Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

  Painful, probably. And then to lose her sister too.

  Gone. Vanished.

  Nailah studied Ma’am Sheldon’s dust-smudged face, similar and yet entirely different to Ma’am Gray’s, and felt an almost overwhelming desire to tell her to run, leave, there’s nothing but badness here. ‘I’ll walk,’ she said. ‘Thank you though.’

  ‘Don’t be proud,’ said Ma’am Carter. ‘Let us take you, we’ll talk more on the way.’

  ‘Really, I’m very grateful, but I can’t trouble you.’ Before they tried to insist, she was off.

  She was halfway up the street when Ma’am Sheldon called out, ‘Which hospital?’

  Nailah halted in her tracks, scanning her mind for the name of an alternative establishment to the one she was going to. ‘St Aloysius’,’ she said at last, giving up and telling the truth.

  ‘St Aloysius’,’ Ma’am Sheldon echoed. ‘I’ll see you soon.’

  ‘St Aloysius’ is a rather fine establishment,’ said Imogen as Nailah hurried away. ‘Someone else must be paying for it.’ She narrowed her eyes at Nailah’s retreating back. ‘She has much to tell, our Nailah.’

  ‘What do you suppose Edward and Tom wanted with her?’ asked Olivia.

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll have to get it out of them.’ Imogen shook her head, still staring after Nailah. ‘She’s guilty as hell about something, the way her eyes kept scooting around. And terrified to boot.’

  ‘She reminded me of a lost child.’

  Imogen laughed sardonically. ‘Perhaps not so innocent. When do you want to go and see her?’

  ‘Soon, I’ll go soon.’

  ‘I?’

  ‘I think she’s frightened of you.’

  Imogen rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’ll tell Edward about it,’ said Olivia, ‘I’ve kept enough from him. But I’ll see Nailah by myself. I’ll get more out of her that way.’

  ‘Fine. Don’t leave it too long though.’ Imogen frowned. ‘I have the oddest sense that we’re running out of time.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Olivia and Imogen’s ride home was a muted affair. The late-morning sun was fierce in the sky, and Olivia’s hangover firing in earnest. She felt a near-overwhelming desire to roll onto the dusty road, crawl into a shady patch beneath the palms, and vomit. The only thing that kept her from giving into it was the thought that when she got home she could relieve herself in private.

  Imogen told her she should eat, and reached into her saddlebag for the remains of the pastries. Olivia gagged at their sickly sweet smell. A fly was feeding on the crumbs. For goodness’ sake.

  ‘Your mother could never take her champagne either,’ said Imogen. ‘I’ll tell you what I used to tell her. Stick to the gin.’

  Olivia thanked her for the sage advice.

  She exhaled in relief when they finally arrived back at her gate. As Imogen left her, she rode down the deserted driveway, eyes fixed on the open shutters of her bedroom window, fantasising about the coolness within, guiltily (she hadn’t forgotten the beggars, not quite, not yet), but wholeheartedly.

  She led Bea down the side of the house, into the musty stables. Her heart jumped when she saw Fadil’s stallion there. She pulled off her glove and held her hand to the horse’s hot, damp belly. Just back, then.

  Gingerly, she let herself into the house. Ada, crossing the hallway with a pile of pressed linen, turned; her face paled in horror as she took in Olivia’s bruised face and torn skirts. ‘Lord above.’ She placed the lavender-scented laundry on the floor and came to peer into Olivia’s face. ‘What’s ’appened?’

  ‘I fell. Where’s…?’

  ‘Fadil?’ Ada asked, as though inside her mind (which Olivia was far from putting past her). ‘’E’s in the kitchen, fretting about you.’

  Olivia set off to find him.

  The kitchen was at the back of the house, an echoing stone room with an open fire in one corner, and tiled counters lining the walls. In the centre was a large scrubbed table, its legs in saucers of water to keep the ants away. Cook and his kitchen hands surrounded it, chattering to one another as they chopped heaps of freshly washed vegetables and herbs. They all stopped, silent, as Olivia walked in; their eyes widened collectively as they absorbed the state of her.

