by Paul Sussman
‘You have to believe me,’ she said a third time, struggling to control her voice. ‘Alex couldn’t have killed herself. Not like that. It’s impossible.’
In front of her, the doctor shifted in his chair, eyes flicking from his desk to Freya and back again.
‘Miss Hannen,’ he began slowly, still tweaking at his ear-lobe, ‘I know how difficult—’
‘You don’t know!’ she snapped. ‘Alex could not have injected herself. She couldn’t! She couldn’t!’
Her voice was becoming shrill. He gave her a moment to calm, then tried again.
‘Miss Hannen, when a loved one dies …’
She started to interrupt but he raised a hand, requesting that she give him a chance to speak.
‘When a loved one dies,’ he repeated, ‘especially in this manner, it can be very hard to accept. We do not want to believe it, to acknowledge that someone we care for – care for deeply – could be in so much pain that taking their own life becomes preferable to continuing with that life.’
He clasped his hands on the desk, shuffled his feet.
‘Alex had an incurable, degenerative condition. One that had already, in a very short space of time, robbed her of most of her movement, and one that was inevitably going to kill her, most likely in a matter of months. She was a courageous, strong-willed woman, and took the decision that if she was going to die, she at least wanted to control where, when and how it should happen. I am not happy about it, I wish she hadn’t done it, but I understand her reasons, and I respect her decision. Painful as it is, you must try to do so as well.’
Freya shook her head, clasping the armrests of her seat.
‘Alex would not have injected herself,’ she insisted, spelling out the words, emphasizing the ‘not’. ‘If she’d taken an overdose, or hanged herself, or …’
She broke off, overwhelmed by the scenarios she was describing.
‘Ever since we were kids Alex was terrified of needles,’ she continued after a moment, fighting back the tears, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘I know we hadn’t seen each other for a long time, but I also know that sort of fear doesn’t just go away. She couldn’t even look at a needle, let alone fill one with morphine and stick it in herself. It’s impossible.’
Dr Rashid looked up at the ceiling, then down again, exhaling slowly.
‘Sometimes, when you are very ill, you make the impossible happen,’ he said gently. ‘This I have seen many times as a doctor. I am not suggesting you are wrong about your sister, or that her fear was not what you say it was. Simply that when you suffer as she was suffering, fear becomes relative. What terrified her when she was in good health probably did so less when measured against the greater terror of a slow, lingering, painful death, one that day by day was stripping her of what little dignity she had left. By the end Alex had become desperate, and desperate people do desperate things. I am sorry to be so blunt about it, but I do not like to see you adding to your grief in this way. Alex took her own life. We have to accept—’
A loud bleeping from his pager interrupted him. Apologizing, he lifted the phone and hit a button, turning away from her and speaking in hushed tones. Freya rose and crossed to the window. She gazed down into a large paved courtyard with a towering India laurel at its centre. A family were breakfasting in the shade beneath the tree; a man in blue pyjamas was shuffling around wheeling a drip-trolley, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. She watched him, fingers drumming on the windowsill, waiting for the doctor to finish his call.
‘Did Alex tell you she was going to do something like this?’ she asked the moment he’d replaced the receiver, jumping straight back into the conversation. ‘Did she say anything to you about it?’
Rashid adjusted the position of his chair, clasped his hands on the desk again.
‘Not in so many words, no,’ he replied. ‘It had come up a couple of times in a … how do you say? … abstract sort of way. She certainly didn’t ask for my help, if that is what you mean. And I certainly wouldn’t have given it if she had. I am a doctor. My job is to save lives, not take them. She knew my views on this.’
Freya took a step forward.
‘Who found her body?’
‘Miss Hannen, please, these questions …’
‘Who?’
Her tone was blunt, insistent.
‘The housekeeper,’ he said with a sigh. ‘When she arrived in the morning.’
‘Where? Where did she find Alex?’
‘On the back porch, I believe. In her wheelchair. She liked to sit there, look out at the desert, particularly towards the end when she found movement difficult. The morphine bottle and syringe were on the table beside her. Exactly as would be expected.’
‘Was there a suicide note?’
‘Not so far as I know.’
‘That didn’t strike you as strange? Someone kills themselves and doesn’t leave a note, a letter of explanation.’
‘Miss Hannen, it was obvious what she had done and why she had done it. She had already made it known that if anything should happen to her you were to be contacted, that she wanted to be buried in the oasis near to her house. There was no reason for her to leave a note.’
‘The morphine bottle?’ Freya pushed. ‘The syringe? What happened to them?’
He shook his head, a faintly exasperated expression creasing his face.
‘I have no idea. I think the housekeeper threw them away. Given the circumstances it would have been morbid to—’
‘There was a bruise on her shoulder,’ said Freya, cutting him off, changing tack. ‘A big bruise. How did she get that?’
‘I really can’t tell you,’ he replied helplessly. ‘She fell over, she bumped into something. Her condition made her very unsteady. People with multiple sclerosis often have bruises. Please believe me, Miss Hannen, if there was anything—’
‘Where did she do it?’ snapped Freya, again cutting him off.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Inject herself. Where did she inject herself?’
