Herring on the Nile (3 page)

‘We are flying down, or possibly up, the Nile. Up, I guess, since it flows from south to north and we are flying almost exactly due south.’

‘Have you finished those interview questions?’ asked Elsie, looking suspiciously at the two empty wine bottles.

‘Three sets so far.’

‘I hope you’re being cheerful and upbeat?’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re not being cynical and tedious?’

‘No.’

‘You’re not going on and on about wanting to write great literary fiction?’

‘I just ask one very short question about it.’

‘And you are being very complimentary about other writers?’

‘Yes. I even gave a plug to Dan Brown.’

‘There’s a good boy.’

‘Evidently there were some last-minute bookings,’ I said.

Ahead of us a middle-aged lady, who had clearly arrived a short while before, was returning a key to the desk. She was wearing the practical, loose, dust-coloured dress of the habitual
traveller, and a hat with a large floppy brim covered much of her greying hair. Her wrist carried several substantial silver bracelets, bought quite possibly in the suq in Luxor that morning. They
clinked happily as she handed over the key.

‘Thank you,’ she said in the clear precise way the English speak to foreigners, as an alternative to learning their language. ‘I thought an upper cabin would be better, but on
reflection I am very pleased with the one originally allocated to me. The other cabin is too close to the dining room. Tell the porter that my cases may remain where they are. I have locked the
cabin door.’

It was not unlike listening to a passage from a phrase book in which a number of eventualities for booking a cabin are envisaged and set down for the traveller to use as necessary. For a moment
I thought she might go on to ask for a telegram to be sent to her head office in Oldham about a shipment of cotton samples, or whatever scenario the book’s author had next seen fit to cover.
But she simply nodded once and smiled. The purser returned her smile weakly and dropped the key into a wooden box beside him without a further glance at it. The lady however showed no sign of being
in a hurry to return to her original cabin. She was on holiday and had plenty of time to display old-world good manners, no matter how much inconvenience and irritation it might cause.

‘It was however very kind of you. I appreciate your allowing me to inspect it,’ she continued, as though she had just remembered a further optional piece of dialogue, illustrative of
the gerund.

The phrase book should, undoubtedly, have had the purser reply that he was honoured and delighted to have been of service, but he seemed not to have read that section. The lady, therefore,
received another weak smile in return. The queue of passengers, including one literary agent who had hoped to have the boat largely to herself, was growing impatient.

‘Thank you for locking the cabin and returning the key,’ said the purser. ‘Perhaps, madam, you would now permit me to check in the other guests?’

‘But of course,’ she said, turning to the rest of us in the most leisurely manner I could recall ever having seen. ‘I do apologize for having delayed you all. It is very rude
of me. I shall not hold you up for another second.’

For a moment I could have sworn she was about to drop a curtsey, but then she turned sharply and swept away towards the lower deck.

‘Next,’ said the purser, raising his eyebrows in rather unprofessional mock despair.

‘Professor Campion,’ snapped a tall, bald man who had managed to position himself at the front of the queue by means of a rapid exit from the coach and an agile pair of elbows. He
slapped his ticket on the desk. He clearly resented having been made to wait and resented it even more when, in spite of being a professor, he was asked for his passport, the search for which
encompassed his jacket, his rucksack and finally (with much greater success) the back pocket of his trousers. He fiddled with a pair of reading glasses while his documents were being checked and
his key located, though in the end he found nothing to read with them and finally made great play of folding the glasses away again into a small tubular case. He did this slowly and precisely. It
was as if delaying the rest of us somehow evenedup the score with the lady with the floppy hat. He too disappeared, but towards the upper deck, following a porter who had swooped lightly onto his
small suitcase.

‘I’m Sky Benson. I think you’ll find I have a lower-deck cabin.’ The next passenger was a young woman whom, had I been looking for a quiet, efficient secretary, I might
have shortlisted on the spot. She was quite pretty, but her lack of make-up was so conspicuous as to amount to a statement of intent. She had on a fairly simple necklace of blue stones and what
seemed to be a matching bangle. Propped coquettishly on her small nose was a pair of surprisingly heavy and old-fashioned glasses – surprising because the lenses did not appear to be very
strong, and she might have disposed of them completely had she been at all concerned about her appearance. The spectacles too seemed a statement of some kind – a suitable accompaniment to the
plain skirt, high-necked blouse and the absence of make-up. It struck me that sometimes the ultimate vanity is a desire not to appear vain.

She retrieved her ticket and passport from a well-organized plastic folder, then chatted inconsequentially to the purser as he ticked her name off the list. She appeared slightly tense and
awkward, and kept looking over her shoulder as if she feared additional passengers might join the queue and delay us further. Once or twice she gave a short nervous laugh in response to her own
jokes. Perhaps it was being in a strange country or perhaps she was always like that. Doubtless I would find out in due course, as all of the passengers would in due course find out about each
other. For the moment we were still a collection of strangers, eyeing each other with varying degrees of trepidation and disdain.

Eventually a porter was summoned and Miss Benson too was dispatched on her way.

Another young woman travelling alone was quickly dealt with. She gave her name as Lizzi Hull, tipping her peaked cap back on her head as she said it. While her booking was checked, she rolled up
her sleeves, revealing a fashionable selection of tattoos. She must have noticed me looking at them, because she gave me a quick wink before turning back to the purser.

‘
Shukran
,’ she said, as she pocketed the key. She declined any assistance with her rucksack, which she hoisted onto a shoulder before striding off towards her cabin.

Two Americans in their mid-twenties were now all that separated us from our own keys.

‘I wonder why they were pretending not to know each other,’ said Elsie.

‘Who?’

