“That’s enough. You’ve had a horrible shock. We all have. We can speak of it tomorrow.”
The drug had started to have an effect. Her eyelids drooped and her breathing slowed.
“But then everyone gathered round,” she said. “The things people said. Mr. and Mrs. Archer, Mr. McRae—Leonard, even. And the look in Cecil’s eyes frightened me. They were all standing there, accusing me of killing Sarah.” She paused as a horrific thought possessed her. “Maybe everyone is right. I know I was angry with her. I felt like putting my hands around her neck and strangling her until she was blue in the face. Perhaps it was me after all . . . Perhaps I am guilty of murder. But I don’t remember doing it. Am I going mad?”
As Katharine’s arm went limp I took the teacup from her hands and made sure that she was comfortable. She would sleep soundly for at least eight hours, I hoped. I watched her as her eyes closed, thinking over not only the events of the night but of the days since I had arrived in the camp. There was so much evidence that pointed to the fact that Katharine Woolley was, as Gertrude Bell had said, a truly dangerous woman. Although I knew she was not in Iraq at the time of Miss Bell’s death, she could have sent the threatening letters and that drawing from England to an intermediary in Baghdad. Perhaps she was guilty of sending a poison pen letter but nothing more? But what of the suggestion that she had played some part in the death of her first husband? And what was I to make of the dreadful sensations and events since my arrival at Ur: of the awful atmosphere, the thick scent of suspicion that hung in the air, the demise of Katharine’s cat, and then the horrible death of Sarah Archer? Yes, Katharine seemed to sit at the center of it all. And yet . . . there was something not right.
As I sat there gazing at Katharine’s quietly beautiful face, I did not feel any fear. Despite what I had witnessed tonight—the sickening image of Sarah Archer with her skull smashed in, the sight of Katharine Woolley with the girl’s blood smeared across her hands—I realized that I was not afraid of her. Mrs. Woolley probably suffered from some sort of mental illness, but my instinct told me that she was not a murderer.
I walked over to her desk and picked up the incomplete manuscript of Katharine’s novel, which she had entitled Adventure Calls. I sat down and read for half an hour. It was a strange tale of a girl called Colin who disguised herself as her twin brother to undertake a dangerous secret service mission in Iraq during the early 1920s. It was an entertaining if unlikely story, but then I thought of some of my own novels and short stories, whose plots required leaps of the imagination, too. One paragraph from Katharine’s manuscript, about the law of the desert, jumped out at me.
In England, if a man is killed, the murderer is pursued by the far-stretched arm of the law; both the detection of crime and its punishment are the duty of the State alone. But tribal law is different. There the family of the murdered man takes upon itself the duty of pursuit and punishment, and the guilt extends from the murderer to every man of his house. There is no jury and no judge, only the avenging kinsman’s bullet fired at the first member of the blood-guilty family caught unawares. The feud, a chain of murders, may be drawn out for generations, till the original crime is forgotten and the alternate slaughter goes on senselessly.
As I read this, Katharine’s words sent a chill straight through me. What if she was playing an elaborate game? I had been taken in before by the surface sheen of appearances, and, despite my best efforts and past experience, I could certainly be deceived again. Of course, I knew that one should not use literary criticism as a form of detection. After all, how would I feel if strangers started looking into my novels and short stories for clues to my own inner life? Yet there was something about the words that Katharine had written that made me suspect she was drawing from something very close to home. My imagination started to turn over. Could Katharine be using the mask of insanity as a cover? Could she simply be pretending to be unhinged in order to carry out murders in cold blood? Was she enacting some perverse form of justice that she had dreamt up in her twisted mind, setting herself up as judge, jury, and executioner of people who had offended her? If not that, then what was her motive? Was there a pattern? I read the passage again, and one phrase in particular jumped out at me: “a chain of murders.” I knew what she meant by that; after all, one death often sparked off others, like some awful kind of catalyst.
I feared that the death of Sarah Archer was not an isolated event. In fact, I had a terrible premonition that this was just the beginning of a cycle, one which could be long and bloody.
12
Katharine woke with a start, jolting me from my slumber. My neck was sore from the awkward angle at which I had been sleeping in a wicker chair by her bed.
“Sarah’s head . . . something in the dark . . . all sticky,” she said. “All covered in blood.” She looked down at her hands, as if surprised to see that they were clean. She looked at me like a confused child. “What happened?”
“There was an accident with Miss Archer,” I said. “What do you remember of it?”
After taking a few sips of water she began to tell me something of the incident. As she spoke I was conscious of not taking her word as the gospel truth. Her version of events would, I knew, have to be compared to the evidence gathered by the authorities. I assumed that, once the local police had been informed, the message would be relayed to the high commissioner in Baghdad and thence to Davison. I surmised that it would not be long before my friend arrived at Ur.
