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T
he fella said the demons came to him that night - the Afreet, the Djinn. By morning, Lestrade was rambling, delirious. He wandered outside his tent a little before breakfast, beckoning to the others. ‘Harry,’ he called, ‘Harry, over here.’
Harry Burton looked at Pecky Callender, then trotted over to him. There was a wildness in the man’s eyes, below the white of the bandage and above the grey-brown of the moustache.
‘How many of them, Harry?’ Lestrade whispered to him. ‘I count three.’
‘Er . . . yes,’ Burton thought it best to humour him, ‘that’s right. That’s what I make it.’
‘Look,’ Lestrade put an arm around the man’s shoulder, ‘I know this is bloody silly, but those two over there, by the fountain . . .’
‘The . . . er . . . the fountain?’ Burton didn’t know quite where to look for one in the Valley of the Kings.
‘Sorry,’ Lestrade said, chuckling. ‘I’m not making myself clear, am I? The pink one, the pink fountain.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Burton began to edge away. ‘The pink one.’
‘Well, those two blokes standing by it, Harry; who do they remind you of? Particularly the tall one – violin, deerstalker, pipe. Ring any bells for you, eh?’
‘Er . . . I’d welcome your opinion, Mr Lestrade.’
Lestrade moved aside, clearly somewhat taken aback. ‘Mr Lestrade?’ he echoed, his feet dancing a tired little jig in the red sand. ‘Well, Mr Bandicoot, I don’t think you’ve called me that in a long time. Well, it’s obvious, man. The shifty eyes, the quivering nostrils. It’s Sherlock Holmes. Holmes of Baker Street.’
‘Oh,’ Burton was grinning like a terrified baboon, ‘so it is. I couldn’t make him out. Sun was in my eyes. Hello!’ he called, waving. ‘Hello, Mr Holmes.’
‘Harry, Harry,’ Lestrade hissed, hauling the man’s hand down. ‘You’re making an exhibition of yourself, man,’ he said. ‘You know as well as I do that Sherlock Holmes has been dead for thirty years. He went over some waterfall on a hiking holiday in Switzerland.’
‘Really?’ Burton was looking around frantically for assistance. But none was forthcoming. Just in case, like Aaron String, Sholto Lestrade had a brace of pistols tucked away somewhere, the Tut- Ankh-Amen team kept safely in the shadows.
‘And that bloke with him is his old chum Dr John Watson. It’s not generally known of course that Holmes couldn’t stand the fellow. Watson had an IQ of a gnat, apparently, but then, Holmes was prone to hyperbrolly. I always found him reasonably astute.’
‘Oh, quite, quite. Is it . . . er . . . is it done to wave at him?’
‘Well, that’s the damndest thing about it.’ Lestrade frowned and stroked his chin. ‘You see, he was shot by a German spy, just before the war. There’s something not quite right here, Fanny.’
‘Fanny?’
Lestrade looked at the photographer. ‘Not just now. I’ve got a bit of a headache.’ And he somersaulted neatly backwards over a camp stool and lay motionless in the sand.
It was nearly dark before Emma arrived, by steamer from Luxor. Inspector Macclesfield was with her and Callender and Hall showed the pair into the darkened tent where her father lay.
‘Oh, Daddy.’ She ran her soft fingers along the bandage that wound like a burial band under his chin. ‘In the wars again. Why did you go off like that? Without telling anyone?’
‘My fault, I’m afraid.’ Jack Holinshed loomed behind them.
‘Yours?’ Emma was on her feet.
‘I brought him here. He wanted to know how Le Clerk, the French Egyptologist, died. So the Valley of the Kings it was.’
‘What happened, Jack?’
Holinshed looked at the others. ‘Shall we?’ he urged, raising the tent flap. ‘Your father’s sleeping now. There’s nothing more you can do.’
She looked at the man on the bed, his face dark and livid on the white of the pillow. The man who gave her life. She remembered all those little things that girls remember about their fathers. The day he first told her who he was. Not Uncle Sholto, who came to Bandicoot Hall sometimes with such a sad face and a pair of handcuffs, but her father. She’d never known her mother, the blonde, life-loving Sarah who had died shortly after the girl’s birth. Letitia Bandicoot had been that and Nanny Balsam and Nanny Gote. And it was Harry, handsome, laughing, brave Harry, who had taught her to swim and shoot and ride as he taught his own boys. It all came flooding back. It was the man on the pillow she loved and it was to him she had run, crying and afraid, so many times. So many times. She turned away and felt the wind of the desert chill her soul.
‘I don’t know,’ Holinshed was saying, steadying her shivering arm. ‘I don’t know whether it’s the sun or the head wound. He’s lucky to be alive.’
‘Can he travel?’ she asked him. ‘I want to get him home.’
‘I think so,’ he told her. ‘You’ll take the river? The desert will be too much.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘How’s Tilly?’
‘She’s fine,’ Emma said. ‘I see her now and then. She showed me round the Native Quarter in Cairo. Fascinating. She had to go away for a few days, to visit friends in Damietta.’
‘Ah, yes, the Fahmy Beys. Friends of the family.’
‘What happened, Jack?’ she said again, drawing her shawl around her.
‘It was the damnedest thing.’ Holinshed fished in his pocket for his pipe. ‘We had an American here, a railroad tycoon. He wanted to buy the tomb. Can you imagine that? The cheek of it!’
‘Yes,’ Emma nodded. ‘Bearing in mind it was a British team who found it.’
‘An Egyptian antiquity on Egyptian soil,’ Holinshed reminded her.
