The Seventh Scroll (43 page)

"Last time we saw him, he went off on a scouting expedition onhis own,'

Nicholas explained. "He probably ran into the same bunch of shufta who raided our camp four nights ago."

"Yes, we heard about that too. Colonel Nogo here radioed in a report to Addis."

Neither of them had recognized Nogo in the crowd of men. It was only when he stepped forward into the light of the camp lanterns that Royan stiffened, and such an expression of loathing flashed across her face that Nicholas reached across surreptitiously and took her hand to restrain her from any indiscretion. After a moment she relaxed and composed her features.

"I am very relieved to see you, Sir Quenton-Harper.

You have given us all a very worrying few days," said Nogo.

"I do apologize," said Nicholas smoothly.

Please, sir, I meant no offence. It is just that we had a report from the Pegasus Exploration Company that you and Dr Al Simma had been caught up in a blasting accident. I was present when Mr Helm of the exploration company warned you that they were conducting blasting in the gorge."

"But you-' Royan flared bitterly, and Nicholas squeezed her hand hard to stop her going on.

It was probably our own carelessness, as you suggest.

Nevertheless, Dr Al Simma has been injured and we are I both badly shaken up by the accident. More important than that, however, is the fact that a number of other people, camp'staff and monks from the monastery have been killed in the shufta raid and in the blasting accident. As soon as we get back to Addis I will make a full statement to the authorities."

"I do hope that you don't think any blame attaches Nogo started, but Nicholas cut him short.

"Of course not. Not your fault at all. You warned us about the danger of shufta in the gorge. You were not present, so what could you have done to prevent any of this? I would say that you have done your duty in the most exemplary fashion."

Nogo looked relieved. "You are most gracious to say so, Sir QuentonHarper." Nicholas studied him for a moment longer. He seemed the most amiable of young men behind the metal-rimmed spectacles, so concerned and eager to please. For a moment Nicholas almost believed that he had been mistaken, and that it had been somebody else that he had seen in the jet Ranger, hovering over the avalanche site like a vulture searching for their dead bodies.

Nicholas forced himself to smile in his most friendly manner. "I would be most grateful if you could do me a favour, Colonel."

"Of course,'Nogo agreed readily. "Anything at all."

"I left a bag and one of my hunting trophies in the cavern under the Dandera waterfall. The bag contains our passports and travellers' cheques. Very grateful if you could send one of your men down to bring it up for me."

While giving Nogo directions on how to find his possessions, he derived a perverse enjoyment from sending his would-be assassin on such a trivial errand. Then he turned back to his friend so that Nogo would not pick up the vindictive glint in his eyes. "How did you get here, Geoffrey?"

"Light plane to Debra Maryam. There is an emergency landing field there. Colonel Nogo met us, and brought us -the rest of the way by army jeep," Geoffrey explained. "The pilot and the aircraft are waiting for us at Debra Maryam."

Geoffrey broke off and spoke to the camp staff in execrable Amharic, before turning back to Nicholas. "I have just arranged a hot bath for you and Dr Al Simma.

After that, a meal and a good night's sleep should work wonders. Tomorrow we can fly back to Addis. No reason why we shouldn't be there by tomorrow evening at the latest."

He patted Royan's shoulder, disguising his carnal interest in her behind a benign avuncular smile. "I must say I am rather pleased not to have to go traipsing down into the Abbay gorge looking for the pair of you. I hear that it's a pretty beastly part of the world."

explained to chase the goats off the emergency airfield at Debra Maryam. In the meantime Nicholas was stuffing the roll of dik-dik skin under the rear passenger seat. One of Nogo's sergeants you mind, Dr Al Simma, if I sit in front?

Terribly rude of me, but I am inclined to suffer from malde air. Ha ha!" Geoffrey Royan as they waited for three small boys to had made a night descent of the escarpment, and had delivered both his bag and the skin while they were breakfasting that morning.

Nogo gave them a smart salute as they taxied out in a cloud of dust. Nicholas waved and smiled at him through the side window, murmuring,

"Screw you, Nogo, screw you very much indeed."

