The Cairo Brief

by Fiona Veitch Smith

  “DCI Martin. I was wondering how long it would take the police to figure out the truth. Seems you’re a little better at doing it than those fools in Cairo.”

  “Those fools in Cairo are busy reopening the case, Miss El Farouk. I sent them a telegram this evening after Herr Weiner very kindly walked me through the comings and goings of everyone at the dinner last year. He thought it curious, you see, that Waltaub and Maddox both died when the same group of archaeologists was assembled. I hadn’t been aware of it until he mentioned it. He’s been most helpful.”

  “Fourteen thousand pounds! And it’s back to Berlin! Nothing from Cairo, Dr Osman? Surely your pharaoh queen deserves to be fought over. Dr Osman, Dr Osman, where are you going? Nothing from Cairo then. Do I hear fifteen from London?”

  “What the hell’s going on here?” Rollo, closely followed by Faizal Osman, came up behind DCI Martin.

  “Kamela!” Faizal lunged forward. Kamela pressed the point of the blade into Poppy’s throat.

  He stopped, his hands outstretched, placating. “Let her go Kamela, please. I shouldn’t have let this go so far.”

  “What do you mean, Osman? You knew about this?” Martin pinned Faizal with his gaze.

  “Not Maddox, no. I genuinely thought it was a heart attack. I was just as shocked as the rest of you to find out it wasn’t. But I did suspect Kamela knew more than she was letting on about Waltaub. I saw you leave the bar, Kamela. And you took a long time coming back. The police said it was suicide, but I had my suspicions.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” said Kamela. She looked at her boss as if she and he were the only two people in the room.

  “Because I thought you’d been through enough. You’d already been to prison. Your brother had died.”

  Kamela’s eyes opened wide. She eased the blade away from Poppy’s throat very, very slightly. Poppy watched carefully, waiting for a moment to break away.

  “You knew? You knew who I was?”

  “Kamela Abbas, yes. I never went to the trial but I read the transcript months later. By then you were already out. I felt a miscarriage of justice had been done, but I couldn’t prove it. Then when your brother died I offered your father money so you could go to Paris. Then gave you the job when you came home. I wanted to make amends for what had happened. I wanted to give you another chance.”

  Tears welled in Kamela’s eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. “Why didn’t you say before?” She lowered the knife and dropped it to the ground. In an instant Martin had her pinned down.

  “Don’t hurt her, Inspector. Please, don’t hurt her.” Faizal’s voice cracked.

  Rollo ran to Poppy and put his arm around her waist. She was shaking. At that moment Lionel Saunders appeared in the doorway, his eyes wide, his mouth agape. “What the hell’s going on here?”

  “We’ve scooped you!” said Rollo, and Poppy just had to smile.

  “Twenty thousand pounds! Is that the final offer from New York? Dr Mortimer? Herr Stein? No? All right then, for twenty thousand pounds the death mask of Nefertiti is going… going… gone!”

  CHAPTER 33

  SUNDAY 16 DECEMBER 1921

  Poppy forced herself out of the armchair in front of the coal fire to answer the doorbell. She had had a quiet day after going to church that morning – sitting at the back on her own – and trying to keep up with the unfamiliar Church of England order of service. She had listened to a sermon about God sending his son to bring peace to all people, then prayed, quietly, for the people she knew were not at peace. Back home she’d spoken to her parents on the telephone and arranged to visit them for a week in the New Year. Christmas was always a busy time for them at the Morpeth Methodist Chapel, so even if she had tried to get there for the 25th she wouldn’t have seen much of them. Better to go when the decorations were down and the children were all back at school. She would go into King’s Cross at lunchtime tomorrow and book her ticket on the Flying Scotsman.

  The doorbell rang again. “I’m coming!” she called, feeling the cold tiles of the hall through her stockings. She peered through the peephole Daniel had installed earlier in the week. Her stalker had turned out to be a prankster, he said, but she still needed to be careful. Then he tried, unsuccessfully, to encourage her to move in with Delilah while Aunt Dot and Grace were away, saying he would worry about her no end if he was not there to protect her...

