Ben sat rigidly next to him, stunned by the barrage of unwelcome news. After a while, George blew his nose with a tissue from a box that Ben had passed to him sub-consciously during his outburst. As if waking him from his trance, Ben looked up with a look not just of sadness but also bewilderment.

George looked at his friend as he finished wiping his nose.

“What?” he asked, querying Ben’s puzzled look.

“George. I am devastated by this news, but I’m also confused. This policeman said Gail murdered the Professor?”

George hesitated. “Yes.”

Ben raised both eyebrows and looked to his feet. “I cannot believe that the Gail I know would kill anyone, let alone the Professor, to steal a few books, no matter how valuable.” He shook his head slowly. “There is more to this story, George, I am sure of it.”

George didn’t know what to make of Ben’s reaction. What had he expected? Tears, screams, breaking down and beating the floor with his fists? He didn’t know, but he was sure it wasn’t this. “What are you trying to say?” he said quietly.

“I’m sorry, I know this isn’t what you need to hear,” Ben said. “But there are parts of your story that don’t add up. Firstly, was Gail so upset by the news of the Amarna stickman that she was concerned about your financial security?” George shook his head. “And assuming that she was worried about money, and did steal the books, why would she then run across town with them under her arm, aimlessly? Why didn’t she get a Taxi? There are hundreds of Taxis on those streets.”

“Because she panicked?” George suggested.

“How spontaneous is Gail?” Ben asked. He almost corrected the tense of the verb, but quickly dismissed the thought.

George shrugged. “Sometimes, very. That’s why we got to Egypt in the first place.”

“But only after she’d been thinking about what to do for her dissertation for several months!” Ben countered. “The Gail I know is very deliberate.”

At this, George had to agree.

“Let’s ignore the Professor’s murder. I am certain Gail would not do that. Let’s also ignore the theft. I can’t see a reason for it, nor any capability in Gail to go through with something like that. The last part is her running from the Museum, and ending up in a canal, having run away from the airport. Imagine for some crazy reason she can’t find a taxi. She gets lost. The navigation on her phone is broken. Don’t you think she might have called you?”

“Yes,” he admitted. He remembered checking his phone on Tuesday morning, and there had been no missed calls. He had been having a bit of a get together with some friends on Monday evening, but he hadn’t drunk much; he would have realised if the phone had rung. “She didn’t try to call me at all after meeting the Professor.”

“And accepting that she did steal the books, and that she did run away randomly, isn’t it convenient that she is then robbed herself, and a body is found clutching pages torn from those very books during the struggle?” He stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry, George, I’m getting carried away. This isn’t what you need hear.”

George, however, continued where his friend had left off. “It does sound a bit convenient, doesn’t it? And Kamal seemed only too eager to take it all for face value; he didn’t seem interested in there being any alternative explanation.”

“And then there is the strangest fact of all,” Ben said, encouraged by George’s involvement in the debate.

“What?” he asked.

“That the Professor had to speak to Gail in person urgently, and that this Spanish guy, Martín, also needed to speak to her in person. It seems to me this guy was right, and that lots of people wanted to talk to Gail.” He looked at George. “He thinks that she was abducted, tells the policeman, and then all of a sudden they find her body, with evidence to prove she murdered the Professor. There are maybe thirty million people in Cairo, George. Hundreds of people go missing every day, and no-one even notices. Most bodies aren’t even found. And yet Gail’s turns up so easily?”

They sat contemplating the facts for about five minutes before Ben broke the silence with a curt laugh. “I can’t believe you punched a policeman. And a Captain at that!”

“It was something about the look on his face: so bloody satisfied, so content that he’d rounded up his case.” George explained. “I just couldn’t help myself. I’ve never even hit anyone before!”

Ben shook his head as he tried to imagine the scene in the morgue. “So, what did he do?”

“Nothing.”

“Surely you got fined, at least, for hitting a police officer? I would imagine that, given your circumstances, and the fact that you are foreign, a simple fine would be enough. Don’t tell me you got more than that?”

“Nothing at all,” George said quietly. “Not even a mention. I didn’t even apologise when I next spoke to him. He was so smug and disrespectful; it’s lucky I guess that I only punched him once.”

Ben looked at his friend in utter astonishment. “George, I have worked with the police. I have many friends who are still in the police. In Egypt you don’t simply punch a policeman and walk away. It doesn’t matter if your whole family has just been murdered. It just doesn’t happen.”

“Well,” George shrugged, “it did.”

“Then that is, you could say, the clincher. The only possible explanation for Kamal not charging you for your offence is that he would rather take that than have more enquiries into the case. He was probably relieved that it was all over; he had Gail’s body, and he closed his case. Your punch was like a full stop and he left it at that.”

George dried the last of his tears from his face. He felt a new emotion rising in the pit of his stomach; he felt the unmistakable heat of anger rising; anger that there may have been more to the story than he had already been told; anger at Kamal for not doing his job properly, or for doing it too well. Mostly, he felt angry with himself for not questioning it more, for letting Kamal get away with this. For failing Gail.

Ben looked at him, his face grim. “Don’t worry, George. I’ll join you and Martín for lunch, but before that, I am going to make a call.”

Chapter 50

Gail eyed this new man suspiciously as he entered the room. With his bald head, neatly-trimmed facial hair and thin-rimmed glasses, he looked every bit the James Bond villain. All he needed, she thought, was a white cat to complete the image.

So you’re Patterson.

He arrived at the foot of her bed and looked down at what she could only assume was her chart. From the way she was feeling, she guessed the arrow was pointing up: she was now able to move her head from side to side, even though the restraints stopped her from lifting it. He met her gaze briefly before pulling a chair up and sitting down beside the bed. He was within spitting distance.

She spat.

Without a word, he wiped his face with a towel taken from the bedside-cabinet, before cleaning his glasses methodically. Replacing them on his nose, he pulled a notepad out of his lab-coat pocket and jotted a few lines down.

Gail laughed out loud. “Subject spits!” she mocked.

He turned the notebook round and showed her what he had written.

 

Don’t say anything. I’m sorry for all this. I’m going to do my best to get you outof here.

She looked into his eyes and recognised genuine remorse. Though her blood continued to simmer nonetheless, she bit her tongue. There were so many words she had been playing with in her mind; snappy retorts, sarcastic comments, obscenities. Time had been against her in that respect. Had Patterson walked in an hour or two earlier, while the rage was still burning behind her teeth, he would have been confronted by a verbal barrage as soon as he had entered the room. But through the time lying restrained on her bed, she had whittled away the options, removed all the obscenities and sarcasm. Eliminated dark humour. She was a prisoner, held against her will and drugged-up to boot. There was only one thing she wanted to say.