“I think I said something unfortunate, something that upset Mr. and Mrs. Archer,” said Katharine. “They said they would be leaving—that they would be pulling their funding for the expedition. I wanted to explain, and so I ran after them. It was dark, but I followed their torches. But then I think I must have lost them. I saw another light and I started to walk after that, and as I came down the steps I heard what sounded like a girl’s cry. I ran towards the noise. I couldn’t make out what it was at first; I thought it was a doll, a life-size one, on the ground. But I realized it was Miss Archer. I think I collapsed, and as I reached out, that’s when I felt something wet on my hands. I screamed, and the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by the rest of the group, all with horrified expressions on their faces. Then the accusations started. I think listening to those—hearing what people thought I was capable of—was worse than the discovery of that body. Even Leonard thought . . .”
“And did you hear or see anything before you heard the cry?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I might have heard the sound of footsteps or some sort of scuffle. And it was so very dark, wasn’t it? I was finding it difficult enough to find my way with a torch.” She sat upright and grasped my hand. “You do believe me, don’t you? You’re not one of those traitors who would try and get me to hang for something I didn’t do?”
“I’m sure it’s not going to come to that,” I said, trying to disguise the fact that I wasn’t quite sure what I believed. There was a gentle knock at the door. “Excuse me,” I said, relieved that I could turn my back on Katharine so she could not see my ambivalent expression.
It was Woolley. “How is she?” he whispered as he ushered me outside the room and gestured for me to shut the door. “Has she said anything about last night?”
I informed him of what his wife had told me: that she might have heard footsteps or a scuffle, soon followed by a cry.
“So it may not have been an accident, then?” he said, his face darkening.
“No, I don’t believe it was,” I replied.
“Just that we’ve heard from Nasiriya and they won’t be able to send anyone over here until tomorrow at the very earliest,” he said. “Minor uprising or something along those lines.”
“I see,” I said.
“I just told the Archers the news and they blew up in my face,” he said. “They demand I get someone higher up from the Baghdad police. I’ve told them of course we will try, but the police are not going to get here any sooner, what with the journey.” He collap
sed back down on the chair, looking exhausted. “Normally, I don’t mind not getting much sleep.” He stared at me. “You probably didn’t get much either, eh?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter. I thought it was important to sit with your wife.”
“And now Hubert Archer is demanding that I keep Katharine locked up in here. He says that it would be too much of a risk to let her out—that she would be a danger. I’ve tried reasoning with him, but he’s not having any of it.” He ran his hands through his hair and exhaled deeply. “I suppose if my daughter had been murdered I would feel the same way.”
“I don’t mind staying with her,” I said.
“You’re not . . . afraid?”
“Should I have cause to be?”
He did not reply.
“Mr. Woolley, if there is anything you have kept from me—for example, anything relating to your wife—I think it’s only fair that you tell me.”
“Well, I—” Just as he opened his mouth to say something—something that I was sure would prove to be important—Katharine opened the door.
“Excuse me, Leonard. If I could just have a word with Agatha for a moment . . . ,” she said. She spoke as if she were at a village tea and she wanted to talk to me about the minutes of the parish meeting or to ask me about a recipe for a particularly delicious sponge cake, not about the ramifications of a brutal murder in which she was the chief suspect. Had she been standing behind the door listening to our conversation? Was she fearful that her husband would say something that would implicate her?
“Of course,” he said with a strained smile.
Inside, Katharine rushed me away from the door and immediately started to talk in whispers. “I heard what Leonard was telling you,” she said. So she had been eavesdropping after all! “That monster of a man, Mr. Archer. I wish he’d never set foot in this camp, the moralizing idiot. Sorry, but to suggest that I should remain locked up here in my bedroom like a common criminal . . . It’s preposterous!”
“It does seem rather extreme, but then, often after a sudden shock, some people’s reactions can be quite uncompromising,” I said.
“I know the police are delayed and I don’t want a cloud of suspicion hanging over me for longer than is necessary,” said Katharine, color rushing into her face now. “So this is what I want you to do. I’d like you to go around to everyone here and interview them about what exactly they saw and what they were doing last night. It’s only what the police would do and you may as well get on with it, don’t you think?”
“Yes, but—”
“How would you persuade people to talk to you? I’ve thought of that, too. People will be open to you; you’ve got that kind of face. And if they aren’t, you can say that the police have sent a message asking you to do some groundwork for them in preparation for their arrival, or something along those lines. What do you think? You’ll do it, won’t you? Please say you will.”
Strangely enough, I had already thought of such a plan, as I was sure I could get Davison’s retroactive backing to carry out some initial investigations.
“If you think it will help, then yes,” I said.
Katharine threw her arms around me. “Thank you,” she said. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am.” I remained as stiff as a board and extracted myself from her embrace, looking at her with a serious expression.
“What’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Katharine, you must realize that if I’m going to do what you ask, I have to remain impartial.”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“Which means that, if it wasn’t an accident, I have to regard you as being just as much of a suspect as anyone else,” I said.
