Sheba. Jack Higgins
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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.’
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