He didn’t do it again. He’s a parasite, not a killer.’
‘What were you buying just now in the café?’
She started to stand, so Spike reached into a pocket for his wallet, stopping only when he saw her look of contempt. Shaking her head, she walked away.
‘Wait,’ Spike said. ‘I’ve got Esperanza’s phone.’
‘A lawyer
and
a thief,’ Zahra called back. ‘How unusual.’
Spike stood and dug into another pocket. ‘There’s a text on it,’ he said. ‘From an Abd al-Manajah.’ He approached her; she was just a half-head smaller. ‘I think Esperanza had arranged to see him the day she died.’
Zahra looked down at the phone. ‘It’s a Bedouin name. Used for the city. Abd is for Abdallah. Al-Manajah is the name of the tribe.’ She passed the phone back.
‘Do you know him?’
Before she walked away, Spike thrust a business card in her hand. ‘Call me if you remember anything,’ he said. ‘Especially about Abdallah al-Manajah.’
Zahra turned the card upside down. ‘No baksheesh?’
‘Do it for Esperanza.’
‘Why should I care about her?’
‘Because she’s dead.’
Zahra strode away into the darkness. Spike checked to see if she’d dumped the card. When he looked back up, she was gone.
An empty police jeep was parked on the pavement above the Sundowner Club. Street kids milled around it, kicking the tyres before running away. Spike crossed over and started climbing up to the Medina, where men were streaming out of cafés, plastic carrier bags in hands, chatting as though leaving a sports event.
Stopping at a food stall, Spike bought an avocado milkshake and some dusty unleavened bread. As he paid, he saw a bearded man watching him from beneath a street light.
Spike continued up the hill, chewing on his bread. When he looked back, the man was still following. He turned into an alleyway, then up a wider lane towards the Petit Socco. The man was still behind, his step quick and athletic. Around the next corner, Spike ducked into the first open shop he could see.
The shelves were lined with pots and jars like in an ancient apothecary. The owner creaked up from a stool, as though surprised by the custom. In the back room, Spike saw a shawled woman clipping her toenails as a tajine crock simmered before her.
‘
Bon prix pour épices, monsieur?
’ the owner said. ‘
Guter Preis?
’
There was a barrel in the middle of the shop; Spike crouched behind it as his pursuer appeared at the window. His beard was bushy, his upper lip entirely smooth. He carried a red rucksack on his back, which he swung off to remove a slim mobile phone. Still by the window, he made a call, talking animatedly, glancing about before finally moving out of sight.
The owner reappeared with a glass jar. Spike watched him tweezer out a series of fragrant, russet stamens, holding them one by one to the light. Spike bought the bag of saffron for old times’ sake, then chose a different route back to the hotel.
‘An offence by one villain may injure a million.’
‘Room 303.’
‘You had a visitor.’
‘Quotation or fact?’
‘A police inspector.’
Spike picked up his key. ‘What did he want?’
‘To come back tomorrow.’
Spike started walking up the stairs, then stopped. ‘Do you have a telephone directory?’
‘
Comment?
’