Beneath a Burning Sky

by Jenny Ashcroft

  Hassan told her they were the servants of a man she’d never heard of. ‘He was happy to support me,’ Hassan said. ‘The ending of an innocent woman’s life is an awful thing.’

  Olivia’s stomach turned at the hypocrisy. ‘Did El Masri help too?’

  ‘He did not.’

  It surprised her, but there it was. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘leave Ralph alone. Jeremy will never go to jail now, you said yourself no one wants him to.’

  ‘They might change their minds once Ralph is gone. Sir Gray has to be punished.’ Hassan’s voice rose, his eyes widened. ‘He has to.’ He took a breath, visibly gathering himself. When he spoke again, his tone shook with control. ‘It might not come to it. I hope it doesn’t. Once you’re dead…’ Hassan tapped the gun. He said something else, about raising hell, but Olivia didn’t hear it.

  The ‘dead’ had deafened her.

  ‘How are you going to do it?’ Her lips trembled against her will. ‘Are you going to roll me into the water? Are you going to shoot me? How’s it going to be?’

  ‘You mustn’t be afraid. I won’t let you feel any pain. This,’ he raised the gun, ‘is not working now. The catch, it’s broken. I have another hidden out in the desert, where we should have gone in the first place. I’ll give you a clean death. I don’t want to pound you. I won’t unless I have to.’

  ‘I suppose I should thank you for that?’

  ‘Make no fuss and it will be easy.’ He frowned regretfully. ‘My friend, Shahid, he was upset your sister got lost. Very upset. He can send men for your body tomorrow.’

  Olivia swallowed, hard. She didn’t want to think about that. ‘Why haven’t you taken me already?’

  ‘The roads around the city will be busy. I don’t want anyone to see.’

  ‘Then don’t do it.’ Olivia hated the pleading note in her voice. Why did it have to be so undignified, the simple act of begging for one’s life? ‘Let me go, won’t you? Please.’

  ‘Hush,’ said Hassan, ‘you’re scared.’

  ‘I certainly don’t want to die. I beg of you, just let me live. I’ll tell the world what happened to Tabia.’

  ‘You say that now.’

  ‘I will, I swear.’

  Silence.

  ‘You don’t have to be this person, you don’t need to kill me.’

  Still he didn’t speak.

  She held her breath.

  ‘Of course I do,’ he said.

  Another hour passed. Click-clack. Tick-tock.

  ‘I need to go to the lavatory,’ said Olivia. It was the truth. She’d been holding it as long as she could, but the pressure in her bladder was agonising, and the sound of the moving water below wasn’t helping. She’d heard that men often soiled themselves before they were killed, she did not want that to be her. ‘Will you let me go? I can’t ride again until I have.’

  Hassan tapped the gun on his knee. ‘Fine,’ he said, pocketing his damned beads, ‘I’ll help you.’

  Olivia avoided his eye as he pulled her to her feet. Her legs buckled beneath her as he led her to the cliff edge. It was dark, the moon was nothing but a segment of a segment, a swallowed smile. She had to strain her eyes to make out where the land ended and the drop to the sea began.

  ‘Crouch,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t get my drawers down.’

  He moved towards her and drew her petticoats up. He averted his gaze. His hands skimmed her thigh; she felt the gun, cold and blunt on the exposed patch of skin above her stockings. She raised her eyes to the heavens as he pulled her underwear free. Was it possible that her parents were watching her? Clara? She drew breath, blinked. Don’t think like that… you’ll fall apart if you do.

  Hassan backed away. Olivia heard her urine splash the dry earth. She considered attempting to push Hassan over the edge as he reclothed her. But they were too far away, she’d undoubtedly fail, and then he’d be on his guard for another attempt.

  He led her back to her previous spot and pushed her until she knelt and then lay down.

  ‘When are we going to go?’ she asked.

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘Why are you still waiting? There’s no one around now.’ When he didn’t answer, she thought, He doesn’t want to do it after all. He’s delaying because he’s lost his nerve.

