by Paul Sussman
'It's OK,' he said, stroking her hair. 'You're doing fine. Just fine.'
He needed to help her more. Give her some clues to jog her memory. He thought about his earlier conversation with Tauba and decided to try a long shot.
'Did Mr Iqbar say he'd sold this thing to an Englishman?'
A sudden, vigorous nod.
'Did he say he'd sold it to an Englishman who was working at a place called Saqqara?' He said the word slowly, spelling it out. There was a brief pause and then another nod. He decided to backtrack.
'Maia, can you remember a man coming into this shop a few days ago?'
He had seen Professor Mullray lecture a couple of times at the American University, years ago, and scoured his brain now for an image of the man.
'He would have been a tall man, Maia. Old. With lots of white hair, and funny little round glasses and . . .'
She interrupted him, excited. 'He could pull his thumb off!' she cried. 'It was funny.'
He had come into the shop several days ago, she explained, and while Iqbar had gone to look for something in the room at the back, he had asked her if she wanted to see a magic trick and when she had said, 'Yes!' he had gripped his thumb and pulled it right off his hand. It had made her laugh, she said.
'And did he buy something from Mr Iqbar?' asked Khalifa.
She worked one of her fingers up into her nostril. 'A picture,' she said.
'A picture?'
She removed the finger, its tip glistening, and drew a square on the counter-top.
'It was like this. There were snakes along the bottom. And . . .' She paused, searching for the right word. '. . . shapes,' she said eventually.
Shapes, thought Khalifa. Shapes. It could be hieroglyphs. An object with hieroglyphs on it.
'I helped Mr Iqbar wrap it up,' the girl continued. 'In a box. I always helped him wrap things up.'
She bit into her candy. Khalifa slipped from the counter and began pacing up and down the shop.
These are the pieces of the jigsaw, he thought to himself: Nayar comes to Cairo and sells some artefact to Iqbar. Mullray buys it from Iqbar and takes it back to Saqqara. Nayar is killed. Iqbar is killed. Mullray dies of a heart attack, which might or might not be a coincidence. Mullray's daughter comes to Saqqara and removes the object. People unknown try to stop her.
Far from becoming clearer, the whole thing seemed more confused than ever. What was Mullray doing handling stolen antiquities? What exactly had happened yesterday at Saqqara? How was Mullray's daughter involved?
The object, he thought to himself. That's the key. What is this object everyone wants so badly? What is it? What? What?
He turned back to the girl. There was no point asking her about the picture again. Clearly she'd told him everything she could about it. The only other possibility was that she knew of other artefacts Iqbar had received from Nayar and which might, just might, still be on the premises somewhere.
'Maia,' he asked gently, 'did Mr Iqbar have a secret hiding place here in the shop? A special place where he put all his important things?'
She didn't reply, her eyes revolving away from his and coming to rest on her knees. Something about her manner – the tightness of her mouth, her clenched fists – told him his question had struck a chord.
'Please help me, Maia. Please.'
Still she didn't say anything.
'I think Mr Iqbar would want you to tell me,' he said, taking her hands. 'Because if you don't I can't catch the people who did those bad things to him.'
She was silent for a moment longer and then looked up at him.
'If I show you where it is can I have al-Ghul's lamp?'
Khalifa smiled and lifted her to the ground.
'That sounds like a fair deal to me. You show me the hiding place, you get the genie.'
The girl chuckled, pleased with the bargain, and, taking Khalifa's hand, pulled him into the room at the back of the shop.
'I'm the only person in the world who knows about it,' she said, going up to the wooden guardian statue in the corner of the room. 'Even the ghosts don't know. It's a secret.'
The statue was black, with a gold headdress, staff and sandals, and a splayed gold kilt. The girl placed her hand on the underside of the kilt, which appeared to be solid wood, and pushed hard. There was a faint click and a hidden drawer slowly descended, like a clip from the butt of a pistol. The girl took it from its slot and laid it on the floor, then turned back to the statue and carefully unscrewed one of its toes, revealing a cavity from which she removed a small metal key. This she inserted into a lock in the lid of the drawer, turning it twice and opening it.
'Good, isn't it?' she said.
'It certainly is,' said Khalifa, kneeling beside her. 'Very good.'
The drawer was divided into two compartments. In one was a thick roll of banknotes, some legal documents and a jar full of nuggets of uncut turquoise. In the other was a cloth bundle done up with string. Khalifa removed the bundle and untied the string, letting out a low whistle when he saw what was inside.
