The Cairo Diary (31 page)

The cellar approached.

Life was still possible.

Another nine feet or less.

Maybe six.

And he would survive. And he would sur—

Azim closed his eyes.

And he wept, as a cry tore from his throat; a cry more harsh and hoarse than any animal could make.

His ankle had just been gripped by a hand with long, twisted fingers.

*   *   *

Jeremy Matheson was stretched out on the sofa in the main drawing room. The remnants of a log were disintegrating in the fireplace, the wood opening its sooty belly in a sonorous grating noise, spreading its reddened entrails amid the ashes, which flew up like little flakes of dead snow.

He was bare-chested beneath a thin blanket.

His forehead felt heavy, his throat dehydrated by too much alcohol.

The mansion was quiet; Keoraz had gone off to bed some time ago. They had talked, at length. And drank.

Keoraz, the perfect suspect.

Jeremy had observed Jezebel a great deal: her cold beauty, her piercing gaze.

Suddenly there was a rustling sound behind him.

That of a light fabric flowing across the stone floor and the carpet that lay on top of it.

Jeremy sat up and turned around.

A hand brushed his cheek, long fingernails lightly touching his mouth.

And someone gently covered his lips, preventing him from uttering a word.

Jezebel appeared in a long silk robe, hanging open to reveal her naked body.

Her nipples, of the palest pink, merged with her white skin. She was breathing hard, creating a vertical line on her belly, above her navel, her delicate breasts rising above her visible ribs. Her almost hairless pubis opened in a triangle like the Nile delta, a promise of fertility and fulfillment.

She pushed Jeremy back until he stretched out, and pulled off his trousers before climbing astride and sitting on him.

Her womanhood was wet, her nether lips parted by desire.

She must have been thinking about this moment for a long time already, to the point where her mind felt as though it had opened up more fully than even her most intimate parts.

All at once desire rushed through Jeremy, like an orgasmic discharge, lifting his penis, swelling his entire manhood; he contracted the muscles of his arms, his pectorals, taking Jezebel by the shoulders and drawing her firmly toward him. Her small breasts caressed his chest, cooled by the air. Their two skins pleased each other, spoke to each other, developed gooseflesh at the same time.

Jeremy held his mistress an inch above him, and ran his suddenly moist tongue along her neck.

She tilted her pelvis and her sex met his.

Like two friends rediscovering each other after a very long wait, they barely touched each other, tasting each other, mutually savoring the moment, barely daring to let go of each other, almost trembling at the thought of embracing as powerfully as they could wish. Then Jeremy seized Jezebel by the neck and forced her to lower her guard.

Slowly his member penetrated her sex.

The sodden heat sent a tingling sensation right through him. And took possession of his reason.

She felt the tenderly rigid warmth of her lover slide into her, open up a path to ecstasy with exquisite friction. And the sweet inflammation of her senses began.

Jeremy moved back and forth inside her flesh, cradled by her fluids, the sap building up behind the gates of resistance, ready to explode in a fecund star-burst.

Jezebel forgot what she was, where she was. Her muffled moans rose into her throat, but did not cross the threshold of her mouth. Her fingers tightened about Jeremy, her nails tearing a furrow through his flesh.

She moaned again.

Eyes closed.

Again.

A kind of tremolo replaced her moans of happiness.

Strident … electric sounds.

The telephone was ringing in the distance. Behind Jezebel's back.

She vaporized on him, and the blanket fell to the ground.

Jeremy opened his eyelids, groggy and suddenly bitter.

It was dark in the drawing room.

The telephone was ringing.

Jeremy managed to sit up on the sofa, one hand between his eyebrows. His head was thumping.

He remembered drinking. Exchanging words with Keoraz. And Jezebel insisting he lie down here.

The telephone bell trilled on relentlessly.

Someone took it off the hook. Jezebel's voice answered.

Despair bored a hole through Jeremy's breastbone, wrenching aside his chest muscles, driving its fist deep inside and crushing his heart.

He had not possessed her. She had not taken that step toward him. It was all nothing but an illusion.

