Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

  But would she do it?

  It had shaken Edward, the other night at the parade ground, how baffled she had looked when he’d finally raised the possibility of them running. Her words were imprinted on his mind. I can’t leave, you know that. Then the way she’d fled from him on the rocks, so shocked by what they’d nearly done. He’d moved too fast, asked too much. She had to be the first to cross that line. Her reaction had forced him to stop, remember afresh how much she’d be giving up by throwing her lot in with him, pursuing a divorce. It wasn’t just the life she’d have to leave behind here. She’d have no friends anywhere, no social life to speak of; just a small house in an army cantonment – if he didn’t get dismissed – and him.

  Was it enough?

  He was desperate to ask her outright. But her grief, her malaise, made it impossible. He could burden her with nothing more until they found Clara.

  If they found her.

  He brought his horse around and narrowed his eyes through the muslin wraps he used to shield himself from the sun. He scoured the sand, yellow and brown waves that blurred into the burning sky; a wide expanse of nothing.

  Clara had been gone five days now. Five. He had spent countless hours combing these dunes for her; his men had searched every street, every farm. They had the Egyptian police watching the harbour and railway stations. But Clara’s captors had left not a whisper, not a trace. With so little to go on, Edward had resorted to asking the Bedouin woman at Alistair’s gate if she’d heard anything that might help. ‘It’s a bad season,’ was all she had said. ‘A sad one. Too many are being taken.’ Edward had asked her what she meant, but she’d just clenched her lips and shaken her head, as though she’d already spoken too freely. He’d enquired then what had brought her to Ramleh, but again, she’d refused to answer. ‘Where are you from?’ he’d asked, trying a different tack. When she’d replied, ‘Montazah,’ Edward, remembering the strained atmosphere at the hut Jeremy had sent him to up there, had got that warning tingling in his spine. He’d gone back to Montazah, thinking to find the girl, Nailah, and question her more – discover what had made her so afraid that day. But the place had been deserted; the hut looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for weeks.

  Jeremy told him he was being paranoid, that all of that had nothing to do with anything, old man, and happy as he was to keep funding Babu’s medical care on the quiet, he couldn’t pay the ransom money, of course he couldn’t. Not possible. He hadn’t managed to hold Edward’s eye as he said it, his face had been grim with anxiety. He was hiding something.

  There was too much Edward didn’t know. He needed to press Jeremy again. He had to track his man, Garai, down in the Turkish Quarter too. They’d left him alone long enough, he must have something by now.

  First, though, he would try once more to find Wilkins at the police headquarters. Every time he called in to see that ransom note, Wilkins was elsewhere. Tom was having the same challenge. Enough was enough.

  Edward set off across the dunes, sand skidding beneath his stallion’s hooves, towards the haze-cloaked city on the horizon. His wraps flapped around him, his face burned, his mouth was parched. He squinted out at the miles upon miles of cresting sand. Where are you, Clara? Where are they keeping you?

  The forecourt of the police headquarters thronged with Egyptian police at the end of morning shifts, smoking in the sunshine on lunchtime breaks. A cluster stood beneath a palm talking, others squatted on the stairs eating flatbreads and kebabs. The bulk of the force was made up of native men, it was only at the most senior levels that the British got involved. It was the way the Protectorate worked: influence and education from the top. Give the Egyptians jobs, badges, mould them in the image of the Empire, and there you have it: a happy enough race behaving just the way old Victoria wants them to. The army was the same. British companies such as Edward’s were scattered around the country, just enough of a presence to be felt, then hundreds of officers had been seconded into the local army to train the troops, keep them in check. Manipulative as the system was, Edward couldn’t deny it worked. For every local who resented the heavy hand of the Empire, there were three more too glad of their jobs and wages to protest.

  One such man came running to Edward now, a stable hand eager to relieve the sayed of his horse. Edward handed his stallion over, requesting fresh water for him, a brush down, then ran up the stone steps of the headquarters, two at a time, and on towards Wilkins’ office.

  One of Wilkins’ deputies tried to intercept him at the doorway, but Edward ignored him, striding into Wilkins’ office without knocking. He stopped short at the sight of not only the commissioner, but Alistair and Jeremy within.

