Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti) (32 page)

A noise came from behind: Spike spun round to see Solomon Hassan striding up the path. The apes watched on from their crag. The limestone of the Rock glowed a soft red.

‘You intrigue me,
compa
,’ Solomon called out as he joined Spike on the platform. His smile remained in place but moisture beaded his upper lip.

Spike still had his phone in his hand; he held it out and snapped a photo, hearing the camera give its ersatz click. As he checked the picture, he realised what Solomon’s empty pupils reminded him of – the stained, wooden masks hanging on the walls of Ángel Castillo’s house. He swivelled the screen to Solomon, now just a foot away. ‘Look at yourself.’

Solomon tilted his head. Shoulder muscles rippled his sweaty shirt.

‘That fat, feeble face.’

Solomon frowned, then turned to glance out to sea. Spike followed his gaze to where a sleek Sunseeker motor yacht was heading for Marina Bay, cruising effortlessly over the hidden currents.

‘At the party just now,’ Spike said, still holding out the photo, ‘I remembered something Jessica Navarro told me. That you had a smell about you. One of life’s fall guys. A born loser.’

Solomon looked back at his own image, then took a step forward, forcing Spike closer to the parapet. ‘And suddenly it made sense,’ Spike said, edging away from a gap in the wall. ‘Nadeer hung you out to dry, didn’t he? He asked you to get close to Esperanza, to persuade her not to tell the police about the Bedouin’s murder. So you befriended her. Slept with her. But still she wouldn’t budge. So back you went to Nadeer, explained the situation until he sweetened the deal, set up Interzone Holdings, a slice of the action if you could shut her up for good. You knew Dunetech had the police in their pocket – all you needed to do was pluck up the courage, buy a knife, then choose a discreet location. But Nadeer double-crossed you.’

Solomon looked above the handset into Spike’s face, his irises swallowed up by pupils as dark and deep as tunnels. ‘Nadeer behaved exactly as I thought he would,’ he said. ‘As did you, my friend.’

It was Spike’s turn to frown. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘Of course not, Spike. Because you’re always one step ahead.’

Spike edged further along the wall. ‘You mean you
knew
the police would come after you?’

‘I suspected they might.’

‘Then why risk killing her? I don’t . . .’

Spike watched Solomon turn and glance up at the satellite dishes which crowned the peak of the Rock.

‘You always knew about the videotape,’ Spike said.

‘Who do you think paid that fat fuck his hush money?’

‘You were drip-feeding me information . . . just enough to help me to find the tape.’

‘I knew you’d get there eventually. You never could resist a damsel in distress.’

‘And once the tape was found,’ Spike went on, ‘you knew it was inevitable that the crime you committed would be pinned on Nadeer.’

‘Or Castillo. Let’s not forget he was in the video too. Joint enterprise murder, if my legal research is up to scratch.’

‘Leaving you in full control of Dunetech.’

Solomon’s thick lips formed a smirk.

‘How about Toby Riddell? How could you know that –’

‘Riddell would just have followed the pay cheque,’ Solomon said. ‘A mere foot soldier, Spike, same as you. Same as most people.’ He removed a BlackBerry from the pocket of his chinos. ‘It’s hardly a fucking war crime, anyway,’ he muttered as he twisted the cog. ‘Christ. Get over it.’

With a slide of the thumb, Spike clicked off the record button on his phone and walked back up to the path. A cluster of stone-pine saplings had seeded themselves in the scrub; Spike drew their resinous, Mediterranean perfume deep into his lungs as he found play on the handset and put it to his ear. Solomon’s voice returned unencumbered by ambient noise: ‘
You’re always one step ahead . . .
’

Switching off the recording, Spike dialled Jessica Navarro’s number. As he waited for her to pick up, he stared out from the Rock. The sun had finally gone and the Straits were cast in shadow. Spike looked away and continued up the path.

A Note on the Author

Thomas Mogford read Modern Languages at Oxford University and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Law from City University, London. He works for ITV Sport as a translator and reporter on the UEFA Champions League. His short fiction has been published in
The Field
magazine,
Litro
and
Notes from the Underground
. He is married and lives in London.

Copyright © 2012 by Thomas Mogford

“The Burial of the Dead” taken from
The Waste Land
© Estate of T. S. Eliot and reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Walker & Company, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010.

Published by Walker Publishing Company, Inc., New York

A Division of Bloomsbury Publishing

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Mogford, Thomas.

Shadow of the rock / Thomas Mogford.

p. cm.

e-ISBN: 978-0-8027-1188-5

I. Title.

PR6113.O359S53 2012

823'.92—dc23

2011038765

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www.walkerbooks.com

First U.S. edition 2012
This electronic edition published in August 2012