“Oh, I see,” she said quietly. She fell silent for a moment or two before she said, “Well, you may as well start with me, then. Ask anything you like.”
Once again she went over her movements of the previous night: how she had followed the Archers, how she had lost sight of their torch, how she had heard the sound of footsteps and then a cry, and how she had found Sarah’s body at the base of the ziggurat. Katharine made it seem all very plausible, but how did I know that she wasn’t lying? Now was the time to ask her some more searching questions—questions relating to her past. This line of inquiry did not come naturally to me—I would have preferred more subtle measures—but I needed to gauge her reaction. The only way I could get through this would be if I imagined myself to be a detective character from one of my own novels.
I took a deep breath and began. “Have you ever committed a crime, Mrs. Woolley?”
Katharine looked startled, appalled. “What do you mean?”
“Your first husband, Bertie, the one you told me shot himself.” I paused. “Did you kill him?”
“How dare you!” she exclaimed, her eyes full of fire.
“You said that I could ask you anything.”
“Yes, but I meant about last night, not something that happened years ago.”
“But as you know, the events of the past often have a bearing on the present,” I said, trying to swallow, but my throat was dry. “I must ask you again: Did you murder your first husband?”
“Have you lost your mind? Of course I didn’t kill Bertie!”
“And what about Miss Gertrude Bell?”
“What about her?”
“Did you play any part in her death?”
Katharine looked at me as if I were playing some cruel practical joke, almost as if she expected that at any moment my mask would slip. “I don’t understand where this is all coming from,” she said. “Leonard and I were in London when Miss Bell died.”
“Did you send her any kind of threatening letters or drawings?”
“No. What makes you think I did?” She stopped and looked at me as if seeing me for what I really was: a false friend who had won her intimacy by not wholly honest means. “I see. It’s all beginning to make sense. How could I have been so foolish as to trust you.”
“Katharine, if you’ll allow me—”
“Mrs. Woolley to you,” she said with ice in her voice. “And to think that I confided in you. You who came here under false pretenses. Who sent you? I wonder. It doesn’t matter, but whoever it was had something they wanted to find out. I’m right, aren’t I? They suspected me all along of . . . what? Killing Bertie? And driving Gertrude Bell to her death? And now you think I’m the one behind Miss Archer’s death, too.”
“Please, if you—”
“Don’t waste your breath,” she hissed. That manic look had returned to her eyes. “A snake in the grass, that’s what you are, or rather something more deadly: a snake in the sands.” She stood up and looked towards the door, a clear sign that I should leave. “There are other less polite names for your kind, but I wouldn’t lower myself by saying them.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but there was nothing left to say. Katharine Woolley was right. I was a snake—yes, worse than that. She had every right to be angry. I had handled the situation badly. I had assumed one could act like a character from a novel. What a fool I had been! It had been wrong of me to accept Davison’s offer. I should have stuck to what I knew: sitting at my typewriter, writing stories, spinning tales from the rich swell of my imagination. What had possessed me to think that I had the talents for anything but that? I opened the door slowly, stepped through it, then turned back to her, feeling the sting of tears in my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I managed to say before Katharine slammed the door behind me.
“Oh, dear,” said Leonard, who had already jumped from his seat outside the room. “Are you all right? You do look terribly pale.”
I nodded, unable to speak for the moment.
“Did Katharine give you a piece of her mind?” he said. “Yes, we’ve all been subject to her sharp tongue, I’m afraid. Here, why don’t you sit down.”
I took Woolley’s chair as I tried to compose myself. “She—she asked me to help by taking everyone’s statements about their moveme
nts last night.”
“Yes, a very good idea in the circumstances, I would have thought,” he replied.
“She said I could ask anything—anything at all. I thought she wouldn’t mind a few probing questions. But I’m afraid I was wrong.”
“Oh, I see,” he said.
“It was my fault entirely,” I said. I recalled the crazed look in her eyes, a look that frankly frightened me. “I was too clumsy in my line of questioning. I’d like to apologize to her, but she’s so angry that she won’t hear me out.”
“What we’ve all learnt—those of us who are close to Katharine—is that she has a temper, a temper so strong that it can burn. She can be charm itself one moment and turn on you the next. She can say the most vicious, the most unforgivable things. Some people have it in their hearts to forgive her. But there are others—such as Mr. McRae, for example—who refuse to have anything more to do with her. I do hope you decide you are of the former type, not the latter.”
I didn’t know which camp to place myself in. I only knew that I had seriously misjudged a very delicate situation. As I returned to my room I thought of the blood that had been spilled at the base of the ziggurat and Miss Archer’s lifeless body. I feared I had made an enemy of Katharine Woolley. I did not want to be the next victim.
13
When I returned to the living room, I was informed that Mr. Archer had called a meeting to discuss how to proceed following the death of his daughter. Everyone, apart from Mrs. Woolley, who was locked in her room, and Ruth Archer, who was still with Sarah’s body, had taken a seat around the table.
Death in a Desert Land Page 13