The Arabesk Trilogy Omnibus by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

Author:Jon Courtenay Grimwood [Grimwood, Jon Courtenay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780575081321
Google: AsJSAgAACAAJ
Publisher: Victor Gollancz Limited
Published: 2007-09-13T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 33

22nd October

She wasn’t the first person to decide that Raf had engineered the departure of Koenig Pasha… Dr. Kamila was just more obvious about her suspicions than most.

“A poison-induced heart attack?” Raf raised his eyebrows. “Who said anything about a heart attack?”

“The local news. Were they wrong?” Kamila kept her tone several degrees below comfortable. One degree above the autopsy suite.

“Yes,” said Raf, “undoubtedly… For a start, to have a heart attack you need a heart.”

Behind him a man snorted, but when Raf glanced round the General’s old bodyguard, Hakim, was busy staring straight ahead.

“I’ll be with you when this is done,” Kamila said stiffly and returned to her scalpel and a plump woman largely hidden under a green sheet.

It was three months since Raf had been in Kamila’s autopsy suite. Then there’d been two bodies, one of them a stranger unrelated to his own narrative, the other the woman he was meant to have murdered. Now there were half a dozen. In El Iskandryia these days, even death was suffering from inflation.

“That man I sent…”

“In a minute,” said Kamila crossly, turning back to where the plump woman’s scalp had been sliced around the hairline and pulled forward, so it hid her face. A section of yellow bone beneath had been cut away. Whatever was in the stainless-steel dish beside the half-empty skull might look like minced jelly but was, Raf decided, undoubtedly something nastier.

“Now,” said Raf.

“As soon as this is finished.”

Raf clicked his fingers and pointed to the electric scalpel. “Take that toy away from Ms. Kamila.”

“Sure, Boss.” Hakim squeezed between two trolleys and held out a meaty hand. “If you would, miss…”

Very carefully, Kamila put the bowl and her scalpel on the nearest table, the double clink of metal on metal momentarily drowning out Raf’s sigh. She obviously hadn’t forgiven him the last time they’d met.

“The scalpel…” Hakim’s hand was still outstretched.

“Let it go,” said Raf and the sergeant padded silently back to his place. Ahmed, Raf’s other bodyguard, waited at ground level, at the top of the stairs. In the street outside, his official driver stood by the Bentley. It seemed that the only place Raf was to be free of guards was on the loo. And even that had been a battle.

At the mansion itself, he had anxious secretaries, keen assistants, more staff than hours in the day and all awaiting orders, with only Hani willing to disagree with him if she thought his ideas were bad. Raf seriously doubted if an idiot supported by a nine-year-old was what the General had in mind when he resigned and appointed Raf in his place. So far, it seemed, his greatest successes had come from doing nothing… Zero-input shadow play.

“Hakim,” Raf said. “Go join Ahmed. Understand?” The big man nodded doubtfully, then looked at Raf and shrugged.

“Is that an order, Boss?”

“Whatever it takes,” said Raf.

Hakim gone, Raf turned his full attention to Kamila. He was pretty sure the pathologist’s face showed open contempt, though that could have been his imagination, given that she wore a green surgical mask over her nose and mouth.

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