Herring on the Nile

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘Annabelle is Lady Muntham – Sir Robert’s widow. He had, frankly, good reasons for leaving her as little as he could get away with – two-timing bitch.’

  ‘I can see that might have pissed her off,’ said Tom, ‘but you say she is a friend?’

  ‘She decided that the best way of keeping the house was to get her hands on Ethelred. Ethelred is not, sadly, well versed in the ways of evil two-timing bitches – he rather seems to like them in fact – and I thought for a while that he might be about to go along with the whole thing. But just before he left for Egypt he finally saw reason and put Muntham Court on the market. Annabelle would have taken it as a clear signal that her original plan was pants and that she needed another one.’

  ‘Just out of interest, if Ethelred dies, does the house revert to Annabelle under the will?’ asked Tom, echoing thoughts I had already had.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I guess there could be something in it about Ethelred having to survive Sir Robert by a certain time, failing which the bequest might go elsewhere.’

  ‘And you think she has joined us to bump Ethelred off? Surely not?’

  I thought about this. Purbright’s shooting was the work of somebody who was very desperate, very pissed off, a very cool customer . . . and probably an ex-pole dancer. Into how many of those classes did Annabelle fit? Four at least. But would she really have mistaken Purbright for Ethelred?

  ‘Ethelred and Purbright were both wearing white dinner jackets,’ I said. ‘Annabelle saw them leave the dining room together. She followed, gun in hand, lay in wait, and then shot the wrong one. She panicked and dumped the gun in the empty cabin, which Miss Watson had failed to lock properly that first afternoon after faffing around over her choice of bunks.’

  ‘Having previously tried to kill Ethelred at the temple by toppling that stone?’ asked Tom.

  ‘It was a strange coincidence that she showed up precisely then,’ I said. ‘And she matches the description of the lady in the floppy hat seen heading for the roof.’

  ‘Interesting theory,’ said Tom.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘If so, Purbright was simply in the right place in the wrong clothes – the sort of dreadful fashion faux pas anyone might make. Maybe the question is now irrelevant – but do you think Purbright really is this Raffles person? That would certainly be an ironic twist – to get accidentally bumped off by one of the few people who didn’t think you deserved it.’

  ‘Was he Raffles? Only in Herbie Proctor’s imagination,’ I said. ‘The police reckoned Purbright was actually the one who was out to kill Raffles.’

  ‘Majid and Mahmoud actually mentioned Raffles by name?’

  I tried to remember what they had said; it all seemed a long time ago. ‘Kind of,’ I hedged.

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Tom. ‘In that case, the potential murderer is himself bumped off. But where is the real Mr Raffles then? More to the point, where is Ethelred?’

  I was wondering that too. I just had to hope my nice policemen were guarding him well.

  Eighteen

  Q: Our readers are always interested in how writers work. Describe the room you are writing in now.

  A: I am in a small hut somewhere in the Nile Valley. It contains a wooden bed, on which I am now sitting, and an old table that may have been painted blue at some point in the distant past. The walls are completely bare. The door seems to be locked. There are bars on the windows. There is a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. I can’t see any way of switching the light on or off from inside the room. That’s about it, really.

  Q: Do you have a regular writing routine?

  A: I tend to get up early and write, particularly if I can’t sleep for any reason. It’s currently two o’clock in the morning, for example.

  Q: What books are on your bedside table at the moment?

  A: The Koran.

  Q: Have you travelled much?

  A: Yes. During the past few hours I have been on a Nile paddle steamer, a fast motorboat and then a pick-up truck with bad suspension. Finally I had a tricky walk, while blindfolded for the second time today, with a machine gun prodding me in the back. I’m hoping that somebody will soon tell me where I have travelled to. And why. Yesterday I was on a coach travelling to Edfu temple – though that seems a very long time ago now.

  Q: I realize we aren’t a great tourist destination, but have you ever visited Scunthorpe?

  A: You’ve no idea how much I would like to be there with you right now.

  ‘It’s good to see you hard at work,’ said Mahmoud, locking the door again behind him.

  ‘Just some questions for a newspaper in Scunthorpe,’ I said, looking up. ‘All publicity is good publicity.’

  Being able to do something as mundane as answer interview questions was strangely reassuring. It seemed unlikely that anyone had ever been murdered while writing for the Scunthorpe Telegraph. Or not recently.

  ‘That is exactly how I feel about my work as well,’ said Mahmoud. He had remained standing – a position of advantage, as it now seemed to me from my rickety wooden chair.

  ‘And what is your work?’ I asked, looking up at him. ‘You are not expecting me to believe that this is police headquarters?’

  Mahmoud looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. ‘You are right. This is not police headquarters. It is however a convenient place for us all to be in at the moment. It may not have the amenities of a British police station and perhaps the Police and Criminal Evidence Act doesn’t apply here – but, as Tom would say, I have a feeling that you are not in Kansas any more.’

  ‘So why am I here?’

  ‘Other than because you shot Purbright, you mean? That would seem reason enough.’

  ‘I didn’t shoot Purbright. You know that perfectly well.’

