Death in a Desert Land

by Andrew Wilson

  Mr. Archer took hold of his daughter’s wrist in an effort to stop her. “What’s gotten into you today, Sarah? I know it’s your birthday, but there is no need to—”

  “There’s every need!” said Sarah, her voice rising. “We’ve all been pussyfooting around, pretending everything is fine, when we’re living with—I’m sorry to say this—a madwoman. Someone who could be dangerous. After what happened to that poor cat . . .”

  “But Mr. Woolley explained what happened to Tom,” said Cynthia Jones. “That he had to put him down.”

  “It was obvious he was just covering up for her,” said Sarah. “Weren’t you, Mr. Woolley?”

  Leonard, who looked mortified by the scene playing out before him, did not answer. How could he?

  “Are you going to stand there and let this girl talk to me in this way?” Katharine asked her husband. “Leonard?”

  “I—I think it would be best if—”

  “Yes, it would be best if Miss Archer here found it in her soul to behave in a more Christian-like way,” said Katharine. “But perhaps her parents were more interested in studying the good book than in instilling some basic good manners.”

  “Excuse me,” said Mr. Archer, reddening in the face. “I really don’t think that is called for.”

  “Now, Katharine, why don’t we all try and calm down,” said Woolley.

  “Well, this sure is a birthday I’ll remember,” said Sarah as she flung down her napkin. Before anyone could stop her, she took a torch from one of the servants and dashed from the tent, across the ziggurat’s plateau, and into the darkness.

  “Sarah!” shouted her father. “Don’t be a fool, now. Come back. It’s pitch-black out there.”

  “Yes, the sun does seem to just drop out of the sky,” said Woolley. “Don’t worry, I’ll go after her.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Miller. “If we use the light from her torch to guide us, we should be able to catch up.”

  “So will I,” said McRae, who was followed a few minutes later by his nephew.

  “Honestly, what a ridiculous scene,” said Katharine to the rest of us sitting in the tent. She seemed completely oblivious to the part she had played in the drama. “Had the girl been drinking on the sly, do you think?” she said to me so the Archers couldn’t hear. “I know her father said the family didn’t touch alcohol, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’d had some of that fruit punch. The men did say it was awfully strong. What else could have caused such an outburst?”

  “Birthdays can often lead to tension,” I said diplomatically. The real issue was, of course, the rivalry that existed between the two women. It was clear that Katharine was jealous of the attention Sarah had been receiving from both Harry Miller and Lawrence McRae. And, like a younger sibling who resents the flow of birthday gifts to an elder brother or sister, she had been determined ruin the day for her. Unfortunately, Sarah was not the kind of person to be silenced, and she had struck back with a vicious verbal blow.

  “Well, I think it’s time we got back to the camp,” said Mr. Archer, somewhat stiffly. “And then tomorrow we can think about leaving.”

  “Leaving?” said Katharine. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you don’t expect us to hang around here and let ourselves be insulted, do you?” he said.

  “But what about—”

  “And of course the additional money I talked to your husband about is quite out of the question now. Come on, Ruth.” Mr. Archer signaled for two servants holding torches to accompany him and his wife down from the ziggurat. “We’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

  “Please, I know I may have spoken out of turn, but . . . ,” Katharine said as the Archers disappeared into the night. “Oh, dear,” she added, turning to me. “What will Leonard do when he finds out? He was depending on the Archers’ money. He had so many plans.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Woolley will find another rich donor willing to sponsor the expedition,” I said. “After all, the project has had so much publicity.”

  “Leonard would kill me if they withdrew their support now,” said Katharine. “No, I’m going to go after them and see if I can change their minds.” She too took a torch and ran across the plateau with a plea for the Archers to stop.

  “If you and Father Burrows are happy to make your own way down, I’ll go with her and make sure she doesn’t come to any harm,” Cynthia said to me.

  “Yes, good idea,” said Father Burrows. He called for the remaining servant men to provide us with some more light and ordered them to clear up as best they could; if they took the food and drink back down to the house that night, then they could dismantle the tents the following day. “Well, I’m sorry you had to witness that, Mrs. Christie.”

