Herring on the Nile

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘I’m told there’s good shooting round here,’ said Purbright. He too was now leaning against the rail, his shoulder inches from mine. It all felt quite confidential. ‘Waterfowl and so on,’ he added.

  ‘Really?’ I said. It seemed possible, but it wasn’t really my type of thing. It might have been Purbright’s type of thing – out on the grouse moors at the crack of dawn after a night’s heavy drinking – but I couldn’t imagine that it was an activity that would be on offer on this trip. An afternoon of bird photography was as much as the Khedive’s programme envisaged.

  ‘You must have had a lot of experience of guns,’ Purbright continued. ‘Your main characters tend to favour the Walther PPK – James Bond’s gun, of course.’

  As a former secret service agent, Paul Fielder probably did know quite a lot about guns. Before becoming a writer I, conversely, had worked in a tax office. Of the characters I wrote about, my Sergeant Fairfax never carried a firearm and the villains he pursued tended not to get much beyond a vaguely described sawn-off shotgun.

  ‘I know a bit,’ I hedged. Crime writers get to know a bit about a lot of things – much of it by using Google. I had also, after all, fired airguns at the local fair, occasionally denting a tin duck. Purbright nodded as if this confirmed what he had thought. The chance seemed to have passed, at least for the moment, for me to tell him that I wrote crime as Peter Fielding (and slushy romance as Amanda Collins). I’d bring the subject up tomorrow, if necessary, over breakfast. ‘Is that a temple over there on the far bank?’ I asked.

  ‘I guess you could still handle a pistol if you had to?’ He wasn’t that interested in temples.

  I smiled and shrugged. For some reason this also appeared to have been a good answer on my part.

  ‘I was planning to travel with a colleague of mine – a very good shot,’ said Purbright, standing back from the rail again.

  ‘But he couldn’t make it?’ I said cautiously. It explained the missing passenger on the purser’s list anyway.

  ‘Apparently not.’ Purbright glanced behind him.

  On second thoughts perhaps he was Herbie’s client, but had originally planned to bring along somebody reasonably capable of protecting him. If Proctor had been called up at the last minute to replace this gun-toting colleague, Purbright would have been naturally dismayed when he came to view the detective actually on offer.

  ‘Were you planning to do some shooting together?’ I asked, still trying to feel my way through a rather obscure conversation.

  ‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘Yes, you’re right. I think that is a temple over there. The valley’s full of them. There’s nothing really worth looking at until we get to Edfu, of course.’

  ‘You seem to know this stretch of river well,’ I said.

  ‘Look, Paul . . . or Ethelred if you prefer,’ he said suddenly. ‘I realize it’s some years since you worked for Her Majesty – you must have left the service round about the time I joined. But you are probably the one person on board the boat I can trust at the moment.’

  Only for a brief instant did I entertain the possibility that he might have worked for the Inland Revenue back in the eighties. I decided that it would be better not to delay explanations until breakfast, but to tell him now that I was not Paul Fielder, and only fired guns when there was a good chance of winning a goldfish.

  ‘I’m not sure I can help in the way you think I can,’ I began. ‘You see—’

  ‘I’m not expecting you to do anything too risky – however much you’d like to. It’s just that there are a couple of gentlemen that I need to keep an eye on. If things get tricky, it may all look a little confusing to the average bystander – if you know what I mean. Even if the passengers can’t help much, it’s important they don’t get in the way.’

  ‘You mean I might think you were a terrorist or something?’

  ‘That type of thing.’

  ‘You’re not connected even tangentially with Mr Proctor?’ I asked. ‘You didn’t invite him onto the boat? Perhaps to stand in for your colleague?’

  It was Purbright’s turn to look puzzled.

  ‘Connected? Not at all,’ he said. ‘And why on earth should he be able to stand in for my colleague?’

  The theory that Purbright might be Raffles was fading in my mind almost as soon as it had been resurrected. On the other hand, that I was being briefed on something because Purbright thought I was a well-known author of spy stories, who had formerly worked for MI6, was as close to certainty as you got in this world.

