CARLA BANKS

Strangers

For Samantha

Table of Contents

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part Two

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Part Three

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Acknowledgements

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE

1

Haroun is dead.

The desert kingdom has taken him away from me.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 2004

The 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 the formica tops to make it look like an old-fashioned Italian restaurant, and her eclectic collection of pans, the bottles of oil and the usual half-full bottle of red wine added to the effect. She didn’t much like the flat–a box in an ex-council block–but the kitchen always felt warm and homey.

A year before, she had been in Warsaw. She and her then partner, Michel, had been about to open their own language school. They planned to teach English and Spanish through the year, and offer summer schools to students from all over the world.

Roisin had provided the start-up costs, sinking her savings and a small legacy from her father into the venture. Michel was to provide the financial backing for the first year of running the business until they had got themselves established in what was a competitive market. But the whole enterprise had gone sour.

She made herself stop thinking about it–there was no point in wasting energy in futile anger. She dumped her bowl into the sink and ran some water over it. She blasted her hair with the drier, which turned it into a blonde tangle. She swore and attacked it with the comb then pulled on her jogging gear and hurried down the stairs of the apartment block, wanting to get out before the rain began in earnest, before traffic really got going and tainted the air with fumes and noise. She knocked on the door of the ground-floor flat directly below hers.

There was a flurry of barks, and she heard grumbling as someone shuffled to answer her knock. A warm fug drifted out, a mix of dust, mildew and unwashed dog. George, the old man who lived in the flat, observed her without obvious enthusiasm.

‘Rosie,’ he said. He yawned and scratched his chest. ‘Thought I heard you banging about up there. Suppose you want a cuppa, now you’ve got me up?’ His dog, Shadow, scratched at the wall behind him and tried to push his muzzle past the old man’s legs, whimpering with excitement. ‘Geddown,’ he said.

‘I’ll make it.’ George’s tea was a bright orange brew that he sweetened with condensed milk. She went into his kitchen before his ‘I can do that, thank you, missy,’ could stop her.

The kitchen was small–a mirror image of hers–and spartanly neat. A loaf of Mother’s Pride was on the worktop next to a carton of margarine, a bag of sugar and a tin of milk. She filled the blackened gas kettle–he refused to have anything to do with the brand new electric one his niece had bought him–and lit the hob. Then she waited interminable minutes for the kettle to boil and made them both tea.

He spooned in enough sugar to make her teeth ache and retired to his chair. Shadow laid a pleading chin on his knee. ‘Geddown,’ he said again, carefully tipping some of his drink into the empty dog dish by his chair. Shadow’s plump sleekness contrasted with his master’s thin frame. George, who was in his eighties, looked more frail now than when she had first met him six months ago when she had knocked on his door to sort out a mail mix-up caused by the postman’s inability to tell the difference between 13 and 31.

‘I’m going for a run. I thought I’d borrow Shadow, if that’s OK.’

He surveyed the day outside the heavily netted window. ‘Running in this? You daft or what?’ He shrugged. ‘He may as well make himself useful.’ Shadow’s tail thumped on the ground. She and George kept up the pretence that he was doing her a favour by letting her take the dog when she went running. His knees were arthritic and their walks were sedate affairs. She waited as he finished his drink, listening as he gave her his take on the day. He probably wouldn’t talk to another person before she came back from work and dropped in to say hello. Then she clipped on the dog’s lead and left.

With the excited mongrel dragging her along, she went past the rows of front doors and stepped out into the chaos that was King’s Cross. The rain had stopped for the moment, but its fall had left the air smelling fresh, even in this polluted corner of the city. The traffic was starting to build up, people were heading towards the bus stops and the stations, and she could hear the rumble of heavy machinery and the shouts of the workmen from the building site. She walked down St Pancras Road, restraining Shadow until she reached the canal, then she let the eager dog off the lead and followed him down the steps on to the tow path.

Silence closed round her. She could smell the dankness of the water and the musty fragrance of leaves that had lain rotting since autumn as Shadow pushed through the undergrowth. He came bounding back with a stick in his mouth and deposited it at Roisin’s feet, shaking the wet off his coat. Then he cast his eye in the direction of the canal, and began gathering his muscles for the leap. She issued a sharp instruction. He gave her a sideways glance, as if trying to decide whether to obey her, but maybe he, too, thought the water looked uninviting, and he danced away up the tow path.

The grey coldness of the water reminded her suddenly of the Tyne as it ran through her home city of Newcastle. The river had been the backdrop to her teens. When she was seventeen, she and her best friend Amy, high on pills, had climbed through the metal girders of the Tyne Bridge so Roisin could take a photograph of the mist on the water. She couldn’t remember now why they had decided to do such a thing, but she could remember Amy gripping her arm and bracing herself against a stanchion as Roisin leant out over the dizzying drop so she could angle her camera to get the picture she wanted. The memory made her laugh and a man, passing the other way, gave her a worried sideways glance and quickened his pace.

Shadow was running ahead now, so she broke into a slow jog, letting her mind wander as the rhythm took over. The tow path in the early morning was like a club. The same joggers and dog walkers used it every day, and the London convention of avoiding eye contact and not acknowledging fellow human beings didn’t operate down here. She nodded ‘Good morning’ to familiar faces as she passed them, calling to Shadow as he got involved in the rituals of dog greeting that her father in an uncharacteristic moment of crudity had dubbed ‘ring-a-ring-a-arses’. She suppressed another laugh at the memory.

The tow path was wide and well paved here, overlooked by offices, expensive apartment blocks, and tall, red-brick buildings that rose an improbable height from the water. When she reached Camden Lock she stopped to catch her breath, leaning against the railings that surrounded it. There was a boat in, and she watched the boatman bracing himself against the foot grips to push the gates open. The water gushed in and his boat began its slow rise.

Another jogger was coming along the path towards her. As he came closer, she recognized him as a recently familiar face, a man who had joined the morning run a couple of weeks ago. He was tall with dark hair and an attractive smile. He had the tan of someone who had recently returned from a hot and sunny climate. She’d found herself wishing, once or twice, that their routes would coincide when they were going in the same direction.

She saw recognition on his face, and they exchanged smiles, then he was past her and moving away down the tow path with an easy lope that suggested he could run for miles yet. She watched him for a moment, then looked round for Shadow, who seemed to have vanished. She called sharply and he came bounding out from nowhere. As she watched in horror, he cannoned into the man’s legs, and they teetered together at the edge of the deep, icy water. Then the man was sprawling on the ground warding off the frightened dog who was barking in his face.

‘Christ!’ She ran up to him. Her heart was hammering with delayed shock. ‘I am so sorry. That was my fault. Shut up, Shadow. Are you OK?’ She clipped on the dog’s lead. Shadow barked again and bristled with hostility. ‘Shut up! Here, let me help you.’

He was trying to get to his feet, his face clenching suddenly in pain as he put his weight on his foot. He took the arm she proffered to help him get his balance and tried his leg a couple of times. ‘I think it’s just twisted,’ he said, after a moment. He looked pale under his tan, and she could see him trying to disguise the pain he was obviously feeling. ‘Shit,’ he said as he tried again. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize. It was my dog that knocked you over. I should have checked where he was before I called him.’

‘Is he all right?’ He reached out a hand to Shadow. ‘Here. Good boy.’ Shadow barked mistrustfully then fell silent as the man ruffled his fur. ‘You didn’t mean it, did you?’ He balanced carefully, keeping the weight off his leg. He was looking down at her and as he smiled, she could see the laughter lines round his eyes. ‘I may as well take the opportunity to introduce myself. I’m Joe.’ He held out his hand.

‘Roisin,’ she said.

‘Rosheen. I like that. Where does it come from?’

‘It’s Irish.’ She didn’t want to go into the complexity of her background, so she said quickly, ‘I’ve seen you here before.’

He nodded. ‘I started work at the hospital a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been meaning to get acquainted, so it’s an ill wind, right, dog?’ He addressed this remark to Shadow, who hung back behind Roisin, observing the scene dubiously.

‘This is Shadow,’ Roisin said.

His smile broadened. ‘I kind of thought it might be. Shit!’ He stumbled again as he put more weight on his leg. ‘Sorry.’

‘You need to get that seen to. Come on, let me help you up to the road. We should be able to get a taxi.’

‘No need. If I can just get up here, I can make it to the tube at Camden Town.’

She didn’t think he would be able to manage even that short distance. ‘I’ll walk with you. Shouldn’t you go to A & E?’

‘And spend the morning waiting to be told I’ve twisted my ankle? I’ll get it checked out at work.’

But he accepted her help up the steps, resting his arm on her shoulder to keep his balance. Once they were at the top, he stopped, using the wall for support. ‘Look, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to hang around. You must have things to do.’

‘I feel responsible,’ she said.

‘Well, don’t. I should have been looking where I was going. Tell you what, let me buy you a drink later on, and I can give you an update. Give me your number.’

‘OK. I’d like that. But it’d better be me buying.’ She indicated the subdued dog.

‘Poor old lad.’ He reached down and tugged Shadow’s ear. He waited as she scribbled her number down, then glanced at the paper and put it in his pocket. ‘I’ll call you tonight,’ he said. She watched him as he hobbled away down the road towards the tube station, then she turned back to the canal. If she didn’t get a move on, she was going to be late.

That was the good bit.

When she got into the college where she taught English to overseas students, she was greeted by the news that one of her colleagues was off sick and she had to pick up two of his classes, groups of engineering students who combined a poor grasp of English with an insistence that they knew exactly how they should be taught, and who tested Roisin’s not very enduring patience for the next five hours. It was a comedown for someone who had come close–very close–to owning her own language school.

But those plans had come to grief in the bitter war that Michel was fighting with his ex-wife. Their joint venture had somehow become entangled in the proceedings, and they had had no option but to sell, and sell at a loss. Michel had taken half of the money that was left. That was the law–the business assets were in their joint names. The fact that this had been Roisin’s money, and that very little of his money had yet been committed, was irrelevant. She had trusted him, and he had let her down.

So now she was in London with a mortgage that she could barely afford on a run-down flat in the middle of a building site, keeping her head above water with part-time contracts, and trying to decide what to do next. Teaching English to disruptive young engineers hadn’t been part of her life plan, but just at the moment she had no choice.

She left work in a bad temper and with a headache that wasn’t improved by long delays on the Northern Line. When she finally got home, she realized she’d missed the date for paying off her credit card and would incur a hefty interest payment.

And, of course, the canal-side man didn’t phone.

3

Roisin wasn’t surprised when the man she’d met on the tow path didn’t call her. Nor was she surprised when she didn’t see him the next time she went running with Shadow. She was no expert, but it had looked to her like a more serious injury than a sprain and she assumed he was probably housebound and had had more time to think over the matter of her culpability.

She mentioned the episode to friends over a drink at the weekend. They were intrigued, and then disappointed when the story fizzled out into ‘And I never heard from him again.’ Roisin hadn’t been involved with anyone since the disastrous end of her relationship with Michel, and they thought it was time she tested the waters. ‘Oh, come on,’ she said when they began speculating about ways she could contact the elusive Joe, ‘I tripped him up and probably broke his leg. No wonder he doesn’t want to see me. I’m more likely to get a letter from his solicitor.’ When pressed, she was prepared to admit that she found him attractive.

Old George was just as bad, but for different reasons. ‘That bloke had the guts to call you yet?’ he asked her every time she went to collect Shadow or to join him for a cup of poisonous tea. She had told him about the episode when she returned the dog, and he’d made adverse comments about her lack of care and foresight. ‘Poor old lad,’ he’d said under his breath as he’d checked his dog anxiously for cuts and bruises. The man on the tow path was now ‘the man who kicked Shadow’ and who should have the courage to face the music. But the mysterious Joe seemed to have vanished.

She put it out of her mind. She was busy at work, but the job was only temporary, a stop-gap that she had taken without too much thought under the pressing necessity of earning some money. She had to start making decisions about what to do next. Her career path had been leading up to the moment when she had the funds, the expertise and the credibility to start her own business, and the way the rug had been pulled from underneath her had left her floundering. She had to decide whether to start again, to see if she could get some more money together and raise some more loans, go through the web of bureaucracy that all the permissions required, or if she should resign herself to the admitted security but endless frustration of working for other people in large, unyielding institutions.

Some of the options were attractive. The European universities were always eager for experienced language teachers and offered a whole field of academic work she’d barely explored. Beijing University was actively recruiting, as were universities in Korea and Japan. She’d never been to the Far East and was curious to travel there, but she had a life in Europe she wasn’t quite ready to give up. There was also the complication of her mother.

Roisin was adopted, and all her life she had been aware of her mother’s fear that one day she would walk away and declare an allegiance to a different past. Since her father’s death, this anxiety seemed to have grown and become a factor that Roisin had to weave into all her plans and considerations. ‘Why don’t you come back to Newcastle, pet?’ had been the most recent theme. Roisin loved her mother and wanted to help her settle into a new life, but she wasn’t prepared to go back home and live with her.

So she didn’t really have time to brood about a phone call that had not been forthcoming.

