Herring on the Nile

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘True enough,’ said Elsie. ‘Still, give the poor lad a break, eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Annabelle. ‘I think we should give Ethelred a break.’

  And Elsie, for some reason, glowered at her.

  I ended up sitting with Elsie out on deck, watching the sun come up. She had filled me in on what had transpired in my absence.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘that looks like that. We know who killed Purbright. It was Mahmoud and Majid. They were clearly not policemen. And, whatever they told me, they clearly needed him dead. Masterman says a tug is on its way from Aswan to get us floated again. We’ll be in Kom Ombo in time for lunch. They’ll do running repairs there to get us to Aswan.’

  ‘But do we know who killed Purbright?’ asked Elsie. ‘Mahmoud and Majid are accounted for at the time the shot was heard.’

  ‘But Masterman says Jane Watson was mistaken.’

  ‘That’s only because he is a pompous prat,’ explained Elsie. ‘I was with Jane when she heard the shot. I believe her.’

  ‘Did you hear it?’ I asked.

  Elsie paused and considered. ‘There was an awful lot of other noise,’ she conceded, ‘but Masterman wasn’t even there. How does he know? How do we even know who Masterman is?’

  ‘He’s MI6,’ I said.

  ‘What proof do you have?’

  ‘I spoke to him via the number that Purbright gave me,’ I said. ‘Also he hasn’t tried to blow us up lately, unlike your so-called policemen.’

  ‘Good point,’ said Elsie. ‘It could have been Annabelle of course.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘In mistake for you.’

  ‘Hardly,’ I said.

  For a while we sat there, the horizon now a broad flash of crimson that merged slowly into the last blue-grey strands of night.

  ‘Why did Annabelle initially refuse to come on this trip?’ asked Elsie.

  ‘She changed her—’

  ‘How about the truth this time?’

  I sighed. ‘You know that I am planning to sell the house?’

  ‘Yes. You told me ages ago . . . hold on, you hadn’t told her, had you?’

  ‘Not until last week,’ I said.

  ‘But you have a buyer.’

  ‘More or less,’ I said.

  ‘So didn’t Annabelle notice would-be purchasers tramping through her sitting room?’

  ‘The market for houses that size isn’t like the market for flats,’ I said. ‘The agents advertised it discreetly to a small number of potential clients. I had arranged for the agents to visit Muntham Court when Annabelle wasn’t there to take video footage. Most of the likely buyers were overseas anyway.’

  ‘But to tie up the deal they would have to see it?’

  ‘It’s been known for sales to take place without that, but yes, in this case, they wanted to.’

  ‘So Annabelle would have found out . . . unless she was away for a while. In Egypt, for example.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s a fair summary.’

  ‘So you booked a trip for the two of you on the Khedive?’

  ‘At first she wasn’t keen. Then she noticed that the word “luxury” was mentioned twenty-seven times in the brochure.’

  ‘That woman is so shallow,’ said Elsie.

  ‘We were all set to go but—’

  ‘But she found out?’

  ‘The buyers turned up ten days too soon. They thought it would be OK to bring the appointment forward a bit.’

  ‘So, was it OK?’

  ‘Annabelle and I had a long discussion about it afterwards,’ I said.

  ‘I bet. And then you decided that you’d come to Egypt anyway?’

  ‘It seemed prudent,’ I said.

  ‘Ethelred,’ said Elsie. ‘If you were to die before the sale goes through – and heaven forbid that my signed first editions should appreciate in value in such a sad manner – what exactly happens to Muntham Court? Does Annabelle get it back by any chance?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s complex but—’

  ‘“Yes” is fine,’ said Elsie. ‘And the message threatening to kill you was from Annabelle?’

  ‘It wasn’t intended to be taken literally,’ I said. ‘She probably sent it – well, round about the time she realized I actually had gone to Egypt on my own. Think of it as a reflex reaction. Anyway, I can’t see Annabelle chipping her nail varnish firing a gun, can you?’