  Wilkins sat, hands on belly, behind his desk. Alistair lounged, legs folded, in one of the armchairs. Jeremy stood by the window, facing away from them both. He was the only one to turn and greet Edward.

  His face was even gaunter than it had been the last time Edward saw him, two days prior. His normally strong frame appeared diminished beneath his three-piece. He’d aged a decade in mere days, closer now to Alistair’s fifty years than the forty he was. If anything, Alistair, relaxed in his chair, looked the younger man.

  But then Alistair hadn’t lost his wife. Only the woman who had turned him down. And since he was a cold bastard, he probably relished that on some level.

  Edward couldn’t think why Jeremy tolerated him.

  He had asked him once what had ever led him into business with Alistair in the first place.

  ‘He convinced me,’ Jeremy had said. ‘I wasn’t much over one and twenty at the time. I knew him through our school’s old boys’ club. I had some family money, he talked me into investing it in Sheldon-Gray Limited.’ He’d laughed, good-naturedly enough. ‘Sheldon first, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Edward had replied, not smiling.

  ‘Ah, he wasn’t so difficult in those days,’ Jeremy said. ‘He was a more carefree man. It was in the early seventies, years before… well, before that season in London when we were introduced to Clara. He lured me in with stories of money to be made in the cotton fields of this land of the pharaohs. I was like a young pup being offered his first bone. I’d just come down from studying classics at Cambridge, I did my dissertation on theories behind the burning of the great Alexandria library…’ Jeremy shrugged helplessly. ‘I was fascinated by it. I still am. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to come out here, make my mark. The rest,’ he sighed, ‘is history.’

  It was his wistful tone; Edward hadn’t been able to help himself asking, ‘Do you regret it? Wish you’d done something else?’

  ‘No,’ Jeremy had said, ‘no, no. Not at all.’

  Edward hadn’t had the heart to press him. But now, as Jeremy looked at him despairingly from across Wilkins’ office, he knew without asking that, given the option, Jeremy would go back in a heartbeat to that old boys’ dinner. He’d tell Alistair to stuff his land of the pharaohs. He’d never have come here in the first place.

  ‘What can we do for you, old man?’ Jeremy asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Wilkins. He sat up straighter in his chair, placed both hands on his desk, as though to remind everyone it was his office. He looked so smug, so bloody delighted with his own sense of importance. ‘Can I help you with something?’

  ‘I suspect he’s here to see the note,’ said Alistair.

  ‘Ah,’ said Wilkins, ‘of course.’ He patted his waistcoat pocket, dug around for a key, then opened his top drawer. He pulled out a piece of paper and slid it across the desk with a fat finger. He had a signet ring on, it cut into his flesh. ‘Here it is,’ he said.

  Edward made to take it. Wilkins pressed his finger down, as though to resist.

  ‘Let’s not,’ said Edward, pulling it from him. He scanned the typewritten words. It was exactly as Carter had related at the parade ground the other night: Clara was safe, she would remain so as long as the money was wired to the nominated account; it was time the British paid for something.

  ‘W
e’ve checked with the bank,’ said Wilkins. ‘They have no information about who set the account up.’

  ‘There’s a surprise,’ said Edward, eyes still on the note. ‘Strange there’s no timeframe.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘There’s no deadline for the money.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ asked Alistair coolly.

  ‘It’s odd.’ Edward frowned down at the paper in his hand. There was something else nettling him. But he couldn’t think what. He looked from Alistair’s pale stare to Wilkins’ piggy eyes. Did he imagine the heat creeping through Wilkins’ cheeks?

  ‘Why odd?’ asked Wilkins, his voice oh so level.

  Edward ground his teeth, thinking. He could feel the eyes of the other men on him, waiting. ‘A ransom note normally would,’ he said at length. He smiled coldly, deciding to press the matter no more for now. Not until he’d done some digging. ‘The men who wrote this are obviously amateurs.’

  ‘Who’s an amateur?’ came a woman’s voice from behind Edward.

