The Woman on the Orient Express

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

  Max hurried over to where the women were sitting. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “It’s just one of the urns they carry water in. I thought I’d better distract him with a bit of target practice!”

  “The man’s a lunatic!” Katharine huffed out a breath. “Poor Len: he’s gone as white as a sheet!”

  “Do you think you should go to him?” Nancy said.

  “I can’t.” Katharine shrugged. “It would be considered very bad form for any of us to go to the men’s end of the tent.”

  “But Max has come down to us.”

  “That’s different, I’m afraid.” Max grinned. “Terribly one-sided, I know, but that’s how things are among these tribes.” He turned to see the sheikh and his followers returning to finish their coffee. “Better get back,” he said, “or he might point it down this end.”

  A few minutes later Max was back. “The sheikh has a special request.” He looked at Katharine, then Agatha. “He wants you to take a look at some of his wives. They have various health complaints, apparently.”

  “Some of his wives?” Agatha raised her eyebrows. “How many does he have?” “About a dozen, I think. But he may have acquired a couple more since the last time I asked.” Max looked as if he was trying very hard not to smile. “You were a nurse, too, weren’t you? Do you think you could give Katharine a hand?”

  “Well . . . yes, I suppose so.” Agatha hesitated. “We don’t have any medical equipment, though . . .”

  “We do,” Katharine said. “The first aid kit’s in the back of Queen Mary.”

  Max and Nancy went to fetch it while the others made their way to the back of the tent through the partition. The sheikh’s wives were all waiting there, sitting in line on cushions. The giggling rose to a crescendo when they caught sight of Katharine and Agatha.

  “I wish Max could come in with us,” Katharine said. “His Arabic is so much better than mine. We’ll just have to make the best of it, I suppose.”

  The women appeared to range in age from midteens to late thirties. There were fifteen of them, and every one of them stepped forward when Katharine asked who was ill. The first one pointed to her eyes.

  “Do we have any boric acid in the first aid kit?”

  Agatha looked at Katharine, who smiled. “Oh—you don’t think it’s conjunctivitis?”

  “Well, it could be . . .” Katharine chuckled. “I’ve just twigged what’s going on. We were here last year—for this same feast—and I gave boric acid to one of the wives with instructions to bathe her eyes in it. But apparently she misunderstood me and drank it instead.”

  “Oh dear—what happened?”

  “She gave birth to twins a few months later. Two boys. I guess the sheikh is hoping I’ll give the stuff to all his wives!”

  As if on cue, they heard the sheikh’s voice through the partition. He was talking to Max. Katharine’s lips twitched. She clapped her hand over her mouth.

  “What’s he saying?”

  “That the khatun—that’s me—is a miracle worker. He’s asking if Max has some of the magic white powder in his box . . .”

  It was good to see Katharine laughing. The wives joined in, and it was a while before she and Agatha were in a fit state to find out who was really ill. After giving out headache remedies, iodine, and demonstrating how to bathe sore eyes, they said their good-byes and went back to the truck.

  They were the only ones left, Max having already ferried the others back to the compound. Katharine climbed into the middle, between Agatha and Max.

  “Our visitor has asked to stay the night,” Max said as he started the engine. “He said he didn’t fancy sleeping on the train.”

  “Oh—that’s a nuisance.” Katharine clicked her tongue. “Trust him to turn up when we’re full. He’ll have to have Leonard’s room, I suppose.”

  Agatha glanced sideways. Katharine’s expression was unreadable. She had been very quick to offer up Leonard’s bed. She could surely have asked Max to give up his room and sleep on the roof. Agatha sensed it was a calculated decision. Perhaps this was the night she would tell her husband the truth.

  CHAPTER 25

  Katharine wasn’t asleep when Leonard came to bed, but she pretended to be. She had lain awake in the dark for what seemed like forever, rehearsing it in her head. But when she heard the click of the door latch, she knew she couldn’t go through with it.