‘Miss Hannen …’
‘Where?’
The exasperated expression became more pronounced.
‘In her arm.’
‘Her right arm?’ Freya thought back to the morgue, her sister’s naked body on the trolley. ‘Just below the elbow. Where there’s a small bruise.’
He nodded.
‘How did she do that?’
His eyes narrowed, not understanding what she was asking.
‘How did she do that?’ she repeated, harder this time. ‘You told me she could only use her right arm; that her left arm was paralysed. But she couldn’t inject herself in her right arm with her right hand. It’s physically impossible. She would have had to do it with her left hand. But you said that hand was paralysed. So how? How? Tell me.’
He opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, frowning. The question clearly hadn’t occurred to him before.
‘How can someone inject themselves in their right arm with their right hand?’ she pushed. ‘It can’t be done. Look!’
She demonstrated, flexing her right arm at the elbow, bending the wrist, her fingers only just able to brush the top of her biceps. Dr Rashid was still looking perplexed, eyes blinking as he struggled to come up with an answer.
‘Multiple sclerosis can be a very uncertain condition,’ he said after a moment, speaking slowly, hesitantly, as though still trying to think through what he was saying. ‘Symptoms come and go, sometimes very rapidly. It’s hard to predict what is going to happen.’
‘You’re saying her left arm suddenly got better?’
‘I’m saying that with a condition such as this strange things happen, unexpected things, sudden relapses and remissions …’
He didn’t sound convinced.
‘It’s hard to predict,’ he repeated. ‘It can be a very … confusing illness.’
‘You’ve seen cases like that?’ Freya pressed. ‘People with … what did you call it, Malburg Syn
drome?’
‘Marburg’s Variant,’ he corrected.
‘You’ve seen this happen? People suddenly recovering the use of a limb? You’ve seen it, you’ve heard of it?’
A long pause, and then he shook his head.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, I haven’t. With other forms of the disease, less severe forms, yes, perhaps. But with Marburg’s … no, I’ve never heard of it.’
‘So how?’ she repeated. ‘How could my sister have injected morphine into her right arm? Even leaving aside the fact that she was right-handed and terrified of needles … how could she have done this?’
Dr Rashid opened his mouth, closed it again, rubbed his temples, sat back in his chair. There was a long silence.
‘Miss Hannen,’ he said eventually, ‘can I ask … what exactly are you saying here?’
She stared straight at him, holding his eyes.
‘I think someone killed my sister. That she didn’t commit suicide.’
‘Killed as in murdered?’ he asked. ‘This is what you are saying?’
She nodded.
He held her gaze, fiddling with the cuff of his white jacket. From outside came the twitter of birds and, very faintly, the hum of cars. Five seconds passed. Ten. Then, leaning forward, he lifted the phone, dialled and spoke rapidly in Arabic.
‘Come,’ he said, replacing the receiver and standing.
‘Where?’
He held out an arm, indicating the door.
‘Dakhla police.’
BETWEEN DAKHLA AND CAIRO
‘More coffee, sir?’
‘Please.’
Flin placed his cup on the proffered tray; the flight attendant filled it from a plastic flask and handed it back to him.
‘Madam?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Molly Kiernan, holding a hand over her cup. ‘Thank you.’
The attendant nodded and moved away. Kiernan continued with the Washington Post article she was reading on Iran’s nuclear programme; Flin sipped his drink and dabbed half-heartedly at the keyboard of his laptop. The cabin around them reverberated with the low, monotonous growl of the plane’s engines. A couple of minutes drifted by, then, shifting in his seat, Flin looked across at his companion.
‘I never knew.’
She glanced at him over the top of her reading glasses, raising her eyebrows questioningly.
‘That you were married. All these years and I never knew.’
He indicated the ring on her left hand.
‘I always assumed it was to ward off unwanted admirers. That you were, you know …’
It took her a moment to get his meaning. When she did she let out an exclamation of mock outrage.
‘Flin Brodie! Do I look like a lesbian?’
He gave an apologetic shrug.
‘Can I ask his name?’
She lowered her paper and removed her glasses.
‘Charlie,’ she said. ‘Charlie Kiernan. The love of my life.’
A brief pause, then:
‘Died in the line of duty. Serving his country.’
‘He was … ?’
‘No, no. Marine corps. A pastor. Killed in Lebanon, ’83. In the Beirut barracks bombing. We’d only been married a year.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Flin. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She shrugged and, folding the newspaper, slid it into the pocket of the seat in front then leant her head back and stared up.
‘Would have been his sixtieth birthday tomorrow,’ she said quietly. ‘We used to talk about it all the time, what we’d do when we got old. A little spread up in New Hampshire, porch, rocking chairs. Kids, grandkids. Slushy stuff. Charlie sure was slushy.’
She sighed and, sitting upright again, made a show of putting away her glasses, the movement indicating that she’d said as much as she wanted to on the subject.
‘Oasis stuff?’ she asked.
‘Hmm?’
She nodded towards his laptop, the file he was working on.
