“Actually, I landed on Tuesday.”
Ben stopped in his tracks. “I landed? Have you been married that long that you forgot your beautiful wife at home, George?” Ben was grinning, but his eyes betrayed genuine concern. “Where is Gail?”
George had honestly thought that they would have at least made it inside Ben’s home before the question came out. As it was, despite several days adjusting to Gail’s death, he hadn’t fully prepared himself for telling someone face-to-face about it. Telling his parents via the videophone had been hard enough, but somehow this was different. His bottom lip started to quiver and he fought to control it.
“George, what’s wrong?” he asked, the long pause too much for him. Before waiting for an answer, he pushed the door to his flat open and ushered his friend through. Closing the door behind them, he took George to the living-room and sat him on a long, black-leather sofa before repeating his question.
In front of the sofa, a large flat-screen television showed four different feeds simultaneously. Ben reached for the remote and turned the screen off.
Apart from the noise of Cairo, which still managed to filter through the closed windows, and the low hum of the air conditioning unit, silence descended on the room. “George, what’s wrong?” Ben asked again.
“Gail came here on Monday,” he began. It wouldn’t be so hard if he just told the story as it was; simply a series of facts. “She came to visit the Professor, because of the finding of the Stickman on Mars.” Ben’s eyes lit up at this. He was going to interrupt when George asked: “I take it you know about the Professor?”
“How could I not,” he gestured towards the television. “Apparently he was murdered by some petty thief on Monday. I kind of assumed that was why you came: to pay your respects.” He lifted his head suddenly. “And Gail? If she went to see him on Monday, was she hurt, too? Is she alright?”
The emotional nosedive that George had been in since seeing Gail’s body three days earlier had pretty much levelled out. From having been told that his wife was missing, to being confronted by the unwelcome news that she was dead, and then being informed by the police that not only was she the only suspect in the murder of the Professor but that her motive was the theft of a few books, he thought he had reached the end of the week with fairly thick skin. He had even managed to discuss funeral arrangements with Captain Kamal as if the punch in the face had never happened, and had looked into transporting Gail’s urn on his return flight. But now he realised that he had not yet fully opened up to anyone; the only person in whom he could normally confide was now gone, and he was a widower.
She was dead.
He was as low as he could get. Meeting face to face with a common friend, someone he had met with Gail and who had only known them as a couple, made it painfully obvious that a large part of him was missing. And now he had to tell this friend that Gail was dead, and that according to the police, she murdered the Professor, another common, if not so close, friend. He looked at Ben and tried to speak, but his lips and throat were too dry for the words to slide out, so instead he croaked.
As if reading his mind, Ben got up and returned seconds later with a glass of ice-cold water. He sat down again sombrely. “She was there, wasn’t she?” he asked. “She was with the Professor?”
George gulped down a mouthful of the water and nodded. It was easier like this, he thought briefly; easier for Ben to guess than for him to say the words.
“Was she hurt also?”
He nodded again.
“Is she alright?”
He shook his head slowly; tears welled up in his eyes. He’d shed so many over the last few days; quiet, private tears. But now they were building up in front of Ben, he tried to fight the urge to cry.
This was no easier than just coming out with it. So he told Ben everything. He told him about Gail’s cold body in the morgue, about how he’d punched a captain of Cairo’s police force on the chin, and about the alleged theft of books from the Professor’s office. He told him about the Amarna stickman on Mars, about how it had upset Gail, and how the Professor had asked her to come to Cairo as soon as possible to discuss it.
And he told him about Martín Antunez, the Spanish ESA employee who had been trying to get hold of Gail on Monday, and who on Wednesday had met George in Cairo and had been with him ever since. He even mentioned Martín’s short-lived abduction theory. He finished repeating himself, going over in disbelief his identification of Gail’s body, and how he had punched Captain Kamal in the head.
When he’d finished he felt drained, his soul empty like a reservoir after the breaking of a dam. He’d let his tears come out in floods, without holding back, for the first time since Gail’s death. He could easily have felt quite foolish at his emotional outbreak. Instead, he simply didn’t care; what had to come out had come out, and he sat limply on the sofa.
Ben sat rigidly next to him, stunned by the barrage of unwelcome news. After a while, George blew his nose with a tissue from a box that Ben had passed to him sub-consciously during his outburst. As if waking him from his trance, Ben looked up with a look not just of sadness but also bewilderment.
George looked at his friend as he finished wiping his nose.
“What?” he asked, querying Ben’s puzzled look.
“George. I am devastated by this news, but I’m also confused. This policeman said Gail murdered the Professor?”
George hesitated. “Yes.”
Ben raised both eyebrows and looked to his feet. “I cannot believe that the Gail I know would kill anyone, let alone the Professor, to steal a few books, no matter how valuable.” He shook his head slowly. “There is more to this story, George, I am sure of it.”
George didn’t know what to make of Ben’s reaction. What had he expected? Tears, screams, breaking down and beating the floor with his fists? He didn’t know, but he was sure it wasn’t this. “What are you trying to say?” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry, I know this isn’t what you need to hear,” Ben said. “But there are parts of your story that don’t add up. Firstly, was Gail so upset by the news of the Amarna stickman that she was concerned about your financial security?” George shook his head. “And assuming that she was worried about money, and did steal the books, why would she then run across town with them under her arm, aimlessly? Why didn’t she get a Taxi? There are hundreds of Taxis on those streets.”
“Because she panicked?” George suggested.
“How spontaneous is Gail?” Ben asked. He almost corrected the tense of the verb, but quickly dismissed the thought.
George shrugged. “Sometimes, very. That’s why we got to Egypt in the first place.”
“But only after she’d been thinking about what to do for her dissertation for several months!” Ben countered. “The Gail I know is very deliberate.”
At this, George had to agree.
“Let’s ignore the Professor’s murder. I am certain Gail would not do that. Let’s also ignore the theft. I can’t see a reason for it, nor any capability in Gail to go through with something like that. The last part is her running from the Museum, and ending up in a canal, having run away from the airport. Imagine for some crazy reason she can’t find a taxi. She gets lost. The navigation on her phone is broken. Don’t you think she might have called you?”
“Yes,” he admitted. He remembered checking his phone on Tuesday morning, and there had been no missed calls. He had been having a bit of a get together with some friends on Monday evening, but he hadn’t drunk much; he would have realised if the phone had rung. “She didn’t try to call me at all after meeting the Professor.”
“And accepting that she did steal the books, and that she did run away randomly, isn’t it convenient that she is then robbed herself, and a body is found clutching pages torn from those very books during the struggle?” He stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry, George, I’m getting carried away. This isn’t what you need hear.”