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  ‘Nasra?’

  Just speaking her name aloud added an air of the surreal to the situation. As soon as he spoke he knew it wasn’t her. It was impossible. This was someone else.

  The figure stood with its back to him. He took another step forward. They were standing deep in shadow, facing the wall. He reached out a hand. The warning signal came too late, too slowly. A lazy, hazy semaphore from the other side of his brain, clicking away in his head. The shape of her was wrong. The height was different from the woman he had been following. Even as he started to withdraw his hand she spun round and his confusion was complete. Not Nasra. Not his daughter, but a face disfigured by acid. A face he had seen before.

  She gave a slight cackle as she threw herself forward, spinning past him. She was strong and fast, or else he was simply too slow, his mind confused. A burning sensation on his thigh told him he’d been slashed by something sharp. A distraction. Before he realised what was happening the noose was over his neck and pulled tight. His mind flashed to the plastic tie he had glimpsed on the rabbit sticking out from one of her plastic bags even as the sharp edge cut into his windpipe. He was jerked backwards. Caught off balance, he threw out a hand and managed to connect with the wall. The thin band dug in harder, cutting off his breath and the supply of blood to his brain. He knew that he would pass out in a matter of seconds. He thrashed about desperately, but she was on his back, all her weight pulling down on the nylon band, drawing it tighter. He felt his face and neck bulging. Her legs were wrapped tightly around his waist. She seemed barely human, rather a mad, sinewy creature whose strength came from some inner fury.

  Makana threw himself backward and was rewarded with a cry of pain as she crashed into the corner of a machine. Her legs weakened their grip slightly. The zip tie was still locked in place. He saw spots before his eyes as he dropped to one knee and twisted forward. The weight lifted from his back as she slid over his shoulder, crashing to the floor in front of him and sliding away. Makana staggered backwards, wrenching at the plastic strip locked around his neck. The narrow band had dug itself into the flesh so tightly and deeply that he couldn’t get a purchase on it.

  He saw her pick herself up, jabbering to herself. It was too late. He was choking, the fight draining from him as he sank down on both knees and started to lose consciousness. Somewhere far off he heard the cackling receding, footsteps padding away as the woman skittered off, laughing or weeping to herself. He clawed frantically at the band dug into his neck but was still unable to get a purchase. He felt his strength ebbing. If he passed out he knew he would be dead. He collapsed onto his back in a pool of dirty water that stank of old oil and rust.

  He felt himself slipping into a dreamlike state. Perhaps devoting his life to another profession might have been a better way of spending his time on this earth. A less complicated life. Something connected to the earth, to nature. Farming, or herding animals perhaps. The lack of oxygen was taking his mind down a long, meandering path back to his childhood and the day his father had taken him to the river to teach him to swim. Trust yourself to overcome your fear.

  It felt as though he had spent his life trying to prove himself. Maybe it was time to admit defeat. Things had a habit of always becoming more complicated. The darkness before him was expanding, drawing him softly in, forcing everything else outwards until there was only one receding spot of light before him. He tried to focus on this, knowing that when he could no longer do so, he would be dead.

  Somewhere far off on the periphery of his vision he heard a metallic snick. A shadow bent over him. He was too weak to struggle any longer. Light gleamed on the blade as it drew near. He braced himself, sensing that it would be over quickly, feeling the steel sharp against his skin, the prick of the cut, and then miraculously the pressure was released and his lungs were filling with air. He rolled over and lay there, coughing and gasping. Eventually, he managed to lever himself up onto one elbow. His clothes were damp and the smell of oil was making him feel sick. The crazy woman’s rancid smell was all over him. He felt like vomiting, but at least he could breathe. When he looked up he realised she was standing over him.

  ‘How … ?’ he rasped.

  ‘You know who I am?’ She stepped back and waited a moment.

