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‘Put a stop to them, Zahir. The girl was found by a hunting party, my staff offered humanitarian aid. I was not involved.’
‘I’ll do what I can.’
‘So?’ he persisted. ‘Who is she? Does she work for this company? Or is she just another sand-surfer, tearing up the desert as if it’s her personal playground?’
He hoped so. If he could write her off as some shallow thrill-seeker, he could forget about her.
‘The tourist industry is becoming an important part of our economy, Excellency—’
‘And, if so, why was she travelling alone, in the wrong direction to anywhere?’ Hanif continued, ignoring Zahir’s attempt to divert his attention.
Too inexperienced, too young to hide what he was thinking, his young cousin hesitated a moment too long as he decided just how much to tell him. Just how much he dared leave out.
Hanif moved to the nearest chair, turned, sat down with a flourish that no one could have mistaken for anything but regal and, with a gesture so slight as to be almost imperceptible, so imperious that not even a favoured cousin would dare ignore it, invited the boy to make up his mind.
‘Sir—’ Zahir swallowed, saw there was no help for it and finally admitted the truth. ‘Bouheira Tours say they have no idea who this woman might be. She does not work for them and they were adamant that she could not be a client. They have no women in any of the parties booked this week.’
‘Yet she was driving one of their vehicles.’ He waited. ‘Their logo was emblazoned on its side. Desert safaris, dune-surfing,’ he prompted.
‘I made that point.’
‘Who did you speak to?’
‘The office manager. A woman called Sanderson. The man who actually owns the company, Steve Mason, is in the east of the country, guiding a party of archaeologists who have come to look at the ancient irrigation systems.’
‘She was heading too far north to have been joining them.’
‘She may have been lost.’
‘Surely their vehicles are fitted with satellite navigation equipment?’ Zahir made no comment. ‘So, what explanation did this Sanderson woman have for the fact that a woman she’d didn’t know was driving one of their vehicles?’
‘She didn’t. She said we must be mistaken. That none of their vehicles is missing. She pointed out that there are other companies running desert trips. That, since the vehicle was burned out, we may have been mistaken.’
‘You were there, Zahir. Do you believe we were mistaken?’
Zahir swallowed. ‘No, sir.’
‘No. So, when you assure me that our casualty is to be looked after, what exactly did you mean? That the hospital will contact her embassy where some official will draw up a document requiring her to repay them the cost of medical treatment and repatriation before they’ll do a damn thing to help her?’
‘I assumed you would wish to have her treatment to be charged to your office, sir. Other than that—’
‘Always assuming that she can prove her identity,’ Hanif continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Her nationality. It might take some time, since everything she was carrying with her was incinerated. Who will care for her in the meantime?’
‘You saved her life, Han. You have done everything required.’
‘On the contrary, Zahir. Having saved her, I am now responsible for her.’ A situation he would have otherwise, but to wish that he hadn’t become involved would be to wish her dead and that he could not do. ‘Who is she?’ he demanded, as keen as anyone to see an end to this. ‘What’s her name?’
‘She gave her name as Lucy Forrester.’
‘Did she say where she was going?’
‘No. It was because she seemed so confused that they ordered a scan.’
‘And the doctor says she can be discharged?’ Then, on his feet and at the door before Zahir could open his mouth, he said, ‘Never mind. I’ll speak to him myself.’
‘Sir!’
Hanif strode down the corridor, ignoring the boy’s anguished plea.
‘Excellency, it is my duty to insist—’
As he turned on him the boy flinched, stuttered to a halt. But he bravely stood his ground.
‘You’ve done everything that is required,’ he repeated. ‘There can be no doubt that she’s British. Her embassy will take care of the rest.’
‘I will be the judge of when I have done everything required, Zahir.’ Then, irritably, ‘Where is he? The doctor?’
‘He was called to another emergency. I’ll have him paged for you.’
‘No.’ It wasn’t the doctor who held him where he least wanted to be, but his patient. ‘Where is she?’
There was another, almost imperceptible, pause before, apparently accepting the inevitable, Zahir said, ‘She’s in the treatment room. The last door on the left.’
