Herring on the Nile

by L. C. Tyler

  The group now gathered around him in the saloon viewed the situation with varying degrees of trepidation, but few of us doubted we now had the man for the job. He spoke in generalities, giving no more than hints as to which organization we were up against or who he reported to in London. His Egyptian counterpart, a genial man with a carefully clipped moustache and well-pressed army uniform, was happy to confirm that we had firepower on board to stop any number of terrorists. He seemed to harbour a secret hope that Masterman was wrong about not having to resort to violence, but otherwise they were pretty much of one mind. His short speech concluded, the two of them nodded to each other, then turned again to us.

  ‘Questions?’ asked Masterman, in the manner of one who believes they have covered everything well enough. The cough from Herbie Proctor’s direction would probably therefore have come as an unwelcome surprise.

  ‘If they’re on their way,’ said Proctor, his nasal whine more than usually pronounced, ‘why not get us off the boat first using that rubber dinghy thing you arrived in? The nearest town would be good but, if not, that bit of bank over there looks safe enough.’

  ‘Nearest town is miles off,’ said Masterman, with studied patience. ‘I can’t afford for us to be stranded here ourselves while we wait for our boat to return. We don’t know for certain what the terrorists will do, and we need all our options open, I’m afraid. As for putting you ashore right here – which we could do – I don’t mind personally, but the next town’s as far away by road as it is by river. It’s a long walk in the dark and we can’t offer you any protection while you attempt it. For all I know, there may well be some bad hats already stationed on the bank to cover an escape. Don’t worry. We’re as sure as we can be that there’s no explosive on the boat. If there’s shooting later – and there shouldn’t be – just keep your heads down. They’ll be aiming at us, not at you.’ A patronizing little smile accompanied the last sentence.

  ‘It’s not their bullets I’m worried about,’ said Tom. ‘Purbright’s killer is still on board. Mahmoud and Majid were both with Captain Bashir when the shot was fired.’

  ‘Is that right?’ asked Masterman.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jane Watson. ‘We heard it.’

  ‘Many things can be mistaken as shots,’ said Masterman, ‘at least by the inexperienced.’ Having put the gym mistress in her place, he turned as if to talk to the Egyptian officer.

  ‘So, you’re saying I’m wrong?’ demanded Jane Watson.

  ‘That would seem the most likely explanation, wouldn’t it?’ said Masterman with studied politeness.

  ‘You are the second most arrogant man I have ever met.’

  Masterman did not regard this as breaking news. ‘That does not mean I am in any way mistaken,’ he said.

  Jane Watson lapsed into silence. Annabelle flashed her a sympathetic smile. If they had had a gun between them, Masterman would have needed to watch his back.

  ‘Thank you all for your patience,’ said the Egyptian officer, stroking his moustache. ‘If there are no other questions, I must ask you, please, to remain here until you are told otherwise.’

  So our little group was back together again – minus Ethelred and minus Purbright, but otherwise intact.

  ‘Well, aren’t we having an exciting evening?’ said Miss Watson drily.

  ‘The Cairo bit of your trip was certainly a lot quieter,’ said Tom.

  ‘Cairo?’ asked Miss Watson. Her mind still seemed for a moment to be elsewhere – possibly in a place where people like Masterman could be legally strangled and dumped into the nearest river.

  ‘We met you and your friend in the museum, remember?’ said Tom in clarification. ‘In case you can’t recall him, he had a big moustache and an army uniform.’

  ‘Sorry, I keep forgetting that we met you there. Ofcourse – Ahmed and I went to the museum. We saw you there. You said hello.’

  ‘I don’t think your friend liked us much,’ said Tom.

  ‘You’d just interrupted a conversation. That’s all. He was giving me some advice.’

  ‘Local knowledge is always good,’ said Tom.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? Ahmed told me where to go and what to do when I got there.’

  ‘Including this boat?’

