Outside, Bronson paused for breath, then bent down and lifted the man to his feet, draping his arm over his shoulder to support him.
‘Do you speak English?’ he asked, as he half-dragged, half-carried, the man out to the road.
‘Yes,’ he gasped. ‘My legs—’
‘You were burnt,’ Bronson said flatly, ‘and your clothes are soaked with petrol. Somebody tried to kill you, and they very nearly succeeded. Is there anyone else in the house?’
‘No. Nobody.’
‘Chris!’ Angela cried, running over to him. ‘Oh, thank God you’re alive!’ The smell of petrol was strong. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I think so,’ he said, leaning the man against the side of the car. ‘Did you call the fire people?’
Angela nodded, and pointed across the road, where an Egyptian couple stood outside the house watching the fire. ‘I got them to call,’ she said.
Bronson turned back to the man. ‘Can you talk?’ he asked.
Suleiman nodded, shakily. ‘Yes. Thank you,’ he said. ‘I owe you my life.’
‘I take it you
Al-Sahid obediently sat down, and Bronson rolled up his trouser leg, the material badly singed. The burn ran most of the way up his shin, but Bronson had obviously killed the flames before there was any serious tissue damage.
‘That’s not too bad,’ Bronson said, and turned his attention to Al-Sahid’s head injuries. ‘You’ve got a split lip and you took a punch on the nose, by the looks of it, and that’s a nasty bump on your forehead, but I don’t think there’s any lasting damage. Head and face injuries always bleed a lot and look worse than they really are.’
A sudden roar from the house caught their attention. The roof had just caved in and, even if the fire brigade appeared immediately, it looked to Bronson as if the house was going to be a total loss.
Al-Sahid stared at the doomed building.
‘I grew up there,’ he said, a catch in his voice, ‘and it was my father’s house before me. He and my mother died in there.’
‘And today you nearly joined them,’ Bronson said softly. ‘What happened?’
‘Was the fire anything to do with a priest?’ Angela asked.
Suleiman’s head snapped round. ‘How did you know that?’ he demanded.
‘I know about the priest,’ Angela said simply, ‘because he tried to kill me as well, back in Britain.’
Suleiman shivered. ‘He looked like a priest, and he was smiling and friendly until he got inside the house. But his eyes – I’ll never forget his black eyes. But who are you?’
‘Chris here is a British police officer, and I’m a kind of archaeologist. We got involved with the Wendell-Carfax family by accident, and we’re trying to follow the clues Bartholomew left. You knew about his expeditions out here, I suppose?’
Suleiman nodded. ‘My father was Bartholomew’s gang master.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘You probably won’t thank me for saying this, but you’re almost certainly wasting your time. My father tried to persuade Bartholomew to give up his expeditions, to stop wasting his money, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He remained convinced that the treasure was almost within his grasp, and that he’d find it on the very next expedition, or on the one after that.’
They all turned as two fire engines announced their noisy presence and headed straight towards them. A crowd was starting to gather, people staring at the burning building.
‘The paintings?’ Bronson asked.
Suleiman nodded. ‘My father agreed to store them here for Bartholomew. He told my father that the clues to the location of the treasure were hidden in the paintings. I actually looked for hidden compartments, where he might have tucked away a copy of that old parchment, but I never found anything, so I’ve always wondered if they were just another one of Bartholomew’s eccentricities. But they were all that priest was interested in.’
‘Did he take them?’
‘I’ve no idea. We were in the dining room when he attacked me. I tried fighting back, but it was no use. Finally, he slammed my head into the side of the table and I blacked out. I assume he did take them.’
‘If he didn’t,’ Bronson said, looking at the house, ‘they’re totally destroyed now.’
‘What treasure did Bartholomew think he was looking for?’ Angela asked.
Suleiman shrugged. ‘Only the biggest and most famous of them all. He was convinced he was on the trail of the Jews’ Ark, the Ark of the Covenant.’
Angela glanced at Bronson. ‘And where was he searching?’
‘Various places, because he kept on interpreting the clues slightly differently, which led him to different locations each time. My father never knew what those clues were because Bartholomew always kept that information to himself, but he did at least know the starting point of each search Bartholomew conducted, because it was always the same – Moalla.’
Suleiman smiled slightly at Bronson’s puzzled expression. ‘He was convinced that the Pharaoh Shishaq had seized the Ark when he invaded Judea, and had brought it back to Egypt as one of the spoils of war. He believed that later in his reign Shishaq ordered the treasure to be hidden a long way up the Nile, in a secret valley, where it would remain for all time. According to Bartholomew, the clues he’d found stated that the treasure convoy had started its journey from Moalla, so that’s where he always based his searches.’
Angela’s face suddenly lightened. ‘He must mean el-Moalla,’ she said.
‘Which is where?’ Bronson asked.
‘On the east bank of the Nile, about twenty miles south of Luxor. It’s a very ancient cemetery,’ Suleiman said. He glanced across the road to where the firemen were tackling the blaze. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I need to go and talk to the fire chief. Is there anything else you need from me?’
‘Not for the moment,’ Bronson said, pulling a card out of his pocket. ‘This has got my mobile number on it. If you think of anything else, please call me.’
‘I will,’ Suleiman said, shaking Bronson’s hand. ‘And thank you again for giving me back the rest of my life.’
31
Killian drove about five miles away from Al-Gebel al-Ahmar, heading east, away from Cairo and the suburbs of the city, until he found a deserted stretch of road. He hadn’t wanted to take the paintings to his hotel room because some of the staff would remember him arriving with such unusual items, and he didn’t want to be disturbed while he was examining the pictures. He also needed privacy to replace the dressing on his wounded ear.
A narrow, rough and unmade track snaked away to one side of the road, meandering around a series of low dunes that would provide him with the privacy he wanted. He drove down the track until he was about a hundred yards from the road, then pulled the car to a stop.
Getting out of the vehicle, he looked about him. The air was still and silent. Grunting in satisfaction, he took a blanket from the boot of the car and spread it on the ground. Then he placed both paintings face-down on it, ready to examine them. But as he did so, a stabbing pain shot through his skull and a couple of drops of blood splashed on to the dusty ground at his feet. Killian grimaced, then took a medical kit from the car, opened it and sat awkwardly in the passenger seat to change the dressing. With only his reflection in the interior mirror to guide him it wasn’t easy, but eventually he finished and stood up, a fresh dressing and plaster covering his injured ear. Suleiman’s blow had knocked the scab off the top of the wound and he knew that would delay the healing process still further.
