The Lost Army of Cambyses (29 page)

they tried to reach out to these people, to offer

them some hope of a better future.

He came to his feet.

'Do you like candy?' he asked.

For the first time the girl gave him her full

attention. 'Yes,' she said.

'Wait here a moment.'

He went outside to the sweet stall in front of the

shop, where he bought two large slabs of pink

sugar-cake. When he came back he found that the

girl had wandered further into the shop. He

handed her the candy and she began to nibble it.

'Do you know what's in there?' she said, point-

ing at a large brass lamp.

'I don't, no.'

'A genie,' she replied, mouth full. 'He's called

244

al-Ghul. He's ten million years old and can turn

himself into things. When the men came I wanted

him to help Mr Iqbar, but he didn't.' She said it so

innocently that it was a moment before Khalifa

realized the significance of her words. Laying his

hand gently on her shoulder, he turned her

towards him.

'You were here when the men came and hurt Mr

Iqbar?'

The girl was concentrating on her candy slab

and made no reply. Rather than push her he just

stood where he was, silent, waiting for her to

finish her sweet.

'What's your name again?' she asked eventually,

looking up.

'Yusuf,' he replied. 'And yours?'

'Maia.'

'That's a pretty name.'

She was examining her second candy slab. 'Can

I keep this till later?' she asked.

'Of course.'

She made her way round to the back of the

counter, where she pulled out a piece of tissue

paper and wrapped up the candy, putting it in the

pocket of her dress.

'Do you want to see something?' she asked.

'OK.'

'Close your eyes, then.'

Khalifa did as he was asked. He heard the soft

patter of feet as she came out from behind the

counter and hurried towards the back of the shop.

'Now open them,' she said.

He did so. She had disappeared.

He waited for a moment and then moved slowly

245

in the direction from which her voice had come,

peering to left and right into the gloom, until

eventually he spotted the top of her head peeping

out above the old wickerwork baskets.

'That's a good hiding place,' he said, leaning over.

She looked up at him and smiled. Slowly, how-

ever, the smile seemed to tighten and collapse in

on itself, and suddenly she was weeping un-

controllably, hot tears cutting lines through the

muck of her face, her tiny body trembling like a

leaf. He reached over and lifted her up, holding

her close against his shoulder.

'There, there,' he whispered, stroking her filthy

hair. 'Everything's going to be OK, Maia.

Everything will be fine.'

He began pacing up and down the shop, hum-

ming an old lullaby his mother used to sing to

him, allowing her tears to run their course.

Eventually the trembling began to subside and her

breathing returned to normal.

'You were hiding behind the baskets when the

men came, weren't you, Maia?' he said quietly.

She nodded.

'Can you tell me about them?'

A long pause, and then: 'There were three,' she

whispered in his ear. Another pause, and then:

'One had a hole in his head.'

She leaned away from him a little.

'Here!' she said, touching Khalifa's forehead

with her finger. 'And another one was big like a

giant, and white, and he had a funny face.'

'Funny?'

'It was purple,' she said, running her hand down

the side of his cheek. 'Here it was purple. And here

246

it was white. And he had a thing like a knife that

he hurt Mr Iqbar with. And the other two were

holding him. And I wanted al-Ghul to come out

and help, but he didn't.'

She was talking fast now, the story spilling out

of her in a breathless jumble of words: how the

bad men had come and started asking Iqbar

questions; how she'd watched from her secret

hiding place; how they'd cut old Iqbar and con-

tinued to cut him even after he'd told them

everything they wanted to know; how after they'd

gone she'd been scared because there were ghosts

in the shop, and had run away, and hadn't told

anybody because if her mother had known she

was with Iqbar rather than out begging she would

have beaten her.

Khalifa listened quietly, stroking the girl's hair,

allowing her to tell the story in her own way,

slowly piecing together the narrative from her

rambling commentary. When, finally, she had

finished speaking, stopping suddenly in the middle

of a sentence like a toy whose battery has run out,

he lifted her onto the counter and, removing his

handkerchief, dabbed her eyes dry. She pulled out

her second piece of sugar candy and began

nibbling at its corner.

'You mustn't be cross with al-Ghul, you know,'

he said, wiping away the snot beneath her nose.

'I'm sure he wanted to help. But he couldn't get

out of his lamp, you see.'

She looked up at him over her candy. 'Why?'

'Because a genie can only come out of his lamp

if someone rubs it. You have to summon him into

our world.'

247

Her brow furrowed as she absorbed this in-

formation, and then a small smile curled across

her mouth, as though a friend whom she had

thought had wronged her had somehow proved to

be loyal after all.

'Shall we rub the lamp now?' she asked.

'Well, we could,' replied Khalifa, 'but you have

to remember that you can only summon a genie

three times. And it would be a shame to summon

him for no reason, wouldn't it?'

Again the girl's brow furrowed.

'Yes,' she said eventually. And then, almost as

an afterthought, 'I like you.'

'And I like you too, Maia. You're a very brave

girl.'

He waited a moment and then added, 'Maia, I

need to ask you some questions.'

She didn't reply immediately, just bit off another

piece of candy and started swinging her legs so

that the heels banged against the front of the

counter.

'You see, I want to catch the people who hurt

Mr Iqbar. And I think you can help me. Will you

help me?'

Her heels continued to thud metronomically

against the counter-front.

'OK,' she said.