‘Oh, no. A lecture I’m giving at ARCE next week. Pepi II and the decline of the Old Kingdom. Even I’m bored by it, so I pity the poor buggers who’ve got to sit there listening.’
She smiled and, resting her head against the window, gazed down at the desert below, the distant miniature hump of Djoser’s Step Pyramid drifting past like some dirty brown iceberg.
‘Fadawi’s out,’ she said after a moment, not looking round.
‘So I heard.’
‘You think—’
‘Not a chance,’ he cut in, sensing what was on her mind and dismissing it before she’d even had a chance to vocalize the thought. ‘Even if he knew anything he wouldn’t tell me, would rather cut out his own tongue. Blames me for what happened. Rightly, to be fair.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, Flin,’ she said, turning. ‘You weren’t to know.’
‘Whatever.’
He shut down his laptop and zipped it into its carry-case. Above them there was a muted ping as the fasten seatbelt sign came on.
‘It’s never going to be found, you know,’ he said. ‘Twenty-three years … it’s never going to be found, Molly.’
‘You’ll get there, Flin. Trust me. You’ll get there.’
A voice sounded over the plane’s tannoy system, speaking first in Arabic, then English:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are now beginning our final approach into Cairo. Please ensure your seatbelts are fastened and all loose items stored in the overhead lockers.’
‘You’ll get there,’ she repeated. ‘With God’s help you’ll get there.’
I don’t think God has any more bloody idea where it is than any of the rest us, thought Flin.
He kept it to himself, knowing that Kiernan would disapprove of the blasphemy. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and started wading through it all over again – Eye of Khepri, Mouth of Osiris, the Curses of Sobek and Apep – his ears popping as the plane dropped down low over Cairo.
DAKHLA
By the time the Bedouin came to the top of the dune ridge and spied the distant shimmer of Dakhla Oasis, they had not drunk for two days. Exhausted, they brought their camels into a line abreast, and as one raised their hands to the sky:
‘Hamdulillah!’ they cried, their voices hoarse, their mounts panting and honking beneath them. ‘Thanks be to God.’
If they had had water they would have dismounted there and then and brewed tea to celebrate the completion of their journey, enjoying the moment perched thus above the desert with the wilderness stretching out on one side of them and civilization looming on the other. As it was their water was long gone, and anyway, they were too weary and battered to think of anything other than reaching their destination as swiftly as possible. Without further ado they urged their camels down the far side of the ridge and continued on their way, silent save for the occasional encouraging cry of ‘hut hut’ and ‘yalla yalla’.
For the last three days, ever since the discovery of the mysterious corpse, the desert had tormented them, blocking their line of travel with an endless succession of mountainous dune walls, lashing them with a heat fiercer than any of them had ever known at this time of year. Now, finally, it seemed to have relented. It was cooler today and, as if bored with toying with them, the landscape began to flatten and fragment, the dune labyrinth breaking up into scattered swirls and hummocks of sand interspersed with stretches of flat gravel, easy on the camels and swift to traverse. Within an hour the indeterminate shimmer of the oasis had solidified into a heavy green blur backed by the pale sweep of the Gebel el-Qasr escarpment. Within two hours they were able to make out individual groves of trees and the white dots of houses and pigeon lofts. They broke into a lolloping trot, the lead rider out ahead, his companions strung out behind him in a staggered chain, robes billowing, driving their camels ever faster the closer they came to water and to safety.
Only the last rider failed to keep up the pace, slowly dropping back from the group until there was over a hundred metres between his camel and the on
e ahead. Satisfied that he was out of earshot he removed his mobile phone and, as he had done every few hours for the last two days, checked the display. He grinned to himself. He now had a signal. He dialled, bent down low over the saddle so no one could see what he was doing and, when the connection was made, started talking excitedly.
CAIRO – MANSHIET NASSER
‘Our honoured guest today needs no introduction, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, he was born into our community and remains an esteemed and respected member of it, even if his life has taken him elsewhere. Over the years his generosity has made possible numerous health and education projects here in Manshiet Nasser, of which this drop-in clinic is merely the latest, and although he has achieved both wealth and success, he has never forgotten his roots, nor abandoned his fellow Zabbaleen. He is both friend, benefactor and – I am sure he will not mind me saying – father to us all. Please give a warm welcome to Mr Romani Girgis.’
There was applause and a sour-faced, sallow-skinned man in dark glasses and an immaculately tailored suit rose to his feet. With his lank, greying hair oiled back across his scalp, there was something distinctly lizard-like in his appearance: the hollow cheeks, the pencil-thin lips, the way his tongue kept nudging out of the corner of his mouth. He acknowledged the assembled dignitaries with a nod, and, stooping to kiss the cheek of the Coptic bishop who occupied the seat next to his, came forward and shook the hand of the woman who had introduced him.
‘Thank you,’ he said, turning to the audience, his voice deep and slow, like the rumble of a heavy lorry – not at all the sort of voice one would expect from someone of his slight physique. ‘I am honoured to be here to open this new medical centre. To Miss Mikhail …’
He motioned towards the woman.
‘… His Grace Bishop Marcos, to the board and trustees of the Zabbaleen Metropolitan Development Fund, I say again thank you.’