‘Hammoudi!’
‘I recognised him from your description. “Here’s trouble!” I thought, and beat a hasty retreat.’
‘Did he spot you?’
‘I thought not. After all, what would Hammoudi know about me? But then I remembered the fire in your room at Shepheard’s. The front desk manager saw me and saw you leave with me. Hammoudi knew you’d been staying at Shepheard’s, and he’d have been able to get a description of me there. So I drove back here looking over my shoulder. Quite exciting really — brought back the seventies when we were still playing Cold War games — hide and seek round the city. After I pulled out of the bazaar, I saw a black Mercedes behind me. I did a couple of circles and backtracks — not enough to let on I knew it was there — and it still clung to me. Followed me all the way to Tahrir, where I managed to lose it in the confusion. When I got back here, I parked up in the basement and looked into the street for eyes. There were a couple of youngish men in down-at-heel shoes and acrylic shirts hanging about under the gamez tree on the corner, smoking. They looked like off-duty servants, but who knows? From now on we can’t trust anyone.’
‘Kolpos’s call last night was a set-up, Doc, just like the Giza thing but more deadly. Someone was there, forcing him to make the call, which is why his voice sounded so strained. They throttled Kolpos and waited for me with the sole intention of whacking me.
‘What did happen to Kolpos, Jamie?’
‘Strangled with some kind of garotte. Looked as though he’d died in agony. His hands were nailed to the desk.’
‘Jesus wept!’
‘Yes. Next thing I heard a noise, saw this figure dashing out and before I know it a grenade’s rolling across the floor. It was just like when Kolpos tried to turn me into steak; I had this momentary flash of what was about to happen and I didn’t even think, I just dived straight for the window. Blast hit me in mid-air.’
‘That’s weird, Jamie.’
‘I know. But one thing’s for certain, Doc. Whatever mumbo-jumbo was written on that mirror, it wasn’t Ahriman, unseen guardians or demonic forces, that murdered Kolpos and tried to murder me. That is, not unless demonic forces come in the form of Julian Cranwell.’
22
I felt a lot better by the next morning. The ugly swelling on my face had gone down and though my head and ribs still ached, I felt some semblance of normality. I showered, shaved, dressed in old jeans and a clean white shirt I’d found in Doc’s wardrobe, and put on the spare pair of glasses Doc had kept for me — outmoded circular John Lennon frames. I also opened an old shoe-box at the bottom of the wardrobe and found, carefully wrapped in cotton rags, my old Hazmi blade — my khanjar. Unlike most Arab daggers, it wasn’t heavy or broad, but a slim, straight, stiletto with an edge on both sides and a long handle of carved ebony. It came in an ornamented sheath and was usually worn handle downwards on the left forearm. Like the earring, it was presented to a boy at circumcision, a symbol of the passage from childhood to manhood, and as I unwrapped it, I remembered the pain and pride of that day. They’d sat me on a camel-saddle, and the amnir — the tribal shaman — had tied my foreskin with a piece of leather until it had gone numb and then sheared it off with a razor-sharp stone. My father had been proud that I hadn’t made a fuss, but after the ceremony of singing and dancing, he’d secretly treated the cut with antibiotic powder to prevent infection. ‘Don’t tell the amnir,’ he said. ‘He’d be livid if he knew.’ I slipped the blade from its sheath and ran my thumb along the edges. They were still sharp. I remembered telling Doc I’d never need it again. Now I wasn’t so sure.
I joined Doc for breakfast of fresh bread, marmalade, orange juice and coffee in the dining room. The Persian blinds were down. No more sitting on the balcony, she said; we didn’t want to make things too easy for ‘the enemy’, whoever that was. I was just on my second cup of coffee, when there came a knock at the door. Both of us froze. ‘Dammit!’ Doc said, ‘The ghaffir should have warned me!’
The knock came again. ‘Well we’ve got two choices,’ I said. ‘We can either pretend we’re not here, or answer it.’
Doc’s face hardened. ‘Can’t be fugitives for ever,’ she said. ‘If this is it, we’ll face it!’
