Shadows on the Nile

by Kate Furnivall

  No green houses. No broken towers. She blinked, impatient to conjure one up.

  ‘Jessie.’

  She nodded, but didn’t remove her eyes from the binoculars, still skimming over the palm trees.

  ‘Jessie, if this Fareed is watching the house that he claims your brother is in, he is probably watching us as well. Do you realise that?’

  She nodded again. ‘Unless he thinks I’m not worth bothering about any more.’ Her arm throbbed.

  ‘He could have been lying about the green house.’

  She lowered the binoculars. ‘It’s all I have to go on, Monty.’

  He eased the tiller over and the wind ruffled his hair. ‘I know.’

  ‘There!’

  Monty saw it first. The shift in the Nile’s course was so slight it was scarcely a curve, more a faint ripple in the bank where the trees hung close to the water.

  ‘There!’ he said again, his arm outstretched.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There, up behind the fields, where the lands starts to rise between those folds. That white building with the stubby tower. See? It’s collapsing on one side.’

  She saw it. A low scruffy building. It must be the alabaster factory that Fareed mentioned. Quickly she scanned behind it and found a stretch of barren ground that rose up towards the lower slopes of the Theban Hills, but tucked on its own in a slight hollow stood a house with dull greenish paint and around it lay a low dry-stone wall.

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s the house.’

  ‘Don’t get too excited, Jessie. Tim might not be there.’

  ‘I realise that, of course.’

  But he might.

  Monty chose to sail further downriver to put some distance between the boat and the alabaster factory before he moored and threw down the length of wood that served as a gangplank to shore. He was worried about Jessie but didn’t want to show it. He stretched out a hand to her as she walked along the plank and helped her on to the stony bank, careful of her arm in its sling. A flock of white ibis swept up into the air at their intrusion and drifted inland over the fields like a milky cloud.

  ‘You wait here,’ he said casually. ‘While I go up to check the house.’

  She didn’t release his fingers. Her grip was firm, which reassured him, but her step was uneven, her balance not quite steady.

  ‘Monty! Don’t mollycoddle me. I’m fine.’

  She made the words sound cross but her eyes smiled at him, clear and blue as the wide Egyptian sky, and he kept her hand in his as he walked her along the raised dirt paths, passing between the fields of sugarcane. They were less visible here among the tall stalks, less conspicuous on the landscape until they came to the spot where the irrigation channels stopped and the desert began.

  He thought about using her sling to tether her to a tree.

  *

  The house was an odd mix of colonial and Egyptian styles with a covered verandah along the front, but a flat roof and arched windows. The green paint was peeling and the place looked deserted, shutters closed. Dilapidated and isolated, there was no sense of life to it. Monty hung back in the deep shade of a clump of palm trees about twenty yards from the house and his hand kept a firm hold on Jessie.

  ‘What do you think?’ she whispered.

  ‘It feels empty.’

  ‘Let’s take a look.’

  ‘Wait.’

  He made her remain in the shadows. Ten minutes they stood there, eyes fixed on the house until they knew every cracked and broken shutter but still had heard no sound, nor seen any movement.

  ‘We do this together,’ she told him.

  He nodded. He couldn’t force her to stay under the trees.

  ‘Stay close,’ he muttered and moved forward.

  He headed for the back of the building first, skirting the low wall and climbing over it at a corner where there were no windows to overlook their trespass. They stole up to the shutters at the back.

  ‘All right?’ he mouthed.

  ‘Yes.’

  He could see the hope in her, and the way she struggled to swallow because her mouth was so dry, preventing her from crashing into the house and crying out Tim’s name. He wanted to say, Don’t Jessie, don’t do this to yourself, but instead he tried one of the shutters. It was rotten and two of the slats gave way easily, allowing him to put his eye to the gap and peer inside.

  ‘What can you see?’ she whispered.

  ‘Not much. It’s dark. Two bedrolls on the floor and a dusty prayer mat in the corner. Not promising.’

  She stayed quietly at his side as they moved together around the corner to the next shutter. This side of the house was in shade and a couple of scrawny chickens fluttered up out of the cool dust with a clatter of wings, startling them.

  That was when they heard the engine.