  “Yes, it was most unfortunate,” I said. “But I suppose Mrs. Woolley could not endure it for much longer.”

  “Endure what?”

  “The behavior from that silly girl.”

  Father Burrows looked at me blankly. “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Didn’t you notice the way Sarah was flirting with those two men, one minute with Mr. Miller and the next with Mr. McRae? And then there was that awful thing she had said to poor Cecil.”

  “What thing?”

  I related what I had overheard that day I had first arrived: how Sarah Archer had told Cecil that he was ugly and stupid and that he should never talk to her.

  “It seems as though you’ve got it all worked out,” he said. “But perhaps I’ve deliberately made myself blind to such things. Only way if one wants to cope out here.”

  “Yes, I can imagine you’re right on that score,” I replied as I took Father Burrows’s arm and two servants, holding torches, led us across the plateau towards the ziggurat’s staircases. The sky was covered by a blanket of cloud, eclipsing the stars and the moon, and although it was not yet cold I nevertheless felt a chill at the back of my neck. Just as I pulled my shawl around my shoulders a scream split the night air. Was it the noise of the animal I had heard when Woolley had taken me up to the ziggurat that first day? No, this was unmistakably a human cry, the cry of a woman.

  “What on earth . . . ?” said Father Burrows.

  “I think that’s Mrs. Woolley,” I said.

  Father Burrows pressed the servants—who were wide-eyed with fear—to accompany us as fast as possible down one of the staircases to the source of the cries.

  “Quickly,” I said. “Each moment of delay could make all the difference.” But Father Burrows, for all his slim form, was unsteady on his feet, and as we rushed he tripped a few times, nearly dragging me down with him. “Please, let me go on ahead,” I said. “Can you ask one of the servants to accompany me and also to let me have a torch of my own?”

  He looked dumbly at me. “Please, Father Burrows,” I pleaded. “It could be a matter of life or death.” Fighting to regain his breath, he gave the appropriate orders in halting Arabic and I hastened down the stone steps of the ziggurat, the flames from my torch casting a series of grotesque shadows onto the ground. As I approached the bottom of the structure I heard cries of alarm and then the screams of another woman. I saw the backs of Lawrence McRae and Cynthia Jones, who were peering at something on the ground, and then Ruth Archer, lifeless as a rag doll, being supported by her husband.

  “What’s happened?” I asked, breathless from both the exercise and the fear that was rising within me.

  Cecil appeared out of the darkness, his face white with shock, and pointed at something on the ground, a shape that seemed to be even darker than the black night. I stepped closer to see that there were in fact two figures: Katharine Woolley on her knees and a strange unnatural configuration before her on the ground.

  “Don’t look,” said Lawrence McRae, trying to stop me. “It’s not—”

  I pushed past him. “It might not be too late,” I said. “I was a nurse. Let me see if I can help.”

  I thrust the torch nearer to the scene before me. The glistening form illuminate
d by the flames was like something from an unholy nightmare. Katharine Woolley stared at her palms, covered in blood, as if her hands did not belong to her. In front of her, in the ancient sands, lay the lifeless body of Sarah Archer, the back of her skull crushed. Nearby lay a rock covered in blood. Without much hope of finding signs of life, I took her pulse, but there was nothing.

  The noise of footsteps diverted our attention for a moment. Leonard Woolley and Harry Miller appeared out of the darkness. “We couldn’t find her—she must have gone down one of the other staircases, but we saw some other—” said Miller, stopping himself as he took in the shocked expressions on all our faces.

  Leonard Woolley stepped forwards and, as we parted to let him through, he saw for himself the horrors of the scene: his wife with her bloodied hands, Miss Archer’s dead body . . .

  “Oh, my God, Katharine,” he whispered. “What have you done?”

  11

  There was a moment not so much of calm but of near silence, when no one spoke and it was possible to hear the cry of birds down towards the river and the whispers of the dry wind across the desert. Then everyone began to speak almost at once.