  ‘Yes, he told me about the boat. Of course, he wasn’t to know how things would turn out. I’ve known Ahmed for ages. We both competed in the same Olympics, way back. We’ve stayed in touch – met up from time to time. He’s divorced now, a bit like me – well, he’s divorced, I’m separated. We had a lot to talk about this time.’

  ‘He looked like a tough cookie.’

  ‘Yes, he is a bit. But beneath all that . . .’ Miss Watson looked at the empty brandy glass she was still clutching. ‘He’s a good friend. If his information about this trip missed out one or two vital points, that wasn’t his fault. He certainly wasn’t to know we would all end up here on a sandbank.’

  ‘I still say they should evacuate this scrapheap and take us in their boat to Kom Ombo,’ said Proctor testily. ‘Unless the professor wishes to manhandle the ship’s tender off those bushes for us.’

  Campion, who had perhaps now had a chance to examine the ship’s stern and the small boat hanging diagonally from it, decided to ignore the latter option. ‘They couldn’t do it in one trip,’ he pointed out. ‘There are too many of us.’

  ‘They could get some of us away,’ said Proctor.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘We could draw lots for who goes first,’ said Proctor.

  ‘Not women and children then?’ asked Miss Watson.

  ‘I don’t see that many children,’ said Proctor. ‘The grown-ups should draw lots equally. Fair’s fair.’

  ‘I’m happy to let the ladies go first,’ said Tom. ‘I just don’t think we’re going to be given that option for all of the reasons we’ve already heard. And I don’t think we should split up with a killer in our midst. Always a mistake – check out almost any B horror movie if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘But Masterman said it was Mahmoud or Majid,’ said Proctor. He still wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but he was coming round to the idea that the loss of a client by terrorist action might be excusable.

  ‘Only if you don’t believe Jane’s version of events,’ said Tom.

  ‘He doesn’t think that girls know anything about firearms,’ said Miss Watson. ‘Maybe he’s right. I’m obviously confusing a pistol with a rolling pin. Silly me.’

  ‘You heard the shot too, Herbie,’ said Tom.

  ‘Yes,’ said Proctor. ‘That’s right. I heard the shot.’

  ‘And you, Elsie?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Actually, I might confuse a pistol and a rolling pin,’ I admitted. ‘I never cook anything that won’t fit into the microwave. But I’d trust Jane on this.’

  ‘Well, that’s at least two people who were here against one who was miles away,’ said Tom.

  ‘At least,’ said Campion, ‘you now know that Mahmoud and Majid were not policemen.’

  He implied that he had known this all along, which wasn’t the way I remembered it. Of course, it also meant Ethelred had been right, which was a serious flaw to any theory. I also still had a reasonable doubt that I wished to introduce.

  ‘I don’t want to throw in further complications,’ I said. ‘But how do we know what Masterman is saying is true? How do we even know that Masterman is actually from MI6?’

  ‘But he’s a colleague of Purbright’s,’ said Campion.

  ‘Except Purbright is really Raffles,’ said Proctor, who was now beginning to have doubts about his doubts. Without some fixed point on which to tether our theories we were going to drift around indefinitely.

  It struck me that in a perfect world the good guys would arrive in white boats and the bad guys in black boats – that way you’d be certain what you were getting. As it was, we were probably with the good guys and the bad guys were probably out there . . .

  ‘So,’ said John, ‘you mean maybe we should all try
to rush these guys when they least expect it and wait for the real police to return . . .’

  This was getting too complicated for most of us. Somebody had to throw us a lifeline. That person proved to be Sky Benson.

  ‘He’s not Raffles,’ she said. ‘Purbright is really Purbright. Masterman is therefore really Masterman. And I’d rather you didn’t try rushing anybody who might start shooting anywhere near me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Tom.

  ‘Yes. One hundred per cent. Purbright looks nothing like Raffles. There’s no chance of it being Raffles who was shot.’

  ‘So you know what Raffles looks like?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Well, it would have helped if you’d said that earlier,’ said Tom. ‘But at least we now know.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Proctor. ‘Raffles was my client, but I didn’t know what he looked like. And it wasn’t through want of trying. There was nothing on the Internet. At the trial they imposed reporting restrictions because they didn’t want the children identified. You can’t get a picture of Raffles anywhere.’

