Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

  She touched his face. ‘Alistair’s not dead.’ Her eyes overflowed. ‘Clara is.’

  ‘I know, Olly. I know.’ It was he who had found her poor body hunched there in the sands. Alone, so broken. ‘I’m sorry,’ he kissed Olly, ‘so very sorry. I can’t tell you.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do, how to bear it.’ Her eyes searched him out. ‘Edward…’

  ‘I’m here, Olly. I’m with you.’ He never intended to leave her again. ‘I came back for help.’ His voice rasped. ‘They have El Masri at the ground. They told me. I thought you were… I thought…’ He pushed her to arm’s length. ‘Olly, look at you.’ Her teeth chattered. Her whole body shook. He had seen fear like this before, even in seasoned soldiers, always after the danger had passed. ‘I have you.’ He held her tight to him.

  She didn’t mention Alistair again, neither did he; an unspoken pact to pretend he didn’t exist. Just for a while.

  He took her upstairs. He rolled up his sleeves and drew the bath. She sat on the stool watching him. He didn’t take his eyes off her. She didn’t take hers off him. He helped her undress, slowly, so as not to hurt her, flinching afresh at her battered skin.

  ‘Don’t look,’ she said. ‘It’s not me.’

  ‘It is,’ he said, ‘but it won’t be.’

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. He lifted her into the water, then climbed in himself.

  No one interrupted them. Only the distant murmur of voices in the kitchen betrayed there was anyone else at home.

  Edward sponged her down, washing away the sand, the night.

  The water became tepid around them.

  She turned her head on his damp shoulder. She asked him how Clara had been when they found her. ‘I need to know.’

  ‘Olly, I’m not sure you do.’

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘I’m torturing myself anyway.’

  He hesitated. ‘She was bruised,’ he said slowly, not at all sure he was doing the right thing. ‘Quite badly. She had sun blisters, as if she’d been out for a long time… Her arm was twisted, fractured we think.’

  Olly said nothing. Had he told her too much? She kept her eyes cast down; her lashes shadowed her cheeks, her cream skin, that livid wound, a cloak to whatever she was feeling. He wanted to tell her to look at him, not shut him off, but he could see she needed time.

  ‘Who beat her?’ she asked eventually. ‘Hassan told me he’d never hit a woman before.’

  ‘Jesus.’ His lip curled in disgust. ‘How chivalrous.’

  ‘But if it wasn’t him…?’

  ‘It could have been one of the other men who helped take her.’ He paused, trying to decide whether to tell her of all he and Tom suspected of Alistair and his new right-hand man, Wilkins. What good would it do? It wasn’t as though they could prove anything against them, after all.

  Olly said, ‘You’re forgetting to speak.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So?’

  Edward looked at her swollen face, the scars on her stomach, and thought of all she’d been through. He decided that little as he had to give her, he could offer honesty at least.

  So he told her of his and Tom’s trip to that small settlement in Lixori, their chase to track down Wilkins’ lead: that villager who thought he might have seen something out in the desert. Edward told Olly how all they’d found when they got to Lixori was a cluster of wary fellahin who’d admitted only that Alistair and Wilkins had been and gone, taking a man with them.

  ‘Wilkins’ villager?’ asked Olivia.

  ‘We think so,’ said Edward. ‘Except Wilkins denies ever having found him. When he got back here, to Alex, he told Jeremy the villager had disappeared from Lixori before he and Alistair even got there.’

  Olly frowned. ‘Why would he lie?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Edward, ‘not for certain.’

  ‘But what do you think?’

  Edward looked to the ceiling tiles, turning it over in his mind for the umpteenth time. ‘I don’t know what to think.’ His forehead creased. ‘Alistair would have been afraid of Clara being found, of all she knew, and what she might say when she returned. Then… Well, you know better than anyone that he’s never forgiven her for turning him down.’ He drew a long breath. ‘What if he convinced Wilkins that they should kill that villager, before he could tell any of us what he’d seen? Made sure Clara wasn’t discovered.’ Edward was far from putting it past him. He wasn’t even sure that Alistair had stopped there. There was another possibility, almost too awful to voice. ‘Clara’s injuries,’ he said, forcing the words out, ‘what if Wilkins and Alistair found her alive? Wanted to be certain she never returned.’

