Whispers in the Sand (50 page)

Anna stood up. Finding her box of tissues, she pulled some out and pressed them into Charley’s hands. “That must explain the third person on the boat. Serena must have told Omar, and he told Ibrahim you were staying. What happened next?”

“I don’t remember anything till I woke up and saw him standing there.” Charley began to sob again, the tears running down her cheeks and falling into her lap.

“Then what?”

“Then I screamed. I sat up and screamed, and he sort of stepped towards me. Then he began to shake.” She shook her head, confused. “He was shaking quite violently, then he—” She stopped and shrugged. “He sort of wasn’t there any more.”

“You mean he left the cabin, or he disappeared?”

She shrugged again. “He didn’t open the door. I did. I didn’t wait to see. I ran outside and I couldn’t see anyone. It was so quiet. They haven’t gone, have they?”

“Who?” Anna shook her head. “You mean the others? They left yesterday.” She glanced at her watch. “That was twenty-four hours ago, Charley.”

Charley’s eyes focused on Anna’s face. “No.” Her face resumed the child-like pout. “I only dozed off for a minute.”

“If you’ve been asleep since they left, Charley, Anna’s right.” Toby looked up at her with concern.

“No,” she shook her head. “No. I can’t have. No.” She began rocking backwards and forwards suddenly. “No.”

“Charley!” Toby stood up and put his hands on her shoulders. “Listen.” He paused. “Are you listening? Good. You were asleep. But it doesn’t matter. You must have been exhausted. You needed that sleep.”

“I wasn’t drinking.” She didn’t appear to have heard what he said. “I wasn’t drinking. I know I have been silly and spiteful and childish. I know I have. But I wasn’t drinking. Andy said I mustn’t drink any more. I wasn’t. I promise.” She was shaking her head again, back and forth, back and forth, like an automaton.

“When did you last eat, Charley?” Toby had taken her hands again. He glanced at Anna. “Do you see how thin she’s got?” he said under his breath. “I can’t believe it. In a week.”

Anna nodded. She had been studying Charley’s face whilst Toby was talking to her. “Charley, are you quite sure this man didn’t touch you?”

The question seemed to throw Charley. She stopped rocking and frowned.

“Are you sure he didn’t touch you while you were asleep?”

Charley shuddered. “I had my clothes on. These.” She gestured down at her jeans and black tee-shirt. “I had got dressed to go on the coach. I never took them off. I had packed my overnight bag. I was ready to go.”

“And you sat down for a moment, and when you woke up it was twenty-four hours later.” Anna was wishing fervently that Serena had stayed behind. “Charley, you said you were dreaming when this man woke you. Can you remember what you were dreaming about?”

Charley shrugged and shook her head.

“Do you think anyone touched you in your dream?”

“You mean—? No! Oh, ugh, no!”

“I don’t mean sex.” Anna glanced suddenly at Toby and was relieved to see him wink. Their awakening had been so sudden and so traumatic she hadn’t thought for one second about him or the touch of his body since Charley’s knock on the door. She could feel herself colouring slightly now, and she shook her head quickly. “I mean did you feel him touch you here.” She put her hand to her own stomach. “Or on the mouth, or the throat or on your head?”

Charley shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel sore here.” She put her hand to her stomach. “I thought I’d eaten something bad.”

“Pharaoh’s curse.” Toby grimaced. “It’s possible. But Anna is thinking about something else.” He looked across at her. “Am I right? The incubus? Taking her energy?”

Anna nodded. “That’s what Serena thought.”

“What? What did she think?” Charley’s eyes were round again, and Anna noticed she had begun to tremble once more.

“Andy will be so angry. He was going to sit next to me. And now you’re with him,” she nodded at Toby, “and not after my Andy at all. Or do you want them both?” She shot a pathetically defiant look at Anna. “Did you know he had your stupid little bottle with him? So if you’ve lost it again, you know it wasn’t me.”

There was a moment’s silence in the cabin. Then, “He’s taken it with him?” Anna stared at her. “Are you sure?”

Charley nodded. “Popular, isn’t it.”

Anna’s face had frozen. She was staring at the suitcase in front of the cupboard. Locked inside was the diary where only hours before she and Toby had read about the snake. The king snake, programmed to kill any man who touched the sacred ampulla.

She glanced at Toby. “The cobra,” she whispered. “The guardian of the scent bottle. Only women have owned that bottle. Louisa. My great-great-grandmother. My great-aunt. Me.”

“Oh shit!” Toby rubbed his chin. “What do we do? Don’t tell me you want us to follow him?”

“We have to. It might not be too late. If we can warn him. Get it back.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Charley grabbed at Toby’s arm.

“The snake you found in your cabin.” Anna said sharply. “It didn’t hurt you because you’re a woman. If you had been a man, it would have killed you.”

Charley stared at her. “Why? What do you mean?”

“It guards the bottle. Look, don’t ask, Charley. Just believe it! Find Ibrahim,” Anna said to Toby urgently. “He knew about the snake. He’ll know what to do. Perhaps we can phone Omar and get him to warn Andy.”

“No! Don’t leave me!” Charley clung to Toby as he turned towards the door. “What about the man in my cabin!”

“We won’t leave you, Charley.” Toby sighed. He pushed her towards Anna. “Stay here, both of you. I’ll see if I can find Ibrahim.”

