Herring on the Nile

by L. C. Tyler

  ‘I hate guns,’ said Annabelle. ‘Count me out – either as the shooter or as the target. Every time I see a gun, I shudder.’ She put her carefully manicured hands up, as if to fend off the possibility of being made to touch the murder weapon.

  ‘Me too,’ said Sky. ‘I wouldn’t go near one.’

  ‘You have my assurance,’ said Tom blandly, ‘it will be quite OK. It’s unloaded. I’d just like to see each of you take the gun, aim and pull the trigger.’

  Jane Watson however had had enough. The gym mistress spoke and spoke firmly: ‘You are clearly a complete idiot. Do you not know the first rule of handling a firearm? Never point a gun at anyone – loaded or not. And don’t mess with the trigger unless you are actually proposing to shoot something. Frankly, Tom, I am surprised at you. You are a danger to everyone on the boat. If that’s how New York gun clubs operate, I for one never plan to go near them. I forbid you even to take the gun out of the bag.’

  Tom looked suitably abashed. ‘Well, since you put it like that, Jane, I guess we’ll have to cancel that particular game. Shame though.’

  ‘Aren’t there fingerprints on the gun?’ asked Ethelred, more concerned with detection than gun safety.

  ‘Wiped clean,’ said Tom. ‘You could eat your dinner off it. OK, guys, I’ll just put it under my seat and we’ll get back to polite chit-chat.’

  ‘Do it carefully, and whatever you do don’t drop it,’ said Miss Watson.

  ‘It has an automatic firing-pin safety,’ said Tom.

  ‘So it does. I’d still prefer that you didn’t drop it, though,’ said Jane.

  And with exaggerated care, Tom placed the bag under his chair.

  After dinner, Tom, John, Ethelred and I were the last four left at the dining table.

  ‘Well, Jane Watson certainly put you in your place,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tom. He did not seem too worried.

  ‘What surprises me,’ said Ethelred, ‘is that the police – the real police, I mean – left the gun where it was.’

  Tom reached under his chair again, pulled out the plastic bag and placed it on the table. Then he put his hand into the bag and removed a portable hairdryer.

  ‘Nice,’ I said.

  ‘I never travel anywhere without it,’ said Tom. ‘I have such difficult hair. As for the Margo, the police obviously gathered it up straight away. I just wanted to see how people reacted to my suggestion that we should pass the weapon around.’

  ‘And?’ I asked.

  ‘Some were clearly pretty nervous of being anywhere near a gun. Some were quite touchingly willing to take my word for it that the gun was not loaded – suggesting they hadn’t spent much time around firearms.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘Jane’s intervention stopped the experiment halfway.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to let people use my hairdryer in earnest,’ said Tom. ‘It can overheat if you’re not careful – there would have been a real danger of split ends. No, I’d gone as far as I’d planned.’

  ‘But we’re no further forward than before,’ said Ethelred.

  ‘On the contrary,’ said Tom. ‘I’m pretty sure I now know exactly who shot Purbright. I don’t know if it was the same person who dislodged the stone at the temple, narrowly missing Ethelred and the good Mr Proctor in the process – I’m beginning to feel that may have been an accident after all. But a number of things are a lot clearer – Masterman was clearly wrong about Jane Watson not knowing what a gunshot would sound like, for example. No, the murderer gave herself away this evening. The problem – and it’s a big one – is that the motive completely eludes me. I wish I had a little more by the way of solid evidence and I wish I could tell you why she shot him. But I’m as certain as I can be what happened.’

  ‘She?’ I said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Tom.

  ‘Who?’ asked Ethelred.

  ‘Since I can’t prove it, maybe that’s all I should say – but, yes, the killer was a member of the deadlier and more ruthless sex.’

  Twenty-eight

  ‘Well,’ said Elsie, once we were completely alone, ‘who exactly is Tom saying is the murderer?’

  I sighed. ‘Isn’t it obvious? He means Annabelle.’

