‘I need answers!’ snapped the captain.
‘He isn’t going anywhere. You can ask him when he’s stronger.’
‘I will ask him now!’
‘Look, Captain, it’s obvious that he isn’t fully conscious. At the moment he’s in no position to give you any answers. Give me a day or two to get him better and you can have all the answers you want.’ The tone was as appeasing as the words.
‘All right. You have one day.’
And with that the captain turned and left, followed by another man.
Goliath felt an itch on his nose and tried to rub it. It was then that he noticed that his left hand was handcuffed to the iron bed frame.
Chapter 47
On the felucca, the rest of the day drifted by uneventfully as Daniel and Gabrielle sat on deck with Walid and his two-man crew, chatting and watching the scenery go by. They even both had a go at smoking through the narghilla, which neither of them liked, though Daniel pretended to.
The evening meal was a light affair, after the very filling lunch. As the evening descended upon them, Daniel amused them with his Wild West, cowboy style of harmonica playing. The harmonica belonged to Walid, but he confessed, with some embarrassment, that he had never learnt to play it. But despite the cultural differences, they seemed to enjoy Daniel’s rendition of ‘Clementine’ and ‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’.
A few hours later, they were shown to their sleeping quarters – a space on the open deck. Daniel and Gabrielle had the privilege of sleeping in the semi-covered part of the boat, although the cover was little more than a tarpaulin thrown over a metal frame. Walid and his crew slept at the other end of the boat, under the moonlight, affording their Western guests at least a modicum of privacy. But the quilt that Walid had offered them to soften the discomfort of the wooden deck was not the cleanest of items, and it seemed to have lost most of its padding a long time ago.
As he lay there in the darkness, with only the stars, the moon and the lights from the riverbank for company, he saw Gaby as she was now, rather than as the teenage girl that he remembered from his student years. They were lying together like two spoons, him behind her. But even though she was fully clothed, he could see her firm arms and strong shoulders – the powerful build of the swimmer who had won the silver medal in the student games. And he realized how incredibly sexy he found her. Daniel was never one to be drawn to thin, spindly women, but nor was he particularly enamoured of the fat women favoured by some Eastern cultures. He admired fitness and his ideal women were athletes, not sexless supermodels.
And Gabrielle was one such woman. It amazed him to realize now that she had been like this for some time, yet he hadn’t realized even when he worked with her on a dig in Jerusalem. Thinking about her as she was now, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to make love to her or wrestle with her. And if he did wrestle with her, he was equally unsure if he would want to win or lose. Then again, perhaps it really made no difference.
As if sensing his eyes upon her, she rolled over on to her back and then turned another ninety degrees to face him.
‘Have you got something on your mind?’ she asked.
He felt embarrassed, almost as if she actually knew what he had just been thinking.
‘I was wondering, maybe we should turn ourselves in to our respective embassies when we get to Cairo.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Daniel.’
‘It’ll get us out of immediate danger. Maybe we can be tested for whatever they think is causing this illness. If they’re still worried that we’re infectious they’ll let us stay in the embassies or arrange to have us quarantined instead of shot by trigger-happy cops.’
Gabrielle was looking at him with that same implacable look as before. ‘That’s all right for me, but what about you? That message on Mansoor’s phone said there’s a warrant out for your arrest in England. Do you want to be extradited back to London to face a murder charge before we can figure this out?’
‘I don’t think I will be facing a murder charge.’
‘Then why did they issue a warrant?’
‘Probably because I breached my bail conditions. That’s an offence in its own right.’
‘You may be right, but if they arrest you and send you back, you’ll be putting yourself in their hands – and we don’t know for how long. In the meantime you’ll be treading water, waiting for someone else to solve the mystery. The way I see it, whoever killed Uncle Harrison is probably the same person who locked us in the tomb and we need to find out-’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘I think it’s a reasonable starting point. And then there’s the small matter of these manuscripts that you’re supposed to be translating for our joint paper. This could be the biggest thing in our careers. Do you think the British authorities will let you work on academic papers while you’re a guest of Her Majesty? I can just see the citation: “Daniel Klein is currently the Professor of Semitic Languages at Wormwood Scrubs. He is sharing a cell with a pyramid salesman who…”’
Daniel burst out laughing. If nothing else, Gabrielle’s humour had broken some of the tension.
‘That’s the only thing that’s holding me back,’ said Daniel.
‘What, the prospect of prison?’
‘No, the fact that I still want to solve this mystery – well, actually both of these mysteries.’
‘How do you mean, both?’
‘The disease and your uncle’s missing paper. And I guess also his death and the people trying to kill us. I think you’re right: it probably is all tied in together. Your uncle said his paper was based on a translation of a manuscript in Proto-Sinaitic. We need to find that manuscript. Maybe it’s the one that Mansoor was going to show us.’
Gabrielle thought about this for a moment. ‘So let’s stick to the original plan. When we get to Cairo we try and get a look at that papyrus that he was going to show us: the one from the tomb of Ay.’
‘I wish we could actually phone Mansoor and find out if he’s all right. Maybe he could even help us.’
‘It’s too risky. Even just switching on our phones could give away our position.’
‘Okay, but how are we going to get into the museum archives without Mansoor to help us?’
He saw the twinkle in her eye.
‘You’re forgetting what he said. He has copies in his office at the SCA.’
Daniel waited for the other shoe to drop. After a couple of seconds, he prompted: ‘And what do you think we’re going to do, Gaby? Just walk in there and take a copy of an ancient papyrus from under the noses of the staff?’
‘No, we’ll go in after lunch when most of them are out. You’re forgetting, Daniel – this is Egypt and we’re heading towards summer.’
‘So?’
‘So, the old ways of the Levant die hard. Between one and four in the afternoon, most of them are away taking a siesta. That’ll give us the perfect opportunity.’
‘Oh, don’t tell me these trusting Levantines leave the door unlocked?’
‘Of course not. But a locked door never stopped anyone really determined, especially if they’re properly equipped.’
‘And I suppose you’re also an expert on picking locks?’ he asked with a sarcastic smile.
‘Oh, do me a favour. This isn’t Charlie’s Angels!’
‘Then how are you going to get us past that locked door?’
She reached into one of her pockets, and with a smile and a flourish, pulled out a key.
