Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

  ‘All right,’ said Jeremy, then, ‘You have to find her. She has to be found.’

  ‘We’ve been trying,’ said Edward.

  Jeremy said, ‘You’ve told me she went off with an Egyptian man…’

  ‘And what a spectacular lead that is,’ said Edward, ‘there being so few of them.’

  ‘But you took El Masri,’ said Jeremy, ‘Hassan.’

  ‘We’ve let them go,’ said Edward irritably.

  Tom filled Jeremy in on what had passed at the ground.

  When he had finished, Jeremy sighed. He turned to Edward. ‘What about your man, then? Fadil?’

  ‘What about him?’ asked Edward.

  ‘Well,’ said Jeremy, ‘he was there in the street that day.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Edward, voice low with warning. ‘Just don’t.’

  ‘I know you think he’s a good man —’

  ‘He’s a great man,’ said Edward, ‘but do you know who’s not? Do you?’

  ‘I have a rough idea,’ said Jeremy, ‘and I suspect you’re about to confirm it.’

  ‘You’re a fucking bastard, Gray. You’re hiding things, I know it.’

  Jeremy didn’t defend himself.

  Edward told him of Nailah’s presence in the alleyway, her fibs.

  Jeremy blanched. ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘Fadil left her at the doctor’s, the child was sick.’

  ‘You have to find her, get her to tell you why she lied.’ Jeremy grew paler as he spoke, obviously badly shocked. ‘There might be other relatives Nailah hasn’t told you about too. Speak to her, do that even before you go to Lixori.’

  ‘We’ll be the judge of what we do and when we do it,’ said Edward. ‘First you need to start talking. What do you care for Nailah’s relations?’

  Jeremy made no answer. He turned away, staring sightlessly through the window.

  Edward and Tom exchanged a look.

  ‘I’m reminded,’ said Tom, taking a step towards Jeremy, ‘that we never saw that first letter you received, back at the end of May. The blackmail attempt that had you hightailing off to Constantinople.’

  ‘The letter was real,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘Why let Sheldon tear it up?’

  Again, Jeremy gave no answer.

  ‘All this fuss,’ said Tom, ‘about you and Sheldon, and no one else in Alexandria has received so much as a whisper of a threat.’

  Still, Jeremy said nothing. His face was rigid with composure. Was that sweat on his forehead? Edward narrowed his eyes, certain that it was, that Jeremy was almost ready to talk.

  Tom must have seen it too, because he took another step towards him. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘you tried to keep that ransom note from us. Bertram and I must have tried to see it ten times between us.’

  Edward frowned, thinking of the unease he’d experienced back in Wilkins’ office, when Wilkins had finally shown it to him. He pictured Wilkins’ podgy finger on the crisp typewritten paper. There was something so odd about it… It hit him. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘Gray, you bloody fool.’

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Tom.

  Edward kept his stare fixed on Jeremy. ‘Next time you ask Wilkins to fake a correspondence,’ he said, ‘you might tell him to have a care to fold the paper. Make it at least look as if it has been put in an envelope.’

  Jeremy closed his eyes. He let go of a deep, shuddering sigh. It might almost have been relief. The tension went out of him; his shoulders dropped, his head did too.

  Edward felt a grim stab of satisfaction, seeing it. At last. They finally had the bastard.

  ‘Would someone tell me what is going on?’ asked Tom.

  Edward didn’t lift his eyes from Jeremy. ‘Gray here is about to,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you, Gray?’

  Slowly, as though he had any choice, Jeremy nodded.

  ‘Was there ever even a note?’ Edward asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Jeremy said, ‘there was.’

  ‘But that wasn’t it,’ said Edward.

  ‘No.’

  Tom’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘You hid it? Why?’

  ‘There were things,’ said Jeremy, ‘things we couldn’t have getting out.’