‘Sorry.’ she said. ‘I’m not really familiar with the politics of this part of the world. There were some ugly scenes in Cairo before we left.’
‘It’s time we left,’ Holinshed said, gazing up at the stars. ‘Egypt, I mean. We’ve outlived our usefulness.’
‘You make it sound as if the Empire is a thing of the past,’ she smiled.
‘Do I?’ Holinshed turned to her, pale in the moonlight. ‘If you’d asked me ten years ago, how long will Pax Britannica rule the earth, I’d have said “for ever”. Now, I’m not so sure.’
‘What happened with the American?’ Emma’s father lay with a shattered head and a shattered mind inside his tent and this man was rambling on about the ifs and buts of world affairs.
‘Ah, well . . .’ And he told her.
‘My God.’
‘Emma,’ Holinshed suddenly took the girl’s hands in his, ‘get your father out of here. Tomorrow. While you still can. Three men have died already – Carnarvon, Le Clerk, String. Who’s to say who’ll be next?’ He gazed round at the black hulks of the spoil heaps and the silent hills. ‘There’s death here, Emma,’ he whispered. ‘I’m amazed the fellahin have stayed.’
‘Accidents,’ she said, trying to reassure herself rather than him. ‘That’s all they are.’
‘Is that it?’ Holinshed asked. ‘Doesn’t your father confide in you?’
‘Usually,’ she frowned. ‘Oh, I know you both thought Lord Carnarvon . . .’
‘I’ve spent a fair few years in the East,’ he said, ‘and believe me, you don’t know the half of it in Surrey. There are things here, things you can’t even guess at. They’re beyond our comprehension.’
‘Oh, now, Jack,’ she scolded him, ‘you’ve been in the Valley too long. Come back with us to Cairo, tomorrow. Shake the dust of the place for a while. I know Daddy offered to help with Lord Carnarvon, but . . .’ she glanced at the faint glow in his tent and the larger-than-life figures moving about the bed, for all the world like embalmers working on the body of a dead king, ‘well, it’s all gone wrong. I will take him home tomorrow, not because of “things beyond our comprehension”, but because an old man has bitten off more than he can chew. I’ve sent a cable to Fanny on the Riviera, telling her not to worry, but to come home as soon as she can. Norroy and I will sort it all out. And you,’ she added sternly at him, ‘you get a good night’s sleep. You look all in.’
‘Yes,’ he smiled at her. ‘But I’ll keep my back to the wall while I’m doing it. If I were you, I’d get Macclesfield to do what the faithful fellahin do and lie across your tent door tonight.’
‘Jack!’ she chuckled. ‘He’s an inspector of the Metropolitan Police, not a draught excluder.’
The steamer bore them northwards the next morning. Luckily, the British captain had been at ‘V’ Beach, Cape Hellas in Gallipoli, so he wasn’t at all deterred by the wounded man on the stretcher, apologizing to all and sundry because he’d forgotten his wallet and didn’t have the exact fare to Ealing Broadway. Neither did the coffin bother him, although the stars and stripes draped over it was not the usual flag of convenience. The twin Westley-Richardsons coughed into life, churning the brown waters of the Nile and its even browner sons hauled on the cables and she was gone, snorting black smoke to the lapis lazuli that was always the Egyptian sky.
Jack Holinshed walked the upper deck with Merton of The Times, Weigall of the Mail and Macclesfield of the Met.
‘I take it, gentlemen,’ Merton was gazing at the left bank, ‘that you are not particularly au fait with the Sudanese history of some forty years ago.’
‘Rather before my time,’ Holinshed said.
‘Mine too,’ confessed Macclesfield.
‘The mad Mahdi,’ Weigall mumbled. ‘Gordon.’
‘That’s right,’ Merton nodded, not a little miffed that his opposition should be so clued up. ‘Colonel Stuart, Gordon’s Aide, was travelling much as we are now, on a dahabeeyah, and he must have seen tribesmen rather like we are looking at now.’
He was right. Norroy Macclesfield narrowed his eyes against the sun’s glare to watch them. In the dust of the Nile bank, the date and palm trees behind them, trotted a line of blue- and black-clad horsemen, rifles bouncing over their shoulders, faces wrapped against the world. ‘Dervishes?’ he asked.
‘Bedouin, certainly,’ Weigall commented. ‘Painted for war.’
‘War?’ Macclesfield echoed.
‘Storm clouds,’ Merton prophesied. ‘You mark my words.’
When they reached Cairo, the city seemed strangely silent. Water-carriers and camel castrators went about their business as usual, but the cries of the street Arabs were subdued, their numbers less. One of them half-heartedly offered Norroy Macclesfield the mummified genitals of Rameses VIII on the steamer’s gang-plank, but the Inspector was not impressed. He’d been on the Force for sixteen years, man and rookie. When you’d seen one, you’d seen ’em all. Everywhere, eyes swivelled; below fezes and above veils. There was an atmosphere you could have cut with a shadoof.
Emil Lamartine had decided to stay in the Valley of the Kings. After all, he had not yet solved the murder of Alain Le Clerk and that rankled with him. What had clinched it, however, was that the captain of the steamer had overheard his accent at the bank and said in a very loud voice that he’d carried enough Belgian detectives for a lifetime. Lamartine didn’t know what he was talking about, but the slur was enough. He turned on his heel in the dust and walked away.
Blue-jacketed Ghaffirs, the Irregulars attached to the police, met the steamer at the landing and they weren’t waiting for the cotton to load. Their grim-faced sergeant muttered something to Jack Holinshed and the ashen-faced Englishman turned to his companions.
