The Hidden Oasis (15 page)

‘Miss Hannen …’

‘Where?’

The exasperated expression became more pronounced.

‘In her arm.’

‘Her right arm?’ Freya thought back to the morgue, her sister’s naked body on the trolley. ‘Just below the elbow. Where there’s a small bruise.’

He nodded.

‘How did she do that?’

His eyes narrowed, not understanding what she was asking.

‘How did she do that?’ she repeated, harder this time. ‘You told me she could only use her right arm; that her left arm was paralysed. But she couldn’t inject herself in her right arm with her right hand. It’s physically impossible. She would have had to do it with her left hand. But you said that hand was paralysed. So how? How? Tell me.’

He opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, frowning. The question clearly hadn’t occurred to him before.

‘How can someone inject themselves in their right arm with their right hand?’ she pushed. ‘It can’t be done. Look!’

She demonstrated, flexing her right arm at the elbow, bending the wrist, her fingers only just able to brush the top of her biceps. Dr Rashid was still looking perplexed, eyes blinking as he struggled to come up with an answer.

‘Multiple sclerosis can be a very uncertain condition,’ he said after a moment, speaking slowly, hesitantly, as though still trying to think through what he was saying. ‘Symptoms come and go, sometimes very rapidly. It’s hard to predict what is going to happen.’

‘You’re saying her left arm suddenly got better?’

‘I’m saying that with a condition such as this strange things happen, unexpected things, sudden relapses and remissions …’

He didn’t sound convinced.

‘It’s hard to predict,’ he repeated. ‘It can be a very … confusing illness.’

‘You’ve seen cases like that?’ Freya pressed. ‘People with … what did you call it, Malburg Syndrome?’

‘Marburg’s Variant,’ he corrected.

‘You’ve seen this happen? People suddenly recovering the use of a limb? You’ve seen it, you’ve heard of it?’

A long pause, and then he shook his head.

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, I haven’t. With other forms of the disease, less severe forms, yes, perhaps. But with Marburg’s … no, I’ve never heard of it.’

‘So how?’ she repeated. ‘How could my sister have injected morphine into her right arm? Even leaving aside the fact that she was right-handed and terrified of needles … how could she have done this?’

Dr Rashid opened his mouth, closed it again, rubbed his temples, sat back in his chair. There was a long silence.

‘Miss Hannen,’ he said eventually, ‘can I ask … what exactly are you saying here?’

She stared straight at him, holding his eyes.

‘I think someone killed my sister. That she didn’t commit suicide.’

‘Killed as in murdered?’ he asked. ‘This is what you are saying?’

She nodded.

He held her gaze, fiddling with the cuff of his white jacket. From outside came the twitter of birds and, very faintly, the hum of cars. Five seconds passed. Ten. Then, leaning forward, he lifted the phone, dialled and spoke rapidly in Arabic.

‘Come,’ he said, replacing the receiver and standing.

‘Where?’

He held out an arm, indicating the door.

‘Dakhla police.’

‘More coffee, sir?’

‘Please.’

Flin placed his cup on the proffered tray; the flight attendant filled it from a plastic flask and handed it back to him.

‘Madam?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Molly Kiernan, holding a hand over her cup. ‘Thank you.’

The attendant nodded and moved away. Kiernan continued with the
Washington Post
article she was reading on Iran’s nuclear programme; Flin sipped his drink and dabbed half-heartedly at the keyboard of his laptop. The cabin around them reverberated with the low, monotonous growl of the plane’s engines. A couple of minutes drifted by, then, shifting in his seat, Flin looked across at his companion.

‘I never knew.’

She glanced at him over the top of her reading glasses, raising her eyebrows questioningly.

‘That you were married. All these years and I never knew.’

He indicated the ring on her left hand.

‘I always assumed it was to ward off unwanted admirers. That you were, you know …’

It took her a moment to get his meaning. When she did she let out an exclamation of mock outrage.

‘Flin Brodie! Do I look like a lesbian?’

He gave an apologetic shrug.

‘Can I ask his name?’

She lowered her paper and removed her glasses.

‘Charlie,’ she said. ‘Charlie Kiernan. The love of my life.’

