Herring on the Nile Read online

  Q: Where would you go to boogie in Dunstable?

  A:

  ‘Elsie,’ I said. ‘Though I fear I may already know the answer to this question, why do they think I know anything about partying in Dunstable?’

  The plump, slumbering figure in the seat beside mine stirred and opened one eye.

  ‘Are we there yet?’ It is a common misconception amongst those who doze off in a public place that nobody else has noticed. Elsie was now trying unsuccessfully to sell me the idea that she had been alert since take-off and, for all I knew, that it was normal tosnore when wide awake. She was also, when she noticed it, going to have big problems explaining the dribble.

  ‘We’re somewhere over Italy, I think. I’m working on the next interview. A paper in Dunstable this time. I don’t know what you told them, but I can’t have grown up there and in Sunderland.’

  ‘I may have said that you had an elderly aunt living there or something.’

  ‘Who boogies on a regular basis?’

  Elsie’s expression quickly squashed any idea I might have had that I was qualified to mock other people’s boogying. ‘Maybe the aunt was in Salford,’ she said dismissively. She leaned back and closed her eyes again. ‘Just say something vague about the exciting buzz there is in Dunstable these days.’

  ‘Nobody’s going to believe that.’

  ‘They will in Dunstable. They don’t get out much.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll just skip that question,’ I said.

  Elsie yawned and stretched. The lack of legroom on the charter flight was not a problem for anyone her size. My own joints, conversely, were beginning to ache from being forced into unnatural positions. I checked my watch again.

  ‘Remind me – why exactly did Annabelle decide not to come?’ asked Elsie, suddenly opening her eyes.

  ‘She just changed her mind,’ I said. I thought we’d dealt with that question already and my answer was true – well, after a fashion. And, if I had missed one or two small details, why should I be completely candid with Elsie, who regarded honesty much as she would an expensive pair of shoes: something to be cherished, admired even, but to be used only occasionally and not without some discomfort.

  ‘Isn’t she going to get jealous if you go off with some other woman?’

  ‘But I’m going with you,’ I said, laughing. ‘Yes, fair enough, you are a woman, but Annabelle’s hardly going to get jealous . . . I obviously don’t mean that you are unattractive in any way, only that you and I . . . Of course, I wouldn’t wish to imply that . . .’

  ‘Shall I stop you there?’ asked Elsie. ‘Or do you think you can dig yourself in any deeper?’

  ‘You’re my agent,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s a purely professional relationship.’

  ‘With a one-month notice period.’

  ‘Your joining me in Egypt does not affect my relationship with Annabelle in any way at all.’

  ‘You are choosing your words very carefully, Ethelred. What does affect your relationship with Annabelle? The sale of Muntham Court? You can tell me. If she’s given you the push because you’ve sold the ancestral home that she was hoping to live in for the rest of her days, then I may be forced to order champagne at your expense, but there is no other downside that I can see to your admitting you’ve been dumped.’

  ‘She just didn’t want to come to Egypt,’ I said. ‘And it’s not an ancestral home – hers or mine.’ Was that another point I’d made to Annabelle? It sounded familiar.

  ‘Fine – just so long as she doesn’t book herself a cabin at the last minute and join us on the Khedive,’ said Elsie.

  ‘That’s very unlikely, though there are plenty of spare cabins apparently. It’s a quiet time of year.’

  ‘Suits me if it is a bit quiet. I too have work to be getting on with once we are back in touch with the world.’

  Elsie produced a flashy mobile phone and would, no doubt, have explained in some detail how it worked, had I not produced the identical model from my jacket.

  ‘Snap,’ I said. ‘I’ve got the same one.’

  She took my phone dubiously, and then held hers and mine side by side, trying to identify any minute differences in functionality that would make hers cooler. There were clearly fewer than she had hoped.

  ‘I bet I’ve got more apps,’ she concluded lamely.

  ‘We’re just passing over Naples,’ I said, unscrewing the top of the small bottle of wine that had accompanied the unre-quested CHK.

  ‘Don’t change the subject,’ said Elsie. ‘My phone is cool. Your phone sucks.’

  She took a paperback out of the seat pocket in front of her – Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

  ‘I didn’t know you were a Christie fan,’ I said.

  ‘It’s rubbish basically,’ said Elsie, though this was her default position on any work of literature that was not actually under contract to her.

  ‘It’s generally reckoned to be one of her best,’ I said.

  ‘So, how likely is it that you’ll get a bunch of murderers, spies, writers and other disreputable people on board one small boat? And, if you did, why would you choose to shoot somebody in a place you couldn’t make a decent getaway from? The problem with a small boat is that almost every move you make is observed by somebody else.’

  ‘But the killer’s movements are observed – that’s why they have to kill again.’

  ‘Precisely – it’s a crap way to carry out a murder. The whole plot is too complicated. You shouldn’t mix detectives and spies – they’re different genres. And the incident with the boulder seems a complete red herring, which is just brushed away at the end.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you get in detective stories. Lots of red herrings – even on the Nile.’ I smiled to show that I knew that herrings are limited to the temperate waters of the North Atlantic and North Pacific.