‘They’re here to protect us,’ he said. ‘There’s been some trouble. Four of them will get String to the mortuary. We’d better get to Shepheard’s Hotel and stay there.’
‘What’s going on?’ Emma asked him.
‘Zagloul,’ growled Weigall.
‘Zagloul,’ Merton nodded, unwilling to let his rival have the last editorial word.
‘What’s Zagloul?’ Emma surveyed the naked docklands, isolated pairs of fellahin whispering and scurrying through dingy alleyways. ‘A sort of Ramadan?’
‘A sort of bastard.’ Merton said grimly. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Emma, I forgot myself.’
‘Said Zagloul Pasha’, Weigall enlightened her, ‘is likely to become the next Prime Minister of this country.’
‘The British protectorate ended last year, Miss Lestrade.’ Merton said, lifting out his battered briefcase in the unaccountable absence of any porters, ‘but the British don’t seem to know that. We still control antiquities, foreign policy, the police, trade, the army of course . . .’
‘In fact, it’s difficult to know what we don’t still control.’ Weigall began to descend the gangplank. ‘That’s what Zagloul can’t stomach.’
‘He’s the local nationalist ruler,’ Merton said. ‘Weigall, you were here in ’19, weren’t you? Cowering under tables and so on?’
‘There was trouble, yes,’ the Mail man said. ‘But where I was is absolutely no concern of yours. Zagloul’s followers overturned trams, broke street lamps, looted shops and stoned Europeans.’
‘Phew,’ they heard Lindsley Foote Hall call from the bank. ‘At least I’ll be all right.’ He’d come to Cairo to get some lead in his pencils.
‘They hit railway and telegraph lines in rural areas,’ Weigall went on, watching the shadows carefully. ‘At Luxor, they took British officers on leave off a train and butchered them.’
‘Assassination is an old Egyptian practice, Miss Lestrade.’ Merton said. ‘You and I play whist; Egyptians knife each other.’
‘Or poison,’ Hanger said.
The others looked at him. The excavation team’s publicity man had said virtually nothing on the way up-river. His voice sounded odd. His face looked peculiar. It was Howard Carter, of all people, who patted his shoulder and helped him down the wobbling planks. Last of all, they brought Lestrade, bounced on his stretcher by the dynamics of the wood and the angle of the plank.
‘For God’s sake, Fifi,’ he chuckled, ‘slow down. I’ve just had my ribs broken.’
Shepheard’s Hotel was an oasis of British in a sea of Egyptian. It resembled the Alamo, manned against the Mexicans or the British legation at Peking, boarded to withstand the fists of the righteous Boxers. All that was missing was rifles at the windows.
No one slept that night. Only Lestrade. And Aaron G. String, safe in the arms of Jesus.
Breakfast was certainly different from that in the narrow, dark entrance to the tomb where most of the company had become used to eating. There were silver tureens, gleaming porcelain and squeaky glasses, but not a lot, unfortunately, to put in any of them. The Major Domo apologized, first in English, then in French, then in German and finally in Egyptian, for the fact that two thirds of the kitchen staff had deserted and taken with them most of the hotel’s supplies.
What had they left, a German guest demanded to know, having got the best seats in the dining-room? The answer, apparently, was coffee. And, given the situation, it was on the house.
It was a little after nine that Clifford Hanger skipped into the dining-room, the smell of Turkish beans filling his nostrils.
‘Howard!’ he beamed, pulling up a chair next to the archaeologist.
‘Clifford,’ the surly man with the chin and the broken nose responded.
‘You seem a little better, Mr Hanger,’ Jack Holinshed said. ‘More yourself.’
‘Absolutely,’ the ad man thumped the table. ‘Vomited buckets last night. Right as rain now. Now, Howard, about those Tut-Ankh- Amen propelling pencils . . .’
‘Euphoria.’ Burton leaned across to the bandaged figure of Lestrade. The photographer had run out of developing fluid and Cairo was his only hope. He just prayed that ‘Kemal’s Cameras’ was still loyal to the British.
‘You what?’ The ex-Chief Superintendent loosened the linen to hear. ‘Is that a country or something? God, this tea tastes terrible!’
Burton turned away. ‘Miss Lestrade, I’m really worried about your father,’ he whispered. ‘I fear we’re looking at the onset of gagadom. Sans eyes, sans teeth, sans everything.’
She looked beyond Burton to her dad. She’d seen him in bandages before, seen him not follow a conversation before, but the vacancy in the eyes was new and it frightened her.
‘But then,’ Burton helped himself to more coffee, ‘that doesn’t explain Hanger. Morose one minute, euphoric the next.’
‘Could it be the sun, do you think, Mr Burton?’ Macclesfield leaned across Emma Lestrade. Their hands touched briefly and he moved back, blushing.
The photographer shook his head. ‘The sort of hallucinations Mr Lestrade was having earlier, in the Valley of the Kings, yes – that could be heatstroke. But it doesn’t usually last this long.’
‘Mr Lestrade?’ the Major Domo was a worried-looking man the wrong side of fifty. But then, in Cairo in the spring of 1923, who wasn’t?
‘Er . . . yes,’ Emma said, in view of the fact that her father wasn’t responding.
‘A note has just been delivered,’ the Major Domo said.
‘Thank you.’ Emma took it.
‘I am instructed to wait for a reply.’
‘I see.’ She tore open the envelope. ‘My God!’ she gasped.
‘What is it?’ Macclesfield and Holinshed chorused.
