Now the Bardo was home to the world's largest collection of Carthaginian mosaics, an unquantifiable number of bad Victorian paintings and Kashif Pasha, his retinue and his mother. (With only Kashif's direct appeal to the Emir ensuring that Lady Maryam and he were allocated different sections of the crumbling complex.)

No flag flew from the mast over the main gate when Raf arrived, which meant no adult member of the al-Mansur family was currently at home.

"We're closed." The young sailor guarding the gate held his rifle slung across his chest, the way those on guard always did. His face was set. And only his eyes revealed uncertainty.

Raf halted, smiled . . . Made a minute adjustment to his maroon Versace tie. "Good morning," he said. "I'd like to see your commander."

Sailor and notable stared at one another. Although all the sailor saw was himself reflected in the blankness of Raf's new shades.

"Now," Raf added, his voice polite but firm. He'd once watched his school doctor use just that mixture of courtesy and menace on Raf's Swiss headmaster.

"I don't have a commander."

Raf sighed. "Then get whoever you do have," he suggested.

Leaving his post, the boy vanished through a small door cut into one of two double doors behind him. Endless heavy nails had been hammered into both to form repetitive patterns which, to Raf's eye, looked out of place against the delicacy of the pink marble columns supporting the arch into which the doors were set.

With a shrug, Raf stepped through the arch after him and found himself in a courtyard.

"You left the door open," Raf pointed out, when the returning guard opened his mouth to complain. Behind the boy Raf saw a grey-haired man in blue uniform raise his eyes to heaven.

"Morning, Chief," Raf said.

The elderly Petty Officer nodded. And in that nod was everything he felt about using untrained conscripts as guards and about notables who turned up at dawn, expecting to be shown round the Bardo.

"The palace is shut, Excellency."

"I know." Raf knew nothing of the sort, but that wasn't really the point. Straightening up, he adjusted his cuffs almost without thinking. "I'm Ashraf al-Mansur," he said, "the Emir's middle son. I've been asked to investigate last night's attack on my father."

"Attack?"

Raf didn't bother to reply.

"So it was . . ." The NCO's voice faltered.

"I think you'd better introduce me to your commander," Raf said and stepped farther into a courtyard overlooked by fifty sashed windows and a dozen balconies. The European kind.

He looked around him. "My father here?"

The old man shook his head.

"Lady Maryam?"

Another shake and a quick suck of yellowing teeth.

"Okay," said Raf. "How about Kashif Pasha?"

The NCO opened his mouth, then shut it again. Had the pasha been in residence then, as well as having the al-Mansur flag flying, that gate would have been guarded by Kashif's own soldiers instead of raw recruits. As it was, Kashif's men were rumoured to be busy, making wide-ranging arrests.

The one person Raf did find was Hani, although he found Ifritah first, scooping the grey kitten up from a tiled floor and tossing it over his shoulders like a stole.

"Hey," shouted a young girl who slid through a door and kick stopped, leaving a smear of burned leather on the marble under her heel. "That's my . . ."

She took a look at the man facing her.

"Oh," she said crossly, "you're back."

"No," said Raf, "I've been here for days. You're the one who's just arrived."

"I was here yesterday," Hani said. "You can ask him." She pointed to a door through which a young boy appeared. He was dressed in a blazer and had a striped tie quite as smart as the one Raf wore.

"Murad al-Mansur?" said Raf and watched the boy glance round before nodding. They both knew what was missing from the picture. "Where's your bodyguard?" Raf asked.

"Kashif Pasha doesn't think I need one."

"Because no assassin would want to kill a child?" Raf's voice made it obvious what he thought of that.

"That wasn't what I said." Shrewd eyes watched the newcomer. "Or what he meant."

"Murad's my cousin," Hani announced.

"And this is my niece," said Raf, nodding to Hani. "I do apologize."

The boy looked between them. "Then you're . . . ?"

"Ashraf Bey," said Raf. "Your half brother, her uncle and the new Chief of Police."

At the bey's side the NCO froze, his reflex reptilian. Almost as if stillness could put a wall up around his thoughts. All it did was draw Raf's attention.

"You," Raf said to the man. "Tell me what you've heard . . ."

"Heard, Your Excellency?"

"Outside, you said, So it was. . . The question is, so it was what?"

"The Army of the Naked," said the man, his voice hesitant. "My chief said they'd carried out an attack."

"That's a lie," Murad Pasha said. And blushed when the NCO gazed at him in surprise. "I've got a radio," he explained hurriedly. "A Radiotechnika Atlas. The kind that gets all the stations . . . A birthday present from the Soviet ambassador," Murad added, as if owning a radio needed explanation. "The AN absolutely deny having anything to do with the attack."

"They have a radio station?" Hani asked.

"A pirate station," Murad stressed. "Which changes frequency every night. You have to look for it."

Hani nodded. "Zara's brother has a pirate station," she said. "But Avatar only has to change every week."

"Whose's Zara?"

"My uncle's mistress," said Hani, then stared in bewilderment at the elderly NCO who suddenly broke into a coughing fit.

"The AN want to overthrow the government," Murad said. "But they didn't try to kill my father." A tremble in his voice was the first sign Raf had sensed that the boy was not nearly as composed as he wanted to appear.

"I thought you said you were in the government?" Hani sounded puzzled.

"Minister for Education," Murad agreed. "Also for archaeology. Kashif's everything else apart from bioscience and technology. The Emir kept those for himself."

"Did you see the attack?" Raf demanded.

Murad nodded. "We were there," he said. "I was invited and Hani invited herself. We sat next to Kashif Pasha as it happened."

"When what happened?" Raf asked.

"Someone tried to shoot the Emir," said Hani. "Eugenie died saving him. And two guards, a Sufi and a musician. Now everyone's arguing about . . ."

"Who tried?"

Hani paused. She'd got older without him noticing, Raf realized. More confident. A little bit taller. He tried to remember back to that age and couldn't.

"Well," said Murad, "there was this waiter."

"You can't go in there." The birdlike woman was out of her seat before Raf got halfway to the door of Kashif Pasha's inner office.

"Tell me about it," Raf said tiredly. People telling him where he couldn't go was getting to be something of a refrain. He kept walking and the woman dropped her hand, as if she'd somehow just scalded her fingers on the cloth of his sleeve.

Used to wielding power but resigned to it always belonging to someone else, the woman fell back on formality. "Can I ask if you have an appointment?"

"I don't need one," said Raf. "Police business." He pulled a leather cardholder from his pocket and flipped it open, flashing an identity card he'd taken off Kashif's unconscious soldier. It was shut again before her eyes even had time to focus.

"Well, he's not here." The woman's hair beneath her scarf was thinning and deep lines slashed down both sides of a thin mouth. The world had not been kind to her. "So you'll still have to come back."

"Even better," said Raf, hand already turning an enamel door knob. "That gives me a chance to search his office."