Herring on the Nile Read online

  What Elsie’s snap judgements lacked in accuracy, they invariably made up in detail.

  ‘So there are eight passengers on the boat?’ I said to the purser, as much to make conversation as anything.

  ‘There are thirteen,’ he said, checking the list. ‘No, twelve. We had thirteen bookings but the final number is confirmed as twelve. In addition to Miss Watson and the seven of you who have just arrived, there are also two gentlemen sharing a cabin on the lower deck and two gentlemen in single cabins. They are already here. So, once we have everyone accommodated to their entire satisfaction, I shall inform Captain Bashir that he may set sail for Esna.’

  I was handed my key and Elsie hers. The box with the remaining keys in it was shut with a flourish and the box itself was then locked away. I too might have swung my small bag over my shoulder and set off unaided, but the purser had no intention of allowing such a breach in etiquette to occur twice on his watch. I accordingly followed my uniformed porter to the upper deck, where my cabin had been eagerly awaiting me for some hours.

  My luggage took only a short time to unpack, unlike Elsie’s large suitcase, the contents of which seemed designed to cater not only for all social occasions but also for extreme and as yet unpredicted climate change. I was therefore alone on the sun deck of the boat, watching the deceptively clear waters of the Nile oozing by, when I spotted a familiar face on the far side of the boat. Even at a distance the crookedness of his teeth was all too apparent as he broke into an insincere smile. In return I nodded as briefly as politeness allowed, but that was not enough to discourage him from ambling slowly in my direction. It was rather as if the Nile had just spewed up a surplus crocodile onto the deck – a rather scrawny crocodile in bright pink Bermudas, but authentically scaly. I suppose I knew deep down that I would run into Herbie Proctor again one of these days – I’d just hoped it would be later rather than sooner. I know very few private detectives – too few certainly to be able to say whether duplicity, parsimony and an ingratiating manner are essential qualities for a good private eye. Not that Proctor had ever, to my knowledge, been a good private eye.

  ‘Ethelred! I thought I’d probably find you here – out in the midday sun.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I said, ignoring his outstretched hand.

  ‘As in “mad dogs and Englishmen”,’ he added. His grin served only as an unfortunate reminder of some cheap dental work.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I did get the allusion.’

  ‘One of Flanders and Swann’s,’ said Proctor, with more confidence than accuracy. ‘Well, we’re two mad dogs out here together, eh, Ethelred? What were the chances of our turning up in the same joint again?’

  ‘Greater than I had hoped, clearly. What exactly brings you here, Mr Proctor?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t this a little expensive for your tastes?’

  ‘Not quite my usual holiday destination,’ he said. Herbie Proctor had the ability to make most things sound disparaging, though he rarely had the chance to dismiss an entire civilization in six words. He scanned the far bank of the river and was not impressed. ‘Load of smashed-up old stones in the desert. Great blocks of useless masonry.’

  I wondered whether to quote ‘Ozymandias’ to him, but decided not to waste my time. Proctor had in any case now taken out a very old mobile phone and was playing around with it unhappily.

  ‘Can’t seem to get a connection,’ he said.

  ‘The older ones don’t always work overseas,’ I said, surprised to be ahead, for once, of anyone on technical matters. ‘Or not outside Europe at least.’

  ‘Don’t they?’ asked Proctor, looking rather mournfully at the unresponsive device in his hand.

  ‘Are you expecting somebody to contact you?’

  ‘It’s not important,’ said Proctor, replacing the phone in his pocket, where it made an impressive bulge.

  ‘I take it that this is a working visit?’ I asked.

  He gave me a conspiratorial wink, then looked around theatrically before whispering: ‘Very perspicacious as ever, Ethelred. I do have a little job on, as it happens. Maybe you can help me. Can I talk to you in confidence?’

  ‘That depends entirely on what you have to say.’

  ‘I’m here to prevent a murder, Ethelred.’

  ‘That’s very decent of you.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it? My client has been kindly alerted to the fact that somebody wants to kill him. He thinks that the person threatening him may be on board this boat.’

