by L. C. Tyler
Or something like that – I confess I may have paraphrased the last bit. If you’re not bothered whether Hathor is the cat or the canary, and you can’t work out why they needed a pylon if they didn’t have mains electricity, then it’s all somewhat theoretical. Campion seemed very keen to give us a brief lecture – but really just that and no more. Ethelred asked some questions about Edfu and Campion answered them, though with an increasing reluctance that I couldn’t quite account for.
Since it didn’t take much sensitivity to realize that Campion had had enough of the conversation, it was no surprise when Ethelred persisted doggedly with his questions. Once or twice Campion looked perplexed, but mainly he just looked bored and hacked off – a common reaction to Ethelred in my experience. Purbright occasionally chipped in some obscure fact, though (thinking about it) nobody came up with any facts that I would have been prepared to describe as riveting. So fascinating did Ethelred and Campion make it all sound, in fact, that I wondered if I could just plead conscientious objections when they tried to round us up and make us go to the temple. A freshly squeezed orange juice by the pool – followed by some dedicated sleuthing on my part – sounded a better option. Anyway, I was almost asleep by the time the waiters brought us some reviving coffee.
As we left the dining room, I could see that something was troubling Ethelred. His dear little brow was furrowed. I hoped he wouldn’t feel the need to tell me why.
‘I’m sure Professor Campion was wrong about Ptolemy II,’ he whispered to me, as if it could matter. ‘It couldn’t be that Ptolemy.’
‘Not that Ptolemy? Wow! And you think somebody might actually give a shit?’ I said.
Ethelred nodded. He clearly thought they might. ‘I’ll check in my guidebook.’
‘Let me know straight away if you’re right,’ I said. ‘I shan’t sleep, worrying that it might have been Ptolemy III.’
‘Ethelred,’ I said, opening my cabin door an inch or so. ‘I was being ironic. Nobody on the planet gives a monkey’s about who built the temple except you, Ptolemy and Professor Campion. At this precise moment in time, Professor Campion is asleep and Ptolemy is mummified, so save it for tomorrow.’
‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Can I come in? Wow! Did somebody peel all those grapes free of charge or are they being put on my bill?’
‘Tell me what it is I don’t understand,’ I said, diminishing the grape pile by one, ‘then let me get back to sleep.’
‘The point,’ said Ethelred, with a touching belief that I shared more than a microgram of his enthusiasm, ‘is that I was certain it wasn’t Ptolemy II who built the temple.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ I observed, wishing to show interest in his little ideas, as you must occasionally with your authors.
‘So, I checked it in my guidebook – and what do you think?’
‘It was Ptolemy III?’
‘No.’
‘IV?’
‘No.’
‘V?’
‘No.’
‘VI?’
‘No.’
‘Well, which sodding pharaoh was it then?’
‘Ptolemy II.’
‘II?’
‘Yes. By the way – you don’t pronounce it “Eye-Eye.”’
‘So, just like Campion said?’
‘Yes.’
‘You woke me up to tell me that?’
‘You weren’t asleep.’
‘That is a pure technicality, and you know it. You have disturbed what might have been my beauty sleep to tell me that Professor Campion was right and you were wrong. Why not phone the BBC and let them know too? That’s also irony, in case you are actually tempted to do it.’
‘No, the point is that both the book and Campion are wrong. Think about it – there were fourteen Ptolemies, so Ptolemy II couldn’t possibly have been around in 57 BC. It’s just a misprint. As you know, Ptolemy I blah, blah, blah, bloop, bloop, blippy, blip, blap, blappy, blap.’
Again, I have had to paraphrase some of what he said to make it more intelligible for you.
I waved my hand to indicate I was now as big an expert on pharaohs, up to and including Ptolemy Ex-Ivy, as I wished to be.
‘Or, alternatively,’ I said, ‘just accept you could be wrong and everybody else could be right.’
