Whispers in the Sand (37 page)

He turned round. “Andy seems to have quite a few problems at the moment, one way and another. And one of them seems to be with me.” His voice was light, casual, as he changed the subject.

She was gazing down into the water. “As you say, Andy has problems with a lot of people.” She glanced up at him suddenly. “She did say Sekhmet, didn’t she?”

He looked blank for a moment. “Who?”

“Charley. Charley was talking about the goddess, Sekhmet.”

“Was she? She was ranting and raving like a mad woman. It was all I could do to hold her off long enough for you to have a go at him first.” He gave a mischievous grin. “Don’t read too much into anything she said. She really wasn’t with us.”

Anna bit her lip. She was silent for a moment or two, and Toby took the opportunity to study her face. “Can I buy you a drink before dinner?” He stood away from the rail and glanced back towards the door. “I suspect they have gone by now.”

She shook her head. Thank you, but I think I’m going to go and have a quick word with Serena. I want her to know that that bastard is not going to keep me away from her.” She paused, scrutinising Toby’s face, suddenly realising that this was the first time she’d been alone with him since Andy’s revelation. How could she have forgotten it? But so much had happened, she had ignored it, pretended she hadn’t heard. Certainly she hadn’t believed it. Had she? She frowned, her eyes on his, then she shook her head. That was not the face of a murderer. If it was, she was the worst judge of character in the entire world.

Serena was nowhere to be found. Her cabin was in darkness, occupied solely by a quietly snoring Charley. She wasn’t in Anna’s cabin, or on the upper deck, nor was she in the still-empty dining room. Puzzled, Anna went back to her own cabin and sat down on the bed.

Where was she? She frowned. Surely she couldn’t have gone ashore alone. The boat was not so big that someone could disappear on it. She must be in someone else’s cabin. Ben’s perhaps, or the Booths, or one of the others.

With a weary sigh she sat down on the bed. There was half an hour till dinner. She could go back in the bar and have that drink with Toby, or she could lie down and perhaps have another look at the diary, to see what happened when Louisa got back onto the boat.

Changing out of her spray-soaked dress, Louisa went back on deck to find the Forresters talking to Roger Carstairs as they looked down at the straining teams of men pulling the vessel up the rapids. Her face coloured as she saw him. She had hoped he would have gone back to his own boat, which would be following them up the next day.

He turned to look at her, and she was astonished at the expression of triumphant amusement he directed at her. She could, she suddenly realised, read him like a book. He was confident, completely secure that she remembered nothing of the incident on the rocks this afternoon, and faintly mocking. She shivered and felt as she had before, like a rabbit cowering before a weasel, unable to move or run. With an effort, she tore her eyes away and stepped closer to Sir John, very aware of the comfort of his burly, good-humoured solidity.

“So, Lord Carstairs,” she said from this position of security. “You are presumably going back to your own vessel this evening? I should thank you for arranging the picnic for me.”

He bowed very slightly. His smile was a little lopsided, she noticed for the first time. It gave him a vulpine look which was extremely unsettling. She felt herself shiver once again.

Sir John noticed. He put an arm round her shoulders and gave her a brief squeeze. “Cold m’dear? It’s all this spray.”

She smiled at him. “I am a little.”

The night wind from the desert had not yet come, and the sun, though about to disappear below the cliffs, was still radiating warmth. Only between the rocks and the low cliff faces was the air chill. The boat was calm suddenly. The men who had been manning the ropes to pull them up the rapids in the course of the day were vanishing one by one back in the direction of their villages, and the splendid Nubian pilot, who had sat all day at the helm directing matters with almost regal dignity, had saluted first the
reis
then Sir John, and finally he too had gone home. Tomorrow they would all be back for the last leg of the journey before returning to the foot of the cataract for the next vessel.

“Roger has agreed to accept our invitation to dinner, m’dear.” Sir John was beaming. “He will go back to his boat later. We are here for the night. We will be pulled up the last rapids tomorrow, I understand, then we’ll lie at Philae for a day or so and wait for the Fieldings to come up as well. It will be fun to go on in convoy as far as the second cataract.”

Louisa forced herself to smile; she forced herself to say the right things, and then she excused herself to go once more below. In her cabin, she stretched out on the bed, exhausted and depressed, thinking about Hassan as outside the sun went down in a blaze of gold.

The knock on the door made her sit up with a start. She must have fallen asleep. The cabin was in total darkness, and as she groped for the candlestick, she could see nothing around her at all. Another knock rang round the small space as the flame caught, and she realised it must be Treece already, coming to help her dress for dinner. She had forgotten she had locked the cabin door. The shadows flared over the deep russets and golds of the rugs and hangings which decorated the small area as she groped her way to the door and unfastened it.

