The crew hauled away the screen and podium and our dance band – a grand total of four – ambled in. Perry asked me to dance, but I was able to use my bruises as an excuse for refusing. As I hobbled towards the door I saw the Johnsons solemnly gyrating; he was holding her at arm’s length and moving about as fast as a sluggish snail. The newlyweds were not dancing.
III
I had breakfast in my room next mornmg. From what I had heard, room service was not usual on tour boats, but Ali was now my best friend in the whole world and would – he earnestly assured me – lay down his life for me anytime I wanted. I told him I’d settle for a couple of boiled eggs and coffee. He was back in record time, with an array of food that looked like samples of the entire breakfast menu. I had to push him out of the door. Then I took food, coffee, and a pad and pencil out onto the balcony.
The views were pastoral – green fields, water buffalo knee-deep in the shallows, black-garbed women washing clothes and keeping a watchful eye on the children in their bright brief garments. I waved back at a group of kids who were lined up along the bank waving and calling.
I didn’t want to think about crime. Why the hell should I? I had done what I was supposed to do. All I was supposed to do. Maybe the flowerpot had been an unfortunate accident. Maybe John didn’t have a confederate on board. Even if both those comfortable assumptions were wrong, there was no reason to suppose I would recognize any of his henchmen.
I had met more crooks than I would have liked, but one is more than I would have liked. I made a list.
Some of the names on that list were out of the picture – dead, or in jail. The people in Rome who had been happily selling fake jewellery until I so rudely interrupted them were neither of the above. They had pinned the blame for that caper on John and were still leading la dolce vita, which just goes to prove that crime often does pay and that justice frequently doesn’t triumph. However, that had been a purely local operation, run by amateurs; it was most unlikely that they had extended their activities abroad.
The group I’d encountered in Sweden were another kettle of fish. They were all professionals and cold-blooded as sharks: big stupid Hans, who wasn’t really bad, just awfully good at obeying orders; Rudi, who was built like a ferret and had the same mind-set (kill things, kill lots of things); Max, who cut silhouettes as a relaxing hobby after a day of bumping people off; and their boss, Leif, the man who had been slashing at me with a long sharp knife before John removed him forcibly from my vicinity. No doubt about Leif’s death; I had identified the body.
I had a couple of Max’s silhouettes – souvenirs, presented to me by the artist himself. Mine had been fashioned of the traditional black paper, and very fine likenesses they were. Occasionally Max used red paper – for ‘a particular collection.’ He was a soft-spoken, harmless-looking little man, and he’d always been very pleasant to me up to and including the moment when I waved bye-bye to him just before they carted him off to the prison. He had even . . . Well, he hadn’t actually thanked me for helping to get rid of his boss, not in so many words, but he had implied that Leif’s death opened up new and interesting possibilities of advancement for him ‘If I can ever do you a favour, Dr Bliss,’ he had said . . .
I had never met anybody who scared me more than Max. I hoped and believed he was still in prison. But in any case, Max wouldn’t have collaborated with John if John had been the only other crook on earth. The antipathy was personal as well as professional. Max had absolutely no sense of humour and John drove him up the wall even when John wasn’t trying to, and he often was trying to.
The Trojan gold affair . . . I could forget about that one. All the villains were dead. Very, very unmistakably dead, including the head villain, who had fallen fifty feet onto a pile of rocks. John had been indirectly responsible for his demise, which had occurred in the course of one of John’s nerve-racking, impromptu rescues.
For the first time I found myself wondering how John had felt about killing those two men. Neither had been deliberate, premeditated murders; he could reasonably claim self-defence or maybe justifiable homicide. But he had always insisted he disliked violence, even when it wasn’t directed at him. Did he ever have bad dreams?
I shifted uncomfortably and then tore the list into a heap of unreadable scraps.
John’s confederate couldn’t be anyone I knew, so it must be someone I didn’t know. (Brilliant deduction, Vicky.) I turned my attention to the passenger list.
I could now attach faces and personalities to most of the names. There were only thirty names in all – twenty-nine, now that Jen had left. I started to cross her name out and then stopped myself. She might not be on the boat, but she was not out of the picture. Difficult as it was to imagine her as a criminal mastermind, I couldn’t dismiss the odd coincidence that had left her on the loose in Cairo.
After considerable thought I eliminated sixteen people. I wasn’t credulous or prejudiced enough to think that old age put a person above, or below, suspicion, but a minimal degree of physical agility is one necessary qualification for a master thief – at least I’d have insisted on it if I had been hiring one – and a round dozen of the passengers had to be in their seventies or older. I also eliminated Louisa. Her name was a permanent fixture on the best-seller lists, so she didn’t have to turn to crime to make a living, and she was unquestionably the real Louisa Ferncliffe. The picture that adorned all her book jackets had been retouched but it was recognizable.
Sweet and Bright were two of the good guys. So who was left? Blenkiron was too rich and too famous to be a suspect, but I hadn’t eliminated his bodyguard or his secretary. I’d have to find out how long they had been in his employ. That. was the sort of set-up John specialized in, forging impressive credentials to gain access to a person or a place. Suzi? She was a little too good to be true. I was unacquainted with the social elite of Memphis, Tennessee; she could be a ringer. The unsociable German was another possibility. Somehow I’d have to get to know him better.
Mary and John made twenty-one. That left eight people I hadn’t spoken with except to exchange names and casual good-mornings. I was inclined to eliminate them too; they were all members of an amateur archaeology organization from Dallas, and they were travelling together. They were also rich and not exactly spring chickens.
How about the staff? Alice and Perry were who they claimed to be. They knew one another and they were known to others, including Blenkiron. Could either be corrupted? In theory, yes. In theory Feisal was also corruptible. Or he could be in league with one of the fundamentalist groups who wanted to rid Egypt of foreign influence. Promoting a scheme that would arouse public indignation, riot, and insurrection was the sort of thing fanatics might do.
I seemed to be long on hypothetical motives and very, very short on actual clues, and all too well supplied with possible suspects. John’s ally (or allies) might be one of the housekeeping staff or one of the crew. There was no way I could question them.
The hell with it. I got dressed and went up to the lounge to hear the lecture on birds. It would be a pleasure to hear about pretty, harmless things like birds. Bugs, that was what birds ate. Nothing wrong with killing bugs.
I had forgotten about owls. They eat a lot of things, including cute little mice and an occasional unwary kitten. There was an unexpected bonus, though; the lecturer turned out to be the unsociable German gent and he certainly knew a lot about birds. If he wasn’t a genuine enthusiast, he gave a good imitation of one; he talked about the creatures the way another man might talk about his mistress. Long slim legs were mentioned, and delicate flushes of pink. Some birds, he was sorry to report, were rather secretive in their habits. He’d even brought a collection of slides, all two hundred of which he showed us. Oh, well, maybe it wasn’t two hundred. It seemed like more.