His trachea suddenly tightened; a ball of anguish swelled inside him before rising painfully along his too-narrow throat. He wanted her. This couldn't be real, impossible, no, no, she wasn't married to that fellow, she had never left him, she loved him, she was offering him her company and her body as fervently as he was offering her his soul.

A second later she was standing in front of him. Her immense green eyes fixed on him. She was wrapped up in a satin dressing gown, as cold and beautiful as an easeful death.

“It's for you,” she announced.

He grimaced. Not serene yet.

“It seems urgent,” she added, her voice softened by the vestiges of sleep.

Jeremy stood up and staggered to the telephone.

“Yes,” he said weakly, his mouth furred-up.

“It's me, Azim! I've been looking for you for ten minutes, I've called everywhere! I have—”

“Calm down, I told you I was coming here last evening, what's the—”

“No, no, listen to me!” cried the Arab detective. His voice was jerky with emotion; he was practically shouting into the receiver. “I found the child-killer! I followed his trail, I know where his lair is; it's a
ghul!
Do you understand? It's a
ghul!
Appalling! That's why the child had white hair! That's why! I thought I was going to die! I thought it had caught me but it was a root, just a root! And I know where it's hiding!”

Jeremy's head had cleared in the space of three sentences. “Go over that again, Azim. What exactly happened? Tell me.”

The Egyptian retraced his nocturnal steps from the idea of tracking down the monster to the root that had clutched at his foot. His words came at an incredible rate; he took less than three minutes to tell Jeremy everything. However, he was quite incapable of explaining the location of the entrance to the secret passage, and the absence of street names did not help. All he could do was go back there and hope he didn't get lost.

“Very well, Azim. I will join you there. Where are you?”

“In the little square next to the Huisein mosque in the Gamaliya district. I am on the police telephone, in the corner of the square.”

“Huisein Square,” repeated Jeremy. “Very well, I can't miss you. Don't do anything else, above all don't do anything else, and wait for me, I'll find you. I'm coming right now.”

He hung up. Keoraz had entered the drawing room soundlessly. “Is it an emergency?” he asked.

“I have to go. My colleague may have identified the murderer.”

“I can drive you. I've bought a new Bentley. I can do over a hundred in it, you know, you'll be at the Huisein mosque in a third of the time. Did I hear correctly? That's where you're to meet?”

Jeremy returned to the sofa to get his shirt and put his shoes on. “It's very kind of you, but I'd prefer to go there alone.”

Keoraz was about to insist when Jeremy added, “I'm going to borrow a vehicle from my colleagues at the Heliopolis police station. Thank you for your cooperation and your hospitality; you will soon have news from me, sir.”

Without looking at Jezebel, he got dressed and went out into the cold night, heading for the police station less than five minutes away on foot. He didn't give the duty officer a chance to protest and helped himself to one of the cars, which he managed to start at the first attempt. He drove down to Cairo and wound through the complex tracery of streets before parking near to the mosque where Azim was waiting for him.

Jeremy searched high and low in every direction.

He found no trace of his partner.

The telephone post was there all right, but Azim was no longer there.

Jeremy waited an hour longer, hoping to see him emerge from one of the narrow streets.

Then he went back to sound the alarm.

37

Béatrice cleared away the plates and placed two liqueur glasses on the waxed tablecloth.

“Will you take a drop of Calvados?” she asked Marion.

Before she had a chance to reply, Marion found herself with a large glass of eau-de-vie in front of her.

“So who do you think it is?” Béatrice persisted.

“That's just the problem, I can't work it out. They're all equally likely to be the mysterious figure who's spying on me.”

Marion had told her everything during dinner. From the Gabriel Tower riddle to the regular espionage she felt she was being subjected to.

“Well … there's that Brother Gilles, I can't stand him,” added Marion.

“That wizened old prune? Sorry, but I can't imagine him running along dark corridors in the abbey.”

“It only lasted a few seconds and then I lost him. Even he could have done it.”

A howl of terror shook the panes of glass in the interior door separating the sitting room from the kitchen.