Spring was late arriving. London pulled a grey blanket over its head and rained. The buildings seemed to grow darker and the streets were sodden and filthy. Her morning runs with Shadow became an ordeal rather than a pleasure–for her at least. For Shadow, there was no such thing as bad weather–there was just weather and it was all good.

She was back in her flat one Saturday morning, rubbing her hair dry and warming her frozen hands round a cup of coffee, when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked the number. No one she knew. ‘Hello?’

‘Roisin? You probably don’t remember me. It’s Joe. Joe Massey. I tripped over your dog and nearly ended up in the canal.’

‘Of course I remember. How are you?’ She felt ridiculously pleased.

‘Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch before. I lost your number. I thought I must have dropped it when I was sorting out my money on the tube. I wasn’t concentrating too much that day. I thought I was going to have to wait until I was fit enough to get back on the tow path, but I just found it.’

‘That’s OK. How’s your ankle?’

‘I tore a ligament–it’s not too bad now. Look, I owe you a drink. I probably owe you dinner by now. Could we meet? I don’t suppose you’re free tonight?’

She was. She’d planned to spend the evening catching up with some of her outstanding work, but dinner with Joe Massey seemed a much more attractive option. They agreed to meet that evening.

Roisin dressed carefully for their date. Most of her clothes were things she’d bought for work and they all looked too sober and businesslike. In the end, she opted for trousers–hip-hugging with a wide belt–and a green top that heightened the colour of her eyes. Her hair was blessed with being naturally curly and–with a bit of help–naturally blonde. She put on boots that added a couple of inches to her height. She could remember helping Joe up the steps by Camden Lock, her head barely reaching his shoulder.

They’d agreed to meet in Camden Town–the scene of the crime. She wondered if he would look the way she remembered him, or if her eyes would pass over him, seeing only some stranger, but as she walked towards the station, she recognized him at once. He was standing under the canopy, reading a folded newspaper. He was wearing glasses, and his dark hair was damp from the fine drizzle that had been falling. When he glanced up and saw her, his smile lit up his face.

‘Roisin,’ he said. She could see the approval in his eyes as he studied her, and felt an answering warmth. He’d dressed up for the occasion as well, wearing a light mac over a suit that looked well cut to fit his tall, rangy frame.

He was still moving with a slight limp, and she suggested that they go to a café bar she knew that was fairly close to the station, but he shook his head, putting his hand lightly on her arm. ‘I booked us a table,’ he said, flagging down a taxi. He directed the driver to Holborn and a small bistro that welcomed them with the yellow glow of lights and the buzz of conversation.

Afterwards, she couldn’t remember much about the food that they’d eaten. What she could remember was that they’d talked. He came from Liverpool, he told her. He’d grown up there, but he couldn’t wait to get away. ‘It’s a good city now,’ he said, ‘but then…it was dying. I came south, to London, as soon as I could.’

She told him about her childhood in the North East, about the beauty and the wildness of the countryside, and the city where she had grown up. ‘I still like to go back. My mother’s there, and, I don’t know, there’s something…’

He was listening quietly, his eyes on her face. ‘It’s still home?’ he suggested.

She laughed. ‘I suppose it is.’

‘I don’t feel like that about Liverpool,’ he said.

She took the opportunity to turn the conversation round to him. ‘Does everyone call you Joe, or are you Joseph sometimes? I don’t know any…’ Her voice trailed away.

His face had changed, gone cold and distant. Then he seemed to remember where he was and gave a rather forced laugh. ‘No. I’ve only ever been Joe.’

He was a pathologist, he told her, with a research interest in foetal medicine and neo-natal development. ‘That’s when it all happens,’ he said. ‘In a way, the path of your life is mapped out for you in those few months. After that, it’s downhill all the way.’ He didn’t look too depressed about it. ‘It’s a bit like computer software. Leave a bug in there–most people have one or two–and it will probably kill you in the end.’

‘Like a predilection for tripping over dogs and falling in canals?’

‘Don’t knock it. Just because we haven’t found it yet…It could be there. But no, in that case the dog stops you from dying of what you’re programmed to die of.’ He was marking time while he decided what he wanted to do next. He’d spent the last year in the Gulf, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As he said that, the same, rather cold look flickered across his face.

‘Saudi Arabia,’ she said. ‘Tell me about it.’ She’d had a chance to work there a few years ago. The money had been excellent, but she’d decided she couldn’t face living under the restrictions the culture would impose on a single woman.

He hesitated, then said, ‘It’s not an easy place. They call it the magic kingdom. A whole modern world has just sprung up out of the desert, but the people haven’t changed. It’s like one of those optical illusions. You look and you see a modern country, and then you look again, and you’re in the Middle Ages, and what you thought you were looking at, it isn’t there any more. Which one is the real Saudi Arabia…?’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe we don’t have the equipment to see it. I have the option of going back, but…’ He picked up a piece of bread and didn’t finish the sentence.

‘You don’t want to stay here?’

He shook his head. ‘The NHS–it’s tied up in red tape and bureaucracy. I want something with a bit more of a challenge.’ He’d spent most of his working life overseas, and he planned to leave again as soon as he could. He’d applied for research posts in Canada and in Australia. ‘Those are places I want to be.’

‘That’s something I’ve got to decide,’ she said. ‘Where I want to be.’

He raised an eyebrow in query, so she went on. ‘I had plans to open a language school, but it went wrong. Money problems,’ she said, to forestall any questions. ‘So I need to decide–do I start again, or do I go and work for someone else? And where.’

‘You don’t want to stay in the UK either?’

She shook her head. She’d first started teaching English because it gave her an opportunity to travel. ‘Not really.’

‘So where?’

‘China. I’ve never been there and there are some interesting jobs in Beijing. Or Tokyo, maybe. I’m not sure if I fancy Japan. Patagonia.’

‘Patagonia?’

‘I just like the sound of it. Mountains and condors and more space than you know what to do with.’

They arranged to meet again. He wanted to see her the next day, but she put him off. She had bruises from her relationship with Michel that could still hurt. She wasn’t ready to go through that experience again. Joe wasn’t going to be around for long. She wasn’t going to be around for long. Whatever happened, their lives were going to cross only briefly. The parameters were already set. It would be crazy to get too involved.

Friends, she told herself. They could be friends.

He called her a couple of days later with a suggestion that they explore the Bow Back Rivers that Saturday.

‘The what?’ she said.

‘I’ll show you.’

He was waiting for her when she came out of Bromley-by-Bow station. He smiled when he saw her, and took her hand. The traffic roared by, heading for the Blackwall Tunnel. ‘Half of Londoners don’t know this exists,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

She thought she knew this part of London–a derelict area of industrial wasteland tracked by busy roads that was best escaped from, not explored. She followed him away from the roads, down some steps and found herself in a wilderness where waterways tangled together through overgrown footpaths and abandoned locks and bridges. They walked for an hour along the waterways without touching the city.

The rivers were choked with weed and the muddy banks were littered with rubbish, but there were swans on the water, and a heron rose lazily from the river ahead of them. He told her the names of the rivers as they walked–Pudding Mill, Bow Creek, Three Mills, Channelsea. The day was misty and cold.

They left the silence of the old waterways and came out into the roar of the traffic. It started to rain, and he opened his umbrella, putting his arm round her to pull her into its shelter. He had the thin frame of a runner, and she was aware of the hardness of his arm through the sleeve of his coat as they walked together.

They fell into a pattern of seeing each other a couple of times a week, often just walking, discovering parts of the city they didn’t know, sometimes going for a drink. Their meetings were friendly and casual. She didn’t know who he saw or what he did when he didn’t see her. He didn’t talk about himself much.

On an unseasonably cold day about six weeks after their first meeting they found themselves on the South Bank. They’d been to Tate Modern to see the Edward Hopper exhibition, and afterwards they’d wandered aimlessly back along the path. Joe had been quiet for most of the afternoon and Roisin was happy just to walk beside him and watch the river.

The water was translucent green except where the light glinting off the eddies and flows turned it silver. A tour boat went past, lines of seats visible inside the cabin where people sheltered from the brisk wind that blew up the river. The seats on the upper deck were empty apart from a couple who hung over the rail, pointing out the sights of the river as the boat passed. Briefly the voice of the guide boomed across the water:…the Houses of Parliament, built in the…A woman on the top deck leaned out dangerously to take a photograph as the boat rocked on an eddy.

‘She’s going to fall,’ Roisin said.

She felt him stiffen beside her. ‘She’s dead if she does. In this water you’ve got maybe two minutes before the cold paralyses you.’ They watched as the woman righted herself and the boat dwindled into the shadows under Waterloo Bridge. His voice was sombre when he spoke again. ‘I used to get the river deaths when I worked here before–a lot of them ended up in our mortuary. It’s a terrible way to die.’

She took his hand. This was the first time he’d talked about the darker side of his work. ‘I don’t remember reading about deaths in the river.’

He was still watching the water, his thoughts somewhere else. ‘There are so many they hardly bother reporting it now.’

She thought about the dark waters closing above her, the cold eating into her until it drove all feeling away, knowing that her existence would be snuffed out and forgotten and when her body was pulled out of the river–if it ever was–no one would care. The sky was grey and the wind off the water had a cutting edge.

She was still holding his hand. He tucked it in his pocket, and they continued along the riverside. She had walked here last May, past the concrete maze of the South Bank, enjoying the early summer sun, watching the crowds sitting at the tables in front of the National Film Theatre. They were deserted now. The wind blew and an empty can rattled its way across the paving stones. Behind her, a boat sounded its horn.

She could feel the touch of Joe’s fingers on her hand, the gentle pressure of his thumb as he circled it in her palm. Gulls were flying overhead, their calls echoing in the chill air. They didn’t speak again as they walked up the steps at the end of the bridge and paused to watch the water again. ‘What do you want to do now?’ she said.

He leaned back against the parapet and drew her towards him. ‘You’re cold.’

‘Everything’s cold.’

He opened his coat and wrapped it round her. ‘Not this,’ he said. She could feel the wind buffeting her ears and blowing her hair around his face as he kissed her. His lips felt icy as they touched hers, and just for a moment, she thought about the dead lips of drowned women under the water.

It was time for a decision. She could step back and draw the line that would define the path of their relationship, but she didn’t want to. She could feel the warmth of him pressing close to her, feel the slight roughness of his skin against her face. She had been standing in the shallows for too long, had been too frightened of stepping into the current, of getting her life back again. As Joe kissed her, she could feel the current start to lift her, start to carry her away. ‘Joe?’ she said.

He looked down at her. His face was warm and intent. ‘Let’s go back to your flat,’ he said.

As they wended their way back through Bloomsbury, she reminded herself that he was leaving, that by the autumn he would probably be gone, but it didn’t matter any more. What mattered was now.

4

It was a summer Roisin would never forget. In her memory, the sun always shone and the sky was cloudless. The forbidding river glittered as it flowed through the city, and the concrete of the South Bank warmed in the mellow light. She and Joe spent their lunch times wandering along the riverside, their evenings exploring the lanes and byways of London, and their nights at Roisin’s flat. She barely saw her friends, spent as little time at work as she could get away with. After a few days, he moved his possessions in, and stayed. It was as if they knew that their time together was short, and they didn’t want to lose a moment of it.

When she came home in the evenings, she’d pause for a moment with her key in the lock, wondering if he would be there, if the door would open to a waft of warmth and the smell of coffee brewing. ‘Joe?’ she’d call.

‘Hey, babes.’ He would come out of the small box room that masqueraded as a second bedroom, now converted into a makeshift office, and scoop her off the floor to kiss her. They would go out to eat, or take Shadow for a walk along the tow path, or spend the evening in the flat. They lived quietly in their own personal bubble that was completely absorbing, but so fragile and impermanent.

They never talked about the future, because very soon they would have to go their separate ways. She knew she had a decision to make, and kept putting it off. Each week, she looked at the jobs available all over the world for someone with her skills, and each week, she found a reason to reject every one.

Joe worked long, irregular hours and sometimes vanished for days if he was sent out of town. She got used to hearing his key in the lock in the small hours, feeling the mattress give as he slipped into the bed beside her.

It was after one such return towards the end of the summer when she woke suddenly. The display on the radio told her it was almost four. She could tell by Joe’s rigid stillness beside her that he was awake as well. ‘Joe?’ she whispered. ‘Are you all right?’

He didn’t reply. He just rolled over towards her, and pressed his face between her breasts. She could feel him shaking. ‘Joe?’ she said again.

‘A bad dream,’ he said. ‘Go back to sleep, sweetheart. It was just a bad dream.’

London, September 2004

The water gleamed in the moonlight, black and impenetrable where it surged between the standing stones of Tower Bridge, translucent brown where it washed against the banks. The office and apartment blocks were dark and silent.

The river was old here, close to the end of its journey to the sea. Now it carried the filth and detritus of the city, away from the slow meander through the fields of Wiltshire, past the bridges of Oxford and the gentle lawns of Henley.

The tide had turned. The river was in ebb, receding from the banks, leaving a waste of mud and shingle behind. Narrow steps led down to the river’s edge where water washed against wooden piles. The moon was setting, and the first light of a grey dawn was gleaming through the clouds. The light caught the water, turning it to opaque steel, reflecting off the frameworks of glass that towered above the old city. The air carried the bite of frost.