  Elsie nodded a little too quickly for my taste. It was almost unthinkable, but it was the only logical conclusion. She did however raise one small objection. ‘Tom’s little experiment suggested that Annabelle wouldn’t go near a gun. Doesn’t that throw a spanner in the works?’

  ‘My guess is that Tom wasn’t fooled any more than I was. Two of her previous husbands have been keen on grouse shooting. She’ll have held a gun more often than most people on the boat. She certainly knew better than to point the gun at somebody. But she pretended she hadn’t used one. That bit of play-acting was pretty much what convinced me and is probably what convinced Tom too. No, it seems quite clear what happened. She picked up a gun in Cairo as she passed through – I don’t know where of course. The first attempt to kill me was at Edfu – just after she arrived. John saw somebody in a floppy hat climbing the stairs to the roof. Then, after dinner the other night, she saw me go off with Purbright and decided to have another go. Maybe she used a silencer and the shot was earlier than we think – I know Tom now has Jane Watson down as an expert on pistols, but she could still have been mistaken. If so, the silencer was disposed of almost straight away. Or maybe the shot was fired when we first thought. Actually it doesn’t matter much. Both things are possible and, either way, Annabelle’s whereabouts are unaccounted for at the time Purbright was killed.’

  ‘Was she that desperate? I mean to try to kill you?’ Elsie asked.

  ‘I think so. Tom said he couldn’t quite see the motive – but he doesn’t know how passionately she wanted to continue to be Lady Muntham of Muntham Court. That’s why she got Robert to buy the house in the first place. Once I’d sold it, that would be that. In the end she would probably have stooped to any trick. I too find it hard to believe she would have gone quite that far but nothing else makes sense . . .’

  Elsie put her hand on my arm. ‘Look on the bright side. You might have married her. As it is you’ve got away with just a few scratches from that rock. And a kidnapping. And a near miss at being blown up. And looking like an idiot for bringing the bomb on board. I’d call that lucky myself.’

  ‘I do wonder,’ I said, ‘whether Annabelle and I might not have been happy together, under slightly different circumstances.’

  ‘Ethelred, pet, no ex-pole dancer is going to make you happy.’

  ‘She’s too old to be an ex-pole dancer,’ I said. ‘It didn’t really catch on until the nineties.’

  ‘At last!’ said Elsie. ‘Welcome to the real world.’

  I drained the last of my coffee. The waiters had finally gone to bed. Doubtless they would clear away the remaining cups in the morning.

  ‘There’s nothing to be done,’ I said. ‘The police think it was Mahmoud and Majid.’

  ‘We could tell them anyway,’ said Elsie. ‘I can’t see what we’ve got to lose. And it would be fun.’

  ‘It would be a complete waste of time,’ I pointed out. ‘You’ve met Masterman. He doesn’t seem like somebody who changes his mind. He’d rather have Purbright’s family know that he died in the line of duty than that he was collateral damage in a lovers’ tiff. And the Egyptian authorities have already issued a press release with the official version of events set out. They might find it slightly awkward if the men they’ve shot hadn’t killed Purbright. Anyway, as Tom says, we’ve no proof. You know who it was. Tom knows who it was. I know who it was. That’s the end of the story.’

  ‘And what are you intending to do for the rest of the trip? She’s tried to kill you twice. Are you planning to let her keep taking potshots until she gets lucky?’

  ‘She’s disarmed – unless she plans to kill me by blowing me dry. And I’ll stay away from any unstable ceilings.’

  I was eating alone. Elsie had decided that she had seen
enough dawns to last her for the trip and that she would take the risk of any egg shortage that might occur towards the end of breakfast service. Miss Watson was however only a few minutes behind me, and sat down at my table. Her selection of fruit from the buffet was placed in front of her with a flourish by a smiling waiter.

  ‘I’m not quite sure what I’ll do,’ she said, ‘when we are back in England and breakfast does not get transported for you from the counter to your table. I suppose we could reintroduce fagging at my school and get the smaller girls to fetch and carry. I rather think they might actually enjoy that. We could persuade the parents that it was part of some history project. Were you ever a fag, Ethelred?’