  Makana struggled to sit up. He rested his back against the machine and rubbed his neck. A wet trickle ran down his collar. He put his hand to it and saw blood. He watched her wiping the blade clean, tucking it somewhere inside her coat with a neat, practised movement. In the dim light he could barely make out her features.

  ‘You saved my life.’ His voice was a hoarse croak.

  She didn’t reply. Her eyes were in shadow, but he could feel her watching him.

  ‘This is strange,’ he said.

  He watched as she moved back towards the window, pacing slowly, moving in and out of shadow. Behind her shards of splintered glass glinted in the moonlight.

  ‘I can’t tell you how many times I imagined this moment,’ he said. ‘But I never pictured it like this.’

  ‘Neither did I,’ she said. Her voice was cold but he no longer had any doubts. It couldn’t be anyone else.

  ‘What did Mek Nimr tell you about me?’

  She stopped pacing.

  ‘He told me you were a traitor and a mercenary who sold his services to the highest bidder.’

  ‘And you believed him?’

  ‘What was I supposed to believe?’

  ‘I never stopped looking for you.’ The words sounded wrong, insufficient. There was a long silence. ‘For years I thought you had died along with your mother—’ Makana broke off, a part of him still unable to believe they were having this conversation.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because it’s important,’ he began. ‘It’s important to me.’ None of his words seemed right. ‘I think you should know.’

  ‘I know all I need to know,’ she said.

  ‘You saved my life,’ he said. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do?’ Nasra gave a shrug. It was a gesture that made her look unsure of herself, and young. ‘Between you and her, you’ve managed to double the police presence in the city in a matter of days.’

  ‘You knew she was here,’ Makana said, feeling his head begin to clear. ‘You led me to her.’

  There was silence from the shadow that was Nasra.

  ‘You thought she would get rid of me.’ Makana’s throat hurt so badly he had to stop talking for a moment. The figure by the window stood motionless. ‘Why did you change your mind?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘It matters to me.’

  She remained where she was, one eye on the yard and the other on him.

  A part of him didn’t want to speak, wanted to hold back the thousand and one questions that had been amassing in his mind for over a decade. A part of him wanted to just sit here and let her presence sink in. He leaned his head back against the metal behind him and closed his eyes.

  ‘Mek Nimr must have great confidence to bring you along on a mission like this,’ he said finally.

  She came towards him then, moving with the slow, well balanced strides of a gymnast, and squatted down in front of him. He had to admire her control of the situation. She had been well trained.

  ‘I’m not interested in you,’ she said. ‘So let’s be clear about that. I’m here to do a job, that’s all. It has nothing to do with you personally.’ The look of pity in her eyes hurt him more than he thought it would. He longed for a cigarette, but wondered if his throat could take it, or his heart. Which was the more vulnerable at this time?

  ‘To take a single life without justification is to kill all humanity,’ he said.

  She gave a short laugh. ‘You think you have the right to quote the Quran to me?’

  Makana felt as though he was feeling his way in the dark, speaking his thoughts aloud as he worked things out.

  ‘We should talk.’

  ‘There’s not
hing to talk about.’ She turned to the window for a second, then swung back and pointed a finger at him. ‘You stay here. Wait five minutes before you leave.’

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’ She paused to look at him.

  ‘There must be things you want to know?’

  In the poor light he could not make out her eyes, just the shadows that seemed to dissolve her. She looked so familiar and yet he felt he knew nothing about her.

  ‘You turned your back on us, on everything, your faith, culture, country.’ She gave a hollow rattle of a laugh. ‘After that, leaving behind your wife and child must have been easy.’

  ‘It’s never easy,’ he said. His questions suddenly seemed irrelevant. It all felt unreal, just trying to take in the fact that she was his daughter. Not dead, at all, but standing there right in front of him. That she clearly hated him made it all the more absurd.

  ‘There isn’t a day when I don’t wish I had jumped after you,’ he said. ‘If I could, I would have tried to save you both.’