  Both registered the grinding of gears as the truck struggled up the slope at the front of the house. Monty seized Jessie’s good wrist and started to run, keeping to the back of the house. Over the wall, crouching low. They skidded down into a narrow gulley that led back round to the front but came out further down the slope. On the track above them they could see a filthy van with the name Meriot Fishery painted on the side. It drew to a halt just inside the wall and its door opened, but it was on the far side and Monty couldn’t make out the figure who climbed out.

  ‘Can you see?’ he whispered.

  She shook her head. ‘Let’s get over to those trees.’

  The group of palm trees where they had first sheltered lay about fifteen feet ahead of them, nearer the house. Not far, as long as the driver didn’t glance down in their direction when they sprinted across the gap. Monty weighed their chances.

  ‘We could always walk up to the front door and say hello. Like normal tourists,’ he suggested.

  She swung round to stare at him, eyes wide with surprise. ‘Why not? We could just ask the way, as if we’re lost.’

  ‘Come on.’

  Monty climbed out of the gulley, gently eased Jessie up after him and brushed the worst of the dust off their clothes before starting to walk towards the Meriot truck. Its engine was still ticking over noisily, vibrating the dust on its bonnet, and they could see the driver, an Egyptian man who was busy lighting a cigarette. Just as they approached the palm trees, the other man walked around to the rear doors of the truck to open them and in doing so, stood full in the blast of bright sunlight. He was a westerner wearing a panama hat and sand-coloured cotton drill trousers with a cream linen jacket. Even in the dust and heat he looked smart. Out of his top pocket protruded the end of a briar pipe and on his chin gleamed a small silvery beard.

  Monty stepped immediately into the shadows behind the palm trees and pulled Jessie with him. He held her there in the gloom. He recognised her eagerness to rush forward. She opened her mouth to shout out to the man in the linen jacket and he slapped his open hand over it, feeling the moisture of her breath on his palm. She shook her head, trying to dislodge his hand but he frowned urgently and murmured, ‘Hush, Jessie. Quiet!’

  Her blue eyes questioned him, puzzled, and her hand rose and slowly lifted his fingers from her lips.

  ‘What is it, Monty? It’s your friend, Dr Scott.’

  Friend? Monty wanted to wipe the word off her tongue.

  ‘We don’t know what he’s doing here, Jessie. Let’s see what he’s up to first.’

  Again the look of puzzlement swept over her face. ‘You don’t think he’s involved, surely?’

  ‘You’ll always find Dr Septon Scott and his ilk wherever there’s the smell of money.’

  ‘If he’s knows this house, he may have an idea where Tim is.’ She tried to start forward but he held her slight frame easily with one arm.

  ‘If he knows you’re here and that you are aware of his connection with this house, he may not be altogether happy.’

  She looked at the house, at the van, then back to Monty, uncertain how far to trust Scott.

  ‘Jessie,’ he said in
a low voice, ‘he is not a man you want to cross.’

  ‘I thought he was your friend.’

  ‘You thought wrong. I’m sorry if I misinformed you.’

  ‘What on earth could he do to me? This isn’t another cave in the desert,’ she whispered.

  At that moment the driver swung down from his cab and strutted round to the rear door, where he spoke with Scott in a voice too low to hear. But neither Monty nor Jessie could miss the gun in a holster on his chest when he tossed his jacket into the back of the truck. They ducked back behind the trees.

  Men who kill. Fareed had warned Jessie. Scott may be a sharp dealer, but a killer? There was a big difference. The thought roused in Monty the anger that had been his constant companion in the trenches of wartime Flanders. He’d seen men there who liked to kill, who possessed the blood-lust that made them intrepid and adventurous soldiers. Of course Monty had killed, but only when he had to. His only aim now was to get Jessie out of there.

  He pulled her into a crouch behind the wide bole of the tree but his heart sank when he looked at her profile, at the intent expression on her face as she pushed it forward through the sparse undergrowth. It reminded him of one of his hunting dogs when it had caught the scent of blood in its nostrils. He laid a hand on her shoulder to hold her still, to bring her back into his world. Whatever was going on in her head was unsafe.

  She turned to him in the shadows. ‘I think I should go and speak to Scott. To ask him to take me to Tim, if he knows where he is.’