  After things at the museum were finally wrapped up, the police interviews conducted, and enough column inches written to fill a dozen newspapers, Daniel and Poppy managed to carve out some time together. She cooked him dinner; he installed the peephole. He told her that Maggie and her fiancé would be getting married on 20 January and then sailing to South Africa the week after – a three-week journey down the West Coast of Africa. He was going with them. He had asked Rollo for six months’ unpaid leave. “I can’t make a decision like this without seeing what it’s like there first. I want to see where my children will be living. I want to see if it’s safe. And I can’t ask you to come with me until I know what I’ll be taking you to.”

  Poppy managed to hold back the tears as she cleared away the dinner plates and found Aunt Dot’s dessert bowls. She had made a sticky toffee pudding – one of her mother’s recipes. She served them each a portion, then drenched it in piping hot custard.

  “I understand, Daniel. I always knew you would put your children first. And that’s as it should be.” Poppy had come to this realization on Monday night at the museum when he had gone home instead of coming to see her. That night in bed, as she tossed and turned, working through all that had happened with Kamela and Faizal, she had allowed herself one brief fantasy in which Daniel rushed into her room, swept her into his arms, and told her that he could not live without her – not even for his children. But she knew it was a selfish dream. She knew too that she could not and would not drop everything to go with him. That was his selfish dream.

  So, later in the week, after dinner, she told him she had decided to call things off. Who knew what the future might hold? Love might indeed conquer all. They might have their fairy tale ending, they might not; but for now they both knew they had to live in the real world. They had both cried then, Daniel, holding her, as if he would never let her go. But he did. And then he went home to his children.

  Through the peephole Poppy saw the smiling face of Delilah. “Open up Popsicle, it’s freezing out here!”

  Poppy unhitched the security chain – another of Daniel’s additions – unlocked the door, and opened it to see not just Delilah but Rollo, Ike, his wife Doreen, Marjorie, her son Oscar, and Yasmin. Ike was carrying a Christmas tree and grinning from ear to ear. Oscar had a sack over one shoulder and Rollo was carrying a crate.

  “Well, don’t just leave us standing here, Miz Denby, or I’ll be forced to give you my rendition of ‘Joy to the World’. And I’d rather be inside eating mince pies and drinking mulled wine than torturing the neighbours.” He nodded to the crate.

  Delilah pushed forward, carrying a box of decorations. “We’ve come to decorate the house!”

  Poppy laughed, warmed by her friends’ kind gesture, and let them all in.

  Two hours later, with all the pies eaten and the wine drunk, the house was transformed into a set from The Nutcracker.With Ike’s help Poppy had dug around in the attic and found Aunt Dot’s spectacular collection of Christmas paraphernalia to add to the decorations her friends had brought. With much laughter and singing, the three-storey townhouse was decked with lights and garlands to rival any display on Oxford Street. And finally, with Ike’s support, Poppy stood on a chair and placed the star on the top of the tree as Delilah led them all in a chorus of “Silent Night”:

  Silent Night, holy night,

  All is calm, all is bright,

  Round yon virgin, mother and child,

  Holy infant so tender and mild,

  Sleep in heavenly peace,

  Sleep in heavenly peace.

  As the last notes settled with the coa
ls in the fireplace Poppy noticed Rollo and Yasmin exchange a glance then hold hands.

  “Ahem,” he said, clearing his throat. “Me and Yazzie have got an announcement to make.”

  Delilah yelped in delight and clapped her hands.

  “Hold your horses, Miz Marconi, we haven’t said anything yet!” Everyone laughed, knowing what was about to come.

  “We’d like to tell you that we’ve decided to tie the knot. And of course, you’re all invited to the wedding.”

  Ike clapped Rollo so hard on the back that he nearly fell over. Marjorie, Oscar, Doreen, and Delilah added their congratulations, with Delilah demanding to see the ring. Yasmin duly obliged, thrusting out her hand to show an emerald in a nest of diamonds. As everyone gathered round, Poppy stepped back and took in the scene, smiling wistfully. So, some people do get their fairy tale ending after all.

