The Woman on the Orient Express

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

Clearly, he was not the least bit interested in Nancy’s state of health. The baby was all he cared about. Seeing Katharine’s expression, he looked away, conscious, perhaps, of how desperate he sounded. “I’ve been worried about both of them, of course,” he said. “I want to take them back to England as soon as possible.” He glanced out of the window. “I came here from the station in a cart pulled by a decrepit old mule. Quite unsuitable for a mother and baby. Anyway, I sent the fellow away. I wonder if you could spare one of those layabouts at the gate to drive us to Ur Junction?”

  “We only have a truck,” Katharine replied. “It’s not here at the moment. We can certainly give you a lift when it comes back from the dig site—but I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted journey: Nancy and the baby left us yesterday.”

  “What?”

  Blood surged to his face, turning his pale cheeks red. “Where have they gone?”

  “To friends in Baghdad, I believe.” Katharine’s eyes didn’t leave his. “She was talking about staying there for a night or two before traveling back to England.”

  “Back to England?” he echoed. His irises were green with flecks of yellow, like a fox. The lids squeezed together, turning them into slits. “These friends—who are they?”

  “She didn’t say.” Katharine put on a concerned face. “I’m sorry not to be able to be of more help.” She reached into the pocket of her jacket, pulling out her cigarette case. “You look as if you need one,” she said, flipping it open.

  “Thanks.” He took a cigarette, along with the proffered lighter. He walked over to the window as he smoked it, looking out at the darkening sky and the billowing sheets on the washing line. “How long till your truck gets back?”

  “Oh—any minute now,” Katharine replied. “But you must let me organize something to eat while you’re waiting. It’s a long journey, and the food on the train is dire, I know.”

  “Very well. A sandwich would be most welcome. And a cold beer if you have one.”

  “No beer, I’m afraid.” Katharine shrugged. “My husband doesn’t allow alcohol in the house. We have lemonade or tea.”

  Felix muttered something incoherent under his breath.

  “I’ll bring both.” Katharine hurried from the room, relieved to be out from under his piercing gaze. She poked her head round the door of the kitchen, where Saleem and Ibrahim were slicing eggplant for the evening meal. She took her time ordering the sandwich, going through possible fillings with Ibrahim until she settled on spiced lamb and tomato laced with a yogurt and cucumber dressing. She asked Saleem to prepare the drinks, and then she took them out on a tray.

  “Food won’t be long,” she said as she stepped into the living room.

  There was no reply. She set the tray down on the table, looking this way and that. Where had he gone? To find the bathroom, perhaps? Then she caught a flash of something beyond the window. He was out there, by the gates, which were open. He looked as if he was calling out to someone. She craned her neck. Two figures were approaching on mules. Duncan and Michael. The wind was tugging at their clothes. They had scarves wrapped around their faces to shield them from the blowing sand. Len must have sent them back because of the coming storm.

  As she watched, they dismounted. Felix was talking to them now. She saw Michael point to the horizon over to the east. A horrible sense of foreboding gripped her. He was pointing in the direction of the Bedouin village. But they couldn’t know, could they . . . ?

  She ran to the door and felt the wind pull it as she twisted the handle. She reached the gates of the compound just in time to see Felix grab the reins of Duncan’s mule and leap into the saddle. Before she could reach him, he kicked it in the ribs, making the animal lurch off at a fast trot that quickly turned into a canter.

  “Where’s he going?” she gasped. “What did he ask you?”

  “He said he was Nancy’s husband.” Michael gave her a puzzled look. “He wanted to know if we’d seen her.”

  “We’d just passed her in the truck with Max,” Duncan added. “They were stuck in the sand and we helped dig them out. We told him what Max told us: that they were going to the Bedouin village.”

  “You did what?” The wind whipped Katharine’s words away.

  “What’s the matter? Why are you—”

  Michael never got to complete the sentence. Katharine snatched the reins of his mule. Jumping onto the animal’s back, she sped off in pursuit of Felix Nelson.

