Rotten Gods (18 page)

There is nothing further he can do, and his mind turns to the task at hand. Over a breakfast of tea, flatbread and yoghurt, he and Hisham together perused the city telephone directory, finding dozens of hire car firms, yet few with yards close enough to the sea to produce rust on the body of a late model car.

They found three businesses here in the port area, and Simon now approaches the yard of the first. The cars are lined up in
rows  — Fiats, Renaults and an archaic American Lincoln with bright chrome side mirrors and door handles. Each vehicle has a prominent sign on the passenger door, painted in bright orange. Malik did not mention such a thing so Simon walks on, taking the map from his pocket and scanning it, identifying the next place that Hisham has marked with a pencil.

This prospect is down a side road. On impulse Simon decides to skip it. Another firm on the list is much closer to corrosive salt water, located beside the main road into the port. Putting the map away he increases his pace to a brisk walk, passing a vacant yard where a man, with blood to his elbows, has just slaughtered a goat, an act that appears to attract no comment from other pedestrians. Nearby, two men squat in the characteristic local posture, feet close together, knees spread, talking in low voices.

At the base of the hill the salt air thickens, along with the odour of diesel and paint. Aden was once the world's third busiest port, and even now it receives as much boat traffic as New York City. Consulting the map again he sets off, seeing the car hire yard loom up on the right, protected by a chain-mesh fence topped with three strands of barbed wire.

Hire cars are parked with the front bumper to the fence, but when Simon walks around the corner and inside the yard he sees that each has a number in gold and black adhesive letters on the back window. Two high-voltage wires join in his chest. More than one of the cars is afflicted with surface rust, others show evidence of having been bogged with fibreglass and painted over.

The office is a corrugated iron structure with a low skillion roof. Simon steps inside, closing the door behind him, and fronting up to a counter, looking around while he waits. Ughniyah — the ubiquitous Arabic pop music cranked out of Cairo and Beirut recording studios — emanates from a transistor radio on a shelf.
A bead curtain parts and a man of perhaps fifty appears, a curling goatee beard on his chin, rubbing his hands together as if pleased at the prospect of a customer.

‘Peace be upon you, sir.' He smiles. ‘A beautiful day, isn't it? A good day for driving, perhaps. A good day to rent a reliable, clean motor car.'

‘Peace be to you, also. It is indeed a beautiful day.' Simon decides that while the proprietor speaks standard Gulf Arabic, he does so with an unusual inflection for this part of the world. An Egyptian, perhaps, or even a Libyan. His clothes seem, at first glance, expensive, but there are patches where his suit has been mended.

‘You are a man who wishes to travel our beautiful country, brave enough to venture where his government says he is at peril. Yemen is, now that Saleh has gone, safer than London or New York, but one or two extremists, always foreigners, must give us a bad name. You are a man who looks past such things and will go where the urge compels you. Do you travel alone, or is there a companion, a wife, perhaps?'

Simon shakes his head, wondering if his assessment of the man's origin is correct — his patriotism seems to verge on the jingoistic.

The salesman thrusts out a wide-fingered hand joined to a solid, hairy wrist. ‘My name is Ahmed, a name famous for fair dealing and the supply of humble yet reliable motor vehicles. I am honoured that a man such as you would patronise my business.'

‘Sorry, but I don't wish to hire a car.'

The man's eyebrows rise as if pulled by a string. ‘No? Then I fear you have come to the wrong place. If you want rice, you go to Mustafah's grocery down the road; if you want meat, go to Wali the halal butcher. People come to me, Ahmed, when they wish to hire a motor vehicle.'

Simon flashes his British Airways ID, watching Ahmed's eyes widen as he studies it. ‘I am with airline security. My job is to investigate a crime committed at the airport last week.'

The effect is dramatic. The smile disappears, and the previously smooth forehead becomes a roadmap of wrinkles. ‘One of my cars is involved?'

‘I fear so.'

‘That is a terrible thing, yet what my customers do is beyond my control, I cannot be held responsible for their actions.'

‘No one will hold you responsible. We want to find the perpetrator.'