  ‘Then he would do well to move to another boat entirely. That would leave you free to do the same.’

  Proctor eyed me, an irritating smile on his lips.

  ‘My client doesn’t frighten easy, Ethelred. A bit like me, you might say. And he’s not the sort of man you’d want to cross. He can take care of himself when he needs to, if you get my drift. My job, since he is travelling alone, is to be his eyes and ears. He just wants a fair fight with no surprises.’

  ‘Which of the passengers is he?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d like to be able to tell you,’ Proctor smirked, ‘but that will not be possible.’

  I made a quick tally of the male passengers – the problem of identification did not seem to be quite as impenetrable as Proctor implied. If the client in question was indeed travelling alone, that ruled out the two Americans, and also the two gentlemen sharing a cabin who had arrived shortly before we had. If he was male, then that ruled out most of the rest. Put bluntly it left me, Professor Campion and one other. It wasn’t me. I had just seen Campion and he didn’t quite fit the description of a man you would not wish to cross; in fact I’d have said he would have been safer to cross than most people, provided you were prepared to put up with a little scholarly petulance. I hadn’t met the second gentleman, but had noticed from the purser’s list that he was called Purbright. He might well be seven feet tall and built like a gorilla for all I knew. Time would tell.

  ‘Presumably your client is Purbright,’ I said.

  ‘He might be travelling under that name,’ said Proctor. His tone implied that I had used underhand means to obtain confidential information.

  ‘Why does he think his life is in danger, though?’ I asked. I was reluctant to continue the conversation longer than I had to, but professional curiosity made me ask. As I say, I don’t know many real-life detectives. And this was, after all, a research trip. Not a holiday.

  ‘He received a letter a week or two before he was due to leave England. A tip-off from somebody well inclined towards him. It said that a couple of people who did not wish him quite so well were on his tail and were planning to follow him here. That’s when Mr Raffles wisely contacted me.’

  ‘Raffles being the real name of your client?’

  ‘Precisely. Clever of you to spot that, Ethelred. I can see why you’re a successful crime writer.’

  I turned and looked at Proctor. It was not always easy to tell when he was being sarcastic and when he was merely being stupid – something that may well have helped him in his chosen vocation as a low-rent private investigator.

  ‘And why are you telling me all this?’

  ‘A further pair of eyes, Ethelred – that would be six eyes in all, including Mr Raffles’ own. Also six ears. Three noses. I’m good, but even I can’t be everywhere at once.’

  ‘The name Raffles is vaguely familiar,’ I said. ‘What has he done that might upset anyone?’

  ‘Successful businessmen make enemies, Ethelred. Pure envy, most of it. It is indeed a sad reflection on the society in which we live that honest citizens go in fear for their own safety.’

  Though that was possibly true as a generalization, it did not prove that Raffles was an honest citizen himself or that he had received a death threat on account of his integrity and charitable nature.

  ‘So, are we working together again?’ Proctor enquired.

  The invitation was like having my skin rubbed with slimy sandpaper.

  ‘Working with you before was not a happy experience,’ I said. ‘The on
ly good thing I can say about our previous collaboration is that it was brief.’

  ‘Always joking, eh? I could make it worth your while, though, Ethelred. A couple of crisp tenners has to be useful to a mid-list author like you.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ I said, ‘I have some work to do.’

  ‘Writing a literary masterpiece?’ The irony in his voice was unmistakable.

  ‘Stranger things have happened, Mr Proctor,’ I said.

  Four

  Q: Our readers are always interested in how writers work. Describe the room you are writing in now.

  A: It’s pretty plush actually. There is a large bed in the middle of the cabin and a couple of armchairs upholstered in blood-red velvet. There is also a rather ornate, brass-bound, mahogany bureau, on which my computer is currently resting. Good taste seems to be slightly different in Egypt. A door leads to a small private veranda, with a rather fine iron railing, from which I shall, in due course, be able to watch the world go by.