A brief pause, then:

‘Died in the line of duty. Serving his country.’

‘He was … ?’

‘No, no. Marine corps. A pastor. Killed in Lebanon, ’83. In the Beirut barracks bombing. We’d only been married a year.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Flin. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She shrugged and, folding the newspaper, slid it into the pocket of the seat in front then leant her head back and stared up.

‘Would have been his sixtieth birthday tomorrow,’ she said quietly. ‘We used to talk about it all the time, what we’d do when we got old. A little spread up in New Hampshire, porch, rocking chairs. Kids, grandkids. Slushy stuff. Charlie sure was slushy.’

She sighed and, sitting upright again, made a show of putting away her glasses, the movement indicating that she’d said as much as she wanted to on the subject.

‘Oasis stuff?’ she asked.

‘Hmm?’

She nodded towards his laptop, the file he was working on.

‘Oh, no. A lecture I’m giving at ARCE next week. Pepi II and the decline of the Old Kingdom. Even I’m bored by it, so I pity the poor buggers who’ve got to sit there listening.’

She smiled and, resting her head against the window, gazed down at the desert below, the distant miniature hump of Djoser’s Step Pyramid drifting past like some dirty brown iceberg.

‘Fadawi’s out,’ she said after a moment, not looking round.

‘So I heard.’

‘You think—’

‘Not a chance,’ he cut in, sensing what was on her mind and dismissing it before she’d even had a chance to vocalize the thought. ‘Even if he knew anything he wouldn’t tell me, would rather cut out his own tongue. Blames me for what happened. Rightly, to be fair.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, Flin,’ she said, turning. ‘You weren’t to know.’

‘Whatever.’

He shut down his laptop and zipped it into its carry-case. Above them there was a muted ping as the fasten seatbelt sign came on.

‘It’s never going to be found, you know,’ he said. ‘Twenty-three years … it’s never going to be found, Molly.’

‘You’ll get there, Flin. Trust me. You’ll get there.’

A voice sounded over the plane’s tannoy system, speaking first in Arabic, then English:

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are now beginning our final approach into Cairo. Please ensure your seatbelts are fastened and all loose items stored in the overhead lockers.’

‘You’ll get there,’ she repeated. ‘With God’s help you’ll get there.’

I don’t think God has any more bloody idea where it is than any of the rest us,
thought Flin.

He kept it to himself, knowing that Kiernan would disapprove of the blasphemy. Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and started wading through it all over again – Eye of Khepri, Mouth of Osiris, the Curses of
Sobek and Apep – his ears popping as the plane dropped down low over Cairo.

By the time the Bedouin came to the top of the dune ridge and spied the distant shimmer of Dakhla Oasis, they had not drunk for two days. Exhausted, they brought their camels into a line abreast, and as one raised their hands to the sky:

‘Hamdulillah!’
they cried, their voices hoarse, their mounts panting and honking beneath them. ‘Thanks be to God.’

If they had had water they would have dismounted there and then and brewed tea to celebrate the completion of their journey, enjoying the moment perched thus above the desert with the wilderness stretching out on one side of them and civilization looming on the other. As it was their water was long gone, and anyway, they were too weary and battered to think of anything other than reaching their destination as swiftly as possible. Without further ado they urged their camels down the far side of the ridge and continued on their way, silent save for the occasional encouraging cry of
‘hut hut’
and
‘yalla yalla’.

For the last three days, ever since the discovery of the mysterious corpse, the desert had tormented them, blocking their line of travel with an endless succession of mountainous dune walls, lashing them with a heat fiercer than any of them had ever known at this time of year. Now,
finally, it seemed to have relented. It was cooler today and, as if bored with toying with them, the landscape began to flatten and fragment, the dune labyrinth breaking up into scattered swirls and hummocks of sand interspersed with stretches of flat gravel, easy on the camels and swift to traverse. Within an hour the indeterminate shimmer of the oasis had solidified into a heavy green blur backed by the pale sweep of the Gebel el-Qasr escarpment. Within two hours they were able to make out individual groves of trees and the white dots of houses and pigeon lofts. They broke into a lolloping trot, the lead rider out ahead, his companions strung out behind him in a staggered chain, robes billowing, driving their camels ever faster the closer they came to water and to safety.