  There was a short silence.

  Olly said nothing. But her face had paled in horror. In a wrenching movement, she pulled away from Edward, sat up. ‘No, no. He couldn’t. Even he couldn’t do that.’ She gripped the enamel edge of the bath, dropped her chin to her chest, breathing quick and sharp. ‘I can’t… I can’t…’ She put her hand to her neck.

  ‘Olly.’ He reached out for her, alarmed. ‘Breathe,’ he said, ‘just breathe. Slowly.’

  ‘He couldn’t do something so awful,’ she said. ‘Oh God, could he?’

  ‘Maybe not.’ He said it to comfort her. Her hand tightened on her neck. ‘We don’t know, Olly. Not for sure. It’s suspicion, just suspicion.’ He wrapped his arms around her, willing her to calm. ‘Olly, please, look at me. Olly?’

  She turned.

  ‘We don’t know,’ he repeated.

  ‘What about Jeremy?’ Her eyes were glassy, full of pain. ‘What does he think? Have you told him?’

  He nodded. ‘I spoke to him just now at the ground.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He doesn’t want to believe it, but I think he’s starting to.’ Edward had realised that from Jeremy’s words as he left him. Whatever the truth of it, he’s finally got his way. He never wanted anyone else to have her. Now no one can.

  Olly closed her eyes. ‘Alistair told me, when he came back the other evening, that plenty die in the desert. I thought he was being cruel about my parents. I was worried about you… But maybe he was talking about Clara.’ She filled her lungs with a shuddering breath. ‘There has to be a way to find out.’

  ‘I don’t see how we can. Even if the villagers could be convinced to speak up, if they even know anything, this is Wilkins and Alistair. They’ll find a way out of it.’

  Olly opened her mouth as though to protest, but then said nothing. Edward watched, pained, as her face folded and she saw the truth in what he’d said. Her shoulders dropped, her body slackened against him. ‘I hate this place. I hate it.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Olly,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t accept not knowing. I just can’t.’

  It felt too heartless to tell her again that she might have to. Instead, he said, ‘I wish that I could have found her for you. I wish so much I had brought her back.’

  They were both silent for some moments after that, Olly lost in her thoughts, Edward trying to guess what she was thinking.

  At length, she turned her gaze on him and asked, her voice flat with grief, what he’d been talking about with Clara, all those weeks ago on the terrace of the Sporting Club, in what felt like another life. ‘Was it her affair?’

  He shifted in the water. ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Not who it was with. Will you tell me now?’

  Since there seemed no point in concealing it any more, he said, ‘Benjamin Pasha.’

  ‘Benjamin? But Amélie’s Clara’s best friend. Benjamin’s Imogen’s brother. He’d have known our mother…’

  ‘I know, believe me.’

  ‘My God,’ she said. Then, ‘He was so… stiff, that day we took Ralph and Gus to call at the Pashas’. I thought it was because he didn’t care.’ She raised her hand to her face, pinching the bridge of her nose. ‘How did you even find out about it?’

  Edward told her it had been a long time ago, well before Gus came a
long, at a winter party. ‘I’d gone out for some air and caught them talking; it was the way they were standing… Benjamin left as soon as he saw me looking. But Clara stayed. I wouldn’t have pushed her to admit it to me, Olly, but she did. I think she wanted someone to talk to.’

  ‘Clara. Poor Clara. She was so lonely, I think. Too, too lonely.’

  He nodded, remembering how abashed she’d been the instant she let it all out, the raw shame in her tone. I’m sorry, Teddy. What a slattern you must think me. And I’ve so enjoyed us being friends.

  ‘We never really spoke of it again,’ he said. ‘I tried to forget about it, actually. But then the morning of the Sporting Club’s damned party, I saw her, at the beach… She was so upset. She told me Benjamin had broken it off the night before, then taken her home. She’d walked back to where he’d done it though; she was still in her ball dress. She wanted to go to Amélie, tell her everything. I tried to talk her round. I took her home again myself, but she was beside herself.’ He shook his head. ‘When I saw her at the club, walking towards you both, I knew what she was about… It would have ruined her, ruined them all. I was too harsh with her. I told her she had no conscience, that she was being selfish.’ He clenched his jaw. ‘I could have been kinder to her, Olly. She needed me to be. But I wasn’t.’ He’d never forgive himself for that. ‘She called me a hypocrite, you know, said she’d seen how I felt for you.’

