by C J Turner
With a shiver of trepidation (or was it, perhaps anticipation?) she had no trouble believing him.
Now she had two lots of adversaries to contend with instead of one, for she was just as determined as the Professor, to keep concealed that which he was so determined to find out. But Blake, she surmised, would prove to be the most worthy, and by far the more dangerous opponent.
Max however, was shocked at this rough and ready treatment and hastened to intervene.
‘No really Blake, put her down, that is no way to behave. It has been a lot for her to take in - it has been a lot for me to take in and I at least am in my right mind, at least I hope I am! Shaking the wits out of her is not going to help! I suggest that we go to bed and try and get some sleep, things will be clearer in the morning, they always are.’
It made sense. Blake reluctantly let her go and they took Max’s advice, trooping upstairs to their beds just as Alice was coming brightly down the stairs to start breakfast – it was after all nearly seven am by this time - thereby throwing that good woman into considerable confusion as they yawned their goodnights to her and disappeared into their rooms.
‘Goodnight? Goodnight! Good grief, do you know what the time is? It should be Good Morning!’ she exclaimed in astonishment. The sleep of the just and the good, she reminded them sternly, should be taken at the proper time, i.e. at night!
The telephone woke Blake some hours, (it seemed only minutes) later. The insistent ringing of the telephone. Not that it went unanswered, but minutes later it would start again and by the time Alice had remembered how to switch it off, he was wide-awake and in as filthy a mood as he had ever been.
A shower helped to revive him somewhat and he had just lathered his face, preparatory to beginning his shave, when the sudden unexpected noise of someone persistently banging at the front door, caused the hand holding the razor to jerk across his face and cut his chin. With a ferocious curse, he threw the razor back into the soapy water with a splash and stormed downstairs, dressed just as he was in a large dark blue towel tucked firmly round his lean waist.
He met a flustered Alice in the hall, leaning with her back to the solid oak of the front door.
‘What the hell is going on, who’s out there?’ he demanded angrily, ‘And who’s been ringing the bloo… damned telephone every five minutes?’
Alice was distracted. ‘I am sorry, but they will not take no for an answer – it’s the press, they seem to have got hold of Alex Bentley’s story about the … about the … you know, the …incident that happened the other night, and as they cannot get to him, they want to interview Meredith! It’s not just the local papers, some of the Nationals have been ringing up as well – they know that she has lost her memory and that you have taken her in … and so on. They’re offering a lot of money for exclusive rights to her story!’
‘What!’ the Professor vented his wrath with a stream of vitriolic imprecations that had Alice retreating hurriedly to the kitchen.
Now Max came down to find out what all the commotion was about, but he, in stark contrast to Blake, was impeccably shaved and fully dressed. He joined Alice in the kitchen, where she proceeded to enlighten him while she served up brunch. Blake joined them a few minutes later, and appeared to have pulled himself together.
‘No really, Blake, not first thing in the morn …’ Max caught Alice’s fulminating eye and pursed lips and continued smoothly, ‘No, I really must protest! I simply cannot be expected to do justice to this delicious food with you standing there half naked, unshaved, glaring at everyone through all that foam – and blood as well! No really, it’s too much and anyway, it’s very bad form to appear at the breakf… at lunch …drat, at meal times looking like a cross between a rather gory Father Christmas and Tarzan of the apes – I insist that you get dressed immediately, or at least put on a dressing gown.’
‘Well, I thought I did have one somewhere, but I couldn’t find it,’ Blake replied vaguely, looking around as if he expected it to be lurking somewhere in the kitchen. Alice bit her lip hastily and turn away to busy herself at the sink. ‘I can’t think where the cursed thing’s got to – anyway, what on earth’s that you’re eating – looks like horrible pink jelly?’
‘On the contrary, it is an exquisite asparagus mousse – superb, my dear Alice – you never forget that I am a vegetarian.’ Max smiled an affectionate salute at Alice, who beamed back at him, before turning, with considerable less beam, to the Professor.
