Whispers in the Sand (31 page)

Anna woke with a start. She lay still, staring up at the ceiling of her cabin, where striped shadows from the slatted shutters rippled amongst the bright reflections from the water outside the window. Her head ached, and she pressed her fingers against her temples. Her exhaustion was total. She felt too tired even to sit up. It was when she glanced at her wristwatch that the adrenaline kicked in. It was almost ten o’clock.

The boat was deserted. She stood in front of the noticeboard outside the dining room, which had long ago stopped serving breakfast, wondering where they had all gone. The schedule for today had completely slipped her mind. The neatly typed sheet in front of her had the day’s activities carefully listed. This morning there was an optional outing to Aswan and the bazaar, followed by a short visit at midday to the Old Cataract Hotel. She frowned. She would like to have gone there. Slowly turning away, she wandered up to the lounge. Ibrahim called out to her as she made for the shaded afterdeck. “You have missed your breakfast,
mademoiselle
?”

She smiled at him, touched that he had noticed. “I’m afraid I overslept again.”

“You like me to bring coffee and croissant?” He hastily stubbed out his cigarette. He had been polishing the bar, and now he tucked the duster away on a shelf and came over to her.

“I should love it. Thank you, Ibrahim.” She smiled at him. “Has everyone gone ashore?”

“Nearly everyone. They want to spend lots of money in the bazaar.” He grinned.

While he fetched her coffee, she made her way to a table at the far end of the shady deck, beneath the awning of white canvas. It was the opposite end of the ship from the row of pots with their profusion of hibiscus and geraniums, bougainvillaea and the small hidden bottle. This was the perfect chance to retrieve it. It could not be left in a flowerpot on a small Nile cruiser indefinitely. But once she had it back in her possession, she would have to make a decision. She stared through the rails at the water. She wanted to talk to Serena. She wasn’t sure how she felt now she knew the names of the two priests who followed her bottle. And she needed to know more about the priest of Sekhmet.

Groping in the shoulder bag which she had dropped on the deck by her chair, she brought out her guidebook. There was, she remembered, a brief summary of the Egyptian gods somewhere at the beginning of the book. She flipped open the pages and stared down. There she was, Sekhmet, with her huge lion’s head. “The lion goddess unleashes her anger—” the text commented. Over the figure’s head was a sun disc and the picture of a cobra. She shivered.

“You are cold,
mademoiselle
?” Ibrahim was there with his tray. He put her coffee and croissant on the table with a tall glass of fruit juice.

She shook her head. “I was thinking about something I’d read here, about the ancient gods. Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess.”

“These are stories,
mademoiselle
. They should not make you afraid.”

“She is the goddess of anger. They show her with a cobra.” She glanced up at him. “How do you know so much about snakes, Ibrahim?”

He smiled at her, tucking the empty tray under his arm. “I learnt from my father and he from his father before him.”

“And they never harm you?”

He shook his head.

“When Charley found the snake in her cabin, you said it was guarding something of mine. How did you know that?”

She saw him lick his lips, suddenly nervous. He gave her a quick glance, as though trying to decide what to say, and she thought she would help him out. “Was it a real snake, Ibrahim? Or was it a magic snake? A phantom?”

He shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “Sometimes they are the same,
mademoiselle
.”

“Do you think it will return?”

“
lnshallah
.” He shrugged.

With a slight bow and that infuriating phrase which had so irritated Louisa, Ibrahim backed away. She did not call him back. What was there she could say?

It was an hour later that she finally rose to her feet and made for the steps onto the upper deck. The boat was still deserted. She had seen neither passengers nor crew since Ibrahim had left her alone, but the river was busy. Tourist cruisers juggled for position along the narrow moorings, launches, feluccas, overloaded rowing boats, ferries, small fishing boats, and motor boats plied up and down, some within feet of the boat’s rail. She could hear the bustle of the town, the hooting of cars, the shouts from the Corniche, but the deck itself was empty. She had, she realised, been trying to pluck up courage ever since she left her cabin that morning. To tell herself that she should wait for Serena was nonsense. It was an excuse. She must dig up the bottle, take it back to her cabin, put it in a sealed envelope, and, when Omar returned at lunchtime, give it to him to put in the boat’s safe.