  Edward clenched his fists. It took every ounce of his self-restraint to stop himself landing one of them in Jeremy’s ashen face. ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I’ve wanted to tell you,’ said Jeremy. ‘God, how I’ve wanted to. Sheldon said there was no point. He’s threatened to ruin me, leave the boys with nothing…’

  ‘Well he’s not here now,’ said Edward. ‘And we are. It’s time to tell us what the hell has been going on.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Nailah blinked in the evening light as she came down the steps of the sanatorium. She was so tired that she thought she must be hallucinating when she saw Kafele standing there, jacket unbuttoned, foot tapping in just the way she remembered from the Pashas’ garden. But then he ran towards her and the click of his shoes and the musty scent of his day’s exertion were real enough.

  She asked how he’d known to come. He said that he’d seen her mother in the street with Cleo. ‘She told me you’d gone to Socrates, Socrates sent me on here.’

  ‘How long have you been waiting?’

  ‘An hour, maybe two.’ He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter how long. I wanted to go in and see you but was afraid of making you feel awkward. How’s Babu?’

  ‘Alone.’ Nailah frowned. ‘I hated leaving him.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stay?’

  ‘They wouldn’t let me. They say they never do. But there were plenty of other women with plump faces and fine dresses who didn’t seem in a rush to leave.’

  ‘Do you want me to speak to the nurses? Ask them to let you back in?’

  ‘No.’ Nailah brushed the shoulder of his jacket, faded from the laundry brush. ‘It won’t work.’ She smiled sadly. ‘You smell too much like spices.’

  ‘Since when is that a crime?’ He frowned, but he didn’t press the matter. He knew she was right, it was why he was fighting so hard to climb to somewhere else in the world. ‘Will Babu mend?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Socrates says it’s just dysentery, not cholera.’ The relief of the pronouncement still fluttered within her, softening the edges of her anxiety; not that greedy sickness then, come to steal Babu with its crevice-burning claws, not yet. ‘I’d say God is good,’ she shrugged, ‘but if He is then why was Tabia taken, and why isn’t Babu running around with a head people only stare at for love?’

  ‘Ah, Nailah, you’re tired. Let’s go home.’ Kafele held out his arm. She looked at it, not moving. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Jahi’s coming tonight,’ she said, naming one of her fears. ‘Tonight.’ The thought of it, and all he held over her, had been plaguing her all day, pouncing on her whenever her other terrors allowed room. ‘I’m scared of him…’

  ‘And this Fadil too?’

  She caught her breath. ‘How did you…?’

  ‘Sana’s been telling the whole neighbourhood about you riding off with a soldier. What did he want with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Kafele pulled her hands into his, pressing them between his warm palms. ‘I’m worried you’ve got yourself into some kind of trouble…’

  ‘I haven’t.’ Nailah widened her eyes, entreating him to believe her.

  ‘You swear?’

  ‘I swear.’

  ‘But you’ve not been yourself…’

  ‘Because I’m worried about Jahi.’

  ‘You don’t need to be.’ Kafele’s frown was perplexed. ‘You know I’ll never let him take you away. I’d never let anyone hurt you.’ He stared across at her. ‘I would lay my life down for you, Nailah, do you understand that? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do. You are mine, I am yours, remember?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’ll look after you, Nailah, the children too. And if J
ahi tries to make you leave, run, get to my house, we’ll marry. It’ll be sooner than we planned, but we’ll manage. You’re going nowhere you don’t want to. Please believe that.’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Say it,’ said Kafele, ‘say you believe it.’

  ‘I believe it.’ She wanted to, at least.

  They said very little on the journey home. Occasionally Nailah glanced sideways at Kafele’s slender face, the slant of his bones, trying to warm herself with his presence. But she felt cold, so cold.

  It was dark by the time they reached the first peeling streets of the Turkish Quarter. The air was ripe with sewage, rotting rubbish, and the scent of the night’s cooking: onions and garlic, frying meat. Pans clanged through open windows, chattering voices carried.

  ‘I’ll leave you to go on now,’ Kafele said.

  She gave a wobbly attempt at a smile, then made to leave.

  ‘Nailah,’ he called after her.

  She stopped.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  Her whole body went still. Even her heart seemed to pause, hold its beat. He’d never told her that before. I love you. It echoed within her, and the stench, the filth, it all disappeared.

  Slowly, she turned to face him.