  For the past six weeks she had given him one excuse after another. On their wedding night—the only night they had been alone together at the dig house—she had pretended she was having her monthly period. It was the first of many lies. She had never had a period—had only heard other women talk about them. Then, when more than a week had passed, she told him she had a stomach bug that had left her feeling weak. Then she had used the others as an excuse, saying she felt inhibited by the presence of so many other people in the compound.

  It was a month into their marriage that he had resorted to watching her take her bath. Now it had become their nightly ritual. She would knock on the door of the Antiquities Room to tell him that she was going to hit the hay. That was his signal. And when she was standing there, naked, about to climb into the tub, she would hear the telltale scrape of the wooden stool he brought outside each evening to stand on.

  Two nights ago he had knocked on the door and asked if he could come to her room when she went to bed. To her shame, she had used Bertram as an excuse, mumbling through the door that it was the anniversary of his death and she was feeling too sad for company. Another lie. Bertram had died in the spring. But Leonard didn’t know that. There was so much that he didn’t know. But now he was here. In her bedroom. And he had nowhere else to go.

  She closed her eyes tight as he padded across the floor. She heard the rustle of his clothes coming off and a slight creak as he placed them on the chair back. Then she felt the bed shift as he climbed in. Her body stiffened. She was facing the wall. She felt his arm brush against hers. It was a gentle, tentative movement.

  “Katharine, are you awake?” She lay absolutely still, afraid even to breathe in case the rhythm betrayed her. She heard Agatha’s voice in her head. Go on! Now’s your chance! You can’t go on like this . . .

  No. She couldn’t. But the thought of opening her mouth, of uttering those incriminating words as he lay here beside her made her feel sick with fear.

  After a minute or two she felt him shift onto his other side. He had given up. Still she lay there, paralyzed, until she heard the steady breaths of sleep.

  What about tomorrow? And the next day . . . Agatha’s voice again.

  She must tell him. She had to. But not like this. Not in the bedroom, the source of all the trouble. And not face-to-face. Because she couldn’t bear the reaction her confession was likely to unleash. Rage and pity and disbelief fused in a look of utter contempt. The same look she had seen in the mirror the day the doctor examined her.

  I’ll write him a letter. It came to her suddenly. Far better for him to read it than to hear her say it. She would leave it for him to find when she was somewhere else, somewhere well away, so he couldn’t confront her until he’d had the chance to calm down. Agatha and Nancy would give her the excuse she needed. Tomorrow was their last day. She would suggest a picnic by the river. Just the three of them.

  She took a long, deep breath, stretching just a little in an effort to release the tension in every muscle. She tried to turn her mind to trivial things, like what they would take to eat, whether Nancy would want to swim, how to arrange it all to get the truck back in time to pick up the others from the dig. She made a mental list for the picnic, hoping sleep would overtake her before she got to the end of it. When that didn’t work, she tried an A-to-Z of all the food they had in the larder at the expedition house. Anything to shut out those other thoughts. She must sleep. She must.

  Across the courtyard Nancy was awake, too. She wasn’t sure what had brought her out of her usually deep slumber, but as she turned over in bed, she felt a griping pain in
her belly.

  Her hand went to the spot, rubbing the taut skin through her nightgown. Was it something she had eaten at the feast? She thought about the lamb, roasted in an open pit. What if flies had settled on it? Or perhaps it wasn’t cooked all the way through.

  She shifted onto her back and the pain subsided. But she was wide awake now. She wondered what time it was. There was no hint of dawn in the star-studded patch of sky beyond the window. She closed her eyes, knowing what she would see.

  His face.

  Lying here, alone, in the small hours of the night, she felt the lack of him more keenly than ever. The familiar questions crowded her mind. Where would he be at this moment? What would he be doing? Who was he with?

  Will he come?

  That question was always there, a disturbing whisper which, at times like this, grew loud enough to drown out every other thought in her head. She wondered if there would be a letter waiting when she got back to Baghdad. He hadn’t said, in the last one, how things stood with his wife. Perhaps he had decided it would be too cruel to tell her until after Christmas. There was his daughter to consider, of course: not fair to ruin that time of year for her.

