It seemed her husband had died in a police operation, somewhere unspecified, south of Garaa Tebourt while rescuing his superior officer. Isabeau liked that touch. As if any man she married wouldn't frag all the officers and NCOs first opportunity he got, then head off down some wadi for Tripolitana. As if she'd marry any man . . .

They were returning his ring, his police tags and a photograph they'd found in his wallet of her wedding day. The face was Isabeau's although the body belonged to someone else; someone marginally thinner than she'd ever been with less full breasts. The man could have been anyone.

Isabeau was impressed to see they'd had a modern ceremony. She wore white and her husband was in uniform, their priest had a simple jellaba, his beard recently barbered and not at all wild. The room in which they stood was panelled in dark oak and had a photograph of the old Emir on the wall behind. It might have been more useful if someone had thought to write the exact location on the back.

The official-looking leaflet was a pension book made out to Madame DuPuis. At the bottom of the first page a space had been left blank for her signature. A footnote told her she could collect money monthly from any branch of the Imperial Ottoman Bank or arrange to have her widow's pension paid direct by filling in a form on the last page.

As for the letter, this offered Isabeau the condolences of the state, commiserated with her over all she'd lost and hoped that her future from henceforth would be happier. It was signed with an illegible scribble, although the first letter looked like an A . . .

CHAPTER 53

Saturday 26th March

"Well," said Raf, breath jagged and a grin on his face.

"Well what?"

Outside Zara's bedroom window, crowds were already gathering beyond the gates of the Bardo and Raf could hear the growl of early traffic and clattering as impromptu market stalls were erected.

The police would be along later to take them down but trade would continue all day, stalls going up as soon as the old ones were broken down. Food sellers, hawkers of rice-paper rose petals and purveyors of cheap plastic flags, Raf had even seen his face on the side of a balloon.

The woman lying beside him had already made her opinion plain on all of that. As indeed she had on many other things. It had been the kind of discussion that, in later years, would raise smiles and get described, only half-ironically, as full and frank. At the moment they both still felt slightly vulnerable.

"Come on then," Zara demanded. "Well what?"

"Oh, I don't know . . ." Raf wrapped one arm round Zara's shoulders and pulled her on top of him. "How about, Well, what do you plan to do with your day?"

She laughed, kissed him back.

So Raf slid down slightly on the bed and took Zara's nipple in his mouth, sucking comfort from her breast. She watched him as he did so, seeing only the top of his head and feeling his uncertainty.

"Are you all right?"

When Raf didn't answer, Zara stayed where she was and closed her eyes. They had another hour before they needed to leave and if that wasn't long enough then the wretched ceremony could wait.

Last night had been difficult. Difficult and different. Zara so nervous her whole body shook. And Raf . . . ? She took him to her room, something she'd done with no other man and stripped to her thong in front of him, only losing her nerve at the last minute. Having sent him to the bathroom, she killed the light and hid under the covers.

Except that when he came back, all Raf seemed to want to do was lie in the darkness and let the moment wash over him. Something impossible for Zara.

"This is not fair," she'd said suddenly.

And thinking he knew what Zara meant, Raf nodded agreement and in that second's movement shut down his night vision until everything in her room became outlines and shadow.

"It is now."

"No, I mean this."

And he knew then that Zara meant their lying in the dark, so much unspoken between them.

"There's something I need to tell you . . ." Raf said tentatively.

"Let me guess," she said. "I'm not the first. In fact you've fucked your way through an entire phone book of my friends. You have three children, well, that you know about . . . You're only after my millions . . ."

"This is serious," said Raf.

"So was I," Zara answered. And pulled Raf to her and kissed him as her hand slid under his rib cage and then both her hands locked behind his back, so that Raf's full weight rested on her trapped arm.

She felt him go hard.

"You're naked," said Raf, the fingers of his right hand tracing the crease of her buttocks, just to make sure he hadn't got that wrong.

He hadn't known, Zara realized. She'd been safely tucked under a quilt by the time he returned to the room.

There'd been one night, months before, when she'd talked and he'd listened, although she couldn't remember it and he could; but then, if Raf was to be believed, he remembered everything, which was maybe not a good place to be.

"It's important," said Raf, holding her face between his hands. "And it concerns who I am. What I am . . ."

"You're you," said Zara. "That's enough."

"No," said Raf sadly, "it isn't. It's not anything like enough."

Zara wanted to know why, so Raf told her. Or rather he didn't. He told her a fairy story instead. "Once," said Raf, his fingers caressing the side of her face, "there was a son of Lilith . . ."

Raf took it as read that Zara knew Lilith's story. Adam's first wife, mother to vampyres and djinn. A woman expelled from Eden for fucking the snake.

"He was older than he looked because, although his days were as your days, his nights were often longer, one of them so long that fir trees grew and houses were built while he slept. Someone who loved him grew old and stopped loving him, seeing her own life and increasing age reflected in the puzzlement in his eyes every time he woke from the cold sleep . . ."

If Zara thought it was odd that Raf told her a folktale she kept this thought to herself. Remembering stories Hani had told her. Small girl's stories. Of the kind easily dismissed.

"He slept the cold sleep because that was the easiest way not to die. Until one day he awoke and Lilith had died and her friends had forgotten him or no longer cared if he escaped. So he did what sons of Lilith do, moved to a strange country to live undetected as a human for seven years. For if a vampyre or djinn can live undetected for seven years he will become as human."

"So Hani told me," said Zara.

"She did?"

"She's told everybody," Zara said. "It's in a book, the original story. About how a son of Lilith can become as human. But the children will be born sons of Lilith."

"Sons of Lilith, daughters of Lilith," said Raf. "In my case it's called germ line manipulation. Whatever I am my children will become."

"And what are you?"

Raf thought about it. "I'm not sure," he said finally. "I get voices. I see in the dark. There are three extra ribs on either side of my rib cage. My eyes hurt in the daylight. My memory is too distressingly perfect for my mind to manage . . ."

"All of this is your mother's responsibility?"

"Or Emir Moncef's," said Raf, "but it gets messier." He felt the girl go still and shifted gently away from her, giving Zara space. "I've opened the bags . . . Secret files," he added, when he realized she didn't quite understand. "It's like reading the technical specifications for a new type of car. One that might not work."

"What's the worst?"

"Immortality. Or if not immortality, then longevity. How long I don't know but longer than is now normal."

"You knew this when you refused to marry me?"

"Some of it," said Raf. He stopped himself. "More than some," he said but the anger was directed at himself. "What I wasn't told as a child I overheard. It's relatively easy to code for heightened hearing. Less easy to understand the implications if one's own hearing is normal and the subject is three rooms away."