Death in a Desert Land

by Andrew Wilson

  “I met Mr. Miller in Baghdad,” I said, deciding to tell the truth. “He told me a little of his friendship with Miss Bell and his sadness on her passing. He couldn’t believe that she would take her life.”

  “And did he think that she had been murdered?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I answered. “I believe he thinks her death was a tragic accident.”

  Katharine Woolley walked over to the dressing table, sat down, and looked at herself in the mirror. “I look an absolute fright. Have you seen my complexion? So tired and drawn and gray. Can you see the lines?” she asked as she squinted into the glass. “Look—here and here.” She pointed at her forehead and the corner of her mouth. “And as for these shadows under my eyes . . .”

  Mrs. Woolley reached out for one of the jars on the crowded surface and began to massage some white cream deep into her skin.

  “It’s all this talk of Miss Bell. It’s making me age by the minute. After all, I don’t want to end up looking like she did.”

  I thought the comment unnecessarily cruel, but I let it pass. “Let’s not dwell on it any more,” I said. “Why don’t you take some deep breaths. And here, drink this.” I poured out a tumbler of water from a carafe for her and watched as she drank it. “Let’s talk about something else. What about your writing? Can you tell me about that?”

  After she had calmed down she went on to tell me a little of her novel, which was about a young woman who disguises herself as a man in order to have various adventures in Iraq. She then went on to reveal how she had first met Leonard Woolley—she had arrived at Ur in the spring of 1924, keen to do something different with her life—but she made no mention of the first husband who had shot himself (or so it was said) at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Cheops in 1919.

  The war continued to cast a shadow over the shared past of our generation; it was a perennial subject that often needed to be addressed when strangers first met. I told her about my time as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse working at the Town Hall Hospital in Torquay, and she, in turn, confided in me a little of her service in a prison camp on the Russian-German border. Some of the horrors she had seen when she had tried to care for the army of Ukrainians who had been imprisoned there could never be adequately described. I knew exactly what she meant. It was time to change the subject and so I asked her about her background. She had been born in Kings Norton—her father had been a merchant in the Midlands—and she had spent two years studying history at Somerville College, Oxford, before she had been forced to leave due to ill health.

  “What a curse it is to have this body,” she said, her face darkening with a sudden melancholy. I felt saddened that a line of questioning which had been designed to brighten her state of mind had the opposite effect on her. “Actually, would you mind if I had some time to myself? I’m feeling so terribly drained after that massage.” She did not look tired, however; rather, her eyes flashed with a manic quality that frightened me. It was clear that something that had been said during the course of our conversation was still distressing her.

  “Of course,” I said, feeling more than a little embarrassed. I stood up and moved towards the door. “It’s probably a good idea for you to get some more rest.”

  “Look at me—I’m a wreck!” she gasped. “I can’t let the others see me like this. And still in my nightdress at this hour of the day! You must think me quite insane.”

  I did not answer.

  “Now, where is that stupid girl with the cat? Why is it taking her so long?” She opened the door and shouted, “Cynthia! What are you doing?”

  A moment later a red-faced Miss Jones appeared running behind the cat. “I’m sorry—you know what he’s like,” she said. “He took one look at me and fled. He led me a merry dance all around the courtyard.” She knelt down and guided the cat towards Mrs. Woolley’s open door. “Go on, Tom. Look, there’s your mistress.”

  Katharine pursed her lips and the cat came running towards her. She made a series of clicking noises in the ginger tom’s ear. The animal responded immediately with a loud purr. She ran her fingers up and down its long tail—a tail encircled by markings that reminded me of those on a rattlesnake—before she bent down and scooped it up into her arms. That unmistakable expression particular to a person strongly bonded to a domestic pet—a mix of utter devotion, pure joy, and unconditional love—melted away any signs of anxiety, pain, or mania from her features. It was clear that, in that moment, Katharine Woolley was happy.

  Unfortunately, I had a feeling she would not remain so for long.

  6

  After a rest I emerged from my room refreshed, ready for Mr. Woolley’s tour of the site. As I stepped into the living room I was met by Lawrence McRae and his nephew, Cecil, who sat drawing at the table.

  “Hello,” said Mr. McRae, standing up as he saw me. He introduced himself and his nephew, who refused to meet my eye. “Have you met everyone on the site yet?”

  “I think so—apart from the Archers, who I believe are returning later.”

  “And what about ‘she who must be obeyed’?”

  I pretended not to know who he was talking about.

  “Come off it,” he said in his Scottish accent. “If you’ve met Katharine Woolley, you must know what she’s like. I mean, she’s hardly what you might call a shrinking violet.”

  “She’s suffering from one of her headaches at the moment.”

  “Oh, is she now? That’s very convenient,” he said with a note of bitterness in his voice. “Just when we could do with her help to document the new finds.”

  On the table before him were a number of pencil drawings of earrings, tools, cosmetic jars, robe pins, necklaces, bracelets, rings—and a beautifully realized image of a dagger.

  “Are these yours?” I asked.

  “Yes, and some are Cecil’s—some of the best ones, in fact,” he said, smiling at his nephew, who had started to blush.