‘I’ll thank you to come to the table properly dressed,’ she scolded, flustered. ‘Meredith could be down at any moment and I won’t have her embarrassed…’
Blake rudely interrupted her, ‘I am not coming to the table at all, if you intend serving me that revolting pink stuff,’ he growled warningly.
‘Oh do go away, Blake and stop being a bore.’ Max intervened tersely, ‘You are going to give me indigestion, if I have to go on looking at you like that for much longer. I’m sure Alice will find you a nice pig’s trotter or haunch of venison to gnaw on later, if you ask her nicely.’
‘Hmm, only if he gets dressed first!’ Alice said sternly, although privately she thought Blake looked rather splendid – her own husband had also been, as she put it to herself, a fine figure of a man.
Both of which comments Blake totally ignored. Here, at last, was a chance for some action!
‘The fat’s in the fire now and no mistake,’ he said cheerfully as he poured himself a cup of coffee. ‘We shall have to get her away, Max. Out of the country, if at all possible, as soon as we can – today for preference!’
Max spluttered into his cup. ‘Are you mad, dear boy?’ he choked out. ‘She hasn’t got a passport for one thing and I can think of many other reasons why - ,’ his voice trailed away as he met Blake’s raised eyebrows and bland, expectant expression. ‘What did you have in mind?’ he enquired lamely with a resigned sigh.
Blake had turned to Alice. ‘Call Sally, she’s the girl who did my typing, Max, when Alice sprained her wrist that time – you may remember her? No? Well, it doesn’t matter – Alice, ring Sally and ask her if we can borrow her passport. She has similar colouring and build to our girl, and if we put her bandage back on with a bit more besides, we may just get away with it. … No, Alice, of course it isn’t an offence. Well … yes …perhaps technically… OK, Max, if you want to be pedantic … but, WILL YOU BOTH SHUT UP AND LISTEN FOR A MOMENT? Thank you. May I remind you that this is deadly serious. It is imperative that we get Meredith away before the story breaks in the newspapers!’
The bright kitchen light gleamed across the tanned breadth of his powerful shoulders as he set down the cup to adjust his towel and looking up, he grinned wickedly at his startled audience from the mask of bloodstained white foam.
‘It will be all right, I tell you. After all, I am not unknown at the airport, why should anyone be suspicious of a respectable chap like myself?’
Chapter 8
He would not budge, argue they ever so wisely, which they did and at some length. Alice pointed out that a bit of newspaper coverage might not be such a bad idea – someone might come forward who could identify Meredith. At this point, Max, who had gone into a brown study while the other two argued over his head, and had been thinking hard, suddenly changed tack. With a long thoughtful look at Blake, he told Alice that all sorts of crackpots claimed knowledge in this sort of situation, and with no real claim on Meredith themselves, it would be difficult to protect her from sensation seekers - or worse.
Blake might be in the right of it, he said, get her away safely first and argue about it afterwards. Alice was unconvinced but had a great deal of respect for Max’s judgement and if he felt that Meredith’s safety was at stake, then she would go and telephone Sally straightaway. But they would have to take responsibility if anything went wrong, mind, Sally must be protected and kept entirely blameless in this mad enterprise. Duly reassured, Alice bustled away and Max turned to Blake doubtfully.
‘Is this really necessary?�
�� he asked quietly.
‘Yes, I think it is,’ the other man answered slowly, ‘There is something here that I’m missing, Max but I’m certain that it revolves around the girl. This is not a random train of unconnected coincidences and she is the catalyst to all of them! Bentley described his attackers as being dark, swarthy and they were speaking to each other in what sounds like Arabic. The girl obviously understands Arabic, as I proved last night - it is probably her native language! She is mixed up in all of this and I am absolutely certain that she has got her memory back, so why is she still pretending that she has not.’