Lucy Forrester was looking worse, rather than better than when he’d carried her into the A and E department.
In his head, he was still seeing her in that moment before she’d fainted, with long hair spread about her shoulders, fair skin, huge grey eyes. Since then the bruising had developed like a picture in a developing tank; her arms were a mess of ugly bruises, grazes, small cuts held together with paper sutures and there was dried blood, like rust, in her hair.
The hospital had treated her injuries—her right leg was encased below the knee in a lightweight plastic support—but the emergency team hadn’t had time to do more than the minimum, cleaning up her wounds, but nothing else. Presumably that was the job of the ward staff.
For now, she was lying propped up, her skin clinging to fine bones, waiting for someone to decide where she was going. She looked, he thought, exhausted.
Her eyes, in that split second before she’d lost consciousness, had been wide with terror. Her first reaction now, starting, as if waking from a bad dream, was still fear and, without thinking, he reached for her hand. Held it.
‘It’s all right, Lucy,’ he said. ‘You’re safe.’
Fear was replaced by uncertainty, then some other, more complex, emotion that seemed to find an echo deep within him.
‘You saved me,’ she mumbled, the words scarcely distinguishable through her bruised, puffy lips.
‘No, no,’ he said. ‘Lie back. Take your time.’
‘I thought… I thought…’
It was all too clear what Lucy Forrester had thought, but he did not blame her. She’d been hysterical and there had been no time for explanations, only action.
He released her hand, bowed slightly, a courtesy that would not normally be afforded to any woman other than his mother, his grandmother, and said, ‘I am Hanif al-Khatib. You have friends in Ramal Hamrah?’ he asked. Why would a woman travel here alone except to be with someone? ‘Someone I can call?’
‘I—’ She hesitated, as if unsure what to say. She settled on, ‘No. No one.’ Not the truth, he thought. Not the whole truth, anyway. It did not matter.
‘Then my home is at your disposal until you are strong enough to continue your journey.’
One of her eyes was too swollen to keep open. The other suggested doubt. ‘But why—?’
‘A traveller in distress will always find help, refuge in my country,’ he said, cutting off her objection. He was not entirely sure ‘why’ himself, beyond the fact that he had not rescued her from death to abandon her to the uncertain mercy of her embassy. At least with him, she would be comfortable. And safe. Turning to Zahir, he said, ‘It is settled. Make it happen.’
‘But, Excellency—’
Hanif silenced him with a look.
‘Go and find something warm for Miss Forrester to travel in. And send a nurse to clean her up. How could they leave her like this?’
‘It may be a while,’ his cousin said, disapproval practically vibrating from him. ‘They’re rushed off their feet in A and E.’
Lucy watched as her Samaritan impatiently waved the other man away before turning to the cupboards where dressings were stored, searching, with growing irritation until he finally emerged with a stainless steel dish and a pack of cotton wool. He ran water into the bowl, tearing off chunks of cotton and tossing them in to soak.
‘I’m not a nurse,’ he said, turning to her, ‘but I will do my best to make you more comfortable.’
‘No,’ she said, scrambling back up against the raised head-board. ‘Really, there’s no need.’
‘There is every need,’ he said. ‘It will take Zahir a little while to organise the paperwork.’ He didn’t smile, but he was gentleness itself as he took one her hands, looking up in concern as she trembled. ‘Does that hurt?’
‘No,’ she managed.
He nodded, as if that was all he needed to know, and began to gently wipe the damp cotton pads over her fingers, her hands, discarding the pads as each one became dirty.
And it was, after all, just her hands.
It was nothing, she told herself. She wouldn’t object to a male nurse doing this and the man had saved her life. But his touch, as he carefully wiped each finger as if they were made of something fragile and fine, did something unsettling to her insides and a tiny sound escaped her. Not nothing…
He glanced up enquiringly and she managed to mouth, ‘It’s okay.’
Apparently reassured, he carefully washed away the dirt and dried blood from the bruised back of her hand before turning it over to clean the palm. He moved to her wrist, washed every bit of her arm with the same care.