When at last the pilot lifted the little Cessna 260 off the rough grass strip, the horizon over the Abbay gorge resembled a field of cosmic mushrooms, vast thunderheads reaching up into the stratosphere. The air beneath them i was turbulent as a storm sea and they were thrown about mercilessly in the rear seats. Up in front Geoffrey seemed to be faring no better. He was very quiet and took no interest in their conversation. There had been no opportunity for them to talk privately the previous evening, what with either Geoffrey or Nogo hovering within earshot at all times. Now with their heads close together, the engine beat covering their voices and Geoffrey occupied with his own queasy thoughts, they were able to concoct their story.

Geoffrey had made it clear that the British Ambassador in Addis was less than delighted with the inconvenience they had caused him. Apparently there had been a string of faxes from Whitehall since they had been reported missing. Added to that, the Ethiopian Commissioner of Police was anxious to question them. They had to make sure that they did not implicate Mek Nimmur in the killing of Boris Brusilov, and at the same time they must not alert or alarm Pegasus in any way. They realized that the reaction from that quarter would be swift and probably lethal if they gave the least suspicion that they knew who the other players were in Taita's game.

Most of all they must avoid antagonizing the Ethiopian authorities, or give them any cause to cancel their visas and declare them to be undesirable immigrants. They agreed to feign ignorance and play the role of innocents caught up in affairs which they had not precipitated and which they did not understand.

By the time that they landed at Addis Ababa they had prepared their story and rehearsed it thoroughly. As soon as the Cessna pulled on to the hardstand in front of the airport buildings and the pilot cut the engine, Geoffrey came back to life again, only a little green around the gills, and handed Royan down the aircraft steps with a flourish.

"Of course, you will stay at the residence," he told them. "The hotels in town are too dreadful to contemplate, and HE has a half-decent chef and a passable wine cellar. I will rustle up some togs for both of you. My missus is about the same size as you, Dr Al Simma, and Nicky will fit into my gear at a pinch. Thank God, I have a spare dinner jacket. HE is a bit of a stickler for form."

The British Ambassador's residence had been built during the reign of the old Emperor, Haile Selassie, before Mussolini's invasion in the 1930s. Set on the outskirts of the town, it was an example of the better colonial architecture, with a thatched roof and wide verandas. The lawns, tended by. a host of gardeners, were wide and green, contrasting with the brilliant crimson of the poinsettia. The mansion had survived both the revolution and the war of liberation that followed.

At the front entrance Geoffrey handed them over to an Ethiopian butler in a long, spotlessly white shamnw, who showed them to adjoining bedrooms on the second floor. Nicholas heard the bathwater running in Royan's suite next door as he lay in his own brimming bath, sipping a whisky and soda and twiddling the taps with his big toe.

Then there was the murmur of the doctor's voice from next door as he attended to Royan's knee.

Geoffrey's dinner jacket was loose round his waist and too short in the arms and legs, and his shoes pinched, added to which Nicholas was in need of a haircut, he realized, as he surveyed himself in the mirror.

"No help for it, now, he decided with resignation, and went to knock on Royan's door.

"I say!" he exclaimed as she opened it. Sylvia Tennant had loaned her a lime'green cocktail dress that set off Royan's olive skin marvellously well, Royan had washed her hair and left it loose on her shoulders. He felt his pulse accelerate like a teenager on his first date, and laughed at himself.

"You look absolutely scrumptious," he told her, and meant it.

"Thank you, sir," she laughed back at him, "and you look very dashing yourself May I take your arm?"

"I was hoping to carry you. Addictive activity."

"Those days are over," she told him, and brandished the carved ebony walking-stick with which the butler had provided her. She used it on her bad side. As they started down the long corridor, she asked in a whisper,

"What is the name of our host?"

"Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador, Sir Oliver Bradford KCMG."

"Which stands for Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George, right?" she asked.

"No," he corrected her, "it stands for Kindly Call Me God."

"You are impossible!" She giggled, and then became serious. "Did you manage to send-the fax to Mrs. Street?"