  ‘She knew?’

  ‘She knew.’

  ‘She never said.’ Olly broke off. ‘Or maybe she did. Before she was taken, in the street, she said the two of us weren’t so different. I think she was trying to find the way to say it.’ She closed her eyes. ‘We were nearly there, Edward. We really were.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, hating how inadequate it was. ‘I should have told you all this before, but I wanted to get her back to you, Olly. Let her confide in you herself.’

  ‘Did you talk to Benjamin though, ask him about who might have taken Clara?’

  ‘Of course I did. More than once. He said he had no idea.’

  ‘He didn’t think to mention that Hassan used to bring Clara to meet him?’

  ‘He said she used to come alone.’

  ‘Maybe he thought she did.’ She turned her head into his neck. He felt her tears on his skin. ‘It’s all too late now, anyway.’

  Eventually, they went to bed. Olivia lay beside Edward, curled on one side. Edward’s eyes traced the bruised contours of her face, memorising every inch.

  ‘I saw you,’ Olivia said, ‘in my mind. When I thought it was the end. You were all I could see.’

  ‘You’re all I ever see. All I ever want to.’

  She touched her fingers to his cheek, feeling the soft scratch of his stubble. ‘I wish Alistair had died,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t he die?’

  Edward said nothing, just kept his eyes on her.

  ‘I don’t know how I can be with him again,’ she said. ‘I can’t… Not now. Not with everything he’s done, what he might have.’

  Still, Edward didn’t speak. But he drew her to him, holding her: life grasping life. All they had.

  They fell asleep in one another’s arms. Olivia had no idea how long they stayed that way, but the room was sultry with afternoon heat when a knock at the door roused her. She blinked. Her mouth was paper-dry. Edward had his eyes shut, but he pulled her closer, letting her know he was awake too.

  Another knock.

  Ada’s voice called through the door that a message had come from Mr Gray: Clara’s funeral was being held in St Mary’s Church at four.

  Edward sighed.

  ‘Did Ada just say today?’ asked Olivia groggily.

  ‘Yes,’ said Edward. ‘Jeremy mentioned at the ground he wanted to do it before Ralph left. I barely listened, I was thinking about getting back here. Are you going to be all right to go?’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to be.’

  He kissed her, pushed a curl back from her cheek. ‘We need to talk, you and I, afterwards. There are things we must discuss.’

  Word came from the military hospital just as they were leaving. Alistair had been awake some hours, he would like to see his wife. Olivia did the only thing that felt possible: she pretended she hadn’t received it.

  The funeral was as awful as it was always going to be. Olivia sat beside Imogen in a side pew, battered face hidden beneath a large hat. She stared down at her black lap, up at the rays catching dust through the windows, across at the embroidered prayer cushions… anywhere but at the oak casket at the altar, the invisible shadow of Clara within.

  Alone. So alone.

  She wished she’d listened to Edward and Jeremy, that she hadn’t insisted on seeing Clara’s body before the service. All she had left now in her mind were the lesions fracturing Clara’s bloodless skin; they’d erased her laugh, her snub nose, gone as surely as her beating heart was gone.

  Olivia’s breath shuddered through her. Imogen squeezed her hand. Her own face was swollen from tears. Olivia turned to look at Amélie, in a pew near the front. She leant on Benjamin. His arm was stiff, his expression brooding.

  ‘I can’t look at him,’ hissed Imogen, following Olivia’s gaze. She had told Olivia before the service of how she’d spoken to him that morning; he’d known all along about Tabia’s death.

  ‘He has done ever since Alistair brought that poor Bedouin to him,’ she’d said. ‘Alistair didn’t want to risk taking the man to the police himself, so he told Benjy that he had to help, that he knew about Benjy’s affair with Clara, and would expose him if he didn’t cooperate.’

  Olivia thought Alistair had probably enjoyed it. He’d have hated Benjamin for knowing Clara in such a way. She wondered now if he’d had Benjamin pay the police to make sure the Bedouin died from his beating.