  “I thought you were the architect here?”

  “I am. But I’m also called upon to help out with some of the drawings when Mrs. Woolley is . . . indisposed.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “With more and more frequency, I’m afraid,” he said, placing a pencil behind his ear. He was a tall man, with serious gray eyes, striking auburn hair, and pale skin which had a tendency to freckle.

  “Is she ill?”

  “I doubt it very much,” he said. “I don’t want to sound cruel, but I think most of Mrs. Woolley’s problems exist in her head. I know you’ve just arrived here, and of course you must make up your own mind, but let me give you one piece of advice. Don’t let yourself be bullied by her. She is an arch manipulator and will flatter and cajole—say anything, in fact—to get what she wants. I’ve witnessed it first hand. I’ve also learnt it’s better to speak one’s mind. Of course, she hates me for it with a vengeance, but I didn’t come to Ur to make friends.”

  “What did you come for, Mr. McRae?”

  He turned his head towards his nephew, who was concentrating on a drawing. “Him, mostly,” he said. “It was important that we make a new start, away from . . . from everything that had gone before.”

  I nodded in silent agreement. Harry Miller had told me that Cecil had lost his parents in an accident, and I knew that any further discussion on the subject would only distress the boy. Just then Cynthia Jones entered the room and informed me that, if it was convenient, Mr. Woolley was ready to show me around the dig. She said that she would be happy to accompany me.

  “The way Mr. Woolley brings the past to life, it really is quite extraordinary,” she said. “I’ve heard him dozens of times on the subject, but I learn something new on each occasion.”

  As we walked towards the veranda, where we were due to meet Mr. Woolley, I stopped and gestured for Miss Jones to step to one side.

  “I wanted to ask you something about what you said earlier about Mrs. Woolley.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About Miss Bell and
what she had told you about Katharine.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said. Cynthia looked around her, terrified someone might overhear our conversation.

  “I just got the impression that it was Mrs. Woolley who—”

  “I can’t say any more,” she hissed. A figure appeared at the door. “Look, here’s Mr. Woolley,” she said, her voice sounding a little strained as she tried to regain her composure.

  “Are we ready for our grand tour?” he asked, his blue eyes shining.

  “Would you mind awfully, Mr. Woolley, if I didn’t accompany you on this one?” Cynthia asked.

  “My dear Miss Jones, of course not. Is something the matter?”

  “No, just that I realize I’m rather behind with my correspondence with Philadelphia.”

  “Yes, we don’t want our American friends to feel they are not being kept up to date. Now, Mrs. Christie, where would you like to start?”

  I looked at Cynthia Jones, whose eyes darted back and forth as if she were seeing some invisible enemy.

  “Are you going to be all right?” I asked in a low voice.

  “Yes, why shouldn’t I be? I’ll be perfectly fine. I really must get back to my desk. If you’ll excuse me . . .”

  After Miss Jones made a hasty retreat, Leonard Woolley whisked me away. As he began to tell me about the history of Ur and the civilization of the ancient Sumerians, I began to feel worried for Cynthia. It was clear that she regretted what little she had told me and was anxious that someone had overheard our conversation. Perhaps Lawrence McRae and his nephew, Cecil, had heard snatches of the encounter? And earlier, when Miss Jones had first related to me what Gertrude Bell had told her—about how she believed her life was in danger—had anyone been listening then? Certainly there had been no one in sight, and we had kept our voices low, but that did not mean anything in a house such as this. Privacy was in short supply—I had worked out that eleven people, including myself, shared the space—and there were many dark corners where people could stand unobserved and eavesdrop on a conversation.

  “You see, many people have assumed that Egypt is the oldest civilization in the world,” said Mr. Woolley as he led me out of the compound. “I mean, Tutankhamen was all very well, but it was rather showy, don’t you think? When historians come to write the definitive account of archaeology in the twentieth century, they will realize that this—this!—was the most important find of the modern age,” he said, gesturing towards the land around him and the great ziggurat.

  I nodded and pulled my hat farther over my head to shield my face from the intense sun. Woolley’s little legs carried him forwards at great speed, and as he dashed towards the site, he continued his lecture about Ur. He was nothing if not passionate about his subject.

  “As I was saying, what you are about to see here, the tombs and suchlike, date from between 3500 and 3200 BC, the same time the Egyptians were nothing but barbarians. And when Egypt does manage to forge itself into something like a meaningful civilization, guess where it gets many of its ideas from? Yes, here! From the ancient Sumerians, a great civilization, one that flourished here, in old Mesopotamia, the land between the two rivers—the Tigris and the Euphrates.”

  He stopped on a barren mound and, with his stirring voice, his flashing eyes, and his hands like a magician’s, began to conjure up the past.