  ‘Not of any sort,’ I said.

  ‘Your agent said something about your having attended a boarding school in Sunderland.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘I have to say,’ said Miss Watson, changing the subject, ‘that I found Tom’s performance last night very odd. What on earth was it all about?’

  ‘He thinks he knows who killed Purbright,’ I said.

  ‘But the police are convinced that it was Mahmoud and Majid, surely?’

  ‘Tom thinks otherwise.’

  ‘Does he have any proof?’

  ‘None that he’s shown me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t necessarily trust all that Tom says.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Elsie said that your friend in Cairo was not keen on him.’

  ‘Colonel Ahmed? I suppose that’s right.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘What does Colonel Ahmed do, exactly?’

  ‘Something terribly secret.’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘When it’s terribly secret, you don’t get told.’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ I said. ‘But you mean that Tom and John might be spies or terrorists or something?’

  ‘If I had to pick an obvious suicide bomber amongst our little group, it probably wouldn’t be them. Still, I wouldn’t place too much trust in what they say either.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

  ‘My two nice Americans are not spies,’ said Elsie.

  ‘That’s not what I said,’ I pointed out.

  ‘You did, more or less.’

  ‘I just said that Miss Watson’s friend obviously suspected them of something.’

  ‘Or just didn’t like Americans.’

  ‘Miss Watson knows more than she is saying,’ I said. ‘I don’t know whether Colonel Ahmed told her something in Cairo or she saw something on the night – but she is giving us a definite steer not to trust Tom’s theories.’

  ‘She was with me when the shots were fired,’ said Elsie, ‘so she can’t have seen anything I didn’t. And if Colonel Ahmed is her friend and knew the boat was full of spies and terrorists, wouldn’t he have warned her not to travel?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said.

  ‘OK,’ said Elsie. ‘Maybe the police are right. Maybe Tom’s wrong. Maybe Mahmoud and Majid did shoot Purbright. I’d still put my money on the rock being a present to you from Annabelle, but I’ll never prove it. At least you are free of her. You were always far too much under her control. You need to stand up for yourself more. Just make it clear to her that she’s history.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ I said.

  We had, I felt, gone as far as we ever would to uncover Purbright’s killer. There seemed no way forward. Which in a sense was odd. I had a strange feeling at the time that I already had all of the information that I needed and that Tom had spotted something in the conversation over dinner that I had missed.

  It is possible, even on quite a small boat, to keep clear of some people most of the time. I succeeded in exchanging no more than a few words with Annabelle until the Khedive limped into Aswan. By declining the optional excursion to Abu Simbel, I avoided her completely on the first day. On the second I was not so lucky.

  The suq at Aswan is a long road that runs parallel to the Nile but one block inland. The shops on each side, open fronted, spread surreptitiously onto the thoroughfare and press in on you with offerings of fake designer T-shirts, belts, cheap gods and heaps of rice, soap and saffron. The smell of spice alternates with that of leather and jasmine and occasionally drains. The shopkeepers greet you as the friend they hope you will become. No rejection on your part, however final, dims their optimism in this respect. It does not pay to linger for more than a few seconds outside any shop at which you do not plan to spend money.

  I had just completed the purchase of a black and gold statuette of the god Thoth, his pen poised above a writing tablet. I was about to exit the dark, narrow little shop, still blessed with many reasonably priced deities of all shapes and sizes, when I found my way barred. I could not leave without pushing past Annabelle, who had chosen that moment to enter and purchase that or some similar divine being. For my part, I had no wish to retrace my steps and buy (say) Horus or Osiris, though the shopkeeper had already pressed upon me the many advantages of acquiring one or the other. I had in any case already hesitated too long to be able to pretend that I had not seen her.

  ‘Good morning, Annabelle,’ I said.

