Dogstar Rising

Chapter Thirty-Five




While many establishments settled for upbeat music to lull potential customers into a relaxed state of mind and thereby trigger an unrestrained spending spree, Beit Zafrani preferred to use the sound system to fill their stores with edifying religious readings. Young boys sung the sacred verses through Chinese speakers fitted into the ceiling. The ground floor of the Zafrani brothers’ flagship enterprise on Shihab Street was a brightly lit space dedicated to domestic appliances: washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners. The floor space was taken up by rows of rectilinear white units all lined up to suggest some kind of order. The few people in sight, mostly wide-eyed couples, wandered through this maze of marvels, their faces set with expressions of awe more akin to visitors at a museum displaying the treasures of past civilisations. Here instead was a museum of modern life. Evidence that Egyptian women were no longer prepared to stand up to their knees in the river scrubbing their clothes on a flat stone. Now they lifted lids and opened doors to marvel, peering cautiously inside as if expecting a djinn to reach out and drag them down inside. Men frowned at the prices and at specifications that might have been written in hieroglyphics for all they understood.

What Makana knew of the Zafrani brothers was little more than rumour and hearsay. Between protection rackets, smuggling, prostitution and a string of other enterprises, they presided over a small empire, descended from an extended family of small-time criminals and dealers in contraband. In prison, legend had it they had undergone a religious conversion. Seeing the error of their ways they vowed to dedicate themselves to furthering the Islamic cause. This didn’t mean that they entirely abandoned their criminal ways overnight, simply that they determined to straighten themselves out. The chain of white goods and clothing stores was the most vivid manifestation of this will to go legitimate. The straight side was run by the younger of the two, the clean-living Zayed, while Ayad, generally took care of the less palatable business.

Makana was greeted by the gently undulating tones of a young boy singing the sacred verses of the Quran. The religious tones seemed to sit well with the clientele. Men whose faces were lost in long, straggly beards and women wrapped in conservative long sleeves and skirts, their hair bundled under scarves bound tightly under their chins. Their clothes were simple, in plain dark colours. Some of the women wore long coats that buttoned from chin to ankle while others had their faces veiled, sweeping through the room in their black robes like vengeful spirits among the white metal appliances. Children of all shapes and sizes ran about with wild abandon. Parents and children alike remaining oblivious to the frowns of the shop assistants, who in turn stared blankly at Makana when he told them the purpose of his visit.

‘Tell Zafrani that Mr Makana is here to see him.’

‘To which Mr Zafrani do you refer?’

‘It doesn’t matter which.’

With a look of disdain the assistant, a slim man with a neatly trimmed beard, disappeared and five minutes later two others appeared. One of them looked familiar. An old man with a hennaed beard. Last time Makana saw him he had his hand wrapped around his throat.

‘Come with us.’

The assistant dropped his eyes to the counter in front of him as if Makana had instantly performed the miracle of becoming invisible. A staircase with chrome railings and glass sides led up to the first floor and Ladies Apparel. Women pored through the racks impatiently with gloved hands. The second floor was the men’s department, deserted but for a couple of bearded assistants who stood around idly as if waiting for a train to come by. Makana’s guides led him wordlessly to a black door with a chromed porthole in the middle of it. The bald head that bobbed up to fill this nodded in recognition at Makana’s companions and the door clicked open. On the other side was an empty corridor. They walked down to the end in silence. A turn brought them to an open doorway and a room furnished with carpets. Two sofas against the wall. There were no windows.

‘Sit,’ said the hennaed man, without elaborating. Makana sat. When he reached for his cigarettes the man clicked his tongue and shook his head. Makana sat and stared at the walls as the two guards took up positions on either side of the doorway.