The flowers had been watered early, but already the deck was dry. She walked slowly towards them and stood at the rail, looking out across the river towards the sand-coloured hills, already half-shrouded in heat haze. It would only take a second.

She pictured the little bottle as she had known it for so many years of her life, standing innocently pretty on her dressing table, first at her parents’ home, then in the house she shared with Felix. She had not been afraid of it then. She remembered suddenly the rainy afternoon when, as a child, she had taken a penknife to the stopper, working it into the seal, trying to jiggle it free. What if she had managed it? What if whatever substance was in the bottle had spilt? Why had the guardians of the bottle not appeared to stop her then? Was it the cold English climate, the distance from their native land, that had inhibited them? Or had her innocence saved her, together with the fact that, quickly bored by her lack of success, she had tucked her penknife back into her shorts, put the bottle guiltily back where it belonged, and run out of the house to play in the rain. It was the last time she had ever tried to open it.

A felucca swooped by, crewed by two boys. They waved and shouted, and she waved back with a smile. All she had to do was turn round, put her hand under the plants, and feel around in the soil with her fingers. No more than that. Then she would carry it down, wrap it safely, and give it to Omar. It would take five minutes at most.

She realised suddenly that there was someone watching her. She could feel eyes boring into her back. Almost certainly it was someone on the high deck of the big cruiser against which they were moored. No one else. Just an idle spectator who wouldn’t be able to see what she was doing anyway. It was nothing sinister; if it were, she would know. She would feel the tiptoe of goosepimples across her skin, feel the cold and the fear as something tangible. She took a deep breath and turned, holding tightly to the rail. The deck was deserted. When she glanced up, there was no one to be seen.

Gritting her teeth, she moved towards the plant container and stooped over it. The inner leaves were still wet, and the soil beneath them was muddy. She raked through the tangle of stems and roots and touched something cold and hard. Closing her eyes, she steadied herself sternly and began to work it free of the pot. At last it came loose. Straightening, she lifted it clear of the leaves and began to dust off the clinging streaks of wet earth. It was as she did so that the deck suddenly grew cold.

She held her breath. Please God, no. Not again. Slowly she forced herself to look up.

The priest of Sekhmet, transparent, wispy as a breath of mist, was dressed in the skin of a desert lion. She could see it—the tawny pelt, the great paw hanging over his shoulder with its claws outstretched, the gold collar round the man’s neck, the gold chain across his chest to hold the skin in place. She saw his long, lean legs, his sandals, his sinewy arms, the single lock of hair across his shoulder, and she saw, for a fraction of a second, his face, the burning fury of his eyes, the taut anger of his jaw. He had seen her even as she had seen him. He had registered her presence, she was sure of it. He knew that she was the one who had hidden the sacred bottle amongst the plants and that it was she who had brought it back to Egypt.

No!

She doubted that she had spoken the word out loud. Her mouth was dry, her throat constricted with fear. The silence around her was, she realised, total. All the extraneous sound from the river and from the town had ceased.

In one frantic movement, she spun round and lifted her arm to throw the bottle into the Nile.

As she did so, a hand closed round her wrist, and the bottle fell harmlessly onto the bleached calico of the cushions on one of the deckchairs. Suddenly she could hear again: the boats, the cars, the shouts, all the noise of the modern day and, with it, a familiar voice.

“What on earth are you doing?” It was Andy. He stood staring at Anna, puzzled. “Whatever it’s done, it doesn’t deserve that.” He grinned at her and bent to pick it up. There was a moment’s silence as she stared at him, then turned to look at the empty deck behind her. She was hallucinating. Of course she was. Her tiredness, her obsession with the story, even her conversation with Ibrahim. They had all conspired to make her imagine she had seen something.