We both got up and approached the door. Doc peered through the spyhole, and gave a little gasp. ‘Oh lookee!’ she said, ‘Look what the cat dragged in! Miss Elena Anasis, in person.’
‘Jesus! What the hell is she doing here?’
‘Shall I let her in?’
‘In for a penny.’
She grappled with locks and chains and flung the door wide to reveal Elena, looking very pale and exceptionally pretty. Doc sniffed suspiciously and her gaze darted along the corridor. ‘Who sent you?’ she demanded.
‘Nobody,’ Elena said, ‘I came alone.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I was scared. Nikolai...died last night. There was a fire at the shop.’ Her lips were trembling and she looked as if she was about to burst into tears. Doc motioned her inside and closed the door, relocking it up again with business-like movements.
‘I knew about Nikolai,’ I said, ‘because I was there.’
Elena’s eyes opened wide with disbelief. ‘Nikolai was already dead when I arrived,’ I went on. ‘Strangled. I wish I could have done something, but it was too late. Then someone tried to kill me. I’d like to know who it was.’
She put her knuckles in her mouth and bit on them hard. She blinked and I could see she was struggling to control her emotions. If it was an act, I thought, it was a damned good one. Suddenly, tears welled silently down her cheeks. ‘But the fire?’ she sobbed.
‘A grenade. Somebody threw it while I was still in there. I managed to get out just in time.’
She looked at me curiously and seemed to see my scarred face for the first time. ‘Jesus Christ,’ she said, ‘you’re lucky to be alive.’
‘That’s what I keep saying to myself. Not surprisingly, perhaps, I want to stay that way.’
She wiped the tears away with her hand and pulled her shoulders back, making an obvious effort at self-control. She stood straight, fixed me in the eye and gritted her teeth. ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ she said. ‘Whoever killed Nikolai is going to pay. I’ll never leave it alone until I’ve sliced their balls off with a razor.’
‘Oh, the great avenger,’ Doc cut in. ‘How do we know you’re not in on it? Very convenient for you that you were out, wasn’t it? Where the hell were you?’
Elena’s red-rimmed eyes remained fixed on my face. ‘I’ve been at Robert Rabjohn’s since Sunday,’ she said. ‘Nikolai sensed something was going to happen and he sent me round there for safety. I hardly know Robert, but Nikolai said he wouldn’t refuse. I wanted Nikolai to come too, but he wouldn’t. He was going to talk to you, Mr Ross. He was going to tell you the full story and show you one of the Akhnaton ushabtis. Don’t you see? It has to be the ushabtis they were after. Nikolai was the only one who knew where they were. I know he wasn’t always straight, Mr Ross. You have to be fly in the antiquities business. But he was always absolutely fair and honest with me. He never told me a lie, never tried to exploit me, never touched me — you know, like that. Treated me like a father — or rather like a father should treat a daughter — my father never did. Nikolai wasn’t cultured or even really clever, but he was kind and understanding. I could always rely on him to help me when I needed help, without asking anything in return.’
I was thinking of how I’d narrowly escaped being sliced like a carrot at his hands only a couple of days before, and how he’d shrugged it off with some quip about there being casualties in any war. It was hard to reconcile the two Nikolais. Elena must have guessed what I was thinking, because she said: ‘I’m sorry for the way he received you, Jamie. The truth is that from the day Julian Cranwell was found dead, Nikolai was petrified - not only for himself, but for me as well. Fear like that makes you do odd things.’
‘He wasn’t honest with me, either.’
; ‘No he wasn’t. But he had his reasons. I’m sure he really was going to tell you the truth when he was...he died.’
‘What was the truth?’
She looked down at her hands. ‘All right,’ she said glancing up, ‘the story of the Ramessid mine was a lie. There was no diamond mine. It was all about Zerzura. Nikolai knew that Julian wouldn’t help him find the Lost Oasis if he thought some of the artefacts were going to be sold to private collectors. He invented the Ramessid mine story to fool Julian.’