All eyes round the table were fixed on the lovely girl from Virginia Water.
‘Not bad news, I hope?’ Hanger beamed. ‘Bottom fallen out of camiknickers?’
‘Norroy,’ she turned to the big Inspector, ‘it’s Walter Hambrook and Bob Fabian. They’ve been kidnapped.’
‘Kidnapped?’ The cry was taken up along the English table. A few Frenchmen looked up in alarm. The Germans kept on drinking coffee.
‘Another old Egyptian practice,’ Merton of The Times said, leaving his place and joining Emma. ‘May I?’ He reached for the letter.
‘No,’ Macclesfield snapped. ‘Don’t touch it.’ He tweezed it out of Emma’s grasp with a pair of sugar tongs.
‘What does it say?’ Weigall asked.
“‘We have the Englishmen Hambrook and Fabian”,’ Macclesfield read sotto voce. ‘“You, Mr Lestrade, are to come to the Mosque El-Muayyad at midnight tonight and bring with you the archaeologist Howard Carter, despoiler of tombs.”’
‘Good God!’ Weigall sat down heavily.
‘Do they mean business?’ Macclesfield asked the company. ‘
Is it signed?’ Merton asked.
‘“Zagloul Pasha”,’ Macclesfield read.
‘They mean business,’ the Times man nodded grimly. ‘Carter, what about it?’
‘What about it?’ Carter echoed. ‘You expect me to give myself up voluntarily to an unruly mob? Are you out of your mind?’
‘If anybody’s out of his mind,’ Lestrade chimed in, ‘it’s going to be me. Norroy, get the lads. We’ll need “Crusher” Wainwright, “The Hulk” Harrington . . . oh, and Bruce Partington, unless he’s got any other plans.’
‘Er . . .’ Macclesfield didn’t know what to say to the old guv’nor.
‘Daddy,’ Emma smiled at him, squeezing his hand, ‘they’re not here at the moment. They’re back at the Yard. We’re in Cairo, Daddy. Egypt.’
He chuckled, patting her hand in return. ‘I know Cairo’s in Egypt, my dear.’ He winked at her. ‘That was one of the few things I learnt from old Mercator, my geography teacher. Still, if they’re not available, I’ll have to go alone.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she scolded softly. ‘We couldn’t let you go, even if you were . . .’
‘. . . Not senile as a goat,’ Hanger always had a word for it.
‘Gentlemen,’ Macclesfield said. ‘You appear to know this Zagloul. Is it likely he’s really got my colleagues?’
‘By the short and curlies, I’d say,’ was Merton’s opinion.
‘Holinshed? You’ve been out here on and off all your life, haven’t you? What do you think?’
‘I think Zagloul is not the kind of man to bluff. If he says he’s got them, he’s got them.’
‘My view . .’ Weigall began.
‘. . . Is always obscured by a colossal inferiority,’ Merton cut in. ‘Don’t try anything, Macclesfield, Zagloul will have you for breakfast.’
‘Well, that would be better than this tea,’ Lestrade commented helpfully, pushing the cup away from him.
‘It’s simple,’ Hanger suddenly said, lolling back in his chair. ‘Carter has to be jettisoned.’
‘What?’ The archaeologist couldn’t believe his ears.
‘I’m sorry, Howard,’ the ad-man shrugged. ‘One thing you learn in my line of work is – cut your losses. Quit while you’re ahead. We’ve no proof that this Zagloul wants you dead.’
‘We’ve every proof he wants all Englishmen dead,’ Merton corrected him. ‘Take my word for it, Macclesfield, stay here.’
‘He’s right, Norroy,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘I’ll go alone.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Lestrade.’ Holinshed said. ‘You couldn’t even find the Mosque El-Muayyad, never mind negotiate with Zagloul.’
‘Now, look . . .’ Lestrade wobbled to his feet. Suddenly there was a whistle and whine and a shattering of glass. A woman, screamed. Come to think of it, it might have been the Major Domo. The window sash flew wide, the curtains and blinds jerking with the thump of bullets.
‘Everybody on the floor!’ Macclesfield roared and dived on to Emma Lestrade, perhaps to cushion his landing.
‘Rifles.’ Weigall hissed. ‘They’ve got rifles.’
‘Well, well,’ Merton tutted beside him. ‘It’s really comforting to have a Mail man with one in a crisis.’
‘Golly, this is exciting,’ they heard Hanger shout.
‘Hello!’ a distant native voice rang out.
A number of European heads popped up over the window-sills.
‘Lestrade Pasha!’ it went on.
The ex-Yard man stood up, only to be yanked down again by Macclesfield and Emma.
‘Will you come,’ the voice wanted to know, ‘to the Mosque El-Muayyad at midnight?’
‘Yes!’ Lestrade called back.
‘On the word of an Englishman?’
Macclesfield and Holinshed were squinting into the sun baked square to see where the rifle fire – and the voice – had come from. There was no one visible at all. Only a solitary donkey grazing on the palm leaves in the piazza, under the huge, white statue of Lord Kitchener, a former Sirdar.
‘On the word of an ex-officer of Scotland Yard,’ Lestrade called.
‘And you will have with you the Englishman who is called Carter Pasha?’
‘I will!’ Lestrade promised.
‘Over my dead body,’ Carter growled from his position behind the table cloth.
They all peered at him from under chairs. It had not been a wise choice of words.
Midnight. One more hour ’til morning. All day, the guests of Shepheard’s Hotel had huddled in their solidarity in the games room, drinking coffee. Then the French accused the Germans of cheating at vingt-et-un and an unholy row had broken out. In vain had the Major Domo reminded them that they’d already had the War to End All Wars and the two parties retired, screaming insults at each other about Alsace and Lorraine, whoever they were, to the opposite ends of the hotel.
