Chapter 48
‘These are very serious charges, Miss Stewart,’ the police captain said, leaning forward to emphasize his point. ‘This is no longer just a case of leaving the scene of an accident. According to Mr Carter you threw a gasoline bomb through the window of his car. And I have to tell you that despite the fire, we found melted glass fragments in the burnt-out wreckage that supports this claim.’
Sarit knew that she had to think quickly. The story she had told them so far was that she had thought the car was trying to force her off the road and that she had sped on to escape, having heard that women drivers on their own are sometimes vulnerable on these roads at night. However, in the light of this new accusation, she realized that it wouldn’t work and she’d have to change her story.
‘All right, I’ll tell you. I didn’t throw a petrol bomb at him – but he tried to throw one at me. We’d had an argument earlier on the road and I drove away ahead of him. Then he caught up with me and I saw him lighting the Molotov cocktail and holding it like he was going to throw it. So I sideswiped his car and he dropped it. Then his car went up in flames.’
‘So why did you drive on? Why did you not report the incident immediately?’
‘Because I was afraid. A woman alone in a foreign country, attacked on a lonely stretch of road in the dead of night. What was I to think?’
‘And you thought our policemen are corrupt woman-haters who would rape you or beat a confession out of you.’
‘I don’t know what I thought! Okay, maybe I had that stereotype in the back of my mind. I don’t know.’
A man from the Irish Embassy was sitting there, but strangely he was sitting opposite her next to the police captain, rather than at her side. He was not talking; just listening. Occasionally he made a note of something, but not very often. She had been told that she could have a lawyer, but so far none had materialized.
‘And this man – the one in the car – did you know him?’
Tread carefully, a little voice inside her head said.
‘I’d been at the Valley of the Kings that day. I think I may have seen him there.’
‘And the jeep he was driving… do you know anything about that?’
Don’t let it show on my face, her mind was screaming.
‘No. It was just an ordinary jeep. I mean, I didn’t really think about it.’
‘Why were you driving back to Cairo, Miss Stewart?’
She swallowed nervously. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, trying to buy time.
‘You flew into Luxor Airport from Cairo and then you hired a car to visit the Valley of the Kings. Nothing unusual in that. But then instead of driving back to the airport and taking a plane back to Cairo, you set out on a seven- or eight-hour night-time drive on an unfamiliar stretch of road that you yourself admit is dangerous for women.’
‘I didn’t have a return ticket. I’d wanted to keep my plans flexible.’
‘You could have bought a ticket at the airport.’
‘It was late.’
‘They have a five to eleven flight. And another at one-twenty in the morning.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Well, you could have tried. Or why not stay overnight in a hotel in Luxor? You said yourself your plans were flexible.’
‘I’m not exactly rich. I was already paying for a hotel in Cairo. I hadn’t checked out. I didn’t want to pay twice.’
She realized after she had said it that this was a mistake. The hotel she was staying at, although far from deluxe, was not cheap and she had now drawn attention to this. It was another contradiction, which the police captain would surely flag as another lie – even if it hadn’t registered yet.
‘Well, why didn’t you take the train?’
‘That’s also seven hours.’
‘But at least it’s safer than the road.’
‘I didn’t think about it. I wasn’t thinking straight.’ And then she suddenly had an idea. ‘Look, could I go to the bathroom? I need to…’ She looked at the man from the embassy. ‘It’s a woman’s thing… the time of the month.’
The embassy man blushed and then leaned over to the police captain and whispered a word in his ear. The police captain nodded, though the look on his face remained neutral.
‘Very well.’
He called for a female officer to escort her to the bathroom. Only when they got there did Sarit say, ‘I haven’t got any tampons or sanitary pads.’
The policewoman didn’t react.
Not wanting to alert the policewoman to the fact that she spoke fluent Arabic, Sarit spoke hesitantly and falteringly, like she had been taking lessons but lacked confidence.
‘ Leisal adeiya ay al-fau’ad asahaya.’
The policewoman reacted to this. ‘ Sa ahduru lekawa ahad.’ I’ll get you one.
And with that she left. Sarit knew that there was no prospect of simply walking out of there. There would be a policeman outside the door. But she had a few minutes to act. There was a window. It was high, but it could open. The problem was how to reach it.
The cubicle on the end was empty. She went in and stood on the toilet. She gripped the ledge of the window and pulled herself up, using all her upper-body strength and the tension of her legs and feet against the sides of the cubicle. With an almighty effort, she found herself perched precariously on top of the cubicle – its door and walls a couple of feet below the ceiling.
She pulled down the latch and opened the long thin window. Then she inserted her head and hands and then arms and began pulling herself through. Now came the tricky bit. She was thin enough to get through, but the problem was landing safely. The building was set over different levels and this window opened out on to a stretch of roof. But it was an eight- or nine-foot drop from the window to the roof.
Falling head first would probably break her neck. Of course if she slid through slowly and lowered herself as she did so, the actual drop would be less than that. And of course, she could also take the fall on her hands, albeit at the risk of a broken wrist or worse. But then she noticed some kind of a utility box against the wall. By putting her hands on this as she hung there, she was able to angle her body, swing her legs round and…
Yes!
She landed on her feet, albeit awkwardly, like a springboard diver whose dive had gone horribly wrong. But there were no points to be had here; it was all about escape and survival. Right now she was on a section of the roof. She didn’t know how long it had been, but she realized that if her escape hadn’t been discovered yet, it pretty soon would be. And escape was perhaps not quite the right word. She had escaped from the toilet, but she had not yet escaped from the building.
She looked for a way down, realizing that if there was a utility box on the roof then there had to be a ladder or some other way of reaching the ground. All large public buildings must have accessible roofs to enable work to be done. The question was where was it? And would it simply take her back into the building, which would almost certainly be locked down before she could affect a complete escape?
Then she saw it: a fire escape, diagonally across the roof from where she was standing. She raced towards it, but as she did she thought she heard someone shouting out to her in Arabic.
Chapter 49
Breakfast on board Walid’s boat was shakshouka – fried eggs in a thick sauce made from fresh tomatoes, onions and chillies, that he had bought from a riverside vendor. As they ate, they listened to the radio in the background. It was tuned to some local music station, lulling Walid and his crew into a state of restfulness. But it was coming up to the hour and the news came on.
