Strange Tide Read Online Free PDF Page B

little. Hell, half of them probably never even noticed anything was missing. If he decided they were deserving, there would be plenty of time to give something back when he was as wealthy as they were.
    Ali changed his name whenever he felt it necessary. Eventually he knew he would have to settle on a single permanent identity. He would get enough money together to buy a dead man’s passport, and live under that name for the rest of his life. But for now he was young and free, so his personality fluctuated according to his needs. There were so many ways of getting money in this city if you just looked around for opportunities. Nobody here seemed hungry. They were all in such a hurry, and rushing distracted them from what was important. He did not believe in hurting people. He would not take a penny from the desperate or disadvantaged. He would never do what had been done to him and his family in Tripoli. He would always remember Ismael and what their desperate flight had cost him.
    Ali was not a bad man, but he could not afford to be an entirely good one either.

4

TIME & TIDE
    Suddenly she was no longer frightened.
    Not now that it was real and the end was here. She had thought about how she might die so many times before. She had first cut her arms when she was twelve, just to see if she could sense a movement towards something eternal and unknowable. At first it had the desired effect; the pressure on her disappeared as her parents turned upon each other instead. So she did it again, but each time she cut herself the effect lessened until they finally lost patience with her. ‘You don’t want to kill yourself at all,’ her mother said accusingly, ‘you’re just after attention.’
    She wondered what they would say if they could see her now.
    She tried to raise herself a little, but her head hurt too much. She felt the wet sand against her knees, her forearms.
    Feeling strangely disconnected, she turned to face the night sky and was surprised to find it was cleared of clouds. Diamond stars sparkled down, but the rippling black water cast aside their reflections. Over on the Queen’s Walk, the tumorous stump of City Hall was colonnaded by piercing shafts of light and surrounded by glass towers angled as sharply as knives, as if to warn Londoners that they would be cut if they came too close. From this distance the penthouses looked more like part of a penitentiary. She viewed everything with a distant disregard. The night and the river and the strange burning pain in her head had drained away all sensation. Clear thought was impossible. What could she remember?
    Lowering her head to the cold stones, she wondered if it would take her a long time to die. The back of her head stung when she rested it. Her left wrist was sore, and the cold wet sand made her skin bristle. Now that this little life was over, she could distance herself from futile human emotions and accept what had happened.
When Death comes to the door
, her father had once told her in his typically fatalistic way,
it’s important to have your bags packed and ready. Nobody should be caught unawares at such a time.
    Instead of thinking about what lay beyond, she tried to focus her blurred thoughts. She concentrated on her senses.
    Touch: the rough edge of the concrete, the chill grit of the sand, something by her right foot, a stick of driftwood perhaps, some tide-smoothed pebbles.
    Sight: the ancient embanked wall with its worn green steps, the dank stanchions of the pier, a few saturnine trees, the glimmering river and the pale mother moon, controlling everything.
    Smell: brackish, stale and damp but not unpleasant, like mildew, moss or mud, or dead wet foliage.
    Sound: the gentle flopping of the tide,
ker-lep, ker-lep
, rhythmic and calming, the clock of the river ticking away her life.
    Taste: the water, brackish but too cold to be completely unpleasant, a touch of brine from the distant sea, a strangely lifeless flavour which