  “Imagine if you can this place not as a desert, dry and parched, but an island full of greenery,” he said. “Water was plentiful then, and the sophisticated irrigation channels directed it in an ingenious way. Trees, fruit, vegetation—nature was in bountiful supply. Imagine too that on this spot Abraham—the Abraham of the Old Testament—once walked.” He took my hand and led me towards a section of land that had been excavated, a series of low-lying walls that looked like many ruins I had seen in the past. “This indeed is a house built at the time of Abraham. One can see, as a result of the excavation, that it was a two-story structure, with thirteen or fourteen rooms, all arranged around a central courtyard. In fact, it could be the very house where Abraham lived, the great Hebrew patriarch from whom all Jews are descended, a man who was ordered by God to leave Ur of the Chaldees and journey to a place that would be shown to him.”

  “How fascinating,” I said, but I’m afraid I did not quite believe my own words. “And have you found evidence that Abraham actually lived here?”

  “The place is mentioned four times in the Old Testament,” Woolley said sharply by way of an answer. It was obvious that I had touched a raw nerve. I wanted to believe in the story, but the cynic in me whispered a snakelike suggestion only I could hear: perhaps Mr. Woolley needed to show his belief in Ur’s link to Abraham so as to obtain that extra funding from those rich Americans.

  “Your guests, the Archers, must be thrilled by your discoveries,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, they are,” he said, his mood revived by my more positive comment. “So you’ve heard of them?”

  “Only from what I’ve picked up since I arrived,” I replied.

  “I think Mr. Archer’s input will make an enormous difference to the excavation,” he said. “We can take on more people, make the site more secure, perhaps even stage another exhibition, a joint one, organized by the British Museum and the Penn Museum in Philadelphia.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said. “It seems as though you have a very talented team here already.”

  “We’ve been fortunate, yes. Of course, we’re missing Max—Max Mallowan, my assistant—but that can’t be helped. Appendicitis.”

  “And I hear you also received the great support of Miss Bell.”

  At the mention of the dead woman’s name, the light faded from Leonard Woolley’s eyes. “That was a very sad business,” he said quietly.

  “She must be greatly missed,” I said. “Particularly here in Iraq, where she did so much good.”

  “Indeed,” he said, looking across the desolate plain. “We didn’t always agree—I think she found me quite tiresome at times—but we did go back an awfully long way.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yes, we knew each other during the war. In Egypt. But those days are best forgotten.” He turned from me and scanned a dusty horizon. “From looking at it, at this desert, you’d never believe that such treasures could be found underneath the sands. But some of the most beautiful—the most precious and exquisite—objects that I’ve ever seen in my life have been unearthed here.”

  “Yes, I saw some of them featured in the pages of newspapers and magazines back in England. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to come here.”

  He turned to me, squinting in the sunlight. Was there also a look of suspicion in his eyes?

  “What do you make of my wife, Mrs. Christie?”

  For a moment I was lost for words. He clearly knew that I had met her. “She seems like a remarkable woman,” I replied. “She is talented: I saw the sketches on the walls of her room. She is very beautiful, too. But I think it’s obvious that her headaches give her a great deal of distress.”

  “Do you think they’re genuine? The headaches, I mean.”

  “I’m sure they are. Why?”

  “It’s been suggested to me by certain individuals on the dig—I won’t name them—that Katharine suffers not so much from a physical illness as a psychological one. They believe her presence here to be quite damaging. They accuse her of . . . of poisoning the atmosphere here. I’ve tried to explain: Katharine has her headaches and, yes, she has her moods, too. But she contributes so much: her drawings, her models, the re-creations of the headdresses. But above all—and this is what people tend to forget—she is my wife. My wife.” He had to stop himself for fear he might break down. He took a deep breath. “However, I am worried about her. Her problem seems to be getting worse. She’s started seeing things, hearing things.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “Faces at the window. Voices.”

  “That does sound worrying.”

  “I don�
�t want to bring the doctor in; he’s two hours from here and it will only cause further upset in the house. It will give ammunition to the people who think that I should send Katharine back to London.” He turned to me and, with pleading eyes, continued, “I know you’re not a doctor, Mrs. Christie, but I believe you worked as a nurse during the war. Would you do me a favor? While you are here, would you mind spending some time with her?”

  “Of course. It would be a pleasure. As long as you realize I’m not at all qualified in these sorts of matters.”

  “Yes, I understand. She told me she already likes you a great deal—and that’s something she doesn’t say about many women,” he said, a touch of humor coming back into his voice now. “Between you and me, she thinks most women are fools. That’s one thing she had in common with Gertrude—with Miss Bell.”

  I knew the answer to the question I was about to put to Mr. Woolley already, but experience had taught me it would be worth asking: the way someone answered was just as valuable as what they had to say. “They must have been good friends—your wife and Miss Bell.”

  “Friends?” Woolley exclaimed. “Katharine would have scratched Gertrude’s eyes out, given half the chance.”

  “I see.”

  “And Gertrude had no time for Katharine. No, they couldn’t bear the sight of one another.”

  “Was there a reason for their enmity?”

  “I couldn’t work it out myself. On paper they were so similar. They both went to Oxford, read History, shared a passion for the Near East and for archaeology. But they really couldn’t stand being in the same room with one another. It was almost like a chemical reaction, I think. Something you read about in novels—a clash of the personalities. That’s all I can think. Perhaps there was more to it, but whatever that was remains a mystery. When I asked Katharine about it, she chose not to illuminate me.”