Shadow of the Rock (Spike Sanguinetti) Read Online Free Page B

This is what you’ve been pumping iron for all those nights alone in your flat. So you lean across and kiss her. And it was that way round, wasn’t it, Solly? But she just laughs. She doesn’t say “Sorry” or “Can’t we just be friends?” She just laughs in your face. And it all starts to come back. Solly the Wally. Simple Solly. Shoved around the playground by the younger boys. You thought you’d left all that behind, the big shot who went to Africa to make his fortune, but now you see that’s how it’s always going to be, and something inside you snaps. You smash your bottle of beer, or maybe you use something on the beach. You jab forward and suddenly she’s not laughing any more. Stop me if I’m wrong, Solly.’
    Solomon blinked behind his spectacles; Spike reached to the floor and picked up the broken chair leg. ‘Take it,’ he said, wrapping Solomon’s thick fingers around the shaft. ‘How does it feel? That weight in your hand. Is that how the knife felt?’ Solomon’s right fist gripped the chair leg, veins rising on the back like worm casts. ‘She was laughing at you, Solly, and she’s Spanish, and God knows, we Gibbos have all had enough of that. So you lunge at her, and now you’re staring at a corpse, and something takes over, an instinct, and you’re rolling her into the water, but she’s heavy, you can’t get her far, but the tide will come in, won’t it, so you’re running from the beach, slowing as you reach the coast road, then it’s home safe to a football match, just to say you’ve done something, and in the morning even you can’t believe it, did you do it? Except the police turn up. They’re all corrupt in Tangiers, who wouldn’t run? And here we are.’
    Solomon was trying to speak.
    ‘Sorry?’
    He shook his head, blinking.
    ‘When did your father leave?’ Spike said, moving in closer. There were flakes of dandruff in Solomon’s hair, dazzling against the greasy blackness. ‘Twenty years ago, was it? Left you and old Mother Hassan behind. She came to see me, Solly.’
    Solomon’s head turned a fraction. The red lines in the whites of his eyes were back.
    ‘That’s right,’ Spike went on. ‘Came to my office this morning, low-cut top, legs akimbo.’
    Solomon’s fist clenched more tightly around the chair leg.
    ‘After your dad left, ima kept you close, didn’t she? No one good enough for her boy. But you got away. Made it over the Straits, promised to send her money, got to Tangiers where no one was watching. Somewhere you could make a move on a girl. Somewhere you could punish a girl.’
    Solomon’s teeth gritted. The chair leg rose, angling towards Spike.
    ‘Away from old ima nothing counts as much, so when a girl laughs at you, the one girl you thought might actually like you, you can shut her up and it won’t matter at all.’ At the periphery of his vision, Spike checked the dimensions of the room. ‘Murders happen all the time in Tangiers, who’s going to notice some Spanish chochi who drank too much and –’
    There was a clatter as Solomon’s grip slackened and the chair leg dropped to the ground. His head slumped down, two oily lines exuding from behind his spectacles. ‘No,’ he said. ‘ No .’
    Spike moved behind him, laying a hand on his shoulder, feeling the surprising tautness of the muscles. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I just had to check.’
    As soon as Solomon’s sobs subsided, Spike sat down on the table and hit ‘record’ on the tape recorder. ‘Twenty-first of August, fifteen twenty hours,’ he said into the speaker. ‘Room 2, Moorish Castle Prison. First client interview.’
    Solomon glanced up.
    ‘Mr Hassan, why, in your opinion, is it unsafe for a Jew to be held in prison in Tangiers?’
    ‘Is this –’
    Spike nodded.
    ‘But you –’
    ‘Answer the question, please, Mr Hassan.’
    Solomon took off his glasses, dabbing at the teardrops with his denim shirt. ‘There was a home-made bomb. Six months ago. At a