A River in the Sky

He could have tried bluster: “I am a British citizen and you have no right to detain me.” That would almost certainly be the wrong tack. He had recognized two of the men. They were Turkish army, all right, but they were also part of Frau von Eine’s personal guard.

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a handful of the miscellaneous currencies used in the area. “Perhaps we can come to an agreement.”

The initial effect was encouraging-an exchange of interested glances and a moment of hesitation by the officer. Only a moment, though.

“You will come with me,” he repeated, and reached for Ramses’s arm. Ramses pushed his hand away and descended with dignity, taking his time. He was several inches taller than the officer, including that worthy’s fancy fez, and he took full advantage, looming as best he could, his lip curling.

“Take me to your superior,” he snapped. “At once.” To Abdul Hamid he said curtly, “Wait for me.”

“Oh, he will wait,” said the officer. “You may be sure of that.”

Three of them, including the officer, trotted along with him as he strode into the village. The other soldiers remained with the carriage. The street was typical of such villages, narrow and littered, walled in by the facades of the houses that lined it. It was a gloomy, tunnel-like stretch, made even gloomier by the clouds that were gathering. They passed one or two slitlike side passages and Ramses fought the urge to dart into one of them. Common sense told him it would be jumping from the frying pan into the fire-being trapped in a cul-de-sac or dead end. Anyhow, he couldn’t run out on Abdul Hamid. He’d brought the poor devil into this and in the unlikely event that he could get away Abdul Hamid would be in for it.

Their destination was a house next to the mosque. It was a trifle more pretentious than the others they had passed, with barred windows and a heavy ironbound door. The door opened as they approached. The man who had opened it was Frau von Eine’s companion.

Mansur stood back and gestured to Ramses to enter. The soldiers crowded in after him and took up positions on either side of the door. Another gesture to Ramses indicated the divan against one wall. There wasn’t much else in the room, only a few cushions, a low wooden table next to the divan, and a brazier that gave off an acrid-smelling smoke and just enough light to make out Mansur’s features.

Ramses didn’t even think of trying to make a break for it. Nor would bluster serve him here. He took the seat indicated and waited for the other man to speak first.

Mansur clapped his hands. A servant entered through a curtained doorway, carrying a tray which he put on the table. He was neatly dressed in a brightly embroidered vest over a brown galabeeyah, with red slippers on his feet. He gave Ramses a quick sidelong glance before salaaming profoundly to Mansur and backing out of the room.

“Would you care for tea?” Mansur asked, indicating the glasses on the tray.

It was the first time Ramses had heard him utter more than a muttered word or two. His voice was low and melodious, a deep baritone. Even more surprising was the fact that he spoke educated English, with only the faint trace of an accent.

“Oxford?” Ramses inquired, taking one of the glasses.

“Cambridge.”

“And before that?”

Mansur’s eyes narrowed, and Ramses explained disingenuously, “What I meant to say was that your English is excellent.”

“How kind of you to say so.”

“To speak a language so well, most people require years of study, starting at an early age.”

Mansur took a seat beside Ramses and helped himself to tea.

“We can go on fencing, if you like, but it would save time if we went straight to the point. What do you want to know?”

Ramses raised his eyebrows. “You want me to ask you questions? I expected it would be the other way round.”

The other man’s thin lips curved in a smile. With the turban low on his brow and his beard hiding the outline of chin and jaw, and those deep-set, hooded eyes, his face was to all intents and purposes masked, no feature that might have expressed his feelings exposed. “Still fencing. I don’t have to question you. Last night you met a man who was a British spy. He told you a number of things he was not supposed to know. Please don’t bother to equivocate. I let him leave the area so that I could follow him.”

“You couldn’t have overheard what he said to me,” Ramses said.

“I heard enough. He had only suspicions, no proof, but if those suspicions were passed on, an investigation might interfere with our work.”

“So you killed him. Was it you who cut his throat?”

“Why should you think that? These vagabonds one hires are a quarrelsome lot.”

And by the time someone went looking for the grave, the body would no longer be there.

Mansur finished his tea and put the glass onto the tray. “In any case,” he continued, “his disappearance won’t be discovered for some time. By then we will have finished our work and be…elsewhere.”

“And how do you propose to prevent me from reporting his death? If you kill me-”