The body of the woman had caught against the mooring and had been left on the bank as the water retreated. She was still wearing the remains of a black dress, sodden and skimpy. Her feet were bare. Her long hair lay in wet, dark lines across a face that the river had battered beyond recognition, the features almost gone.

She had been young. The men from the Marine Support Unit, the river police, could tell that much as they lifted the body, already pronounced dead by a doctor called from his bed in the small hours, short-tempered and abrupt. They had been expecting to find this body since the week before, when a witness had reported seeing a young woman jump from the riverside walk into the icy water.

Suicide, accident, foul play–bodies dragged from the Thames had different stories to tell. Some of them had families–grieving, frantic, knowing their loved ones had been lost. Others had no one, or no one who wanted to claim them. Drunks, the homeless, addicts, asylum seekers, the desperate with nowhere else to run. Some were old, some were, like this girl, young, and some were no more than children.

A clawed, blackened hand slipped from the body bag and hit the ground with a thud. Through the mud, a gleam of metal was visible from the ring on her finger. One of the men gently tipped some of the river water over it to clean away the dirt. It was etched with a distinctive pattern.

Maybe this girl would have a name.

Coroner’s Court, London, September 2004 Post-Mortem Report, Dead Body 13 Body found in river, 7 September, at Stoners Quay

The coroner’s court of East London is all too familiar with river deaths. The curve in the river around the Isle of Dogs means that bodies are often left aground there as the water retreats with the tide.

Dead Body 13 was the stark designation of the thirteenth body to be taken from the river in a year that was shaping up to be much as standard. The few people attending the inquest stood as the coroner entered. The court had little to do in this case. No one had been able to establish an identity for the dead woman, or trace the origins of the unusual ring she had been wearing on the middle finger of her right hand. The ring bore an inscription in Arabic, lines from a poem or other literary text: take what is here now, let go of a promise. The drumbeat is best from far away.

Her origins were in the Indian subcontinent. Whether she was a recent arrival, or a runaway from home, it was impossible to tell. No one had claimed her and no one seemed to be looking for her.

She had drowned. She had been alive when she went into the water–the presence of algae in her liver and kidneys confirmed that, and a witness had seen her fall. He was a man called Joe Massey who had been on the river walk near St Paul’s. He gave his account, telling the court that he’d spent the evening in a bar and was on his way home when he had seen a woman standing on the wall looking down at the water. There had been a strong wind blowing and her balance had been precarious. He had called out a warning to her, but she hadn’t heard, or hadn’t listened. He couldn’t say if she had deliberately jumped, or if she had fallen, but she had seemed heedless of the risk she was taking.

Someone or something had hurt her before she died. There was evidence of half-healed but extensive bruising on her back and legs, and at some time in her past her wrist had been broken and had healed poorly. But none of this had contributed to her death. Whether or not it had driven her to the dark waters of the Thames, no one could say. The damage that the river had done to her body had blackened her skin and obliterated her features. To the uninitiated eye, she looked as though she had been burned. Her body was battered and broken by tides, currents and river traffic.

The coroner gave the only verdict he could: an open one. ‘It is not possible to say if this unfortunate young woman committed suicide, or if she fell into the water by accident.’ Police enquiries as to her identity were ongoing.

Joe Massey attended the inquest as the only witness to the girl’s last moments. Later, he went back to the riverside to the place where she had fallen in. He stood for a while, watching the water, then he swore, not quite under his breath. Two women walking along the path towards him stopped as they heard the obscenity, then walked quickly back the way they had come.

It was the end of September before the summer came to its inevitable end. Roisin was at work when Joe called her and suggested that they meet. He had seemed preoccupied for the past week and he was quiet as they followed their familiar route to the riverside. She could feel the slight tension in him. They walked past the bridge and the café tables outside the film theatre, crowded and cluttered with empty glasses, wrappers, and discarded food that the pigeons fought over.

They leaned against the parapet and watched the boats go by. The air was cooler, and she could feel the first touch of autumn. Summer was coming to an end. She looked across the water to the iron stanchions of the bridge. She could remember that grey day when they’d first walked along the river together.

After a moment, he spoke. ‘I got a letter this morning. From McMaster…’

The Canadian university where he hoped to join a research team. This was it. Their timeless summer was over. She opened her eyes wide and stared across the river. She couldn’t trust her voice. It was a moment before she could take in what he was saying.

‘…wanted someone with more experience in the field.’ He was watching the river as he spoke. ‘If this had happened three months ago, I’d have been gutted. Now–it’s almost a relief.’ He looked at her. ‘I just need to decide what to do next.’

‘You aren’t leaving…’ Roisin blinked fast to clear her vision that had blurred and distorted and felt the tears spill out and run down her face.

‘I’ll go, if you feel that badly about it,’ he said.

She tried to laugh, and wiped her face with the back of her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I just…I’m sorry you didn’t get it.’

‘Don’t be. I’m not. I’ve had some more news. They want me to go back to the Gulf. They’ve been putting the pressure on for weeks and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. The offer’s too good to turn down. Roisin, I’ll go, but only if you’ll come with me.’

‘Come with you?’

‘To Riyadh. I’ve been looking into it. You could work–they need qualified women to teach English at the university. They’ve been short staffed for months. With all the troubles, they’ve been losing more people than they can recruit. I’m in a strong position. I can dictate some terms. Oh, hell. We can sort this out later. Roisin, I love you. Will you marry me?’

It was as simple as that. He produced a bottle of champagne from his bag and they sat on the parapet watching the river flow by, drinking champagne out of the bottle–he’d forgotten to bring glasses–planning their lives together.

Not everyone was as pleased with the news as Joe and Roisin were. Her friends were cautious in their response. They barely knew Joe, and the word ‘rebound’, unspoken, hung over the congratulations.

Her mother was more frank. ‘Saudi Arabia? Rosie–that’s so far away.’

The anxiety in her voice pricked Roisin’s conscience. Maggie Gardner had greeted her plans to go to Warsaw with a resigned acceptance, but Saudi was an alien environment in her mother’s eyes, a veiled and dangerous place where Westerners could be–were–shot on the streets. ‘It’s only for a year,’ Roisin said.

‘And married. Rosie, you hardly know him.’

‘I’ve known him for three months.’ It didn’t sound long–it felt like longer. ‘I knew Michel for two years and it turned out I didn’t know him at all.’

She heard her mother sigh. ‘I suppose you know what you’re doing,’ she said, in a tone that suggested she thought the opposite.

Old George was the worst. ‘Him?’ Joe was still ‘the man who kicked Shadow’. George had never warmed to him. When she told him she was leaving, moving to the other side of the world, he said, ‘What you want to go out there for?’ Then he turned away so that she wouldn’t see his face, and shuffled back into his flat, Shadow looking back at her as the front door closed.

The day before the wedding, while Joe was at work, she took out her photograph album, her collection of pictures that marked, for her, the major events of her life. There was a dim, unfocused picture of two strangers holding a toddler–her birth parents, unknown to her and long gone. There was her mother and father holding her up to the camera on the day the adoption became official. There were photographs of schoolfriends, youthful sporting triumphs, photos that marked private moments that meant something only to her. ‘Why have you got a photo of that dreadful boy?’ her mother had asked once when they looked at the album together. Because he was the first man I ever had sex with was what Roisin hadn’t said.

And there were photos of her and Amy, one taken in the red-eye darkness of a rave, both of them high as kites on E’s or some similar chemical, and another, more sober, of the two of them sitting on the steps outside college, smoking.

Amy. Her best friend through a large part of her adolescence. They had had an instant affinity that may have come from the fact that they both had disjunctures in their past. Amy’s parents had died when she was thirteen, and she had grown up in care. Like Roisin, she had lost a sister in the events that had taken away their families, and they had found something in each other that came close to filling that–in Roisin’s case–almost subliminal gap.

And then Amy had gone, years ago now. Roisin sighed and closed the book.

Snapshots.

A wedding: a bright gold autumn morning, Joe, looking at her in the pale green dress she had bought for the day, smiling that private smile he gave her when they were together in a crowd.

Her mother, half proud, half anxious as she watched the daughter she had had to fight so hard for say the words that were going to take her away: I do solemnly declare…

Her friends, laughing and talking as they came out of the register office, falling silent before they shook hands with Joe and congratulated him.

And the moment when they threw petals, so that she and Joe were caught in a shower of brilliant colours.

And she remembered Joe, his face bright with laughter as he scooped her mother off the ground and kissed her. ‘Hi, Mum,’ he said. Her mother laughed with genuine delight, and the anxiety faded from her face for a moment.

Then, two days later, they flew to Riyadh.

PART TWO

5

Riyadh, October 2004

Embassy of the United States of America

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

WARDEN MESSAGE

October 2004

The recent terrorist attacks on Westerners appear to have involved extensive planning and preparation and were likely preceded by pre-attack surveillance. Be aware of your surroundings. Take note of vehicles and individuals that do not appear to belong to the area and report them immediately…

The ad-Dirah market was in the heart of the old city, a covered souk with labyrinthine walkways, cool and shadowed after the relentless sun. The air smelled of sandalwood and spices and the stalls were piled high with goods that ranged from the commonplace to the exotic: translucent chunks of frankincense and reddish brown myrrh, brass coffee pots as tall as a child or small enough to fit in the palm of the hand, camel-hair shawls and scarves. Old men reclined on Persian carpets, smoking hookahs and drinking tea, enticing their customers in with gentle persuasion.

Roisin, dizzy with jet lag, wondered if she was dreaming a Hollywood incarnation of an Arabian street market. She felt as if she had closed her eyes in London on a grey October morning, and opened them again to the opulence and glitter of the souk.

She pulled her headscarf forward over the telltale blonde of her hair. She had never been in a country where she had to veil before. The abaya had felt odd and theatrical when she had put it on an hour ago, but here in the bustling market, she was glad of the anonymity. All the women she saw had covered their faces, and were dark shapes in abayas and veils. She could see nothing of them but their eyes, which gleamed in the shadows as they flickered in Roisin’s direction. They looked oddly, exotically beautiful.

In the cool dimness of the walkways, the light reflected off the brilliant fabrics, the silver of the jewellery, and the white of the men’s robes.

A man from the agency had met them in the hotel lobby at nine. ‘Dr and Mrs Massey? I’m Damien O’Neill.’ The name was familiar from the flurry of correspondence that Joe’s sudden decision —and their precipitate marriage–had engendered. Roisin had studied him as they shook hands. His appearance gave very little away. He was wearing a lightweight suit, and draped round his shoulders was one of the chequered scarves the local men wore. His hair was fair and he had a thin, long-jawed face. His eyes were concealed behind dark glasses. His manner was pleasant enough, but he seemed a bit distant and distracted. ‘I’ll take you to the house and get you settled in.’

She’d looked at Joe. ‘Do we have to go there straight away? Do you have time to show us a bit of the city first? I’ve never been here before, and…’ And the restrictions on women’s freedom meant that it would be hard for her to explore Riyadh on her own.

‘I have a bit of time. We could go to ad-Dirah. It’s in the old city. The market’s worth a visit.’ He must get bored with acclimatizing new arrivals.

And now as she watched Joe bargaining with one of the market traders in a rapid exchange with hand gestures and laughter as his Arabic let him down, she was glad she had asked. She’d been told that the Saudis could be stand-offish and unfriendly, but these people seemed welcoming enough. She didn’t try to join in. She wasn’t sure what women were or were not allowed to do here. She could see local women, accompanied by men, haggling briskly at the stalls. She gave up trying to follow the bartering that was going on in front of her, and stepped back to join O’Neill.

‘It’s hot,’ she said to him distractedly, fanning herself with a guidebook she’d picked up at the hotel. She gave herself the day’s award for stating the blindingly obvious. ‘Isn’t that too warm?’ She nodded at his scarf.

‘The best way to deal with this sun is to cover up against it. Like they do.’ He nodded towards the crowds who were thronging the market.

‘Whereabouts is the university?’ She would be working there, teaching English to the women students. She wondered if they would pass it today on their way to the house.

‘It’s on its own campus, to the west of the city in al-Nakhil.’ He took off his glasses and slipped them into the pocket of his jacket. She saw that his eyes were grey. ‘The ex-pats call it Camelot.’

‘Camelot?’ She would be living in the magic kingdom and working in Camelot. She wanted to say something about this, to try and make some contact with this man who was part of the community she was about to live and work among, but there was something about his face that discouraged any further comment. They stood in silence waiting for Joe.

He was moving away from the stall now, putting his money back into his belt, his eyes surveying the crowd. For a moment he hesitated as if he didn’t know where he was, and she was about to wave and call when she remembered that women didn’t do that here. He’d seen them, anyway, and came across. He caught Roisin’s eye and smiled a quick query at her: You OK?

She smiled back and nodded. ‘What did you buy?’

‘Something for you.’ He showed her a cluster of bangles made of delicate, thread-like silver. He liked to buy her small presents. She had a collection of scarves and earrings and beads that he had bought for her over the few months they had been together. O’Neill was glancing at his watch.