  I could tell that Elsie desperately wanted it to be Annabelle who had killed Purbright in mistake for me. That Annabelle might kill me was still very much on the cards, but she’d be more subtle than a bullet fired at close range. Of that at least I was certain.

  The Nile was very still. On its surface lay an impressionist view of green banks and distant brown hills. It was day, but the last damp traces of the night still hung in the air. Out in mid-river, sensibly avoiding running aground, were three small fishing boats. The men on board were going through a routine of beating the water with long poles, then dragging it with nets, then beating again. They waved. I waved back. In the distance I heard a diesel engine cough into life as a pump started its work for the day. There was a cruel normality to everything I could see or hear or smell. It was difficult to believe that any of the previous night’s events had actually occurred, were it not for the fact that the Khedive was stranded on a grassy bank and that Purbright was not there and would never be here or anywhere else again.

  Most of the passengers had retired to their cabins to catch up on their sleep. I was wondering whether there was any point in my not joining them, when I saw Annabelle appear from the stairway. Her suitcase must have been almost as capacious as Elsie’s, because she wore yet another perfectly pressed outfit – this time an off-white linen skirt and blouse. Her hair was tied back with a bright pink scarf. She looked in my direction and smiled. Instinctively I glanced behind me, but then realized that I was for some reason the object of her pleasure. She confirmed this by coming over and standing next to me at the ship’s rail.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, for no better reason than because it was the way I began most conversations with Annabelle.

  ‘I think you’ve been very brave,’ she said, placing her hand gently on my arm.

  I wondered which of my actions she was referring to. Probably not the bit where I hid under the bed. I tried to look brave but modest.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Annabelle.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  ‘You seemed to be pulling some sort of face.’

  I tried to look brave but normal. ‘I’m just tired,’ I said. ‘I didn’t get much sleep.’

  ‘Nor did we,’ said Annabelle, in the tone she usually used about my snoring.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said again.

  Annabelle seemed to be heading for a snort of derision, then checked herself and took a deep breath. She gave me a tight-lipped smile.

  ‘Thinking about it,’ she said, ‘you saved the Khedive and everyone on it.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Oh yes. Most certainly. You cleverly got the terrorists away from the boat by . . . by . . . being frightfully clever. Then you spotted that they had put the bomb in the briefcase. Cleverly. You shouldn’t be so modest, Ethelred.’

  Though I felt this was much closer to the truth than Herbie Proctor’s earlier assessment of my conduct, there was nevertheless something in Annabelle’s tone that putme onmy guard.

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ I said, this time avoiding pulling any sort of face.

  ‘I admire bravery in a man,’ said Annabelle. ‘Particularly the man that I am planning to spend the rest of my life with.’

  Just for a second I wondered whom she could have met on the boat who had impressed her so quickly. Then I realized that that wasn’t quite what she had meant. But I had been led to believe that particular deal was dead in the water.

  ‘Me?’ I said.

  She pulled me closer to her, encircling my arm with her own. ‘When they . . . when they took you away last night, I sud
denly realized I might never see you again.’

  ‘When we last discussed the matter, Annabelle, that was your preferred option. You did mention meeting up again when hell froze over, but I didn’t put it in my diary.’

  ‘One says things in the heat of the moment,’ said Annabelle. She was looking over the river and into the distance, as though seeing a future that was still shrouded for me.

  Out on the Nile, the fishermen were hauling in a net that kicked and pulsated with its slippery silver contents. Their early-morning work, using age-old techniques, had borne fruit.

  Annabelle rested her head on my shoulder. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sleepy.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said, without thinking.

  ‘Maybe we should go back to our cabins and have a nap before the day really begins,’ said Annabelle, though she did not release my arm as a necessary preliminary.

  ‘Good thinking,’ I said.

  ‘They’ve given me quite a large cabin,’ said Annabelle. ‘It has a really comfortable double bed.’

  ‘Mine too,’ I said. ‘Brilliantly comfortable.’