  She asked them where Fadil was.

  ‘I am here,’ he said, coming through the garden door. ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘Me,’ said Olivia.

  Fadil’s gaze moved to the ceiling, like he was seeking strength. His skin was like scrunched paper, waxy with sweat at the temples. He looked gaunt, tired.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Olivia said. ‘We shouldn’t have ridden off like that. But I don’t like it, you following me around.’

  ‘I’m trying to keep you safe.’ His soft voice was baffled. ‘You cannot know the dangers of this land, the things people do.’

  Olivia, thinking of his wife and children, winced. She felt suddenly very guilty at having taken him on the dance she had, a heel. She apologised again.

  He nodded, expression set. She wasn’t at all sure she had been forgiven.

  She asked him where Edward was.

  ‘I don’t know, Ma’am Sheldon. I haven’t spoken to him since yesterday.’

  ‘I need to find him.’ She frowned, remembering her earlier promise to Sofia that she’d call on the boys. They’d be waiting for her. ‘I need to go to my sister’s too.’

  ‘Then let me take you there,’ said Fadil. ‘I’ll fetch Sayed Bertram for you after.’

  ‘All right,’ said Olivia, breathing a little easier, ‘good. There’s so much we need to discuss, you see.’

  Ada insisted Olivia change her gown and bathe her cheek before going, there was nothing like the heat to set an open wound to festering. Olivia twitched impatiently whilst Ada rubbed ointment on the cut (her aunt’s husband’s mother’s recipe, so she said; Olivia asked her if she wouldn’t be more suited to life as an apothecary than a lady’s maid, and Ada actually laughed. She had a surprisingly pleasant laugh).

  On the way to Clara’s, Olivia studied Fadil’s olive face, the silent way he kept his gaze fixed on the road ahead. She found herself wanting to know more of him, this quiet, watchful man. Her uninvited bodyguard. Tentatively, she asked about his family. He told her that his parents were long dead, his brothers and sisters had very little to do with him. ‘They don’t like how I work for your army. We come from a small village near Sudan, they remember how you tried to steal land there when you first arrived. They think you’re greedy.’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘I respect Sayed Bertram and Sayed Carter,’ he said. Then, quietly, ‘They were good men when I needed to know goodness.’

  Olivia hesitated, she asked, ‘How old were they, Fadil, your children?’

  ‘Little,’ he said. ‘The youngest, she was just a few weeks old. My wife, I cannot tell you how much she loved them all. The other soldiers, the men who killed her, I talked about her with them at the barracks. I was proud.’ He stared at the road ahead. ‘It would have tortured my wife, more than anything else, to watch our little ones go. Like that.’

  Olivia closed her eyes, seeing it.

  Fadil took a deep breath. ‘It means something to me, Ma’am Sheldon, to make your sister safe.’ He turned to face her. There was such pain in his gaze it was all she could do not to look away. ‘There has been enough hurt.’

  The policemen were at Clara’s gates when they got there. They tipped their hats at Olivia as the carriage rolled past.

  Fadil pulled the horses to a halt and helped her down from her seat. He asked her not to go anywhere until he returned with Edward. She promised she wouldn’t. She meant it. After their exchange just now, she didn’t think she could ever try to trick him again.

  Clara’s butler took her through the house to the terrace. Ralph was eating lunch alone, face pensive as he chewed his flatbread and tomato, staring out at the lawn in the direction of some croquet hoops. A large fountain spilled wat
er just beyond, so cool and fresh-looking it made Olivia feel her own sore head, her gritty mouth, all the more. The gardener weeded the bright flower beds, spine bent beneath his white tunic. Olivia studied him and found herself thinking of Hassan and El Masri. She frowned, remembering she still didn’t know why they’d been taken for questioning.

  ‘You’ve got a bruise on your cheek, Aunt Livvy.’

  Olivia started at Ralph’s voice. ‘I fell from Bea,’ she said.

  ‘Naughty Bea.’