Joe slipped the bangles discreetly on her wrist. Men and women touching in public were likely to attract angry comment from the Mutawa’ah, the religious police. She felt the cold of the metal against her skin. ‘They’re beautiful. Thank you.’ Their eyes met.

O’Neill hadn’t been watching them. Roisin had noticed the way his eyes kept scanning the crowd, constantly checking their surroundings. ‘We need to move on,’ he said. He led them out into the narrow streets where the shops of the gold market lined the pavements, filled with necklaces, bracelets, pendants, earrings, coins, piled up in glittering brilliance. In London, these shops would have been protected by heavy glass, by metal grilles and shutters. Here, everything was out in the open.

As they threaded their way through the crowd, away from the covered market and back on to the street, Roisin’s eyes were constantly drawn to new sights–a child watching her big-eyed from behind a stall, the glitter of gold in the thread of a fabric, ornamented shutters across an upper window, the hard lines of the shadows as the sun rose to its zenith.

The fragrance of cooking wafted over to her and she looked round. A man at a stall behind her was grilling kebabs on a clay oven, tearing open flat bread and slapping the meat inside it for the thronging customers. She could see salads of grain and chopped herbs, and dishes of hummus. Back home, it would be five in the evening, the time that she would be leaving work and heading to the small bistro on New Oxford Street where she and Joe customarily ate. Suddenly she was ravenous. She could almost taste the spices and feel the soft warmth of the bread in her mouth, but there was nothing she could do about it. Women didn’t eat in public here.

She collided with Joe who had stopped abruptly in front of her. ‘Which way are we going?’ His voice, as he spoke to O’Neill, was sharp.

O’Neill looked surprised. ‘To the al-Masmak fort,’ he said.

‘We need to get back. Roisin’s tired.’

Roisin opened her mouth to object, then shut it again. She had no idea what had upset Joe, but his face had that bleak, distant look. ‘It’s a bit hot,’ she said diplomatically.

O’Neill raised an eyebrow but didn’t make any further comment. ‘OK.’ His shrug was in his tone. ‘We can cut through this way to the car.’

She glanced quickly at Joe as O’Neill turned away. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, but he didn’t seem to hear. He was pushing ahead through the crowd and she couldn’t see his face.

Just then, the crowd parted to let a man through. He was tall and his robes were dazzling in the light. Her eyes followed him instinctively. In the next instant a sudden surge caught her unawares, turning her around in a wave of bodies and almost knocking her off her feet. When she tried to turn back, O’Neill and Joe had vanished and she had no idea which way they’d gone.

They couldn’t be far away, but she wasn’t tall enough to see over the heads of the people and she was getting pushed back, further away from where she had been. The next surge carried her to the edge of the street, and then she was against the wall, trying to make herself inconspicuous as she oriented herself. The streets, narrow and shadowed, ran away from her in all directions. She had the sudden feeling–something she had never felt before–of hostile eyes searching for her, eyes that wouldn’t be fooled for long by her disguise. She could feel the start of panic constricting her chest, and made herself breathe slowly and steadily. There was nothing to worry about. She’d got separated in the crowd. The worst that could happen was that the Mutawa’ah would shout at her.

Then she recognized the corner of a building. That was where they had left the souk. In that case, they had been heading towards…or was it this way? There was a straight lane ahead of her, free from the confusion of the market-place throng.

She followed it, and suddenly, to her relief, the crowd was gone. A square opened up in front of her, paved in patterned stone, surrounded by palm trees. At the far end was a low, flat building raised on pillars, and to her right a minaret reached up towards the sky. The shadows were solid and hard-edged. A white-robed figure stood in the shadow of the pillars, but otherwise the square was empty. It was shocking in its unexpected silence.

She stood still, frozen in a moment of déjà vu. She thought she knew this place. Then Joe was beside her, his face tense with anxiety. ‘Christ, Roisin…’

‘Joe!’ She put her hand out to touch him, then drew it back, remembering where she was. ‘I’m sorry. I got caught in the crowd.’ She had been separated from them by a few yards.

Damien O’Neill was looking at her assessingly. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. I’m fine. It was my fault. The crowd took me by surprise.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have warned you about that.’ He turned to Joe, who had fallen silent and was staring at the square in front of him. ‘Come on. We can get back this way.’

Moving quickly, he led them away from the market and suddenly the old town and the crowds were behind them. Roisin’s head was spinning in confusion. She was an adult woman in one of the major capitals of the world. She’d taken care of herself alone in a hundred cities and yet this place had rendered her helpless, had changed her status, just like that, to that of a child.

The sun was almost directly overhead. The Arab city had vanished. They were walking through a street that could be in Anycity, Anyplace, past high glass blocks of anonymous business space where the noise and smells of modern urban life surrounded her. By the time they reached the car park, she was glad to get back into the air-conditioned interior of the car.

She was starting to flag. She’d tried to push herself straight into local time, the only cure for jet lag that worked for her, but all she’d been able to do when the taxi driver had dropped them at the hotel shortly after five the evening before was fall on the bed and sleep.

She’d woken in the small hours. The green light of the clock said 3.10. She knew that she wasn’t going to be able to sleep again and sat up carefully. The blinds weren’t closed and the moonlight illuminated the room with a cold radiance.

Slipping out of bed, careful not to disturb Joe, she’d pulled on her robe and got herself some fruit juice from the mini bar. Then she went and sat by the window, looking out across Riyadh, her home for the next year.

The cityscape had blazed out in millions of lights. Skyscrapers, impossibly slender and fragile, thrust up towards the sky, and the highways bound them together with loops of light. It was as if someone had asked the designers and architects to build a stage set for a city of the future and they had created this edifice, a city that rested uncomfortably on the desert and on the customs of the people who inhabited it. She remembered what Joe had said when they first met. It’s like one of those optical illusions. If she sat here watching for long enough, would the illusion fade? And if it did, what would she see?

Now, in the centre of the city, the broken night was catching up with her. The furnace blast of the air was sapping the vitality out of her, and she sank back into the car seat, enjoying the cool of the air-con. Her annoyance at Joe faded. He’d been right. She was tired. She could feel the sweat between her shoulder blades, and her hair felt damp. ‘What was that place?’ she asked, adjusting her scarf to stop it slipping off her head.

O’Neill steered the car into the stream of fast-moving traffic. He still looked cool and untouched by the heat. ‘It’s as-Sa’ah Square,’ he said, his voice expressionless as he gave her the careful non-information. She wondered what he wasn’t telling her. A car cut in from their right and he switched lanes smoothly to avoid a collision. ‘You were based in one of the villages before?’ he said to Joe. Joe didn’t seem to hear. A truck careered towards them and swerved away at the last moment.

‘Someone should tell them that they drive on the right here,’ Roisin observed.

O’Neill glanced at her in the mirror. His mouth twitched in a sudden smile. ‘It’s optional,’ he said.

Encouraged by the first sign of warmth, she tried again. ‘Tell me about that square. It was so…’ She searched for words. The cathedral-like silence had caught her imagination. Despite the hard glare of the light, she could imagine banks of candles lit for the souls of…who? She tried to catch Joe’s eye, but he was staring out of the window, lost in his own thoughts.

O’Neill glanced at her again before he answered. ‘It’s known colloquially as Chop-Chop Square,’ he said.

‘Chop-Chop Square?’ For a moment, she didn’t understand what he was talking about, then she realized. The bright square with the blue patterned stones and the palm trees was the place where malefactors against the rigid laws of the Kingdom were dealt with. The place of punishment. The place of execution. All the impulse to laugh drained out of her. People had died on those sun-dazed stones, close to the place where she had been standing.

O’Neill had observed her reaction. ‘It’s part of what this place is,’ he said. ‘I give it a wide berth. Some Westerners go. For them it’s the nearest thing we’ve got to a tourist attraction.’

Joe’s voice cut into the exchange before she could respond. ‘Have you seen that, Roisin?’

She leaned across the car to look out at the building they were passing. A tower of reflective glass rose hundreds of feet above them, ending in a parabolic curve beneath a fragile arch where the structure had been cut away forming a needle reaching up into the sky. She twisted round in amazement as the road swooped away.

‘It’s called the Kingdom Centre,’ O’Neill said. ‘Office space, conference centres, hotel, stuff like that. After 9/11, a bad joke went round Riyadh that they used it to train the hijackers. There’s a mall.’ He switched lanes and pulled away as a car drew level with them, almost boxing them in. ‘With a floor for women. You don’t need to wear a veil. A lot of the wives go there.’

No one spoke for a while. She watched the traffic as they sped along the six-lane highway. The cars were all moving at high speed, and the drivers wove recklessly from lane to lane with little apparent regard for the danger. She looked at O’Neill’s profile, watched the way his hidden eyes observed the traffic, watched the way he anticipated the actions of the other drivers with the coolness of a chess player studying the board. He was a man who would fit in here. He was someone who knew how to become part of the background, who knew how to camouflage himself from the edginess and the tension that she could feel in the air around her.

He swung the car along the road that ran through the outskirts of the city, further away from the lights and the noise and the bustle. Roisin had seen maps of Saudi–a vast desert that would swallow up western Europe, with cities emerging from the wilderness almost at random, a country created in a brief space of time from disparate groups of nomadic people, a country where the beliefs and alliances were complex and alien to outsiders like her and Joe.

The road vanished into a hazy distance. It was lined with apartment blocks, stark and ugly after the beauty of the old city and the futuristic spires of the modern. They were on the outskirts now, with car parks, shacks and industrial complexes. Then a fence appeared on the horizon, dancing slightly in the heat haze. Roisin watched it as it emerged from the urban wasteland through which they were driving. It looked high and formidable, like a prison camp or a high-security installation. She found herself looking for the watch towers.

But she could see trees and buildings behind the fence, and O’Neill was turning the car towards a gate protected by chicanes, towards a kiosk where two uniformed men stood with their guns held ready. ‘Security’s heavy. Got your documents?’

O’Neill spoke to the guards, his Arabic sounding fluent and easy. There was a quick, unsmiling exchange. Roisin reminded herself that the promiscuous smiles of the West were not universal, that the severe faces did not denote hostility. O’Neill showed a security pass to the first guard, while the other one came round to the passenger side of the car and held his hand out for Joe to pass him their documents. The man didn’t indicate by word or gesture that he was aware of Roisin’s silent presence. She felt suddenly that she had ceased to exist.

Then the car was waved past. She read the notices that hung on the gates as O’Neill waited for the barrier to lift. They were written in Arabic and English: Checkpoint. Stop at the barrier. Have your documents ready.

Keep out. Sheer drop. Danger of death.

6

Damien O’Neill leaned back in the reclining chair and watched the sky. His house was in the old part of the city, a part that had been largely abandoned by the Saudis, who had moved out to the wealthy suburbs. When Damien had first arrived, more years ago than he cared to count, foreign workers were housed here, and he had never joined the exodus to what was seen as more luxurious, more suitable accommodation.

The house, old and shabby, was traditionally Arabic. There was little furniture. Cupboards were built into the walls, but otherwise the furniture was sparse and portable, designed to be moved to the shadier parts of the house as the seasons progressed. It was far too big for him, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the cool, high-ceilinged rooms.

‘You have no wife,’ his friend Majid said, by way of excusing Damien’s eccentricity. Majid chided him regularly about the lack of order in his life. He was concerned for his friend’s welfare. ‘You should marry,’ he added with the zeal of the convert. Majid had recently married and he and his young wife were expecting their first child.

Damien knew too much about marriage. His own, embarked on with the careless optimism of his youth, had come to a catastrophic conclusion. If he let himself, he could still see Catherine’s face twisted with misery and a love that had rotted into hatred. You don’t care about anyone! No one matters to you! But no one could have filled the void that was Catherine’s need, or that was what he told himself. ‘One day,’ he said to Majid, unwilling to explain the complexities of his past, complexities that Majid would not understand anyway.

‘When you go home, maybe,’ Majid had said.

But this was Damien’s home. He had nowhere else he wanted to go.

He was feeling hungry. He stretched and headed down the stairs. The hallway was dim and cool, and the stone flags felt cold under his feet. It was shadowy down here. At street level, the house had no windows, just air holes to channel the breezes from the narrow streets. The kitchen smelled of coffee and spices.

There was a pot of stew simmering on the cooker, and bread under a net. His houseboy, Rai, must have been to market, because there was a dish full of fresh, sticky dates. Damien had planned to go to the market himself. He liked to spend time drinking coffee in the cafés, talking to the men, catching up on the local news and gossip. This was part of his work: integrate, blend in, become part of the community.

He had come to the Kingdom as a civil servant, working for the British government, but realized soon enough that the rigid hierarchies, the red-tape and bureaucracy that tied up the diplomatic service were going to prevent him from doing anything he really wanted to do, and that, if the local people were to trust him, he would have to cut all visible ties with Western government organizations. As soon as he made it known he was available, an agency that recruited professionals to work in the Kingdom had snapped him up.

He worked at the interface between the ex-pat community and the Saudis, a precarious seesaw of mutual and often wilful miscomprehension. It was a difficult time just now. Ex-pat workers were leaving in droves as the insurgent campaign against them had been stepped up. Things were quieter after a clampdown by the security services, but Damien was still aware of the edginess on the streets, something in the atmosphere that said trouble had not gone but simply changed its face, biding its time until it was ready to strike.