‘Where are our reparations?’ the French wanted to know.
‘Get your soldiers out of our Ruhr!’ the Germans demanded. It was all very unseemly.
In vain too had Emma Lestrade argued with her father. It wasn’t as if he was on home turf, threading the labyrinthine alleyways of Whitechapel. It wasn’t as if he had the resources of the Yard behind him. And it wasn’t as if he was any longer a young . . . and that was as far as she had got. She’d taken the wrong turn and she knew it. From now on, she’d just have to hope that Norroy Macclesfield could handle it.
‘It’ was Emma’s idea. Unwrap Lestrade’s head wound, put him in leather gaiters and a pith hat and in the darkness of the Old Native Quarter, he might just pass for Howard Carter. Come to think of it, in the darkness of the Old Native Quarter, he might pass for Lord Kitchener – hundreds had. As for Norroy Macclesfield, Emma assumed that Said Zagloul Pasha didn’t have a clue what her old man looked like. Who was to say he wasn’t black-haired, with shoulders like pyramids? He might well pass for Lestrade. Lestrade might well pass out. She crossed everything she had, sitting in the Ladies’ Room with Tilly Holinshed, and she prayed.
‘You mustn’t worry, Emma, darling,’ the blonder girl said. ‘God, I’m tired of drinking coffee. I must say it’s rather beastly of the natives to have taken the Moet et Chandon – especially since they don’t drink it. Rather beastly of Howard Carter not to have offered himself, don’t you think?’
‘You make him sound like a sacrifice, Tilly,’ Emma said. For safety’s sake, the Major Domo and the hotel’s management had decided not to put on any lights. There was an eerie stillness throughout the hotel. There had been no palm court orchestra all day. Everyone from the leading fiddle down had gone, abandoning their instruments in the shadow of Zagloul. There was no clash and carry at dinner time – only coffee for those who could stomach it, yet again; followed by coffee in the dining room.
‘But your father and a perfectly innocent man are out there risking their lives,’ the girl went on.
‘I’m not sure Norroy Macclesfield is as innocent as all that,’ Emma still had the sang-froid to observe, ‘for all he blushes at the flash of a garter.’
‘Well,’ Tilly sniffed, ‘that’s men for you.’
‘Is there no one in your life?’ Emma asked her.
Even in the darkness, Tilly Holinshed was a striking woman; her face lit by the street lights in the square, filtering through the windows.
‘Only one,’ she said softly.
‘Look.’ Emma moved closer to her. ‘It’s none of my business, I know . . . I shouldn’t pry, but . . . well, I’ve got to talk about something, or I’ll start climbing the walls.’
‘Not that then.’ Tilly suddenly tossed her head. ‘It’s something . . . you wouldn’t understand. Do you think they’ll start shooting again?’
Emma twisted her wrist to try and read the time in the pale light. ‘Nothing for three hours,’ she said. ‘But they are still out there. They saw Daddy and Norroy go.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Haha,’ Emma tapped the side of her nose knowingly. ‘Copper’s daughter. It’s in the blood.’ She craned her neck. ‘That alleyway,’ she said. ‘To the left of the palm tree.’
Tilly craned too. ‘What about it?’
‘There’s a man there, a fellah. He’s carrying what looks like a Lee-Enfield.’
‘Gosh, Emma,’ Tilly laughed, ‘that’s quite amazing. All I can see is alleyway.’
They sat in silence for a moment. Deep. Impenetrable.
‘What did you mean, by the way, a minute ago?’
‘I told you,’ she sensed Tilly stiffen, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘No,’ Emma explained, ‘I mean when you said my father and “a perfectly innocent man”. Isn’t Howard Carter an innocent man?’
‘Is he?’ Tilly looked at the copper’s daughter. ‘I wonder.’
‘I’m not surprised you can’t see,’ Emma said, after another silence. ‘Still wearing your dark glasses. It must seem like pitch to you.’
‘I had a bit too much sun,’ she said. ‘While I was visiting the Fahmy Beys. I’ve always had weak eyes. Whenever I’ve come to Egypt, I’ve had to keep my glasses on all the time.’
‘But now, surely, in the dark . . .’
‘Very well,’ Tilly nodded, her hands in her lap. ‘It shouldn’t hurt for a while, you’re right.’ And she took them off.
Emma saw the woman’s eyes flash in the street light. How lovely, she thought. Then, even in that half-light, she saw the scars at their outer edges, where the lids drooped to the cheeks. Poor thing, she thought, poor thing.
‘What dreadful sunburn, darling,’ she said.
‘What?’ Tilly seemed not to understand. ‘Oh, yes, yes. You see why the glasses are so essential.’
And Emma gazed across the pale domes and minarets of Cairo, where her other two poor things were out under the stars.
A blind beggar had hobbled towards them as they reached the Mosque El-Muayyad. The pink of the Cairo sky was black here, for no electricity had permeated through to the Old Native Quarter; only the occasional flaring bracket, guttering in wrought iron on street corners.
‘Baksheesh, baksheesh,’ the old beggar mumbled in a toothless sort of way, but Macclesfield had brushed him aside, watching intently both the black, seething lanes ahead, across which acrid smoke perpetually drifted, and the demeanour of his old guv’nor, stooping a little now. Poor old bugger. What a time for his mind to go.
‘Get a shufty at his belt, Norroy?’ Lestrade suddenly whispered.