  She asked Imogen as the minister read the eulogy. (The senseless evil which robbed us of Clara is beyond our civilised understanding… )

  ‘Benjy claims not. Men do often perish after they’ve been thrashed. The heat, the disease… I don’t know. I feel sick, even wondering, worse than sick. And to think of him, with Clara all this time. He was fifteen when she was born, Olivia. I once took him on a visit to your mama. He saw Clara as a baby.’ She pressed her fingers to her mouth. ‘And then to keep it all hidden like this. I’m so ashamed.’

  Olivia looked at Benjamin’s strained demeanour, his bowed head. She said, in a voice that was flat even to her own ears, that she thought perhaps he was too.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Imogen.

  (Let us hold a minute’s silent reflection for Clara’s life, ended tragically by greedy violence. Let us pray too for the recovery of our respected Alistair Sheldon, even now labouring under the wounds he suffered as he attempted to rescue his beloved wife… )

  ‘I can’t stand it,’ said Olivia. She looked over her shoulder to where Edward was standing at the back. He shook his head grimly at her. She caught sight of the reporter, Giles Morton, busily scribbling away in the furthermost pew. It turned her insides out to think of the distortions he must be penning, the lies that would become the truth. ‘Has that innocent man, Kafele, been freed?’ she asked Imogen. ‘Edward told me he should be, now Jahi’s turned himself in.’

  ‘Not a bit of it,’ said Imogen. ‘Tom’s incandescent, but Wilkins is holding Kafele.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Who knows? But everything’s in Wilkins’ hands. He’s arranging the charges, writing up the evidence, keeping why it all happened in the first place hush-hush.’

  ‘Will they go after that other man, Nassar Shahid?’

  ‘I doubt it. Not yet, anyway. He’s so thick with the royal family. It would be risky, politically.’ Imogen’s lips turned, as though she was fighting the urge to sob. ‘My father knew his father, you know. They were in the Egyptian army together. I used to see Nassar at parties as a child. I feel like I’m running mad…’

  ‘He might yet go down.’ Olivia said it without much hope.

  ‘No,’ Imog
en said. ‘Now Hassan’s dead, there’s no one to testify against him, or name the others who helped. Jahi knows nothing of his involvement. Even if Nailah could name names, I’d doubt they’d let her take the stand, not with all the other things she’d let out. She’s been set free, by the way.’

  Olivia turned in her seat. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Olivia took a moment, trying to work out how she felt about it. She was surprised to find the news didn’t entirely upset her. Enraged as she was at Nailah, there were others she hated far more. And she supposed she’d tried, in her own way.

  ‘Wilkins has told her,’ said Imogen, ‘that if she breathes a whisper of what’s gone on to anyone, he’ll make her regret it, the rest of the family with her. He’s been making noises about the Bedouin at your gate too, says they must have known what Hassan was up to.’

  ‘Of course they didn’t. The mother would have said something.’

  ‘Would she?’ Imogen sighed. ‘Fear’s a powerful thing. Anyway, there’ll be a tribunal for Kafele and Jahi tomorrow at ten. If they’re found guilty,’ she raised an eyebrow, ‘they won’t waste time carrying out the punishments.’

  ‘I’m going to speak to Morton,’ said Olivia. ‘Get the truth out about what Jeremy and Alistair did, all of it.’ Her gaze moved, of its own volition, to Clara’s coffin. ‘I won’t just do nothing.’

  ‘I’m not sure you’ll have much choice. I can’t see the papers publishing anything, not now.’ Imogen glanced over at Ralph, sweating in black pantaloons and jacket in the front pew, his hand in Jeremy’s. ‘Maybe it’s for the best,’ she said, eyes heavy on him. ‘His papa’s all he’s got. Imagine what it would do to him to learn what Jeremy did.’

  Olivia winced, thinking of it. But still, it didn’t seem a good enough reason to keep it all hidden. Not even close.

  She turned and looked again at Edward. He was still watching her. There was something in his expression that reminded her of the way he’d looked on the terrace the night Clara disappeared, back when he first spoke of going away. He’d said earlier that he needed to talk to her about things…