He’d spent the morning with two new recruits: Joe Massey, who had taken a post at the hospital, and his wife Roisin, who would be working at the university. He thought about the couple as he stood in the kitchen. Joe Massey had worked in the Kingdom before, but he was the one who’d been anxious, who’d been tense and uncommunicative during their brief tour of the city.

Damien thought about it and corrected his impression. Massey had been tense and edgy from the time that his wife had got separated from them in the crowd. OK, that was fair enough, though Roisin Massey seemed well able to look after herself. She was a small, determined woman whose fair hair would have been a beacon on the streets of Riyadh if she hadn’t had the sense to keep it tucked firmly away under her scarf. He suspected that she was going to have trouble accepting the restrictions of life for a woman in Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh could be a hard place for new arrivals. It was the centre of the lands known as the Nadj, the crucible of Wahhabi Islam. According to prophecy, the Nadj had been condemned by God as a place of earthquakes and sedition, the place where the devil’s horn would rise up. It was the heart of the deepest and most rigid interpretation of the faith.

The day had faded, and he could see the city lights sparkling in the distance. He’d been invited to spend the evening with Majid’s family and he’d need to set off soon if he wasn’t going to be late. He had planned to phone and make his apologies–he had reports to complete that he’d left unfinished because of the Masseys, but now he made a snap decision. Work could wait. He wanted to get the feel of the city, take in its mood as he drove through the streets. The talk at Majid’s, leisurely and convoluted though it would be, would tell him something about what was going on. And he would enjoy the hospitality.

Majid was an officer in the city police force–not the Mutawa’ah, the notorious protectors of virtue and opponents of vice, but the police who dealt with the more secular law breakers, and who were responsible for imposing one of the harshest and most rigid penal codes on the planet. He lived in the sprawling family compound in the suburbs to the west of the city, a cluster of houses that Majid’s father had bought as his family expanded. Abu Abdulaziz Karim ibn Ahmad al-Amin was a traditional Saudi patriarch. He had two wives, five sons and three daughters. The daughters lived in their father’s house, the brothers, all married, each had a house of their own.

In all the years Damien had known the family, he had never met the women, had only been aware sometimes of a veiled presence in the car, or waiting in the background. All he knew about Majid’s mother, the second wife, was the name she had started using once she had given birth to a son: Um Majid–the mother of Majid.

The relationship between the brothers was complex and sometimes difficult but they never showed the internal rifts to him, the outsider. Family was all. Majid had once told him of a Saudi saying: ‘Me and my brother against the cousin.’ Damien already knew the saying, and he knew what came next: Me and my cousin against the stranger.

Majid’s marriage had caused some ripples in the family. In most ways it was a very suitable marriage; his wife, Yasmin, was the daughter of a wealthy businessman, but she was an only child and though she had been brought up in Riyadh, she had travelled in Europe and had been educated at a Parisian university. And she wasn’t a true Saudi. Her mother was European and her father was the son of a Saudi mother and Armenian father. He was one of the few foreigners who had been allowed to take Saudi citizenship, but the insular Saudi culture still held him an outsider. He had brought his daughter back from Europe to marry Majid, no doubt hoping that his daughter’s marriage into a Saudi family of the reputation and longevity of Majid’s would help to integrate him more closely. Yasmin worked as a teaching assistant at Riyadh’s King Saud University, and she was independent and opinionated by Saudi standards.

His phone rang as he was preparing to leave. He waited to see who was calling. ‘Damien? It’s Amy. Are you there?’ He moved to answer it, then stopped. He was late, and conversations with Amy tended to lead into deeper water than he felt able to cope with at the moment. He let his hand drop as he heard her impatient sigh. ‘Call me.’

Amy. The quick instruction was typical. Call me. He would, but later. As he negotiated the car through the hazardous traffic, he couldn’t stop himself thinking of her as he’d last seen her, her red hair springing up round her head, her towel slipping casually down as she leaned forward so he could light her cigarette, beautiful in the lamplight. And then they’d had a pointless row about

—what? He couldn’t remember. It had been one of many that had been not so much reconciled as forgotten in his bed.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled up outside the gated compound where the family lived, and waited for the gates to swing open. Majid came to greet him and led him through the courtyard into the large room where the men customarily sat. Two of Majid’s brothers were already there, talking to a third man, a man in Western dress who was sitting with his head turned away from the door. He looked round as Majid ushered Damien in.

Damien recognized him at once. This was Majid’s father-in-law, Arshak Nazarian. Nazarian, an attractive, debonair man, described himself as a ‘businessman’. The nature of his business–bringing cheap migrant labour into the Kingdom–made Damien wary of him. He avoided Nazarian’s company as far as he could.

Faisal, the oldest of the brothers and head of the family in the father’s absence, greeted Damien with a standard ‘Peace be upon you.’

Damien returned the greeting politely, wondering what he had interrupted as he took the seat that Majid urged him to. Over the years, Damien had become accustomed to the Arab style of sitting, usually cross-legged on floor cushions. It had felt awkward and uncomfortable at first, but now it felt natural.

He accepted a cup of coffee, light and spiced with cardamom, that the houseboy offered him, and made his enquiries about the family and their well-being. The houseboy stood vigilant, waiting to refill the cups. The conversation was desultory and wandered around the unusual nature of the recent heat and the pious hope that God would soon relieve the drought.

Damien realized quickly that there was something wrong, even though Majid’s pleasure at seeing him had been sincere. But Nazarian’s sudden silence on his entry, the oblique references to the inclemency of the weather, which was much the same as usual, the calling down of God’s blessing that they might soon have rain, which was, in fact, unlikely, carried meaning beyond the mere facts that were being expressed. People who wanted to understand Arabic had to have an ear for metaphor, but Damien couldn’t pick up the underlying message. He decided he wouldn’t prolong the visit, but leave as soon as politeness permitted.

Nazarian said abruptly, ‘We will discuss this later.’ He stood up and held out his hand to Damien. ‘O’Neill,’ he said. ‘Good to see you. There are things I need to talk to you about.’ He spoke in English, though all the previous exchanges had been in Arabic.

‘Call my office,’ Damien said. He had no interest in a meeting with Nazarian if he could avoid it.

Nazarian gave him a long look, then made his farewells to the brothers. Damien waited until he had gone before he said, ‘Your father-in-law is looking well.’ He was curious about the conversation his arrival had clearly interrupted.

Majid’s face darkened. ‘He is concerned about his daughter.’

Damien never asked about the women in the family in the presence of the traditional Faisal, and with Majid, he always waited until the other man introduced the topic.

‘Your wife is well?’

Majid looked frustrated. ‘She wants a holiday, before the baby is born. She wants to go to Europe, but I have decided that we will stay in the Kingdom for now.’

So Nazarian probably represented the big guns to bring Yasmin into line. Majid wouldn’t want to discuss his own inability to persuade his wife to do what he wanted, so Damien changed the subject. ‘I met the new man today. Joe Massey. He’s come to work at the hospital.’ Majid was always interested in the ex-pats that came into the country.

Majid frowned. ‘Joe Massey? A doctor? I have met him before.’

‘He’s a pathologist. He was here a few months ago. What’s he like?’

‘I did not know him at all.’ Majid’s voice was dismissive. ‘He was employed at the hospital when there was a drugs theft. Now, my friend, what do you think about the election?’

The topic of Joe Massey was firmly cut off for one that Majid’s brothers could contribute to. Damien made a mental note to ask Majid about Massey at a better time, and settled back to listen to a discussion he’d heard many times since the elections–the first ever to be held in the Kingdom–were announced. The powerful religious lobby was exercising its influence on the polls and there was tension between traditionalists and reformers. Dissent had surged through the Kingdom, casting its ripples and eddies in odd and disturbing places.

Damien murmured something anodyne and left the brothers to debate the issue while his own thoughts drifted to Amy. If he had picked up the phone, he could be with her now.

Her mouth had tasted of honey in the shaded room, and his tongue could still recapture the faint salt taste from her upper lip where the sweat had beaded. Her hair had been soft and springy under his fingers. She had had a fragrance like the sea. ‘You aren’t real,’ he’d murmured. ‘You’re one of those creatures who lures men to disaster.’

She’d laughed. ‘A siren? I don’t think so.’

‘Or a mermaid. Don’t they call men to their doom?’

Her skin had been warm under his fingers, and her face was flushed. ‘I’m no mermaid, Damien. See?’ And in the shadowed room, he could see.

Majid was saying something, and he shook his head to clear his mind. ‘I’m sorry?’ he said.

‘What is your opinion, Damien?’

Damien never commented on the politics of the Kingdom unless he was expressly invited to do so. The Saudis, like most people of the Middle East, were weary of criticism after years of outside interference. He ran the conversation quickly through his mind. The brothers had been discussing the movement among a minority of Saudi women for more rights. ‘You know my views,’ he said. ‘Give women the vote–then you will know whether they want more rights.’

‘My friend, Saudi women have their rights,’ Majid protested. ‘Women know that they are valued here, that they are cared for and protected.’

‘Sometimes they don’t know what is best for them,’ Khalil said with a meaningful look.

Majid’s mouth tightened. Accusations of leniency towards his untraditional wife stung. ‘Rights can’t be “given”,’ he said. ‘If these rights existed, then women would have them.’

‘Maybe rights can’t be given,’ Khalil said, ‘but they can be taken away.’

‘Not if they do not exist,’ Majid said flatly.

Before Khalil could reply, Damien became aware of increased activity behind the closed doors that led into the main courtyard of the house, a bustle of movement and briefly, raised voices, women’s voices, angry and animated. He saw Majid’s quick glance of concern. It was time to go. ‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ he said, formally. ‘Unfortunately, I have to work this evening, so I must leave you.’

Majid’s attempts to persuade him to stay were sufficiently ritualized for Damien to understand he’d made the right decision. The two men embraced as he left. ‘I hope your family will be well,’ he said in oblique reference to the unnamed problem.

As Damien unlocked the door of his car, a movement caught his eye. He looked back at the house, at an upper window where the shutters were slightly open. A woman’s face looked back at him, young, beautiful and startlingly unveiled. She stood at the window, looking down at Damien, and didn’t draw back when she saw him watching her.

Her face stayed with him, hauntingly familiar as he drove back to his house. As he went in through the front door, the dark coolness surrounded him. He warmed up some bread and spread it thickly with hummus. He forked some tabbouleh on to a plate and poured himself some of the beer that Rai regularly brewed. He put the tray down on the table, which also served as his desk, and switched on a lamp. His mind was moving in directions he didn’t want it to go, and he picked up a book to distract himself.

The pool of light made the shadows darker as he ate, forking the food absently as he read one of the stories from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. This story, ‘The Sleeper and the Waker’, told of Aboulhusn and his life in the Khalif’s palace. The story had echoes of biblical parable and of old European tales, but the image of the sleeper who lives a fantastic life in a dream world that is almost beyond imagining, and believes it gone when he wakes, carried uncomfortable resonances for Damien.

The shadows from the intricate wooden grilles sent the moonlight in dappled shadows that traversed the stone floor as the night progressed. The intrusions from the modern world faded and, as Damien read, it seemed as though the dreams of the thousand and one nights were in ascendance.

7

KING SAUD UNIVERSITY WEB SITE English Department Student discussion forums Students may post articles or topics for discussion. All contributions must be appropriate and must be in English.

Article from New Societies magazine, posted by Red Rose, 1 Shawwal 1425

Veiled Knowledge

Ayesha Chamoun

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is shortly to hold elections for the first time in forty years. Women have been banned from the poll. What is the view of Saudi women about this election?

Times are a-changing for women in the Kingdom. They are beginning to make their way in areas that have traditionally been closed to them–in academia, in the media and in industry. The role of women within the wider society is no longer a taboo subject. But does this debate–and a few minor reforms–mean that women can expect to make real progress in gaining significant rights?

The decision to exclude women from the poll has come as a blow to the fledgling movement for democratic reform. In the last year, leading male liberals have been imprisoned, and the news that prisoners would be allowed to vote whereas women would not, has angered many who hoped that Saudi Arabia was at last moving forward.

But these voices are in the minority. For the majority of Saudi women, the concept of ‘rights’ is not an issue they even think about. 7 see the way you live in the West, and it shows to me that women’s lives are very hard if their society does not look after them, ‘ says one student at Riyadh’s King Saud University.

These attitudes, instilled in women by their education and by the way they live, are hard to uproot or challenge. All her life, a woman has a male guardian–her father, her husband, her brother or her son. She must have his permission before she can be educated, travel or go to hospital. It is difficult for a woman even to leave her home without a male escort….

At first, Roisin thought that their life in the Kingdom was going to work. They moved their stuff into the house they were renting–characterless, but comfortable enough, with more rooms than they could possibly use–and tried to fight off the jet lag by exploring the compound where Roisin would spend all her time when she wasn’t working.