Tension leaves the man's shoulders. ‘Of course. I will do my best to help you.'

Simon takes a folded square of newspaper from his pocket and lays it out on the table. ‘Have you seen this man?'

Ahmed studies the picture. His face turns angry, as if at a bitter memory. ‘Yes, he hired a car last Monday — I remember because he did not bring it back, may God curse him. A friend of mine spotted it abandoned at the port and I went down to fetch it myself.'

‘Are you sure it was this man?'

‘Of course.' Ahmed taps his forefinger just above one eye socket. ‘I never forget the face of an untrustworthy customer. I saw him on the television last night and I said to my wife that I had seen him before and she did not believe me. She called me an old fool.'

‘Can you show me the car?'

‘Of course.'

Halfway out the door the telephone rings and while Ahmed excuses himself, Simon wanders the rows unaccompanied, finding a white sedan with rust just as Malik had described.
When he opens the door and looks inside, Ahmed wanders out, an exaggerated expression of surprise on his face. ‘This is the one. How did you know?'

Simon's eyes move to the corroded patch in the body. ‘There was a description given. An eyewitness. They told of rust in that panel.'

‘Yes. There is a price to pay for being the closest hire car firm to the port,' Ahmed explains. ‘As well as salt air, the mains water is sometimes contaminated with salt. That does not help when we must wash the vehicles down.'

Simon looks at the number on the back window: one-four-three. ‘Why are the numbers so high when you have just a dozen cars?'

‘Does it not seem more impressive, to hire car number one-four-three than number seven, eight or nine?'

‘I guess so.' Simon steps back, thinking of the charm that led him this far. The Pandora bracelet, as far as he remembers from the intermittent interest he has paid to it, is quite secure. It seems strange that one charm detached itself at the airport. If the bracelet had torn they would have all been scattered.

Hannah, he remembers, as a little girl, was enamoured of the story of Hansel and Gretel, fascinated at how the boy left a trail of little white pebbles. She even renamed the fable ‘Hannah and Gretel', acting the story out with little girl inventiveness, using dominos or marbles as pebbles, leaving them through the house for him to follow and find her hiding place.

Have you left me a trail, my darling? Did you release the charm on purpose?

He turns back to Ahmed. ‘Are the cars cleaned after each hire?'

‘Not all the time — there is little point if the customer has kept them tidy.'

‘This one?'

‘No. It was clean. I did not need to touch it.'

‘Do you mind if I have a look inside?'

‘Of course not.'

Simon slips into the front seat, feeling underneath the mats and looking through the glove box, then the console. There is only the usual paraphernalia — candy wrappers and registration papers. A screwdriver.

Moving out and into the back seat, Simon delves under the seats and then, frustration growing, slips his hand under the upholstery. The object is so small he almost misses it, yet his fingers close around a hard sliver of metal.

When he brings it out he sees the shine of sterling silver, smiling with recognition. This is the sword he bought in New York; the charm that so entranced Hannah when he gave it to her.

‘Hannah,' he whispers, ‘you smart, smart girl.'

‘What is it?' Ahmed asks.

‘Nothing, and everything. Can you show me where the car was abandoned?'

Ahmed's eyes drop. ‘I'm very sorry, but I cannot leave my business. My wife and children will starve if I ignore my customers. Already, Wafiyah complains that there is not enough money for us to live like her sister Nuzhah, and her brother-in-law Aswad …'

Simon all but rolls his eyes — business hardly seems to be booming. ‘I have some Euro dollars to recompense you for your time. Is that acceptable?'

Ahmed nods. ‘It is not far, but still I might miss a customer. Shall we say seventy Euro?'

‘I was thinking fifty.'

‘That is fair. Fifty it is.'

 

Ahmed drives him deep into the port of Aden, away from cranes, containers and modern ships, into a place of wooden dhows interspersed with pleasure vessels — white cruising catamarans and ageing gin palaces. Smaller fishing boats are painted white, with iron reels for hauling in nets and Arabic dedications rendered in blue or red near sweeping, graceful bows.