  ‘Naughty me for not doing her saddle up properly. Where is everyone?’ She sat down and took a piece of Ralph’s bread. She studied it uncertainly, then bit into it. Tomato juice flooded her mouth, a hidden layer of goat’s cheese hit her throat, sour from the desert weeds the goats grazed on. She reached for water and took a mouthful, swallowing on the urge to choke everything back up.

  ‘Sofia’s with Gus, as always,’ said Ralph, oblivious to her discomfort, ‘and Father’s gone to work. He says he’ll come home early though. He always does now. He reads me stories before bed.’ Ralph frowned. ‘He doesn’t do voices like Mama though.’ He took another bite and chomped. He stared at the croquet hoops.

  ‘Do you want to play?’ Olivia asked half-heartedly.

  He shook his head. ‘Great-Grandmama told me to take it all down, but I don’t want to. Mama helped me set it up before she went. We were going to play. I hope she gets back before I have to leave for England next week.’ Ralph set his bread down, pinched his nose. ‘I don’t want to go, Aunt Livvy.’

  ‘I know you don’t,’ said Olivia. ‘I don’t want you to either.’

  ‘Do you think Mama’s dead?’

  ‘Oh, Ralph. I haven’t given up on her.’

  Sofia arrived, bottom swaying beneath her skirts as she backed into the sunshine with a sleeping Gus in his perambulator. ‘Hello, you two,’ she said, ‘not planning any more outings, I hope.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ said Ralph, then got up and wandered down to the lawn.

  Sofia lowered herself into a seat. Her stays creaked as she arched her back and reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. She flicked a match, inhaled, looked down at Gus, back in the direction of Mildred’s window, then shook her head wearily.

  ‘You have my sympathy,’ said Olivia.

  ‘She’s been telling me I have the nursery all wrong,’ said Sofia, ‘and that I should let Gus cry more, not cuddle him so much.’ She took another drag and picked tobacco from her tongue. ‘I know now why your poor papa would have nothing to do with her. Why Mrs Clara never went back to visit.’

  ‘She didn’t stop Mildred coming here though, for Ralph.’ Olivia looked down at the miserable way he was kicking at the grass, still struggling to understand Clara entertaining the idea of letting Mildred take him.

  ‘She was all over the place,’ said Sofia, ‘that was the problem, so worried, like I told you. I dare say she wasn’t thinking straight. I’m not sure she’d have been able to send him off when it came to it.’

  Ralph, apparently in hearing distance, said, ‘Maybe she’ll come back and save me.’

  Sofia smiled. ‘Maybe indeed.’ She tapped his plate. ‘Now come back here and munch up your bread. You know what happens to littlies that don’t eat their lunches? Their hair falls out.’

  Ralph looked at Olivia questioningly. She shook her head and mouthed, Not true. He gave her a small smile.

  ‘I might leave you to it,’ she said, thinking she’d go to the stables, have a chat with Hassan and El Masri, hear from the horse’s mouth (so to speak) what they were suspected of.

  Hassan was alone in the stables, leaning against a hay bale with a newspaper over his face, string of worry beads loose in his hand. Olivia paused, watching him sleep. As though sensing her presence, he woke.

  ‘Ma’am Sheldon,’ he said, sitting up. He rolled his shoulders, put his paper to one side. ‘Is your leg better?’

  ‘My leg?’ It took a moment for Olivia to realise he meant the jellyfish. With everything that had been happening, she’d forgotten about it. ‘It’s fine. Actually, I fell off my horse earlier. I’m sore from that now.’ She laughed, even though it wasn’t particularly funny. It wasn’t really funny at all. God, she was tired.

  Hassan patted the floor. ‘Come, rest.’

  ‘All right.’ She drew up her skirts and knelt, straw crackling beneath her. She breathed in the earthy air, rich with hay and horse sweat, then asked Hassan why he and El Masri had been taken for questioning.

  Hassan told her it was because of the man Clara had been seen talking to outside Draycott’s, then walking away with.

  Olivia started, shocked. ‘Clara went of her own accord?’