I found myself watching her with renewed distaste, and I saw that Doc’s expression had intensified, too.
‘Please understand me,’ Elena said. Nikolai wasn’t a crook in his own mind. He used to say that during colonial times the British and the French had ransacked Egypt for treasure, just because they had the power: “licensed larceny” he used to call it. He hated the hypocrisy. If the British really cared about selling artefacts, he said, why doesn’t the British Museum give back all the things they helped themselves to, beginning with the Rosetta Stone? He said the Antiquities Service was just the same; they didn’t really care about their heritage, but what really turned them on was the money they would make out of tourists — fat-cat salaries for the boys. Nikolai said everyone was pretending to be holier than thou, but in fact they were all on the make in one way or another.’
‘Except Julian?’
‘Yes, Julian was incorruptible. Nikolai thought he was naive, because all the others were lining their pockets. He didn’t think it mattered whether the treasures went to private collectors or the Antiquities Service, as long as everything was properly recorded and the historical significance known. The way he saw it, it was either money for fat cats like Abbas Rifad, or survival for us. He felt he couldn’t tell Julian that, but I thought he should have. He said that Julian would have the freedom to examine and date everything, all the historical data would have been his alone. Nikolai thought it was a perfectly fair exchange, since he both financed the expedition and provided the directions.’
‘And the ushabtis — did he intend to sell them too?’
She looked as if she might burst into tears again, but fought them back gallantly. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I just don’t know. I don’t think so. I told him it was all wrong. I told him he should never have tried to cheat Julian. He said it wasn’t cheating. Julian would get what he wanted — the Lost Oasis — and all the glory would be his forever. I didn’t want anything to do with it. But he was always good to me, Jamie. He was all I had. He never lied to me.’
‘What about the translation from the manuscript, the location of Zerzura, did he still have that?’
‘No, I swear he didn’t!’ The effort at self-control broke down suddenly and she collapsed into a paroxysm of sobs. I looked at Doc, not knowing what to say. I put my hand on Elena’s shoulder, and she lifted her soft brown eyes gratefully. A spark of deep recognition passed between us, and I suddenly knew for certain that she was telling the truth: like me, she’d just lost someone special to her, and like me she was half Egyptian — an inhabitant of that no-man’s land that only half-castes really know about.
‘How did you know where Jamie was?’ Doc snapped.
‘He gave the phone number to Nikolai. Nikolai traced it to you through enquiries.’
‘Did anyone see you arrive?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s possible. Jamie isn’t safe here, Dr Barrington, and neither are you. They killed Nikolai and they tried to kill Jamie. These people won’t give up. They’ll stop at nothing.’
‘Nowhere’s safe,’ Doc said, looking at me inquiringly.
I knew a silent question was being asked: were we to trust Elena or not? ‘Sit down,’ I said, forcing Elena gently into an armchair, looking at Doc to make sure she realised I’d just answered her enquiry.
‘I bet you’d like some water,’ she said. Elena nodded, and Doc hurried off towards the kitchen.
‘There was something weird at the shop,’ I said. ‘They’d painted an Eye of Ra on Nikolai’s mirror in blood.’
‘What was that about?’ she asked unsteadily.
I shook my head. ‘I just don’t know. A guy called Aurel Karlman warned me to look out for the Eye of Ra, but he’s a spook. It could be just a coincidence.’
‘Or maybe Karlman’s behind it,’ Doc said, bringing water, ice-cold from the fridge, and handing it to Elena. She drank it in a few gulps.
‘Robert told me to tell you that you’re both welcome at his place,’ she said. ‘Robert has money and influence. He’s got his own guards and a well-protected house. He can hold things off for a few days at least. Why don’t you come?’
Doc and I exchanged glances. ‘Do you know this Rabjohn?’ I asked.