  ‘You went out on deck with him.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You were the only passenger not to come to the saloon as requested.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had a gun. You threatened to shoot us.’

  ‘I didn’t shoot Purbright,’ I repeated. ‘I didn’t lay my hands on the gun until after he was dead. And what motive could I possibly have had?’

  ‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’

  He was right there, of course. I would say that. I have after all written many scenes in which the murderer is obliged to deny a shooting or a stabbing in almost exactly these terms. What usually followed was a grilling in which they were slowly worn down – in the case of my Master Thomas historical mysteries, by foul means as often as fair. As the motorboat had sped away from the Khedive, it had struck me that I might experience some discomfort, and possibly boredom, before I was ransomed. Death had at that point seemed unlikely – why should anyone wish to kill a second-rate, or even third-rate, crime writer? But death, and perhaps a fairly unpleasant one, was surely something that I had to allow for? Twice I had placed Master Thomas in a position in which he faced being tortured to death unless he revealed information that he simply did not have. Master Thomas had remained quite perky, even in the malodorous dungeons of Bramber Castle. His answers to questions had been confident – insouciant even – in the face of the most blatant threats. My voice, I noticed, had a tremor in it even at this stage. It’s much easier to write insouciance than do it.

  ‘I’m the least likely person to have shot Purbright – we were on the same side. Whoever killed him, it wasn’t me.’

  Mahmoud suddenly whacked a large fist into the palm of his hand and smiled when I involuntarily jumped at the sound. I expected him to follow up this action with some remark along the lines that he had ways of making me confess. What he actually said was slightly different.

  ‘What a pity,’ said Mahmoud. ‘You see, Ethelred, we had rather hoped that you had shot him. It would have made things much more straightforward for us and, from your point of view, it would scarcely be something that we would hold against you. As it is, what you say presents u
s with a problem, because we certainly did not kill him. And that means we have to ask ourselves who else is on board the Khedive and why they should have chosen to kill a member of your security services.’

  ‘And his colleague,’ I said. ‘Somebody had already killed Purbright’s colleague.’

  ‘Ah yes, the colleague,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Since we were on the boat at the time, that, you must concede, could scarcely have been down to us.’

  ‘But you know about it nevertheless?’

  ‘The killing of the Egyptian security service man? He was travelling down from Cairo to join the boat. We think he knew that he was being followed. That is why he did not take the express service from Cairo to Luxor, but travelled by local train, changing twice. He was at a small station, not so far from Luxor, when he was shot. Apparently he had just finished a phone call. His final words were: “I understand. I’ll watch out for the woman.” Do you know who he might have been referring to?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘So,’ said Mahmoud, ‘you will appreciate our problem. Was the woman, in effect, on their side – another member of the security service of one country or another – and he had to make contact with her? Or was she a threat that he had to guard against? If so, did the woman kill your friend Purbright?’

  ‘So Purbright was with MI6? And you are Al-Qaeda or something?’

  ‘It’s a murky world that you have just entered, Ethelred. Things are not always what they seem. Let us just say that we are as sure as we can be that Purbright had been sent to watch us and interfere with our plans if he could. Did he mention any of that to you?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I said.

  ‘You aren’t very good at lying, are you? Your face gives you away. What puzzles us is why he clearly took you into his confidence in the way he did. You were scarcely likely to be of much value to him. Then, out of the blue, somebody shoots him. You say it wasn’t you. And we say it wasn’t us. So, we have to conclude that there was somebody else on the boat who found it inconvenient to have Mr Purbright on board with them. The question is: Who? And for us it is a more urgent question than you may think. When exactly did you last see Purbright alive?’

  He smiled at me reassuringly, the previous threat temporarily shelved. Mahmoud was, to give him his due, quite able to play both good cop and bad cop without help from Majid. It seemed better to keep him in good cop mode and at least appear cooperative. In any case, I too wanted to know who had shot Purbright.

  ‘You know the answer to that too,’ I said. ‘I last saw him alive just before he was shot. He told me he had to speak to somebody and that I should wait for him.’

  ‘And that person was?’

  That was a question that had of course been at the back of my mind for some time. Who had Purbright gone to see, and why hadn’t he wanted to tell me who it was? He had after all taken me into his confidence more generally. Was it the same person Elsie and I had heard him talking to the other night? And, thinking about it, Purbright had glanced at his watch before telling me that he would be away for ten minutes. So, the meeting had certainly been prearranged. But he hadn’t seemed worried. Mildly irritated perhaps, but not in fear of his life. Except, he had given me the phone number just in case . . .

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said rather lamely.

  ‘This time, I think you are telling the truth. But perhaps together we can find out what actually happened. It really is in both of our interests. Did Purbright think he was in danger? Could he have received the same warning as his Egyptian counterpart?’

  ‘I think Purbright may have known something. He gave me . . .’ I paused. The phone number was written on the back of my Southend Evening Echo interview and, more helpfully, would still be in the memory of my mobile phone, which had been taken from me as soon as we had arrived at our present location. ‘He certainly gave me to believe that he might be in danger,’ I said.