  ‘Well . . .’ said Sky.

  ‘It is perfectly clear to me,’ said Campion. ‘Since there were no photos, Sky must have seen an artist’s impression or something at the time. I think we should just accept that Purbright and Raffles are different people. Let’s leave the poor girl alone.’

  ‘There were no artists’ impressions either,’ said Proctor. ‘Or nothing good enough to identify anyone. How on earth is Sky supposed to know him?’

  Sky paused as if on the verge of some significant revelation. What she eventually said was: ‘I’m a librarian.’ As revelations go, it was not a big one.

  ‘He used to come into the library,’ Sky added, getting into her stride. ‘To borrow books.’

  ‘What sort of books?’ demanded Proctor.

  ‘Romantic novels,’ said Sky.

  Proctor had not been embarrassed that his client had narrowly avoided conviction for murder, but this shameful disclosure left him, for the moment, with nothing to say.

  ‘OK,’ said Tom quickly. ‘Purbright is Purbright and Raffles is Raffles. So we won’t try violence on anyone for the moment.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ I said. ‘Raffles was, it would seem, definitely planning to join us on this boat. Isn’t that a bit of a coincidence under the circumstances?’

  ‘Loads of people come into the library,’ said Sky.

  ‘Coincidence or not, we’ve been lucky to avoid his company,’ said Campion. He looked around the group, defying us to contest this statement. ‘Unless we are suggesting that Sky killed Purbright, and I for one am not, I can’t see this is getting us anywhere at all.’

  I looked at Tom and he looked at me. He seemed to be thinking the same thing. Everything pointed to my policemen being, very sadly, a couple of terrorists. And to Ethelred being right. But there were still a few things that needed to be explained.

  Tom and I again gravitated to the far side of the saloon, where a whispered conversation could be conducted in the reasonable hope of secrecy.

  ‘I’m not calling Sky a liar,’ said Tom, ‘but isn’t it just too much of a coincidence that she knows Raffles and now turns up on the same boat that Proctor is expecting to find his client on? And can you recently recall seeing somebody as nervous as Sky is now?’

  Ethelred was once up for a very minor literary award, and had shown a similar propensity to drop and knock things over, right up to the moment that they announced he hadn’t won it. But there was of course more to Sky’s unease than that.

  ‘Sky and Campion were plotting something,’ I said. ‘I overheard them talking the other evening. Campion was saying that they had to go through with it now – or something to that effect. Since then Campion’s been on pins every time Sky opens her mouth, as if he’s afraid she’ll give something away.’

  ‘So the pair of them could, on some sort of tip-off, have travelled out to Egypt in the hope of being able to get a better chance to take a potshot at Raffles here.’

  ‘Sky has to be in disguise,’ I added. ‘The whole no-make-up, cheap-jewellery thing always seemed a bit overworked. Nobody over the age of sixteen would wear a necklace like that except for a bet.’

  ‘Good point. Why didn’t I spot that? Damn, I’m losing my good taste. Anyway, Raffles gets a warning letter and calls in Herbie Proctor. But Raffles chickens out and doesn’t show up.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Raffles – not from Proctor’s description,’ I said.

  ‘No? Well, accepting now that Purbright never was Raffles, perhaps Sky and Campion are still expecting the real Raffles to join the boat later – at Aswan, say – and decide it would be safer to get rid of Proctor first, or at least warn him off. Sky goes up to the roof of the temple in her floppy hat and lobs the rock down.’

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘they’d have no reason then to shoot Purbright, being the only ones on the boat who were absolutely sure he wasn’t Raffles.’

  ‘That’s the one minor flaw in my theory,’ Tom conceded.

  ‘And where does Campion fit in, anyway? Even if we accept that Sky supplies Raffles with romantic fiction, what’s Campion’s interest in all this?’

  ‘I’m certainly not letting it drop anyway,’ said Tom. ‘Maybe Ethelred will have some answers when he gets back.’

