The Hidden Oasis (25 page)

‘Someone killed Alex,’ she blurted out. ‘And they tried to kill me too. Last night, in the oasis, a group of them, there were twins, they came in a helicopter and were torturing …’

She broke off, biting back tears, fighting to stay in control. Flin hovered a moment, not sure how to react, then stepped forward, wrapped an arm around her and drew her into the room. Nudging the door closed with his foot, he led her over to a chair and sat her down.

‘It’s OK,’ he said gently. ‘Calm down. You’re safe.’

She wiped at her eyes, shrugging his arm away, a little too aggressively perhaps, but she was ashamed of her weakness, needed to assert herself. Flin stared down at her; Freya kept her eyes firmly on the floor as she struggled to regain her composure. Then, excusing himself, Flin left the room. He returned a couple of minutes later with a flannel and a steaming mug.

‘Tea,’ he said. ‘The English solution to everything.’

She seemed to have calmed down a bit and gave a wan smile, accepting the cloth and dabbing at her bare arms.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …’

He held up a hand, indicating that no apology was necessary. Placing the mug on the corner of the desk he dragged his chair round so that he was sitting in front of her. He gave it a few moments before again asking what had happened.

‘Someone tried to kill me,’ she said, her voice firmer now.

‘Last night, back in the oasis. They killed Alex too, it wasn’t suicide.’

He half opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it, letting her tell the story in her own way, in her own time. Freya laid aside the cloth, picked up the mug and sipped, gathering herself. Then she began to talk, going through everything that had happened the previous day, starting with Molly Kiernan’s revelation about the morphine injection and moving on from there: Dr Rashid, the police station, the mysterious canvas bag, the twins, the chase through the oasis – everything. Flin sat listening, hunched forward, eyes narrowed in concentration, offering no comments, appearing outwardly calm although something in the intensity of his gaze, the way his hands were trembling slightly suggested her tale was affecting him more than he was admitting. When she had finished he asked to see the objects she had brought with her. She hefted her knapsack onto her knee and opened it, passing the items across one by one: camera, film canister, compass. Flin took each in turn, examining them.

‘They killed Alex,’ Freya repeated. ‘And it’s something to do with the man out in the desert and the things in his bag. Rudi Schmidt, that was the name in the wallet. Does that mean anything to you?’

Flin shook his head, still staring down at the camera, not meeting her eyes.

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Why would Alex be interested in his things? Why would someone kill her for them?’

‘We don’t know for sure that someone did kill her, Freya. We shouldn’t jump—’

‘I know,’ she insisted. ‘I saw them. I saw what they were doing to the old farmer. They murdered my sister, they injected her. And I want to know why.’

He looked up, holding her gaze. He seemed as if he was about to say something, but again thought better of it and just gave a reluctant nod.

‘OK, I believe you. Someone killed Alex.’

Their eyes remained locked a moment, then he resumed his examination of the objects. He placed the camera and film on the desk and opened out the compass, sighting through the lens, tweaking its snapped brass sighting wire.

‘Tell me about the other things in the bag again,’ he said. ‘The map, the clay obelisk.’

She described the mysterious symbols on the obelisk, the distances and compass bearings on the map. All the while Flin fiddled with the compass, appearing only to half listen to what she was saying although as before the barely perceptible trembling of his hand and the brightness of his eyes seemed to betray a greater degree of interest – of excitement, even – than his nonchalant manner was letting on.

‘I think this Rudi Schmidt was trying to walk from the Gilf Kebir to Dakhla,’ Freya said, staring across at the Englishman, trying to read him, work out whether or not he was taking her seriously. ‘I know Alex was working in the Gilf Kebir, she told me about it in her letters. There’s some connection between the two of them. I don’t know what it is but there’s definitely a connection and that’s why she was killed.’

She picked up the camera and film canister, holding them up.

‘And I think the answers are on here. That’s why the men
in the oasis wanted the films. Because they’ll tell us what’s going on. We need to get them developed.’

Again there was silence. Flin continued to turn the compass over in his hand. Then, as if coming to a decision, he dropped it back into Freya’s knapsack and stood.

