City of Jackals Read online

  He found Doctora Siham buried in the unforgiving basement of the Institute of Pathology, deep in thought. So much so that she barely registered the heavy door opening and closing behind him with a hiss of rubber flanges, but raised her head slightly before bowing down to the task in hand. Doctora Siham was the chief forensic officer and leading pathologist at the institute. She wasn’t the director because, naturally, the director was expected to be a man, but she was undoubtedly the best. The institute was affiliated with the Forensic Medicine Authority, which came under the Ministry of Justice. This peripheral status meant, effectively, that Doctora Siham could pick and choose the cases she took on. She had to balance work with her teaching obligations, and this suited her just fine. It also meant that she didn’t have ministry officials breathing down her neck like awkward suitors.

  The downside was that the department received very little funding and was essentially expected to make do with what was available. That they could function at all was in large part due to Doctora Siham’s resourcefulness. They were economic with the lighting, with electricity in general, with storage tanks and specimen jars, with chemicals used in analysis, which limited the tests they could perform. All of this found perfect expression in the damp, dark basement; stifling in summer and shivering in winter. Even as a regular visitor over the years, Makana had never really grasped how anyone could spend so many hours down there in the gloom, in the company of the recently departed. The smell of the place would stay with you for days on end, returning in slight gasps, like an overdose of garlic. Doctora Siham’s reputation as a hard-headed, no-nonsense woman preceded her wherever she went. Men tended to be intimidated by a woman who not only answered back, but was invariably correct when she did so. Physically she was striking, even in the harsh white light of the neon strips overhead. Tall and austere, square-shouldered, with a finely honed face, she tended to dress down, actively making herself look plainer and older than her years. How old she really was remained a mystery. He would have put her in her mid-forties, still handsome for her age.

  Her office was a gloomy corner fenced off behind a screen of shelves crammed with old-fashioned specimen jars, bulky glass cylinders in which various human organs and deformed fetuses were suspended in jaundiced fluids. A bizarre wall dedicated to our frail physical purchase on life. The office itself was cluttered with odd pieces of furniture like unwanted skeletons, ugly grey filing cabinets and cupboards that spoke of centuries of obscure research. Rows of obsolete instruments were ranged along counters like milestones on the road towards eternity.

  Most of the time she was to be found in the examination room, perched on a high stool by the counter that ran along the far wall, poring over reports in cool silence. Makana had somehow managed to keep on the right side of her over the years, despite her reputation. On good days he was almost capable of imagining there existed a form of mutual respect between them.

  ‘I was wondering when you would show up,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette as she slid off the stool. There was a strict no-smoking policy here, but it was rarely enforced, especially by Doctora Siham, and no one as yet had plucked up the courage to try. Pushing her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat, she tilted her head towards the steel examination table nearest to them. ‘I’m thinking of calling him Yorick, or maybe Hussein would be more appropriate. Why rely on Shakespeare when we have our own tradition of venerating fallen heads?’

  ‘Has anyone else taken an interest?’

  ‘You’ve been around long enough to know that nobody in the police department goes looking for problems to solve. Around here forensics is an afterthought. A sprinkling of pistachios on the pastry. First they find the guilty party, then they beat a confession out of him and then, and only then, does it occur to them that perhaps they could use something to fatten up the report.’

  She seemed to be in fighting form this morning. Makana lit a cigarette and hung back, sensing it was wise at this instant to give her space. She whipped back the sheet covering a deep stainless-steel tray. The battered, grizzled skull looked even more forlorn in this setting. It resembled the remnants of a bizarre ritual. Having been cleaned up it was now missing strips of tissue cut away for tests, the skin pulled back like a mask to reveal the bone structure underneath.

  ‘I’ve only completed a preliminary examination, a few tissue samples and so forth. A detached head poses its own challenges. On the one hand you don’t have much to go on. On the other it forces you to focus your attention carefully.’

  The room hummed quietly to itself. Makana studied the empty eye socket that seemed to be aimed straight at him as the good doctor moved around the subject.

  ‘I’m growing fond of this one, which means that I’d dearly like to find out why he was so abused.’ She gave Makana a long look. ‘So, what can I tell you about him? Well, first of all he is young, no more than sixteen or seventeen – a child really. He has fairly good teeth, which suggests a good diet until recently. There are signs of tooth decay developing. I don’t think he has ever visited a dentist in his life, but he would have had to do so soon if he’d carried on like this.’ She glanced back up at Makana. ‘You know what’s wrong with most forensic dentistry studies? Most of them were done somewhere like Sweden in the 1960s. Everyone has dental records and there’s a high degree of social homogeneity. In the real world nobody can afford to see a dentist and there are no records.’

  ‘You’re saying you can’t identify him by his teeth.’ Makana leaned in over the tray. ‘Any idea how his head got separated from his body?’

  ‘I’m getting to that,’ snapped Doctora Siham. Makana straightened up quickly. She caught his eye and relented. ‘If you don’t let me do this at my own pace I shall miss something.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Please ignore me.’ Makana stepped back. She studied him for a moment before returning to her work.