  ‘Your place it is, then. Get your coat, Ethelred, you’ve pulled.’

  ‘But . . .’ I said.

  This too was an arrangement that I had imagined had been terminated. Since our last conversation in England had precluded ever meeting again, I had assumed it must rule out sleeping together. Apparently not.

  ‘You mean a lot to me, Ethelred,’ said Annabelle, giving me a little kiss on the cheek. ‘Of course, you have your faults, as you must be aware. You can be rather pedantic. You are self-pitying to an extent that I had not believed possible. Your demeanour is usually that of a lost puppy. You think that it is endearing, possibly even normal, to wear a twenty-year-old Barbour jacket that is fit only for the compost heap. You snore. You refuse to accept the idea that you are going bald. Your idea of disposing of dental floss is to put it on top of something else then forget about it. You refuse to eat any marmalade that isn’t the colour of treacle. You are, under most circumstances, completely spineless. You cannot remember when your own birthday is, let alone other people’s. You go on and on and on and on and on about wanting to write a great literary novel, but you never do write one. You do not trim the hair in your ears. You neither wear nor throw away your old ties. You squeeze the toothpaste tube at the top, for God’s sake. You are completely under the domination of your literary agent, who you should have sacked years ago. You see the best in everyone. In spite of that, you have no friends with whom any sane person would wish to associate. You are untidy. You have no ambition. You apologize all the time, regardless of whether you have done anything wrong.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. Then: ‘Were you going to add a “but”?’

  ‘But in spite of all of that I still love you,’ Annabelle concluded graciously.

  I’d hoped Annabelle might have noticed one or two good points to list in the credit column. Maybe she’d tell me about those later, perhaps in that distant future she had been contemplating.

  We walked back down the stairs together and along the gloomy corridor to my cabin. For some reason I found myself checking that Elsie had not observed us. Annabelle was right in that respect, however: I did need to stand up to Elsie more.

  Once we were safely in the cabin Annabelle drew back the curtains as though to check that my view was not better than I deserved. Outside, the men were at work again on the water, beating away with their sticks and convincing the fish that being caught was the wisest option. She slowly closed the curtains again and turned to me, a significant glint in her eye. She slipped off her shoes and started to approach me with stealthy steps.

  ‘Of course,’ I smiled, as she wrapped her arms round me, ‘all of this makes no difference to my decision to sell Muntham Court.’

  ‘Meaning what?’ She unwrapped her arms and took half a step back. There was no note of seduction in her voice any more. None at all.

  ‘Meaning, we can’t possibly afford to keep it on.’ I had started to unbutton my shirt, but I too stopped, my fingers still holding the fabric.

  ‘And you still think I get no say in this? In spite of the fact that this is our future we are talking about? In spite of the fact that Muntham Court is currently my home?’

  ‘We talked it through logically when we were in Sussex . . .’

  ‘Logically . . .’ she sneered. There was something about the word that displeased her.

  ‘If we try to hang onto it, the cost of maintaining it will bankrupt us within a year.’

  ‘Something will come up. We could run the house as a conference centre in the meantime.’

  ‘We went through all of this before. I explained it all to you. We’d have to employ staff. We’d have to make alterations to the building to meet health and safety regulations. We’d have to advertise. And there’s Wiston House just down the road catering for conferences already. We’d just be bankrupt even faster.’

  ‘I bet you can’t go bankrupt faster than a year whatever you do,’ said Annabelle, probably correctly. ‘And if you’re going to go bankrupt it might as well be for a lot as a little.’

  ‘Annabelle, I’m not doing it,’ I said.

  ‘You are completely useless,’ said Annabelle, possibly summarizing, or more likely adding to, my list of faults.

  ‘If you would just think it through sensibly,’ I said.

  She didn’t like the word ‘sensibly’ either.

  ‘Just get out of my cabin,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘It’s my cabin,’ I said.