  ‘You get crocodiles in the Nile,’ said Elsie.

  ‘Not below the Aswan Dam,’ I said. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Just get on with the interview questions, Tressider. You’re starting to get pedantic and irritating. And lay off the duty-free wine – it just makes you maudlin and pessimistic, which is even worse.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. And I’m not pedantic.’

  ‘Yes, it does. And being pedantic is like snoring – the person who is doing it can’t tell. Right now I need you upbeat and positive for those interviews. Screw that top back on. You can wake me when we’re in Luxor, so I can look at the nice crocodiles. And not a moment before.’

  Elsie’s snores recommenced, proving at least one of her points was true. As a preliminary to disproving her other points, I poured my wine and watched it splash, warm and red, into the cheap plastic cup. I took a sip or two and reflected on Life. It seemed OK. Not fantastic, but as good as it was ever likely to get. I took another few sips, then swallowed the rest of the wine in a single gulp. I reached decisively for my computer and began to type again.

  Three

  Q: Many of the readers of our magazine are budding authors. There are so many genres to explore. What started you writing crime novels?

  A: I wish I could remember. There must have been a point at which I thought it would be fun.

  Q: You write under several names. Why is this?

  A: See above. Like so many things, it just seemed a good idea at the time. As Peter Fielding I write the Sergeant Fairfax books. I also write historical crime as J. R. Elliot and romantic fiction under yet another name. Occasionally people confuse me with Paul Fielder – the former secret service man who writes thrillers – but he’s obviously a lot better known than I am.

  Q: What books are currently on your bedside table?

  A: It’s funny you should ask that. I did take a glance at my bedside table before I left home. There’s quite a stack of them. Some are books that I feel I ought to read because everyone else is reading them, though deep down I despise both the books and the people who read them. There are also the books I’ve started reading but never got round to
finish-ing – À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs to name just one, though technically it is currently under rather than on the bedside table. And there are a number of copies of History Today in which I have vainly sought inspiration. My bedside table is, when you think about it, an allegory of blighted hope. Sometimes I simply want to weep.

  Q: Great! Have you started writing another book? Is it a sequel to the one you are publishing now?

  A: I’m doing research for a new historical series – set in Egypt. Crime writers have to produce series. There’s no escape. Do you know – all I wanted was to write one great work of literary fiction. Just one. Was that really too much to ask?

  Q: Which contemporary writer do you think people will still be reading in a hundred years’ time?

  A: Dan Brown. I bought The Da Vinci Code last year and I’m still only on page 7.

  Q: And finally, what advice would you have for anyone wanting to write fiction themselves?

  A: Write it by all means, but do not expect it will make you rich or especially happy – and above all, do not expect that it will make you more attractive to the opposite sex or you will be very disappointed indeed. On the plus side, you don’t need to buy many ties.

  Q: I’m sure all budding authors will find that tremendously encouraging. Thank you, Paul Fielder!

  ‘Are we there yet?’

  ‘We are flying down, or possibly up, the Nile. Up, I guess, since it flows from south to north and we are flying almost exactly due south.’

  ‘Have you finished those interview questions?’ asked Elsie, looking suspiciously at the two empty wine bottles.

  ‘Three sets so far.’

  ‘I hope you’re being cheerful and upbeat?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re not being cynical and tedious?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re not going on and on about wanting to write great literary fiction?’

  ‘I just ask one very short question about it.’

  ‘And you are being very complimentary about other writers?’

  ‘Yes. I even gave a plug to Dan Brown.’

  ‘There’s a good boy.’

  ‘I thought we had the boat to ourselves,’ said Elsie, as we joined a small queue to be allocated our cabins. ‘I hope I am not going to be made to share my ice waiter with somebody else?’

  ‘Evidently there were some last-minute bookings,’ I said.

  Ahead of us a middle-aged lady, who had clearly arrived a short while before, was returning a key to the desk. She was wearing the practical, loose, dust-coloured dress of the habitual traveller, and a hat with a large floppy brim covered much of her greying hair. Her wrist carried several substantial silver bracelets, bought quite possibly in the suq in Luxor that morning. They clinked happily as she handed over the key.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said in the clear precise way the English speak to foreigners, as an alternative to learning their language. ‘I thought an upper cabin would be better, but on reflection I am very pleased with the one originally allocated to me. The other cabin is too close to the dining room. Tell the porter that my cases may remain where they are. I have locked the cabin door.’

  It was not unlike listening to a passage from a phrase book in which a number of eventualities for booking a cabin are envisaged and set down for the traveller to use as necessary. For a moment I thought she might go on to ask for a telegram to be sent to her head office in Oldham about a shipment of cotton samples, or whatever scenario the book’s author had next seen fit to cover. But she simply nodded once and smiled. The purser returned her smile weakly and dropped the key into a wooden box beside him without a further glance at it. The lady however showed no sign of being in a hurry to return to her original cabin. She was on holiday and had plenty of time to display old-world good manners, no matter how much inconvenience and irritation it might cause.

  ‘It was however very kind of you. I appreciate your allowing me to inspect it,’ she continued, as though she had just remembered a further optional piece of dialogue, illustrative of the gerund.

