Strangers (11 page)

Damien’s office was in one of the modern blocks in downtown Riyadh. From his high vantage point, he could look down on the drivers playing Russian roulette in the heavy traffic. In this part of the city, pedestrians were few, apart from people–always men–moving between office blocks or the small urban malls that lined the streets.

He was putting together a report about developments in recruitment and training strategy that might help to fill the skills gap that was developing. The economies of the developed world might not be healthy, but they could still pay their skilled workers good salaries. The Kingdom was haemorrhaging ex-pat workers. It was hardly surprising.

Earlier that year, a well-respected banker had been shot on the streets of al-Khobar, and his body had been dragged for miles behind a car followed by a mob howling their triumph–an event that would have brought down brutal
reprisals if it had happened elsewhere in the Middle East. A group of ex-pats had been taken hostage in their housing compound, and several had their throats cut before the police drove the hostage-takers out. A TV journalist, a Middle East expert and sympathizer with the Arab cause, had been shot on the streets of Riyadh as he tried to film a report.

Damien knew he must be a target himself. He tried to be inconspicuous, but he moved in Arab circles, and to some people that would be provocation enough.

Will you walk into my parlour
…? The people who could afford to stayed away. The salaries they could command in the Kingdom were higher, but so were the chances of getting their throats cut. What he needed was a recession.

He was staring into space, letting his mind run through the problem again, when his phone rang. It wasn’t the extension that would be routed through his secretary, it was his direct line.

‘O’Neill.’ The voice was abrupt. ‘I want you to tell me what’s going on.’

It was Arshak Nazarian.

Damien thought quickly, but he had no idea what was upsetting the man. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I know,’ he said.

‘I see. Someone tries to hack into my systems looking for stuff about Haroun Patel. Then you turn up in my offices asking questions about him. Maybe, just maybe that was coincidence. But now
someone’s attacked my system again. What’s this about?’ Under the measured tones, Damien could hear real anger.

‘All I know is that people are showing an interest in Haroun Patel.’ There was no point in keeping that quiet. ‘I’ve had one or two queries about his conviction.’

‘His conviction…’ Suddenly, Nazarian’s voice was thoughtful. ‘That’s…odd. Who’s been asking?’

Amy, for one. But Nazarian had actually echoed his own views. It didn’t matter now whether Haroun Patel was innocent. The act of execution had sealed his guilt.

‘What did the hacker go after?’

‘Patel’s records and…’ He stopped. ‘Whoever it was did a good job, but not good enough. I found his traces in my system this morning.’

Joe Massey was obviously spending a lot of time in the internet café.

Nazarian was speaking again. ‘These people who’ve been asking you questions–I assume we aren’t talking about anyone official.’

‘No.’

‘And are you going to tell me who they are?’

‘They spoke to me in confidence.’

‘I see.’ Nazarian’s voice was cold. He was right to be upset. His system contained information that might be sensitive–he had his business interests to protect. Damien might not like Nazarian’s business, but it was all legal.

As far as he knew.

Maybe that was it. Maybe Nazarian had been cutting corners, and whoever was digging around in his systems was getting a bit too close. As he put the phone down, he was reminded of his own unfocused edginess, the feeling that there was something he had seen but had not noticed, something that had been tugging at his subconscious for the past few weeks. He let his mind drift to see if anything emerged, but there was nothing. Something had drawn Amy to the Patel case. Joe Massey had been asking questions. None of it meant anything. Maybe it was time to have a quiet word with Massey.

Nazarian’s call had broken his concentration. He needed a break. He decided to go out to one of the street cafés for coffee. He picked up his hat and sunglasses, told his secretary he was going out, and left the air-conditioned cool of the building.

Outside, the street was brilliant in the high sun. The light reflected off the concrete walls and off the paving slabs. The sky was a deep, cloudless blue. He could feel the heat start to burn through his skin, even under the protective shadow of his hat.

But deep inside himself, he felt cold, as if he was aware of unfriendly eyes that were searching, tireless and indefatigable. For the first time, he felt as though he had attracted their
attention, that they were studying him, hostile but uncertain, and if they looked at him, they might cast their gaze just a bit wider, and find…what?