  ‘Anyway,’ Purbright was saying, ‘the fact that you can handle all sorts of firearms could prove very useful indeed.’

  Only if the main threat was tin ducks.

  ‘Maybe I should clear something up—’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said reassuringly. ‘The chances are that you won’t be called upon to do anything at all. In the meantime, it would be helpful if you could keep your eyes on the two Arab gentlemen.’

  ‘I’d be happy to do that – it’s just that I think you are making a mistake,’ I said.

  He paused. ‘No, our information is pretty good. Watch them. Talk to them if you can. Let me know what they say. We’d better resume this conversation later – there’s somebody coming.’

  He winked and slipped away, down the stairs to the deck below. Oh well, hopefully there would still be time to explain things to Purbright at breakfast tomorrow. I should have tried harder to correct him, but (on reflection) I had rather enjoyed being mistaken for a man of action. Or even for a best-selling author. What harm could there possibly be in that?

  ‘Who were you talking to just then?’ No sooner had Mr Purbright slipped away than Sky Benson suddenly materialized beside me. She was dressed as before: prim skirt and blouse, no make-up, just a hint of perfume. It reminded me for some reason of Annabelle’s perfume – probably, as Elsie would inform me in due course, just a cheap imitation of it. But a pretty good imitation for all that. Though Miss Benson wore no earrings, I noticed that her ears were pierced. Perhaps then she was just reserving her finery for some later date.

  ‘He’s called Purbright,’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ she said. The contrast to Purbright could not have been greater. He had seemed totally self-assured. She on the other hand still looked ready to start at the first shadow. The sun was setting. There were a lot of shadows around.

  ‘So, we’re all here? The missing passenger did not show up?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘We left without him – or her.’

  Relief briefly fluttered across her face, but only briefly.

  ‘Whoever it is might still join us at Esna or Edfu, I suppose?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose they might.’ Our progress was slow enough that we could have been easily overtaken by somebody driving a car – a train would have flashed past in seconds. I was, as I say, now assuming that the absent traveller was Purbright’s colleague – the man who was good with a gun – though that was not of course necessarily the case. ‘Is the missing person a friend of yours?’

  ‘No,’ she said, as if that should have been obvious to me.

  Having raised the matter of the missing passenger, Miss Benson seemed disinclined to discuss him further. She briefly observed that the weather was hot but not as hot as she had expected.

  ‘Your first time in this part of the world?’ I asked.

  ‘Majorca,’ she said distantly. I must have looked puzzled because she added: ‘With Brenda and Susan. That was hot too.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. That, I thought, placed her. For those not used to travel, a very different culture, like Egypt’s, could be overwhelming. ‘Egypt’s a bit different from Majorca. But here on the boat, you won’t have any hassles.’

  ‘Hassles? What hassles?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, people trying to sell you things, for example . . .’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t imagine that they could sell you things here on the boat.’ Bu
t she glanced nervously over her shoulder as she did so. Her knuckles gleamed white against the mahogany rail. If my game plan had been to put everyone on the boat on edge I was doing well. Two down, nine to go.

  After five minutes of a very one-sided conversation about the Nile and the sites we were due to visit the following day, she made a short apology and walked unsteadily back down the stairs, in the direction that Purbright had taken a few minutes earlier.

  ‘Sorry, I made you jump.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said quickly. ‘Well, not very much. You sort of crept up behind me. You’re Professor Campion, aren’t you?’

  ‘How do you know that?’ He looked at me with deep suspicion.

  ‘I was just behind you in the queue for keys,’ I said.

  He tilted his head at an angle that might have been intended to show sagacity but in practice revealed a great deal of nose hair. ‘Ah,’ he said.

  ‘Your first time in Egypt?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I’ve been here quite a few times. I teach Egyptology.’ Again, I was made to feel this was something I should have known.

  ‘Good to have an expert on board,’ I said. ‘I’m sure we’ll learn a lot from you.’