‘Guv’nor?’ Macclesfield stopped. The sound of his own voice frightened him.
‘That’s Mr Carter to you.’ Lestrade hissed out of the corner of his mouth.
‘Are you . . . all right? Yourself, I mean.’
‘No,’ Lestrade insisted. ‘I’m Howard Carter. Really, Norroy, we’ve just had this conversation. Do try to stay with it, man.’
‘No, I mean . . . for a while there . . .’ Macclesfield stopped again. ‘Back at the hotel . . . Were you just faking? When you came back from the desert?’
Lestrade winked. ‘Like that Hammett bloke? Mad Sou’ by Sou’ West, you mean?’
‘Er . . . something like that,’ Macclesfield frowned.
‘No. Whatever it was, I came over decidedly queer for a while. Such dreams . . .’ Lestrade had stopped too. ‘But earlier this afternoon I . . . what do they say in polite circles? Purged myself. Felt better right away.’
‘What did you mean?’ Macclesfield asked. ‘About chummy’s belt?’
‘An ugly knife lay buried in it,’ Lestrade whispered. ‘Sheep- skinning job, but very fancy. Now, what’s a beggar doing with a chiv like that, eh?’
‘What indeed, guv. Christ Almighty.’
‘What?’
‘There!’ Macclesfield had suddenly crouched, his buttocks on i his heels. ‘Third alley on the left. I count four.’
‘Plus the three on my side,’ muttered Lestrade.
‘That’s seven.’ Macclesfield swallowed hard.
‘Very good, Norroy.’ Lestrade humoured him, ‘but I’m afraid our little sum isn’t over yet. There are . . . four more to my left.’ He turned slowly to face them.
‘Fifteen,’ Macclesfield whispered.
‘Er . . . no, Norroy.’ Lestrade, even when staring death in the face, couldn’t help correcting his man. ‘I think you’ll find that’s eleven.’
‘And if you turn to your right, guv, you’ll see the other four you haven’t taken into account yet.’
‘Fifteen,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘Isn’t that the number of blokes in a rugby team?’ His back was to Macclesfield’s now.
‘I believe it is.’ Macclesfield said.
‘Ever played?’
‘Nah.’ Macclesfield shook his head. It was as well, the rest of him was already doing it. ‘Soccer man, myself. Played inside left for G Division.’
‘No!’ Lestrade, even when staring death in the face, was impressed.
‘Straight up,’ Macclesfield asserted. ‘Is that, by the way, how you intend to tackle this lot? Straight up?’
‘Is there any other way?’ Lestrade felt the warm brass knuckles in his pocket. The Englishmen had got themselves cornered in a meeting of four streets – a crossroads of fear. There were, of course, in theory, four avenues of escape, but each of them was blocked by a silent, menacing mob of black-clad fellahin, their faces swathed, their eyes watchful. Lestrade clicked the catch on his weapon and the four-inch blade snapped out, ripping a hole in his serge pocket. Norroy Macclesfield had left his gun at home. Now his hand lighted on the ebony life preserver in his pocket. He cradled it lovingly.
‘Lestrade Pasha!’ one of the voices from the blackness called. Nothing. Lestrade nudged Macclesfield.
‘Er . . . yes.’ the burly Yard man said. ‘Er . . . who wants to know?’
‘Allah already knows.’ A cultured voice behind them made them turn.
It was the old blind beggar, the rags over his eyes uplifted, his grimy face leering in the half-light. ‘Mr Lestrade.’ he beamed, waving his fingers under his nose as though wafting a smell away. ‘Appearances can be deceptive, can they not?’
Macclesfield cleared his throat, wishing he’d been able to grey up his hair a little to make this subterfuge more convincing. Wishing he was in hell with the gates shut.
‘They can indeed, Mr . . . er . . .?’
‘Said Zagloul Pasha.’ The beggar saluted again. ‘May my tribe increase. Ah, I see you’ve brought Mr Carter Pasha. Excellent, excellent.’
Lestrade moved forward so that most of his face was lost under the all-embracing brim of his Panama. ‘Why do you want to talk to me?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I don’t want to talk to you, Mr Carter. I want to kill you.’
Macclesfield filled the space at Lestrade’s shoulder. As he did so, he sensed the ground lessening between him and the men at his back.
‘Why?’ Lestrade asked levelly. ‘What have I ever done to you?’
‘You have . . .’ Zagloul stopped, his crooked smile frozen. They saw his eyes narrow, even in the darkness. ‘You have impersonated an archaeologist.’
His voice was like the scrape of steel from a desert scabbard – Lestrade supposed – though he’d never actually heard such a thing.
‘And you.’ Zagloul jabbed a bandaged finger at Macclesfield. ‘I presume you are impersonating a police officer.’
‘Oh, no,’ Macclesfield assured him. ‘I am a police officer.’
Lestrade may never have heard the scrape of steel from a scabbard in the desert, but he heard it now in a Cairo alley. Several times. It wasn’t a noise he cared for at all. He sensed Macclesfield ease the cosh into his fist. His own knuckles nuzzled the brass.
‘I should have recognized your silhouette, Mr Lestrade.’
Lestrade squinted at his man. ‘Mustapha?’
‘Last week, yes. Today, I am feeling myself. Where is Carter Pasha?’
‘Where are my men, Hambrook and Fabian?’ Lestrade countered.
‘And is this not also your man?’
Lestrade said: ‘This gentleman beside me . . .’ he glanced at the firm jaw, the quiet eyes, ‘. . . has nothing to do with any of this. In fact, I’ve only just met him. Let him go.’