  Q: What books are currently on your bedside table?

  A: There’s an enormous bowl of fruit taking up most of it – complimentary I think. I also have my copy of Egyptology Made Easy. It looks pretty authoritative and has some nice pictures, though one pharaoh tends to look much like another – possibly because of centuries of inbreeding.

  Q: I always think crime writers must be very clever to think up all of those plots. How do you do it?

  A: Thank you. Most crime writers would agree with your general premise. In terms of plotting, I tend to do one of three things. Sometimes, like Agatha Christie, I offer up a whole crowd of potential murderers before revealing that the killer was the least likely of the bunch. Sometimes, conversely, I like to give lots of clues pointing to the real murderer early on. This tricks experienced crime readers into rejecting the genuine murderer as being far too obvious – the simple double bluff. Most of all, however, I like to present the reader with half a dozen dead certs, only to reveal at the end that it wasn’t murder at all. The only problem is when your readers don’t spot all of the twists they are supposed to. Readers who can’t keep up with you are a nuisance – though readers who are cleverer than you are a nuisance too. Actually, clever readers are a real pain in the neck.

  Q: And finally, tell us one thing about yourself that nobody will know!

  A: My bath towel has been arranged on my bed in the shape of a camel.

  That’s fascinating. Thank you very much, Peter Fielding!

  I had been looking forward to the boat’s departure – its first nosing out into the stream, with the water churning aft and the whole journey still ahead of us. An asthmatic coughing and rumbling from the distant engine room, and the oily plash of a giant paddle wheel alerted me to the fact that, with my own nose pressed against the computer screen, I had just missed that moment. Through the cabin window I could now see clouds of steam rising and swirling around the boat. As the river rolled majestically northwards, we were now battling south against the current, towards Esna. I opened the glass door onto my veranda, and stood for a while watching the flat landscape with its groves of ragged palm trees and low, square houses begin to drift slowly by. It was a romantic moment that I had once envisaged sharing with Annabelle. Well, I could at least share it with my agent.

  My knock on Elsie’s door went unanswered. I reasoned that she was most likely to be in the air-conditioned bar, demanding that yet more ice should be added to her drink. The bar was however deserted except for the floppy-hat lady. She was drinking a purple-coloured liquid that looked much like Ribena. Though the purser had mentioned her name, I had already forgotten it. We introduced ourselves. She proved to be called Jane Watson.

  ‘Did you see that ridiculous little man in pink shorts?’ she demanded. Even though I was not a foreigner, she chose to address me in a loud voice that would have been audible some way off. She clearly either shared Elsie’s minimalist approach to tact or believed that most of the other passengers were deaf.

  ‘Herbie Proctor, you mean?’

  ‘Oh, so you know him? Sorry – is he a friend?’

  ‘No, not a friend. I met him once in France. We were staying at the same hotel.’ There had been rather more than that to it, but that was as much detail as I now cared to remember. ‘He’s a private detective,’ I added.

  ‘Well, I suppose even private eyes must go on holiday from time to time.’

  ‘He says he’s here on business.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ I said. An early Christian martyr of the better sort might, perhaps, have forgiven Proctor his offer of a couple of ten-pound notes and decided not to blow his rather flimsy cover. I was not, however, at that moment, feeling remotely charitable. ‘He is here to prevent a crime, so he tells me.’ I raised my eyebrows and gave her a lopsided smile.

  I had naturally expected Jane Watson to share the joke, and to join me in mocking Proctor’s pretensions, perhaps returning to the subject of his ridiculous shorts, which certainly merited further discussion. But the colour drained instantly from her face. I realized that, farcical though I found everything that Proctor did, others might take him seriously.

  ‘Sorry– I really didn’t meanto alarm you,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine there will be any trouble on a boat like this – still less that Mr Proctor would be of any value to his client if there were.’

