‘How touching.’ Al-Qadi’s eyes traced a path from her neck to the shapely outline of her breast.
‘I want you to swear now that you had nothing to do with his abduction,’ she said.
‘I don’t have to swear anything to you, ya Sharifa. But let me say this. What purpose would it serve me?’
‘If you have lied, I will kill you.’
Al-Qadi sighed heavily. ‘Where was I? Ah, yes. Girling. His whereabouts today are not important.’ He smiled at her with his tiny eyes. ‘Because you are going to tell me his every movement.’
She gasped. ‘I’d sooner die.’
‘I wouldn’t say that too lightly if I were you.’
‘I’ve paid my debt.’
Al-Qadi shook his head. ‘Once a whore, always a whore.’ He moved quickly, grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her head back sharply until she thought her neck would break. He pressed the tip of the pencil to her cheek. She yelped with the pain.
‘I could drive this right through your face,’ he said. ‘Such a beautiful face.’
She gasped. ‘No, please.’
‘Then keep your eyes and ears open. You let me know when you see or hear anything, understand? Or else — ‘ She felt his spittle hit her face.
Al-Qadi released his grip and Sharifa fell back into the chair. She saw the erection straining against the tight linen of his trousers. Al-Qadi looked between her and his watch. Then, he gave a cluck of irritation and moved awkwardly for the door.
As he rode the lift to the ground floor, Al-Qadi gave his belt a final tug and adjusted his underwear with his other hand. He wanted her badly. Sharifa Fateem was everything. She was high-class — her father was a rich industrialist — she was smart, she had been well educated, she was beautiful, most assuredly so, and she was a whore. It was the knowledge, the know-ledge that was his alone, that teased him so much.
But today he had other matters to attend to.
The lift doors opened and Al-Qadi stepped through the lobby and into the scorching sunshine.
He was worried that he had underestimated Girling. Maybe he had placed too much faith in the man’s records. Yesterday, he had not seen a broken man, a man unable to grip reality after the violent death of his wife. Yesterday, he had not seen the husk of a man described in the records. Until today, Al-Qadi had omitted to consider one very important fact. It was Stansell who had brought Girling back from the dead. Now that Girling was at large some-where in his city, Al-Qadi regretted having not put a tail on him from the moment he arrived.
He clicked his fingers and the Mercedes with the blackened windows pulled alongside. He ordered his driver to take him back to headquarters in Shubra.
Girling stood before the bar of the Metropolitan Club. The crooked blades of a fan rotated noisily above his head. He surveyed the room slowly. Both the decaying armchairs were occupied; one by a man wearing a shabby suit who was immersed in the pages of Al-Ahram, Egypt’s highbrow daily paper, the other by a portly gentleman whose snores filled the air. Sunlight streamed through a gap in the blinds. The room was filled with a musty smell that reminded Girling of old books. Stansell liked the Metropolitan, because it was half-way between a decrepit London club and an opium den.
Girling sat at the bar and hit the bell. The snoring stopped and the newspaper crackled. The man in the suit went back to his reading. The snorer slumbered on.
Girling heard the shuffle of slippers across flag-stones. The bead curtains parted behind the bar to admit the concierge. His eyes narrowed momentarily as he tried to remember where he had seen this ‘agnabi before. But Girling knew there was only one member of the Metropolitan staff with that sort of memory for faces.
‘You would like a room?’
‘No, thank you,’ Girling said. It was then that he noticed that the sherry keg that should have been on the shelf behind the bar was gone.
‘A drink, perhaps?’ the man asked, following his gaze. ‘We have beer, cold beer in the-’
‘No,’ Girling said. ‘Thank you.’ Mansour was no longer there. The thought had never occurred to him. Mansour, as old as the Muqattam Hills and just as proud, was the Metropolitan Club. ‘I was looking for Mansour,’ he said.
‘Mansour?’ the concierge asked incredulously. ‘The old man?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mansour has not worked here for over two years.’ The eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘Why do you seek him, ‘agnabi?’
Girling ducked the question. ‘It’s important that I find him.’
‘How important?’
Girling slipped a five-pound note across the wood surface of the bar.
The concierge looked down and pulled thoughtfully at the edges of his moustache. ‘Not that important, then.’
Girling reached into his pocket and doubled the amount. ‘It’s very important.’
The concierge’s fingers went to his moustache again. He began to shake his head slowly from side to side.
‘I am a friend of Stansell’s,’ Girling said, anxious to put an end to this game.
The concierge’s eyes widened. ‘Stansell? Why did you not say so before?’
Girling looked down and the money had gone.
The concierge pulled a bottle of araq from the shelf behind him. He filled a glass and slid it across the bar. ‘For a friend of Stansell’s.’
Girling hesitated. To refuse a gift or favour was tantamount to spitting in this man’s face. He tipped the burning-hot liquor down his throat. To his relief, the bottle was replaced on the shelf.
‘When you see Stansell, tell him his friends at the Metropolitan Club miss him. He has not visited us in a long time.’
Girling had the feeling the concierge missed Stansell’s money more than the man. ‘How long?’
‘A month, maybe more.’
Which meant more like six months, Girling thought. ‘You were trying to remember where Mansour had gone,’ he prompted.
‘Ah yes, Mansour.’
‘Did he have family?’
‘No, no family. Mansour was alone. That is why he worked. But his eyes, his legs… no good. He had to go.’
‘Where?’ Girling pressed.
‘Maybe in Khan Al-Khalili. Maybe.’
The Khan was a huge fifty-acre tourist market over in Al-Gamaliya, part of the old quarter. Girling knew he could spend a year in there and never even catch a glimpse of Mansour.
‘How do you mean, maybe?’
‘Someone said he saw him working at Kareem’s coffee house on the Street of the Judges. But that was nearly a year ago.’
Girling’s heart sank. Old Mansour was probably dead by now. He got to his feet.
‘Where are you going?’ the concierge asked.
‘To the Street of the Judges.’ It had to be worth a shot still.
‘But it is Friday, my friend. Kareem’s is closed until sundown.’ He bowed his head twice to demonstrate the prayer ritual. ‘On Fridays, until sunset, the Street of Judges is a holy place.’
Girling swore under his breath. ‘By the way, that old sherry keg that used to be behind the bar…’ He pointed to a place between the bottles. ‘What happened to it?’
For a moment, the concierge was confused. Girling described the sherry keg, with a brand name he couldn’t remember written on the side. Mansour always had treated it as his proudest possession.
‘Ah, that,’ the concierge said. ‘We threw it away. I have seen better trash on sale outside the Cairo Museum. This is a hotel, not a third-rate tourist bazaar.’
The noise of the two Antonov An-124s of Voyenno-Transportnaya Aviatsiya, Soviet Military Transport Aviation, rumbled in the heavens as their pilots throttled back to line up on the mobile instrument landing system deployed by the Pathfinders.