Ethelred frowned thoughtfully at this novel suggestion, unaware that the conversation had already finished. Then in the silence we heard, from not that far off, an entirely different and more interesting tête-à-tête. The door leading to my balcony was open and somebody on the deck immediately above was having a very urgent discussion with somebody else. Sadly we had already missed part of it because Ethelred was shit scared I might be confusing two different, though equally mummified, pharaohs.
‘ . . . at Edfu,’ said Professor Campion. He was cross but we had (and you are quite right in blaming Ethelred for this) missed the reason why.
‘I should never have agreed to do this,’ said Sky Benson.
‘But you did. Indeed, I seem to remember you were quite insistent that you should be part of it.’
‘I don’t know that I can go through with it. But maybe we won’t have to?’ There was an almost plaintive note in her voice. Campion’s response was brief but mean.
‘We’ve got to go through with it now. If the opportunity arises, we have no choice. We can scarcely go back and say that we simply changed our minds.’
‘No,’ said Sky Benson.
One or other of them sighed. Possibly both of them. Neither had sounded exactly content with their lot.
‘Just try to relax and at least act normally,’ Campion said. ‘If you constantly look as though you’re about to commit a murder, people will start to get suspicious.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ she said.
‘Now, go back to your cabin before anyone overhears us.’
A bit late for that, obviously. Sky Benson muttered something we could not quite make out and quick footsteps tapped across our ceiling (their floor). After a carefully judged but, as it happened, completely redundant delay, a heavier tread above us and some carefree but tuneless whistling announced the professor’s own departure.
‘So, I was right then,’ I said, without the slightest trace of smugness. ‘They know each other. And Campion is forcing her to do something she doesn’t want to do.’
‘Do you know how smug you look?’ asked Ethelred.
But this conversation too was quickly superseded by another. The spot above my cabin was clearly a sheltered corner in which people imagined they could have confidential chats. A second couple had taken up their stations.
‘This is an unexpected surprise,’ said Purbright. His tone of voice gave little away, but it was fairly clear that he did not mean it was a birthday cake or a free chocolate bar. ‘Are you about to tell me your presence here is a complete coincidence?’
If there was a reply, the other person present was very softly spoken. Perhaps Purbright’s words had simply been greeted with a shrug or smile because he continued: ‘I can’t easily throw you off the boat, but I’m warning you not to get in my way . . . is that a light down there?’ The last words were spoken in a hoarse whisper. Whatever conclusions the two of them reached about the light, we heard no more – just footsteps crossing the deck, one briskly, the other with deliberate, almost irritating, slowness. Then there was just the rumble of the engines and the swishing of the paddles to break the stillness of the night.
‘That’s your fault, that is,’ I said.
‘Mine?’
‘If you hadn’t disturbed me, my light would have been off and they would have stayed and talked a bit more.’
‘If I hadn’t disturbed you, you would apparently have been asleep and missed both conversations.’
There is no reasoning with Ethelred sometimes. I therefore ushered him, still protesting, out of my cabin and got back into bed. Though I stayed awake for some time, there were no further discussions, secret or otherwise, on the deck above me.
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I was just drifting off to sleep when it struck me that I had not checked my new phone for the many important messages that would have arrived for me from both friends and business contacts. I duly switched it on and accepted the Egyptian network on offer. Disappointingly there were no missed calls and only one new message, from an unidentified caller. I opened it. It proved to be from Ethelred. I read it three times before it sank in, but the message was really admirably clear.
It said:
I am going to kill you,
Ethelred
If this was because I dissed his Ptolemy theory, he really needed to chill out a bit.
I got up and checked that my door was locked. Then I went to sleep.