Then he began again on the other hand. Time was, apparently, of no importance.
He emptied the bowl, refilled it. ‘Fresh water for your face,’ he said, and she swallowed. Hands, arms were one thing. Her face was so much more personal. He’d have to get closer. ‘I… Yes…’
‘That’s too hot?’ he enquired, as she jumped at the touch of a fresh pad to her cheek, let out an incoherent squeak.
‘No…’ The word seemed stuck in her throat but she swallowed it down and said, ‘No, it’s just…’ It was just that her grandmother’s brainwashing had gone deep. Bad girls let men touch them. In her head she knew that it wasn’t like that, that when people loved one another it was different, but even with Steve she’d found the slightest intimacy a challenge. Not that he’d pressed her.
He’d assured her that he found her innocence charming. That it made him feel like the first man in the world.
Innocent was right. No one but an innocent booby would have fallen for that line.
While she knew that this was different, that it had nothing to do with what her grandmother had been talking about, it didn’t make it any easier, but she managed a convincing, ‘It’s fine…’ refusing to let fall tears of rage, remorse, helplessness—a whole range of emotions piling up faster than she could think of words to describe them. After a long moment in which the man waited, apparently unconvinced, she said, ‘Truly.’
‘You must tell me if I hurt you,’ he said, gently lifting the hair back from her face.
All she wanted was for him to get on with it, get it over with, but as he gently stroked the cotton over her skin it was just as it had been with her hands, her arms. He was tenderness itself and her hot, dry skin, dehydrated and thirsty, seemed to soak up the moisture like a sponge.
‘I’m just going to clean up your scalp here,’ he warned. ‘I think you must have caught your hair when you were struggling with the seat belt.’ It stung a little. Maybe more than a little because he stopped, looked at her and said, ‘Shall I stop?’
‘No. Really. You’re not hurting me.’ Not much anyway.
Pride must abide.
Words chiselled on to her scalp.
He lifted her long tangled hair, holding it aside so that he could wash the nape of her neck, and she gave an involuntary sigh. If she could only wash her hair, she thought, she’d feel a hundred times better.
‘Later,’ he said. ‘I will wash your hair tomorrow.’
She was smiling into the soft wool keffiyeh coiled around his neck before she realized that he’d answered her unspoken thoughts. She considered asking him how he’d done that. Then waited. If he was a mind-reader she wouldn’t need to ask…
There was a tap on the door and someone called out.
He rapped out one word. He’d spoken in Arabic but the word was unmistakable. Wait. Then he laid her back against the headrest and she whispered, ‘Shukran.’ Thank you.
She’d bought a teach yourself Arabic course, planning to learn some of the language before joining Steve. She hadn’t just want to be a silent partner. She’d wanted to be useful. A bit of a joke, that. She’d served her usefulness the minute she’d so trustingly signed the papers he’d placed in front of her.
Hanif al-Khatib smiled at her—it was the first time, she thought. The man was so serious…Then he said, ‘Afwan, Lucy.’
Welcome. It meant welcome, she thought. And she knew he meant it.
In all her life, no one had ever treated her with such care, such consideration, as this stranger and quite suddenly she was finding it very hard to hold back the dam of tears.
Obviously it was shock. Exhaustion. Reaction to the accident…
She sniffed, swallowed. She did not cry. Pain, betrayal, none of those had moved her to tears. She’d learned early that tears were pointless. But kindness had broken down the barriers and, embarrassed, she blinked them back.
‘You are in pain, Lucy?’
‘No.’
He touched a tear that lay on her cheek. ‘There is no need to suffer.’
‘No. They gave me an injection. I just feel sleepy.’
‘Then sleep. It will make the journey easier for you.’ Then, ‘I will return in a moment,’ he said.
She nodded, her mind drifting away on a cloud of sedative. She jerked awake when he returned.
‘I hope you will not mind wearing this,’ Hanif said, helping her to sit up, wrapping something soft and warm around her, feeding her arms into the sleeves.
She had no objection to anything this man did, she thought, but didn’t have the energy to say the words out loud.
‘How is she?’