  Jane Watson was far from reassured. ‘His client . . . who exactly is that?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said lamely. I felt a bit like a comedian whose sure-fire gag has just died. Blowing Proctor’s cover had seemed fair game. But causing panic amongst my fellow passengers hadn’t been my plan at all. Moreover, informing the world at large that Mr Purbright was the intended target, when I had no evidence for that other than Proctor’s hints, now seemed unwise in all sorts of ways. ‘Look – forget I even mentioned it.’

  Jane Watson’s look was severe. ‘I have to say that you have greatly worried me, Mr Tressider. You might at least tell me all of what Mr Proctor said or I shall not sleep a wink tonight. That much you owe me, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m sorry – I’ve obviously already said too much . . . what he said was in confidence and—’

  ‘In confidence? I would have said Mr Proctor had already been very free in divulging his client’s affairs. If he can tell you, I would have thought you could tell me. Or was he telling you as a very close friend?’

  ‘Absolutely not. He’s no sort of friend of mine.’ I wished to clear that one up. ‘Mr Proctor’s client – the person he is protecting – is apparently a businessman travelling alone. I don’t think I should say more than that.’

  I smiled apologetically, but Jane Watson took no longer than I had done to solve that particular puzzle.

  ‘Travelling alone? The client then is either Professor Campion or Mr Purbright?’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Campion doesn’t strike me as a businessman. But—’

  ‘So, in that case, he is here to protect Mr Purbright?’

  ‘Proctor didn’t actually say so.’

  ‘I can’t think who else it can be, can you?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘This Proctor person – you are certain that he is just a private detective? Not, say, a policeman or MI6?’

  ‘MI6? Good grief, no. He’s just a cheap private investigator, operating more or less on the right side of the law. Most of his work is probably spying on cheating husbands and process serving.’

  ‘And you think Mr Purbright has actually employed him as some sort of bodyguard?’

  ‘I really don’t know – but if Herbie Proctor is right, then Purbright is merely an alias.’

  ‘An alias?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, let’s get this straight – Mr Proctor is convinced Purbright is a businessman travelling under an alias, and that he can in some way be of service to him?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But . . .’

  ‘How extraordinary,’ sai
d Jane Watson. For some reason I had cheered her up enormously. She had finally seen the joke and was now positively beaming.

  ‘Look,’ I said, wishing both to reassure her and prevent her from jumping to any more conclusions than she already had, ‘the most likely thing, it seems to me, is that Herbie Proctor is simply on the wrong paddle steamer and that Purbright is nothing to do with him. Please therefore don’t mention this to anyone else. Though I am reasonably sure Mr Purbright is in no danger, I have no wish to alarm the whole boat.’

  ‘I see. That’s what you’d like, is it? Yes, on reflection, I agree that it would be unwise to worry the others as you have me. That was thoughtless of you, though it has afforded me a certain amount of innocent amusement. And there is certainly no cause to trouble Mr Purbright, who I am sure wishes only to enjoy himself. We shall therefore both keep this to ourselves. How well do you know this Proctor person?’

  ‘Reasonably well. We spent a few unpleasant days together in a hotel in the Loire.’

  ‘Is he armed?’

  ‘I’ve really no idea, though I hope not. I should think it would be difficult to import a gun into Egypt.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said, frowning. ‘Well, at least we don’t have to worry about a shoot-out on board the boat. And does he have any idea who might be threatening his client?’

  ‘If he does, he didn’t tell me,’ I said.

  ‘Male or female?’

  ‘He implied there was more than one.’

  ‘More than one? This gets more and more interesting.’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Oh yes. There aren’t many of us on the boat. If Mr Proctor is right, then it would seem to me that about half of us must either be trying to kill poor Mr Purbright or to protect him. You alarmed me at first, Ethelred – I may call you Ethelred, mayn’t I? – but I am beginning to feel that your ridiculous Mr Proctor could liven up the cruise considerably.’

  ‘He’s not my Mr Proctor.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. Ethelred, let me give you some advice. If your life is ever in any danger, do not pin your hopes on a man in bright pink shorts.’