  But then he said, ‘You’re wrong, there might be people still out. We have to wait,’ and she realised that the only person struggling to believe it was really going to happen was her.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Nailah landed with a thud on the lawn. Her heart pounded as she combed the shadows of trees surrounding her, the statue-lined paths. She could hear the bass of male voices on the veranda, laughter. So at ease, so happy; yet they all must know another life was about to be ended.

  She ran for the compound’s boundary. She paused when she got there and glanced back at the light spilling from the house’s arched windows, its thick clay walls built to keep the world out as well as the women within. She felt one small, final stab of temptation to stay in this life of opulence, to forget the blood that lay, at least in part, on her hands, Cleo and Babu’s needs, the impossible dreams she’d shared with her ambitious clown, and then turned, dug her nails into the bricks, grit slicing skin, and climbed, swinging one leg and then the other over the top of the wall. As she slid to the ground, her toes and palms grazed the rough brickwork. She turned to face the curves of the desert, and set off, feet sliding in the sand. She kept wide of the road until she was far enough from Shahid’s gates not to be seen by his guards. As she rejoined the silver shadowed track towards Alexandria, she hummed breathlessly to herself, more to hear a sound, any sound, in the oppressive emptiness of the night, than anything else.

  She had been walking less than half an hour when the clop of hooves alerted her to another’s presence. The traveller was a cotton merchant heading into the city for the dawn markets. He agreed to take her with him. He didn’t give her fine clothes a second glance; if he found something odd about her being out alone in the darkness, he made no comment. He just chewed his tobacco and stared straight ahead as they covered the miles, minding his own business.

  Perhaps he simply didn’t care.

  His silence gave Nailah plenty of time to think of what she should do next. She had no doubt Hassan would have Ma’am Sheldon by now, he wasn’t going to let himself fail. They’d be well on their way to the oasis. Nailah had no idea how to find it, though. She had to get help.

  The bells of St Mark’s Cathedral tolled eleven when at last they reached the city. Nailah’s driver dropped her at the cotton exchange. She thanked him and ran. Her feet slapped the deserted pavements, her mouth ran dry, a stitch spread painfully in her side. She fixed her thoughts on the warehouses where Kafele kept his rooms, intent on getting there at all speed; but when she passed her own house and saw candlelight burning in the window, she stopped short. She stood on the cobbles, staring at the flickering, and gathered her breath. Who was up there? Isa? Could it be possible she’d come back? Or was it Jahi? Nailah’s blood raced, her silk clothes stuck to her sweating body in the cool night air. With quaking fingers, she let herself in, then made her way up to the family’s room.

  As she lifted the latch on the door, she let out a breath of relief. For not only was Isa in there, the children with her, both asleep in the corner, but also Kafele.

  Before Nailah could say anything, Isa crossed the room and pulled her into a hug; a breath-constricting squeeze. ‘I couldn’t get on that train,’ she said, voice lowered so as not to wake the children, ‘not without knowing where you were. I fetched Kafele, he’s been searching everywhere.’ She pushed Nailah out to arm’s length, studying her. The kohl around her lids was smudged, powder gathered in the creases of her skin. ‘You’re dressed like a whore,’ she said. ‘Are you hurt?’

  Nailah shook her head. She turned to meet Kafele’s anxious gaze. ‘I need help,’ she said, and without pausing to wonder if she really had the nerve to do it, she told him everything
, watching as his expression morphed from confusion to disbelief to grim acceptance.

  When at last she was finished, she felt her shoulders sag.

  ‘Sweet Mother,’ said Isa, slumping to the floor. ‘I don’t understand how… How…? Jahi, my own brother… You…’ She held out the flat of her jewelled hands as though to push it all from her, then spat once over her shoulder.

  ‘Nailah,’ said Kafele, ‘why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t want to put it on you,’ said Nailah. ‘I was scared.’

  ‘Of what?’ Kafele asked, his expression pained. ‘Me? How many times have I told you that I want to help, that you can trust me?’ He turned away, running his hands around the bare skin of his neck, gripping himself above his rough shirt.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nailah said to him. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘You could have saved Clara Gray, Nailah, if you’d just spoken up.’