  Should she tell him about the baby if it was born before he was able to come out to Baghdad? She had written that letter in her imagination countless times. She had promised herself never to use emotional blackmail. But from the moment of that first fluttering inside, the urge to tell him had become overpowering.

  How would he react to such a letter? Would he jump on the next available train? Take her and the baby back to London? Where would they live? He was not exactly rich and would still have a wife and child to support. And all she had was the money Delia had left her, which wouldn’t last long in London. But he had said he couldn’t live in Baghdad . . .

  She felt her stomach turn over—a different sensation to the cramping pain of before. This was a familiar churning borne of panic. What if he never came? What sort of life would she make for herself and this baby? Who could she turn to when Agatha went home?

  Her mind reeled with too many questions. She must stop thinking. Get back to sleep. For the baby’s sake as well as her own. In a bid to distract herself, she tried to think of what she would call the child when it was born. Would it be a son or a daughter? She had read in a magazine that some women had a sixth sense about the sex of the baby they were carrying, but this wasn’t true for her. She tried to think of names that would suit both a boy and a girl. She began going through the alphabet.

  Alex . . . Frances . . . Hilary . . . Kim . . .

  Before she got any further, she was asleep.

  Katharine wrote the letter before breakfast, while Leonard was in the Antiquities Room. It was the most difficult letter she had ever written in her life. She was baring her soul to the man who held her whole future in his hands. Knowing that it was the right thing to do didn’t make it any less harrowing.

  When it was finally done, she couldn’t push it under his bedroom door because Hugh Carrington was in there. And she didn’t want to leave it where someone else might find it. She would have to wait until their visitor had gone.

  In the meantime, she busied herself with preparations for the picnic, instructing Ibrahim about food and gathering together blankets, cushions, and towels. She put her camera in the bag that contained her swimsuit. She had been meaning to take pictures all week but had not got round to it. It would be good to have a framed photo of herself and Agatha hanging on the living room wall. A nice conversation piece for future visitors.

  If you’re still here.

  Her hand stopped in midair as she withdrew it from the bag. Would Leonard throw her out when he read that letter? Would she come back from the picnic to find her bags packed?

  A sudden knocking pulled her back from a dark spiral of thoughts.

  Max was on the other side of the door. “He wants to see the excavations before getting his train. Just thought I’d better warn you.”

  “He really doesn’t like women, does he?” Katharine sighed. “He was quite rude to me yesterday. He said he was surprised to hear that I was working at the dig because he thought a man of Leonard’s distinction wouldn’t want to be distracted by having his wife on-site.” She rolled her eyes. “The cheek of it!”

  Max shook his head. “Yes—he’s very old-school.”

  “Well, don’t worry—I plan to keep my distance until he’s gone back to Baghdad. I’m going to take Agatha and Nancy for a picnic. Will you come back when you’ve dropped the others off and give us a lift to the river? You can pick us up after lunch.”

  “Is that wise?” Max frowned. “Leaving you there on your own?”

  “It’s only for a couple of hours—and I’ll take one of the rifles. I can’t imagine we’d be of much interest to bandits, without a vehicle.”

  “Hmm.” He looked unconvinced. “Well, if you’re sure.”

  “It’s all arranged.” A cool smile ghosted onto Katharine’s face. “Agatha will love it. She likes swimming, doesn’t she?”

  The place Katharine had chosen for the picnic was in a grove of trees bordering the river. Their boughs hung low, almost touching the emerald-green water, like weeping willows.

  “They’re Babylonian poplars, actually,” Katharine said when Agatha commented on them, “but they do look like willows.” She spread a blanket under one of the trees and laid cushions on it. “I thought Nancy might like to sit in the shade while we swim.”

  Agatha looked across to where Nancy was standing. She had found a patch of wildflowers—tiny blue-and-mauve spikes, like lupins—and was holding one up to her nose.