  Hassan looked at her askance. ‘No one’s told you?’

  ‘Obviously not.’ Olivia’s brow creased as she tried to make sense of it. ‘Why would she have gone off with someone like that? She was meant to be waiting for me in the restaurant.’

  Hassan shrugged.

  ‘Who was he?’ she asked. ‘This man?’

  Hassan shook his head. ‘No one knows. Just that he was Egyptian.’

  ‘An Egyptian?’ Olivia’s frown deepened. ‘But why would Captain Bertram think it was you? What would you want with Clara?’

  Hassan shrugged again, his dark eyes full of sorrow. He bit into his apple, crunched and swallowed. ‘That Egyptian soldier you were looking for,’ he said, ‘when Ma’am Gray went…’

  ‘Fadil? It wasn’t him. For goodness’ sake.’

  ‘No,’ Hassan’s forehead pinched, ‘of course. I’m sorry.’

  They sat in silence. Hassan threw the remains of his apple for a horse to munch, flicked his worry beads. Olivia’s mind worked, trying to slot everything together. What if the man Clara had left with was her man. The more Olivia thought about it, the likelier it seemed. And there was every chance that Edward and Tom still knew nothing of her affair – or indeed of what Nailah had witnessed at Montazah Bay. They could have been questioning her about something else entirely. Why hadn’t Olivia just bloody well told Edward everything? She had to get word to him, now, send him back to Nailah, force the identity of Clara’s lover from her if need be.

  She stood so quickly that the room tilted. She held her hand to the wall, steadying herself.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I will be. Thank you, Hassan.’

  She ran back to the now empty terrace, snatched up her purse and parasol, and then hurried back into the house, down the corridor, and blindly into Sofia and Fadil.

  ‘What on earth’s wrong with you, Mrs Livvy, running around like a flibbertigibbet?’

  Olivia shook her head impatiently. She turned to Fadil and asked him where Edward was.

  ‘He’s gone, Ma’am Sheldon, the colonel too. To visit some villages.’

  ‘What?’ He couldn’t have gone. Not again. Not yet. ‘When will he be back?’

  ‘The men at the ground said in no more than two days. They told me he was going to the house first, but when I got there, he’d already left for the desert.’

  A shiver of foreboding shot down Olivia’s spine. It wrong-footed her, literally, she had to grip Fadil’s arm for balance. She’d felt something like it before, a different trip, the same desert.

  Fadil asked her if she was all right. Sofia pulled out one of the hallway seats, told her to sit. ‘What’s come over you?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Olivia, ‘I feel as if something bad is waiting.’

  ‘They’ll be safe,’ said Fadil. ‘They know the sands.’

  ‘But the storms. My parents…’

  ‘Weren’t seasoned soldiers,’ said Sofia, patting her shoulder.

  Fadil held out a sealed envelope. ‘The sayed left you this.’

  Olivia opened it with trembling fingers.

  Darling Olly, Ada’s told me you’re out with Fadil. I’ve had no choice but to go myself. I’ll be back as soon as possible. Fadil knows to keep you safe, help him do that, please. Stay in t
he house. If you leave, have him with you at all times. If Alistair returns before I do, just get away. Do not let him near you again. I love you. E.

  She let the paper fall. He was gone, really gone.

  Without her telling him anything. For two days, with every hour that passed perhaps the last that Clara had.

  She asked Fadil if he could go after them.

  He said he couldn’t, that they hadn’t left the names of the villages they were heading to. Besides, he wasn’t willing to leave Olivia alone.

  Olivia pressed her hand to her head, trying and failing to think of who else she could go to with all she knew. She could hardly tell Jeremy that she suspected Clara had disappeared off from the street with her lover.

  She trusted the police not at all.

  She thought about telling Fadil, then decided she’d better talk to Imogen first. She at least might have had a chance to speak to Tom.

  But when Olivia and Fadil called at her house, Imogen was out.

  Seeing there was nothing else for it, Olivia told Fadil they’d better call it a day. ‘I want to go out tomorrow morning though.’