‘The note.’
‘This is police business, Mr Girling.’
‘We have the same interest at heart, don’t we, Captain?’
‘Naturally.’ Al-Qadi’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘But in Egypt some things are impossible. Do your job, Mr Girling, and I’ll do mine.’
‘This is my job,’ Girling said levelly. ‘How do you know they didn’t kill him on the spot?’
‘Because we found traces of chloroform on the desk.’
‘But why would the Angels of Judgement go to the trouble? Out here, miles from home?’ He paused. ‘Do you think the Brotherhood may be up to its old tricks?’
Al-Qadi pulled a pack of Nefertitis from his pocket. ‘A most convenient theory, Mr Girling.’
Girling watched him take out a cigarette and roll it between his fingers.
‘It would be stupid for either of us to pretend,’ Al-Qadi said. He lit the cigarette and sucked hard. The smoke streamed from his nostrils. ‘About what happened to your wife.’
Girling managed to keep his feelings in check. He held the investigator’s stare. ‘As you say, Captain.’ Even though the Mukhabarat did not operate with Western-style efficiency, it kept files. ‘But it doesn’t alter the fact that the Brotherhood may be helping the Angels of Judgement.’
‘Please leave the theorizing to us, Mr Girling.’ Al-Qadi took a step towards him. ‘You would do well to remember that the Mukhabarat has this investigation in hand. And that the Brotherhood is a spent force here in Egypt.’
Girling buried an urge to tell Al-Qadi that a Mukh-abarat officer had uttered those same words by his hospital bed three years before, barely a fortnight after he had watched his wife stoned to death by Brotherhood activists. For a moment, the rage swirled within him, but he fought against it. He could not afford to antagonize the Mukhabarat.
He was saved by a sharp knock at the door.
Girling turned and there was Sharifa, a scarf covering her hair, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses. A slight puffiness about her face told him she had been crying.
‘Oh, Tom, I’m so glad you’re here.’
They held each other for a moment. She took a step back. ‘You haven’t changed.’
‘Nor you.’
They stood there awkwardly for a moment, neither knowing what to say after so long.
‘How’s little Alia?’ she asked at last.
‘She’s fine. I’ve left her with my parents, until-’ He stopped. ‘She’ll be with them for a while.’
Sharifa looked across to the investigator. ‘I see introductions are unnecessary,’ she said.
Al-Qadi ground the stub of his cigarette into the floor. He made to leave.
‘I hope you have a pleasant stay in Egypt, Mr Girling. If anything occurs to you that could help our investigation, do not hesitate to call me. Miss Fateem has my number.’ He clapped his hands and the militiaman took up his position inside the room again. ‘The guard will see to it that you are protected.’
Al-Qadi’s eyes rested on the satin-smooth skin of Sharifa’s legs for a moment, then he turned and walked from the room.
Girling waited till he heard the lift doors close. ‘I need a couple of hours in here,’ he whispered to her. ‘I have to check this place out, unsupervised.’
She followed his gaze to the militiaman, who was engrossed in the pages of a magazine that had fallen from one of the boxes. Sharifa glanced towards Girling’s luggage and asked: ‘Do you have a carton of cigarettes?’
He shook his head. ‘I quit.’ He pulled a bottle of Johnny Walker from his duty-free bag. ‘But this stuff always used to be better than currency around here.’
Girling handed over the bottle and watched as the transaction was made. Sharifa cooed soothingly at the guard’s protestations. There was nothing to fear. She had things, private things, to discuss with her colleague from London. Captain Al-Qadi would understand. The militiaman looked at her quizzically for a moment, then headed for the door, seemingly satisfied, his prize tucked inside his tunic.
Girling gestured after him. ‘Where’s he going?’
‘To guard the main entrance for a while. You probably have a little over an hour before he gets nervous and comes back. Providing, of course, Captain Al-Qadi doesn’t beat him to it.’
‘Unpleasant little runt, isn’t he?’ Girling said.
‘Do not underestimate Al-Qadi, Tom. You, better than most, know what the Mukhabarat can do.’
Girling started with the filing cabinet nearest the door. He picked through the folders meticulously, occasionally removing a carnet and leafing through its pages like a bank cashier counting out money.
‘Shouldn’t you be getting some rest?’ Sharifa said. ‘You’ve been up all night.’
Girling said nothing, but moved to the next cabinet, pulling each drawer out on its runners in turn and passing his hands over its underside.
Nothing.
‘There’s a coffee-shop round the corner,’ she ventured. ‘I bet you could use some real Arabic coffee after that flight.’
‘Sounds good,’ he said distractedly. He never heard her leave.
Girling moved to the cardboard boxes used by Stansell as surrogate filing cabinets. As he stripped away the layers, he found newspaper cuttings, some in English, others in Arabic, bound with pieces of string, or elastic. The Mukhabarat, he knew, would have looked on the boxes as junk. There had been no attempt to categorize the contents beyond their natural chronology. Yet Stansell knew where to find everything. He had that sort of mind.
With a growing sense of unease Girling moved down the layers until he reached the period when he was last in Egypt. There was a long article clipped from the Economist on Libya’s return to the Arab fold, headed with a picture of Gaddafi shaking hands with Mubarak on the tarmac at the Cairo Airport. Girling remembered the Libyan leader’s visit. Gaddafi arrived the day he took his first steps in Stamen’s apartment. Stansell had gone to the airport to watch the plane come in and Girling had decided to use the solitude to practise walking. After two months in bed, it had been more difficult than he’d ever imagined. There were a few more pages of contemporary parliamentary reports. He nicked past them and there was Mona.
The sight of her made him start. It was an enlargement of an official photo from her passport, or ID documents. The picture made her look stern, but then all booth-type snapshots the newspapers borrowed in the aftermath of tragedy appeared to do that. Beneath the picture, set half-way down the third page of the Egyptian Gazette, Egypt’s English-language daily, the caption read: ‘Mona Hamdi, photographer for the London Times, killed in Asyut crowd stampede.’
Girling had no desire to reread the official account of her death. He replaced the things in the box and moved to the shelf beside Stansell’s desk. It was lined with back numbers from Stansell’s career, bound religiously into fading volumes. For one so apparently disorganized, Girling thought, it was a curious discipline. Beyond the seven years’ worth of Dispatches, there were other volumes, all present, all complete. Except one.
Girling’s finger stopped at the point where the 1979 (July-December) Dispatches binder should have been. He started to look for it, somehow anxious that this diligent record should be restored to its proper complement, but gave up when Sharifa returned with two copper jugs brimming with piping hot coffee, its strong, spicy aroma instantly filling the room.
‘Have you found anything?’ she asked as she poured.
‘Not yet.’ He took his cup. ‘Thanks.’
‘Tom, the police have been through this place already.’
‘Their comb,’ Girling said, ‘isn’t quite the same as mine.’
‘They still managed to find his contact book.’