  ‘Then get out of your cabin,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  I wondered whether it was too late to ask her what my compensating good points were, but decided that I’d probably missed my chance. I turned towards the door. As I was leaving my cabin I noticed that Annabelle had failed to draw the curtains completely. Through the gap I could still see the fishermen pulling in the last of their net. One fish, luckier than the rest, had managed to flip itself up into the air and over the side of the boat. From where I was, I observed a small splash and saw the fisherman turn briefly towards the escaper. Then, without further delay or comment, they resumed their work.

  Twenty-seven

  It was mid-morning by the time the two tugs arrived. Lines were attached, with much shouting and many elaborate nautical precautions, and we were eventually inched carefully away from the sandbank and into deep water. After some repositioning of the cables, the tugs set off upstream, with the Khedive following in their wake, ignominiously at the wrong end of a tow rope and with various bits of greenery still decorating the stern, but at least now pointing in the right direction. There was no question of running our own engines until a number of parts had been replaced.

  We visited Kom Ombo temple in the late afternoon. Campion led the party once again. After a fraught twenty-four hours, the only danger we were in was an encounter with a particularly aggressive guide leading a group of Germans around the same site. Campion, having positioned us in one of the few shady spots for his talk, found himself having to compete with a loud commentary in German a few yards away. We retreated to another part of the temple and the Germans moved into our shade. After what we had been through, none of us felt like a fight.

  As at Edfu, the party eventually split up to pursue our own inclinations. This time I stuck by Ethelred’s side. There was no sign of rocks falling from anywhere, but I reckoned Ethelred could be trusted to be right underneath if any did fall. And I had no wish to give Annabelle a chance to take him to one side. It wasn’t only the possibility of her killing him that I was worried about.

  Ethelred was however for some reason rather moody. We might have continued in silence round the entire temple complex if his phone had not rung.

  ‘Yes?’ he said. Then he was quietly attentive for a long time as somebody told him something. ‘I see,’ he said eventually. ‘I don’t think there are crocodiles in this stretch of river though. Really?
OK. Thanks for letting me know. I assume I can tell the others? Good. I’ll see you in Luxor then.’

  ‘On behalf of the others,’ I said, ‘who was that?’

  ‘That was Masterman. The Egyptian police intercepted the terrorists’ boat yesterday on its way back to wherever they were going. There was a bit of a fight and Mahmoud and Majid were both killed. Masterman says he’s certain that one or other of them shot Purbright, but now we’ll never know for sure which of them it was. Anyhow, as far as the Egyptian authorities are concerned, the case is effectively closed. They’ll be issuing a press statement later today saying that the terrorist group who killed the British secret service man were swiftly and effectively brought to justice. Masterman wants to meet up with me when we are back in Luxor, but otherwise we are free to enjoy the rest of our trip in whatever way we wish. Oh, and they’ve recovered your iPhone, along with everyone else’s.’

  ‘Have they found Purbright’s body?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Masterman doesn’t think it will ever be recovered – he mentioned crocodiles, but really there aren’t any below the Aswan dams. Even so, I can see that, unlike Osiris, he may never show up now.’

  It was a grim conversation to be having in the warm winter sunshine, with flocks of tourists milling around, snapping each other and having fun.

  Ethelred seemed to cheer up slightly after the call, his cheerfulness mainly taking the form of trying to interest me in ex-pharaoh-related stuff. After a bit, I decided retaining my own sanity was more important to the world of publishing than Ethelred’s possible death or seduction at Annabelle’s hands. The reading public were hardly going miss the odd crime writer. So Ethelred was allowed to wander the temple by himself.

  I was therefore alone when I found Tom sitting on the remains of a column. He was deep in thought, but I reckoned he would be curious to learn of the fate of Mahmoud and Majid anyway.

  ‘But you’re still not convinced they were the killers, are you?’ I concluded.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Whoever it was, he or she is still with us on the boat. I’m certainly going to be locking my cabin door tonight and I would suggest you do too, or we may find ourselves in the position of being People Who Know Too Much For Their Own Good.’