This area is a throwback to the days before shipping containers destroyed the charm of the world's merchant navies. Here, beside the multicoloured dhows rising and falling at their berths, the docks are crowded with bales, crates, discarded ballast, and loose cardboard boxes with Chinese or Arabic lettering. The occasional heavily burdened donkey supplements an eclectic collection of vehicles.

Ahmed slides number one-four-seven to a halt alongside an empty berth. ‘My car, number one-four-three, was here — keys in the ignition. Lucky she wasn't stolen.' He points to the berth with one manicured finger. ‘There was a boat there, if I remember.'

‘What kind?'

‘If she were a car I could tell you everything. I am in the motor business, and therefore know nothing of boats and sailing ships.' He shrugs. ‘It was big, rusty, with faded paint.'

Simon opens the door, then his wallet, passing across a note. ‘Did she have a name?'

‘Sorry, not that I saw.'

The man is genuine, and Simon sees no sense in wasting time pressing him. ‘Thank you. I appreciate your cooperation.'

Ahmed crinkles the money as if testing it for authenticity. ‘That is all? You do not wish to have a lift somewhere else?'

‘No, thank you.'

‘You will come back to me if you wish to hire a car?'

‘You can count on it. Your cars are very nice.' Simon closes the door and watches Ahmed accelerate away, honking the horn at a man carrying a bamboo cage of live chickens across his path.

Alone at last, Simon stares at the empty berth. The charms in his pocket tell him that he is on the right trail, yet once, on the BBC news, he heard an expert on such things state that time is critical with kidnappings; that every passing hour makes a successful recovery less likely.

His phone rings. Simon plucks it out of his shirt pocket with his right hand, lifting it to his ear.

‘Good morning, Simon.' Tom Mossel sounds tired, yet the air of polite boredom — that unflappable veneer — never falters.

‘Glad to know you haven't forgotten me. Have you found my girls?'

‘No. But you're not helping. You're in the way, actually.'

‘I can't see how.'

‘Don't make this hard. I'll have you picked up by force, and I must warn you that it is getting to the point where charges might be laid against you.'

‘What for?'

‘We'll think of something, I can assure you.'

‘How is Isabella?'

‘Same as the rest of them  — frightened out of her wits.' A pause, then, ‘Simon, they're killing people in there.'

Simon feels himself swoon, the growing heat off the concrete dock becoming a malevolent force. ‘But she is OK, isn't she? I had one text message from her, but nothing since.'

‘We are in contact with her. She is in a position to help us out.'

Simon feels his breath catch, then a growing anger. ‘Don't you dare put her at risk.'

‘No risk, she's just passing on some information.'

‘You're using her. That has to stop. Right now.'

‘Simon, your wife can help save a thousand lives, and do I need to remind you what she has done? Let her vindicate herself, for Christ's sake. We all have to be able to live with ourselves.'

‘They are holding her children,' he flared. ‘How dare you —'

Mossel's voice is as low and cold as a whisper. ‘I hear what you're saying. But I have no choice. No more choice than she did.'

Still holding the phone to his ear, Simon walks closer to the empty berth, hollow and afraid. Squatting down and reaching out with his free hand, he touches a bollard worn to shiny smooth metal by years of heavy lines looped over the rusty iron.

‘The boat was called
Sa-baah
,' Mossel says.

‘What?'

‘The boat they took your daughters on.
Sa-baah
means “Morning”, I'm told. A Danish-built tug retired from a thirty-year career towing Saudi offshore rigs. Purchased by a Yemeni company five months ago. I must congratulate you on getting this far. Nice detective work. You look tired, though. Bet you'd love clean clothes. You can't keep recycling the same ones forever.'

‘You bastard, can you see me?'

‘Had an idea you'd get here sooner or later. The company that now owns the vessel lists its sole director and shareholder as one Da'ud Iqbal, a Saudi lawyer with links to several terror organisations, including the Algerian AQIM and these Almohad bastards. We found him on holiday, pretty sure he was laying low. Had him picked up in the resort city of Taif. He hasn't talked yet, but we're hoping he might.'

‘You didn't answer my question. Can you see me?'

‘Of course. Turn around. You'll see a man in a white shirt and sunglasses; he's holding up a cell phone.'