It was small but adequate. The streets were an uneasy pastiche of small-town America, a residential suburb with the sunlight reflecting off the road and sidewalks, off the pale stucco of the houses. There was a library, a gym, and a commissary where Roisin could get supplies. Inside the compound, Western rules and customs prevailed. She was allowed to wear what she liked, to drive, and to wander freely. Outside, she was restricted by cultural taboos that were rigidly enforced.

On their first weekend, Joe organized a trip to the desert. I’m going to be busy after this,’ he said. ‘I don’t know when we’ll get another chance. If you only see one thing in Saudi, you should see the desert sky at night.’ He borrowed an SUV, and they drove west of the city, out into the open wilderness. They pitched their tent where a sandstone canyon formed a jagged edge along the skyline and watched the sun set as the cold of the desert night began to close around them.

And the stars came out and blazed in their thousands. Roisin sat outside the tent, her hands wrapped round a mug of coffee, entranced by the icy, indifferent glory. Joe sat behind her and put his arms round her waist as they pointed out the constellations to each other. ‘There’s Orion,’ she said, surprised that she could see the same constellations that shone in the night sky over the northern cities. ‘The hunter.’

She felt rather than heard him laugh. ‘Orion wasn’t just a hunter. He was the most beautiful man in the world. The gods sent a scorpion to kill him, and Diana asked for him to be placed in the sky so she could remember him.’

They made love under the stars, and she lay awake for a long time afterwards, listening to the sounds as the desert, so dead during the day, came to life. And as she listened to Joe’s quiet breathing, she wondered about the goddess huntress who had had to be content with her lover blazing in the night sky instead of in her arms.

They were going to be happy here.

She wasn’t due to start work for a fortnight, so she threw herself into the task of getting the house organized, and of familiarizing herself with her new country. She wanted to see more of Riyadh than the brief tour that Damien O’Neill had given them on their first day. Usually, when she came to a new country, she spent time exploring. She liked to walk, to drive around and get the feel and measure of the place. Here, once she left the compound, she had to rely on taxis, and her ability to explore was severely limited. It wasn’t wise for a woman to be on her own on the streets of Riyadh.

The city hid itself behind a veil. The centre was a sweep of concrete, ugly, dirty and crowded, where the past had been eradicated. She remembered Joe’s fascination with finding the lost sectors of old cities–the hidden rivers and wild enclaves in the centre of London, the forgotten remnants of the past.

There was little of this here. The old city was fast disappearing but, despite the changes, the narrow streets of the old quarter still carried the remnants of the original labyrinthine pattern. Here and there she could still see the old buildings: houses made of clay, the doors and windows obscured by mashrabiyaat. These grilles allowed the people inside to look out on to the streets, but excluded all strangers. They were like the eyes of the women, dimly visible when the light caught the covering over their faces.

Other ex-pats told her that the city was changing so fast that landmarks could disappear overnight, whole blocks razed and replaced by newer, higher, more elaborate constructions. A culture built on sand has no sense of permanency.

By the end of the fortnight, she knew the compound from end to end. She knew the staff in the commissary, and she had attended coffee mornings at the houses of ex-pat wives who, having little prospect of work here, seemed to devote their lives to gossiping and complaining about their host country. The only thing she learned from them was how to make wine from fruit juice and bread yeast.

She got to know the gardeners–Filipinos, mostly–who worked quietly and inconspicuously keeping the lawns green and immaculate and the gardens blooming. They were friendly and helpful to a newcomer who was trying to find her feet. She got into the habit of taking them fruit juice and biscuits while they were working, and sat on the step in the shade talking to them. They lived in poor conditions–mostly in segregated hostels. They weren’t allowed to bring their wives and families with them, and they all seemed to be supporting extended families at home. They were cheerful and resourceful. She helped them with their English and, in exchange, they taught her a few words of Tagalog, including a useful obscenity or two.

She worked hard on the house. It was the first home of their marriage, and she wanted it to be comfortable and welcoming. Most of all, she wanted it to be theirs. They’d rented it furnished, so she tried to add some personal touches. She framed some of her Newcastle photographs and hung them on the wall. She bought a red glass vase on one of her trips into town and put it on a low table where it made a splash of colour against the neutral walls.

The kitchen alone was probably as big as her flat in London had been. Their pots, pans and crockery huddled in forlorn isolation in the cupboards, and Roisin’s shopping from the commissary barely filled half the shelves of the massive ice box that dominated one corner of the room.

She spent a lot of time alone. Joe was working long hours. His department in the hospital had been without a senior pathologist for several weeks, and he had a massive backload of work to catch up on. He left the house at six each morning, and was rarely home before nine. By the end of her fortnight of enforced idleness, Roisin had had enough.

It was Wednesday afternoon. The weekends ran from Thursday to Saturday, and Roisin was due to start work the following week. Joe had promised to be home early, and they planned to spend the evening together. Roisin had hoped that they might be able to go into the city on Thursday or Friday and do some more exploring, but Joe said he would probably have to work.

‘You haven’t had a day off since you got here,’ Roisin had protested.

‘What do you think they pay these salaries for?’ he’d said as he disappeared upstairs to shower. The subject hadn’t come up again.

She looked at the clock: four thirty. The hands barely seemed to have shifted since she’d last looked. Joe should be back in half an hour. It would be their first proper evening together for a fortnight, and she’d planned a small celebration. She’d bought a chicken and it was simmering on the stove in coconut milk and spices, filling the house with its fragrance.

She went upstairs to shower–she was going to surprise Joe with the new dress she’d bought just before they’d left the UK and hadn’t had a chance to wear. She’d lived in jeans for the past week. She was drying herself when the phone rang and she went into the study to answer it, catching her shin on the last unopened packing case. It was Joe’s and it contained his medical books and notes. He’d said that he would unpack it himself, but it was still there, sitting uncompromisingly in the middle of the floor.

She swore and grabbed at her leg as she picked up the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘Sweetheart, it’s me.’

Her heart sank. ‘Joe.’ She could hear the flatness in her voice–she knew what was coming.

‘I’ve got to stay late again. I’m sorry. I can’t do anything about it. You wouldn’t believe the chaos here.’

He sounded tired. She swallowed her disappointment. ‘OK. I’ll be fine. The chicken will be a bit dried out.’

‘Did you do something special? I’m sorry, sweetheart.’

She bit her tongue on a sharp comment. They’d discussed their plans before he’d left that morning. ‘It’s OK. I’ve got things to do.’

She finished drying her hair, and pulled on some jeans. The smell of spiced chicken that had been making her feel hungry seemed unpleasant now, rich and cloying. She went downstairs to switch off the stove, then stood in the vast empty kitchen wondering what to do with her evening.

Her leg was hurting where she’d caught it on the packing case. She rubbed it, wincing as her fingers touched the tender spot where a bruise was starting to form. It was OK for Joe to say, I’ll do it, but he was never here. And it wasn’t him hacking his shins on it every time he tried to get into the room. She went back up the stairs to the office and tried to push the box into the corner where it wouldn’t be such an obstruction, but she couldn’t get enough grip to get any traction. It was too heavy to lift. She decided to take all the stuff out, put it somewhere where Joe could sort through it, and get the box put away.

It was filled to the top with books. No wonder it was too heavy to move. She knelt on the floor and began taking them out, big medical tomes with dark covers and forbidding titles: The Pathology of the Foetus and the Infant; Foetal and Neonatal Pathology…

Underneath the books, Joe had stacked various papers and journals, which she moved carefully on to separate shelves, and right at the bottom of the case was a folder full of personal miscellany. She spent a happy ten minutes flicking through old magazines, looking at a postcard she’d had made of one of her photographs with a message she’d scrawled on the back in the early days of their relationship. And there was a photograph, slightly creased, of their wedding.

She sat on the floor, looking at it, remembering how, when they had come out of the register office, someone had thrown petals that came down in a shower and clung to her hair and to her dress. The photographer had caught them in that moment, laughing in a cloud of brilliant colours.

The phone rang. She made a long arm and picked it up, her eyes still on the photograph. ‘Roisin Massey.’

‘Oh, Mrs Massey. Could I speak to Dr Massey please?’

‘He isn’t here. Do you want to leave a message?’

‘It’s Mike Alport, his technician.’

‘Hi, Mike.’ She had talked to Mike on the phone but she hadn’t met him yet.

‘Sorry to disturb you. I thought he’d be back by now. Could you ask him to give me a ring when he gets in? Tell him it’s about those results he wanted. They came in just after he left.’

Roisin stared at the phone.

‘Mrs Massey?’

‘Yes. I’m here. Sorry. When did you say he left?’

‘About an hour ago.’

‘Yes. Of course. He said he might stop at the shops.’ Her voice sounded odd and artificial. ‘I’ll ask him to call you, OK?’

She sat looking at the phone after Mike had rung off. Joe must have…He was probably still in his office, dealing with a backlog of admin. He wouldn’t necessarily have told Mike that. He’d want to be left alone to get on with it.

Her fingers reached for the phone, pulled back, then reached again. She dialled Joe’s direct line, the one that went straight to his office, or to his pager if he was on duty and away from his desk. She listened to the phone ringing, then to the automated answering service that told her he wasn’t available and invited her to leave a message.

He wasn’t there.

She stacked his books carelessly on the shelves. One of them toppled off and fell open on to the floor with a heavy thud that resonated through the silent house. A dog barked in the distance. She picked up the book, trying to avert her eyes from the pictures, afraid she would see photographs of dead babies, babies with terrible diseases, but instead the infants looked normal: tiny, wrinkled, newborn, their minuscule fingers clenched, their eyes dark and curious.

One day…She and Joe had married in a hurry, but one thing they both knew was that they wanted children. Roisin, at thirty-two, didn’t want to wait much longer and they had a tentative plan to try for a family after his contract in Riyadh ended. But, in the back of her mind, she could see his face, suddenly cold, turned away from her, and she could hear her mother’s voice: Rosie, you hardly know him!

She made herself focus on the task in hand. The packing case was just about empty. She dug down to the bottom and found a page from a newspaper. It was tucked into a plastic pocket to preserve it, and it had been folded, leaving a photograph on display. It was a picture of a young man with a carefree smile. She unfolded the paper carefully, looking at the date. It was from April that year, and she wondered why Joe had kept it. Underneath the photograph, there was an article:

BRITISH STUDENT ‘ABANDONED’ IN SAUDI JUSTICE

Supporters of a man who was executed in Saudi Arabia last week, today accused the government of failing to intervene. Haroun Patel, a Pakistani national who was a student in the UK in 2003, was convicted of smuggling heroin in Riyadh. A spokesperson said, ‘Her Majesty’s government is unable to intervene in cases involving nationals from other countries.’

An execution. She remembered that first morning with Damien O’Neill, when she’d found her way to as-Sa’ah Square. It’s known colloquially as Chop-Chop Square…

Early April. In early April, she and Joe hadn’t even met. When that article was written, when people were reading it, she was running along the tow path with Shadow dancing ahead of her, and just a week or two later, Joe would be running along that path towards her, the course of their lives about to change for ever.

As she read on, the images of the Kingdom that she was starting to form in her mind melted and changed. They were confused and disparate images: the houses in the old city, tall with small, shuttered windows, houses built close together creating narrow, shadowed alleyways that protected the inhabitants from the relentless sun; the compound with its sharp-edged shadows cast by the buildings, the blinding reflections that enclosed the watcher in brightness, the dryness, like ashes, that the light left behind.

And she didn’t know any more what she was seeing.

8
DESERT DEATHS

Riyadh: Thirteen workers–mostly Africans–lost their way in the desert and died of thirst in the Taef region of Saudi Arabia. They are thought to have gone looking for work when their residency permits ran out. (Reuters)

Damien O’Neill leaned back in his chair. It tilted, and he stared at the ceiling, watching a lizard making its way across the cracked plaster. He was beginning to think that he might have a problem, a problem that centred on Joe Massey. He’d been concerned about Majid’s rather dismissive hostility when Massey’s name had been mentioned. Somehow, during his previous contract, Massey had managed to bring himself to the attention of the police.

And now there was something else. As he walked home from work that evening, Damien had passed one of the thriving internet cafés that had sprung up all over the city. And there, all his concentration focused on the screen in front of him, was Joe Massey. Damien had been sufficiently intrigued to stop and watch for a while, but Massey’s intent gaze hadn’t wavered as he keyed instructions into the machine, stared at whatever had appeared on the screen in response, scribbled down notes and keyed in more instructions.

All the ex-pat houses were set up for internet access, and Massey would also have had a computer in his office at the hospital. But internet traffic was closely monitored in the Kingdom. Though ostensibly for people without their own internet connection, in practice the cafés were often used by those who had particular reasons for keeping their activities anonymous.

These were troubled times. Westerners had been killed on the streets of the Kingdom, and Damien had an ex-pat community whose safety was his responsibility, as was their impact on the society they so imperfectly understood. If Massey was here with an agenda, then Damien wanted to know what it was. There was nothing he could do now though. He filed the problem for future consideration.

The call for Maghrib, sunset prayer, brought him back to the present. He scribbled down some notes for the report he intended writing next day, then went downstairs to see what Rai had left in the way of food. As he walked through the shadowed spaces, the doorbell jangled, an intrusion from another place and another time. He heard the sound of a car pulling away.

