Briefly the woman toyed with asking whether he had flu. What Major Gide, as his doctor, had diagnosed. How he was feeling . . . But then she asked the single best question of her career.

"Are you dying?"

"It's probably safe to say," said the man, his voice amused, "that we're all dying . . ." He sat up straighter in his bed, rug still tight around him and spoke direct to his interviewer rather than the camera, his hooded eyes never leaving her face. "Except, of course, those already dead. And those who are immortal."

And then he smiled that smile seen in stills around the world. The one that was either ineffably wise or completely insane. Verdicts differed, with Berlin willing to consider the first and Paris and Washington definite that it was the last.

"Is that your only question?"

If the Emir found it odd to be answering questions while blood glazed like sugar icing on a carpet he'd refused to remove, then Moncef didn't let it show, but then . . .

Clair duBois shrugged, mostly inside her head. Who knew what the Emir found odd?

"Ask if he's immortal . . ."

Jumping, Clair looked round. It took her a moment to realize that Antoine, her backup cameraman had activated his throat mic and was hissing the suggestion through her Sony earbead.

She asked it.

"No," said the Emir, "not since I ate the mushrooms."

CHAPTER 50

Thursday 17th March

Bells rang from the twin towers of St. Vincent de Paul, that Gothic monstrosity with all its pews removed and a Persian carpet covering the altar. Flags hung from office windows or whipped in the slipstream of car aerials. Drifting on the wind came the stink of cordite, bastard cousin to the endless firecrackers let off all morning, too close to gunfire for the peace of everyone.

Martial law had been lifted, the act signed by Ashraf Pasha, newly created heir to the Emir. He'd signed the edict on behalf of his father, a man now too weak to hold a pen, even to write his own signature.

The return to normal law came the day after Raf had questioned his half brother in the presence of their father. This took place in the al Andalus–inspired HQ of Dar el Bey, overlooking Place du Gouvernement.

Raf sat at a desk with Kashif on the other side; the Emir had a motorized wheelchair and only Major Gide stood.

It was a very polite questioning. There wasn't a blowtorch in sight and no one in the room, from the Emir to the major, even suggested tying anyone else to a table.

"The snake," Raf said to Kashif. "That was your first mistake. A simple enquiry could have revealed that all venomous snakes at Tunis Zoo have their poison sacs removed. Only Major Jalal couldn't risk asking that question, could he? So you made an assumption, the Emir got bitten and Ifriqiya got its very own miracle . . ."

"I know nothing about a snake."

"Of course you don't. How about the death of two guards, bribed or blackmailed into releasing the snake in the Emir's tent . . . ?"

"I know nothing about any guards."

"They got shot," said Raf, "at the banquet you threw for your father. Remember? The one where Eugenie died."

Kashif was blaming it all on his dead aide-de-camp. In fact, he was horrified to discover some of the things Major Jalal had done in his name.

"I take it," said the Emir, "that you have proof for this accusation against your brother?" His words were thin and took longer to say than they should, but there was amusement in them and something close to admiration lit his lined and leathery face.

"If Kashif is my brother . . ."

Moncef looked at him then. "Meaning?"

"I just wondered."

"You are Ashraf al-Mansur," said Moncef, almost firmly. "And I am Emir of Tunis. Your mother was the love of my life." Sad eyes swept the small office, barely noticing Kashif as they passed over Raf, a selection of police files in front of him. One of which contained the results on DNA testing that Raf had yet to mention to anyone.

When the Emir's gaze finally alighted, it was on the young girl half-perched on an office chair and the boy who gripped her hand, rather tightly. "You have your responsibilities and I have mine."

"Obviously," said Raf. And when the Emir smiled, Raf was waiting with the only question that really mattered. "What do you want done with Kashif Pasha?"

"And if I say kill him . . ."

"Then he dies," said Raf and took a gun from its holster under his arm. Placing it on the desk at which he sat.

"If I say let him go . . . Which is what I'm minded to say?"

Raf paused, all too aware that Hani was watching him, just as Murad watched the Emir, both holding their breath.

"If you say let him go," said Raf, "then that's what happens. But it places this family above the law. And gives victory to everyone who thinks Ifriqiya is corrupt beyond redemption." He added the second consequence as an afterthought. Not quite realizing how much weight it would carry with the Emir.

"So what would you suggest?"

"Let him stand trial . . ."

The Emir nodded and struggled with the control pad of his wheelchair. Waving Murad away, Emir Moncef rolled slowly towards the door and stopped, one hand reaching for the doorknob, his other edging the chair into reverse. "You're right about everything," he told Raf in a voice little more than a whisper, "except for Alex and Nicolai. The decision to have them shot was mine. My only regret is not warning Eugenie, but then"–Moncef shrugged–"she'd only have tried to stop me."

CHAPTER 51

Thursday 17th March

Eduardo sat on the edge of a metal table swinging his feet. Every time his shoe scuffed the floor it produced that unmistakable mouselike squeak of leather against ceramic.

A noise that was driving everybody else in the room insane. And the really great part was that none of them could do a thing about it. He was the most senior officer present at the briefing, a thought so bizarre that Eduardo shut his eyes just to savour it.

"I'm sorry, Boss." Alexandre looked worried. Under the misapprehension his question had been stupid enough to drive the Chief to anger.

"No," said Eduardo, "it's a good point. Just not one I can answer."

This truth elicited a frown from a thickset sergeant at the back. A man with a bald patch, common enough, and a Kashif-like moustache, which now made him something of a rarity in the Tunis PD. It was truly staggering the number of officers who'd decided in the last twenty-four hours to shave off their moustaches, reshape them or else begin to grow a beard.

"Got a problem?" Eduardo asked the man.

"Yeah," a bull neck raised an even heavier chin. "With all due respect, sir, I don't see how a case involving a dead pastry chef can be so secret that the master file has to be shredded in front of two witnesses."

It was obvious from his tone that respect was the last thing the sergeant felt for the small morisco in the leather coat sitting on the old Chief's table.

"I can understand that," said Eduardo, "to you it looks like a simple open-and-shut murder, hardly worth bothering about. To me it had all the marks of a cause célèbre from which Ifriqiya needs to be protected. Maybe that's why I'm kicking my heels up here and you're kicking yours at the back."

Several officers smiled and Eduardo resisted the temptation to take a brief bow. He was in the operations room; a large space of cheap desks and dirty grey chairs, wall charts, holiday rotas and a small kitchen, which might have been slightly too grand a name to describe a corner partitioned off with hessian boards and containing a sink, two ancient kettles and a cheap microwave.

Eduardo had called his officers together to make an announcement and the announcement was simple, the Maison Hafsid case was closed and, for internal security reasons, the files would be shredded and all evidence sealed in sterile bags and remain so for the next hundred years. The reason was actually very simple but Eduardo had explained this only to Rose.