  Campion’s expression changed to that of a man who, out on a pleasant stroll through the countryside, notices for the first time the bull that is sizing him up from a shady corner of the field. ‘I’ve no plans to run courses . . .’

  ‘No, of course not. Still, it helps to have somebody on board who knows their way around.’

  ‘Does it?’ He still seemed worried I might know of a way to make him teach us Egyptology.

  ‘I think so. It’s a completely different culture here, isn’t it? Sky Benson seemed a little nervous.’

  ‘Miss Benson?’ This was a new problem for him. He tipped his head to one side, as if miming ‘Thought’, and frowned. ‘Who exactly is she . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I thought you knew each other. You were sitting next to her on the plane?’

  ‘Ah, yes, the plane.’ He seemed on the verge of asking which plane, then thought better of it. ‘Benson – was that it? And what was her first name again?’

  I repeated it. He repeated it, though with a pathetic note of uncertainty in his voice. I sympathized. I am not that good at remembering names either, as I may have said. At his third attempt he seemed reasonably satisfied that he now knew about whom he was talking.

  ‘Or perhaps she was nervous about something else,’ I said, picking up the conversation from where we had left off.

  ‘She seemed fine on the plane,’ he said. ‘To the extent we conversed, anyway.’

  ‘I think she hasn’t travelled much,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ he said, but the way he said it suggested her concern was not only avoidable but also reflected, in some obscure way, badly on himself. Maybe he too had tried to reassure her earlier and failed.

  ‘Well,’ I added, ‘it’s not your problem anyway.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said, but I had, somehow, just placed an unreasonably heavy burden on his already stooped shoulders. My score was now three.

  Another very one-sided conversation followed, this time about dinner and how we might or might not dress for it. Here too I was not a success. I said that I thought that, on the first night at least, dinner jackets would not be required. He said that he had not packed such a thing. I replied that I doubted very much that it mattered what we wore on any night, but he shook his head sadly. He clearly blamed me, and me alone, for the fact that he would be wrongly attired – perhaps not tonight, but almost certainly on some future occasion. He too took his leave after an awkward silence. Bearing in mind we were all on holiday, a high proportion of the passengers seemed nervy and tense. Purbright alone had seemed relaxed, in spite of the absence of his colleague, equally fearless of being murdered in his bed or caught in the wrong sort of dinner attire.

  The bell sounded for our first meal on the boat, and we all made our way, in ones and twos, to the dining room.

  Though dress was indeed informal, no effort had been spared to continue the illusion of old-world luxury. The mahogany panelling shone sumptuously and the gold palm fronds, carved onto the top of each pillar, gleamed as if freshly painted. Burgundy velvet curtains, of a kind positively designed to capture the desert dust in every rich fold, formed graceful arcs around the windows. The chairs were vast and antique, though perhaps a little too soft and yielding to be described as truly comfortable. The table linen, by contrast, was rigid with starch and the massed ranks of bright cutlery arranged on it promised more courses than I felt entirely comfortable with. It was a room from which the twenty-first century had been banned.

  I found myself at a table with Elsie, Purbright (the probable MI6 man), Professor Campion, Lizzi Hull and Jane Watson, the pleasant if excitable lady in the floppy hat. At another table sat two Arab passengers (who seemed nice enough, but did not look much like policemen), the two Americans, Sky Benson (who I could only conclude did not know Campion) and Herbie Proctor, who was already boring the other guests to sleep.

  Seven

  I found myself at a table with Ethelred, Purbright (the cunning master criminal), Professor Campion, Lizzi Hull and Jane Watson, the annoying cow with a floppy hat. At another table sat the two policemen – the only ones I really trusted on the boat – together with the two young Americans, Sky Benson (who clearly did know Campion – do me a favour) and Herbie Proctor, who was already boring the other guests to sleep.

  I watched with mild curiosity as Sky Benson, with her back to me at the far corner of the other table, gave a sudden nervous laugh and knocked her water glass and knife to the floor at a single stroke. A waiter, in his black uniform trimmed with white braid, swooped immediately to clear them away. Further down my own table, I heard Professor Campion give a despairing sigh, but when I turned to him he was examining a fish fork with great care, as though they were rarely encountered in academic circles.

