Strangers. Danuta Reah

message had come through earlier that morning:

      It’s today.

      Joe Massey left his apartment in the northern suburbs and drove south towards the old city. The roads were busy. The traffic careered past him with blithe disregard for the law or for safety. Saudis lived with a different sense of their own mortality. The sky was almost white, and the sun glanced back from the surface of the road, stabbing into his eyes. He could feel the headache starting behind his temples.

      He slowed as he approached the junction, ignoring the chorus of car horns that greeted his manoeuvre. He pulled in to the car park behind the al-Masmak fort, a relic of old Arabia standing in the centre of the modern city that had sprung from the desert only decades before. His car slid neatly into the last remaining gap between two SUVs. The city was thronging with weekend shoppers, with visitors–and today, with sightseers.

      He pushed open his door, and the sun hit him with a force that made him reel. It burned into his uncovered face, trying to peel the flesh away from his cheekbones, to burn through his upper lip.

      He checked his watch. It was half past eleven. He could feel the sweat starting on his scalp and the itch between his shoulder blades that told him he had been seen, he was observed. The coffee he had drunk earlier tasted sour in his mouth.

      As he left the car park, the narrow streets beckoned him, the dark heart of the city; the souk, where the fragrance of spices filled the air and the brilliance of fabric and rugs and brass glowed in the shadowy recesses of the stalls.

      He had walked through those narrow streets often enough. But not today. Today the crowds were heading in another direction. He could feel their suppressed excitement like a charge of electricity through him. Voices called, people jostled past him. The smell of meat cooking caught his throat and made him want to gag. In the intense heat, he felt cold and dizzy, and he made himself pause and wait until the darkness at the edge of his vision subsided.

      Then it was noon and the call to prayer sounded from the minarets. The shops closed and the streets emptied. He sat quietly, waiting. The crowds would be back, soon enough. Once the people began to return to the street, he stood up and started walking. He didn’t need directions. They were all going to the same place.

      Progress was easy now. He just had to relax and let the crowd carry him. Once, when he was a child, he had gone swimming off the Cornish coast. The current had taken him. One moment he was floating in the cool sea, rocked by the ebb and flow, next he was being drawn out, away from the beach, away from the shore, away from his family and safety. He’d tried to swim against it, then he had stopped fighting. The current had carried him round the bay and then released him into the gentle waters near another beach where he had waded ashore, unhurt. He closed his eyes, and let his memories of the sea overtake him.

      When he opened his eyes again, he had arrived at his destination. The last time he had been here, it had been evening. The spacious, blue-tiled square had been full of people who had gathered to meet, to talk and to drink tea. Children had raced across the open space, expending their energies in shouts and screams.

      Now, it was empty. He could see the police standing on the corners, see their eyes searching the crowd as they positioned themselves, their batons swinging casually. He had dressed to blend in, wearing the ghutra, the ubiquitous red-and-white chequered scarf, and a thobe, the long white robe that served as a practical defence against the sun. Today, he had covered his eyes with dark glasses to conceal their tell-tale blue.

      The air smelled of sweat and spices, and the staccato jab of Arabic attacked his ears. His mind escaped to another childhood memory, to the fair that came to the town every year with its crowds, the laughter, the shouts of the stallholders, the tinny music that meant freedom and summer. The smell of hotdogs and onions.

      And now he could smell death. He had a sudden picture of Haroun sitting across the table from him as they talked over coffee, his dark eyes bright with laughter. Joseph! Haroun’s voice spoke in his ear. Haroun was the only person who had ever called him by his full name. It is good to see you.

      It’s good to see you, too…But the voices in his head faltered and faded. Joseph…

      The crowd pressed forward and he went with it until he found himself in the shadow of a palm tree which gave him some relief from the sun. The empty square opened up in front of him. His eyes were drawn to the stones, blue-grey in the hard light, with intricate, interlaid patterns. There was no mark, no stain.

      The hands on his watch barely seemed to move, and yet he had a sense of time running past him, faster and faster, as if there was some way he could stop it, as if someone was saying, Now! Do it now! Now! But it was too late. It had always been too late. He could feel his heart beating fast, the breath catching in his throat. Haroun!

      Then the police were there, pushing the crowd back, back. Just for a second, he wanted to let himself go with them, to be carried to the back where the deadly stones would be hidden. Be careful! he had warned Haroun, but his warning had been half-laughing, a warning against the minor carelessnesses with which Haroun met the vagaries of life. Joseph, you worry! Don’t worry!

      And now this was the last thing he could do.

      He held his ground until there was nothing between him and the waiting square but the line of armed police. The crowd closed in behind him, and the possibility of choice was gone. He saw that a tarpaulin had been laid out on the ground, less than twenty yards away from him. In the heat, a wave of cold washed over him and once again the blackness threatened at the edge of his vision.

      And then two vans approached the square. One was unmarked. The other, incongruously, was an ambulance. They drew up outside the mosque. Armed men climbed out. They turned and stood by as the doors were held open, and a man was led out. He was blindfolded and shackled, and he stumbled as he stepped down on to the ground. His head lifted towards the vast emptiness of the sky above him as if he were straining to have one last sight of it.

      ‘Haroun.’ In his mind he heard the familiar laugh and he felt his arms move in involuntary expectation of an exuberant embrace. But the blindfold meant that he would never look into that dark gaze again.

      It was no more than a whisper, but the shackled man stiffened, and his head turned, blindly searching the crowd. Then he was forced to his knees, facing the holy city, facing Mecca. A man read out loud from a sheet of paper–the charges against the condemned man. Another man, dark-skinned and powerful, stepped forward. He carried a long, flat sword. He stood behind the kneeling man. Everything froze between one second and the next.

      Then time seemed to jump as the bowed man jerked upright and the sword swung round on the indrawn breath of the crowd. The blood was a red fountain from the neck and poured from the severed head on to the tarpaulin.

      Allah Akbar! The roar from the crowd. God’s will is done.

      His stomach contracted. His legs could barely hold his weight. The square seemed to darken in front of him, and the edges of his vision faded to blackness. He couldn’t pass out. Not here. Not now. He let his shoulders slump, breathed slowly and deeply until his head began to clear.

      He knew, even though he had only seen the weapon and not the hand that wielded it, that he had just witnessed a murder.

2

       London, April 2004

      Tuesday was a bad day. It started out quite promisingly, but after that it was downhill all the way. When Roisin’s alarm clock went off at six thirty, the sky was leaden and heavy with clouds. By the time she had showered, the first spatters of rain were already hitting the window.

      She went through to the kitchen and tipped some muesli into a bowl. The cramped kitchen still contained the original fittings from when the flat was built in the early sixties, a fact that would probably add enormous value when the taste for retro cycled through a few more years. The pots of herbs she kept on the window sill contrasted with the red of