He didn’t have long to wait. The two thugs exited discreetly. The first man to enter the room resembled a school teacher; bespectacled and with the obligatory beard, neatly trimmed. He was slim and delicate in appearance, clad in a pristine white gelabiya with a high collar that buttoned under a prominent Adam’s apple. He stood in the doorway and blinked. The other was short and hefty, with a shaven head. Makana had glimpsed him aboard the Binbashi that night with Talal and Bunny. The man who gave his permission for wine to be served. Makana guessed this was Ayad Zafrani, the elder of the two brothers. The slim version was Zayed. He did the talking.

‘How generous of you to pay us a visit, Mr Makana. We were just discussing you.’

‘I’m honoured.’

‘Indeed. All roads seem to lead back to you.’ Zayed Zafrani had a quirky smile on his face. His brother scowled at the floor. ‘People fall around you, friends, associates, and yet you’ – he made a movement like a fish with the flat of his hand – ‘find your way through unharmed. Why is that?’

‘Luck?’ ventured Makana.

‘Oh, come now, it has to be more than sheer luck. Why are you here?’

‘I’m looking for Rania Barakat.’

‘And what makes you think we know where she is?’

‘Your associates delivered a washing machine just before she disappeared.’

Zayed Zafrani’s smile deepened. ‘You mistake an act of kindness for an aggression.’

‘Maybe. I happen to believe you have taken an interest in Nasser Hikmet’s work.’

‘Indeed. We believe his work is of great value to us.’

‘Which is why you tried to bribe his grieving mother?’

‘Merely a gift, to show our benevolent nature.’ Zayed Zafrani bowed.

‘But you still don’t have what you are looking for.’

‘We are confident it will come to us, one way or another.’

‘Is that what your boys were doing when they helped Hikmet out of a window in Ismailia?’

‘Watch yourself. Now you’re jumping to conclusions,’ growled Ayad.

Makana recalled hearing a story about one of the brothers tearing a man limb from limb, dislocating shoulders, cracking ribs, reducing him to a bloody sack of broken bones with his bare hands. It would have to be Ayad. Hard to imagine the smooth Zayed tearing a roasted pigeon apart.

‘You’re saying you didn’t kill him?’

‘If that was the case then why should we be interested in Mrs Hikmet?’

Makana considered the facts. It was possible the Zafranis were telling the truth. But if they didn’t kill Hikmet then who did, and why? Whoever it was they must have discovered the existence of the laptop after he was dead. They also knew that the police had not found the laptop. Which pointed towards someone with contacts inside the security services. Had they been watching Mrs Hikmet’s flat when Rania showed up and left carrying the laptop?

‘Just so we are clear. I don’t wish to interfere in your business dealings, passports or otherwise.’

Zayed Zafrani threw an uncomfortable glance at his brother, who in turn lifted his eyes heavenwards. ‘That was a minor affair we were reluctant to get involved in and which has now been terminated.’

‘And Ghalib Samsara, what is your interest in him?’

‘I don’t know that name,’ Zayed Zafrani shook his head.

‘Let’s start again. Why are you so interested in the information on that computer?’

Zafrani thought for a moment before going on. ‘It contains details of certain transactions concerning the operations of a certain bank.’

‘The Eastern Star Investment Bank.’

‘Frankly, Mr Makana, your knowledge of our dealings concerns me.’

‘Like I said, I’m not interested in your affairs.’

‘Are we supposed to believe that when you are working with Lieutenant Sharqi?’

Makana recalled the motorcyclist with the television set who had been following him and felt a grudging respect for the Zafranis.

‘Sharqi wants me to help him out. He says I need a friend.’

‘Such a friend could be very useful to a man like you.’

‘Everything has a price.’ Makana glanced at Ayad Zafrani who opened and closed his fists as if he anticipated using them soon. ‘Why don’t you answer the question? Why are you interested in information about a bank you helped set up?’

Zayed Zafrani tilted his head to one side. ‘To do that I would have to explain our strategy.’

‘Your strategy?’

‘In the long term we believe the current regime will have to go. It is corrupt and works against the good of the people.’

‘And you hope to hasten that change?’

