He wanted to get up and leave, but his limbs were unresponsive, dead. He wanted to run, to jump back in time, to stop Gail, to call her, to hold her. To have anything but this.
He could vaguely sense the Spaniard touching his arm, looking at him, asking him something. It didn’t matter anymore.
He knew where Gail was, now.
Chapter 44
Captain Kamal was waiting when he arrived at the police station in a daze. He didn’t accept the Egyptian’s outstretched hand and was quickly ushered into the building and immediately down a short flight of stairs.
“Thank you for coming,” Kamal said gently.
His attitude was now entirely different, almost as if he felt sorry for the Englishman, possibly even slightly nervous.
George could barely bring himself to grunt unintelligibly in reply.
He was led past an open lift and through a long corridor flanked by half a dozen windowless doors on either side. The passage was well lit, leading to a set of hospital-style double-doors. George did not need to be able to understand the small sign in Arabic; a general sense of foreboding told him he was about to enter the station morgue.
Kamal held the left-hand door open and he walked in.
He stopped in his tracks as he laid eyes on the row of trolleys along one wall. About half were covered by thin sheets, and it was obvious to him that they concealed human bodies. Only one, at the far end of the room, was of a shape that could be his wife. With all his might he told himself that it couldn’t possibly be Gail, but deep down inside an overpowering dread informed him that it could be no one but her. His wife was surely under that sheet, but if he didn’t get any closer, it somehow made it less real.
Kamal had continued forward into the morgue, and was now standing beside the trolley. He looked back at George, waiting patiently for him to follow.
“Where did you find her?” he said without moving from the doorway. “Gail wouldn’t have been far from the Museum or the Professor’s house.” His voice was monotonous, going through the motions, dodging the fact that lay ahead of him, cold.
“There is a series of canals running to the west of the city. Some are but a trickle of water, as Cairo nowadays gets most of its supply from the purification plants to the north. The canal is used mostly by vagrants. We received an anonymous call some hours ago that a body had been found under a bridge.” He looked down at the still-covered body between them. “It’s a long way, but still within walking distance of the Museum, Mr Turner. We need you to officially identify the body.”
George walked forwards slowly. As he approached the trolley, Captain Kamal gently peeled back the cover to reveal the black hair and white skin of a woman in her late thirties to early forties. Her skin was undamaged and had a frozen, plastic-like quality. Her eyes were closed, but as he looked down at her lifeless corpse, George imagined her looking back at him, her infectious smile lighting his life. What had previously been a weight on his stomach lurched uncontrollable, welling upwards, no longer held back. He stroked her hair, touched his cheek to hers, and as he held her lifeless body tight, wept.
His tears were confirmation enough for Captain Kamal, who after barely a minute moved him away from the table quickly and moved the sheet back across the woman’s face.
“How?” George asked eventually, trying to control his voice. It seemed so wrong that Gail should be lying lifelessly in front of him. So wrong because she was such a good person, and could never hurt anyone herself. So wrong because he hadn’t had the chance to say goodbye. So wrong because he loved her, because he lived to make her life perfect, and her death only meant that he had failed. Gail couldn’t be dead.
Kamal hesitated. “It’s not easy to explain, Mr Turner. I am very sorry for your loss.”
George looked up at the officer. “How did it happen, Captain?” he asked more forcefully.
“She was stabbed several times in the lower abdomen with a knife, probably a switchblade. They are unfortunately very common in the city. We believe that she was robbed,” he said.
“What was she doing in the canal in the first place? Why would she want to go anywhere near it?” George raised his voice. Everything seemed to be wrong. Gail was dead, and all because she was wandering around some silly canal? It didn’t make sense to him.
“Your wife was found clutching several pages of torn paper.” He looked nervously at the grief-stricken man before him. “The book they were ripped from was – and probably still is – extremely valuable. It was part of a collection of similar books that were taken from Professor al-Misri’s office yesterday evening.”
George felt the hairs rise on his forearms and on the back of his neck. He rose to his full height, towering over the policeman.
“There is no easy way to say this, Mr Turner. However we believe that your wife took these books from the Professor’s office.”
“Are you’re suggesting that she killed him, too?” George challenged him.
“Your wife had a strong motive to take the books: her career was at risk and the books would have offered financial security. We cannot be certain at the moment that it was intentional, as he fell and hit his head on the side of his desk. However shortly after the incident CCTV footage shows your wife running from the museum holding the stolen items.”
“You can actually see Gail doing that?”
“There were no other women in the museum that night, Mr Turner,” he said. “We can only assume that she did not know where to go from there; she probably did not plan the crimes beforehand, and so simply ran in the approximate direction of the airport. She will have stumbled upon the canal around midnight, and been robbed herself shortly afterwards.”
George couldn’t believe what he was hearing. To find out that his wife had been murdered was bad enough, but to be told moments later that she had robbed and killed one of her closest friends and colleagues was simply ludicrous.
“Are you serious? No, it’s not possible. None of what you’re saying makes sense!”
The officer gave an uncomfortable smile and tilted his head sympathetically. “I’m afraid that we have all of the evidence we need, Mr Turner. Your identification of the corpse was the final detail, and as far as I am concerned the case is now closed. Of course, we are still looking for your wife’s murderer, but that is being handled by a separate department, who have your contact details.”
George’s mind was a mess of grief, confusion and anger. He looked down at the now covered body of his wife, and then back at Kamal. The forced smile, a dismal attempt at sympathy, was still painted on the Egyptian’s face, his head tilted in that patronising manner. His account of the incredible story had left George speechless; there was only one thing he could think to do.
He wasn’t a violent man, by any means, but he felt a sudden surge of adrenaline as his fist hit the officer so hard on the chin that the small man literally spun round on his heels and fell over.
By the time Captain Kamal was back on his feet, nursing his chin, George Turner had already left the morgue, with the doors swinging closed behind him.
Kamal fished in his pocket for his phone and toyed with the sheet covering the body as he dialled a number with his free hand. As the phone rang, he pulled the sheet back to reveal the frozen face beneath. He shook his head to himself. Someone answered the phone.
“It’s Captain Kamal. Mr Turner has just left.”
A short pause.
“Yes, it’s done.”
He snapped the phone shut and tossed the sheet back over the face before marching quickly out of the morgue.
Chapter 45
Gail opened her eyes, but could see nothing. She blinked twice, each time chasing away an army of frenzied white dots, like TV static. The darkness in which she found herself was so complete that she had to work out if her eyes were open or not by mentally checking the position of her eyelids.