  CHAPTER 29

  The sand stung Agatha’s face as she braced her body against the back of the truck. Max was beside her, his shirt soaked in perspiration. When the wheels had lost traction a second time, he tried in vain to free them from the encroaching sand while Agatha gunned the engine. All she could do now was try and help him push.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this!” Max had to shout to make himself heard above the hiss of the wind.

  “Why not?” she called back. “Because . . . I’m . . . a woman?” Her words were punctuated with breathy grunts.

  “I don’t want you hurting yourself!”

  “I won’t—honestly!” She winced as the truck’s bumper bit into her leg. But she didn’t let go.

  “Okay—if you’re sure. When I say the word, heave like mad!”

  For a moment it looked as if it was going to work. The truck inched up the ramp of sand. But the movement only made things worse at the front end. The wheels had sunk up to the metal.

  “It’s no good,” Max called as he straightened up, shovel in hand. “I’m going to have to get help.”

  “Where from?” Agatha came round to where he was standing, tucking her scarf round her face.

  “We’re only about a mile and a half from the village. I could bring a whole gang of men back with me.” He pressed his lips together, turning the flesh white. “But I don’t like the idea of leaving you. I’d rather we all went.”

  Agatha glanced through the window at Nancy, who was half sitting, half lying on the seat. Her forehead was beaded with perspiration, and her cheeks were flushed. James lay fast asleep beside her. She looked much worse than when they had left the expedition house. The bumpy ride and the breakdowns had been too much for her. She looked incapable of walking a few yards, let alone a mile or more.

  “We’ll be fine,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  “Are you sure?” He blinked as a gust of wind blew sand into his eyes.

  “Yes!” She tried to smile. “I’m more worried about you, going across the desert in this weather.”

  “It won’t be so bad: I’m heading east, so I’ll have the wind behind me.” Reaching out, he pulled her to him. She felt his lips on her forehead, setting her skin on fire. “I’ll be as quick as I can,” he said.

  Agatha watched him from inside the truck. Despite the vicious wind, he was making good progress. In five minutes he was out of sight. Nancy opened her eyes and groaned, rubbing her neck and shoulders. She’d fallen asleep in a most awkward position, and Agatha decided to try to make her more comfortable. She rolled up her jacket to make a pillow and lifted Nancy’s head and legs so that she was lying down properly.

  “What’s happening?” Nancy moaned. “Where’s Max?”

  “He’s gone to get help. He won’t be long—and we’ll be just fine here. There’s plenty to eat and drink. Would you like something?”

  Nancy shook her head. She was feverish, and there was a strange, distracted look in her eyes. It scared Agatha. She had seen the same warning signs in men who’d died from septicemia after surgery.

  “Try to get some sleep, then.”

  But the moment Nancy lay down again, James let out a cry. Agatha knew he was hungry.

  “Don’t get up: there’s milk in the basket in the back—I can feed him.”

  She lifted him out and held him against her shoulder as she opened the door. It was a struggle to keep it open as the wind gusted around the truck, but she braced her back against it, shielding James’s head with her hand. Getting the back door open was even w
orse. The wind took it, slamming it against her left hip as she climbed onto the sacks that lined the floor. The pain was eye watering, but all she cared about was getting James safely inside. She made a nest of the sacks and settled down, cradling him in her arms as she rummaged in the basket for the flask of milk wrapped in a clean strip of muslin.

  At first he didn’t want to take it. It was as if, young as he was, he could sense that something was wrong. Agatha stroked his cheek with her finger. It was a trick she had learned with Rosalind, and it always seemed to work. In a few minutes he had stopped grizzling and was sucking on the rag.

  It wasn’t long before he closed his eyes. When she was sure he was asleep, she laid him down in the nest of sacks. Her hip was throbbing, and she straightened up as best she could—although the roof was too low to stand up properly. As she rubbed her bruised skin, she caught sight of something through one of the high windows in the side of the truck. A dust trail. Someone was coming. She pressed her face to the glass, which was dusted with sand on the outside. Hard to see if it was a car or a camel. A frisson of fear ran through her body. Could it be bandits? As the dust cloud grew closer, she saw the head of a mule at the front of it. Just one animal. A wave of relief replaced the fear. Bandits didn’t normally go round on their own. This was a lone traveler, perhaps coming to offer help.