‘Only by reputation,’ Doc said. ‘Professional amateur. There aren’t many left, but he’s one of them. Pots and pots of money. Houses in Manhattan, London and Rome. Father was a US railway magnate, and Rabjohn was brought up to dally with whatever the hell he wanted. Pally with all the nobs, a friend of President Mubarak’s, and knows Sheikh Zayid of the Emirates and the Sultan of Brunei. There’s a formidable mind there, though I hear he’s never been near a university in his life. All self-taught. Julian said he knew more about Egyptology than any college professor. Has his own theories, too.’
‘Robert’s very sweet,’ Elena said, ‘and straight. He was the only one Julian trusted enough to show the Akhnaton ushabtis. It was Robert who pronounced them genuine. Nikolai trusted him too, that’s why he sent me round there. Robert has donated a lot of money to government projects at one time or another, and they owe him. He said he might be able to smuggle us out of the country, but I said no way am I’m going to run until I’ve found out who killed Nikolai, then I’ll get them, no matter how long it takes.’
I had to grin: she looked like a bad-tempered, fierce little child. ‘You know what the Hawazim say?’ I asked her. ‘It took forty years, but the Hazmi got his revenge.’
‘I’m not a Hazmiyya,’ she said, ‘but that’s just how I feel right now. Nikolai was all I had, and they took him away. Now they’ll get what they deserve, no matter what.’
Doc was studying her features with a touch of admiration. ‘That’s what I should have said when they got Ronnie,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve been a fighter all my life, but when it came to the crunch I just let it go. No more Mister Nice Guy though. It’s still not too late to start.’
‘I know it’s going to look bad with the police,’ I said, ‘but I am a Hazmi — at least I’m half of one — and I’m going nowhere till I get to the bottom of this.’
‘But you must get out of this place,’ Elena said. ‘Sooner or later they’ll find you here.’
‘I think she’s right,’ Doc said suddenly, as if she’d made a decision. ‘We ought to move now.’
I filled an old knapsack with washing and shaving things, my passports, and my Hazmi dagger, and met Doc and Elena at the door. Doc opened it cautiously. We hurried down the stairs to the basement and Doc went over the car carefully for tampering, feeling round the wheels, looking under the bonnet and underneath the chassis. ‘It’s kosher,’ she said.
In the street, Doc’s two smokers had long gone, but soon after we crossed 26th July Bridge, a black Mercedes suddenly swung into place behind us.
‘It’s only a black Merc,’ I said. ‘There’s a million in this city.’ Doc glanced in the mirror.
‘It’s the same bugger, I swear,’ she said. ‘Hang on to your hats, boys and girls.’
She swerved into a side-street and put her foot down solidly on the accelerator, just dodging a line of fruit-stalls, whose proprietors and customers leapt desperately out of our path. They shook their fists and cursed, and someone threw a tomato, which splattered across the back window. ‘Sorry, chaps!’ Doc muttered, turning sharply down a narrow alley. Miraculously there was no one in it, and Doc revved up to sixty, working smoothly up and down through the gears as she turned again and again. There was no sight of the Mercedes now t
hrough the tomato pulp running down the back window. Doc changed down and turned into Gala Street, a multi-lane boulevard beneath the 6th October flyover, which took you up to Ramses Square. She put her foot down and steamed into the traffic, weaving a way through the cars. ‘Good motors, these 504s,’ she declared, ‘powerful. Ronnie used to love them — only two-wheel drive, but they win the Paris — Dakar hands down every year!’
‘Do you think it was them?’ Elena asked.
‘Bet your bottom dollar.’
‘But who is them?’
‘Looked like a government car to me. Did you clock the numberplate, Jamie? Pound to a pinch of shit it was Mukhabaraat.’
‘Why not just arrest us?’
‘Maybe they think one of us knows something.’
We drove into Heliopolis on tenterhooks, looking about wildly in every direction. Rabjohn’s house was easy enough to find. It was an impressive white stucco, moresco-style villa, set behind high walls in a garden bursting with date-palms, pink and white oleanders and purple bougainvilleas. There were black-uniformed guards at the gate wearing peaked crash-helmets and the blazons of a private security firm, who stopped us and asked our names. One of them held us up while Elena got out and spoke on the telephone in the tiny kiosk.
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