‘I got an invitation to go to the mall the other day.’ Roisin was experimenting with her hair in front of the mirror. She and Joe were getting ready to go to a party–their first night out together in weeks.

‘Who from?’ Joe was reluctantly getting changed, making his lack of enthusiasm for the evening clear.

‘Yasmin–she’s one of the teaching assistants.’ He was standing in front of the mirror, knotting
his tie. Dress standards in Saudi were more formal than in the UK. ‘Better be careful. Saudi women wear Gucci to scrub the floor.’

‘They don’t scrub floors. Their maids do it. What do you think of this?’ She turned from the mirror and showed him her hair swept up and clipped on top of her head.

‘It’s pretty.’ He studied her for a minute. ‘But…’ He came across to her and ran his fingers through her hair, freeing it from the clips so that it fell loose round her face. ‘That’s prettier. I like it better like that. That’s how you looked the first time I saw you.’

‘The day I almost knocked you into the canal?’

‘Oh, I saw you before that.’ He was standing very close to her. ‘Do we have to go to this thing?’

She looked up at him and sighed. ‘I think we do–she phoned this morning to make sure we were still coming.’

He kept his eyes on hers. There was something in his gaze that disturbed her. Then he shrugged. ‘OK.’ He released her without further comment. Before she could say anything, he’d left the room, and she heard his feet on the stairs. She bit her lip. Just for a moment it had been like looking at a stranger.

You hardly know him
…

She shook off her sudden doubt, and took her dress out of the closet. She slipped it on and looked in the mirror. Her hair hung round her shoulders in loose curls, brightened by the sun. All she
needed in the way of make-up was a slick of colour on her lips and some sparkle round her eyes. Her green dress was softly draped, and cut with a deep V at the front.

When she went downstairs, Joe was waiting by the door, his eyes skimming the paper. He barely glanced at her. ‘Ready?’

She touched his arm. ‘Joe, what’s wrong? You’re wound up like a spring–I wish you’d talk to me.’

He shook her hand off. ‘Christ, Roisin, what do I have to do to get it right with you? I’m coming to this party, aren’t I?’

They left the house in silence.

The party was on the other side of the city. Roisin sat beside Joe as he negotiated the Riyadh traffic. They were both angry. He was driving faster than usual and she could see the tension in his jaw.

The sun had set–night came quickly here–but as they entered the city, Roisin could see that the young men behind the wheels wore glasses tinted to impenetrable black, they had their cell phones clamped to their ears, and drove with the recklessness of invincible youth. She was reminded of American teenagers driving their cars around town, cool and edgy, boys and girls eyeing each other up in a complex courtship ritual. But here the cars were bigger and more expensive, and a crucial part of the equation was missing.

She could feel the attention of the young men snagging on her as they stopped at a red light and
was glad that she had tied her scarf tightly so that her blonde hair was concealed. There was something predatory in the air.

Joe turned off the highway on to a slip road, away from the centre out towards the suburbs. They followed the road for another twenty minutes then he pulled up outside the gate of a walled compound where the ubiquitous security guards waited, and presented his identification. The gate swung open and a guard waved them through.

The noise of the party spilled out as the houseboy opened the door to them. The first thing that struck her as she stepped into the house was the chill of the air-con and she was glad of her wrap. The hostess greeted them with a bright, social smile and a glass of homebrew. ‘Roisin and Joe,’ she said. ‘I’m so pleased you could come.’

Roisin tasted her wine. It was sour and acidic. She glanced quickly at Joe, wanting to re-establish contact, but he didn’t meet her eye. He was looking round the room and she could feel the tension in him. She heard him mutter ‘Shit,’ under his breath.

A woman waved to her from across the room, and beckoned her over. Roisin recognized her, and saw she was with a group of women she’d talked to before. She couldn’t face another session of complaints about how terrible Saudi was, how awful the Saudis were, how inefficient and grasping the servants. She smiled brightly and looked quickly round the room. She spotted a fair-haired man
standing on his own, looking rather bored. There was something familiar about his face–and then she recognized him. It was Damien O’Neill, the man who had shown them round the city on their first day.