  As the rider approached, she saw that the clothes were European, not Arab. She was at the door in a moment, clinging to it with both hands to stop it swinging out of her grasp. She jumped out to the muffled thunder of hooves.

  “Katharine!”

  “Where . . . are they?” Katharine leapt off the mule, gasping for breath as she pulled down the shawl that covered her mouth. “He hasn’t . . .”

  Agatha’s insides turned to ice as sand blasted her face. “What’s happened?” She yelled the question into the wind.

  “Felix . . . He knows . . . Got it out of Michael and Duncan.” Katharine shook her head violently. “No time to explain. Are they in there?”

  Agatha nodded. “Both asleep.”

  “Max?”

  “Gone for help.” Katharine made for the back door of the truck, wrenching it open. She cocked her head at the sleeping baby. “I think it’s best if I take him. You’re like sitting ducks here.”

  Agatha stared at her, horrified. “But—”

  “Believe me: he’s completely ruthless. I think he’d take James by force if he found you.” She took off her shawl. “I can carry him in this, like the Bedouin women.”

  “But there’s a storm coming! It’s—”

  “We’ll be there in no time.” Katharine waved away her protests. “And he’ll be well protected.” Before Agatha could say another word, she reached across the truck and plucked James from his bed of sacks. He murmured in his sleep but made no more sound as she held him to her.

  Agatha watched, mesmerized by what was unfolding before her eyes. Katharine had never done this, never held him since the day she had brought him back to life. It was as if invisible fetters had suddenly fallen away. This was a new Katharine, the determination in her eyes softened by something that had not been there before.

  In a couple of deft movements, Katharine tossed the end of her shawl over one shoulder and wrapped the other round her waist, knotting the ends together. “Look after Nancy!” She called as she climbed back onto the mule. “Get in and lock the doors!”

  Katharine rode with one hand on the reins and the other under the bundle tied to her chest. She had watched the Bedouin women make slings for their babies, but she had never actually tried it herself. Terrified of dropping James, she kept the mule to a trot, constantly looking over her shoulder to check for Felix.

  She knew she had an advantage because this part of the desert had been her backyard for the past three years. The weather made it more difficult, but she could probably have found her way to the village blindfolded. It was no surprise that she had beaten Felix to the truck. She guessed that he had followed one of the myriad tracks that crisscrossed the land between the expedition house and the dig site. With a bit of luck, he would be hopelessly lost by now. And with a sandstorm coming, that could prove fatal.

  Divine retribution if that were to happen. To him, James was nothing more than a bargaining chip.

  She hugged the sleeping baby closer, feeling his little fist unfurl and close around the fabric of her shirt. The movement sent a wave of protective tenderness surging through her. The ferocity of her feelings surprised her, shocked her. If Felix came anywhere near her now, she was ready to kill him with her bare hands.

  The wind tugged at her hair, blowing it across her face. She had long since lost the pins that had held it up, and her hat had flown off within minutes of her leaving the expedition house. She tossed her head to see where she was going. Not much farther now. She could make out the wooden palisades of the village. The whirling air had turned them into smudges of brown against a slate-gray sky. There was just the wadi to cross now—still shallow, thankfully—though it would quickly become impassable once the storm broke.

  She slowed the mule down as it approached the edge of the ditch. She would have to be extra-careful with James as they scrambled down and back up the other side. She was concentrating so hard on keeping the animal steady that she didn’t see what was lying in wait for her.

  “Stop right there!”

  The voice came through the air like a whip. She froze. It was him. But where was he? The landscape dissolved into a treacherous jumble of sand and rock. She tugged on the reins, trying to turn the mule back up the slope.

  “I said stop!”