  ‘But you didn’t, did you?’ she said. She stared at him. ‘Five minutes. Don’t try to follow me.’

  Makana sat on the floor rubbing his neck as the sound of her footsteps sank into the fabric of silence. After a time he decided he deserved a cigarette. He sat on the floor for a long time, easing the acrid smoke down his throat.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Coming out of the building, Makana looked at his watch. He needed to get back to Nizari, but before he could do that he needed to be sure that he wasn’t being followed. He walked one way and then doubled back the way he’d come. The air was cold and damp as he moved through the evening crowds on Istiklal. He tried to focus on losing a possible tail, but his thoughts kept straying to Nasra. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a possibility that he could not completely dismiss: that all of this could be part of an elaborate charade constructed by Mek Nimr.

  Was that possible? He had trouble believing that even Mek Nimr could be devious enough to find someone to pretend to be Nasra, just to inflict more pain on him. Makana had been convinced that it was really her. Now he felt his doubts returning. He would put nothing beyond Mek Nimr’s twisted mind. If he left this city without finding the answer to that question, he knew he would spend the rest of his life wondering. But if he didn’t get out of this town quickly, and take Ayman Nizari with him, then he might not have that much longer to reflect on anything.

  Mek Nimr’s religious faith was no more than a channel for the dark forces within him. Makana knew that he would never be able to stop blaming Mek Nimr for the death of his wife and daughter. He had no evidence that anyone had tampered with the steering on his car. He would never be able to prove it, but he knew. He knew.

  Back then Mek Nimr had been a rising star in the People’s Defence Forces. His head dizzy with power, he had found his own personal reasons to settle on Makana as an adversary. He had resented working under Makana’s command. The resentment, as Makana now knew, went deep. He envied the fact that Makana was a leading light in the Criminal Investigations Department, praised by the department head, Chief Haroun, and clearly destined for great things. It wasn’t just professional rivalry: Mek Nimr found fault with Makana’s entire moral outlook.

  More important, he was part of the old guard. Makana was associated with the intelligentsia that had ruled the country since independence, thanks to his father. A schoolteacher and respected poet, Makana’s father had been a focal point in the national imagination. In the popular uprising of October 1964, it was his father’s words that had been on the lips of the students and protesters who took to the streets demanding change. Even in retirement he had been wheeled out time and time again as a figurehead, the old boy enjoying every moment of attention. Makana had had his own issues with his father, who thought Makana was squandering his talents chasing petty criminals rather than building up the nation. Such distinctions were irrelevant to Mek Nimr. Makana was a worthy trophy, a head to mount on his wall, and a useful tool, a stepping stone in his own rise to power.

  In a strange kind of way, Makana understood his former adjutant. Even now, after all that Mek Nimr had achieved, rising through the ranks to become head of the Directorate for Insurgency and Counterterrorism, Makana remained the one person in the world from whom he seemed to need recognition. Was that why he had been brought all this way here? So that Mek Nimr had a witness to his hour of triumph, in the moment of Makana’s own downfall?

  When Makana had first begun to hear the rumours that Nasra might have survived the fall into the river, he had come across a strange variation in the telling. It was too dangerous for him to return home, and his inquiries had been frustrated by logistics and the matter of who he could trust. But of all the stories that had come his way, the most twisted of all was the curious tale that she had not only survived the crash but had been taken by a high-ranking official into his own household. This version held that Nasra had been kept for years as a domestic servant, working in the kitchen, cleaning and waiting on the master and his family. Despite all his efforts, Makana had never been able to confirm it, but the story had pervaded his imagination, as if the seed, once planted, was nurtured by his frustration and anger. If that story had any substance to it, then that high-ranking official was none other than Mek Nimr himself.