  “It’s a shame I haven’t got a swimsuit to lend you,” Katharine went on. “I only have this one.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Agatha replied without looking round. If Katharine was fishing for details of the outing with Max, she was not going to oblige.

  “I need a smoke first anyway.”

  Katharine went to get her bag, which was hanging from a branch of the tree. Agatha sat down on one of the cushions, watching the river slip lazily by, barely a ripple marring its glassy surface. Soon the pungent aroma of a Turkish cigarette came wafting across the blanket. She watched the smoke curl and rear like a ghostly snake as the warm desert wind took it down to the river.

  The water looked very inviting. She couldn’t help wishing that it was Max, not Katharine, who was about to go plunging in with her. There had been no chance to be alone with him since their trip to Ukhaidir. No chance even to talk without being overheard. And this was their last day. Tomorrow she and Nancy would be on the train back to Baghdad.

  This morning, as they were getting into the truck, Max had given her a look that spoke volumes. It was the kind of look Archie had given her the first time he came to her mother’s house in Torquay: a look that seemed to say I want you so much it hurts.

  Last night, as she lay in bed, she had fantasized about the train ride back to England. Five whole days with Max. It seemed impossibly romantic, getting to know each other while traveling through some of the most breathtaking scenery in the world, stopping off to explore Istanbul and seeing more of Venice.

  She hadn’t breathed a word of it to Nancy or Katharine. She hadn’t said or done anything to fuel Katharine’s suspicions about what had happened at the lake. And to say anything to Nancy would be downright cruel, given the heartbreaking situation she was in. But Agatha longed to confide in someone, longed to be told that she was not being foolish to hope for some kind of future with a man like Max.

  “Shall we go in?” Katharine’s voice startled her. Agatha looked round to see that she was already in her swimsuit. “I changed behind the branches,” she said, grinning. “Not that I’m prudish, as you know—but you sometimes get fishermen coming along the river.”

  Katharine looked so different this morning. It was hard to believe that, less than twenty-four hours ago, she had been so utterly miserable she could barely string two words together. Had she spoken to Leo
nard, Agatha wondered? Had they managed to work something out? She didn’t dare ask.

  “I won’t be a minute.” Agatha ducked under the dangling fronds of the tree. She kicked off her shoes and peeled down her stockings. Then she took off her skirt and blouse. In her bag she had another set of underwear. She pulled the camisole over her head—on top of the one she was already wearing—then stepped into the knickers. Hopefully two pairs, when wet, would preserve her modesty rather more effectively than one. When she emerged, Nancy was settling onto the rug, arranging the cushions to support her back.

  “Come on—last one in’s a lily-livered landlubber!” Katharine ran toward the river, her long, slim legs bending like saplings in a breeze. Agatha hurried after her, unable to keep up. She had never been particularly athletic. Swimming was the only thing she was reasonably good at. And it was a long time since she had taken any regular exercise. By the time she reached the water’s edge, she was out of breath. Katharine was already yards out from the bank.

  “Wait for me!” Agatha dived in, feeling the rush of adrenaline as the cold water enveloped her body.

  “Let’s swim to the other side!” Katharine bobbed up and down, treading water as she waited for Agatha to catch up. As the distance between them closed, Katharine disappeared beneath the surface.

  “I’m over here!” Katharine emerged on the other side of the river. When Agatha reached her, Katharine began splashing her mercilessly. “That’s . . . your . . . punishment!” She sent a shower of water with each word. “For . . . being . . . last!”

  Agatha retaliated by creating a barrage of spray with her feet. Soon they were falling about, helpless with laughter.

  “I’m absolutely starving, are you?” Katharine said when they’d both calmed down. “Shall we go and get something to eat?” With effortless strokes, she swam back across the river and scrambled up the bank to where Nancy lay dozing on the blanket. Grabbing a couple of towels, she threw one to Agatha, who was having trouble keeping her balance in the slippery mud at the water’s edge.