Herring on the Nile (17 page)

‘In bed,’ said Campion.

‘Any witnesses to that event?’ asked Proctor.

‘Scarcely,’ said Campion.

Proctor smiled. Campion was not going to be the one who got to fetch the gun.

Sky Benson half raised her hand. ‘I was also in bed,’ she volunteered. ‘Alone. No witnesses of any kind.’

‘This is a complete waste of time,’ said Campion, seeing the way things were going. ‘Most of us won’t have witnesses as to where we were. And we don’t need them
because
none of us did it
. But we do know that Ethelred went off with Purbright. And we do know he had a gun. From what Tom and John say, it sounds as though he was later lying in wait for
him on deck, at almost exactly the time the shot was heard.’

‘One of the crew did see him,’ said the captain. ‘He is trying to hide, for sure. He is – what do you say? – flattening his body against the wall.’

‘What more proof are you after?’ Campion was pathetically triumphant. ‘The only reason nobody actually saw him fire the shot was that everyone was in bed or had gone to the
bridge or the engine room to find out what was happening. It’s obvious. The police have taken the right man away. We are all safe. Let us now just go back to our own beds and sleep. Help is
undoubtedly on its way.’

Most of us might have been inclined to go along with the idea of sleeping, but Herbie Proctor had an announcement to make.

‘Some of you may not know,’ said Proctor, ‘but I am a private detective.’ It was quite touching that he thought he still had any part of his cover intact. We let him
continue. ‘I was hired to guard Mr Purbright. He’d had death threats. Purbright is not his real name. His real name . . . ‘ Proctor paused very unnecessarily for effect: ‘.
. . is Raffles.’

Nobody could think of anything to say in reply to this, but there was a gentle thud as Sky Benson dropped her copy of
Snow on the Desert’s Face
onto the floor.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

Tom was looking puzzled. ‘You mentioned the name Raffles before. Why do you think that’s what he was really called?’

‘He was employing me to protect him,’ said Proctor.

‘Nice work in that case,’ said Tom. ‘What were you protecting him from?’

‘There had been threats against him,’ said Proctor.

Campion was frowning. ‘I vaguely seem to remember somebody of that name was tried for murdering his wife? You are not, surely, saying that this was the same man?’

‘Yes, but he was found
not guilty
,’ said Proctor irritably.

There were more puzzled looks – this time exchanged between Sky Benson and Campion.

‘What exactly makes you think he is Raffles?’ asked Campion.

‘He’d contacted me. I’d arranged to meet him on the boat,’ said Proctor.

‘I’m losing track of this a bit,’ said Tom. ‘Why should Ethelred want to kill this Raffles person? Even if Raffles does sound a rather unsavoury character. Did Ethelred
even know that Purbright was really Raffles?’

‘Yes,’ said Proctor. ‘I told him. But the killer can’t have been Ethelred. Whoever killed Raffles tried to kill me earlier today at the temple – that’s
obvious. Ethelred was with me then, so it can’t have been him.’

‘Well,’ said Campion, ‘I can see that, if people knew you were guarding Purbright . . . or Raffles or whatever you want to call him . . . they might have felt they should get
you out of the way first.’

Proctor had lost a client rather publicly, but it clearly assuaged his professional pride a little that he himself should also be a target. He nodded sagely.

‘Precisely. While I was around it would have been difficult for anyone to kill my client,’ he said, puffing out his chest to the limited extent it would puff.

‘Except that they did kill him,’ said Tom.

‘Yes,’ said Proctor, implying this was only a slight flaw in his theory.

‘Well, that does put a very different complexion on things. So, let’s start from here: Who would want to kill Raffles?’ Tom continued.

‘Plenty of people,’ said Sky, wrapping her dressing gown more closely around her. ‘At least, I would imagine so. He may have been found not guilty but he got off on a pure
technicality.’

Campion seemed keen to get us back to his idea of spending the next few hours asleep. ‘Look,’ he interrupted, ‘this isn’t getting us anywhere . . .’

‘You know about the trial, Sky?’ asked Tom.