‘What we need is to get you somewhere safe,’ he said. ‘I’m taking you to the American Embassy.’

‘After we get the films developed.’

‘Now. I don’t know what’s going on, who these people are, but they’re clearly dangerous, and the sooner you’re off the streets the better. Come on, let’s go.’

He held out a hand to help her up, but she remained where she was.

‘I want to know what’s on the films. They killed my sister and I want to know why.’

‘Freya, those films have been lying out in the middle of the Sahara, probably for years. The chances of being able to develop them are a hundred to one. A thousand to one.’

‘I still want to try,’ she said. ‘We do that first, then we go to the Embassy.’

‘No.’ His tone was sharp suddenly, abrupt. ‘The films can wait, Freya. I want to get you somewhere safe. You don’t know …’

He broke off.

‘What?’ she said. ‘What don’t I know?’

Although her eyes were red with exhaustion and her face pale and drawn, she was alert and energized, her gaze drilling into Flin.

‘What don’t I know?’ she repeated.

He let out an exasperated sigh.

‘Look, Alex was a very dear friend of mine …’

‘She was my sister.’

‘… and I owe it to her to make sure nothing happens to you.’

‘And I owe it to her to find out why she was murdered.’

Their voices were starting to rise.

‘I am not having you wandering around Cairo,’ he snapped. ‘Not after something like this has happened. I’m taking you to the Embassy.’

‘After I get the films developed.’

‘Now. You need protection.’

‘Don’t patronize me.’

‘I am not bloody patronizing you! I’m trying to help you.’

It was her turn to snap.

‘I don’t need helping and I don’t need protecting. I need to know what’s on those films, why someone tried to kill me. Why they killed Alex.’

‘We don’t know …’

‘Yes we do know! I saw those men in her house, what they were capable of. They killed Alex and I’m going to find out why.’

She rose to her feet so violently she knocked the chair over. Shoving the camera and film into her knapsack, she threw open the door and crossed the corridor to the lifts. Flin came after her.

‘Hang on, hang on.’

She ignored him, pressing her thumb against the lift’s call button and holding it there.

‘Freya, just trust me on this,’ he pleaded. ‘I live in Egypt, I know these sorts of people. Whatever else you owe Alex it’s not to get yourself killed.’

The lift’s wooden doors rattled open and she stepped
inside, pushing the button for the ground floor, still ignoring him.

‘Freya, please, listen to me, I’m just trying …’

The doors started to close, but Flin blocked them with his foot.

‘Christ, you’re as pig-headed as your sister!’

‘Believe me, Alex was the easygoing one,’ she retorted angrily, poking at the buttons, trying to get the doors shut. There was a brief hiatus, Freya continuing to jab at the control panel, Flin to block the doors, before he suddenly let out a snort of amusement. She glared at him, then she too smiled. He took a step backwards, she followed him out of the lift and the doors clanked shut.

‘Compromise,’ he said. ‘You humour me and go to the Embassy, I’ll get the films developed. I’ve got a friend who works in the Cairo Antiquities Museum, in the photographic department, he’ll be able to do them straight away. As soon as they’re ready I’ll bring them over. Deal?’

She pondered a moment, then nodded.

‘Deal.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Hold the lift, I just need to put some papers away and grab my wallet and mobile.

He disappeared into his office and the door closed behind him. The lift had by now been summoned by someone else and was clunking its way down to the ground floor again. Freya pressed the call button and wandered along the corridor, gazing first at a noticeboard – flyers for various concerts, a second-hand book sale, a Naguib Mahfouz symposium – and then out of a window. A faint sound of footsteps echoed up the stairs beside the elevator, barely audible behind the stairwell door.

Brodie’s office was on the fourth and top floor of the building, in the English Department for some reason, and the window offered good views of the campus gardens – lawns, palm trees, herbaceous borders – and beyond, to the chaotic swirl of Midan Tahrir. She saw a group of students saunter past, followed by two burly men. Something about them – the rough faces, the lumbering, muscular gait – seemed out of place in the grounds of a university. She felt a sudden twinge of anxiety.

‘Flin,’ she called.

‘Just coming,’ came his voice.