  ‘Good morning, Ethelred. I didn’t see you at breakfast. I can scarcely believe sometimes that we are travelling on the same boat. You are quite elusive.’

  ‘No, I just breakfasted early.’

  ‘How wise. I did however run into Elsie back there by the spice shop.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Don’t look so worried. Yes, we’ve just had a lovely little chat. Could I ask you to tell her a couple of things though?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The more important is that you should get it into her head that I have never been a pole dancer. I have no idea where she got that idea from, but I would not know how to dance round a pole, even if you gave me one.’

  I confirmed that I had no plans to do this. ‘And the second thing?’ I asked.

  ‘The less important thing is that she seems to be working on the theory that I have been wandering round the deck of the boat carrying a pistol with criminal intent. Can you tell her I have no idea what she is talking about? And if you are backing away because you also think I am the mad gunman of Edfu, let me give you the same assurance. Whoever shot Purbright, it was not I. Is that clear?’

  ‘If you had tried to shoot me . . . I wouldn’t necessarily blame you.’

  ‘How sweet of you. That’s my dear, if somewhat pathetic, Ethelred speaking there. You’d forgive me for attempted murder, as long as you were the intended victim? I suppose that’s nice to know. I’m glad you and I are no longer an item, Ethelred. You really are completely useless. I could forgive you for being a failure as a crime writer if it were not for your pathetic ambitions to write a great literary novel.’

  ‘I understand why you are angry,’ I said. ‘And I’m sorry about the sale of Muntham Court.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to be too sorry,’ she said.

  ‘It’s good of you to be so understanding,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I am, aren’t I? And hopefully you’ll be equally understanding when I tell you that your buyer has dropped out.’

  ‘Has he?’

  ‘Sadly, yes. It was the death-watch beetle holes in the cellar that convinced him that Muntham Court was not a good purchase.’

  ‘There’s no death-watch beetle.’

  ‘But there are holes that do look very much like death-watch beetle – at least on casual inspection. Of course, they might equally have been made by a Black and Decker eighteen-volt cordless drill – I couldn’t honestly say.’

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘the survey will show up that there is no trace of live beetle, so you’ve wasted your time with the drill.’

  ‘There will be no survey. Unlike you, I did actually meet your buyer – remember? He told me, over a very friendly coffee, that he had pulled out of a previous purchase because of the merest suggestion o
f dry rot. People who aren’t used to old buildings do panic over very little. So I was reasonably sure that when he saw the holes on his second visit a few days ago, he would decide to fly home without further ado. The estate agent, regrettably, has no other prospects at present. Of course, who knows what will put off other potential buyers – stories of ghosts, for example, or the threat of legal action from the current occupant? I do wish I could rule out either of those possibilities. People can be so picky.’

  ‘Do you think you can stop me selling for ever?’

  ‘Maybe not for ever. But perhaps for quite a long time. We’ll see, won’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘I hope,’ said Annabelle, ‘that the shopkeeper hasn’t understood our little conversation. But if he has, I think the purchase of that lovely reproduction of the Sphinx over there will probably buy his silence. It’s been good chatting, Ethelred. I’ll see you back at the boat, shall I?’

  Twenty-nine

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked Ethelred, when I managed to find him again.

  He looked vaguely at the newspaper-wrapped object in his hand. ‘It’s Thoth,’ he said. ‘He’s the god of scribes – and by extension crime writers.’

  I compared the only available crime writer with the ibis head sticking out of the paper. They had a certain beaky similarity.

  ‘How much did you pay for him? Don’t worry – whatever it was, you were robbed. People just see you coming, whether it’s sellers of statuettes or scarlet women. Talking of which, I saw Annabelle a little while ago. I let her know we’re onto her.’

  ‘Yes, I saw her too,’ he said.

  ‘And what did she have to say for herself?’

  ‘She says she’s never been a pole dancer,’ he said.

  ‘Absolutely. Far too old.’

  ‘She also said she’s going to wreck any attempt I make to sell Muntham Court.’