  ‘Did you hear the shot?’

  ‘No, there was too much noise.’

  ‘But a pistol shot is quite loud, would you not agree? And you were very close?’

  ‘Yes to both of those questions,’ I said. ‘Perhaps the killer used a silencer?’

  ‘No, three people apparently heard the shot quite distinctly – so the killer did not use a silencer. Perhaps Purbright was shot further away from you – and closer to them – and he subsequently managed to stagger back that far?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. The main objection to the staggering hypothesis was that there had been plenty of blood around Purbright’s body, but I couldn’t remember seeing any anywhere else on deck. Had there been blood on the wall behind him? It had been dark and I hadn’t checked – at the time, examining blood spatter patterns had seemed a lower priority than checking whether the killer was still at large. The balance of probability was that Purbright had collapsed and died pretty much where he was shot, but I couldn’t be absolutely sure.

  ‘Were you aware of anyone – one of the passengers or crew – taking an undue interest in Mr Purbright?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But the stone at the temple may have been aimed at him.’

  ‘But, if that was not an accident, the rock was surely intended for you or Mr Proctor?’

  ‘I was there with Purbright a few moments before.’

  ‘So the stone could have been aimed at Purbright by somebody who had not realized he had moved on?’ asked Mahmoud.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ I said.

  ‘On the contrary. You were there at the temple. Majid and I were back at the boat. Your guess would be considerably better informed. If the shooting was the second attempt on Purbright’s life, that would indicate a determined and rather reckless assassin, would it not?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘But, Ethelred, you didn’t see anyone up on the roof?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you know about Lizzi Hull?’

  ‘Nothing really.’

  ‘She is well informed on Middle Eastern matters.’

  ‘She said that she could understand why somebody might choose to be a terrorist – that’s miles away from actually being one.’

  ‘I agree. Then Miss Watson? Miss Benson? Lady Muntham?’

  ‘You are ruling out the men? On the basis of a chance remark, overheard at a railway station?’

  ‘Not entirely, but we have to look at probabilities. We don’t have very long, to tell you the truth.’

  ‘You don’t suspect Elsie?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘why was it only Elsie that you told you were policemen?’

  ‘There’s nothing so convincing as allowing a story to come out bit by bit from an apparently reliable source.’

  ‘You were counting on her not to keep it a secret?’

  ‘Of course. Did she not tell you straight away?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘But, in the meantime, we are still no closer to identifying the killer. And before you accuse us again, I repeat that it is in our common interest that we believe each other for a moment.’

  ‘Does it really matter to you who killed him?’

  ‘Oh yes, it matters to us. And to you. You see, it affects how we deal with the small problem of the Khedive and those who are still on it.’

  ‘The Khedive is hardly your problem. They’ll already be towing it off the sandbank,’ I said.

  ‘On the contrary. I doubt that will happen until the morning,’ said Mahmoud. ‘We still have our options open.’

  ‘You mean you might go back and blow it up?’

  ‘You really are convinced we are terrorists, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Mahmoud smiled. ‘I’ll leave you to work on your interview.’

  But somehow, in spite of his consideration in leaving me alone, I couldn’t quite interest myself in the Scunthorpe Telegraph any more.

  It was perhaps half an hour later when Majid came to see me.

  ‘I am s
orry that you are not being treated as well as I would like,’ he said.

  I reassessed the good cop/bad cop thing. Majid was not, after all, completely redundant in the scheme of things. Mahmoud had worried me. Maybe Majid would now set out some proposal that would offer me a hope of safety and secure my agreement to participate in whatever plan they had dreamt up.

  ‘I can’t say I’m comfortable, but I can’t complain at being mistreated,’ I said.

  Majid shook his head grimly: ‘I thought Mahmoud would have said something to you. There’s been a change in plan.’

  ‘So what is the new plan?’

  ‘You are his new plan. You don’t need to blow up a boat with thirty or forty people on it to get publicity. There are plenty of other ways of grabbing the world’s attention for a few days. A video of the death of a famous writer, for example.’

  ‘You mean me?’ I asked. I hoped he didn’t.

  ‘That’s Mahmoud’s preference – but we don’t always get everything we wish for in this life.’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘Listen,’ said Majid, dropping his voice to an urgent whisper. ‘Things are not quite as they seem.’

  ‘In what way?’ I asked.

  ‘Keep your voice down. I really am with the Egyptian police,’ said Majid.

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘As you have already guessed, they are part of a group of very dangerous extremists.’

  ‘Any particular reason why I should believe you aren’t part of the group too?’

  ‘I can understand why you might be cautious. But the risks I shall ask you to take are small ones compared with the risk that I am running myself.’

  ‘I guess I would have to agree with that. If that’s the truth, you’re taking a big chance telling me all this.’

  ‘I’m taking a big chance being with the group at all. Mahmoud is beginning to suspect. It’s time for me to – what is the phrase you use? – come in from the cold. But first I need to get you back to the Khedive unharmed.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We’ll come to that in a moment.’

  ‘But I still don’t understand why I am here. What was the change of plan? What does Mahmoud intend to do with me?’