‘Professor Campion and Miss Benson. They were sitting together on the plane, but pointedly took seats at opposite ends of the coach for the drive from the airport. They didn’t
exchange a single word here on the boat – not even to say what a pain in the queue the floppy-hat bitch was being.’

‘Maybe they’d said everything they had to say to each other on the plane,’ I suggested. ‘They didn’t look as if they had much in common.’

‘I’m surprised she could afford a trip like this, if her cheap jewellery is anything to go by.’

‘Was it cheap?’

‘Oh yes. New but very disposable. I wouldn’t go to her hairdresser either.’

‘No?’

‘You might, but I wouldn’t.’

‘Maybe she inherited some money recently. It happens.’

‘Yes, but the first thing you do if you inherit money is go out and have your hair done and buy the most expensive shoes you can find.’

‘Not a rich heiress then?’

‘She doesn’t really fit in at all. Think about it – Campion and the floppy-hat lady, both spending their early-retirement lump sums by the look of them. And then the two
American boys . . .’ They had fortunately also moved on, though their presence would probably not have prevented Elsie from continuing as she did. ‘East coast old money. Ivy League.
Probably both taking a year out between graduate school and joining Goldman Sachs.’ It seemed quite possible – or, at least, no more unlikely than any other scenario. They had the
perfect teeth and untroubled countenances that only the very best sort of money buys.

‘And the young lady with the tattoos?’

‘Bristol or Durham history of art graduate on a gap year. Decorating her arms in a way that she hopes will gladden the hearts of her parents on her return to Guildford.’

What Elsie’s snap judgements lacked in accuracy, they invariably made up in detail.

‘So there are eight passengers on the boat?’ I said to the purser, as much to make conversation as anything.

‘There are thirteen,’ he said, checking the list. ‘No, twelve. We had thirteen bookings but the final number is confirmed as twelve. In addition to Miss Watson and the seven of
you who have just arrived, there are also two gentlemen sharing a cabin on the lower deck and two gentlemen in single cabins. They are already here. So, once we have everyone accommodated to their
entire
satisfaction, I shall inform Captain Bashir that he may set sail for Esna.’

I was handed my key and Elsie hers. The box with the remaining keys in it was shut with a flourish and the box itself was then locked away. I too might have swung my small bag over my shoulder
and set off unaided, but the purser had no intention of allowing such a breach in etiquette to occur twice on his watch. I accordingly followed my uniformed porter to the upper deck, where my cabin
had been eagerly awaiting me for some hours.

‘Ethelred! I thought I’d probably find you here – out in the midday sun.’

‘Indeed,’ I said, ignoring his outstretched hand.

‘As in “mad dogs and Englishmen”,’ he added. His grin served only as an unfortunate reminder of some cheap dental work.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I did get the allusion.’

‘One of Flanders and Swann’s,’ said Proctor, with more confidence than accuracy. ‘Well, we’re two mad dogs out here together, eh, Ethelred? What were the chances of
our turning up in the same joint again?’

‘Greater than I had hoped, clearly. What exactly brings you here, Mr Proctor?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t this a little expensive for your tastes?’

‘Not quite my usual holiday destination,’ he said. Herbie Proctor had the ability to make most things sound disparaging, though he rarely had the chance to dismiss an entire
civilization in six words. He scanned the far bank of the river and was not impressed. ‘Load of smashed-up old stones in the desert. Great blocks of useless masonry.’

I wondered whether to quote ‘Ozymandias’ to him, but decided not to waste my time. Proctor had in any case now taken out a very old mobile phone and was playing around with it
unhappily.

‘Can’t seem to get a connection,’ he said.

‘The older ones don’t always work overseas,’ I said, surprised to be ahead, for once, of anyone on technical matters. ‘Or not outside Europe at least.’

‘Don’t they?’ asked Proctor, looking rather mournfully at the unresponsive device in his hand.

‘Are you expecting somebody to contact you?’

‘It’s not important,’ said Proctor, replacing the phone in his pocket, where it made an impressive bulge.

‘I take it that this is a working visit?’ I asked.

He gave me a conspiratorial wink, then looked around theatrically before whispering: ‘Very perspicacious as ever, Ethelred. I do have a little job on, as it happens. Maybe you can help me.
Can I talk to you in confidence?’

‘That depends entirely on what you have to say.’

‘I’m here to prevent a murder, Ethelred.’

‘That’s very decent of you.’

‘Yes, isn’t it? My client has been kindly alerted to the fact that somebody wants to kill him. He thinks that the person threatening him may be on board this boat.’

‘Then he would do well to move to another boat entirely. That would leave you free to do the same.’

Proctor eyed me, an irritating smile on his lips.

‘My client doesn’t frighten easy, Ethelred. A bit like me, you might say. And he’s not the sort of man you’d want to cross. He can take care of himself when he needs to,
if you get my drift. My job, since he is travelling alone, is to be his eyes and ears. He just wants a fair fight with no surprises.’

‘Which of the passengers is he?’ I asked.

‘I’d like to be able to tell you,’ Proctor smirked, ‘but that will not be possible.’

I made a quick tally of the male passengers – the problem of identification did not seem to be quite as impenetrable as Proctor implied. If the client in question was indeed travelling
alone, that ruled out the two Americans, and also the two gentlemen sharing a cabin who had arrived shortly before we had. If he was male, then that ruled out most of the rest. Put bluntly it left
me, Professor Campion and one other. It wasn’t me. I had just seen Campion and he didn’t quite fit the description of a man you would not wish to cross; in fact I’d have said he
would have been safer to cross than most people, provided you were prepared to put up with a little scholarly petulance. I hadn’t met the second gentleman, but had noticed from the
purser’s list that he was called Purbright. He might well be seven feet tall and built like a gorilla for all I knew. Time would tell.