‘I’m making a citizen’s arrest.’ Ben opened the boot of the car and dumped the writhing body inside. ‘Leave it open. There’s another one to come.’

A couple of minutes later, both prisoners were stuffed in the boot. Ben slammed the lid. There was a muted squawk of pain and fear from inside. He checked his watch. It was after three in the morning. He turned to the taxi driver. ‘Last call,’ he said. ‘These guys are going to jail.’

The taxi driver grinned and shook his head. ‘You are one crazy motherfucker,’ he said as he slipped back in behind the wheel.

‘Tell me about it,’ Ben answered. He climbed in the back, slammed the door and the car took off again, riding a little low at the back.

Down at the police headquarters, Ben went up to the main desk and asked for Ramoud, the officer in charge of Morgan’s case. He refused to talk to anyone else. After some consternation and a lot of whispering, someone went to fetch him. When he finally came breezing out of a doorway, Ramoud looked cartoonlike, small, fat and bald in a double-breasted grey suit.

Ben didn’t say much. He led the policeman out to the car, opened the boot and let him see what was inside. Then he told him what it was all about, what these people had done and where the evidence was that could prove it hands down. A cast-iron, slam-dunk guaranteed conviction.

The prisoners were bundled out of the car and dragged inside the station to be processed and thrown in the cells. Ben watched them being marched away. Stepped back outside, handed his driver a clutch of notes, thanked him and let him go.

Ramoud reappeared, eyeing Ben curiously. He gestured to follow him, and they made their way through labyrinthine neon-lit corridors until they came to a small office. Ramoud showed Ben to a chair and offered him coffee in a foam cup. It was tepid and tasteless but he welcomed it. Fatigue was wearing him down. It was four in the morning and he’d been on the move for a long time.

He had no objection to giving his name and letting Ramoud see his passport. As far as anyone was concerned, he’d done nothing wrong, broken no laws. He filled in a couple of forms, signed and dated them and slid them back across the desk.

‘I have a few more questions,’ Ramoud said with a smile.

‘Fire away,’ Ben replied. He knew they wouldn’t be too tough. The arrest wasn’t exactly standard procedure, but he got the feeling that the police chief had no problem with someone else doing his work for him. Ben guessed he wasn’t in for much of a grilling-and he was right. Ramoud skirted none too subtly around the whole issue of exactly how Ben had come across his information. He didn’t even ask what was in the bag, and Ben didn’t volunteer any information about it. The laptop and the blazer were strictly for Harry and, besides, he didn’t want to bring heat down on his informants. Barada was what he was, but Ben didn’t have any personal issue with the man. Plus, the nightclub owner might be inclined to go after Abdou, and the old crook didn’t deserve to lose any more fingers. At least, not over this.

Ramoud scrawled careless notes as Ben gave his statement. Now and then he would stop, chew the end of his pen and look up to ask another question. The answers Ben gave were ludicrously vague and would have attracted the deepest suspicion in any European police procedure, but Ramoud seemed perfectly satisfied and kept scribbling.

Ben smiled to himself. Corruption had its place, sometimes.

By 4.30 a.m., the detective had the paperwork wrapped up and seemed happy. He gave Ben his solemn assurance that he had men already dealing with the evidence and that, if it were half as incriminating as it sounded, the two guys were in the deepest shit imaginable.

Ben didn’t reply. From what he’d heard about the brutality and torture record of the Egyptian police, he had the impression that Morgan’s killers weren’t in for a pleasant time. That was fine by him, and it was the best payback he could offer on behalf of Harry Paxton.

‘Then we’re done?’ he said.

‘You are free to go. You have done the city a service. I thank you once again.’

‘I need to call a cab.’

‘No need. I will have one of my men drive you home.’

‘Thanks.’ Ben checked his watch. It was 4.35 a.m. and he was looking forward to getting some sleep.

‘You wear two watches,’ Ramoud observed.

‘I travel a lot. Different time zones.’

‘You can get one watch that will do all that.’

Ben smiled. ‘I’m old-fashioned.’

Chapter Nineteen

The Claudel Residence,

Hyde Park, Cairo

4.45 a.m.

Pierre Claudel couldn’t sleep. He climbed out of bed, wandered out onto his balcony and watched the night creep towards dawn.

He was so weary. His senses felt bombed to numbness with stress. Ever since that day in the desert when Kamal had told him about his discovery, Claudel’s mind had been in turmoil. Two things had been constantly in the foreground of his thoughts, and he was thinking about them now as he reflected back over the events of the last few months. The worst time of his life.

The first preoccupation burning a hole in his brain was the frustration of knowing that the treasure was out there somewhere, but having no idea where to find it. Kamal had offered him ten per cent. Maybe not overly generous, but ten per cent of a gigantic fortune could still set him up for life. His hustling days would be over.

He couldn’t wait for it to happen. Up until that day in the desert, he’d felt pretty rich and successful. Now, in comparison to what he could get, might get, desperately longed to get out of this, he felt poor and miserable and shabby. The feeling was as though something had crawled under his skin, making his flesh creep.

The second major preoccupation was Kamal himself. Kamal terrified him. While Claudel couldn’t stop thinking about the treasure, another part of him bitterly regretted that he’d ever joined forces with this man.

What scared him even more, and kept him awake at night staring up at the dark canopy of his four-poster bed, was the knowledge that Kamal was fast running out of patience. Not even the million dollars that the first haul of treasure had generated, now sitting pretty in a numbered Swiss bank account minus Claudel’s ten per cent fence fee, could placate the Egyptian. He was getting jumpier by the day. Weeks were ticking by like seconds, merging into months, and still Claudel wasn’t coming up with anything.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. He’d driven out across the Western Desert with Kamal and his men. A long, hot, dusty and exhausting trek that almost killed him. They’d found the Bedouin fort, and Kamal had shown him the well. Claudel had nervously clambered down there on a rope, examined the shattered empty chamber where the cache of gold had been. He’d frantically pored over every inch of the stone carvings, searching for more hieroglyphs that hadn’t been in the photos and might yield a clue. But there was nothing. The trip to the fort turned out to be a complete waste of time.

Back in Cairo, Claudel had considered his options. They were disturbingly limited. There were few people in the world whom he trusted, and he was especially cagey about letting anyone else in on the treasure hunt. But in his desperation he’d been forced to put out feelers in the shadowy world of illicit antiquities dealing. He’d sat back, chewed his manicured nails down to the quick and hoped his enquiries would offer up some kind of lead.

The silence of the phone seemed to taunt him.

Meanwhile, Kamal had invaded his life like a disease. He’d taken a liking to the luxury Hyde Park villa, started spending more and more time there and generally treated it as his home. He’d sprawl in the armchair that had once belonged to the inventory at Fontainebleau Palace, a glass of red wine precariously perched on Claudel’s irreplaceable period satin upholstery, stretch his boots out on the white cashmere silk carpet and flick ash from his Davidoff cigar all over the place. It made Claudel cringe, but he knew better than to complain.