For all that, David could not shake off the impression that he was sitting next to an impostor, or perhaps a psychic channelling Steven's dead spirit. He longed for a peek beneath the mask, for final irrefutable confirmation of what he knew to be true, but he'd decided to let Steven choose to show him his face in his own time. He would do it when he wanted to, if he wanted to.
''What do I make of it?'' David said. ''Well, it's quite a tale.''
''I know! I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't lived through it. But actually what I meant was, what do you make of us meeting up again like this?''
''Fluke. Happy coincidence.''
''Me, I think it was meant to be. I mean, my own brother pitching up here in Freegypt — what are the odds? Astronomical. But as soon as I heard from Zafirah that she'd picked up this British soldier in the desert and his name was David Westwynter, I felt this click inside. Like, of course Dave's here. Why shouldn't he be? You didn't get the same feeling, though.''
''No.''
''Well, you always were the hard-headed, practical one, weren't you?''
''Perhaps our meeting would have had more significance for me if you hadn't spent all that time arsing around, stringing me along, pretending you didn't know me. Was it really necessary, that whole charade?''
''To start with, yes. I'm the Lightbringer, remember.''
''So?''
''Well, I couldn't just walk up to you and say, 'Hi, Dave, how's it going? Long time no see, big brother.' I'd no idea how you'd react. You might have punched me in the face, and that wouldn't have looked good in front of all those people. Instead, I thought it'd be better if I got you on your own, then did the big reveal.''
''Except you didn't. You made me play senet with you first.''
''Yes, that, I admit, was for a laugh. I was waiting to see how long it'd take for the penny to drop. Your face, Dave!'' Steven chuckled and slapped the steering wheel. ''What a sight. Haven't seen you look so shocked since the time we found that polished mahogany Osiris Special in Mum's bedside cabinet.''
''Glad it amused you.''
''Look, I'm sorry, all right?'' It was one of those apologies that didn't sound very apologetic. ''You know me. If there's temptation, I always give in to it.''
David frowned sternly at him, but couldn't maintain the expression for long. Right now he felt he could forgive his brother almost anything. Besides, it had been a harmless little deception, Steven just being his typical, slippery, prankish self. If the roles had been reversed, David might well have done the same. No, who was he kidding? That was the difference between them.
''And I know what you're going to say next,'' Steven said, holding up a warding-off finger.
''Yes?''
''Yes. You're going to ask why didn't I get word home that I wasn't dead, as soon as I could.''
''I wasn't going to-''
''You were. Come on.''
''OK. Maybe I was. Well?''
''It's not that easy to explain. The thing is, by the time I got off that island, I knew you and Mum and Dad would have already given me up for lost and mourned me. Then I sort of fell into a life of crime with Iannis and realised it suited me to be officially an ex-person. And now that I'm the Lightbringer, Steven Westwynter might as well not exist any more. That's just the way my life has gone — my afterlife, my second life, whatever you want to call it. That's how it's had to be.''
''But a letter, a phone call home, even an anonymous one…''
''… might have been the right thing to do but it would have brought complications. Which isn't to say I didn't think about it. I thought about it a lot. But the longer I left it, the more unhelpful it became to me. It was something I kept putting off until, all of a sudden, it was too late. Can you imagine what would have happened anyway? Dad gets wind that I haven't gone down with the
Reluctantly David nodded.
''I know I am. I'd pissed him off by signing up. It'd have pissed him off even more if it turned out I'd publicly screwed up being in the navy. He'd want to see me doing time in a military prison and getting farmed out with a dishonourable discharge. 'Teach the lad a lesson.' Whereas this way, posthumously, Jack Westwynter has got the best son he could hope for: a war hero. The black sheep who came good. Died fighting for his country, and so on. Something to brag about at the country club. Again, am I right?''
David could not deny it. Once their father had got over the shock of bereavement, he'd come to terms with Steven's death by accommodating it into his personal understanding of how the world should be. Jack Westwynter was not a man who accepted failure or disgrace. He'd never had to. So, by listening to his peers when they told him how proud he should be of Steven, and by carefully recalibrating his memories of his wayward disappointment of a son, he was able to present himself as the grieving parent of a young man whose life had not been wasted but rather sacrificed in a good cause. This attitude made him absurdly happy and served him longer than any black armband.
''And Mum…'' Steven began, then shrugged. ''Well, tough on her, but there you go. Same with you too. I'm sorry about it, Dave.'' Unlike the last apology, this one sounded more or less sincere. ''But to be brutally honest, I'm a grown-up and shouldn't have to worry about what anyone else thinks, my parents least of all. More than that, I'm a man with a mission now, and men with missions need to be free from all other responsibilities, all encumbrances.''
''Family isn't an encumbrance.''
''Unless your surname's Westwynter.''
David didn't have an answer to that.
''Anyway,'' Steven went on, ''from what I hear, you've not exactly been in a hurry to return to the bosom of home and country, have you? You've gone rogue yourself.''
''Circumstances.''
''Yeah, yeah. You're enjoying it, aren't you? Come on; admit it. Nearly thirty years old, and this is the first time in your life you've ever known anything like real independence, and you're having a ball. It's exciting. Scary too, but mainly exciting. No?''
David shook his head, but the jeep jolted heavily over a bump and the shake somehow turned into a nod.
''Free agent, Dave.'' Steven clapped him on the knee. ''That's you. Me too. We're free agents, and the past is a big door shut behind us and the future is a million doors waiting to be opened. And now we can open them together. Side by side. You and me. How brilliant is that?''
David half smiled, remembering how his brother had never lacked for enthusiasm. He himself, born cautious and dutiful, had always found it hard to come by, so had resented Steven for having so much of it. Envied him, too.
Now he saw that enthusiasm was something that could be shared. Like champagne in a champagne tower, it spilled over from the top glass and could be caught in the glasses below.
He looked sidelong at his brother, five years dead, only not so after all. The Lightbringer's body language was Steven's, definitely. The profile, though softened by the mask, was Steven's too.
David ached with joy, and also regret.
Regret because, although he believed Steven's account of how he had spent the past five years, he believed it only up to a point. He knew his brother. He knew when he was hiding something or lying. Steven's story had been the truth, but far from the whole truth.
Whether or not it mattered, though — that was something David couldn't decide.
Thirty-odd miles south-west of Luxor they came to a small town. It looked like an ordinary enough place: wide, dusty streets, low whitewashed houses with flat roofs and painted doors and shutters, high-kerbed concrete pavements, a cat's cradle of power lines threading from building to building, a communal well, here and there a stand of palms, all of it parched and pounded by an oven-hot wind. Hundreds of towns like this one dotted the