  “Katharine . . . get up and come with me,” said Woolley, stretching out his hand.

  Ruth Archer looked up from her husband’s shoulder and tried to break away from him. “What have you done to my daughter?” she asked, her voice full of rage. Luckily, Hubert Archer managed to restrain her, otherwise there was a danger she might try to scratch out Mrs. Woolley’s eyes.

  “Sarah! Surely she can’t be . . . ,” said Cynthia.

  “I’m afraid it’s too late,” said McRae, checking Sarah’s body.

  “But . . . I don’t understand,” said Miller. “She had only been gone a minute. We were following her torch and then it disappeared from sight.”

  “It must have been a terrible accident,” said Father Burrows. “She must have slipped and hit her head on a rock.”

  “Does that look like an accident to you, you damn fool?” said Hubert Archer. “Sorry for my language, but the evidence is right in front of us. We can see it with our eyes as plain as day.”

  The only person who did not speak was Cecil McRae, who had turned his back on the scene. His uncle went to place a hand on the boy’s shoulder, but Cecil brushed it off and ran back towards the camp.

  “It’s understandable he’s in shock,” said Lawrence. “He worshiped that girl. As I’m sure many of us did.”

  Mrs. Woolley tried to stand, but as she did so she caught sight of her bloodied hands and fell back onto the sand. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  “Here, let me help,” said Woolley. He took out a handkerchief from the top pocket of his jacket and offered it to his wife. But, still paralyzed by shock, she did not know what to do with it, and so let the white square simply drop to the ground. Woolley bent down beside his wife and supported her as she stood up.

  “If a crime has been committed,” said McRae, looking first at Mrs. Woolley and then at the body, “then nothing should be touched or removed.”

  “McRae’s right: we need to get hold of the police,” said Hubert Archer, fighting back tears. He was the kind of man who did not like to show signs of grief in public.

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions,” said Woolley.

  “It’s obvious what’s happened,” replied Archer. “How long does it take to call in the authorities here?”

  “If we sent a servant now to the nearest town, there still wouldn’t be anyone here before the morning,” replied McRae.

  Archer looked down at his daughter, the blood from her head collecting beneath her like a sinister, dark pool. “But we can’t leave Sarah out here all night,” he said. “No, we’ll sit by her side, won’t we, Ruth?”

  His wife did not respond but continued to stare at Katharine Woolley with hatred in her eyes. Woolley gave orders to two servants to ride to Nasiriya, from where they would fetch a doctor and a policeman.

  “I can’t believe it,” said Cynthia. “It seems so unreal.”

  “I’m sure there’s some explanation for what happened,” said Woolley.

  “But you more or less admitted it yourself, man!” exclaimed Archer. “ ‘Oh, my God, Katharine—what have you done?’ you said, unless I misheard you.”

  “Yes, but I’m sure it’s just a case of—”

  “Cold-blooded murder, yes,” said Archer. “I don’t think the authorities look kindly on killers out here, do they, Mr. Woolley? And I would advise that you lock up your wife tonight—just as much for her own safety as for the rest of us.”

  Woolley refused to be drawn into an argument and instead turned to practical matters. “I suggest all of us make our way back to the house. We need some strong, sweet tea or a spot of brandy. I’ll send some over to you and your wife, Mr. Archer, together with a couple of camp beds and blankets. Obviously a couple of servants will stay with you all night. Then, in the morning, when the authorities arrive, we can try and make some sense of this.”

  Woolley led his wife away from the body, the rest of us trailing silently behind them. Back at the house, after making sure Katharine was safe in her bedroom, Leonard took me to one side and asked me to talk to her. “She’s saying nothing to me,” he said, carrying a chair and placing it outside his wife’s door. “I’ll sit on guard here all night. I’ll make sure she doesn’t get out—and that no one else gets in.”

  I knocked on the door, gently turned the handle, and stepped into the room. Katharine was standing at a wash bowl, scrubbing her hands with soap like a real-life Lady Macbeth. She stared down at her palms, which were now nearly clean of blood, but the water was a reddish-brown color. A cup of tea, untouched, sat on the dressing table.

