Sheba

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Kane still frowned down at the table, leaning forward, his weight on his hands. After a slight pause Skiros said, ‘You will come?’

Kane straightened up and nodded. ‘Sure, I’ll come. I’ll be there some time this evening.’

Skiros nodded. ‘Good, I shall tell her.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t look so worried. Perhaps she is only a tourist. Maybe she wishes to charter your boat to go spear-fishing along the reef.’

Kane nodded slowly. ‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ But he didn’t believe that was the reason – not for a moment – and, after Skiros had gone, he went back to the bunk and lay staring at the ceiling, groping back into the past, trying to place Ruth Cunningham. But it was no good. The name meant nothing to him.

He glanced at his watch. It was just after three, and for a little while longer he lay there; then, with a sigh of exasperation, he swung his legs to the floor and started to dress.

He pulled on his faded denims and a sweat-shirt and went up on deck. Piroo was lounging against the rail, head bowed against his chest so that only the top of his white turban was visible. Kane stirred him slightly with one foot, and the Hindu came awake at once and rose easily to his feet. ‘I’m going ashore,’ Kane said. ‘What about you?’

Piroo shrugged. ‘I think not, Sahib. Later, perhaps. I will row you across to the jetty and then return with the dinghy. It would be wiser. Selim might return.’

Kane nodded. ‘Maybe you’ve got a point. If he does, you’ll find my Colt underneath the pillow. Don’t hesitate to use it. I’ve got more friends round here than he has.’

He dropped over the side into the dinghy, and Piroo took the oars and pulled rapidly towards the crumbling stone jetty. When they reached it, Kane stepped on to the iron ladder and climbed it quickly. As his eyes drew level with the top of the jetty, he saw a woman sitting on a large stone a few feet away, watching him.

He moved forward and she got to her feet and came to meet him. She was dressed in an expensive white linen dress, a blue silk scarf was bound round her head, peasant-fashion, and she wore sunglasses.

When she removed them, he recognized her at once as the woman he had met on the Kantara the previous night.

She smiled uncertainly, and there was puzzlement in her voice. ‘You again! But I was looking for Captain Kane – Captain Gavin Kane.’

‘That’s me,’ he said. ‘You’ll be Mrs Cunningham. What can I do for you?’

She frowned and shook her head in bewilderment. ‘Mr Andrews, the American Consul in Aden, advised me to look you up. He told me you were an archaeologist. That you were an expert on Southern Arabia.’

He smiled slightly. ‘I presume, you mean I don’t look the part. Andrews was right on both counts. I am an archaeologist among other things, and I do know something about Southern Arabia. In what way can I help you?’

She stared out over the harbour, a slight frown on her face, and then she turned and looked at him coolly from steady grey eyes. ‘I want you to find my husband, and I’m willing to pay highly for your services.’

He reached for a cigarette and lit it slowly. ‘How high?’

She shrugged and said calmly. ‘Five thousand dollars now and another five when, and if, you find him.’

For several moments they stood looking at each other and then he sighed. ‘Let’s discuss this over a cold drink. I know just the place.’ And he took her arm, and they went along the jetty to the waterfront.

5

They didn’t talk much on the way to the hotel. Ruth Cunningham replaced her sunglasses and gazed about her with obvious interest, and Kane employed the time in studying her.

As they turned off the jetty and moved along the waterfront, he decided that Skiros had been wrong. She was not pretty – she was beautiful. The long slim lines of her were revealed to perfection by the simple linen dress as she walked. It had been a long time since he had talked to a woman like her – to a woman of his own kind.

The hotel was a tall, slender building with a crumbling façade and one narrow entrance that fronted on to the street. Inside, an ancient fan slowly revolved in the stifling heat, and he led the way across the entrance hall and into the bar.

There was no one there and the French windows which gave access to the terrace outside, creaked in the slight breeze from the harbour. Ruth Cunningham removed her sun glasses and frowned.

‘Isn’t there any service in this place?’

Kane shrugged. ‘There isn’t a great deal of action around here. Most people sleep during the afternoon. They figure it’s too hot to do anything else.’

She smiled. ‘Well, they say travel broadens the mind.’

He went behind the bar. ‘Why don’t you go and sit on the terrace while I get you a drink? There’s a wind coming in from the sea. You might find it a little cooler.’

She nodded, walked out through the French windows and sat down in a large cane chair shaded by a gaudy umbrella. Kane opened the ancient icebox that stood under the bar and took out two large bottles of lager, so cold the moisture had frosted on the outside. He knocked off the caps on the edge of the zinc-topped bar, poured the contents into two tall, thin glasses and went out to the terrace.

She smiled up at him gratefully when he handed her the glass, and quickly swallowed some of the beer. She sighed. ‘I’d forgotten anything could be so cold. This place is like a furnace. Frankly, I can’t imagine anyone living here from choice.’

He offered her a cigarette. ‘Oh, it has its points.’