Roger Carstairs stood there, his head bowed beneath the low ceiling. With one swift movement, he pushed her back into the cabin and stepped in after her, bolting the door behind him.

“How dare you!”

He pushed her sharply so that she collapsed backwards onto the bed and was forced to watch as he picked up the candlestick and swept it around, scrutinising her belongings.

“Where is it?” he hissed.

“Where is what?” She was at a disadvantage, sitting down, forced to look up at him, but there was no room to stand without actually pushing him away. She shuddered. “How dare you come in here?” she repeated. “Get out! I’ll call for help! There will be terrible trouble if you are found in here with me.”

“I don’t think so.” He laughed. “The Forresters wouldn’t dare cross me, my oh so proper little Mrs. Shelley. Especially when I tell them how eagerly you received my attentions this afternoon.” He reached down and caught her chin between iron fingers just as he had before, forcing her to look at him. “Yes, you do remember. I shall have to be careful. You are wilful. You think you can resist me.” He breathed out heavily through his nose. “So, Mrs. Shelley. Where is it?”

“The scent bottle?” There was no point in pretending she didn’t know what he meant. “I’ve hidden it ashore.”

His eyes blazed. “Not today. It was not possible today. Yesterday, then. You left it at Philae? Where?” He pushed her head back against the cabin wall. Tell me,” he whispered through gritted teeth.

The cabin had suddenly grown very cold. The candle flame flickered and streamed black threads of smoke. His eyes were dark pits, close to hers. She couldn’t look away. Desperately she shut her eyes, trying not to breathe the unpleasant sweet scent of his breath.

“I’ll never tell you.” She pushed her fist against his face and was rewarded with a quiet laugh.

“Oh, you’ll tell me, sweetheart. Believe me, you’ll tell me.” He caught her wrist.

With a little gasp of pain, she felt the small delicate bones crushed between his fingers. “Help me!” Her cry was no more than a whisper. “Anhotep, if you exist, help me now!”

The candle flared.

Carstairs laughed once more. “So, our little widow invokes the high priest, but she doesn’t know how.” He pushed her back so violently against the cabin wall that all the breath was knocked out of her body. “Where is the bottle—” He broke off in mid-sentence. The boat was rocking violently. Above, on deck, the
reis
looked over the side. A mooring rope had come loose, and the
Ibis
had swung with the strong current. They heard the shouts and the thud of urgently running feet.

“Why?” she gasped. “Why do you want it so badly?”

He stared down at her. “I have to have it. It is imperative I have it. It is not a bauble for you to play with. It is a sacred chrismatory. It contains power. Power only I know how to use!” His eyes glittered feverishly as his hand tightened round her wrist.

“Anhotep!” Louisa struggled ferociously. “Don’t let him hurt me—”

As the candle flame flickered and streamed sideways in the tiny airless cabin, she opened her eyes to peer past him towards the window. A figure stood there—misty, indistinct. Through him she could see the wall, the shutters, the shawl she had thrown down across the stool.

“Anhotep! Help me!” Her voice was stronger this time. Her fear of the man half-sprawled across her was greater by far than her fear of a shadow from the distant past.

Carstairs moved back slightly, aware of the change in the atmosphere in the small space, aware of the strange behaviour of the candle flame. Noticing her gaze focused somewhere over his shoulder, he glanced round towards the window and gasped. In a second he had pushed himself off the bed.

“Servant of Isis, greeting!” He bowed low, ignoring Louisa, who cowered back on the bunk, making herself as small as possible.

The cabin had become totally airless; the candle flame, a moment before flaring wildly and streaming smoke, had died to a tiny glow. In a second it would be out altogether. The figure was fading.

Louisa launched herself off the bed towards the door, groping for the bolt. Frantically she scrabbled for it as the light died altogether. As the figure vanished totally, Carstairs turned back towards her. She felt his hands groping for her shoulders just as her flailing fingers found the bolt. Desperately she pulled at it and felt it slide, back but it was too late. He was dragging her away from the door, thrusting her back onto the bed. She drew breath to scream and felt his hand clamp over her mouth. Once again, she heard him laugh. There was excitement in the sound now, and triumph.

At the very moment he began to rip open her blouse, there was a loud knock at the cabin door.

9

Homage to thee, Amen-Ra who passest over the heaven, every face seeth thee. Men praise thee in thy name.

Millions of years have gone over the world.

Thou dost pass over and dost travel through untold spaces…

Once more the sands drift here and there. The open, abandoned tomb is buried yet again. The mummies are gone forever to the dust of oblivion; only their names survive, safe on walls of rock. Centuries pass, and the priests are shadows without substance, nothing in the sunlight, nothing beneath the moon, dying vows forgotten, spent anger no more than a sigh in the wind
across the dunes.