He heaved himself up beside her. She snuggled

up against him.

'You said that the bad men wanted something

from Mr Iqbar, Maia. Can you remember what it

was?'

She thought for a moment and then shook her

head.

248

'Are you sure?'

Again a shake of the head.

'Can you remember what Mr Iqbar told the

men? What he said to them when they were hurt-

ing him?'

'He said it was sold,' she replied.

'And who did he say he'd sold it to? Can you

remember?'

She looked down and screwed up her face,

thinking, watching her feet as they rose and fell.

When she eventually looked up at him her ex-

pression was apologetic.

'It's OK,' he said, stroking her hair. 'You're

doing fine. Just fine.'

He needed to help her more. Give her some

clues to jog her memory. He thought about his

earlier conversation with Tauba and decided to try

a long shot.

'Did Mr Iqbar say he'd sold this thing to an

Englishman?'

A sudden, vigorous nod.

'Did he say he'd sold it to an Englishman who

was working at a place called Saqqara?' He said

the word slowly, spelling it out. There was a brief

pause and then another nod. He decided to

backtrack.

'Maia, can you remember a man coming into

this shop a few days ago?'

He had seen Professor Mullray lecture a couple

of times at the American University, years ago, and

scoured his brain now for an image of the man.

'He would have been a tall man, Maia. Old.

With lots of white hair, and funny little round

glasses and . . .'

249

She interrupted him, excited. 'He could pull his

thumb off!' she cried. 'It was funny.'

He had come into the shop several days ago, she

explained, and while Iqbar had gone to look for

something in the room at the back, he had asked

her if she wanted to see a magic trick and when

she had said, 'Yes!' he had gripped his thumb and

pulled it right off his hand. It had made her laugh,

she said.

'And did he buy something from Mr Iqbar?'

asked Khalifa.

She worked one of her fingers up into her

nostril. 'A picture,' she said.

'A picture?'

She removed the finger, its tip glistening, and

drew a square on the counter-top.

'It was like this. There were snakes along the

bottom. And . . .' She paused, searching for the

right word. '. . . shapes,' she said eventually.

Shapes, thought Khalifa. Shapes. It could be

hieroglyphs. An object with hieroglyphs on it.

'I helped Mr Iqbar wrap it up,' the girl con-

tinued. 'In a box. I always helped him wrap things

up.'

She bit into her candy. Khalifa slipped from the

counter and began pacing up and down the shop.

These are the pieces of the jigsaw, he thought to

himself: Nayar comes to Cairo and sells some

artefact to Iqbar. Mullray buys it from Iqbar and

takes it back to Saqqara. Nayar is killed. Iqbar is

killed. Mullray dies of a heart attack, which might

or might not be a coincidence. Mullray's daughter

comes to Saqqara and removes the object. People

unknown try to stop her.

250

Far from becoming clearer, the whole thing

seemed more confused than ever. What was

Mullray doing handling stolen antiquities? What

exactly had happened yesterday at Saqqara? How

was Mullray's daughter involved?

The object, he thought to himself. That's the

key. What is this object everyone wants so badly?

What is it? What? What?

He turned back to the girl. There was no point

asking her about the picture again. Clearly she'd

told him everything she could about it. The only

other possibility was that she knew of other

artefacts Iqbar had received from Nayar and

which might, just might, still be on the premises

somewhere.

'Maia,' he asked gently, 'did Mr Iqbar have

a secret hiding place here in the shop? A

special place where he put all his important

things?'

She didn't reply, her eyes revolving away from

his and coming to rest on her knees. Something

about her manner – the tightness of her mouth,

her clenched fists – told him his question had

struck a chord.

'Please help me, Maia. Please.'

Still she didn't say anything.

'I think Mr Iqbar would want you to tell me,' he

said, taking her hands. 'Because if you don't I can't

catch the people who did those bad things to him.'

She was silent for a moment longer and then

looked up at him.

'If I show you where it is can I have al-Ghul's

lamp?'

Khalifa smiled and lifted her to the ground.

251

'That sounds like a fair deal to me. You show

me the hiding place, you get the genie.'

The girl chuckled, pleased with the bargain,

and, taking Khalifa's hand, pulled him into the

room at the back of the shop.

'I'm the only person in the world who knows

about it,' she said, going up to the wooden

guardian statue in the corner of the room. 'Even

the ghosts don't know. It's a secret.'

The statue was black, with a gold headdress,

staff and sandals, and a splayed gold kilt. The girl

placed her hand on the underside of the kilt, which

appeared to be solid wood, and pushed hard.

There was a faint click and a hidden drawer

slowly descended, like a clip from the butt of a

pistol. The girl took it from its slot and laid it on

the floor, then turned back to the statue and care-

fully unscrewed one of its toes, revealing a cavity

from which she removed a small metal key. This

she inserted into a lock in the lid of the drawer,

turning it twice and opening it.

'Good, isn't it?' she said.

'It certainly is,' said Khalifa, kneeling beside her.

'Very good.'

The drawer was divided into two compart-

ments. In one was a thick roll of banknotes, some

legal documents and a jar full of nuggets of uncut

turquoise. In the other was a cloth bundle done up

with string. Khalifa removed the bundle and

untied the string, letting out a low whistle when he

saw what was inside.

There were seven objects: an iron dagger with a

rough leather strip wrapped around its handle; a

silver amulet in the shape of a Djed pillar; a gold

252