‘I thought everyone did,’ she said. ‘For a couple of weeks it was in all the papers, and on television. It was a really dreadful case. I felt so sorry for the
children.’

All of that was probably true, though there had been plenty of dreadful cases since then, equally well reported, and my own recollection of the Raffles case was now patchy at best. I vaguely
remembered that the children had had to be called as witnesses.

‘Well, maybe we are getting somewhere,’ said Tom. ‘If there are a lot of people out there who think Raffles was guilty, then maybe one individual might have decided that
justice would be done by bumping him off?’

‘Two people,’ said Proctor. ‘The letter said it was two people.’

‘So you’re saying they might have found out he was travelling to Egypt, booked on the same cruise and waited for their chance?’ Tom asked.

Proctor nodded.

‘But why would anyone take that sort of risk?’ asked John.

‘I don’t know,’ Tom replied. ‘Perhaps if it was your sister or daughter who had been killed by him? Then, what if you chanced to find out that this Raffles guy would be
here, on this boat, without the sort of protection he might have in England?’

‘Very picturesquely described I am sure,’ said Campion, ‘but not very likely, is it? We are going round in circles. The police think that Ethelred killed Mr Purbright –
or Mr Raffles if you all prefer. That’s good enough for me.’

‘They are not policemen though,’ said Tom.

‘Just as I say,’ continued Campion. ‘Round and round in circles. The majority of us are happy to believe the police.’

‘I’m not sure you have a majority,’ said Tom.

Campion folded his arms and looked round the group, defying us to vote against the proposition. ‘Well, my vote is certainly for Ethelred. How about the rest of you?’

‘I really have no idea,’ said Jane Watson. ‘You can scarcely solve a murder case by each of us putting crosses on a ballot paper.’

‘Quite,’ said Annabelle.

‘Absolutely,’ said Lizzi.

It was a shame that the vote had been called off because I had been planning to rig it in favour of Annabelle, Lady Muntham, by some devious method yet to be explained. But I just said:
‘I’m sure it wasn’t Ethelred. Or my two policemen.’

Campion looked miffed that public opinion was not as much in his favour as he had hoped. As with most of the other suggestions that evening, it had not taken us as far as it might have done.

Still, my Annabelle theory had its merits, and I needed to run it past somebody that I could trust. I beckoned to Tom and we found ourselves a secluded corner of the saloon, away from the others
– and especially away from Annabelle.

‘There’s another possibility,’ I said in as low a voice as I could manage. It was a weird idea, but no weirder than some of the others. ‘What if the stone
was
aimed at Ethelred after all, not Herbie? And what if the shot that killed Purbright was aimed at Ethelred too?’

‘Who would want to kill Ethelred?’ asked Tom.

‘He’d received a death threat,’ I said. ‘There was a text message from somebody saying they were going to kill him.’

‘Who sent it?’

‘He just said it was a friend.’

‘So, who are his friends?’

‘He doesn’t have many, to be perfectly honest. But there’s Annabelle . . .’

‘The Annabelle who has just joined us?’ asked Tom. ‘Does she know Ethelred?’

‘A while ago,’ I said, ‘a mate of Ethelred’s – Sir Robert Muntham – died and left his house, Muntham Court, to Ethelred.’

‘And where does Annabelle fit in?’

‘Annabelle is Lady Muntham – Sir Robert’s widow. He had, frankly, good reasons for leaving her as little as he could get away with – two-timing bitch.’

‘I can see that might have pissed her off,’ said Tom, ‘but you say she is a
friend
?’

‘She decided that the best way of keeping the house was to get her hands on Ethelred. Ethelred is not, sadly, well versed in the ways of evil two-timing bitches – he rather seems to
like them in fact – and I thought for a while that he might be about to go along with the whole thing. But just before he left for Egypt he finally saw reason and put Muntham Court on the
market. Annabelle would have taken it as a clear signal that her original plan was pants and that she needed another one.’

‘Just out of interest, if Ethelred dies, does the house revert to Annabelle under the will?’ asked Tom, echoing thoughts I had already had.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I guess there could be something in it about Ethelred having to survive Sir Robert by a certain time, failing which the bequest might go
elsewhere.’

