Death on Tour - Janice Hamrick [105]
“I’m sure it was at one time, but it was becoming all too real. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the main reason things got out of control. Flora at least wasn’t able to make cool judgments anymore. She should have stopped the operation the minute Millie Owens became a threat. In fact, according to Mohammad, that was one of the many scenarios they had worked out in advance. If any of the other tourists noticed or commented on anything whatsoever, the whole thing was supposed to be canceled, and Mohammad himself would swoop in to remove the item and replace it with something similar but very fake. But instead, Flora killed her.”
“Flora did it?” I’m not sure why I was surprised. Maybe because Flora had seemed fluffier and softer than Fiona, with her talon-like hands and stringy shoulders.
“Yep. According to Flora herself, she killed Millie, and Fiona took out the vendor in Abu Simbel. By then, Mohammad had joined the tour so that he could prevent that sort of thing, but you’ll remember he had to help carry Kathy Morrison to the first aid tent. While he was occupied, the two ladies took the opportunity to retrieve the diamonds. But the vendor refused to take the outdated currency they had.”
“Yes, what was that about? I heard them talking about that too, but I didn’t understand.”
“One of their many operations was a little money laundering. On Elephantine Island, they met with your friend, Aladdin, and traded him a load of Egyptian pounds for Sudanese currency, which they were to use to buy the diamonds at Abu Simbel. That transaction went without a hitch, except that Aladdin double-crossed them. A couple of years ago, the Sudan switched from the Sudanese dinar to the Sudanese pound. The dinars are now all but worthless. I suppose it might be possible to exchange them for pounds, but not without going through the Sudanese banks and certainly not without attracting attention. It was a lot of money.”
“So when they got to Abu Simbel, their money was no good?”
“Exactly. And the vendor wasn’t going to give them their diamonds. And again, they had a chance to walk away, to contact Mohammad, but they decided to act on their own. Flora distracted him by bursting into tears and when he leaned forward to comfort her, Fiona stabbed him in the neck. Flora was quite proud of her acting skills and was happily describing it all in gory detail. Fiona was frantically trying to shut her up.”
“I bet she was.” I gave a little shudder. “Horrible.”
“Horrible and crazy. Flora especially.”
“Did they say anything about my necklace?” I asked. I still thought of it that way. My necklace, heavy and warm against my throat.
“That was the final straw. All through the tour, you must have noticed over and over how strangers were approaching you and Kyla, making odd references to sisters and Utah?”
“Yes! What was that about?”
“That was the code for all the transactions Mohammad had lined up for Fiona and Flora. The parties involved were to look for and contact two sisters on the tour to pass money or goods. What no one foresaw was another set of sisters on the trip. I know you’re cousins, but you and Kyla looked more like sisters than Fiona and Flora do. Plus, who would suspect two little old ladies of being involved in anything illegal? The contacts, scanning the group for two sisters, fastened on the two of you every time.”
I thought about it. “The guy in the carpet shop—he asked me about Utah and wanted me to go in that back room. He scared me.”
“From his point of view, I’m sure he couldn’t understand why you weren’t cooperating. It must have been very confusing.” He gave a little chuckle.
“I saw Fiona with him as I was leaving. I actually felt sorry for her,” I remembered. “I thought he was going to con her into buying an expensive rug. What did he actually want from them?”
He shrugged. “No one knows. By the time the authorities tried to arrest him, he had vanished. And Fiona and Flora aren’t saying much.”
“So, the guy in the rug shop, the guy on Kitchener’s Island who called himself Aladdin, and the stall keepers