Eight
My father must have spent a great deal of my childhood thinking up words of advice that would benefit me in later life. One of the few aphorisms that I still follow – or indeed can now recall – is that, on holiday, you should always opt for an early breakfast. In my father’s opinion, the fruit juice and boiled eggs were that much fresher. The stocks of cereal and jam would still be complete. The staff would be that much more attentive. The view from the window would be softer, still in the glow of the newly risen sun. It is true that he based this policy on the shortcomings of certain cheap hotels in the Peak District or North Wales in which he, and therefore my mother and I, endured our summer holidays thirty or more years ago. Nevertheless, it was one of his better dicta. There really is something about an early breakfast that puts a spring in one’s step and makes one’s spirits rise.
‘What are you playing at, you pillock?’
My thoughts were interrupted by a short, plump literary agent thrusting a mobile phone in my face.
‘That’s my phone,’ I said, eyeing it from roughly three inches away.
‘No,’ said Elsie. ‘This is my phone. Unless you are sending text messages to yourself. Why are you threatening to kill me?’
‘What are you talking about?’ I tried to focus on the screen in front of me. By moving my head back slightly I managed to get the words to take shape: I am going to kill you, Ethelred.
‘I’m talking about that!’ said Elsie, whipping the phone away again. ‘You are not allowed to send me death threats, Ethelred. It’s in your contract. Para 65.2 b.’
‘Are you sure it’s in the contract?’
‘It’s a standard clause. Ask any agent.’
‘But I didn’t send you that message,’ I said.
‘Then how come it’s on my phone?’ asked Elsie. She clicked once or twice to reveal the number of the sender. ‘Are you saying that isn’t your phone number?’
I sighed. ‘No, that isn’t my number. But that is my phone.’
Elsie looked blank.
‘When you compared phones on the plane, you must have taken the wrong one. I’ve clearly got your phone and you have mine there in your hand. That’s my phone.’
‘But . . .’
‘Read it again. That message doesn’t mean: I am going to kill you, kind regards, Ethelred. It means: My dearest Ethelred, I am going to kill you.’
Elsie looked at the message again, then at me, then at the message again.
‘Your phone?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘A message to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not a message to me?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘So who is the message from?’ she demanded.
‘Nobody you know,’ I said.
‘Ethelred, you are a crap liar. Your face gives you away every time.’
‘It’s just a joke,’ I said. ‘From a friend.’
‘You have weird friends,’ said Elsie.
‘Better than weird enemies,’ I said. Though obviously it wasn’t much better.
Elsie might have taken this conversation further, but there were other more pressing matters on her mind. She had switched to tapping her fingers on the table and looking round the dining room impatiently.
‘So, where are the sensible people?’ she asked, in what would probably prove to be a rhetorical question. ‘Ah, yes – they are all asleep in their beds. That’s why there are only morons here at present.’
‘As far as I can see, it is just the two of us,’ I pointed out, having briefly checked the room. ‘I am sure that the others will all be here in a few minutes, regretting their tardiness. In the meantime, I am going to get myself a fresh omelette.’
‘Ethelred, the normal people won’t be here for another couple of hours. You have time for at least a dozen omelettes, some using eggs from hens as yet unborn, before the first of the other passengers shows.’
‘Since we are to visit the temple at eight, it would be most unwise of them to delay so long.’ I gave a little chuckle at this excellent riposte.
Elsie showed her contempt by buttering a croissant with slow, sarcastic strokes of her knife.
‘In any case,’ I added, ‘I am curious to see what happens next.’
Elsie nodded, her mouth now full of butter mingled with small quantities of croissant. On this point at least we were in agreement. The conversations that we had overheard established that Professor Campion and Miss Benson not only knew each other but had some plan of action that they wished to keep quiet for the moment. So would they again opt for different tables? Purbright too was already acquainted with one of the other passengers, and he had not been pleased to see him – or her. Would a glance or remark give away who it was?
‘So, who was Purbright talking to?’ asked Elsie.
