The airport wasn’t far away, twenty minutes. He had just enough cash left for a one-way ticket to Cairo. There were daily flights. In less than twelve hours he could be waving goodbye to the whole mess from the jet’s window: goodbye Abdulkader, any possibility of getting to know Rania gone, a farewell to the forty-two grand they owed him. Safe. Clear.
He sat looking out over the murky green water of the harbour, once the busiest in the world after New York and London, now a forgottenbackwater, foul and stinking. Heat rose from the pavement, pulsed from the tin roofs clustered around the wharf. Workers trudged past him on their way to the docks, Somalis with coffee-coloured skin and piled turbans, barefoot Sudanese in rags carrying plastic bags, rope-thin Filipinos shading themselves with rubbish-tip umbrellas. Had he really fallen so low? That he could contemplate abandoning a friend, running from a fight? He shivered, shocked, disgusted with himself. The doctor had told him that it would be like this. That it would take time, a long time probably. That he should understand that he might never feel right, like himself again, that in all probability he would simply have to learn to accept who he had become.
No.
He started the engine and jammed the Cruiser in gear. In a few minutes he was speeding along the Corniche towards the industrial district, the saltpans shimmering like a patchwork mirage across the bay, the refinery and the buildings of Little Aden bathed in an uncertain afternoon light. He needed answers.
The laboratory was housed in one of five identical Soviet-built barracks, part of a military base now converted into an industrial estate at the edge of town. He clambered up the crumbling concrete steps to the second-floor veranda. An afternoon sea breeze had come up; the palms lining the parade ground swayed like drunken soldiers, trunks groaning. The beach, brilliant white in the late afternoon sunshine, shimmered against the deep-blue, white-capped ocean and a pure sky. Perhaps the lab results would tell him something about what was going on in Al Urush.
Clay pushed open the door. The front office was cool and dark, the shutters pulled down against the mid-afternoon glare. A dark-skinned Yemeni slouched behind a steel desk. The man looked up at Clay through narrowed eyes.
‘
Merhaba
,’ said Clay, using the secular greeting more common in this part of the South. ‘I’m here for results on a water sample.’
The clerk searched through a bound ledger, flipping pages with dark fingers.
‘Petro-Tex,’ said Clay, showing his contractor’s badge. ‘It was two days ago. One bottle, a water bottle. Rush. I brought it in myself.’
‘Yes, sir. It is here.’ The clerk put his finger to a line on the list, glanced towards the laboratory area and back down at the ledger. ‘Sir, there is a problem with this sample.’
‘What kind of problem?’
The clerk pointed to the far column. ‘Here. Sample insufficient.’
‘It was a full one-litre bottle. There should have been plenty.’ The tests he had requested would normally require less than half that amount.
‘I am sorry, sir. We do many samples for Petro-Tex. Very good business with Petro-Tex. Very sorry.’
‘Is the technician here? The one who did the work?
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I would like to speak with him.’
The clerk disappeared through the double doors into the laboratory and reappeared a few minutes later with a short, balding, bespectacled man with a greying moustache and large bulging brown eyes. It looked as if he had a thyroid condition.
Clay asked the man about the sample, pointing it out in the ledger, describing the big, light-blue plastic drinking-water bottle. Normally he would have used the proper polyethylene, glass and Teflon sample phials that good Western labs provided. ‘It was an emergency,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t prepared.’ The clerk translated his question into Arabic.
‘Yes, I remember,’ said the technician
He sat looking out over the murky green water of the harbour, once the busiest in the world after New York and London, now a forgottenbackwater, foul and stinking. Heat rose from the pavement, pulsed from the tin roofs clustered around the wharf. Workers trudged past him on their way to the docks, Somalis with coffee-coloured skin and piled turbans, barefoot Sudanese in rags carrying plastic bags, rope-thin Filipinos shading themselves with rubbish-tip umbrellas. Had he really fallen so low? That he could contemplate abandoning a friend, running from a fight? He shivered, shocked, disgusted with himself. The doctor had told him that it would be like this. That it would take time, a long time probably. That he should understand that he might never feel right, like himself again, that in all probability he would simply have to learn to accept who he had become.
No.
He started the engine and jammed the Cruiser in gear. In a few minutes he was speeding along the Corniche towards the industrial district, the saltpans shimmering like a patchwork mirage across the bay, the refinery and the buildings of Little Aden bathed in an uncertain afternoon light. He needed answers.
The laboratory was housed in one of five identical Soviet-built barracks, part of a military base now converted into an industrial estate at the edge of town. He clambered up the crumbling concrete steps to the second-floor veranda. An afternoon sea breeze had come up; the palms lining the parade ground swayed like drunken soldiers, trunks groaning. The beach, brilliant white in the late afternoon sunshine, shimmered against the deep-blue, white-capped ocean and a pure sky. Perhaps the lab results would tell him something about what was going on in Al Urush.
Clay pushed open the door. The front office was cool and dark, the shutters pulled down against the mid-afternoon glare. A dark-skinned Yemeni slouched behind a steel desk. The man looked up at Clay through narrowed eyes.
‘
Merhaba
,’ said Clay, using the secular greeting more common in this part of the South. ‘I’m here for results on a water sample.’
The clerk searched through a bound ledger, flipping pages with dark fingers.
‘Petro-Tex,’ said Clay, showing his contractor’s badge. ‘It was two days ago. One bottle, a water bottle. Rush. I brought it in myself.’
‘Yes, sir. It is here.’ The clerk put his finger to a line on the list, glanced towards the laboratory area and back down at the ledger. ‘Sir, there is a problem with this sample.’
‘What kind of problem?’
The clerk pointed to the far column. ‘Here. Sample insufficient.’
‘It was a full one-litre bottle. There should have been plenty.’ The tests he had requested would normally require less than half that amount.
‘I am sorry, sir. We do many samples for Petro-Tex. Very good business with Petro-Tex. Very sorry.’
‘Is the technician here? The one who did the work?
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I would like to speak with him.’
The clerk disappeared through the double doors into the laboratory and reappeared a few minutes later with a short, balding, bespectacled man with a greying moustache and large bulging brown eyes. It looked as if he had a thyroid condition.
Clay asked the man about the sample, pointing it out in the ledger, describing the big, light-blue plastic drinking-water bottle. Normally he would have used the proper polyethylene, glass and Teflon sample phials that good Western labs provided. ‘It was an emergency,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t prepared.’ The clerk translated his question into Arabic.
‘Yes, I remember,’ said the technician
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