As he disappeared, Anna closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. “If we can’t contact Omar, we’re going to have to find the others ourselves. Andy is a bastard, but he doesn’t deserve to die. We are going to have to find a way of warning him. Take a bus or a taxi or something. How much money have you got, Charley? We’ll need cash.”

She scrabbled under the bed for her shoes and grabbed her bag. Unlocking the suitcase, she took out the diary and pushed it into her holdall. “Do you want your stuff ? We’ll collect it as we go by. Where’s Toby got to?”

“You sent him to look for Ibrahim.” Charley objected. Then she clutched her stomach. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Loo!” Anna pointed.

Trying to ignore the noises coming from the shower room, she automatically dug out her sun hat and glasses and her guidebook and threw them in the holdall with a bottle of water. By the time Toby returned, Charley had reappeared, looking whiter than ever, and Anna was ready.

“I spoke to the captain. He knows nothing. Not where they are or where Ibrahim might be, though he thinks he has gone to visit friends in one of the villages. But he did have a contact who can find us a taxi. It’ll be by the gangplank in ten minutes.”

“Don’t leave me!” Charley was clinging to them both. “I won’t go back to my cabin. You can’t make me. He’ll kill me!”

“We’re not leaving you, Charley,” Toby said gently. He was trying to disengage her hands from his sleeve. “You can come with us, or we can drop you off at a hotel before we go. You’d be safe there.”

Charley shook her head. “I hate all this. I want to go home.”

“A hotel can arrange that for you, if that’s what you really want.” Toby glanced over her head at Anna. “I think it’s the right decision. She can’t stay on the boat, and she can’t come with us. It’s about two hundred and fifty kilometres. It’s going to take hours.”

It was Anna who went into Charley’s cabin whilst Charley clung to Toby in the corridor outside. It was empty. She stood for a moment looking round, listening. As though her senses were in some way newly honed by everything that had happened, she found herself paying attention to her intuition in a way she never had before. It told her there was nothing there; nothing to fear, at least for now. Grabbing Charley’s overnight bag, she turned out the light and closed the door behind her with a fervent prayer that the priest of Sekhmet would stay wherever it was he lived and would not follow them.

A black car was waiting for them at the water’s edge. The young man at the wheel was wearing western clothes and greeted Toby with some deference as they climbed in. In seconds he had spun the wheel and pulled away from the gangplank, heading south along the Corniche.

He pulled up outside the Old Cataract Hotel.

“Wait here,” Toby said to Anna. He took Charley’s arm and bundled her out. “I’ll be five minutes.”

As they disappeared into the hotel entrance, Anna frowned. Then she shrugged. She was too tired to think. If Toby could get Charley looked after here, and at this hour, well and good. She’d wonder how he was going to manage it later.

It was fifteen minutes before he returned, and she had dozed off. She woke up as he pulled the car door open and climbed in, giving the driver some quick instructions. He seemed pleased with himself as they set off. “She’ll be fine. They’ll take care of her, and I’ve made a couple of phone calls. Someone is going to check up on her in the morning and see if she is OK. She can either stay there till we cruise back to Luxor, or they’ll get her a ticket to fly back home early. And I’ve sorted us out, too. South of Aswan, it’s a military zone. I just thought I’d check in case we need passes and things to go through the desert.” He leant back beside her.

“And do we?”

“All organised. No problem.”

She glanced at him sideways. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. Now, get some sleep. I’ll wake you when we get there.”

“Toby?” With a shiver, she pulled her sweater more tightly round her shoulders. The car had grown very cold while they were waiting. “What happens if the priest of Sekhmet has got hold of her? What if he comes back when she’s on her own?”

“The hotel staff will keep an eye on her. If anything happens, they’ll call a doctor.”

“And what could a doctor do?”

He shrugged. “We’ll be back in Aswan very soon, Anna. Probably tonight. And we can phone from Abu Simbel. It’s not as though it’s the ends of the earth. Once we’ve found Andy and relieved him of the bottle, the urgency is over.” There was a moment’s silence. “As long as you don’t expect me to touch it!”

Anna smiled grimly. “No, I don’t expect you to touch it.” She gasped as the car lurched into a pothole, throwing her against him. “I’d hate you to get swallowed by a snake.”

He put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. “So would I, believe me.”

There was a long silence as the taxi rattled through the streets, turning this way and that towards the southern edge of town. The main roads were brightly lit, the side roads dark, houses shuttered against the cold night air.

“Toby?” Anna was wide awake now.

“What is it?” he asked. He groped for her hand.

“Supposing we’re too late?”

“We won’t be.” He squeezed her fingers tightly. “Assuming anything at all is going to happen, we’ll get there in time. I’m sure we will.”

12

Hymns of praise to thee O thou god who makest the moment to advance,

thou dweller among the mysteries of every kind, thou guardian of the word which speaks

The house was left empty. Everyone knew of its curse: all who lived there died. But time passes. Villages themselves disappear. In the desert air, the mud bricks lie scattered. The few possessions left behind are abandoned and lost and succumb to the sand.

The priests grow weak, insubstantial wraiths without the life blood of man’s energy. They look to the sun and the moon for their existence and the strength of the desert, wind and they hover, fuelled only by their mutual hate.