  We looked out through the window. There was another boat approaching. Seven men in a white motorboat. And they were heading our way fast.

  ‘Stay away from the windows!’ said Proctor. ‘We were told to keep our heads down.’

  Tom was crouching and I decided it might be a good idea to crouch too. The white boat was now sliding silently alongside. I could see Ethelred, quite clearly, starting to get awkwardly to his feet, then the boat disappeared out of our line of sight.

  I stood up, hoping to be able to catch a glimpse of it from a better angle, but all of the action was going on somewhere I couldn’t quite see.

  ‘Get down,’ hissed Proctor.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said, still standing. ‘The white boat is leaving. It’s swinging round and back off up the Nile. Everything’s going to be OK. We’re safe!’

  At which point there was the most enormous explosion.

  Twenty-six

  ‘Shit,’ I said.

  The guy in the linen suit paused for a moment. We were both calculating how long we had. The terrorists would not detonate the bomb while they were still moored to the Khedive. So, ten seconds to cast off, then fifteen seconds maybe to get clear of us before they pressed the button?

  The case was ripped from my hands and flung through the open door in a broad arc that took it twelve feet or so above the smooth waters of the Nile. There it seemed to hang, improbably suspended in mid-air, before it started to tumble, end over end, and down into the murky depths. I saw the white motorboat speeding away, then all was hidden by a vast plume of water as the briefcase, perhaps still drifting slowly towards the bottom of the river, exploded with a roar.

  ‘So,’ I said as the guy in the suit helped me to my feet, ‘Majid isn’t on our side then?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  The ringing in my ears was so bad I had to ask him to repeat that, which he did.

  ‘He told me he was,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll have to add “deceiving a member of the Crime Writers’ Association” to the list of charges then. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  The chandelier above our heads was still swinging gently, the glass lozenges brushing against each other with a tinkling noise that was in a different key from the noise in my ears. The overall effect was a bit like Stockhausen. I’ve never liked Stockhausen.

  ‘George Masterman,’ said the guy in the suit, holding out his hand, this time to shake mine.

  ‘Ethelred Tressider,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, we know that,’ said Masterman. I suspect that most things he said sounded dismissive, but he had put just t
hat extra bit of effort into his last remark.

  ‘I’m sorry to have put you to this trouble,’ I said.

  He grunted. He was sorry too. ‘A tip for you, Ethelred. If we tell you not to bring anything with you, we mean just that. It’s not like when the girly at the airline check-in desk asks you if you’ve packed all your bags yourself. You could have killed everybody on the boat.’

  ‘He said he worked for the Egyptian police.’

  ‘Don’t believe everything people tell you.’

  Masterman purported to work for MI6. He seemed to think that I should believe that, the crisp linen suit presenting an irrefutable argument in his favour.

  ‘Is everyone on board OK?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re fine. Maybe we should join them?’

  Fortunately I had not expected a hero’s welcome when I found my way back to the saloon.

  ‘You moron, Tressider,’ said Proctor. ‘When did you join Al-Qaeda?’

  ‘I didn’t know it was a bomb,’ I said.

  ‘What did you think it was?’ asked Proctor. ‘A ham sandwich?’

  There were obviously many other things the case could have contained other than a bomb or a ham sandwich, but I felt the mood of the meeting was too much against me to point this out.

  ‘I thought it was just a briefcase,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. A ticking briefcase,’ sneered Proctor.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘bombs rarely tick. This one was designed to be detonated remotely by—’

  ‘Thank goodness the security services were on board,’ said Professor Campion. ‘That’s all I can say.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t have any other bombs with you?’ asked Proctor, backing away in mock terror. ‘Have you checked your pockets?’

  ‘Look,’ said Tom. ‘Ethelred’s had a pretty tough time out there. Had things gone differently, the world of literature might have lost one of its stars tonight. Maybe we should show him a bit of sympathy?’

  ‘He’s an idiot,’ said Campion. ‘And the world of literature would hardly have missed him.’