  THE WORLD OF POPPY DENBY: A HISTORICAL NOTE

  From the very start of the Poppy Denby Investigates books I had in mind to send Poppy to Egypt around the time of the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. I had a marvellous vision of Poppy running through a pyramid, clutching her cloche hat, pursued by a villain with evil intent. So when I came to write Book 4 I felt the time had finally come to get Poppy on a boat across the Mediterranean. But things didn’t work out that way.

  The main problem was that Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon only discovered the opening to King Tutankhamun’s tomb in February 1922. The previous Poppy book, The Death Beat, ended in July 1921. I needed to leave some time between that and the start of the next book but I couldn’t leave it too long, as Poppy and Daniel’s relationship was hanging in limbo. Also, I didn’t think the tight-fisted Rollo would be prepared to cough up on another international trip for his reporter so soon after returning from New York. So I faced the choice of either brushing over an important period in Poppy’s personal life or abandoning the Egyptian idea.

  But then, in my background reading, I came across a juicy little titbit: Howard Carter had been in London in late 1921 to have his gall bladder removed (Tyldesley, 2008). I then began to wonder if Poppy could meet him in London before the famous discovery. That would give me an excuse to connect with Egypt but still stay within the constraints of Poppy and Daniel’s personal timeline – and save Rollo a bit of money.

  I toyed with the idea of then having Poppy return with Carter to Egypt as part of a press corps – funded by a third party – but couldn’t really make it work. How, and why, would her friends and colleagues go there too? So, I decided to keep the Egyptian theme but not to set the main story in Egypt. However, glimmers of that original story concept remain. The opening scene of The Cairo Brief is set on an archaeological dig, and one of the murders in the book is set in the Grand Continental Hotel in Cairo, the same hotel where Lord Carnarvon died from an infected mosquito bite in 1923, giving rise to the legend of the Curse of Tutankhamun’s Tomb (aka the Mummy’s Curse, which became the subject of popular books and films throughout the 1920s and 30s).

  I kept the idea of the Mummy’s Curse but transferred it instead to the death mask of Nefertiti. The mask in my book – along with the auction and Howard Carter’s involvement – are completely fictitious. However, the bust of Nefertiti (kept in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin), and the controversial circumstances in which it was found by Ludwig Borchardt, are historical facts. You can read Borchardt’s own account of the dig of Thutmose’s workshop in 1912, listed in the “further reading” section at the end of this book. The discovery of the second chamber of the workshop in 1914 – and the murderous events that accompanied it – are a figment of my imagination.

  So, one has a “cursed” Egyptian artefact, a number of unexplained deaths, an auction on a country estate, and a group of guests who need to be entertained… it didn’t take me long to come up with the idea of a séance. From the mid-1800s to the early decades of the twentieth century, the spiritualist movement was in its heyday. For some it took the place of conventional religion, with spiritualist churches (starting in the USA) soon spreading around the world. Academics and leading literary figures – like Arthur Conan Doyle – attempted to prove the existence of the paranormal, using quasi-scientific methodologies. Then there were those – particularly in the 1920s – who didn’t take it very seriously, but went along with the “fashion” of dabbling with the occult.

  Now I’m not going to discuss the rights and wrongs or perceived “dangers” of spiritualism here – Poppy does a good job of that herself in the pages of the story – but I would like to mention my rationale for including Conan Doyle and his wife as characters, and what is and isn’t “historical”.

  As avid readers of the Poppy Denby books might have picked up, I like to include a homage to a famous Golden Age Detective Fiction author in each story. In The Jazz Files, Poppy is reading an Agatha Christie novel when she first arrives in London. Then, in The Kill Fee, Poppy remembers a scene from Christie’s The Mysterious Affair at Styles to help her deal with the victim of a poisoning. In The Death Beat, my favourite Golden Age author, Dorothy L. Sayers, makes a cameo appearance on board The Olympic on the way to New York. So in this book, I decided to feature the father of detective fiction, Arthur Conan Doyle. Like Poppy – and many others of the time – he had lost loved ones during the war. It was as a result of that that he started trying to contact the dead. This was useful for me, as one of the recurring themes of the Poppy Denby books is the dark shadow cast by the First World War and how individuals and society have been cut to the core by the horrors it unleashed.

