Dogstar Rising

Chapter Twenty-Five




It was late when Makana finally arrived home. The river road was silent and empty. The big eucalyptus tree hung down over the riverbank like an unanswered question mark.

Umm Ali’s precarious little shack was dark and silent. This, while being unusual, was not out of the ordinary. Although he often wondered at the way she and the children managed to stay up long into the early hours watching some raucous melodrama on television and still be up at the crack of daybreak, there were exceptions. Perhaps the machine was broken, or it might even have been possible that the good-for-nothing brother had decided to take them all off on a treat. Miracles still happened, Makana had to remind himself, even if they were few and far between. It was only when he reached the end of the narrow path that he began to feel uneasy. He paused to listen to the sound of the water slopping against the sides of the hull and wished he had the gun with him. It was altogether too quiet. Carrying a gun had always seemed to him a good way to get yourself killed, but right now he would have liked the reassurance of one in his hand. The Beretta was concealed in the locker behind his desk. To get it he would have to climb to the upper deck. He listened some more before deciding that nothing would be achieved by waiting. The gangplank sagged and creaked as he stepped onto it, making enough noise to announce the arrival of a baby elephant. The staircase amidships he could climb in the dark blindfolded. He paused halfway up to calm his breathing and listen again. This time he could hear something. Faint and distant. Scratching. What it was he could not say, but it was not right. As he lifted his foot to move on he heard it again. A soft mewing sound that could have been a cat. Cats, of course, had been strolling along these banks since the days of Isis and Osiris, protected by superstition and belief, and he could have done with one to keep the water rats away. Instinct told him this was not a cat. Stretching out a hand he found the panel set into the wall under his desk, inserted a finger into the hole and released the catch. Lowering the flap he reached inside. The Beretta was wrapped in an oily rag. He began to feel better about things.

The sound came again, barely distinguishable above the soft beat of the water, and this time he knew it was human. His heart stopped for a moment. Then he moved quickly, stepping up onto the deck in a crouch. The faint light of the crescent moon fell between the dark outlines of the tall buildings across the river. A pleasure boat went by bringing with it a passing jingle of music and laughter, a spotlight played across the awama as the passengers enjoyed themselves picking out sights of interest on their cruise. The river glinted like quicksilver through the wooden railings. On the open rear deck an object lay on the floor. At first he thought it was a trick of the light. And then it moved and Makana felt a cold tremor run through his body.

Sami was splayed out on the wooden deck, arms and legs stretched wide. Setting the gun down, Makana knelt and bent close to be rewarded with a faint, tortured hiss of air. The mewing sound he had heard. Sami’s face and chest gleamed in the moonlight. His shirt was flayed into ribbons, the cloth soaked with blood that leaked off his chest, trailing from his arms and legs in long rivulets to find the gaps in the wooden deckboards.

‘Can you hear me, Sami?’

There was no response. The uneven rising and falling of the chest. He was alive, just. Makana noticed there was something awkward about the way his body lay. When he tried to move an arm, thinking he would make his friend more comfortable, it refused to move: each hand and foot had been nailed to the deck. A guttural cry came from somewhere deep down inside Sami’s chest. He was trembling all over as if an electric charge were running through him. The nails were large and square, carpenter’s nails that had been hammered through the centre of each palm, crushing bones and parting flesh before embedding themselves deeply in the wood.

Sami thrashed about faintly and then went limp. Makana went to the telephone and called Sindbad – calling for an ambulance might entail a wait of an hour or more. It took ten rings before he answered. He sounded asleep.

‘Get here as fast as you can.’

In the meantime, Makana found a hammer and a pair of pliers and set about trying to dig the nails out. It wasn’t easy. He started with the left hand. The worn teeth slipped, blood spread over his hands, making the tool even more slippery to grasp. He grabbed the bedsheet and tore it into strips, wrapping them round his hands. Sweat dripped from his brow. Finally, he felt the first nail begin to give. Each fraction that it moved seemed to touch a nerve inside Sami. He rocked back and forth as if in the grip of a nightmare. The pliers were sliding all over the place. Makana let them drop to the deck and set to work with his fingers. He squeezed until the edges of the nail dug into his flesh. Nothing. He tried again. This time he felt it give. The pain in his fingers made him want to scream. He gave a cry as it came free of the wood and he managed to slip it out of Sami’s palm. Sami appeared to lose consciousness. A piece of paper, now soaked in blood, had been stuck to his hand with the nail. Makana slipped it into his pocket as he set to work on the second one. There was a shout from below as Sindbad came down the narrow path, moving with a speed and agility that belied his bulk. When he saw what was waiting on the upper deck, he gave a cry.

‘Ya satyr, ya rub! Who did such a thing?’

‘Help me,’ Makana handed him the pliers. Sindbad removed the remaining nails with less difficulty than if they had been pins stuck in cardboard. Then Makana set about using more strips of sheet to bandage the wounds as best he could.

‘We must get him to the hospital.’

‘Effendim.’ Sindbad hauled Sami up onto his shoulder and the two of them made their way up the bank to the road. Sindbad drove like a man possessed.

‘Why would anyone do something like that?’ he asked. ‘I thought only Christians did that.’

‘They were sending a message.’

‘A message?’ echoed Sindbad. ‘Who for?’

‘For anyone still looking for an excuse to hate Christians.’