She turned to Joe to point O’Neill out to him, but he’d moved across the room and was already incorporated into a group of people she didn’t know, people from the hospital presumably.

She trod hard on her anger and made her way over to where O’Neill was standing. ‘Hello,’ she said. Her voice sounded abrupt and breathless in her ears. ‘You probably don’t remember me. Roisin Massey. You gave us a quick tour of the city when we arrived. I’ve been meaning to call you to say thanks.’ She noticed he had orange juice rather than wine. Probably a wise choice.

His smile was carefully neutral. ‘It was my pleasure. How are you?’ It was the measured politeness of someone who didn’t expect the exchange to last beyond social courtesy.

‘I’m fine. Thank you.’

‘Your husband?’

‘Yes. He’s fine.’ For some reason, there seemed to be no other word in the English language apart from
fine
. ‘Are you…’ she floundered for a moment, trying to think of a question. ‘Have there been many new arrivals recently?’

He looked distracted, as though he was running the conversation on auto-pilot, his mind elsewhere. ‘No. Are you happy with your accommodation?’

She said quickly, ticking the items off on her fingers: ‘The house is fine, thanks. Work’s going well. We aren’t planning a holiday, so we can’t talk about that. I don’t have a maid, but the gardener is doing a great job. And the weather’s been good.’ She looked at him. ‘Fine, in fact. Like everything else.’

For a moment, his face was blank, then he laughed. ‘Point taken,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. There’s a standard conversation you have at these parties. I can do it without thinking now.’

‘So why do you come? You don’t need to, do you?’

He looked round. ‘Oh, I need to keep in touch. Actually, I’m supposed to be meeting someone, or I might have given this one a miss.’ He was studying her more closely now, and she wondered what he saw, because he said, ‘Are you really settling in OK? It’s not an easy place, especially for a woman.’

‘It’s had its moments. But mostly, yes, it’s been…’

‘Fine?’

She laughed. ‘Just about. I like the work. I’m getting to know my way around.’

‘And your husband?’

‘Yes, fi—He’s OK, thanks, except he has to work long hours. I don’t think he expected it to be quite so…’

A faint line appeared between his eyebrows. ‘Was it so bad at the hospital? I know they’ve been short-staffed for a while.’

‘It’s getting better. Joe says he’ll be on top of it soon.’

He nodded. She got the impression that he was still thinking about this as he started asking her about her impressions of the Kingdom, about how much of it she had seen. She told him about her trips into Riyadh–he nodded approvingly when she told him how much she liked the remains of the old architecture.

‘There won’t be anything left in a few years,’ he said. ‘Have you seen the al-Masmak fort?’

‘Not apart from a glimpse on that first day. I thought it was all a tourist reconstruction.’

‘They don’t get tourists here, not to speak of. So it’s the real thing. It’s built of dried mud, and inside–on the upper floor–there are some carvings. You should go and see it if you want to understand this place.’ He told her about the battle in 1902 when Abd al Aziz, with only fifteen warriors, scaled the walls of Riyadh, took the fort and was declared ruler by the populace. ‘The history of the Kingdom–of the whole Middle East

—was shaped by that one event.’

‘I always thought it was shaped by the desert

—the culture, the way the people live.’

‘Have you been to the desert?’

‘Yes, the first week we were here.’ Her rising spirits deflated as she remembered how happy she’d been–how happy they’d both been that first weekend. She made an effort and smiled at O’Neill again.

She got the impression she hadn’t fooled him, but all he said was, ‘Well, the desert and Wahhabbism will tell you everything you need to know about the Kingdom.’

The desert and Wahhabbism–this was what Yasmin and Najia had to contend with. ‘Is there a women’s movement in Riyadh?’ The question slipped out without thought. Until she spoke, she hadn’t realized she was going to ask it.

He looked at her. The silence stretched out uncomfortably. ‘Why do you want to know?’ he said after a while.

‘It was something one of my students said, that’s all.’

‘It depends what you mean by “women’s movement”. There are various radical Islamic groups. Women are members as well as men. If you want my advice, you’ll stay well away from anything like that.’

‘I meant a feminist movement.’