  He stared back at her.

  ‘I,’ she began, ‘I…’ She couldn’t seem to speak. She took a breath, tried again. ‘I love you too, Kafele. I always have.’

  His eyes shone.

  Neither of them spoke for a moment after that.

  Kafele took a step forward, touched her lightly on the arm. ‘I’m glad we’ve said that.’

  She lowered her gaze to his fingers, feeling her skin burn. ‘So am I.’

  ‘Remember,’ he stooped, searching her eyes out once more, ‘you’ll always be safe whilst I’m here.’

  Nailah didn’t disagree. Not this time. She didn’t want to. It was so much nicer to believe in the fiction.

  ‘You’d better go,’ he said softly.

  Nailah nodded, and knowing if she didn’t move now, she never would, she turned again and walked away, her feet carrying her back into the world she would run from, with him, if she only could.

  Lost in thought as she was, her head dizzy with what had just passed, she didn’t see Isa’s muslin-clad form in front of her until she was almost upon her. Isa folded her arms, bangles clinking, her eyes glistened beneath the arches of her kohled brows. Nailah’s heart, trying so hard to be happy a moment ago, leapt with nerves at the grave expression on her face.

  Isa asked after Babu. Nailah answered that he was safe in hospital.

  ‘Good,’ said Isa. She tilted her head to one side. ‘Jahi’s waiting, he’s as mad as I’ve ever seen him. He arrived just before two British officers came knocking, a captain and his colonel, Jahi said. He paid one of the boarders to tell them we were out and would be gone for the rest of the night, then made us hide in the dark until the officers had left.’

  ‘How did they find our address?’

  ‘Why have they come at all?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nailah said.

  Isa frowned. ‘Jahi wanted to come and find you himself. Lucky for you I convinced him to send me instead.’ Isa craned her neck, peering in the direction of where Nailah had left Kafele. ‘We’d better go. Jahi’s not in the mood to be kept waiting.’

  ‘Welcome home,’ said Jahi as Nailah and Isa returned. His long, muscular legs were crossed in front of him, he held his fingers in a pyramid beneath his nose. Cleo sat in the far corner, her hair a curtain over her face. A single candle burned in a saucer, all they could afford. Jahi rubbed his thumbs back and forth along the bristles of his cropped beard, the scraping a morbid accompaniment to the crackle of the flame.

  ‘Babu’s well, I trust,’ he said, ‘under the care of his grand doctor? I’m curious, Nailah. Where did you hear of Socrates’ skills? I’m sure you told me the other day, that you wouldn’t have hidden it…’ He smiled tightly. ‘Yet it seems to have slipped my mind.’

  Knowing Jahi’s skill for smelling a lie, Nailah didn’t attempt one. ‘I didn’t tell you,’ she said.

  ‘Did a lady recommend him to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A man then.’ He nodded slowly, as though piecing it all together in his mind. ‘Was it the kind Fadil who took you on his horse earlier?’

  ‘Sana told…?’

  ‘Or Captain Bertram perhaps?’

  Nailah swallowed.

  ‘Nailah, was it him?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word croaked from her.

  Jahi stared at her blackly. He tapped the floor next to him. ‘Sit. I want to hear more about your day, these friends of yours.’

  Nailah hung back.

  ‘Nailah.’ Jahi frowned. ‘Sit.’

  ‘Brother,’ came Isa’s warning voice.

  Jahi held up his hand. ‘I just want to talk to her.’ Nailah edged across the room and perched on her haunches next to him. ‘Be comfortable,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Sit properly. This is your home.’

  Isa snorted. ‘For how much longer?’ There was a jangle of ankle chains as she too crossed the room and sat down, squeezing Nailah’s hand in hers.

  Nailah tried to draw comfort from the pressure, but she knew that when it came to it there was nothing her mother could do to protect her. There was nothing anyone could do, certainly not Kafele, whose assurances in the street turned as fragile as a feather in Nailah’s mind. Sitting face to face with Jahi, so close she could all but hear his heart, she was reminded that her future was not hers to control; not any more.