She smiled slightly. ‘I’m afraid they’ve escaped me so far.’

She leaned back against the faded cushions of her chair. ‘Mr Andrews told me you were from New York. That you were a lecturer in archaeology at Columbia.’

He nodded. ‘That was a long time ago.’

She said casually, ‘Are you married?’

He shrugged. ‘Divorced. My wife and I never hit it off.’

Ruth Cunningham flushed. ‘I’m sorry I brought it up. I hope I haven’t upset you?’

‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘We all make mistakes. My wife’s was in assuming that university professors are well paid.’

‘And yours?’

‘Mine lay in imagining I could be content with the ordered calm of academic life. I’d only stuck it for Lillian’s sake. She set me free in more ways than one.’

‘And so you came East?’

‘Not at first. The Air Corps was offering a full-time flying course for one year, then four on the reserve. I did that. Trained as a regular pilot. It was after that I came out here. I was in Jordan with an American expedition six years ago, then I did some work for the Egyptian government, but it didn’t last long. I came to Dahrein with a German geologist who needed someone who could speak Arabic. When he left, I stayed.’

‘Don’t you ever feel like going back home?’

‘To what?’ he said. ‘An assistant-professorship trying to teach ancient history to students who don’t want to know?’

‘Has Dahrein anything better to offer?’

He nodded. ‘There’s something about the place that gets into your bones. This was once Arabia Felix – Happy Arabia. It was one of the most prosperous countries in the ancient world because the spice route from India to the Mediterranean passed through here. Now it’s just a barren waste, but up there in the hills, and north into the Yemen, is the last great treasure hoard for the archaeologist. City after city, some standing in ruins – like Marib, where the Queen of Sheba probably lived – others buried beneath the sand of centuries.’

‘So archaeology is still your first love,’ she said.

‘Very much so, but we didn’t come here to talk about me, Mrs Cunningham. Isn’t it time we got on to the subject of your husband?’

She took a slim gold case from her purse, selected a cigarette and tapped it thoughtfully against her thumbnail. ‘It’s difficult to know where to begin.’ She laughed ruefully. ‘I suppose I was always rather spoilt.’

Kane nodded. ‘It sounds possible. What about your husband?’

She frowned. ‘I met John Cunningham back home at some function or other. He was an Englishman from the School of Oriental Studies in London, lecturing at Harvard for a year. We got married.’

Kane raised his eyebrows. ‘Just like that?’

She nodded. ‘He was tall and distinguished and very English. I’d never met anything quite like him before.’

‘And when did the trouble start?’

She smiled slightly. ‘You’re very perceptive, Captain Kane.’ For a few moments she stared down into her glass. ‘To be perfectly honest, almost straightaway. I soon discovered that I’d married a man of strong principles, who believed in standing on his own two feet.’

‘That sounds reasonable enough.’

She shook her head and sighed. ‘Not to my father. He wanted him to join the firm, and John wouldn’t hear of it.’

Kane grinned. ‘Well, bully for John. What happened after that?’

She leaned back in her chair. ‘We lived in London. John had a research job at the University. Of course it didn’t pay very much, but my father had given me a generous allowance.’

‘To enable you to live in the style to which you were accustomed?’ he said, and there was something suspiciously close to amusement in his voice.

She flushed slightly. ‘That was the general idea.’

‘And your husband didn’t like it?’

She got to her feet, walked to the parapet and looked out across the harbour. ‘No, he didn’t like it one little bit.’ Her voice was flat and colourless, and when she turned to face him, he realized she was very near to tears. ‘He accepted the arrangement because he loved me.’

She came back to the table and sank down into her chair. Kane gently placed his hand on hers. ‘Would you care for another drink?’ She shook her head slightly and he shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

She pushed a tendril of hair back into place with one hand in a quick, graceful gesture and continued, ‘You see, my father was a self-made man. He had to fight every inch of the way and he told John pretty plainly that he didn’t think much of him.’

‘And how did that affect your husband?’

She shrugged. ‘I insisted on living in the way I’d been used to, and it took my own money to do it. John began to feel inadequate. Gradually he withdrew into himself. He spent more and more time at the University on his research. I think, in some crazy kind of way, he hoped he might make a name for himself.’

Kane sighed. ‘That makes sense. And then he walked out on you, I suppose?’

She nodded. ‘He didn’t come home from the University one night. He left a letter for me in his office. He told me not to worry. Something very important had come up and he had to go away for a few weeks.’

‘It still doesn’t explain why you’re looking for him here in Dahrein.’

‘I’m coming to that,’ she said. ‘I received a package four days ago from the British Consul in Aden. It contained some documents and a letter from John. In it he said that he was leaving on the coastal steamer for Dahrein. From here he intended to go up-country to Shabwa. He’d left the package with the Consul with strict instructions to forward it to me if he hadn’t claimed it himself within two months.’