‘Come off it, guv’nor,’ Macclesfield mumbled. ‘I’m Norroy Macclesfield,’ he called. ‘Scotland Yard.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Zagloul grinned a gappy smile, then peeled off the liquorice stuck to his teeth. ‘The Parquet of London. We have heard of your Scotland Yard. You doubtless have heard of how we deal with liars and traitors.’
‘Doubtless,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘But I don’t see how Mr Macclesfield and I fit that bill.’
‘You are not Carter Pasha,’ Zagloul shrieked, pointing at Lestrade. ‘And you are not Lestrade Pasha.’
‘Tsk, tsk.’ Lestrade clicked his tongue and shook his head. ‘Yes, that was a bit of a fib, wasn’t it? Well, it won’t happen again. Now, tell me, Mr Zagloul, while your boys are fetching Mr Hambrook and Mr Fabian for us, why is it you want Howard Carter dead?’
‘He is a despoiler of tombs.’ Zagloul had done exactly what Lestrade hoped he would do. He had come within stabbing distance.
‘An archaeologist, surely,’ Lestrade insisted. ‘Have you seen the care he takes with his artefacts? I’ve watched the man at work; believe me, he has great respect.’
‘Respect for the artefacts as ancient things, I have no doubt. But not as sacred objects from the tombs of our ancient kings. It is as though someone – an Egyptian perhaps – had come across your King Arthur’s Excalibur or your King John’s treasure – that which he lost in the Wash.’
‘I think you must have misunderstood English history, sir,’ Macclesfield said. ‘We don’t send our jewellery to the laundry. Only our clothes.’
‘Quiet, Norroy,’ Lestrade hissed. ‘The grown-ups are talking.’
‘You are not Egyptians,’ Zagloul growled. ‘Neither is Carter. You cannot understand. He will plunder the tomb of Tutankhamun as grave robbers have plundered other tombs in antiquity. Worse – he will take its priceless treasure home to England.’
‘No, no.’ Lestrade shook his head. ‘I happen to know that various objects are already in the Museum here in Cairo. Others will follow.’
‘Follow, yes,’ Zagloul nodded sagely. ‘Much after the manner of the Greek marbles – stuffed down the trousers of Lord Elgin.’
‘All I want’, Lestrade said, ‘is my men, Hambrook and Fabian. I am not in the least interested in the Greeks losing their marbles.’
‘And if I do not give them to you?’ Zagloul’s right eyebrow lifted in the darkness.
‘Well then, we’ll just have to take them,’ Lestrade shrugged.
Zagloul gabbled something in Egyptian to his fellahin. There was a giggle. ‘I have just translated your little joke for the benefit of my men,’ he smiled. ‘They enjoyed it very much.’
‘I don’t know very much about international law,’ Lestrade confessed. ‘But I do know that grabbing two British policemen in broad daylight is called kidnapping.’
‘Kidnapping?’ Zagloul looked around his growling, shuffling mob with hands outspread. ‘It is well known that Allah made the English mad. Messrs Fabian and Hambrook are merely enjoying my hospitality in the Souk El Khasher. You had your chance to have them returned to you intact. All you had to do was give me Howard Carter. As it is, you will have them returned to you in pieces.’ He flashed a commanding hand in the shadows and two of the fellahin spun on their heels.
‘Wait!’ Lestrade shouted.
Zagloul snarled in his native tongue and the fellahin swung back to join the others. ‘I do hope this is not another of your subterfuges, Mr Lestrade,’ he sighed. ‘Because my patience is wearing a little thin.’
‘What if I bring Howard Carter to you? Here. Now. Say . . . in half an hour.’
‘Are you suggesting that I should let you go?’
‘You’ll never get Carter any other way.’
‘We can storm the Shepheard’s Hotel,’ Zagloul assured him.
‘With the twin Brownings?’ Lestrade frowned.
‘The twin . . .?’ Zagloul cocked his head, unsure of what he’d heard.
‘Brownings,’ Lestrade nodded.
Zagloul hesitated, then he clicked his fingers. ‘That is nothing,’ he said and introduced two henchmen with a flourish. ‘These are the Hussain brothers.’
The henchmen blocked out the street lamp with their bulk.
‘No, no,’ smiled Lestrade. ‘You misunderstand. The twin Brownings in the hotel are not brothers; they are guns. You try to cross that space, Zagloul, and the manager has orders to open fire. That’ll put a vent in your galabieh. Do you really think we English conquered a quarter of the world by walking into unlit alleyways in unsatisfactory disguises?’
Zagloul stood with his hands on his hips, less at home here than he had seemed as the happy-go-lucky Mustapha with his ships of the desert. ‘Are you telling me that the only way I will have Carter Pasha is to send you back for him?’
‘The only way,’ nodded Lestrade.
The people’s leader hesitated, glancing up and down the dingy alleyways, reading his men’s faces, the way their fingers danced on their dagger hilts.
‘I’ll take my chances with the Brownings,’ he mumbled. Then he clicked his fingers and the pack closed in.
‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ the voice asked.
‘Whose are they?’ Lestrade asked.
‘They’re mine, Daddy. Emma, your daughter. Fruit of your loins.’
‘That’s enough of that kind of talk, young lady,’ he scolded her. ‘This may be 1923, but there are limits. What’s the question I’m supposed to ask?’
‘“Where am I?”’ she prompted him.
‘Ah, yes,’ he nodded. It hurt like hell. ‘Three.’
‘What?’