  ‘What a cosy little table we are,’ said Miss Watson, in a way that suggested she rather enjoyed the role of jollying people along, particularly those who did not much want to be jollied. ‘I’m quite pleased the boat is half empty – we’ll all get to know each other so much quicker.’ She shot a glance to her right, but I didn’t see whose eye she was trying to catch – Purbright, Campion, Ethelred? It was, in any event, Campion who spoke next. Her jollying had, in his case, been a complete lost cause from the start. He was the only passenger, male or female, to be wearing a suit and he looked hot and annoyed. He scowled at Purbright and Ethelred, both dressed in open-necked shirts, as though they had tricked him in some way that he could not yet quite put his finger on.

  ‘We still appear to be one passenger short,’ said Campion. This seemed to piss him off even more, though what business it was of his was a mystery.

  ‘Apparently,’ I said.

  ‘Perhaps, if he or she has missed the boat, whoever it is may still join us at Edfu?’ asked Campion. ‘Does anyone happen to know?’ I noticed Ethelred give Purbright an enquiring glance at this point, as if he might.

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Purbright. He implied that, if it was a problem of any sort, it wasn’t his problem. Ethelred shrugged apologetically, but Purbright was in any case now looking across at the other table, behind my back. His eyes were narrowed at somebody – Proctor? The two policemen? Sky Benson?

  We were served clear soup with bits in it. I declined a roll, feeling that if we were in for the full six courses I should show a little restraint. It’s the only way, I find, to stay girlishly slim.

  ‘Have you all just flown in?’ Purbright asked inconsequentially, giving his soup an experimental swirl with his spoon.

  ‘Most of us were on the same flight,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘Though not I.’ Miss Watson addressed Purbright diagonally across the table. ‘I had things to do in Cairo en route. Things to do and people to see. Always busy. And how about you, Mr Purbright? Have you been long in this very pleasant part o
f the world? Do you work here or do you live entirely for pleasure?’

  Purbright’s reply was curt. Another one who could take jollying or leave it, apparently. ‘Yes, I’ve been here a while,’ he said.

  ‘And you are happy here?’

  ‘Shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Miss Watson. ‘Some people get what they deserve – some of us don’t.’

  Purbright opened his mouth as if to reply, then shook his head and turned to ask Lizzi Hull what she did when she was not on a Nile paddle steamer. She proved to be a train driver.

  ‘Surely not?’ asked Miss Watson, overhearing her.

  ‘Goods,’ said Lizzi Hull.

  ‘Your first visit to this part of the world?’ asked Purbright.

  ‘I worked in Khartoum for a while,’ she replied. ‘And I’ve been to Palestine.’

  ‘Not obvious tourist destinations,’ said Purbright.

  ‘I’m not an obvious tourist,’ she replied. ‘You have to go and see things for yourself. The papers always lie, don’t they – especially the Tory ones?’

  Since I suspected that the other two men at our table read much the same papers as Ethelred, this may not have been the most tactful response. I admired that.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Ethelred, implying his reading matter was entirely left of centre. He did occasionally buy the Guardian to check whether they had reviewed him – I’ve no idea why. ‘First-hand research is vital,’ he added, as if making some point for my benefit. Whatever.

  ‘So, we begin our research tomorrow at the temple at Edfu?’ I said, to show that I had read the itinerary on my bedside table.

  ‘Ptolemaic,’ said Professor Campion, looking up from his soup. He dabbed his thin lips delicately with an over-starched napkin before continuing.

  ‘Dedicated to the falcon god Horus and completed in 57 BC by Ptolemy II. It has a massive 36-metre-high pylon and reliefs of Horus and Hathor. Also carvings of the great battle between Horus and Seth. Seth is shown as a tiny hippopotamus, being skewered on a lance. It’s all about a zillion years old and blahdy, blahdy, blah, blah.’