  ‘And then what?’

  She frowned at him.

  He asked again, ‘And then what? So you meet up with Tim. Do you really think Scott will just let you walk away, if they are involved in something criminal?’ He looked at her sling, aware of how vulnerable she was. ‘Of course he won’t.’

  She shook her head at him, mutely. The two men were heading towards the house, where they unlocked the front door and entered, their movements hurried.

  ‘Now,’ Monty said, ‘we leave.’

  He should have been suspicious when she didn’t argue. They rose silently, but just when they were about to step out of the shadows and retreat to the gulley, Jessie darted forward to the truck, keeping its bulk between herself and the house. She was only there a few seconds, just enough for a quick glance in the back and a scribble with her hand in the sand-dust on the truck just above the rear wheel arch. The moment she returned, they ran for the gulley, slithering into it just in time. The two men’s voices emerged by the vehicle again and Monty raised his head enough to see them drop an armload of bedding and a cardboard box of equipment into the back of the truck.

  ‘Moving day,’ he muttered.

  Jessie leaned against him. ‘There was nothing in the truck. It was empty.’

  ‘It’s probable that they won’t risk carting their illegal pickings around in broad daylight.’ He looped an arm around her to support her and she kissed his cheek, but he was not to be distracted. ‘What did you write on the truck?’

  ‘It was a drawing.’

  ‘You think now is the time for artwork?’

  ‘Don’t be angry.’

  The sound of doors slamming jolted the silence and the engine rattled its way back down the slope. They waited till the crows had settled back in the palm trees before they breathed freely.

  ‘Now,’ Monty said.

  The house was empty. The door wasn’t even locked. Inside was dim and dusty, the closed shutters keeping out the sun’s heat but making the air taste thick and stale. Monty looked around. Scott had certainly done a good job of clearing the place out, leaving nothing but footprints in the dust and a few candle stubs on one of the windowsills. No sign of the bedrolls he’d viewed through the broken shutter or the prayer mat, but interestingly one of the rooms was spotless. Its floor looked freshly scrubbed and the walls had been whitewashed.

  ‘Jessie, look at this.’

  She was resting against the door frame, her eyes half closed, barely able even to stand up straight. ‘What is it?’

  He noticed for the first time that her skirt was filthy and her eaude-nil blouse was torn at the elbow, but still she looked … he sought for the right word … she looked unbreakable. As if nothing could stop her. Not the arm. Not the sunburn. Not the doctor’s pills. And certainly not Dr Scott.

  He went over to her and lightly kissed her mouth. She tasted salty. ‘I found this squashed behind the shutters.’

  He held out a screwed-up cigarette packet. She took it from him and opened up its blue and white folds.

  ‘Senior Service,’ she said quietly. Her eyes lifted to Monty’s. ‘Tim smokes Senior Service. Tim was here.’

  ‘We’re close,’ he said. ‘Very close.’

  44

  At the Blue Nile Hotel Malak was waiting and his gigantic smile at their return made them both laugh. It felt good to laugh. Monty carefully sat Jessie down in the cool interior under the whirring ceiling fan and ordered fresh lemonade for her and for the boy and a straight scotch whisky for himself. As an afterthought he added a dish of kushari for the boy and a few mezzes for Jessie and himself. She drank the lemonade but didn’t touch the food. Instead she took out her drawing pad from her bag and sat in silence for a few minutes sketching something. Malak watched her with amazed eyes, as if she were pulling rabbits from hats.

  ‘Who’s the scruffy ragamuffin?’ It was Maisie who breezed in brandishing her faithful furled umbrella at the boy. ‘Looks like something the cat dragged in.’

  ‘This is Malak,’ Monty introduced him. ‘He’s our dragoman in Luxor, our man on the ground. He is proving very useful.’ He nodded at Malak. ‘Very efficient.’

  Maisie inspected the boy who was regarding her alarming figure warily. ‘Does it talk?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Course I talk, good yes, very good. I excellent fine friend to Missie Kenton and sir bey, you ask, I get, and I get good with Uncle. Camels you want I get and horses, yes, very strong backs, and I very fine fellow also you know and …’

  ‘Does it shut up?’