‘It’s illegal to set up political organizations.’ He was choosing his words carefully. ‘So the straight answer is no. There are various salon-type things–businesswomen, and women who want to be politically active, meet in their own homes sometimes. There was a well-orchestrated protest when they wouldn’t let the women vote in the election–it was all done legally, but it got a lot of publicity. Someone knows what they’re doing–and they’re moving very carefully. It’s a sensitive issue. I don’t think it would help if a
Westerner was to take up the cause–they’d lose a lot of credibility.’

That was more or less what Yasmin had indicated. ‘I realize that. I was just interested in what the students were saying.’

‘It’s a touchy issue at the moment. I’m surprised they talked about it at all.’

He was studying her face closely, and he looked worried, so she said, ‘There was something posted on the university web site.’

‘That won’t have gone down well. But things are starting to change for women here. More of them work, these days. Some of them are very successful. A Saudi woman has just been appointed to lead the UN population fund. And there are women like Professor Souad al-Munajjed who are very successful in their own field. You know her, of course?’

‘Yes, but I wonder how representative she is.’

He looked into the distance, considering. ‘She stays where she is because she doesn’t challenge the establishment. The traditionalists don’t like her, but she’s careful not to give them any ammunition. Her colleagues, the ones that did start challenging things, they’re more marginalized now.’ He told her about the time in 1990 when fifty women drove cars in protest against the ban. She remembered Souad talking about it. ‘I worked for the consulate then,’ he said.

‘What happened?’

‘The women lost their jobs and their families
were threatened,’ he said. ‘I thought a bit of solidarity from our government wouldn’t go amiss, but…’ He shrugged. ‘We’re selective about whose rights we support, and when.’

‘Is that why you left the consulate?’

‘Among other things.’ He changed the subject. ‘How are you getting on with the students?’

‘Fi—Quite well. They’re careful what they say to me.’

‘Well, that’s…’ A man came across to O’Neill and spoke quickly to him. ‘Would you excuse us?’ he said to Roisin.

‘Of course.’ She found herself engaged in conversation by another man who told her he was an engineer on contract, then she talked to an Australian dentist, and then to a couple who could only talk about how much they despised the Saudis and how much they wanted to go home.

She shivered. The air-con was set too high and she could feel the deep chill of fatigue. She’d been up since six. She looked around the room, searching for Joe. She saw him, talking with someone she couldn’t quite see–or rather listening to someone, she could recognize the slight tilt of his head that indicated he was paying close attention to the conversation. The crowd shifted, and she saw with some surprise that the person he was talking to was Damien O’Neill. Joe looked across at her. His mouth was set in a thin line. As soon as he caught her eye, his face relaxed. He said something to O’Neill then came across to her
and put his arm round her. ‘Are you OK?’ His earlier coldness had vanished.

‘I’m a bit tired. You?’

‘I’m ready to go if you are. Roisin–I’m sorry about earlier. I behaved like a shit. It’s been a bit tense at work–I shouldn’t take it out on you.’

She felt the knot that had been in her stomach all evening start to unwind. ‘You could talk to me about it.’

‘I know. It’s…when I get away from it, I just want to forget about it.’

‘What kind of thing? I was talking to Damien O’Neill–he seemed a bit surprised you were still…’

‘Oh, just–organization things. People being inefficient. Stuff like that. I saw you with O’Neill. What did he have to say?’ There was a slight edge to his voice and she looked at him quickly.

‘Not much. We talked about this place. I told him about our trip to the desert. Why?’

‘Nothing. I don’t like him. He’s an officious bastard. It doesn’t matter. Come on, let’s go.’

‘I’d better go and say our goodbyes.’

As she crossed the room, she became aware of someone watching her. A woman was standing by the French windows, a tall, slender woman with red hair. Roisin stopped, and the woman moved, the light catching her face. For a moment, they looked at each other blankly, then Roisin felt the jolt of recognition. She had a sudden vision of a figure leaning dangerously out of the window
of a train, waving, calling something that was drowned by the noise of the engine and the echoes from the cavernous station, again and again as Roisin frantically shook her head and cupped her hand to her ear.
I can’t hear you!