The lift was rising again now, moving up through the building with a high-pitched whirr of machinery. She went over, pressed the call button again and came back to the window, wondering what was taking Flin so long. The two men were still down there in the gardens, standing around, one of them smoking, the other talking on a mobile phone. From the stairwell the sound of footsteps was growing louder. A rhythmic, echoing slap of shoes on linoleum, two or three people by the sound of it. Crossing the corridor again she opened the stairwell door and looked down. She could see handrails, a thin strip of stairs and, two floors below, a man’s hand coming up the rails. A big, meaty hand half lost in a mass of chunky gold signet rings. Just like … She shrank back. Quietly closing the door, she ran to Flin’s office and barged in.

‘They’re here!’

He was holding the telephone receiver in his hand: he seemed startled by her arrival.

‘Freya! I was just—’

‘They’re here,’ she repeated, cutting him off. ‘The men
from the oasis. The ones who tried to kill me. They’re coming up the stairs. And in the lift as well, I think.’

She was half expecting him to dither, ask if she was certain what she had seen, but he reacted instantly.

‘Call you back,’ he barked. Slamming the receiver down, he seized Freya’s arm and pulled her back out into the corridor. As he did so there was a bump and a click and the lift doors started to slide apart. Again his reaction was immediate. Sweeping her protectively behind him he stepped forward. As the doors came fully open, a suited man emerged, gun in hand. Flin punched him, shockingly hard, his fist whipping out like a steel bolt and shattering the man’s nose. He flew backwards, blood streaming across his mouth and chin, slamming into the lift’s rear wall. Before he had even time to compute what was happening Flin had stepped forward and unleashed three more punches in rapid succession, one thumping into the man’s stomach, doubling him up, one into his kidneys, knocking him sideways into the corner of the lift, and one into his jaw that sent him sprawling to the floor, where he lay dazed and groaning.

‘Oh my God,’ murmured Freya, stunned.

‘I didn’t get the impression he’d come for tea and a chat,’ said Flin by way of explanation. Grabbing her arm again he steered her along the corridor and out of a fire door. As it closed behind them the stairwell door swung open.

They were at the top of a short flight of metal steps that led down to the roof of a slightly lower building below. They took them two at a time, leaping onto the roof’s stone-tiled surface and running along a narrow walkway past a line of giant air-conditioning units.

‘Where the hell did you learn to do that?’ she gasped.

‘Cambridge,’ he replied, looking over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed. ‘Double boxing Blue. The only thing that got me through three years of Middle Kingdom hieratic.’

They came to another set of steps. These took them up onto a much larger roof space with a small white dome at its centre and clusters of potted cacti grouped in its corners. As they started across it the fire door crashed open behind them. There were shouts and the thud of feet. They broke into a sprint, a group of students looking up in surprise as they careered past the bench on which they were sitting.

‘You’re late with your essay, Aisha Farsi,’ called Flin, half turning and wagging a finger at a plump girl in a silk headscarf. ‘On my desk first thing in the morning.’

‘Yes, Professor Brodie,’ said the girl, trying to conceal the cigarette in her hand.

‘And no smoking!’

They passed a prayer room, rows of men kneeling with their foreheads pressed to the carpeted floor, and ducked through another doorway and back into the building. Flin slammed the door and slid bolts across top and bottom to secure it.

‘Quick!’ he cried.

He led Freya along a dimly lit corridor, past a succession of classrooms and offices. The entire building seemed to vibrate as feet and fists started hammering at the door they had just secured. About halfway along the corridor a narrow staircase opened up to their right, flanked by a pair of water-coolers. They started down, only to backtrack as two figures
appeared at the bottom – the men Freya had seen lingering in the grounds outside.

‘Shit!’ muttered Flin. Behind them the hammering grew louder and more furious. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

He looked wildly around. Seizing one of the water-coolers he shunted it across the floor and pitched it down the stairs at the men who were charging up from below. Their shouts were abruptly curtailed as the cooler slammed into them with a crash and a whoosh of water. The door still seemed to be holding.

‘Come on!’ Flin yelled, grabbing Freya’s hand.