  The thought burned deep into Makana’s mind. As a form of revenge it could hardly be bettered. It was perfect. To have the daughter of your sworn enemy waiting on you hand and foot. Every time he saw her hard at work, scrubbing floors, hanging out washing, bearing a serving tray, Mek Nimr would have been reminded of his triumph. And now he had turned her into his own agent, a trained jihadi officer, loyal to him and him alone. Having witnessed her contempt for him first hand, it seemed to Makana that Mek Nimr had finally won.

  Nizari was slumped over the table, but at least he was still there. He leapt up as Makana sat down.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he whined. His eyes had the haunted look of a dog that expects a beating. He was ready to make for the door, but sank down with a sigh of despair. Batuman himself was beaming like a showman, arms thrown wide. He had freshened up, shaved, changed into a silk shirt. Now he snapped his fingers and one of his boys rushed off to fetch tea for them all.

  ‘I can’t drink any more tea,’ Nizari groaned. ‘I’m tired. I just want to sleep.’

  ‘You can sleep later,’ said Makana.

  The tea arrived along with a plate of baklava. Makana realised he was hungry. He drank thirstily and chewed one of the sticky pastries. As he did so he became aware that Batuman was watching him closely.

  ‘Two of my men will go with you tonight.’ He waited for Makana’s nod before continuing. ‘That way, if there is any trouble they will bring you safely back here.’

  ‘I hope that won’t be necessary.’ Makana slid the folded newspaper across the table. Batuman lifted it cautiously and saw the two thousand dollars Makana had placed there. He nodded approvingly.

  ‘That is generous of you.’

  ‘You have been kind with your hospitality,’ said Makana courteously. His phone beeped to notify a message. He fished it out of his jacket and clicked through to see the words: Midnight. Beşiktaş Vapur Ferry. The caller identity was hidden. He knew who it was from, but he wondered why Boris was telling him something he already knew. He deleted the message and then switched off the telephone and removed the battery.

  ‘I am curious,’ Batuman said. ‘Did you really kill all those people, like it said in the paper?’

  ‘You’re interested in a reward on our heads perhaps?’

  ‘You misunderstand.’ Batuman laughed off the suggestion. ‘You have nothing to fear. Here you are among friends.’

  ‘It’s nothing personal,’ said Makana, reaching for his cigarettes.

  ‘It is a matter of professional curiosity, nothing more.’ Batuman leaned forward to light Makana’s cigarette, his eyes glinting in the flame. ‘One becomes accustomed to sizing up a ma
n, judging his strengths, what threat he might present. You understand?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Makana.

  ‘Maybe we should go,’ said Nizari, the flutter in his voice giving him away.

  ‘You will be going, very soon,’ Batuman said, without taking his eyes off Makana. ‘I pride myself on being able to judge a man, but I look at you and I don’t know what I see.’

  ‘What do you need to know?’

  Makana wondered if he was making a mistake. Right now he didn’t have many people on his side. He didn’t need to make an enemy of Batuman. Over his shoulder he saw the two young men leaning on a table, cracking their knuckles. The choice of the table by the door now made perfect sense. They controlled who came in, and who was allowed to leave.

  ‘You mistrust me,’ said Batuman.

  ‘I’m not sure what it is you expect from me,’ said Makana.

  Batuman held up his hands in a gesture of peace. ‘We are humble people, just doing our best to make a living; we try to help our local community, to provide the protection they need. Perhaps you’d like to make a contribution.’

  ‘I thought I just did.’

  ‘Yes, and very generous it was too.’ Batuman smiled. ‘But these are difficult times and, frankly, helping a man wanted for murder can bring a lot of trouble down upon us.’ He had the smooth delivery of a showman who had honed his performance over the years.

  Makana had expected something of the sort. He produced a second envelope which contained less money than the first. Batuman’s face broke into a broad smile. To him it must have seemed as easy as taking baklava from a baby.

  Makana held onto the envelope for a moment longer. ‘There is something I want in return.’

  ‘Anything.’ Batuman grinned. It felt like paying the wolf to guard the sheep, but at this point Makana didn’t see that he had much choice.