‘He pulled Stansell’s autopsy report, tried to bury it — ’
‘How do you know that?’ Girling interrupted.
‘Dr Uthman told me, in so many words. He rang yesterday, asking for you. I was just on my way out, to Lazan’s.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That Stansell had probably been held in two dif-ferent places, or shot in one and dumped in another. One of them was the City of the Dead. And that’s when I realized Al-Qadi was here, in the apartment, listening to every word.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Something in what I’d said to Uthman made him suspect you were still alive. He dragged me into the bedroom and began going through my clothes until he found your jacket. It was then that he just — ’
‘Yes?’
‘He just went berserk. He tried to rape me. If I hadn’t had the paper-knife he would have killed me.’
Girling looked past her at the obscenity on the bed. ‘We’ve got to get rid of the body.’
She couldn’t bring herself to turn round. ‘Where?’
Girling found himself thinking fast. ‘There’s only one place… the City of the Dead.’
She was poised to remonstrate, but he put a finger to her lips. ‘This is one death the Brotherhood can take the rap for, whether the Guide likes it or not.’
‘But how-?’
Ram appeared at the door. Sharifa gasped and grabbed Girling in alarm.
‘It’s all right,’ Girling said. ‘This is Ariel Ram. He’s on Lazan’s staff.’
Girling looked at him. ‘I’m getting the body out of here. Al-Qadi’s bound to have a car somewhere round here. I’ll use that.’
‘How to get the body outside?’ Ram asked.
‘You’re going to help me,’ Girling said. ‘We’ll wrap it up in the blankets and shove it in the boot. And then I’m going to drive his car to the City of the Dead and dump it there. The Brotherhood can have the lot.’ He turned to Sharifa. ‘You, meanwhile, are going to stay here with Ram until Lazan gets here. Then the three of you must go to the embassy and wait for me there.’
‘What happens then?’ she asked.
‘You and I are on the first plane out of here.’
Girling turned the unmarked blue Fiat off the airport road down a track whose tarred surface soon gave way to the bare sandstone foundations that characterized the land beneath the Muqattam Hills on the south-east side of the city.
He let the car coast, listening to its suspension protest as the wheels dipped in and out of pot-holes, or jarred against the protruding rocks. He had the windows down full. The sun was high in the sky and the heat was stifling. Girling thought he could smell Al-Qadi’s body decomposing, but it was nothing more than the regular odours of the city, odours that grew stronger the further he plied into the old, south-east side and the closer he got to the City of the Dead.
Behind him, the walls of the Citadel and the mosque at its pinnacle towered over the surrounding landscape. The great Muhammad Ali mosque, at something over one hundred and fifty years old, was a comparatively new addition to the skyline, but little else had changed in almost a thousand years. Girling’s view was filled by the City of the Dead, a suburb of tombs, originally for the mighty, but over the centuries for anyone who could afford the money or the time to construct a mortuary for himself and his family. On his left were the egg-like domes of the Circassian Mamelukes, a dynasty that had governed Egypt from the middle of the thirteenth century until the arrival of the Turks in 1517. Girling thought back to the morning of his arrival and his fleeting impressions of the necropolis as the sun had crept above the Muqattam Hills.
In the dawn light, the City of the Dead possessed a sinister kind of beauty, a thin curtain of mist softening its horrors, like muslin over a camera lens. It was here, at the turn of the millennium, that the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim liked to wander incognito, dis-guised as one of the simple peasants he had terrorized and ritually slaughtered during his reign. One evening he rode out in the direction of the Muqattam Hills and was never seen again, becoming a hero, his status embellished over the years, his return awaited by obscure Islamic sects across the Arab Empire. It was here, too, that many of the stories of thieving and roguery were composed for the Arabian Nights.
Under the harsh light of the noon sun, however, the City shimmered in its true colours. Interspersed amongst the mausoleums of the Mamelukes were small bungalow-like tombs, some topped with fragile, crumbling domes and minarets, built in a pathetic emulation of the glorious sepulchres of the rich and the royal. It was to these tombs that the oppressed and the destitute of Cairo had flocked over the centuries. Too hungry and frightened to fear the dead, these people began to construct flimsy shanties, at first on any patch of land they could find, and then, as space ran out, on top of the graves themselves. As the shanties spread, so too did the City’s reputation as a safe haven for murderers and thieves. Initially, the crime barons kept their distance, hugging the shadows for anonymity, and the traditions that had existed for so long in the City were allowed to con-tinue. On certain days of the religious calendar, for instance, families would still come to the tombs of their forebears to leave food and drink for the departed. But as the criminal fraternity’s grip on the City became firmer, so the visits of the simple law-abiding people became fewer and fewer. Staring across the City of the Dead’s desolate expanse now, his car stopped, the engine idling, Girling understood why the meek at heart had stayed away.
Girling had halted the Fiat at the very boundary of the City. Behind him the air above the track still swirled with the dust thrown up by his tyres. Ahead stretched a street whose buildings crumbled from the neglect of centuries. Every now and again, the desolate monotony of its facade was interspersed with a whitewashed tomb here, a newly added shanty there. A dog crossed the street, stopped half-way to scratch its ear, then continued lazily on its way, lying down in a scant patch of shade on the other side of the road.
At first, Girling thought this part of the City was devoid of any human habitation. But as his eyes adjusted to the contrast of bright light and shade, he became aware of faces watching him from the gloomy recesses of windows, or the dark innards of doorless rooms.
Girling climbed from the car. He did not want to stay in this place any longer than he had to. He knew that to the wary inhabitants of the City of the Dead, the very colour of the car would reveal its identity. But as he stood under the sun, feeling as naked as a child, Girling realized that the disguise was paper-thin and would not last long. As his watchers became accustomed to the sight of him, they would know that there was no way an ‘agnabi would be in the employ of the Mukhabarat.
Girling moved quickly to the back of the car. He opened the boot and stepped back as the smell of decomposition and the flies rushed to meet him. Al-Qadi’s automatic, which Ram had replaced in the waistband of the investigator’s trousers, had slipped from the folds of the blanket and now lay loose against the petrol tank. Girling reached for it on impulse and stuffed in into the pocket of his suit jacket.
With one hand over his nose and mouth, Girling slammed the boot shut. As he glanced up, he saw the first wave of people creep from their houses towards him. He could see the hunger in their eyes as they studied his car. Girling knew that, body in the back or not, within the next hour the Fiat would be stripped from the wing-mirrors to the chassis. After that, it would simply cease to exist, except in a thousand and one parts on the black market. Al-Qadi’s body would be hungrily devoured by packs of scavenging dogs.