  He started at the raspy tone. He was hit by a smack of mothballs. Wilkins’ face visibly dropped. Jeremy muttered, ‘Jesus,’ from the window. Alistair stood and said, ‘Ah, Mildred,’ and Edward felt a twist in his gut.

  He turned to see her: Olly and Clara’s grandmother. She even looked like a witch, dressed as she was in an old-fashioned grey crinoline, her bones angular beneath papery skin. She had clouded blue eyes. Her white hair was scraped back beneath a black silk bonnet.

  ‘I thought we agreed you’d stay at home from now on,’ said Jeremy. ‘We talked about this, Mildred.’

  ‘Did we? I can’t remember. I was in town to buy something to help with the flies. I thought there’d be no harm in calling in again.’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ said Wilkins wearily, ‘that we have no more news for you today than we did yesterday, Mrs Price.’

  ‘How very disappointing,’ she said, ‘although no less than I’m learning to expect. Do I need to say again that I’m leaving next week?’

  ‘You don’t,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘The passage is booked. I chose it carefully to get us back in good time for the start of Ralph’s term. There’s not another one from Alexandria for a fortnight after that. We can’t miss it, it will throw everything out. It simply won’t do. You have to find her.’

  ‘For reasons beyond your travel plans, of course,’ said Edward.

  She turned to him, tilting her head back to peer down her nose. ‘And who are you?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know you.’

  ‘Nor are you ever likely to,’ he replied shortly. He felt sick, just breathing the same air as her. He couldn’t be in the same room a moment longer. Knowing he was being rude, and relishing it, he told them all he’d leave them to it. ‘I’ve wasted enough time here.’

  Jeremy caught up with him as he reached the bottom of the headquarters’ stairs. Squinting in the bright sun, he asked whether there was any news, anything at all.

  ‘Nothing.’ Edward ran his hand down his face, sand grating against his stubble. ‘Just pay the ransom, Gray, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘Bertram, if I give in, they might come after the boys for more, target someone…’

  ‘Else? Yes, I know all that. But you see, I have this odd feeling there’s another reason you’re not paying the money.’

  Jeremy hesitated.

  The pause said it all. Edward felt a bitter beat of satisfaction. He said, ‘You have to tell me what’s gone on.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Gray…’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘I can’t.’ Jeremy shouted it. He pulled out a kerchief, wiped sweat from his brow. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake.’ Edward wanted to throttle him. ‘This is Clara we’re talking about. Clara. Your wife, the mother of your sons.’ As he spoke, he was hit by an image of her, not as she’d been the last time he saw her, face tense and sad, but smiling, rosy cheeks dimpled as Gus gurgled on her lap. He shook his head, thinking of the hours and hours he’d spent with her over the years, talking of Cairo, reassuring her that all the places she remembered were still there. I can’t go to visit, myself, she would say, it’s too hard. The way she’d lose herself in stories of her childhood, of Olly, picnics in Giza, the Egyptian murals their mother had stencilled on their nursery wall. I tried to do the same for Ralphy, but I don’t have her touch. We painted over them in the end.

  ‘You have to give me something,’ Edward said to Jeremy now. ‘I’m running blind. Surely you still care enough to want to get her back.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Jeremy snapped. ‘I love her, damn it. I realise that now.’

  ‘Then help me. There was something strange about that ransom note, but I can’t place what.’

  ‘Just concentrate on finding her, Bertram. Please. Whilst we still know she’s alive.’

  ‘As easy as that.’ Edward sighed in frustration. Seeing Jeremy wasn’t to be moved, he turned to go.

  ‘How’s Livvy?’ Jeremy asked as he went.

  ‘Not exactly fine.’

  ‘I’m worried Sheldon’s bad for her. The way he talks about her.’

  ‘I’d rather not know.’

  ‘Clara’s always loathed him. It’s only recently I’ve understood —’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it,’ said Edward, cutting him off. He’d had his fill of them all for one day.

  Jeremy shook his head. ‘Clara was so worried for Livvy whilst we were in Constantinople. She kept writing; most of the letters she tore up. She used up reams of paper. I saw her at it, day after day. I didn’t know what she was struggling to get out. But she felt responsible, I think, for him going after her. Now I do. I could help Livvy. I need to work out how. Clara would have wanted that.’