  ‘I never thought she’d get hurt. And I was scared. I didn’t want to lose the children, be taken away.’ She pressed her knuckles to her eyes, squeezing against the tears. Don’t make excuses, she told herself, there are none. ‘We might still be able to stop Hassan killing Ma’am Sheldon. I know where he’s taken her, I can describe it, we have to go…’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Isa. ‘Everyone will assume you were involved from the start, hang you as accomplices.’

  ‘But Kafele’s done nothing.’

  ‘It won’t matter,’ Isa said. ‘One British woman dead, another about to be, both wives of the richest Englishmen in Egypt. There’ll be no clemency in the settling of this score.’

  ‘You don’t mean we should do nothing?’ said Nailah.

  ‘Of course we’ll do something,’ said Kafele. ‘I’m not about to let an innocent woman die.’ He looked to the ceiling, a dent forming in his forehead. At length he said, ‘We’ll go to the parade ground, come clean. Tell them that you’ve only just found all this out. Hopefully they’ll believe us. It will look better that we’ve gone to them.’

  ‘It’s so dangerous,’ Isa said. ‘Don’t get dragged in, Kafele. It’s not your affair.’

  There was a hammering at the door.

  ‘Nailah? Are you there?’

  Nailah caught her breath. The captain’s strong, deep voice, weighted with urgency, was unmistakable.

  Kafele cursed.

  Nailah opened her mouth to say she would face the captain alone. She was still forming the words when Kafele brushed past her into the stairwell, down the stairs.

  ‘Stop,’ Nailah called, going after him, ‘wait.’

  He paused, turning back; almond eyes on hers in the dusty darkness.

  ‘Let me,’ she said. ‘My mother’s right, it’s too dangerous. I was wrong to come back for you.’

  ‘You think I could leave you to this?’ He tipped his head at the family’s room, where Isa – for all her fine words of love and worry – lingered. ‘I’m not her,’ he said. ‘You’ve always deserved better than that.’

  There was more hammering. The front door moved on its hinges.

  ‘I don’t want you to get hurt,’ Nailah said.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Kafele, ‘and so will you.’ With that, he opened the door.

  The captain wasn’t alone. He was surrounded by others in the darkness, more soldiers, the colonel and Fadil amongst them. Fadil’s whole head was wrapped in blood-soaked bandages.

  A woman’s voice cut through the night air, the roll of vowels unmistakably Ma’am Carter’s. ‘So you’re home at last.’ She stepped out from behind the colonel. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘We’ve been looking for you,’ said the captain. His face, darkened by night, was strained with fear and fury.

  ‘We were about to come to the ground,’ said Kafele. Nailah winced at the sight of him, so slight against the captain’s height, his lean strength, but squaring up to him, on her side in spite of everything. ‘Nailah knows where Ma’am Sheldon is. She’s only just worked things out.’

  The captain turned to face Nailah. ‘Where is she? Was it your uncle who beat Fadil, who shot Sheldon?’

  Nailah’s jaw dropped. ‘He shot Sir Sheldon?’

  ‘That’s not an answer. Where. Is. SHE?’

  ‘A small oasis, there are two palms…’

  ‘Fuck,’ the captain said, ‘fuck.’

  ‘We know it,’ said the colonel.

  Nailah felt a brief easing of relief. ‘But it’s Hassan who has her.’

  ‘Hassan?’ The captain clenched his fists. ‘The fucking coachman? I’m going to fucking kill him.’ He turned to a soldier Nailah didn’t recognise. ‘Take them both to the ground, Stevens.’

  Without another word he was gone, on his horse, thundering off in a cloud of black dust down the street, the colonel, Ma’am Carter, and Fadil behind him.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  ‘We’re almost there,’ said Hassan.

  His arm was tight around Olivia’s waist where she sat in front of him, sideways in the saddle. The leather pressed painfully into her thigh. Her buttocks were numb, her back was cramped, and her stomach was liquid with terror. She eyed Clara’s horse, trailing beside them, its reins tied to Hassan’s stallion, saddle still on. If she could just get out of Hassan’s reach for a second, she could try and make a break for it.

  If.