"It went through at the first attempt and she acknowledged. Sends you her salaams, and promises to have some information about Pegasus double pronto." It was a mild evening and Sir Oliver was waiting to greet them on the veranda. Geoffrey hurried forward to make the introductions. The Ambassadot-bad a bush of white hair and a red face. Geoffrey had warned them about him and his view on troublesome tourists, but his hostile frown started to fade as soon as he laid eyes on Royan. There were a dozen other guests for dinner apart from Geoffrey and Sylvia Tennant, and Sir Oliver took Royan's arm and led her around the group introducing her. Nicholas trailed along behind them, resigned by now to the fact that Royan had that effect on most men.

"May I present General Obeid, the Commissioner of Police," Sir Oliver said. The head of the Ethiopian police force was tall and very darkcomplexioned, suave and elegant in his blue mess uniform. He bowed over Royan's hand.

believe that we have an appointment to meet tomorrow morning. I look forward to that with the keenest pleasure."

Royan glanced at Sir Oliver uncertainly. She had been told nothing of this.

"General Obeid wants to know from you and Sir Nichola a little more about this business in, the Abbay gorge," Sir Oliver explained. "I took the liberty of having my secretary make the appointment."

"Just a routine interview, I assure you both, Dr Al Simma and Sir Nicholas. I will take up very little of your time, I promise you that."

"Of course we will do everything that we can to assist you" Nicholas told him politely. "What time are we coming to see you?"

"I believe we are meeting at eleven in the morning, if that suits you."

"A most civilized hour,'Nicholas agreed.

"My driver will pick you up at ten-thirty, and take you down to police headquarters," Sir Oliver promised.

At the dinner table Royan was seated between Sir Oliver and General Obeid. She was pretty and charming, and both men were attentive. Nicholas realized that he would have to become accustomed to sharing her company with other men; he had had her to himself for much too long. For his own part, Nicholas found Lady Bradford at the other end of the table rather heavy-going. She was a second wife, thirty years younger than her husband, with a pronounced London accent and an even more pronounced common streak, with a mane of dyed blonde hair and an improbable bust which overflowed her sequined cleavage.

An old man's folly, Nicholas concluded. It appeared that she had made herself an expert on the genealogy of the English aristocracy - in other words she was an arrant snob.

She questioned him closely on his antecedents, insisting on going back several generations.

In the end she called to her husband down the table, "Sir Nicholas owns Quenton Park. Did you know that, dear?" And then she turned back to Nicholas. "My husband is a very keen shot."

Sir Oliver looked suitably impressed by his wife's intelligence. "Quenton Park, hey? I read an article in the Shooting Times the other day. You have a drive there called the "High Beeches". Is that right?"

"The "High Larches",'Nicholas corrected him.

"Some of the best birds in Britain. That's what they said," Sir Oliver enthused, looking eager and expectant.

"I don't know about that,'Nicholas protested modestly.

"But we are rather proud of them. You must come and have a shot at them next time you are home - as my guest, Of course."

From that moment Sir Oliver's attitude towards Nicholas altered dramatically. He became affable and solicitous, even going so far as to send the butler to fetch a bottle of the 1954 Lafite.

"You have made a good impression," Geoffrey murmured wryly. "HE

doesn't waste the 1954 on anybody but the chosen few."

It was after midnight when Nicholas was at last able to escape from his hostess and rescue Royan from Sir Oliver and General Obeid. He led her away, supporting her as she limped along fetchingly at his side, avoiding Geoffrey Tennant's knowing and speculative gaze until they had negotiated the first landing of the staircase.

"Well, you were definitely the star of the evening," he told her.

"You had Lady Bradford purring like a cat," she counterattacked, and he was delighted to hear the faint tone of possessive jealousy in her voice. He had not been the only one.

At her door she solved any problems by offering him her cheek, and he kissed it chastely.

"Those bosoms!" she murmured. "Don't have nightmares about them." And she closed the door behind her.

He felt quite jaunty as he went to his own room, but as he opened the door he saw the envelope lying at the threshold. During dinner, one of the servants must have pushed it under the door. Quickly he tore open the flap of the envelope and unfolded the pages that it contained. His expression changed as he scanned through them, and he left the bedroom and went back to tap on Royan's door.

After a moment she opened it a crack, and peeped out at him. He saw the confusion in her eyes, and he hurried to allay her suspicions.