  “Here, let’s get you into bed,” I said. “You’ve had a nasty shock.”

  I helped undress Katharine and tied a silk dressing gown around her slender form. There was a deadness to her eyes, as if a part of her too had perished out there at the base of the ziggurat. Once I had managed to persuade her to get into bed, I fetched her a small glass of brandy and urged her to drink it.

  “Now, that’s better, isn’t it?” I said as she sipped the dark liquid.

  Slowly she turned her head to me, blinked, and said, “No, nothing will make it better.” She brought up her hands to her face. “I can still smell the blood. It’s seeped into me. I’ll never be free of it.”

  I took her hands. “But you’ve almost rubbed them raw,” I said. “Why don’t you try to sleep and we can talk about this in the morning?”

  “You’re not going to leave me? Please don’t leave me.”

  “No, I’ll stay with you as long as you like,” I said. “And Leonard has stationed himself outside your door, so you are quite safe.”

  “Do you still have those sedatives?” she asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I know I said I didn’t want them, but now, after this . . . well . . . if I could just forget about it for a few hours?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll go and measure some out for you.”

  Outside the door I found Leonard playing the sentinel of sorts; he was sitting in a chair, a candle by his side, making some notes about the dig. When I told him of his wife’s request, he looked concerned. “Will you be careful with the dose?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, after tonight’s terrible events, we don’t want . . .”

  His voice trailed off, but I understood his meaning. “You think Katharine might take an overdose?”

  “Well, there is that possibility. After all, she’s been under an awful lot of strain. What happened tonight could push her over the edge.”

  “I see. Can I ask you a question, Mr. Woolley?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. We stepped away from the door and walked across the courtyard so that Katharine couldn’t hear our conversation.

  I looked Woolley straight in the face and asked, “Do you believe your wife was r
esponsible for the death of Miss Archer?”

  The question clearly pained him. “She’s not that kind of woman: she abhors violence of any kind. I know what I said before, but . . .” He turned away from me, unable to finish the sentence. “No, I refuse to countenance any suggestion that she was responsible for this. It must have been a tragic accident.”

  “If you’re so certain of that, why would you be worried about your wife taking an overdose?”

  “I know her character. She’s terribly high-strung, as you’ve seen for yourself. Her mental state has never been strong.”

  There would be time for more questions tomorrow. “Very well,” I said. “Anyway, I must fetch that dose of sedative. A good sleep is what she needs. And don’t worry, I’ll be very careful how much I give her. Could you please order some tea for me? I find that’s a good way of taking the drug.”

  I collected the barbiturate from my room, nodded to Woolley on my return, and entered Katharine’s quarters again. As I prepared the sedative, Katharine, lying on her bed, studied my every move: the careful measurement of the dosage, the addition of the sedative to the tea, the gentle stirring action as I made sure the grains were evenly dispersed in the liquid. Then she started talking in a strange, trancelike fashion.

  “How wonderful it would be just to forget everything,” she whispered. “Just to go to sleep knowing that all one’s worries had slipped away. Do you ever think that, Agatha?”

  “I must admit I have on a number of occasions,” I said. “Now, here’s the sedative. If you drink this, it will help. It won’t provide a permanent solution to your anxieties, but it will guarantee you a good night’s sleep.”

  Katharine took the cup in her hands, and although the tea was hot, she gulped it down as if she was greedy for unconsciousness.

  “I can’t stop thinking of the blood—all that blood,” she said as she laid her head back on the pillow. “I was rushing down the steps of the ziggurat, trying to find Mr. and Mrs. Archer, who must have taken one of the other stairways, when I slipped and fell. I could feel a warm stickiness on my hands, but I didn’t know what it was at first. There was a torch on the ground, casting its sideways light onto . . . and then I realized what it was. Blood. And then I saw Sarah. I reached out to try and lift her to her feet, but it was no use. Then I saw that, where the back of her head should have been, there was . . .”