  She flexed her fingers, twisted her wrists, keeping her body as still as possible so Hassan wouldn’t feel her movement. Ignoring the blistering of the rope on her skin, she caught her thumb in the knot, moving it back and forth like a piston.

  ‘Look,’ said Hassan, his breath hot on her neck, ‘over there.’

  Olivia saw the silhouette of two palms looming out of the darkness. The horizon was doing something strange beyond; it seemed to be moving. Hassan kicked the horse on. Slow down, Olivia screamed silently. Her thumb worked.

  ‘It will be over soon,’ said Hassan. Olivia thought he was talking as much to himself as to her. ‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘It will be quick. So quick.’

  She pressed her lips together. Her breath caught in her throat, threatening to choke her. She told herself that she was going to fight: for herself, for Ralph. She would not let Hassan take him. She repeated it over and over, silently, a mantra. She tried to believe the promise was making her stronger, but her legs wouldn’t stop shaking.

  Would she feel it when the bullet entered her? Where would he shoot her? Her head, or her heart? And would she die straight away, or would she have to wait, bleeding, for him to reload, take aim once more and end it?

  ‘I need to go to the lavatory again,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t.’

  ‘I do, I really do.’

  ‘It won’t matter, not in a few more minutes. Whatever you feel now, it will be gone soon.’

  What a strange and awful thought. Olivia struggled to make sense of it; she would no longer see, smell, be. Her cramps, the heat in her bloodied wrists, all of it would be gone. Where did it all go to? She’d learnt at school that Anne Boleyn had complained when her execution was delayed, anxious at the additional hours allotted to her, preferring to have it over and done with so that she might be past her pain. As though oblivion could be preferable to life and hope and the warmth of your own pulsing heart. Olivia couldn’t see it, not even a little bit. She didn’t want oblivion, she wasn’t ready for it. She couldn’t be so resigned.

  Inevitably, and far too soon, they reached the palms. Nestled in their shadows was a small hut.

  ‘Your sister stayed here,’ said Hassan. ‘It’s almost like you’re together again.’

  ‘It’s not like it at all.’ Olivia’s eyes strained as she stared out at the sands surrounding them. How far had Clara got? Was she really dead? Something in her fought it. It couldn’t quite feel true. But then nor had it with their parents. How macabrely Shakespearean that these Egyptian dunes had laid claim to them all.

  No. Enough. The desert might not have h
ad Clara; it would not have her. Don’t give in, Olly, don’t give up.

  Hassan got down and pulled her towards him. She arched away, her body rigid with fear. He pulled again and she reflexively kicked, catching his underarm with her boot. His dark eyes widened with pain. He grabbed her wrists and yanked. She landed with a bump on the hardened earth of the oasis, her dress billowing around her.

  She took a moment to catch her breath. She wriggled her hands; they still weren’t quite free. She looked up at Hassan. His eyes were hard now, no trace of the warmth she had become used to back at Clara’s. Silently, she asked, Which version of you is real? The one I see now, or the man you were then? Either way, it was clear he was bracing himself for what he was about to do. ‘Please don’t.’ Her voice caught and at last her control slipped. Just at this moment of her needing her mind clear, it filled with pictures: her mother’s smile beneath the tree in Cairo, Clara sobbing at those freezing London docks, the nuns, Beatrice’s drawing room on Christmas Day, Edward teaching her to ride, Edward saluting her, his smile, the feel of his heart…

  Hassan dragged her to the hut. The white fabric of his trousers quivered in the night air.

  She couldn’t think what to do. She was sobbing, snorting in terror. ‘No,’ she said, ‘nononono.’ She heard something, and didn’t hear it, all at the same time. She couldn’t make sense of it.

  Hassan’s head jerked sideways. He must have heard it too. His face creased in confusion. And El Masri was there, close, very close, with a gun of his own. Olivia didn’t know whether to be relieved or even more scared, but before she knew what she was doing, her head darted forwards and she sank her teeth into Hassan’s thigh, biting hard. She tasted blood. There was a high-pitched screaming. It took her a second to connect it with his pain. She didn’t stop, she kept on biting, not letting up on the pressure until she felt the connecting blow of his broken pistol on her skull. Her vision swam, but she didn’t lose consciousness this time.