Maloney's Law by Anne Brooke Read Free Book Online Page B

and then he’s gone, through the gate and melting into the crowd. When I glance at the knife, that’s gone, too.
    ‘Are you okay?’ ‘What was that about?’ ‘Hey, you’re bleeding,’ are the American-twanged phrases I manage to pick out of the medley of foreign sounds and sympathy around my ears. Someone mentions the Tourist Police, but I wave the suggestion away. I try to get up, but stagger and almost fall again. A short, fat man in an orange robe catches me and all but carries me into the postcard shop. Here, I’m fussed through cards, kitsch, and toy camels into a small back room with a sink where the Samaritan turns on the tap, wets a roll of cloth in the stream of light brown water, and holds it onto the side of my head. I’m not convinced this will help, but I’m too dazed to argue. All the time he fires off a series of staccato comments I’ve no hope of understanding. After a minute of this, he’s joined by a tall woman who elbows him aside, looks at me, eases the cloth away from his hand, and shakes her head. She smells of lemons.
    ‘Chai, chai!’ she gestures to the fat man, and he vanishes back into the shop.
    When she places her fingers at the side of my head, I wince. She leans forward and gazes into my eyes, and I wonder if she’ll find anything there to her liking. Another torrent of Arabic, but this time the voice is softer. She smiles, then fills the sink with water. She takes a fresh cloth and dabs at the wound with an ointment that makes me flinch. Finally, she stands back, hands on hips and the look of a job well done on her face.
    ‘Shokran, shokran,’ I say, remembering the phrase at last. ‘Thank you.’
    The man reappears, holding a glass. The woman takes it and puts it to my lips, and I can smell mint. It scalds the roof of my mouth but after three or four sips the dizziness fades.
    When I leave my new friends, I take with me ten postcards, two stuffed camels, a Nefertiti fridge magnet, and a host of good wishes neither side can understand, but they’re said with sincerity.
    At Mena House, I sleep for five hours and nineteen minutes with no dreams, not even of Dominic. When I wake up, I rebook my flight home with reception, purchase a galabiya at the hotel shop, eat a leisurely early supper, and return to my room where I wait for night to come.
    Cairo never sleeps. Darkness never falls, and the shadows shift suspiciously. Men and women seem taller, more confident, and the haze of city heat makes what they do distant and magical. Add in the fact that people out at night are there for a good time and nothing more, even without the alcohol. The mix is just the right strength for undercover work. And, maybe, if I’m lucky, theft.

    I’m sitting at a table in a café near the offices of Delta Egypt with a view of the foyer and front desk. I’m wearing the galabiya, but there’s a bottle of Stella in my hand. Though I’m not drinking it, the chill from the glass soothes the heat rising from the bodies around me. Somebody has already taken the chair opposite with nothing but an exchange of nods. The air is rich with the smell of grilled lamb and spices. Now and then, I lean back from the window, look at the mass of bodies behind me, and smile. Not enough to trigger conversation, but just enough to make it seem, if anyone is looking, as if I’m part of the laughter and talking.
    All the time, I’m looking, too. In just four hours and twenty-one minutes, I’ve learnt a lot. There are two guards and one monitor in the foyer of the building that houses Delta. Approximately every forty minutes, one of the men will leave and, as far as I can tell, make a tour of the building. This takes between twenty and twenty-three minutes, so they’re not being thorough. I suspect some of this time is used for smokes or toilet breaks.
    The clock on the wall in front of me looms out of the smoke. I would give half of Dominic’s wages, maybe more, for a cigarette, but I gave that up and I won’t