  ‘Don’t talk about her in the past tense,’ said Edward shortly. ‘And Clara needs you to help her.’ He raised his fingers to his mouth, whistled for the boy to bring his horse. ‘When you decide you’re ready to tell me whatever it is you’re hiding, you know where to find me.’

  THE EIGHTH DAY

  Chapter Sixteen

  The morning that marked the week since Clara had been taken dawned bright and hot, and much against Olivia’s will. It seemed stubborn, unfeeling of the seventh night to have rolled into the eighth morning. If Olivia could have, she would have stopped the sun before it rose, kept it beneath the horizon until they found Clara. She hasn’t been gone a week. She had been holding on to that.

  Ada came to help her dress. As she laced her corset, she muttered that Olivia was looking ever so peaky. Olivia said she was fine, could Ada please do her corset up properly, her gown wouldn’t close with it like that.

  ‘I’m not pullin’ it any tighter,’ said Ada. Then, with a pained sigh, ‘I can’t do it to you, Mrs Sheldon.’

  Olivia looked at her in surprise. They never talked about it, her and Ada.

  ‘Here,’ said Alistair, his voice startling Olivia from the doorway, ‘allow me.’

  He crossed the room and pushed Ada aside. Ada, so short she barely reached Alistair’s broad chest, raised her chin and gave him A Look (tense cheeks, hard eyes) that made Olivia think she mightn’t like him very much after all.

  She was still trying to make it out when Alistair tugged on her corset, hard, then quickly again. She nearly choked on the splintering in her skin, the blunt agony of her burns weeping. Tug. TUG. She clutched the bedpost, her eyes nearly bursting with the effort of containing her tears. Tug. She shook her head, biting her lip. Ada said she’d do it, she wanted to do it, it was her job. Alistair replied that she should watch, learn.

  ‘Imogen Carter’s sent word she’ll call later,’ he said with another tug. ‘She says she has something she wants to discuss. Whatever that can be.’

  ‘You read her message?’


  ‘Of course. You can tell me about her call later. Mildred’s coming too. I’ve invited her for morning tea. There,’ he said, standing back, appraising Olivia’s hourglass form. He ran his hand around her, inhaled. Ada, who was blushing fuchsia, averted her eyes. ‘Perfect,’ Alistair said.

  Olivia took several long breaths. Slowly, she drew back from the bedpost. She didn’t put her hand to her waist, she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her pain. She swallowed it. ‘Why did you invite Mildred?’ she asked, voice tight with control.

  ‘I’m tired of you holding this grudge. How’s it meant to make me feel?’ He cocked his head, pomaded hair staying precisely in position. ‘A suspicious man might think you haven’t learnt to be happy. Even with everything you have.’

  Learn to be happy. It’s what Mildred had advised Olivia to do that January morning she’d visited Olivia at Beatrice’s aunt’s and first told her of the things she would do if Olivia didn’t accept the elegant, eminently eligible, Alistair Sheldon’s hand. Why are you resisting so? He’s sought you out, young lady, come all this way to find you. Be grateful. I can’t think what’s wrong with you. So wilful. Just like your mother.

  Alistair had said he was mortified when Olivia told him of Mildred’s threats, that he’d never intended any of it. Olivia had tried to believe him. She hadn’t hated him then. That had only started when he’d refused to talk Mildred round and insisted on the wedding going ahead. He’d revealed the truth – that it was he, not Mildred, who had come up with the idea of blackmailing Olivia into marriage – on their wedding night. Then he’d flipped her over and made love to her resistant body to seal the deal. Olivia had despised herself too, then, for being such a coward as to let Alistair get away with it, and Mildred most of all for cooperating with him with such malicious energy.

  ‘Has it ever occurred to you,’ she said to Alistair now, ‘that I loathed Mildred even before you came along? She never visited me at school, she kept everyone away. I was a child, no older than Ralph.’ Her voice, to her fury, shook. ‘She told no one where I lived in London, you’re the only one she let near me. She’s a selfish, mean woman. I have no interest in speaking to her ever again.’