  The weekend at Winterton Hall, including the auction and the séance, was completely made up. However, Sir Arthur and Lady Jean Conan Doyle did regularly lead séances. I decided, however, to not have them ultimately lead this one, as it was important for the plot that the medium was a con-artist. There is no indication whatsoever that the Conan Doyles did not believe fully in what they were doing. As such, I removed them from centre stage and brought in Madame Minette as the shameless charlatan.

  I hope you have enjoyed reading Poppy’s latest adventure as much as I have enjoyed writing it. Ta-ta for now!

  BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS

  1. In The Cairo Brief there is a rivalry between the staff of the Globe and the Courier to “scoop” the other. Have you ever been involved in a rivalry?

  2. The two newspapers have different approaches to journalism. What are these? What ethical issues about the media are raised in this book?

  3. Poppy and Delilah come from different backgrounds. They have contrasting personalities, different tastes in clothes, and differing financial circumstances. And yet they are still friends. Why do you think this is? What is it that holds their friendship together?

  4. The background to the story involves the acquisition of ancient artefacts by European archaeologists. To this day, some of the artefacts held in Western museums – such as the Elgin Marbles and the bust of Nefertiti – are the subject of dispute. What are your views on this? Should the artefacts be returned?

  5. There are two main romances in this book: Poppy and Daniel, and Rollo and Yasmin. One ends happily, the other not. Why do you think this is? Do you agree with Poppy and Daniel’s decision?

  6. When Poppy first hears there is going to be a séance at Winterton Hall she does not want to go. Why is this? Would you have gone to the séance?

  7. When Poppy is alone at home someone knocks on her door in a way intended to scare her. Have you ever been in a similar situation? How did it turn out?

  8. At the police station Sergeant Barnes asks Poppy to try to get Arthur Conan Doyle to sign a book for him in exchange for him giving her information about the case. Poppy agrees to do it without actually knowing whether or not she will be able to deliver the goods. Have you ever agreed to do something you weren’t sure you could achieve?

  9. In the historical notes the author mentions that she likes to pay homage to Golden Age Detective Fiction authors in her books. What elements of The Cairo Brief reminded you of stories
from the Golden Age?

  10. Is there anything you would like to ask the author? If so, tweet her at @fionaveitchsmit or send a message through her website www.poppydenby.com

  FOR FURTHER READING…

  Visit www.poppydenby.com for more historical information on the period, gorgeous pictures of 1920s fashion and décor, audio and video links to 1920s music and news clips, a link to the author’s website, as well as news about upcoming titles in the Poppy Denby Investigates series.

  Borchardt, Ludwig. Excavations at Tell el-Amarna, Egypt, in 1913–1914 (from the Smithsonian Report for 1915). Washington Government Printing Office, Washington, 1916.

  Department of Egyptian Antiquities. Introductory Guide to the Egyptian Collections. Trustees of the British Museum, London, 1964.

  Eichler, Lilian. Book of Etiquette. Nelson Doubleday, New York, 1921.

  Kemp, Barry. The City of Akhenaten & Nefertiti: Amarna & its people. Thames & Hudson, London, 2012.

  Miller, Edward. That Noble Cabinet: a history of the British Museum. Andre’ Deutsch Ltd, London, 1973.

  Shepherd, Janet and Shepherd, John. 1920s Britain. Shire Living Histories, Shire Publications, Oxford, 2010.

  Shrimpton, Jayne. Fashion in the 1920s. Shire Publications, Oxford, 2013.

  Tyldesley, Joyce. Egypt: how a lost civilization was rediscovered. BBC Books, London, 2008.

  Vercouter, Jean (Trans. Sharman, Ruth). The Search for Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson, London, 1992.

  Waugh, Evelyn. Scoop. (1938) Penguin Classics, Penguin, London, 2000.

  Wingett, Matt. Conan Doyle and the Mysterious World of Light: 1887–1920 (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Paranormal). Life is Amazing, Portsmouth, 2016.

  For more information and fun photos about