That was why there was also room for a man like Muhammed Ali in d'Ajuda's food chain. The main justification for his existence was that he had a strategic observation post in the square where the bus from Porto Seguro had its terminus. From behind the counter in his open ahwa Muhammed had a full view of everything that happened in d'Ajuda's sole, sun-baked, cobblestoned plaza. When new buses arrived he stopped serving coffee and putting Brazilian tobacco-a poor replacement for his home-grown m'aasil-in the hookah, in order to check over the new arrivals and spot possible police officers or bounty hunters. If his unerring nose placed anyone in the former category, he immediately sounded the alarm. The alarm was a kind of subscription arrangement whereby those who paid the monthly charge were phoned or had a message pinned to their door by the small, fleet-footed Paulinho. Muhammed also had a personal reason for keeping an eye on incoming buses. When he and Rosalita fled from her husband and Rio, he hadn't a moment's doubt what awaited them if the spurned party found out where they were. You could have simple murders carried out for a couple of hundred dollars if you went to the favelas of Rio or Sгo Paulo, but even an experienced professional hit man didn't take more than two to three thousand dollars plus expenses for a search-and-destroy job, and it had been a buyers' market for the last ten years. On top of that, there was a bulk discount for couples.
Sometimes people Muhammed had marked out as bounty hunters walked straight into his ahwa. For appearance's sake, they ordered a coffee, and at a suitable point down the coffee cup, they asked the inevitable question: Do-you-know-where-my-friend-such-and-such-lives? or Do-you-know-the-man-in-this-picture? I-owe- him-some-money. In such cases, Muhammed received a supplementary fee if his stock answer ('I saw him take the bus to Porto Seguro with a big suitcase two days ago, senhor') resulted in the bounty hunter leaving again on the first bus.
When the tall, blond man in the creased linen suit, with the white bandage around his neck, put a bag and a Playstation carrier bag on the counter, wiped the sweat off his brow and ordered a coffee in English, Muhammed could smell a few extra reais on top of the fixed fee. It wasn't the man who aroused his instincts, though; it was the woman with him. She might just as well have written POLICE across her forehead.
Harry scanned the bar. Apart from him, Beate and the Arab behind the counter, there were three people in the cafй. Two backpackers and a tourist of the more down-at-heel variety, apparently nursing a serious hangover. Harry's neck was killing him. He looked at his watch. It was twenty hours since they had left Oslo. Oleg had rung, the Tetris record was beaten and Harry had managed to buy a Namco G-Con 45 at the computer-game shop in Heathrow before flying on to Recife. They had taken a propeller plane to Porto Seguro. Outside the airport he had negotiated what was probably a crazy price with a taxi driver, who drove them to a ferry to take them to the d'Ajuda side where a bus jolted them the last few kilometres.
It was twenty-four hours since he had been sitting in the visitors' room explaining to Raskol that he needed another 40,000 kroner for the Egyptians. Raskol had explained to him that Muhammed Ali's ahwa wasn't in Porto Seguro but a village nearby.
'D'Ajuda,' Raskol had said with a big smile. 'I know a couple of boys living there.'
The Arab looked at Beate, who shook her head, before putting the cup of coffee in front of Harry. It was strong and bitter.
'Muhammed,' Harry said and saw the man behind the counter stiffen. 'You are Muhammed, right?'
The Arab swallowed. 'Who's asking?'
'A friend.' Harry put his right hand inside his jacket and saw the panic on the dark-skinned face. 'Lev's little brother is trying to get hold of him.' Harry pulled out one of the photographs Beate had found at Trond's and put it on the counter.
Muhammed closed his eyes for a second. His lips seemed to be mumbling a silent prayer of gratitude.
The photograph showed two boys. The taller of the two was wearing a red quilted jacket. He was laughing and had put a friendly arm around the other one, who smiled shyly at the camera.
'I don't know whether Lev has mentioned his little brother,' Harry said. 'His name's Trond.'
Muhammed picked up the photograph and studied it.
'Hm,' he said, scratching his beard. 'I've never seen either of them. And I've never heard of anyone called Lev, either. I know most people around here.'
He gave the photograph to Harry, who returned it to his inside pocket and drained the coffee cup. 'We have to find a place to stay, Muhammed. Then we'll be back. Have a little think in the meantime.'
Muhammed shook his head, tugged at the twenty-dollar bill Harry had put under the coffee cup and passed it back. 'I don't take big notes,' he said.
Harry shrugged. 'We'll be back, anyway, Muhammed.'
At the little hotel called Vitуria, as it was the down season they each got a large room. Harry was given key number 69, even though the hotel only had two floors and twenty-odd rooms. On pulling out the drawer of the bedside table beside the red heart-shaped bed and finding two condoms with the hotel's compliments, he assumed he had the bridal suite. The whole of the bathroom door was covered with a mirror you could see yourself in from the bed. In a disproportionately large, deep wardrobe, the only furniture in the room except for the bed, hung two somewhat worn thigh-length bathrobes with oriental symbols on the back.
The receptionist smiled and shook her head when she was shown the photographs of Lev Grette. The same happened in the adjacent restaurant and at the Internet cafй further up the strangely quiet main street. It led, in the traditional manner, from church to cemetery, but had been given a new name: Broadway. In the tiny grocer's shop, where they sold water and Christmas tree decorations, with SUPERMARKET written above the door, they eventually found a woman behind the till. She answered 'yes' to everything they asked about, and watched them through vacant eyes until they gave up and left. On the way back they saw one solitary person, a young policeman leaning against a jeep, arms crossed and a bulging holster slung low on his hips, following their movements with a yawn.
In Muhammed's ahwa the thin boy behind the counter explained that the boss had suddenly decided to take the day off and go for a walk. Beate asked when he would be back, but the boy, at a loss, shook his head, pointed to the sun and said, 'Trancoso.'
The female receptionist at the hotel said the thirteen-kilometre walk along the unbroken stretch of white sand to Trancoso was d'Ajuda's greatest landmark. Apart from the Catholic church in the square, it was also the only one.
'Mm. Why are there so few people around, senhora?' Harry asked.
She smiled and pointed to the sea.
That was where they were. On the scorching hot sand stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see in the heat haze. There were sunbathers lying in state, beach pedlars trudging through the loose sand, bowed beneath the weight of cooler bags and sacks of fruit, bartenders grinning from makeshift bars where loudspeakers blasted out samba music under straw roofs, and surfers in the yellow national strip, their lips painted white with zinc oxide. And two people walking south with their shoes in their hands. One in shorts, a skimpy top and a straw hat which she had changed into at the hotel, the other still bare-headed in his creased linen suit.
'Did she say thirteen kilometres?' Harry said, blowing away the bead of sweat hanging off the tip of his nose.
'It'll be dark before we get back,' Beate said, pointing. 'Look, everyone else is coming back.'
There was a black stripe along the beach, an apparently endless caravan of people on their way home with the afternoon sun at their backs.
'Just what we ordered,' Harry said, straightening his sunglasses. 'A line-up of the whole of d'Ajuda. We'll have to keep our eyes peeled. If we don't see Muhammed, perhaps we'll be lucky and bump into Lev in person.'
