In the Eye of the Storm (Storm and Silence 2)

‘Turn the page,’ he growled, glaring suspiciously at an elderly couple who were passing not very far from us. They looked about as likely candidates for spies as Mr Ambrose did for a loving husband.

I turned the page.

‘Seafood,’ I read aloud. ‘Lobster, crabs, oysters…’

‘Again! Turn the page again!’

Rolling my eyes, I did as he said, and started to read aloud again. ‘Map of the peninsula of-’

Then I realized what I was seeing. And the sharp kick from Mr Ambrose under the table a moment later brought it home with force. I glared at him.

‘That wasn’t necessary!’

‘I’d say it was very necessary,’ was his cool reply. ‘Read. But not aloud.’

‘Yes, thank you. I got that.’

I lowered my eyes to the menu again. There, nestled between two pages of the ornately printed lists of dishes, was another piece of paper. One that most certainly did not belong to the Hotel Luxor.

Under the caption Map of the Peninsula of Sinai, it showed a roughly triangular stretch of land, surrounded by water nearly everywhere, and only attached by thin strips of earth to the rest of Egypt in the west and Arabia in the east. Over the peninsula, snaky dotted lines wound from one end to the other.

I looked up at Mr Ambrose. ‘The lines?’

‘Caravan routes.’

I frowned. ‘Why are they so roundabout? Why aren’t they straight?’

‘Because most men prefer to ride around mountains rather than to the top and down again, my dear. There’s also the little issue of not dying of thirst. Oases seldom have the good manners to be arranged in a straight line.’

The arrogant son of a…! I was tempted to kick him under the table but, with admirable self-control, refrained from doing so. Instead, I looked down at the map again. There were dozens of crosses all along the dotted lines. What were those? Cities?

But then I saw the caption beside one of the crosses.

Robbery site

A cold shiver went down my back. So many… and at least twenty men dead for every cross on this map. This was going to be one heck of an adventure - more than I had bargained for.

‘What are we going to do?’ I asked, my voice unusually quiet.

‘We’ll be starting our enquiries tomorrow morning.’

‘Enquiries?’ I looked up. Mr Ambrose’s face was hidden behind his menu. For anyone who looked over, it had to appear as if he was intently studying his choice of seafood.

‘Yes, Miss Linton. You don’t think I intend to simply charge off into the desert, do you?’

No. I hadn’t thought that. There were always plans with him, and plans behind the plans.

‘There are agents of Dalgliesh in this city, remember? If we can find one of them, maybe encourage him to talk…’ One of his hands let go of the menu and, picking up a knife from the table, whirled it in a manner that said more than a thousand words. ‘If we can find out where the bandits are operating, our task will become much easier. That is when we will set out eastwards.’

My eyes flitted across the map, confused.

‘Why? Aren’t we supposed to be going south?’

‘Not from Alexandria, no. Most of my goods came in through another coastal city, Damietta. Since we want to retrace the caravans’ tracks as closely as possible, that’s where we’re going to start out.’

Blimey! This was like half a geography lesson! I found the word Damietta printed beside a big fat black blob on the map. Most of the dotted lines ended there - or started, depending on your point of view.

‘I see. And then?’