Grégoire was watching a horror film on TV while working out with a small dumbbell to develop his biceps.

“Greg!” shouted his mother. “Turn the sound down a bit.” Then, turning back to Marion: “I swear to you, he's crazy about these fantasy films.…”

“I don't know what to do, Béa. I don't trust the brotherhood; they're weird.”

“Kind of like an occult sect? Is that how you see them? Sorry, darling, but that's not possible. They're completely straight. Cranks if you like, but they're the height of propriety. They've been on the Mount for quite a while and everyone knows them. You've nothing to fear.”

“And yet someone broke into my place, and not just once! I'm being spied on and … look, the other evening it was Ludwig! He was in the cemetery, ogling me.”

Béatrice turned her glass around in her hand, warming the Calvados inside it.

“Ah, Lulu,” she said unconcernedly. “Okay, I have to tell you, big fat Ludwig has a thing for you. It's not a secret anymore. He's hoping you'll phone him—apparently he slipped you his number the other day.”

Marion held her head in her hands, elbows resting on the table.

“For pity's sake, not that…”

“Afraid so! And just wait until he corners you, he'll give you the big spiel: ‘I was a top-class rugby player, you know.' He does it to every remotely pretty woman who comes to the Mount—ask the waitresses at Mère Poulard's! They can't take any more of it. He's forever telling them how he played for a good club, Lille I think, how he could've turned professional if he'd kept playing … and all the bloody nonsense he can come up with to make himself look good.”

She paused to savor the bouquet of her Calvados.

“Please, please, keep him away from me,” begged Marion.

“I don't have the power. Just avoid going out in the evening!” Béatrice joked.

“In any event that doesn't solve my problem. Who's harassing me? No matter how often I go through all the possibilities, I can't see it. I even suspected Joe!”

“Nothing to fear there. Gentle and pacifist as a Greenpeace activist stoned on marijuana.”

Marion smiled at this mental image. “You're very lyrical this evening,” she commented.

“There are days like that.… As for old Joe, if I may say so, he never leaves his house except to go on his walk to Tombelaine; apart from that he stays in practically the whole time.”

“Who then?”

“Me.”

Marion stared at her. Béatrice had just gulped down a mouthful of Calvados; no trace of relaxation was visible now on her features, she was pensive, a dark look in her eye.

“What?” exclaimed Marion.

Béatrice's pupils slid in her direction. “Me. I'm the one who's watching you. And do you know why?”

Her lips were moist.

“Because I'm a lesbian and I'm madly in love with you!” she declared, howling with unrestrained laughter.

Marion relaxed. “You idiot … just for a moment…”

Béatrice was delighted. “You believed me, eh? Okay, come on, stop stressing. I'm going to tell you what's going on. One: The members of the brotherhood are maybe a little too conscientious, and they let themselves into your place to check that you didn't have any drugs or stuff like that. Two: You spend too much time up there, all alone, and this old rock starts to play tricks on you. You see monks wearing habits, well, that's hardly surprising as they live here. Your imagination just livens the whole thing up a bit.… And, er … three: The letters are just a game, one of the monks who's bored to death and doesn't have enough God to keep him busy. Stop being paranoid; I assure you you're getting worked up over nothing at all.”

“I've not even been here two weeks yet, and I don't know if I can put up with it any longer.”

Béatrice gave her an encouraging look. “Of course you can! If not, what are you going to do? Go back to your little house in Choisy-le-Roi, and rediscover Parisian drizzle?”

Marion gazed at the warm hue of her liqueur.

“You chose to take some time out here, so take advantage of it!” Béatrice insisted.

Marion pushed her glass away. “Béa, I have to tell you…”

Instantly, Béatrice sensed that her friend was deadly serious.

“I'm not on retreat here.” A red light went on in Marion's mind. She was going too far. She was destroying her own cover story. “I'm here because I have to disappear from the face of the earth for a few weeks or months, I don't know how long myself. People have to forget about me, for as long as it takes for something to happen in Paris. At the moment I'm being bounced about among all the different departments, all the different possibilities, the legal procedures—it's now that I'm vulnerable.”