by Adam Palmer
Sarit knew that she had to think quickly. The story she had told them so far was that she had thought the car was trying to force her off the road and that she had sped on to escape, having heard that women drivers on their own are sometimes vulnerable on these roads at night. However, in the light of this new accusation, she realized that it wouldn’t work and she’d have to change her story.
‘All right, I’ll tell you. I didn’t throw a petrol bomb at him – but he tried to throw one at me. We’d had an argument earlier on the road and I drove away ahead of him. Then he caught up with me and I saw him lighting the Molotov cocktail and holding it like he was going to throw it. So I sideswiped his car and he dropped it. Then his car went up in flames.’
‘So why did you drive on? Why did you not report the incident immediately?’
‘Because I was afraid. A woman alone in a foreign country, attacked on a lonely stretch of road in the dead of night. What was I to think?’
‘And you thought our policemen are corrupt woman-haters who would rape you or beat a confession out of you.’
‘I don’t know what I thought! Okay, maybe I had that stereotype in the back of my mind. I don’t know.’
A man from the Irish Embassy was sitting there, but strangely he was sitting opposite her next to the police captain, rather than at her side. He was not talking; just listening. Occasionally he made a note of something, but not very often. She had been told that she could have a lawyer, but so far none had materialized.
‘And this man – the one in the car – did you know him?’
Tread carefully, a little voice inside her head said.
‘I’d been at the Valley of the Kings that day. I think I may have seen him there.’
‘And the jeep he was driving… do you know anything about that?’
Don’t let it show on my face, her mind was screaming.
‘No. It was just an ordinary jeep. I mean, I didn’t really think about it.’
‘Why were you driving back to Cairo, Miss Stewart?’
She swallowed nervously. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, trying to buy time.
‘You flew into Luxor Airport from Cairo and then you hired a car to visit the Valley of the Kings. Nothing unusual in that. But then instead of driving back to the airport and taking a plane back to Cairo, you set out on a seven- or eight-hour night-time drive on an unfamiliar stretch of road that you yourself admit is dangerous for women.’
‘I didn’t have a return ticket. I’d wanted to keep my plans flexible.’
‘You could have bought a ticket at the airport.’
‘It was late.’
‘They have a five to eleven flight. And another at one-twenty in the morning.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Well, you could have tried. Or why not stay overnight in a hotel in Luxor? You said yourself your plans were flexible.’
‘I’m not exactly rich. I was already paying for a hotel in Cairo. I hadn’t checked out. I didn’t want to pay twice.’
She realized after she had said it that this was a mistake. The hotel she was staying at, although far from deluxe, was not cheap and she had now drawn attention to this. It was another contradiction, which the police captain would surely flag as another lie – even if it hadn’t registered yet.
‘Well, why didn’t you take the train?’
‘That’s also seven hours.’
‘But at least it’s safer than the road.’
‘I didn’t think about it. I wasn’t thinking straight.’ And then she suddenly had an idea. ‘Look, could I go to the bathroom? I need to…’ She looked at the man from the embassy. ‘It’s a woman’s thing… the time of the month.’
The embassy man blushed and then leaned over to the police captain and whispered a word in his ear. The police captain nodded, though the look on his face remained neutral.
‘Very well.’
He called for a female officer to escort her to the bathroom. Only when they got there did Sarit say, ‘I haven’t got any tampons or sanitary pads.’
The policewoman didn’t react.
Not wanting to alert the policewoman to the fact that she spoke fluent Arabic, Sarit spoke hesitantly and falteringly, like she had been taking lessons but lacked confidence.
‘Leisal adeiya ay al-fau’ad asahaya.’
The policewoman reacted to this. ‘Sa ahduru lekawa ahad.’ I’ll get you one.
And with that she left. Sarit knew that there was no prospect of simply walking out of there. There would be a policeman outside the door. But she had a few minutes to act. There was a window. It was high, but it could open. The problem was how to reach it.
The cubicle on the end was empty. She went in and stood on the toilet. She gripped the ledge of the window and pulled herself up, using all her upper-body strength and the tension of her legs and feet against the sides of the cubicle. With an almighty effort, she found herself perched precariously on top of the cubicle – its door and walls a couple of feet below the ceiling.
She pulled down the latch and opened the long thin window. Then she inserted her head and hands and then arms and began pulling herself through. Now came the tricky bit. She was thin enough to get through, but the problem was landing safely. The building was set over different levels and this window opened out on to a stretch of roof. But it was an eight- or nine-foot drop from the window to the roof.
Falling head first would probably break her neck. Of course if she slid through slowly and lowered herself as she did so, the actual drop would be less than that. And of course, she could also take the fall on her hands, albeit at the risk of a broken wrist or worse. But then she noticed some kind of a utility box against the wall. By putting her hands on this as she hung there, she was able to angle her body, swing her legs round and…
Yes!