  Suddenly he was there, in front of her, emerging chameleonlike from the sand.

  “Give the baby to me!” He took a step toward her, drawing something from inside his jacket. A gun.

  “Put that away!” She screamed over the roar of the wind.

  “Shut up! Get down!” He was just yards away now.

  “He’s not yours!” She wrapped both arms tightly round the baby, the reins still clutched in one hand.

  “Do you think I care?” He spat the words like hailstones. “Give him to me!”

  “You’ll have to shoot me first!”

  “Don’t think I won’t do it.” He planted his feet, pointing the gun at her head. “I’ll count to ten. One . . . two . . . three . . .”

  She clung to James, paralyzed, as he counted down. Sand swirled around them, rising from the ground like a ghostly army. The storm was closing in, purple black, as if a giant fist had punched the clouds.

  “Four . . . five . . . six . . .” The air was suddenly rent by a piercing shriek, as if the wind had summoned the demons of hell. She saw beating wings, yellow eyes. Felix’s hand flailing as the creature landed on his head. The roar of the gun going off, the bullet blasting the bank of the ditch. And an echoing crack, away across the sand. Felix crumpling to the ground.

  Only then did the shapes make sense. Wings spread wide, rising from the body like an avenging angel. A falcon, its plumage creamy white against the bruised sky. Turning east, toward the Bedouin village, toward its master, who emerged on the opposite bank, his robes flying out behind him, wisps of smoke scudding from the rifle over his arm.

  CHAPTER 30

  It was five days before Felix Nelson’s body was found. The weather closed in soon after he died, whipping up a whirlwind of sand that left the corpse half buried. A goatherd from the Bedouin village stumbled across it early one morning. But the giant desert ants had got there first. By the time the police superintendent from Najaf arrived at the scene, there was not enough left of his body for anyone to say for sure how he had died.

  Katharine hadn’t breathed a word of what had happened: not to Agatha, nor to Leonard, not even to Max, who had been at the gates of the Bedouin village when she rode in shaking with emotion, clutching the baby to her chest.

  She’d let everyone jump to the obvious conclusion: that Felix Nelson had got himself hopelessly lost after riding off into the desert
with no map, compass, or provisions.

  The sheikh, she knew, would not risk stirring up trouble by admitting what he had done to defend her. Neither would he lose any sleep over taking the life of a man who had threatened the khatun—the wife of the man whose enterprise he was paid to protect.

  As for Nancy, she was in no fit state to hear the news of her husband’s death. By the time Max and a gang of Bedouin villagers had managed to haul Queen Mary out of the sand, Nancy was slipping in and out of consciousness. For the past few days she had been lying on a bed of goatskins in a tent, too weak to be moved, with Agatha and Katharine taking turns to sit with her.

  The storm had made it impossible to get medical help. On the day before Felix’s body was found, Max managed to get Queen Mary across the desert to Najaf to fetch the doctor who had visited Nancy when James was born. He confirmed what they already feared.

  “Childbed fever?” Katharine’s eyes met Agatha’s over the bed.

  The doctor gave them a bottle of morphine and told them to keep her as cool as possible. Then he beckoned Katharine to follow him outside the tent. In one short sentence, spoken in Arabic, he said that Nancy was unlikely to make it through the night.

  The next few hours passed in a blur of watching and waiting. When they had done all they could for Nancy, Katharine slipped the little ivory amulet out of her pocket, placing it on a wooden stool beside the goatskin bed. She turned it over, so that the carved figure of the hare was on the underside and the image of the snake uppermost.

  Agatha spotted it when she came into the tent with a fresh bowl of water. “Do you think it’ll help?” She looked doubtful.

  “It’s all I could think of.” Katharine picked up the amulet, rubbing it between her finger and thumb. “It’s supposed to protect people.”

  Agatha nodded. “I’ve been saying silent prayers ever since the doctor left. But I’m afraid they won’t work. I haven’t been very good about going to church since my marriage ended. I’m not sure God will be listening.”