There were seven objects: an iron dagger with a rough leather strip wrapped around its handle; a silver amulet in the shape of a Djed pillar; a gold pectoral; a small terracotta ointment jar with the face of the dwarf-god Bes stamped on it; and three pale-blue faience shabtis. He examined them one by one, turning them over in his hand, and then turned to the girl. She was no longer there.
'Maia,' he called, standing and, when she didn't reply, walking back through into the shop. 'Maia!'
She had gone. And so too, he noticed, had al-Ghul's bronze lamp. He went to the front door and stepped outside, but she was nowhere to be seen.
'Goodbye, Maia,' he said quietly. 'May Allah smile upon you.'
LUXOR
Suleiman al-Rashid was dozing on a mat in the shade behind his mobile lavatory when he heard the creak of metal steps as someone climbed into the trailer above him.
Normally he would have gone round to see if they needed toilet paper and to make sure he was suitably positioned for any baksheesh they might offer once they emerged. The midday heat was too intense, however, and so he remained where he was, head cradled on his arm, while from above came the thump of feet on the hollow trailer floor.
He didn't immediately register anything untoward. There was, admittedly, a curious splashing sound, but he presumed the customer was simply ladling water from the bucket in the corner of the trailer into the basin of the urinal to clean it out. There was no need to, since Suleiman made a point of keeping the trailer spotless, but some people, especially the Germans, were obsessive about these things and, rolling onto his side with a grunt, he left them to get on with it.
Then, however, he smelt petrol, and at the same time heard a loud dripping as something leaked from the trailer and splashed onto the sandy ground beside him. He struggled to his feet.
'Hey!' he shouted, making his way round to the front of the trailer. 'What's—'
A heavy blow from behind pitched him forward onto the trailer steps.
'Get him in here,' hissed a voice from above.
A pair of strong arms circled Suleiman's waist and he felt himself being heaved upwards. Someone else grabbed him from above and he was half dragged, half pushed into the trailer's interior. He tried to struggle, but he was still groggy from the blow to his head and offered only token resistance. The stench of petrol made him gag.
'Cuff him,' came the voice. 'There. To the pipe.'
There was a click as something closed around his wrist. His arm was yanked violently upwards and then another click. He winced as the handcuff bit into his flesh.
'Now petrol.'
Something was poured over his face and djellaba. He tried to get out of the way, but his arm was held fast by the cuff. The liquid stung his sightless eyes and made his mouth burn. He couldn't see his attackers, but then he didn't need to. He knew who they were.
The pouring stopped. There was a clatter as an empty jerrycan was thrown aside and then the clump
of feet as his assailants jumped from the trailer. For a moment everything was silent and then he heard a match being struck. Curiously, he felt no fear. Anger, yes, and sorrow for his family. How would they survive without him? But not fear.
'Ibn sharmouta! Ya kha-in!' hissed a voice from outside. 'Son of a whore! Traitor! This is what happens to those who inform on Sayf al-Tha'r!'
There was a brief silence and then Suleiman heard a whoosh of flame and felt a fierce heat rushing towards him across the flimsy plywood floor.
'May God have mercy on your souls!' he whispered, yanking desperately at the cuff around his wrist. 'May the Almighty forgive you!'
And then the fire swallowed him and all that could be heard were his screams.
CAIRO
An hour after leaving Iqbar's shop, Khalifa was sitting opposite Crispin Oates in his office at the British embassy. He hadn't bothered to call beforehand to ask for an appointment, had just turned up unannounced. Oates clearly hadn't been pleased about the intrusion, but had had little choice other than to invite the detective in. He was getting his own back now by being as patronizing and unhelpful as possible, albeit with impeccable English politeness.
'And you've no idea where this Tara Mullray has gone?' Khalifa asked.
Oates sighed wearily. 'None at all, Mr Khalifa. As I explained to you just a few minutes ago I last saw Ms Mullray the day before yesterday when I picked her up from her hotel and brought her to the embassy. Since then I've had no contact with her at all. Um, I'm afraid it's a no-smoking office.'
Khalifa had just removed his cigarettes from his jacket. He put them back again, hunching forward slightly, the artefacts from Iqbar's shop weighing heavy in his inside pocket.
'Was she acting strangely in any way?' he asked.
'Miss Mullray?'
'Yes. Miss Mullray.'
'How do you mean strangely?'
'I mean did she seem . . . preoccupied?'
'She had just found her father's body. I would have thought we'd all seem a little preoccupied in such circumstances, wouldn't you?'
'What I mean is . . . you must excuse my English, it is not . . .'