‘Fingers. You’re holding up three fingers. And I am lying – I think; am I? Yes, I’m definitely lying in the Shepheard’s Hotel. Norroy?’ He suddenly jerked forward, regretting it instantly.
‘He’s fine. Apart from the dislocated shoulder,’ she said. ‘And the wry neck.’
Lestrade frowned. ‘I never saw anything particularly amusing in it. Er . . . is it me or is my lip forming a balcony outside the window?’ He tried to look down at it, but the bristles of his moustache were in the way.
He felt her hand on his cheek. ‘You’ve got concussion, Daddy. Dr Smith says a possible fracture of the skull. I’m taking you home.’
‘Dr Smith? He deals with dead people, for God’s sake.’
‘Exactly,’ she said, tucking him up under the eiderdown. ‘And if you stay here much longer, he’ll be dealing with you. He took his chance to nip into the hotel while you were out. Now he’s taken his chance to nip out again. Incidentally, he confirmed Mr Lucas’s findings on Aaron G. String. He was poisoned. Except he doesn’t know by what. Hyoscine and some- thing, he says.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ Lestrade sighed. ‘Any news of Hambrook and Fabian?’
‘Well, they’re a little over-exposed to Turkish delight and Walter says he never wants to see another fig again in his life, but apart from that . . .’
Lestrade frowned. It was like cycling up Everest. ‘But surely’, he said, ‘they were kidnapped. The depreciation. The flies. Chained to the wall like animals . . . How did they get out?’
‘Through the door,’ she told him.
‘Of the Souk El Khasher? Isn’t it some sort of fortress? Dungeon?’
‘It’s a brothel, Daddy,’ she raised both eyebrows, ‘whatever that is.’ She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
‘Never you mind what that is, my girl.’ He wagged a finger at her. Or was it three? ‘They just walked out?’
She twisted her lips. ‘Once Bob had found his trousers, yes. The poor lambs had existed on nothing but rice wine, figs and Turkish delight for nearly two days. You could tell how much they’d suffered by the way Wally Hambrook went back to give some girl a tip.’
‘Yes,’ Lestrade nodded. ‘I can imagine what that was.’
There was a tap on the door. British hotel this may have been, but the plumbing was decidedly Egyptian. Norroy Macclesfield’s bruised face swam into Lestrade’s vision.
‘Norroy.’ He extended a hand that may have been his own. ‘How’d we do?’
‘Three of ‘em down, guv, before your lights probably went out. Then the Parquet arrived.’
‘Ah.’ Lestrade smiled. ‘Just like the Met, eh? Always around when you need us.’
‘Not exactly, guv.’ The Yard man shifted uneasily. ‘Emma . . . Miss Lestrade here gave them a ring . . .’
‘A ring?’
Emma poured the men a stiff brandy each. ‘I bribed a kitchen porter, about the only one who hadn’t abandoned ship as it were, and gave him my ring to fetch the Parquet. They followed you into the Old Native Quarter.’
Lestrade’s face fell. ‘Not Paul’s ring?’ he asked her. Even through his pain, he saw hers. The memories etched on her face of the man she’d loved and lost twice.
‘No,’ she lied. ‘Not Paul’s ring.’ And she hid her hand quickly.
‘Three blokes called Guest, Keen and Nettlefold,’ Macclesfield told him. ‘Thankfully each one built like a brick privy. They balanced the odds a bit. Unfortunately, Zagloul was hit.’
‘Hit?’
‘The Cairo papers this morning are saying it was an assassination attempt. The Major Domo managed to get hold of one,’ Emma told him.
‘Actually,’ Macclesfield explained, ‘it was a result of a nudge by the Hussain brothers on Pomeroy Nettlefold’s right arm. Blew a bit of a hole in Zagloul’s leg.’
‘Well, I never.’ Lestrade shook his head slowly and waited for his eyes to catch up. ‘Police brutality again. Where is Zagloul now?’
‘Here in the hotel,’ Emma said. ‘Room 203.’
‘What?’ Lestrade sat upright in his pillows and instantly regretted it. ‘Why?’
‘He’s catching the plane with us tomorrow.’
‘The plane?’ Lestrade frowned. ‘Where are we all going?’
‘Home,’ Emma said emphatically. ‘Where an elderly gent of more years than he has had any right to can potter in his garden without the chance of a stray bullet or a poisoned cup of coffee.’
‘“Elderly gent”?’ Lestrade scowled. ‘How dare you? You’ve obviously forgotten just how bad Fanny’s coffee can be. Don’t you see, Emma, there’s work to be done? Carnarvon, Le Clerk, String. I don’t know who killed them yet.’
‘Well, you won’t find out if you join their number,’ his daughter told him.
‘Miss Lestrade,’ Macclesfield shifted awkwardly in his bedside chair, ‘I think you ought to tell him.’
‘Tell him what?’ There was a roaring in Lestrade’s head that dulled all sound. Macclesfield seemed to be coming and going behind the opaque veil of the mosquito nets.
‘Zagloul is here under house arrest,’ Emma said.
‘For kidnapping and grievous bodily harm?’ Lestrade asked.
‘No.’ She shook her head and stood up. ‘For murder, Daddy. While Guest, Keen and Nettlefold were carrying you back here last night, a shot was fired, apparently by Zagloul’s men.’
‘It was a damned good shot, too.’ Macclesfield nodded, always a man to give credit where it was due.
‘How good?’ Lestrade asked. ‘Who did it hit?’
Emma and Macclesfield looked at each other. ‘Hanger,’ she said. ‘Clifford Hanger. He’s dead.’