  ‘I found fragments of cotton.’

  ‘Cotton?’

  ‘Loose, open-weave cotton to be exact.’ Doctora Siham used a wooden spatula to indicate the corner of the mouth. ‘It looks like the kind of material you find in a bandage.’

  ‘He was in hospital?’

  She gave him what might have been a look of exasperation. Makana decided to keep quiet for a while.

  ‘Abrasions around the corners of his mouth suggest that he was gagged, at least for a time.’

  ‘So this was not an accident?’

  Doctora Siham shook her head. ‘The trauma to the head is consistent with a heavy blow, administered here, at the base of the neck, with an instrument sharp and heavy enough to eventually pierce the spinal cord.’

  ‘He was alive when his head was chopped off?’

  ‘Not only alive, but the damage to the base of the neck suggests that a fairly small axe was used and that several blows were required. Whoever did this was no expert. He basically hacked away until it came free.’

  Makana looked at the skull with renewed respect, and some revulsion. The boy, whoever he was, had been executed, brutally decapitated.

  ‘So is that why he was gagged?’

  ‘I leave that to you,’ Doctora Siham said. She smiled. It was an unexpected gesture that took him by surprise. On her it seemed positively frivolous. It took a moment to focus on her words again.

  ‘The skin tissue shows post-mortem cell decay consistent with a long period of immersion.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘A week, perhaps a little more.’

  ‘What about these wounds here?’ Makana indicated what looked like deep cuts in the side of the neck and ear.

  ‘Yes, interesting you should have noticed that.’ She leaned closer for another look. ‘At first, like you, I assumed they were caused by contact with a moving object, perhaps the propeller of a boat. That seemed the most likely explanation for the severing of the head.’ Doctora Siham straightened up and looked at him. ‘These were not made by a piece of machinery.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘For one thin
g they are too deep and also too narrow, fine. These were made by a series of sharp instruments that were used in a tearing movement.’

  ‘You mean, like fishhooks or something?’

  ‘Similar, but no, from the pattern I would say more like a claw.’

  ‘A claw?’ Makana echoed. ‘You mean an animal did this?’

  ‘A dog possibly. I’ve taken tissue samples, but with that amount of immersion I think it unlikely we will get a more accurate analysis.’

  Makana reached for his cigarettes. From a single head the pathologist seemed to have extracted far more than he had imagined possible. He struck a match and breathed the smoke deeply into his lungs, replacing one chemical assault with another.

  ‘But why remove the head?’ He was thinking out loud, his eyes following the doctor as she retrieved her cigarettes from the counter and lit one. It was impossible not to smoke in here. The walls were slick with damp and the air impregnated with a stifling combination of harsh disinfectant, formaldehyde and the putrid sweetness of human decay. Compared with that the flavour of tobacco came up pure and clean. Doctora Siham studied the end of her cigarette.

  ‘A ritual of some kind?’

  ‘Are there rituals which involve removing the head?’

  ‘I think the Incas and the Mayas did something like that. Also, in Nigeria there are tribes that practise sacrifices which involve removing the head.’

  ‘You think that’s what we’re dealing with here?’

  ‘I took the liberty of consulting Professor Asfour, who is head of the Department of Social Anthropology, and a friend.’

  ‘I see.’

  His comment drew an inquisitive look before her gaze returned to the head on the examination table.

  ‘Professor Asfour said that the markings on his forehead suggest our young man is of Mundari ethnicity. As far as he knows they have no tradition of human sacrifice or decapitation.’

  ‘So it could be something else. Some kind of tribal revenge?’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to talk to him yourself.’

  Makana nodded, his eyes on the head resting in the steel tub. The more he learned about this young man’s fate the more keenly he felt his pain. Somewhere there was a mother and father, a family that probably had no idea what had happened to their boy. It was beginning to feel personal.

  ‘Like I said,’ shrugged Doctora Siham as she stubbed out her cigarette, ‘we’ll know more when the lab reports come back.’

  Chapter Ten

  On the ride back across town Makana was lost in thought, though vaguely aware that Sindbad was still eager to share his new-found understanding of Ancient Egyptian traditions, thanks to his clients.

  ‘Did you know they could remove the brain without breaking open the head? Shall I tell you how they did that?’ The big man gestured with one hand while wheeling the Datsun around a cart whose donkey had decided to come to an abrupt standstill in the middle of the road. Cars hooted and weaved around the obstacle, which remained in place, stubbornly refusing to budge despite the knotted whip being lashed at its raw hind quarters. There was something noble and doomed about this protest, aimed not so much at the animal’s cruel master as at the madness of modern life.

  ‘They went in through the nose. Can you imagine?’ Sindbad’s face was a picture of wonder. ‘They knew so many things. I swear, the doctors who are treating my poor mother could learn a thing or two.’

  Makana refused to be drawn. He knew from past experience the dangers of encouraging Sindbad to talk while driving, especially on the subject of his mother’s health, a bottomless well of stories.

  ‘Then there are the artists. Have you heard of this Amen-something or other? He got rid of the priests and made himself god.’ Sindbad was grinning now. ‘We should do the same thing ourselves.’