She landed on her feet, albeit awkwardly, like a springboard diver whose dive had gone horribly wrong. But there were no points to be had here; it was all about escape and survival. Right now she was on a section of the roof. She didn’t know how long it had been, but she realized that if her escape hadn’t been discovered yet, it pretty soon would be. And escape was perhaps not quite the right word. She had escaped from the toilet, but she had not yet escaped from the building.
She looked for a way down, realizing that if there was a utility box on the roof then there had to be a ladder or some other way of reaching the ground. All large public buildings must have accessible roofs to enable work to be done. The question was where was it? And would it simply take her back into the building, which would almost certainly be locked down before she could affect a complete escape?
Then she saw it: a fire escape, diagonally across the roof from where she was standing. She raced towards it, but as she did she thought she heard someone shouting out to her in Arabic.
Chapter 49
Breakfast on board Walid’s boat was shakshouka – fried eggs in a thick sauce made from fresh tomatoes, onions and chillies, that he had bought from a riverside vendor. As they ate, they listened to the radio in the background. It was tuned to some local music station, lulling Walid and his crew into a state of restfulness. But it was coming up to the hour and the news came on.
Daniel and Gabrielle both listened out just in case anything was said about the tomb incident. The first two items were about local politics and the third was about the United States. But then another item came on that caught them by surprise.
‘Police in Luxor are looking for a Western couple after an attempt was made on the life of Akil Mansoor, the Deputy Minister for Culture and Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Professor Mansoor was locked in a tomb together with the Western couple in an apparent attempt to kill him, but the three of them managed to escape. The couple, however, then abandoned Professor Mansoor and ran away when confronted by the police. Professor Mansoor is now recovering in hospital from the incident.’
Daniel sighed with relief at the news that Mansoor was okay. He exchanged
eye contact with Gabrielle and saw that she shared his feelings.
‘The couple are Daniel Klein, an Englishman, believed to be an expert on Semitic languages, and Gabrielle Gusack, an Austrian professor of Egyptology. They are also being sought over other matters, concerning a recent death in England. Professor Klein is forty years old, brown haired and of average build. The woman is blonde, thirty-five years old and speaks with a slight Austrian accent.’
Even before they looked up from the radio, Daniel and Gabrielle knew that Walid and the other two were looking straight at them.
Chapter 50
‘We thought we should warn you. If she was trying to kill you then she might try again.’
The police captain was talking to Goliath, who had now fully regained consciousness. The doctors were treating his burns and the police were treating him with compassion and humanity. But he remained handcuffed to the bed frame as a precaution.
‘Thank you for telling me.’
‘You have no need to worry, of course. We will post extra guards outside your room and at the entrances to the hospital. If she does try to come here, she will be arrested before she gets anywhere near you. But we thought that you should be informed.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But having got that out of the way, the best way we can protect you is if you tell us the truth. Why did this woman try to kill you? And why were you driving the jeep that was rented by our Deputy Minister of Culture?’
At that moment a man in a suit entered the private hospital room, flanked by a couple of soldiers. The police captain and the uniformed officer by the bed both leapt to their feet in an obvious sign of deference to the visitor.
A vociferous exchange in Arabic followed; the new arrival appeared to be throwing his weight around and the police captain appeared to be pleading or at least arguing from a position of weakness. Eventually, both men calmed down and the police captain looked – and sounded – beaten.
He took out his evident frustration on a subordinate, barking an order to the unformed policeman, who produced a key and unlocked the handcuffs from Goliath’s wrist and the bed frame. Goliath rubbed his wrist while the uniformed policeman put away the handcuffs. The police captain looked embarrassed at his sudden loss of authority.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Goliath.
‘It would seem, Mr Carter, that you have friends in high places. I have been ordered to release you. You are, of course, free to go at any time. However I would strongly advise you to stay here in the hospital to continue with the silver nitrate treatment for the burns.’
Chapter 51
‘I’m telling you – we didn’t have anything to do with it,’ Gabrielle was saying in Arabic. ‘We were locked in the tomb and stuck there for several hours.’
Walid’s brother and son were looking at her like they wanted to believe her. But Walid himself was hard to read, like he had been around the block a few times and was a natural sceptic about everything except his religion.
‘Then how did you get out?’
‘We used a stone to smash a hole in the door. Then we used the key. That’s why Mansoor is in hospital. He cut his wrist on the metal of the door.’
‘Then why are the police looking for you? And why did you run away?’
‘Because the police started shooting at us! They didn’t even give us a chance to talk.’
She was worried that he was going to ask why the police would do that. This could be a problem. If she told him that the police thought they were carrying a contagious disease, he would hardly be inclined to carry them further. All she knew was that they hadn’t spread this news in the radio reports – presumably because they did not wish to start a panic. In the face of such restraint, it would hardly make sense to share the police’s belief with the very person they were still hoping would help them get to Cairo.
‘Okay, I know our police can sometimes be a bit… overzealous. But I still don’t understand why you abandoned Professor Mansoor.’
Daniel finally decided to step in. The reporter had already blown his cover and revealed that the Englishman was an expert on Semitic languages, so there was no reason not to show his fluent command of Arabic.