  The phrase book should, undoubtedly, have had the purser reply that he was honoured and delighted to have been of service, but he seemed not to have read that section. The lady, therefore, received another weak smile in return. The queue of passengers, including one literary agent who had hoped to have the boat largely to herself, was growing impatient.

  ‘Thank you for locking the cabin and returning the key,’ said the purser. ‘Perhaps, madam, you would now permit me to check in the other guests?’

  ‘But of course,’ she said, turning to the rest of us in the most leisurely manner I could recall ever having seen. ‘I do apologize for having delayed you all. It is very rude of me. I shall not hold you up for another second.’

  For a moment I could have sworn she was about to drop a curtsey, but then she turned sharply and swept away towards the lower deck.

  ‘Next,’ said the purser, raising his eyebrows in rather unprofessional mock despair.

  ‘Professor Campion,’ snapped a tall, bald man who had managed to position himself at the front of the queue by means of a rapid exit from the coach and an agile pair of elbows. He slapped his ticket on the desk. He clearly resented having been made to wait and resented it even more when, in spite of being a professor, he was asked for his passport, the search for which encompassed his jacket, his rucksack and finally (with much greater success) the back pocket of his trousers. He fiddled with a pair of reading glasses while his documents were being checked and his key located, though in the end he found nothing to read with them and finally made great play of folding the glasses away again into a small tubular case. He did this slowly and precisely. It was as if delaying the rest of us somehow evenedup the score with the lady with the floppy hat. He too disappeared, but towards the upper deck, following a porter who had swooped lightly onto his small suitcase.

  ‘I’m Sky Benson. I think you’ll find I have a lower-deck cabin.’ The next passenger was a young woman whom, had I been looking for a quiet, efficient secretary, I might have shortlisted on the spot. She was quite pretty, but her lack of make-up was so conspicuous as to amount to a statement of intent. She had on a fairly simple necklace of blue stones and what seemed to be a matching bangle. Propped coquettishly on her small nose was a pair of surprisingly heavy and old-fashioned glasses – surprising because the lenses did not appear to be very strong, and she might have disposed of them completely had she been at all concerned about her appearance. The spectacles too seemed a statement of some kind – a suitable accompaniment to the plain skirt, high-necked blouse and the absence of make-up. It struck me that sometimes the ultimate vanity is a desire not to appear vain.

  She retrieved her ticket and passport from a well-organized plastic folder, then chatted inconsequentially to the purser as he ticked her name off the list. She appeared slightly tense and awkward, and kept looking over her shoulder as if she feared additional passengers might join the queue and delay us further. Once or twice she gave a short nervous laugh in response to her own jokes. Perhaps it was being in a strange country or perhaps she was always like that. Doubtless I would find out in due course, as all of the passengers would in due course find out about each other. For the moment we were still a collection of strangers, eyeing each other with varying degrees of trepidation and disdain.

  Eventually a porter was summoned and Miss Benson too was dispatched on her way.

  Another young woman travelling alone was quickly dealt with. She gave her name as Lizzi Hull, tipping her peaked cap back on her head as she said it. While her booking was checked, she rolled up her sleeves, revealing a fashionable selection of tattoos. She must have noticed me looking at them, because she gave me a quick wink before turning back to the purser.

  ‘Shukran,’ she said, as she pocketed the key. She declined any assistance with her rucksack, which she hoisted onto a shoulder before striding off towards her cabin.

  Two Americans in their mid-twe
nties were now all that separated us from our own keys.

  ‘I wonder why they were pretending not to know each other,’ said Elsie.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Professor Campion and Miss Benson. They were sitting together on the plane, but pointedly took seats at opposite ends of the coach for the drive from the airport. They didn’t exchange a single word here on the boat – not even to say what a pain in the queue the floppy-hat bitch was being.’

  ‘Maybe they’d said everything they had to say to each other on the plane,’ I suggested. ‘They didn’t look as if they had much in common.’

  ‘I’m surprised she could afford a trip like this, if her cheap jewellery is anything to go by.’

  ‘Was it cheap?’

  ‘Oh yes. New but very disposable. I wouldn’t go to her hairdresser either.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘You might, but I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Maybe she inherited some money recently. It happens.’

  ‘Yes, but the first thing you do if you inherit money is go out and have your hair done and buy the most expensive shoes you can find.’

  ‘Not a rich heiress then?’

  ‘She doesn’t really fit in at all. Think about it – Campion and the floppy-hat lady, both spending their early-retirement lump sums by the look of them. And then the two American boys . . .’ They had fortunately also moved on, though their presence would probably not have prevented Elsie from continuing as she did. ‘East coast old money. Ivy League. Probably both taking a year out between graduate school and joining Goldman Sachs.’ It seemed quite possible – or, at least, no more unlikely than any other scenario. They had the perfect teeth and untroubled countenances that only the very best sort of money buys.

  ‘And the young lady with the tattoos?’

  ‘Bristol or Durham history of art graduate on a gap year. Decorating her arms in a way that she hopes will gladden the hearts of her parents on her return to Guildford.’