Andy squinted carefully at the bottle in his hand. “It’s not genuine. But obviously you know that. I wasn’t wrong. These are always fakes. All the genuine stuff is in museums by now.” He was rubbing off the soil. He took out a handkerchief and gave it a quick polish, seemingly incurious about why it should be covered in wet earth. “Do you see this?” He held it out to her, pointing at the stopper. “The glass here has been machined. It’s not even a particularly old fake.”

She did not put out her hand for it. “It has to be over a hundred years old if it belonged to Louisa Shelley.” She swallowed hard. To her surprise, her voice sounded quite normal, even defensive. If he were right, there could be no ghost. How could there be a ghost?

He looked taken aback at her comment. “Of course. I had forgotten it was hers. But are you sure it is the same one? Family legends and stories are famous for getting it wrong. I know about provenance. It’s my job, remember. People swear their grandmother or great grandfather did this or that, and often it’s a complete fabrication. They are not deliberately lying, it’s just that memories and stories get confused over the years. Maybe Louisa sold it or lost it. Maybe a son or daughter found this in one of her drawers and thought, this is it. This is the bottle she writes about in her diary. Did she write about it?”

“Oh yes, she writes about it.”

“And does it fit the description?” He was picking at the seal with his fingernail.

“Yes, it does.”

He looked up at her and frowned. “Then why were you going to throw it away? Even if it’s Victorian and not Pharaonic, it has a certain curiosity value, you know.”

“It’s not Victorian, Andy. It’s genuine.”

He glanced at her thoughtfully and then brought the bottle up close to his face, squinting at it with one eye closed. “And you were going to throw it in the Nile?”

She grimaced. “I had my reasons, believe me.”

“Perhaps I had better look after it for you?”

She hesitated. It would be so easy to give it to him, to forget the whole business. To abrogate responsibility.

Watching her face, he frowned. “What is it about this wretched little bottle? First Charley nicks it; now you want to get rid of it.”

“It’s haunted, Andy. There is a curse attached to it. It has a guardian spirit—” She broke off abruptly as she caught sight of his face.

“Oh, come on! I don’t think so. Serena’s behind this, isn’t she!” He suddenly roared with laughter. “Oh, my poor Anna. Listen, lovie. You mustn’t be led on by her. Serena is as mad as a hatter. All her psychic stuff and her Ancient Egyptian mystic magic. It’s tosh! She got into all that when her husband died. You mustn’t let her scare you.”

“It’s not like that, Andy.”

“No? Well, I’m glad to hear it. They almost certified her at one point. That’s why Charley went to live with her. Charley’s mum and Serena’s sister are close friends. In fact, I think they went to school together or something. I think everyone reckoned it was better Serena didn’t go on living alone.”

“I don’t believe you!” She stared at him again. “Serena is knowledgeable. Reliable. I like her.”

“We all like her, Anna. That’s why we’ve taken so much trouble to help her. That is, if we’re honest, we’ve all come on this trip. To keep an eye on her in case she gets carried away by all the mumbo jumbo.” He sat down abruptly on the deckchair. “I’m sorry. This is obviously a shock for you. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything. But all this occult stuff is worrying, and if she’s got you believing it…”

“She hasn’t got me believing it, Andy.” She paused. “I believe it because I have seen things happen with my own eyes.”

There was a moment’s silence. She studied his face. He was watching her, head a little to one side, a quizzical twinkle in his eyes. “So you said. So what exactly have you seen? Remind me.”

“A man. Two men. A man with a lion’s skin; a man with a long robe.”

“Practically every Egyptian you see is wearing a
galabiyya
, Anna.” he said gently. “We are on a boat where there are more crew to wait on us than there are passengers. You must have noticed, they change our sheets and towels about a dozen times a day. They hover around, waiting for our every whim—”