‘And you think she has joined us to bump Ethelred off? Surely not?’

I thought about this. Purbright’s shooting was the work of somebody who was very desperate, very pissed off, a very cool customer . . .
and probably an ex-pole dancer
. Into how many
of those classes did Annabelle fit? Four at least. But would she really have mistaken Purbright for Ethelred?

‘Ethelred and Purbright were both wearing white dinner jackets,’ I said. ‘Annabelle saw them leave the dining room together. She followed, gun in hand, lay in wait, and then
shot the wrong one. She panicked and dumped the gun in the empty cabin, which Miss Watson had failed to lock properly that first afternoon after faffing around over her choice of bunks.’

‘Having previously tried to kill Ethelred at the temple by toppling that stone?’ asked Tom.

‘It was a strange coincidence that she showed up precisely then,’ I said. ‘And she matches the description of the lady in the floppy hat seen heading for the roof.’

‘Interesting theory,’ said Tom.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘If so, Purbright was simply in the right place in the wrong clothes – the sort of dreadful fashion faux pas anyone might make. Maybe the question is now irrelevant – but do
you think Purbright really is this Raffles person? That would certainly be an ironic twist – to get accidentally bumped off by one of the few people who didn’t think you deserved
it.’

‘Was he Raffles? Only in Herbie Proctor’s imagination,’ I said. ‘The police reckoned Purbright was actually the one who was out to kill Raffles.’

‘Majid and Mahmoud actually mentioned Raffles by name?’

I tried to remember what they had said; it all seemed a long time ago. ‘Kind of,’ I hedged.

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Tom. ‘In that case, the potential murderer is himself bumped off. But where is the real Mr Raffles then? More to the point, where is
Ethelred?’

I was wondering that too. I just had to hope my nice policemen were guarding him well.

Eighteen

Q: Our readers are always interested in how writers work. Describe the room you are writing in now.

A: I am in a small hut somewhere in the Nile Valley. It contains a wooden bed, on which I am now sitting, and an old table that may have been painted blue at some point in the
distant past. The walls are completely bare. The door seems to be locked. There are bars on the windows. There is a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. I can’t see any way of
switching the light on or off from inside the room. That’s about it, really.

A: I tend to get up early and write, particularly if I can’t sleep for any reason. It’s currently two o’clock in the morning, for example.

A: The Koran.

A: Yes. During the past few hours I have been on a Nile paddle steamer, a fast motorboat and then a pick-up truck with bad suspension. Finally I had a tricky walk, while
blindfolded for the second time today, with a machine gun prodding me in the back. I’m hoping that somebody will soon tell me where I have travelled to. And why. Yesterday I was on a coach
travelling to Edfu temple – though that seems a very long time ago now.

A: You’ve no idea how much I would like to be there with you right now.

‘Just some questions for a newspaper in Scunthorpe,’ I said, looking up. ‘All publicity is good publicity.’

Being able to do something as mundane as answer interview questions was strangely reassuring. It seemed unlikely that anyone had ever been murdered while writing for the
Scunthorpe
Telegraph
. Or not recently.

‘That is exactly how I feel about my work as well,’ said Mahmoud. He had remained standing – a position of advantage, as it now seemed to me from my rickety wooden chair.

‘And what is your work?’ I asked, looking up at him. ‘You are not expecting me to believe that this is police headquarters?’

Mahmoud looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. ‘You are right. This is not police headquarters. It is however a convenient place for us all to be in at the moment. It
may not have the amenities of a British police station and perhaps the Police and Criminal Evidence Act doesn’t apply here – but, as Tom would say, I have a feeling that you are not in
Kansas any more.’

‘So why am I here?’

‘Other than because you shot Purbright, you mean? That would seem reason enough.’

‘I didn’t shoot Purbright. You know that perfectly well.’

‘You went out on deck with him.’

‘Yes.’

‘You were the only passenger not to come to the saloon as requested.’

‘Yes.’

‘You had a gun. You threatened to shoot us.’

‘I didn’t shoot Purbright,’ I repeated. ‘I didn’t lay my hands on the gun until after he was dead. And what motive could I possibly have had?’