‘I believe recovery from amnesia can take many different forms. Once a positive trigger is applied, you can remember everything suddenly, all in one go, or memories can just filter through gradually, piecemeal,’ countered Max, feeling in some obscure way that he had to defend her.
‘If she has recovered her memory, then why hasn’t she told us what is going on, there can’t be an innocent reason for holding back?’ Blake demanded.
‘Well obviously, she doesn’t feel that she can trust us. If you are right and she is mixed-up in something unpleasant, the poor girl must be going through hell, not knowing which way to turn for help. You have to gain her confidence, not try to shake it out of her!’
‘I cannot understand why you and Alice insist on clinging to this absurd misconception that Meredith is capable of being frightened by anyone – let alone me, it is beyond belief!’ Blake burst out crossly. ‘You are assuming, mistakenly in my opinion, that she must be on the side of the angels – but if she is not, then it isn’t so difficult to work out why she would prefer to keep us in the dark. Have you considered that she may be part of the gang? They did get away you know.’
‘Oh rubbish, and she’s not the only one who likes to keep people in the dark,’ rejoined Max tersely, ‘What was all that business last night about the scarab necklace, anyway?’
‘An extremely intuitive deduction!’ Blake started to say smugly.
‘You mean you took a shot in the dark that came off!’ Max scathingly interrupted. ‘You made five after all!’
‘No, but it was something that Meredith certainly should not have had any knowledge of - if she is the innocent you seem to think. She says she never went into Bentley’s house, remember and yet in his statement, Bentley describes the figure that appeared to scare off his attackers, as wearing an identical necklace to the one I know is in her possession! What on earth is she doing with a genuine Eighteenth Dynasty artifact? It’s beautiful, Max, a museum piece, and it’s also just the thing to whet the appetite of a gang of undesirables, especially if they think there’s more where it came from!’
Max was unmoved by his friend’s outburst.
‘But surely, if that were correct and it was Meredith herself and not some figment of Bentley’s over heated imagination that he saw the other night, she was obviously trying to protect him. You are too hard on her, Blake.’
‘No, there is more to it than that – otherwise there would be no reason why she could not tell us what’s going on and let us help her. All we know for certain is that she is drawing some really bad forces to her like a magnet. Once her being here becomes public knowledge, I think she, perhaps all of us including Alice, could be in serious danger. Apart from trying to safeguard her, we have to try to avoid any more innocents being caught in the crossfire, like poor old Bentley. We are too hedged around here, get her in the open and we might stand a better chance of identifying the bad guys. All we need to say to the girl is that we are taking her to Egypt to follow up a lead we may have on her possible identity.’
Max frowned and raised quick concerned eyes to his friend’s face.
‘I thought the idea was to go into hiding and keep her safe – you sound as if you are setting her up as some sort of bait! You’re not running for cover are you, Blake? You’re hunting!’ he accused the Professor heatedly.
‘Now Max, just calm down. Unless I miss my guess completely, this whole thing started in Egypt. Ergo, that is where we have to go to finish it, and by all the Gods, that is precisely what I intend to do!’
There was such unaccustomed vehemence in Blake’s voice that Max stared at his friend for a moment in astonishment. Before he could say anything more, however, Blake had turned away and was wiping the drying white shaving foam from his face with a tea towel. Max very much misliked the expression thus revealed on the aforementioned face, but he was convinced. Unresisting, he was relentlessly shepherded upstairs to gather up his belongings in readiness for their flight, roping in Alice on the way to help with the packing.
Blake was about to follow them when he recalled some unfinished business from the previous night and throwing the crumpled tea towel over his shoulder, he quickly turned back into the study.
To pause in surprise. The girl he knew as Meredith was sitting on his desk, bent over the strewn photographs and she held one particular snap close to her face as she studied it. She was wearing an over large silk dressing gown which had slipped slightly, revealing a little more décolleté than Alice would have approved of. Her cloudy hair fell over her shoulders and she looked sexy and disturbing, and to Blake, highly seductive.