‘Encourage it,’ Zayed Zafrani smiled.

‘Did you order Meera Hilal to be killed?’

‘An unfortunate incident. Very clumsy. When people get nervous about Islamist fanatics sooner or later they start pointing in our direction. We would like to avoid that.’

‘Are you saying you didn’t kill her?’

‘Yes, of course. Why would we kill her?’

‘You wanted to suppress the information she had dug up.’

‘We want to know who that information concerns. Names.’ Zayed Zafrani paused. ‘Are you planning to take this to Lieutenant Sharqi?’

‘All I care about right now is Rania. Why is the bank so important?’

‘We have invested a great deal in transforming our assets into legal ones.’ Zayed Zafrani gestured at their surroundings. ‘The Eastern Star was a part of that move.’

‘So let me see if I understand,’ said Makana. ‘You set up the bank as part of your legitimate operations. A way to accumulate a solid foothold in the country’s economy, and to make yourselves known to the people. You managed to get the endorsement of your friend Sheikh Waheed. Then things started to go wrong. A group of people inside the armed forces started to take a personal interest. They bought into the bank and began using it for their own purposes. Large sums of money were moved around using small companies like Blue Ibis. The money comes in, stays for a few days and then goes out again, perhaps in two or three directions, and all trace of it disappears.’

‘Armed forces people,’ grunted Ayad. ‘They think they can do what they like.’

‘If you know something about us then you will know that we spent long periods in prison. At first this was because of our . . . activities. But this was all part of our fate. I am a religious man,’ Zayed Zafrani said moodily. ‘I’ve suffered for my beliefs. We both have. I have had my bones broken. I have been tortured. We don’t like to be taken advantage of, particularly by people like Sheikh Waheed, who, by the way, is not a friend. He represents everything that we wish to see the end of.’

‘Waheed is where it all went wrong. He brought in his government friends. Yet you brought him in to endorse your bank.’

‘It was a mistake, but even snakes have their uses sometimes. Waheed is a puppet, feeding his friends and doing their bidding.’

‘Stirring up animosity towards Christians, for example?’

‘A distraction. We are not interested in distractions. We want people to wake up, to see how badly this country is being run.’

‘And then what, they rise up and take to the streets?’

Zayed Zafrani lifted his shoulders in a careless shrug. ‘The details are not important. The point is that change is inevitable. You cannot suppress seventy million people forever. We started this bank in order to bring people back to the idea that Islam can be used to run the state.’

‘Because you believe Islam is the solution to this country’s problems.’

‘The people, the shaab, have been cast into a long sleep for many decades. But one day soon, inshallah, they will awaken.’

‘Shall I tell you what I think?’ asked Makana, lighting a cigarette. ‘I think some part of your masterplan has gone awry. You’ve lost control. In a word, one key piece is out of your hands, or to put it another way, somebody you trust has betrayed you.’

‘Go on,’ said Zayed Zafrani quietly.

‘This person is playing both sides to his own advantage. You expected to get the information you needed in Ismailia. It wasn’t there. You thought Hikmet’s mother had it, but Rania beat you to it. Now you say you don’t know where she is, and perhaps I’m wrong, but I just might believe you. Maybe somebody else has her, the same person who set up Meera’s killing without your asking. He made it look spectacular, which was exactly what you don’t need. The case passed from the police to a special counter-terrorist unit and Lieutenant Sharqi, who is going to come knocking at your door one of these days.’

‘And you think you can help us to take care of this person?’ murmured Zayed Zafrani.

‘I think I might be able to.’

‘And what do you get in return for doing us this favour?’

‘Well, there is one matter of great importance to me that I think you can help me with.’

‘Please, speak freely.’

‘I need to know about your business with Mohammed Damazeen.’

Zayed Zafrani was silent. Ayad muttered something to himself and stared at his feet.

‘I was right about you,’ said Zayed Zafrani after a time. ‘You are an interesting man.’