Only the last rider failed to keep up the pace, slowly dropping back from the group until there was over a hundred metres between his camel and the one ahead. Satisfied that he was out of earshot he removed his mobile phone and, as he had done every few hours for the last two days, checked the display. He grinned to himself. He now had a signal. He dialled, bent down low over the saddle so no one could see what he was doing and, when the connection was made, started talking excitedly.

‘Our honoured guest today needs no introduction, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, he was born into our community and remains an esteemed and respected
member of it, even if his life has taken him elsewhere. Over the years his generosity has made possible numerous health and education projects here in Manshiet Nasser, of which this drop-in clinic is merely the latest, and although he has achieved both wealth and success, he has never forgotten his roots, nor abandoned his fellow Zabbaleen. He is both friend, benefactor and – I am sure he will not mind me saying – father to us all. Please give a warm welcome to Mr Romani Girgis.’

There was applause and a sour-faced, sallow-skinned man in dark glasses and an immaculately tailored suit rose to his feet. With his lank, greying hair oiled back across his scalp, there was something distinctly lizard-like in his appearance: the hollow cheeks, the pencil-thin lips, the way his tongue kept nudging out of the corner of his mouth. He acknowledged the assembled dignitaries with a nod, and, stooping to kiss the cheek of the Coptic bishop who occupied the seat next to his, came forward and shook the hand of the woman who had introduced him.

‘Thank you,’ he said, turning to the audience, his voice deep and slow, like the rumble of a heavy lorry – not at all the sort of voice one would expect from someone of his slight physique. ‘I am honoured to be here to open this new medical centre. To Miss Mikhail …’

He motioned towards the woman.

‘… His Grace Bishop Marcos, to the board and trustees of the Zabbaleen Metropolitan Development Fund, I say again thank you.’

There was a muffled clicking as a photographer manoeuvred around, getting shots of Girgis and the rest of the guests.

‘As Miss Mikhail has told you,’ he intoned, ‘I am a Zabbal, and proud to be so. I was born here in Manshiet Nasser, just a few streets from this spot. As a child I worked the rubbish carts with my family, and although my circumstances have, through God’s grace, changed and improved …’

He glanced at the bishop, who smiled and nodded, stroking a hand through his beard.

‘… Manshiet Nasser nonetheless remains my home, its inhabitants my brothers and sisters.’

Polite applause. More camera clicks.

‘The Zabbaleen are integral to the life of this city,’ he went on, pulling at the cuffs of his shirt, adjusting them so that exactly the same amount of white protruded from each jacket sleeve. ‘For the last fifty years they have collected, sorted and recycled its garbage in a model of sustainable waste management. Because they sort by hand they achieve an efficiency rate that no mechanized operation can match. For the same reason, they are also uniquely susceptible to hepatitis infection from cuts and scratches incurred while carrying out the sorting. Both my father and my grandfather died from this terrible disease, and I am thus delighted to be associated with a project that will help lower infection rates by providing free hepatitis vaccinations to all who need them.’

Murmurs of approval from the audience.

‘I have already spoken for long enough, and so I shall merely thank you again for your presence here today and without further ado declare the Romani Girgis Manshiet Nasser Inoculation Centre …’

He spread his hands, indicating the courtyard in which
they were gathered, the surrounding buildings, the glass doors with red crosses painted on them.

‘… open!’

Accepting a pair of scissors from Miss Mikhail, Girgis turned and, as the guests applauded, cut into the heavy ribbon that had been strung across the courtyard, the photographer going down on one knee to capture the event. For some reason the material resisted the blade and he was forced to cut again. And then again, hacking at the fabric, trying to slice it apart. Still it wouldn’t sever, and as the seconds ticked by and he continued to fumble the clapping behind slowed and faltered, giving way to embarrassed whispers and the odd giggle. His hands started to tremble, face creasing into a rictus first of annoyance, and then anger. Miss Mikhail came forward to help, tugging at the ribbon while Girgis continued to struggle with the scissors.