She looked up in quick alarm as he opened the door, and then languidly leant back on one arm, the hand that still held the photograph now hidden behind her.
The robe split open to reveal those long slim brown legs which Max had so admired. She made no attempt to cover them or the still bare shoulder, although her eyes widened at the Professor’s sudden appearance, as unconventional as her own, and she gave a soft little gasp of amusement as his cool glance took in her dishabille.
He was very brown, she noticed and well muscled, the breadth of his shoulders more noticeable now when he was not wearing a shirt, but it was not just his looks, but his total confidence in his own masculinity that sent her heart beating that bit faster. He was dangerous, and the testosterone at that level sent out a direct challenge to all women, impossible to ignore.
She had known that it would be difficult, had never dreamt that it would be this hard. Those few precious moments that they had shared last night in the peace of the study - forget last night, she told herself sternly, think of this as another job - do what you have to do.
‘Found anything interesting?’ he asked lightly. Walking up to her, he reached behind her, and pulled her wrists forward so he could see what she had been studying so intently when he entered the room.
It was not one of the official photographs of the excavation, but an informal black and white snapshot of the members of the team grouped around the campfire one evening after the day’s work.
‘This, may I remind you, is my private study. Now what could you be looking for, I wonder?’
She met his eyes defiantly. ‘I was just wondering where everyone was, if you must know, and these photographs happened to catch my eye.’
Those eyes, Blake noticed with interest, were big and sparkling with something, the sudden light of battle or … tears? Surely not, but he reluctantly had to admire her bravado, even while her deliberately wanton appearance was having its inevitable effect on him.
‘You seemed very interested, have you remembered anything?’ he asked in a deceptively casual tone.
‘I don’t know, there is something, but when I try and remember what it is, it just disappears,’ she tried to turn away, but his grip tightened and he dragged her closer towards him.
‘It could help, you know, if you would understand that I am trying to help you, but you are making it damnably difficult!’
She regarded him quizzically; such obvious scepticism in those cool grey eyes that his temper snapped and his calm resolve was cast abruptly to the winds.
It seemed to Blake that every time he felt he was on the brink of getting through to her, she deliberately pushed him further away. He was not used to having his leash tugged in this way, and he resented the feeling that she seemed more in charge of the situation than he was!
/> Abruptly, he pulled her into his arms and his mouth came down on hers, fierce but very sweet, and she felt her own blood leap in immediate response.
For an unbelievably wonderful moment, she closed her eyes, wishing with all heart that this impossible situation was different, but it would not do. He obviously did not trust her with the truth, so how could she confide in him?
Crushed in that hard embrace, she became aware that he was rather obviously only wearing the towel. Somehow, she had to squash his increasingly warm interest. Amunet knew she could handle his indifference, or even his active antagonism, but not the tenderness that she had seen burgeoning in his eyes last night, before Max had come in and broken the spell. It had weakened her and could only lead to disaster. The irony of the situation was like a cruel knife twisting in the wound, but with an effort, she pulled herself together, mentally shutting the door firmly on the past. Think of it as a job, she reminded herself firmly and her professional training took over.
Almost as if he sensed that she had come to a decision, his hands slid up to grip her shoulders and he pushed her from him a little so that he could look gravely down into her face. She forced herself to meet those harsh questioning eyes with a bold look of her own, before she lowered the impossibly long eyelashes and slid one small hand tentatively over the bare skin of his chest.
‘This is not the right time,’ she whispered softly, ‘The others may come down at any moment.’
Whatever he had been expecting her to say, it certainly was not that. Disconcerted, his eyes narrowed suspiciously, one eyebrow raised in interrogation. The girl was obviously up to something, but what? For a moment the rich green silk of the dressing gown was reflected in her eyes, giving an entirely different cast to her features, and the look in their depths was ancient in knowledge. Again, despite himself, he felt his blood stir sensuously.