  ‘Get rid of the priests?’

  ‘No, all those imams who keep telling us how to live our lives.’ He held up a finger, growing solemn again. ‘Actually, it made me realise how things never change in this country.’

  Reaching for his phone, Makana marvelled at how there was a little philosopher in everyone. Ali Shibaker wasn’t answering his phone, so he asked Sindbad to take a detour up to his studio. Ali was an old friend, an artist who ran a garage on the side. This time it was neither his artistic nor his mechanical talents Makana was after. It was already dark when they reached Sharia al-Sudan, and the poorly illuminated stairwell seemed to be overrun by a family of cats that scattered like smoke as he approached, scraping by him in a rush of fur. Cats made Makana’s hair stand on end. Superstition, he knew, but cats had something other-worldly about them. He didn’t like disturbing them, or causing them offence.

  When he leaned on the bell it stuttered through a high-pitched chirp that eventually wound down. The door was opened by a young woman he had never set eyes on, one of the constantly evolving procession of ‘assistants’ Ali seemed to find. The man himself was in his studio hard at work on an engraving. He threw down his tools when he saw Makana and led him across to the other side of the apartment. The office faced onto the street, and down below it was possible to see the little workshop that Ali ran on the side, his boys still hard at it despite the late hour. He called out for coffee and sat down heavily behind the desk to light a cigarette.

  ‘You still haven’t given up on that old Datsun?’

  Ali had been trying to persuade Makana to invest in a new vehicle for Sindbad. The last thing he had offered them was an enormous ship of an American car.

  ‘I think Sindbad is planning to be buried in that car when he goes. That or build a pyramid and stick it on top.’ Makana explained that he had been hoping to talk to Fantômas, the young artist who shared the studio with Ali.

  ‘You’re out of luck. He’s caught up in this crazy protest. What in Allah’s name do they hope to achieve? I ask you.’ Getting to his feet, Ali strode across the room to begin rifling through a stack of canvases resting against the wall. ‘Spend more time painting, I tell him. An artist can’t allow himself to become distracted by politics. He’s talented, but talent only gets you so far.’

  While Ali carried on grumbling Makana studied the oil paintings. He was reminded of what he had seen at the church. These pictures all seemed to be steeped in anger and frustration, not sentiments he would have associated with the easygoing Fantômas. He wondered why he had not noticed this before. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to see the anguish. Ghostly figures. Dislocated faces floating in a void. Bathed in dark colours, blacks and blues, they had an ominous air about them. They spoke of loss and pain. It seemed extraordinary that anyone could produce something so complete out of the chaos of everyday.

  On the way back down Sharia al-Dowal al-Arabiya, Makana thought about the paintings at the church. He remembered the girl he had seen in the doorway of the kitchen, the way she had been watching him. It was definitely the same girl he had seen mopping the floor in Westies. Estrella was the name, but who was she? Was there a connection between her and Mourad, he wondered.

  The camp looked even more ramshackle than before. Scraps of cloth and colourful acrylic blankets were draped over lengths of washing line strung between lamp-posts. Sheets of cardboard were bent and shaped into walls and shelters bound together with blue nylon twine. It all seemed random and improvised. The inhabitants moved in a daze. Some sat around in groups, others lay patiently as if waiting for a solution to present itself. Incongruous objects like hard-shell suitcases and large televisions were dotted about, stacked here and there. Somewhere a radio was playing, elsewhere a lute, improvised from a tin can and a strip of electric wire, was being softly strummed. An air of despair hung over it all, as if some unnameable catastrophe had struck, leaving this community high and dry on their little concrete island in the midst of a city that no longer cared to see them.

  Through the forest of tall dark men and women, Makana spotted the slight figure of the American doctor he had met at the church. Under her white coat Liz Corbis wore plain trousers and flat
, sensible shoes.

  ‘Your duties never end, Doctor.’ She stared blankly back at him, momentarily at a loss. ‘Father Saturnius introduced us,’ he reminded her gently.

  ‘Oh, yes, of course. Mr . . .?’

  ‘Makana.’

  She broke off to issue orders to two young men covered in a sheen of sweat who were busy unloading boxes of bottled water from a heavily overloaded pickup.

  ‘There’s really not much for me to do. It takes care of itself and Preston manages the rest.’

  ‘Preston?’

  ‘My brother, Preston.’ She pointed out a man dressed in black shirt and trousers. The white band of his collar stood out in the half-light. With his hands on his hips he addressed a group of men who were speaking earnestly to him.

  ‘I’m sure you provide invaluable assistance, and are much appreciated.’

  Liz Corbis took a moment to study him. The evening breeze disturbed her hair. As she put up a hand to push it aside Makana saw the uncertainty in her eyes. To be expected perhaps, in a devout Christian woman who finds herself in a foreign country surrounded by Muslims. She saw in him what she saw in most of what was around her: potential threat. It explained her affinity with the church: the Southerners being Christians made them more welcoming hosts, not to say grateful recipients of their charity.