Damien paused. He didn’t live behind the layers of security that protected most Westerners. He knew he was taking some risks, but he also knew that, if he hid behind those kinds of shields, he would effectively exclude himself from Saudi society, declare himself to be irretrievably other. Whoever was calling had chosen a time when Rai wasn’t here, and when the streets outside were quiet. Risk? He spun the wheel in his head, then opened the door.

There, in the long shadows cast by the high walls and the walkways that linked the buildings, was a slender, black-swathed figure. Her eyes, behind the concealing niqaab veil, were luminous as she slipped through the half-open door into the twilight of the hallway.

‘Amy!’ He didn’t know whether he was shocked or angry. Or just pleased. She shouldn’t have come here alone.

‘I wanted to see you,’ she said simply.

‘For Christ’s…’ His exasperation faded as she slipped off her abaya. She was wearing a simple blue dress. Her skin glowed in the shadows, and the brightness of her hair made the colours around her fade to monochrome. ‘Do you know what could happen if anyone saw you coming here?’

‘Of course I do. So I was careful. Please, Damien. Don’t let’s get angry with each other, not now. It’s been too long since I saw you.’ She rested her hands lightly on his shoulders. Her eyes were almost level with his. He could smell her perfume, and see the way the delicate flush on her face was deepening as they looked at each other.

As he kissed her, he could feel the anger flowing through him and knew she could feel it as well. Suddenly, she was urgent, her nails digging into him as she pulled his shirt free. He could feel her fingers unbuckling his belt. He lifted her up and sat her on the edge of the table that stood by the wall, pushing up her skirt and impatiently pulling her clothes aside.

‘Damien…’ she said, then as he touched her, her breath caught and she stopped speaking as the shadows of the evening gathered around them.

By the time Joe got back, Roisin had finished unpacking the last case and had taken another shower to get rid of the sticky dust that seemed to settle over everything.

There was a bottle of wine in the fridge, some homebrew that a neighbour had given her. It was to have accompanied the chicken that was now cold and congealing in the pan. As the hands on the clock dragged from nine to ten, she got the bottle out and poured herself a glass.

She was lying on the settee, trying to concentrate on her book, when she heard his key in the door. It was almost twenty past ten, the latest he’d ever been. She sat up wearily and put her glass on the table.

He looked tired. He’d loosened his tie and his shirt collar was open. His face was pale under his tan and he had shadows of fatigue under his eyes. ‘Roisin.’

‘You look exhausted.’ She kept her voice neutral. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘What? No. No, I didn’t have time. I’m not hungry anyway.’

‘You’ve got to have something.’ She stood up. ‘Joe, where have you been?’

He frowned slightly, studying her face. ‘I’ve been working.’

‘Mike phoned. He wanted you to call back.’

‘When? I haven’t seen him. I’ve been in the library.’

‘The library?’

He shook his head. ‘I know. I’m sorry. I should have come home like I said, but I’m getting behind with my own work. If I don’t keep up with that, I’m not going to get a decent job when we leave.’

And he hadn’t felt able to tell her. You hardly know him, Rosie. And he hardly knew her. ‘You should have said.’

He was looking at her with half-amused doubt. ‘What did you think? That I was out hitting the fleshpots of Riyadh? Because there aren’t any.’

‘Of course not. I just thought we’d agreed to spend this evening together.’ She saw his face start to set in the cold, distant look. ‘Mike said you’d left, and I was worried.’

He seemed to pull himself back from somewhere. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You’ve been on your own. I should have thought.’ He put his arms round her. ‘We could start the evening now. I didn’t mean to make you worry. You look beautiful.’ His smile was deliberately hangdog.

She knew what he was doing, but she couldn’t resist smiling back. ‘And you look shattered. Go and have a shower, and I’ll get us something to eat. Here—’ She gave him the glass of wine she’d barely touched.

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly.

He came downstairs in jeans and a T-shirt, looking more relaxed. She made a quick salad using some of the cold chicken. She poured them each a large glass of the homebrew and they sat on the settee and ate with fingers rather than forks.

When they’d finished, he lay down with his head in her lap. ‘I thought today would never end. But it kept the best bit to the end.’

She played with his hair. ‘Listen, next weekend it will be the end of my first week at work. Let’s go into the desert again.’

‘If I can.’ He looked at her. ‘I don’t want to promise something and let you down again.’

She nodded, not completely happy. ‘I unpacked that last case of stuff that was in the study.’

‘You shouldn’t have done that. I would have…’

‘When? I nearly broke my leg on it twice today.’

‘Right. Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to leave it for you. It’s just been…’

‘It’s OK. It didn’t take long.’ She trailed her fingers across his face. He hadn’t shaved and she could feel the roughness of stubble. ‘I found an article. About this place.’

She felt him stiffen. ‘What article?’

‘The one about the guy who was executed. I put it with your papers. Is it important?’

‘No. I don’t know why I kept it.’

‘Was it someone you knew?’

‘I said…’ His voice was sharp, then he stopped himself. ‘Sorry. I told you, I don’t know why I kept it.’ He pushed himself upright. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘I didn’t sleep well last night. I’m still on UK time.’

Later, lying in bed, she was the one who couldn’t sleep. She told herself it was because she was starting her classes soon, stepping out of the security of the compound and into the strangeness of the Saudi world.

As she floated somewhere between an uneasy sleep and wakefulness, words on a screen scrolled down in front of her eyes:…died of thirst in the desert…executed…never to come back…and she was in the square where they had stood the day they first arrived. It was empty and silent. Her feet were on the patterned stones that vanished into the distance. She was moving forward, reluctant step by reluctant step, to the ornate centre of the mosaic. The shadow from the minaret lay across it like a warning finger. It’s time.

And under the pillars, in the shadows, someone was watching.

9

Damien watched the shadows playing through the closed shutters as he lay on the bed. Beside him, Amy was lying with her eyes closed, asleep, or lost in her own thoughts. The heat in the city this summer was extreme–he’d recorded forty-four degrees at noon. Even the Saudis were slowed down by it; the old men were absent from the street cafés and the souk had been somnolent in the blaze of the sun.

The temperature was dropping now and against the dampness of his skin the air felt cool. He pulled the sheet up to cover them, and Amy stirred. ‘Damien,’ she said.

He leaned over and kissed her lightly. ‘Who else would it be? No, don’t answer that.’ Her body was outlined against the sheets, long slim arms and legs, a smooth, flat stomach. Her skin was a pale glimmer in the half-light and her mouth was the delicate pink of rosebuds. He could picture her face half an hour before, flushed and warm, her lips the colour of crushed raspberries, and he could still hear her gasps of pleasure as she’d dug her nails into his skin.

She laughed softly and rolled over towards him. ‘Nobody else but you.’ She reached across him to where a bottle of wine was cooling in a terracotta jar, and poured them each a glass.

‘So tell me,’ he said. ‘Why are you here?’ It was rare for them to meet spontaneously like this. The Saudi system made meetings between unmarried couples difficult. Damien preferred it that way. He had his own issues with commitment–his marriage had been enough to warn him away from those deep waters and Amy seemed happy enough with the status quo.

She ran her fingers lightly over him. He could feel himself responding to her and took hold of her wrist. ‘Do you need to ask?’ she said.

‘Amy, I know I need to ask. What’s wrong?’ Amy always kept her own counsel, revealing only as much as she had to about herself. He had said to her once, ‘Has it ever occurred to you that I might do what you want if you just told me what was going on?’ She had given him a veiled look but hadn’t answered.

She hesitated, then sighed. ‘I don’t know. That’s the thing. I was talking to one of the new guys today–only he’s not so new. He’s on his second tour. He must be crazy.’

He knew at once who she was talking about. ‘Joe Massey.’

‘Yes.’ She sounded surprised. ‘You know him?’

‘Not really. And…?’

‘He was here when that man got caught taking the drugs. Remember?’

Haroun Patel.

That was the connection that had been nagging at him. Joe Massey must have been in Riyadh at the time Haroun Patel had died. Majid had mentioned the drug theft the other night.

Damien had known and liked Haroun. He had been intelligent and energetic, a young man determined to do well in life, and not afraid to cut corners on the way. Only he’d chosen the wrong corner to cut and he was gone. The local police had landed every outstanding case of drug pilfering on his head, and then they had cut it off. His trial had been quick and secret, the evidence laid before the judges with no chance for Haroun to plead his case. By that time, anyway, he had confessed his guilt. As far as Damien knew, there had been no diplomatic fuss, no pressure to gain him a fair trial or a more proportionate sentence, just a small and quickly forgotten protest from people who had known him during his time in the UK. Haroun had been one more third-worlder, another immigrant worker trying his luck.

‘I remember,’ he said. ‘Why are you asking?’

Amy sat up, and the sheet slipped away to lie in a pool round her hips. ‘It was just…this Massey guy said something that got me thinking. The case against Haroun never really made a lot of sense…’

‘They caught him with the stuff. That’s all the sense a case needs, here.’

‘I know. But it wasn’t the first theft, and I don’t see how Haroun could have done the others…’

‘You’re right. He probably didn’t. Amy, they caught him with enough stuff to land a trafficking charge on him. That was the crime that got him. The rest was just convenience. They needed a drugs trafficker, they got a drugs trafficker. They just cleared up anything outstanding. He was going anyway, he might as well take some extra baggage with him.’ He was deliberately brutal. He didn’t want her getting involved any further with this.

Amy ran her fingers through her hair. ‘It’s a lousy system. You know that?’

He shrugged. ‘Have you only just found that out?’

‘You seem happy enough with it.’

It was happening already. If they weren’t having sex, it wasn’t long before they were sniping at each other, looking for the weak points in each other’s armour. He knew about the iniquities of the system–he didn’t need Amy to point them out. This was one of the reasons he’d left the diplomatic service. ‘You take their money, Amy. You know the score. It’s just the way it is.’

‘So no one’s going to do anything about it?’

He pushed the sheet off in exasperation and got out of bed. ‘Do what? What would be the point?’

She was silent, chewing her lip as she thought about it. ‘He had a family. I thought it might be better for them if they knew he’d only stolen drugs once.’

‘He got caught once. He might have done it loads of times–and then he got careless. Leave it.’

She stood up. Draped in the thin cotton sheet, she looked as though she had stepped out of an engraving for one of the stories of the thousand and one nights. ‘Maybe.’ Her tone didn’t denote agreement, just that she wanted to close the subject.

She wouldn’t leave it. He knew Amy.

10

KING SAUD UNIVERSITY WEB SITE English Department Student discussion forums Students may post articles or topics for discussion. All contributions must be appropriate and must be in English.

Topic: Veiled Knowledge

Ibrahim: Red Rose, why did you post this article for us to read? If you think as a woman in Islam you have the right of leadership, you are totally wrong, because this kind of job is only valid for men.

For women to read and understand.

Allah Subhanahu Ta’âla (Az-Zukhruf: 18) says clearly that women are deficient in intellect and understanding. Women are physically weak and unable to fulfil the duties of leadership. It has thus been made the right of men only.

These are the rules that a Muslim woman should obey and these make her unfit for leadership should she be foolish enough to aspire to such a thing:

1. A woman should at all times remain in her home, but if due to any shar’ie necessity (eg Hajj, visiting her parents, visiting the ill, etc), then she should cover her entire body including the face.

2. She must not try to seduce strange men by making her voice low and attractive when speaking with them and she should not walk in such a manner that would attract the attention of men.

3. Intermingling of the sexes is prohibited in Islam.

Red Rose, I’ll tell you a real story about an American Muslim woman who worked as a professor; she came to the King Saud University in Riyadh for a lecture. She said strong words to the girls that she saw with their bad behaviour and clothes. She said, ‘I wish that I was born in a Muslim family so I could do as much as possible to bless the great one, unlike you who are wearing unsuitable clothes and behaving in an immodest and foolish way, like the women in my country do.’ That was said by an American Muslim woman. How do you answer this?

Red Rose: Ibrahim, too many men in our country are thinking like you. I am good Muslim, but I have travelled. I have been to place where good Muslim women drive car, vote and travel without the permission of husband or father. I think it is time we see the difference between Islam and custom in this country too. Maybe you will be liking this article better. This one was written by a Saudi man:

Women and Islam–a new perspective

What is perceived as the rise of fundamentalism in the Islamic world has led to the criticism that women pay the price for the reestablishment of faith. Is it true that women are oppressed within Islam, or is this a distortion of what the Q’ran itself teaches?

When these accusations are made by the secularists, then the Islamists must turn again to the words of the prophet…

The university was on the main road to the north east of Riyadh. Roisin sat in the back of the car, enveloped in her abaya, and tried not to flinch too visibly as her driver carved a straight route through the weaving traffic. The inside of the car smelled faintly of leather and spices. The chill from the air-conditioning made a disorientating contrast to the hard glare of the sun outside.

The driver hadn’t spoken apart from a response to her Arabic greeting, and a nod of assent when she told him her destination. He would be driving her three times a week, and she wondered if he would unbend with familiarity, or if they were condemned by custom and protocol to travel this route in silence for the next year.

They were leaving the city centre now, travelling fast along an eight-lane highway. She could see a haze of green in the distance, and as it drew closer the driver pulled across and took a turn-off, pulling up at a security gate.

