She gave him a look of infinite sadness. ‘Ah, Tom,’ she said, ‘but I must.’
They sat in silence, Girling trying to blot out the image of the torn and bloated body in the sarcophagus. Suddenly he couldn’t protect her from the truth any longer. He told her what had happened, from the meeting with the Guide to Al-Qadi’s brutal unveiling of Stansell’s corpse. When he had finished, she had to wipe away his tears. Then, without warning, the concern in her eyes turned to anger.
‘What on Earth made you go to this sheikh? You were lucky not to have been killed.’
Girling stared into his glass. ‘It seems stupid now, doesn’t it? Stansell dead all along, before I even set foot in Egypt, and now I’m to be deported for trying to find him. What a bloody waste.’
‘Deported?’
‘Al-Qadi didn’t like me playing amateur detective. He’s given me my marching orders.’
‘Then it’s all over.’
Girling shook his head. ‘It’ll never be over, Sharifa.’
‘So Stansell died for nothing?’
‘No, Stansell died uncovering a story that’s bigger than anyone ever imagined. The threads that bind the Brotherhood to the Angels of Judgement are just a tiny part of an enormous web. I realized that today. For the first time, I saw the size of the monster I’ve been running away from since Mona died.’
She started to shake. He reached out and held her hand. ‘You’ll be all right. When I leave, this will all be forgotten. Stansell, Mona — for everyone but us they’ll just be names on a list.’
Her fingers tightened around his. ‘I have nightmares about Mona, Tom. I see people watching me on the streets, Al-Qadi and his men, I see the hatred in their eyes. I wonder when they will come for me with stones.’
He held her gently, knowing there was nothing he could say. After a while she slipped into a troubled sleep. From time to time her body stiffened and she would cry out. Later he picked her up and carried her from the balcony to the bedroom. He placed her tenderly on the bed and pulled back to see her looking at him through half-closed eyes.
‘Can we pretend?’ she asked, her voice breaking. ‘Is that so wrong?’
He turned out the light and they undressed, the sound of their clothes and the rustle of the sheets seeming unnaturally loud in the darkness. He slipped in beside her and they held each other tightly, pressing the contours of their bodies against each other for comfort and warmth. Girling drifted into sleep as if he had been given an anaesthetic. He could see demons still, but for the moment they were very far away.
They awoke in the night and clung to each other urgently, like swimmers trying to save themselves from drowning. Then she wrapped herself around him and he around her until shrill ululations of pleasure danced in her throat and he fell back, exhausted. Then they made love a second time, slowly, tenderly, their bodies hot from the first encounter. Their ecstasy rose together, hung there suspended, then fell in a simultaneous moment of release. And in that small window of time, Stansell, Mona, the Brotherhood, and the Angels were a distant memory.
CHAPTER 15
Sharifa awoke just before the dawn. She reached out for Girling, but he was not there. Slipping on her T-shirt, she found him hunched over her ancient typewriter at the dining-room table, pounding away at the keys as if his life depended on it.
The first he knew she was there was when she touched him on the shoulder.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m writing Stansell’s obituary.’
She gave a puzzled look.
‘I know. But believe me, it helps.’
‘Who’s it for?’ she asked.
‘Reuters, the Associated Press… One of them will take it. News of his death will have the wires humming by mid-morning.’
‘That sounds so cold.’
‘I’m sorry, it wasn’t meant to.’
‘But you haven’t even told Kelso yet.’
Girling pulled the finished page from the roller and added it to the two others beside the machine.
‘Kelso can read about it in the papers, or hear it on the radio, the same as everybody else. This way, the words will get to the right people.’
She rubbed her eyes, wearily. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Read it.’
It took her several minutes. It was less an obituary, more a news story. It pointed the finger squarely at the Angels of Judgement and their accomplices in Cairo, the Brotherhood. And finally, it revealed that the full story of the Angels of Judgement, the hijack-ing in Beirut, and the reasons behind Stansell’s death would be made public in the next issue of Dispatches in two days’ time.
She put the sheets back on the table, puzzled. ‘You don’t have a jot of evidence against the Angels of Judgement.’
‘Right, but they don’t know that.’
She stared at him.
‘Don’t you think they might just be a little bit curious about how I know so much?’ Girling asked. ‘And, more to the point, about exactly who else knows what I know?’
‘You’re setting yourself up!’
‘Something like that.’
‘No!’
‘Sharifa, it’s the only way.’
‘But what about last night? You said you were leaving. As soon as Al-Qadi sorted out the paper-work.’
‘I changed my mind. Someone’s got to get these fuckers. It’s as simple as that.’
‘Al-Qadi will put you straight back in that cell.’
He reached out and held her hand. ‘Who’s going to tell him?’
She recoiled like a sea-anemone from a predator’s touch.
‘Why has he got a hold over you, Sharifa?’
She said nothing.
‘You were the only person who knew that I would be at the mosque. I’m not angry. You saved my life.’
‘I was scared I’d lose you, too.’
‘Tell me about Al-Qadi. I want to help.’
‘Al-Qadi’s evil, Tom. You’ve no idea of the things he can do.’
Girling held her. ‘He’s a playground bully,’ he said, and wondered who he was trying to convince.
‘If he touches me again,’ she said, ‘I’ll kill him. I’ve been running from him for too long.’
‘You told him where Stansell was going, didn’t you?’ Girling said quietly.
She looked up at him. ‘I’m so sorry, Tom… I’ll carry that for the rest of my life.’
From the look in her eyes, he believed that she would.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.
Girling folded the sheaf of papers and tucked it into his jacket.
‘First I take this to Reuters, then I’m going to the Khan. There’s an old friend of mine there who might be able to get me access to the pathologist’s report on Stansell.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I believe there is.’
He gave her the volume and page number of the piece missing from the Dispatches binder. Then he went to take a shower.
Cyrus McBain’s face almost creased in two. He stood up from behind his desk and greeted his old friend warmly.
‘Elliot Ulm. I might have fucking guessed.’
‘You mean, they didn’t warn you?’ Ulm said. ‘You always were slow, McBain.’
‘Your identity was ‘need to know’ right up until this minute, which is a piece of luck for you, Elliot. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have shown up for work today. What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into this time?’
Ulm threw his leather jacket over the back of a chair. He had made the overnight journey from Qena in good time, blending in amongst the tourists from Luxor and Aswan in his jeans, sweatshirt, and beat-up jacket. ‘Shut up, Cy, and give me a drink. Where I’ve been the last three days, they don’t even have Miller Lite on the menu.’