‘We didn’t actually abandon him. We left him temporarily because it was a five-kilometre walk to get help and he’d cut his wrist badly. We bandaged it up as best we could and then set off to get help.’
Walid did not seem surprised by the quality of Daniel’s Arabic. ‘Couldn’t you have called for help? Don’t you have mobile phones?’
‘We tried, but we couldn’t get a decent signal. Then when the police saw us – maybe because he wasn’t with us – they assumed that we’d done something to him and started firing. But you know he’s all right because they said so, and as they pointed out, we were locked in the tomb too. Whoever did it might have been trying to kill us.’
‘And what about what they said about you being responsible for a death in England?’
Daniel wasn’t sure which way the wind was blowing in Walid’s mind. He knew that his and Gabrielle’s fate lay in his hands. He had to say something more to sway him.
‘The man who died was Gabrielle’s uncle. He was a great professor. The police think it was a family dispute but we think he was killed by a jealous rival.’
Daniel wanted to convey a sense of aggrieved innocence and he sensed that offering a hint of high intrigue would create the kind of cover story that a man who led a mundane life would want to believe. As a former amateur magician he knew that getting the audience to want to believe was half the trick.
‘This sounds so…’
Daniel wondered if he had over-dramatized it, so he was relieved when Walid’s face mellowed. ‘I believe you. But I have a family to feed. If we get caught then I will be in trouble too… and that will hurt my family.’
Daniel sighed. ‘You’re right, of course. I cannot ask you to put yourself and your family at risk for us – especially after we took advantage of your hospitality and didn’t tell you the truth. If you can put us ashore, we will be on our way.’
Walid looked at him, surprised.
Daniel followed up quickly. ‘You can keep the money, of course. Consider it as payment for the trouble we’ve put you through.’
Walid met his eyes. They both knew what the other was thinking, as did Gabrielle. The radio report hadn’t said anything about a reward, but at some point a reward might still be offered. Daniel was offering to pay Walid for his silence. Even if a reward was offered that dwarfed the money already paid him, Walid would consider it dishonourable to betray them after accepting their money.
‘I cannot do that,’ said Walid quietly.
‘You don’t understand,’ said Daniel. ‘I want you to keep the money. I have put you to so much trouble already… and you have a family to feed.’
‘No, it is you who do not understand,’ said Walid firmly. ‘I will take you to Cairo.’
Chapter 52
Sarit was in the Wekalat Al-Balah Bazaar, wearing a jilbab that she had just bought to cover her body, and khimar to cover her hair. By dressing modestly she knew that men were less likely to bother her, and she also reduced the likelihood of being recognized. But at one point she would have to take a risk.
What she was looking out for were Western women – specifically Western women with large shoulder bags in which they carried everything under the sun. In some Muslim countries, women tended to be more careless than they would be in a Western street market, because they knew that the draconian laws made theft less likely. However, here the laws were not quite so severe and so the women were more careful.
Eventually, she found what she was looking for: a young, obviously Western woman who had a bag with some other items already and who was interested in trying on one of the colourful dresses. Even better, when the woman spoke, it was with a Liverpool accent. Sarit could do American accents if she had to but RP was a lot easier. And of course the passport wouldn’t say ‘Liverpool’, it wo
uld state ‘United Kingdom’.
Sarit had already bought several items and had them in a collection of bags, to create her cover, so now she was ready to pounce. She sidled up to the woman and started looking at the dresses. By giving the impression that she was not sure, she drew the attention of the merchant to her. He was not going to let her slip away if he could persuade her to stay and make a purchase.
‘Would you like to come in? We have many more dresses inside. Very nice dresses for the pretty lady.’ He pointed to the inside of the shop.
‘Oh, I like this one,’ she said, holding up a particularly gaudy, colourful embroidered dress from the rack. ‘But I was wondering if it’s too big for me. Do you have somewhere I could try it on?’
‘Yes, I have a changing room inside.’
Again, he pointed. Sarit looked down at her bag full of other purchases.
‘You can take it ins—’
She didn’t let the man finish. She half-turned to the woman who had been looking at the same colourful collection and addressed her quickly.
‘Excuse me, would you mind keeping an eye on my bag for two minutes? I just want to try this on.’
The woman looked hesitant.
‘I’ll only be two minutes. I just want to see how it looks.’
‘Okay,’ said the other woman.
And with that, Sarit went inside, leaving not only the big bag containing the items she had bought earlier, but also her shoulder bag – as if to imply that it was unsafe to take it into the shop. The reality was the exact opposite. The shopkeepers here would guard it with their lives sooner than let anyone take it, whereas outside there was a chance that someone might steal it.
Two minutes later, Sarit emerged a happy, satisfied customer, reclaimed her possessions and after a bit of skilful haggling, bought the gaudy embroidered dress. Meanwhile the woman who had guarded her possessions appeared to have made up her mind, at least to the point of narrowing down her choices.