Roisin remained mute and invisible in the back while the driver carried out the negotiations. Beyond the checkpoint she could see a landscaped park with packed red earth, green lawns, palm trees and low shrubs. As the car moved slowly past the barrier, she could see that the grass of the lawns was patchy as it fought to survive in the dry terrain, but otherwise, she was looking at a futuristic arcadia on the edge of the biggest desert in the world.

The buildings were high with curved, sweeping roofs, lifted off the ground on pillars or pointing, needle thin, to the sky. Even this early in the day, the campus was busy. Students wandered across the open spaces, young men in white thobes with red ghutra. There were no women visible, apart from her, and she was enclosed in the separate world of the car, hidden behind her abaya and headscarf. No one glanced her way.

The driver stopped at a second gate. ‘Woman college,’ he said. Only the second time he had spoken.

Roisin made sure her headscarf was in place and got out of the car. ‘Thank you. Twelve thirty,’ she said to the driver, who nodded abruptly and pulled away.

She stepped through the door into the building that housed the women’s campus.

Cool twilight enclosed her. She was in a long corridor of high pillars, the ceiling punched with holes to admit the light that fell across the shadows in beams of gold where the dust motes danced. It was cloister-like in its silence. There were no groups of young women passing time chatting and laughing. The few women who were there moved purposefully, their footsteps quiet, their eyes cast down. Even though men did not come here–the male teachers taught their classes over video link–they wore the hijab and long skirts. Roisin hesitated then loosened her own headscarf and let it fall round her neck. Until someone told her otherwise, she was going to leave it off. She shook her hair free.

She followed the signs along the corridor, thankful that they were written in English as well as Arabic, until she found the office of the professor who would be her supervisor. Souad al-Munajjed was an internationally respected academic who taught and researched in the area of foreign language teaching. Roisin was curious to meet her. She knocked on the door, and when a voice responded, she went in.

Souad al-Munajjed made a lie of any preconceptions that Roisin had brought with her about Saudi women. She was in her late forties, married with children, and a professor of English at the prestigious university. She wrote books, attended academic conferences all over the world and enjoyed an international reputation for her work on translation.

She stood up from her chair as Roisin entered, moving forward to greet her. ‘Good morning,’ she said in heavily accented English, then switched to Arabic. ‘Peace be upon you.’ She was small and pretty. Like her students, she wore the hijab. Hers was folded in a style that made it drape elegantly over her hair and round her shoulders. Her dress was black and ankle-length, subtly ornamented with silver stitching.

‘And upon you peace,’ Roisin responded. Wa-alay-kum as-salam.

‘Salaam,’ Souad al-Munajjed corrected her pronunciation and nodded her approval of Roisin’s courtesy. ‘It is good that you speak Arabic,’ she said, reverting to English.

‘I speak very little.’

‘But you try. This is good.’ She studied Roisin in silence. ‘The bangles you wear, they are very pretty.’

‘Thank you. My husband bought them for me when we first arrived, from the market.’

Souad nodded as if this pleased her. ‘We have good silversmiths here. Now, these first meetings are important, are they not? I would like to introduce to you one of our graduate students who will be your teaching assistant today.’ She indicated a chair in the corner of the room where another woman was sitting, unnoticed until now.

As she stood up to greet Roisin, it was obvious she was pregnant. ‘I am Yasmin,’ she said.

She was beautiful. Her heart-shaped face was framed by a black hijab that emphasized the fairness of her skin. A curl of chestnut hair escaped the confines of the scarf. But she looked tired. Roisin could see dark circles of fatigue under her eyes, and lines around her mouth that denoted some kind of strain. ‘I am most pleased to meet you,’ she said. She spoke English with a slight French accent.

‘And I’m pleased to meet you. I’m Roisin Gardner.’ Roisin hadn’t had time to get the name on her teaching papers changed to reflect her new status. ‘Will we be working together?’

‘Sometimes. I would like to learn better English.’ Her smile to Roisin was cautious. ‘I think I will be your student.’

‘Yasmin will assist you in some classes,’ Professor Souad explained. ‘But I cannot spare her all the time. Some days, she teaches in the villages. We have a big programme, funded by our government, to bring education to the village women. Now, my dears, I think we should have tea.’ She picked up the phone and spoke briefly, then sat down and gestured for Roisin to sit next to her. ‘What is your impression of our university?’

‘It’s beautiful. But I was surprised there were so few students–in this part, I mean. I thought you had more women than men here.’

‘Yes indeed. Our education policies are more enlightened than we are given credit for. But the girls don’t arrive before classes start, unless they are here to see their tutors. Saudi girls don’t waste their time in gossip and “hanging out”.’ She gave the phrase an ironic emphasis. ‘Isn’t that right?’ she added to Yasmin, who smiled and nodded. ‘Don’t worry. Your class will be waiting for you. Now you must tell me about yourself.’

Over the next fifteen minutes, she subjected Roisin to a friendly but close interrogation, interrupted briefly by the arrival of tea and pastries. Her eyebrows lifted in surprise when Roisin told her she had no children. ‘But, my dear, you are already thirty-two!’

‘I only got married a few weeks ago,’ Roisin said.

‘I had four children when I was your age.’ Souad patted Roisin’s hand. ‘Take my advice. Don’t delay.’

‘A lot of women in the West wait until their thirties.’ Roisin noticed with some amusement the flash of slightly contemptuous pity in Souad al-Munajjed’s eyes.

‘The students,’ the professor said briskly; ‘you have seen their work online–what do you think of them? And you like our discussion forum? This was my idea.’ She refilled Roisin’s cup unasked, and put a sweet, crumbly pastry on her plate.

‘There have been some interesting postings recently.’ Roisin broke off a piece of the pastry and put it in her mouth, letting it melt on her tongue. Its intense sweetness was mellowed by the flavour of spices. ‘I was surprised about the…’ She hesitated for a moment, but these women were too intelligent not to be aware of what she was thinking. ‘I was surprised at the openness of the discussion about women’s rights. And about the vote.’

The professor nodded slowly. ‘Truly we discourage openly political topics. There are some hotheads who do not understand about debate. Otherwise, why should the girls not discuss what they wish? You must be aware that sometimes they talk without thinking. They are very young, very inexperienced. There are a lot of wrong ideas about women in this country. I don’t pretend for a moment that all is well, but women have their difficulties everywhere, and sometimes things can be made worse when they are brought into the open.’

Roisin noticed that Yasmin had withdrawn from the discussion and was sitting quietly studying her hands. ‘You think they shouldn’t discuss it?’

‘I think that the–what is the word? The status quo–the status quo can be the best. For example, it has long been the rule in the Kingdom that women are not allowed to drive, but attitudes were perhaps starting to change. Then there was a protest here, and a group of women drove. All they achieved was to lose their jobs, anger the clerics and draw attention to a law that may have been quietly repealed in a year or two. Instead, their defiance made attitudes harden. So where was the value in the protest? All it did was to make life more difficult for everyone. Is that not so?’ She turned to the silent Yasmin.

‘It caused trouble, certainly,’ Yasmin said after a moment.

‘And now,’ the professor continued, ‘there are the elections. It can worry the students. They say things they do not understand.’

‘Some women,’ Yasmin said in her quiet voice, ‘expected to be given the vote—’

‘Ah, the vote.’ Roisin got the impression that this was a topic the professor was used to dismissing. She turned to Roisin. ‘Tell me, does your vote make any difference to who rules you, who makes the laws you must abide by?’ She was smiling as she looked at Roisin, her head tilted like an interrogative bird.

Roisin evaded the question. ‘I thought that Islamists believe laws come from God.’

‘Ah, but you are not an Islamist, as that remark shows. Come now, what do you believe?’

Roisin shrugged. ‘People make laws. Men make laws. One vote, no, it makes no difference. But…’ She had a vague memory of an Arab proverb and she was trying to remember it: ‘One small thing is…small. But a lot of small things together…The women could make a difference if they voted.’

‘And you support the government that rules you?’

‘Not entirely, no.’

‘And did you vote for them?’

‘No. I voted for someone else.’

The professor nodded slowly. ‘So in this much-praised democracy, your vote counts for nothing and you are governed by someone you didn’t choose? As these girls are governed by someone they didn’t choose?’

‘The government knows that not everyone supports them. That limits what they feel able to do. I was able to express my choice. I feel unhappy about a system that denies so many people that right.’

‘When my children disagree with me, I let them tell me why. I let them have their say, I let them “express their choice”, and then their father and I tell them what they must do. If I had a democratic family, it seems that the children would rule.’ Her eyes gleamed as she watched Roisin’s reaction.

‘In a democracy, children don’t have the vote.’ Roisin saw the trap as soon as she had stepped into it.

‘So you, like us, decide who can and who can’t choose. I see we are not so different after all. At last I understand this democracy. Now, it’s time to meet your students. Yasmin will take you to the seminar room.’

‘Will you stay for the class?’ Roisin asked as they left the room.

‘If you are happy for me to,’ Yasmin said.

As she followed the younger woman along the corridor, Roisin wasn’t sure if she’d just participated in a good-natured debate, or if she had been given a warning. She had no doubt that everything she said to the students would reach the diligent ears of the professor.

11

Damien was sufficiently concerned by Amy’s sudden interest in the Patel case–especially as it seemed to have been triggered by Joe Massey–to do a bit of digging on his own. He wasn’t interested in the rights and wrongs of it–Patel had made a bad choice and had had the misfortune to fall foul of the Saudi legal system. Any crusade to get the case reopened would be a quixotic waste of time. The courts of the Kingdom didn’t make mistakes and anyone who suggested they did was asking for a fast ticket out. He didn’t like the system, but it wasn’t his system. It was up to the Saudis themselves to clean it up.

He phoned Majid using his work number so that Majid would know this call was business rather than social. After the necessary exchange of courtesies–one of the things that had attracted Damien to Saudi culture when he first arrived was the voices calling the blessings of God upon their colleagues as a matter of routine–he introduced his topic: ‘Majid, I came across an old case yesterday, one of yours, from earlier this year. A Pakistani man called Haroun Patel was…’

Uncharacteristically, Majid interrupted him. ‘You, too, my friend? Why does everyone involve themselves with this man? He stole drugs. He paid the penalty.’

You, too. ‘I think we’re asking the same question. I’m asking you because someone asked me. I’ve forgotten the details. Remind me what happened.’

‘My friend, there is no mystery and no secret. We did a check on the hospital drugs supply. All was in order except in the main pharmacy where two packets of morphine had gone.’

‘They were stolen, not lost?’

‘They were stolen. The hospital had done an inventory just the night before, because we had warned them we would be visiting. The drugs were there then.’

So the thief hadn’t just taken a risk, he had been stupid.

‘And then…?’

‘We searched the hospital and we found the missing drugs hidden in one of the lockers in the accommodation block where the technicians lived.’

‘Haroun Patel’s?’

‘Haroun Patel’s.’

‘And it was Patel who had put them there?’

‘The lockers have code numbers. No one but the user can access them.’ Majid’s voice was cooler.

No one but the user and the hospital authorities. But Damien kept that thought to himself. He chose his words carefully. He didn’t want to offend Majid. ‘I knew Haroun Patel. It seems to have been a very unintelligent crime, and Patel was not a stupid man. It puzzled me…’

‘It wasn’t so stupid,’ Majid said. He sounded more relaxed now he understood Damien’s concern. ‘He did extra hours as a driver. He had been away the day before, delivering supplies round the villages. He didn’t know there was going to be a check.’

‘Thank you,’ Damien said formally. After he hung up, he reflected that this conversation had removed some of the doubts he’d had himself about the case. He still didn’t know why Patel had taken the risk of stealing the drugs, but if he thought he had time to get them away…Patel’s confession to the other crimes, the ones he probably hadn’t committed, had never surprised him. The Saudi police had interrogation methods that didn’t bear close scrutiny. It was another sore in a system that was chronically diseased, and it distressed Damien that a man like Majid was touched by that contamination.

But someone was stirring things up. Majid, too, was aware of questions around the case. If the authorities were starting to pay attention, then that curiosity was dangerous and it was up to Damien to stop it. He needed to find out who was at the root of it, and why.

The who he had some ideas about. This had started after Joe Massey had arrived. Massey had actually been talking about the case to Amy. It was possible that someone else could have been asking questions that had prompted Massey to talk to Amy, but Occam’s razor said that Massey was the who. The why eluded him completely. Why would anyone want to dig around the Haroun Patel case?

He went back over the conversation in his mind. Amy had queried Haroun’s guilt, at least as far as some of the charges went. What was it she had said? The case against him never made a lot of sense…But sense was exactly what it had made. Patel had been a technician. He’d had access to the pharmacy. Means, motive, opportunity. Patel had the means and he had had the opportunity. The only thing Damien didn’t know was the motive. But if Patel was putting in extra hours as a driver, then he clearly needed money and had taken a fatal gamble.

Damien shrugged off his doubts. People did stupid things when they panicked. It was academic. His concern now was to find out who was asking questions, who was about to cause some serious trouble in the ex-pat community, and put a stop to it.

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