  ‘Jahi,’ said Isa, ‘answer me. When exactly do you plan to steal my daughter away?’

  ‘I’m not stealing her. I’m trying to take care of her. She clearly can’t be trusted…’

  ‘Sweet Mother.’ Isa shook her head. ‘All she did was let some soldiers help her. I’m sure the captain and his colonel were just calling to see if she was all right.’

  ‘You’re not sure about anything.’

  ‘So arrogant, my brother, so certain you know what’s what —’

  ‘Stop.’ Jahi’s voice, taut with control, filled the room.

  Isa’s hand tightened around Nailah’s.

  Jahi looked down at his knees. He inhaled deeply, as though trying to keep his emotions within. ‘I’ve had a bad day,’ he said at last. ‘A bad, bad day.’ He turned to Nailah. ‘Let’s go outside, I want to tell you about it.’

  ‘Stay here,’ said Isa.

  But Jahi was already on his feet, he pulled Nailah with him across the room. Isa called for him to stop, but he waved his hand. ‘She’ll be back in a minute.’

  Isa stared after them helplessly, but she let them go.

  The landing was dusty, the air stale with male sweat. As Jahi shut the door on the family’s candlelit room, Nailah saw Isa shuffling over, ready to eavesdrop. Jahi must have seen her too, because he beckoned Nailah to follow him into the hallway below.

  What did he want with her? What was he going to do?

  As Nailah joined him at the bottom of the stairs, he appraised her, biting his lip, crooked tooth glistening in the grey light. Nailah held her breath, waiting.

  He told her, voice low, of how he’d ridden into the desert the night before. ‘I didn’t want to, but I was told I must. Sometimes we have to put our own wishes second. It’s a valuable life lesson to learn.’

  ‘I know the lesson, Uncle.’

  ‘Do you?’ Another step. ‘I’m not sure you do. Anyway, off we went, across the godforsaken dunes, to that spot where the twin palms grow.’ Nailah caught her breath. ‘And do you know what we found when we got there? I’ll tell you, shall I? We found nothing.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ It came out as a whisper.

  As he told her exactly what he meant, panic sprung in her chest. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Jahi, ‘believe me, we checked. It was dawn by the time we got back, and what a day it’s been.’ Nailah stood mute as he went on, relent
lessly. He’d been in trouble, he was angry, he told her how angry, she wanted to scream at him to stop, but she didn’t, he didn’t. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘this news of you riding around with soldiers, British officers coming to call.’ He bent down so their faces were almost touching. His eyes were black in the dim light. Nailah thought, This is it, this is where he finally strikes me. ‘You have no place with Fadil, with Captain Bertram and his colonel. No business. Not after what’s happened with Tabia. Especially not now. Do I really need to tell you that?’

  She dropped her head. ‘No, Uncle.’

  He inhaled, took a step back. She breathed. ‘Stay away from them, Nailah, I mean it. They’re dangerous men. You try and play in their world and they will chew you up and spit you out, the rest of us with you.’

  ‘Yes, Uncle.’

  He gave her one last look, and nodded. ‘I have to get back to work. Answer the door to no one.’

  Nailah swallowed, held her hand to her chest. It was shaking. She summoned up her courage. ‘I don’t want to go away, Uncle.’

  ‘You have very little choice.’ He opened the door. ‘Say goodbye to your mother and Cleo for me. I’ll be back again soon.’

  Nailah steadied herself against the wall as he left, blood pumping to the rhythm of his footsteps hastening down the street.

  It was only much later, after Cleo was asleep and Nailah was lying in her own sack, that Isa rolled over and asked her, ‘Are you in any danger, my love?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think you’re fibbing,’ said Isa. ‘You’ve never been very good at it.’

  ‘Umi…’

  ‘Is that why Jahi wants to send you away? Is Captain Bertram threatening you, those other men?’

  ‘No, Umi.’

  ‘What do they want with you then? Why would such men bother with my Nailah?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nailah quietly.

  There was a short silence. Nailah knew Isa was taking the measure of her. She was too exhausted to do anything but let her. And it was easier, so much simpler, to close her eyes and say nothing, than to attempt any more lies.