‘Proctor?’ I suggested. ‘We know that Proctor thinks he is here to guard Purbright. Maybe that was Purbright telling Proctor his services were not needed. He couldn’t throw him off the boat, but—’
‘But Purbright isn’t Raffles,’ said Elsie. ‘The policemen have him down as the man who is planning to kill Raffles. So, he can’t be Proctor’s employer.’
‘They’re not policemen,’ I said.
‘Whatever,’ said Elsie. ‘I still say Purbright is acting suspiciously. That conversation up there on deck last night was very odd.’
‘Purbright is . . .’ I began. Then I stopped. If Purbright really was MI6, then the last person I should tell was Elsie.
‘Purbright is?’ she asked. ‘Ethelred, any sentence from you lacking a complement always makes me suspicious. You have deliberately terminated what you were about to say, your brain having belatedly caught up with your tongue and given it a good slapping. So, what have you just decided not to tell me about Purbright?’
‘I think somebody has been pulling your leg,’ I said, providing both subject and predicate in full this time. ‘Policemen don’t just blow their cover in the way you say these two have. They’re simply a couple of passengers who decided to have a joke at your expense. If you want to believe any of the stories we’ve been told, collectively or individually, then we can at least be sure that Herbie Proctor is a detective – of sorts. And he’d hardly be on this boat unless somebody was paying his expenses in full.’
‘So you are dismissing my two nice policemen and relying on the word of the worst private detective known to man?’
‘Your rather touching assumption that they are policemen is based on a couple of pieces of paper purporting to be warrants and waved briefly in front of you,’ I said.
‘And you think I can’t spot a real Egyptian warrant?’ she demanded.
‘I do indeed. If the warrants were in Arabic,’ I pointed out patiently, ‘you wouldn’t have been able to read them. If conversely they had been in English, then they would most certainly be forgeries made entirely for your benefit. Or perhaps they were in Latvian?’
‘God, you’re pompous,’ said Elsie, as she usually does when I am right.
‘They are not police,’ I said. ‘Take my word for it.’
‘Well, if we have two fake policemen on board, then we really have problems. Either they are with the Cairo police or they are up to something very funny indeed.’
Here Elsie
had a point. ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘we should alert Captain Bashir . . .’
‘They said to tell nobody,’ said Elsie.
‘But the captain—’
‘Obviously they feel they can trust no one on board – except me.’
Which of course was final and absolute proof that they could not possibly be policemen. Elsie was about to reply when she noticed we had company. I was not, after all, alone in believing that an early breakfast was best.
‘Mind if we join you?’ The two young Americans were both wearing sleeveless cashmere jerseys against the early morning chill – Tom’s was beige, John’s rose-coloured. They seemed to be enclosed in an aura of soap, toothpaste and aftershave.
‘Do we just collect stuff from the buffet?’ asked John, as he sat down.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You go and choose but you’ll find the waiters then bring it over for you. That’s as close to self-service as this boat gets.’
‘Interesting learning the local customs. Interesting place generally. Folk back home think we’re nuts coming here, what with all the terrorists. Of course, we try not to look too much like Americans,’ said John.
‘You look totally like an American,’ said Tom.
‘And you don’t?’
‘Observe,’ said Tom. ‘Beige cashmere. Not pink. I blend with the desert. At fifty yards, the upper half of my body is completely invisible.’
‘And the cream slacks?’
‘You reckon the terrorists are going to hang around when they see a pair of disembodied cream slacks heading for them? I don’t think so somehow.’
‘Ignore him. He’s mad,’ said John.
‘Ignore him. He’s from Kansas,’ said Tom. ‘Never trust anyone from Kansas, even if they have a cute dog with them. Sooner or later they’ll dump a house right on top of you and steal your ruby slippers.’
‘If you don’t mind my saying so, that sounds rather unlikely. Is this seat taken?’ Miss Watson sat down without waiting for a reply. The black-uniformed waiter, who had been following a few paces behind her, whisked the bowl of fruit he had been carrying onto the table and unfolded her napkin for her with a well-practised flourish.