  ‘If you ask him politely.’

  Maisie tapped Malak on top of his thick black hair with her umbrella. ‘I don’t need a horse, what I need is a chair.’

  Instantly Malak pushed a large armchair up behind her and she plopped down in it, folding her long legs out of the way.

  ‘Good. Now,’ she looked closely at Jessie’s face, taking in the lines of exhaustion, ‘what news? Feeling any better?’

  Monty shook his head but said nothing.

  ‘I’m a lot better, thank you, Maisie.’

  ‘What is it you’re drawing there?’

  ‘Look, Malak,’ Jessie said quietly.

  She held her drawing out to the boy and he gazed at it in awe, his mouth falling open to reveal lentils and tomatoes.

  ‘How you do that very clever, Miss Kenton, yes?’

  She smiled at him fondly. ‘I went to art college.’

  ‘In big nice city?’

  ‘Yes, in London.’

  ‘I go to London one day yes please, very nice city.’

  ‘I hope you do, Malak. But Cairo is a very nice city too.’

  The boy wrinkled his nose. ‘Cairo full of Egyptians.’

  ‘I’d like you to do something for me, Malak.’

  ‘Yes, Missie, I do very good. I very efficient.’ His black eyes shone. ‘You ask.’

  ‘You see this man?’ She tore the drawing out of her pad and turned it to face him. With a shiver of unease, Monty saw that it was an unnervingly accurate sketch of Dr Scott’s face, even down to the mole in front of his left ear and the ridge of rough skin above one of his silvery eyebrows. ‘I want you to take this and see if you can find him anywhere around Luxor. His name is Dr Scott but – this is important, Malak – he could be dangerous, so I don’t want you to go near him. You understand?’

  ‘Yes, Missie.’

  ‘Don’t speak to him.’

  ‘No, Missie.’

  ‘Just tell me if you
spot him somewhere. I’d like to know where he goes.’

  ‘I do that easy.’

  ‘Don’t go near him, remember?’

  ‘I too quick for old man,’ he laughed.

  Monty saw the way he held the drawing close to his chest, as something precious. He probably owned almost nothing else.

  ‘Here, Malak.’ Monty tossed him a couple of coins. ‘When you come back, there will be more. But pay attention to what Miss Kenton said. Don’t speak to this man. We don’t want you hurt.’

  Malak gobbled down the last mouthful of his kushari. ‘I pay attention good,’ he said solemnly and slid toward the door. ‘You have cigarette for me, sir bey?’

  ‘No, Malak.’ Maisie shook her head sternly. ‘You’re far too young a whippersnapper.’

  Monty took out a cigarette, lit it for himself and tossed the rest of the packet to the boy who snatched it from the air. ‘If he’s old enough to work for us, he’s old enough to smoke.’

  ‘Thank much to you, sir bey. You excellent good man.’

  ‘Get off!’

  Malak grinned and scampered away. ‘The boy needs new shoes,’ Monty remarked. ‘In the morning we must buy him some.’

  But in the morning shoes would be the last thing on his mind.

  Monty put Jessie to bed. He showered the sand off her skin, avoiding water contact with her bandaged arm, and brushed the grit out of her hair. He had half-carried her to her room and peeled her clothes off her body, gently lifting her torn blouse from her shoulder-blades. The bruises on them and the scrapes on her hip and gashes on her knees made him wonder once more how much she went through in the desert. How bad it had been. Standing naked in the bathroom, she leaned against him, her head on his shoulder, and despite the shower he could still smell the lingering scent of the Nile in her hair. With an arm curled around her waist, he guided her towards the bed. Her skin felt hot.

  ‘Monty, I’m sorry I …’

  ‘Shh, don’t talk. Rest now. What you need is sleep.’

  She let her lips touch his neck and he felt his blood leap to the spot. He held her close, aware of the warmth of her breasts, the creamy silk of her skin, the delicate bones of her back, but it was the uncertainty of her steps towards the bed that touched him most. The weakness that she would never show when in good health was what overwhelmed him now, as he eased her on to the bed and folded the sheet over her. Her face on the pillow looked uncertain and damaged, with purple smudges darkening her eye sockets.