'On the contrary, Mr Khalifa, your English is excellent. Much better than my Arabic.'
'What I mean is, when you last saw Miss Mullray did she appear as though she was in any sort of trouble? Frightened, perhaps? Under threat?'
No, replied Oates, so far as he could recall she had appeared none of these things. 'I have told all this to the men from Giza, you know. Of course, I'm more than happy to co-operate, but it does all seem a little . . . repetitive.'
'I'm sorry,' said Khalifa. 'I'll try not to take up too much more of your time.'
He stayed for a further twenty minutes. The more questions he asked the more convinced he became that Oates knew more than he was letting on. What he knew, however, and why he should wish to keep it secret, were things he clearly had no intention of revealing, and eventually Khalifa decided he'd got as much as he was going to. Pushing back his chair, he came to his feet.
'Thank you, Mr Orts,' he said. 'I am sorry to have troubled you.'
'Not at all, Mr Khalifa. My pleasure. And it's Oates. OATES.' He spelt it out.
'Of course. Apologies. And I am Inspector Khalifa.'
They shook hands stiffly and Khalifa started towards the door. After a couple of paces, however, he stopped and, pulling out his notebook, scribbled swiftly on a blank page.
'One last question. Does this mean anything to you?'
He showed the page to Oates. On it was a rough square, just as the girl had drawn it for him in Iqbar's shop, with some scribbled hieroglyphs inside and, along its bottom edge, a row of serpents. Oates glanced down, his mouth tightening ever so slightly.
'No,' he said after a brief pause, 'I'm afraid not.'
Liar, thought Khalifa.
He held Oates's eyes for a moment and then folded the notebook and returned it to his pocket.
'Oh well,' he said, 'just a long shot. Again, thank you for your help.'
'I don't feel I've been very helpful at all,' said Oates.
'On the contrary. You've been extremely . . . informative.'
He smiled and walked out of the door.
In his office Charles Squires flicked off the intercom on which he had been listening to the exchange and sat back in his chair. For a while he remained very still, staring up at the ceiling, a slight grimace pinching his face, and then, sitting forward again, he lifted the telephone and dialled swiftly. There were three rings and then a click.
'Jemal,' he said, 'I think we might have a problem.'
24
LUXOR
They reached Luxor midway through the afternoon, having been travelling for almost twenty hours.
They could have done the journey in a third of the time. Daniel, however, had insisted on taking an extensive detour to avoid passing through middle Egypt.
'South of Beni Suef the whole area's crawling with fundamentalists,' he had explained. 'You can't spit without Sayf al-Tha'r knowing about it. And, anyway, there's a police roadblock at every junction. Foreigners aren't supposed to travel through the area without an escort. We'd be picked up before we'd gone ten kilometres.'
Rather than go directly south as the crow flies, therefore, following the Nile highway straight down to Luxor, they had turned east at al-Wasta across the desert.
'We'll cross to the Red Sea,' he had told her, tracing their intended route on a map, 'and then follow the coast south to al-Quseir. Then we can turn inland again and hit the Nile here, at Q'us, just north of Luxor. That way we cut out the whole of this middle stretch.'
'It seems a long way round.'
'Yes,' he agreed, 'but there are benefits. Like getting to Luxor alive.'
Amazingly, given the circumstances, Tara had enjoyed the journey. There hadn't been much traffic on the road east and Daniel had pushed the speedometer up past 140 kilometres per hour, the sun dropping swiftly behind them until suddenly it was dark and they were alone in the middle of the desert. The air was clear and icy cold, and above them a twinkling canopy of stars.
'It's beautiful,' she cried as they cut through the emptiness. 'I've never seen so many stars.'
Daniel slowed slightly. 'The Egyptians thought they were the children of Nut,' he called, 'the goddess of the sky. She gave birth to them each night and then swallowed them again in the morning. They also thought they were the souls of the dead, waiting in the darkness for the return of the sun god Ra.'
She tightened her grip around his waist, enjoying the warmth and firmness of his body. Suddenly everything that had happened over the last two days seemed to recede.
They stopped for the night in a small fishing village by the sea, finding a room above a cafe with two beds and a window overlooking the water.
Daniel fell asleep almost immediately. Tara lay awake late into the night, listening to the hiss of the sea and gazing at Daniel's face in the moonlight, sunburnt and strong, the brow furrowed as though his thoughts were troubled ones. He began muttering and, unable to stop herself, she leaned closer to hear. It was a name. A woman's name. Mary something. Over and over again. Mary. Her stomach tightened and, rolling away, she stared out of the window, inexplicably saddened.