Death on Tour - Janice Hamrick [49]
He had just opened his mouth to say something, when a scream rang out across the marketplace. It started low and then rose to a volume and pitch that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Ben waved at his wife, who put her arms around Jane’s shoulders, and then he rushed outside.
I ran after him a second later, although if I’d followed my instincts I’d have curled in a fetal position behind a sofa and stayed there until someone blew the all clear.
The little market was total chaos. Tourists and vendors alike milled about trying to figure out what was happening. A second scream came from a little shop halfway down the row and we ran, arriving just behind Alan, who pushed past the circle of onlookers as if he owned the place. Where was Kyla? I looked around frantically for her, a panicked feeling in my stomach, but she appeared a few seconds later, running up from farther down the line of stalls. She had a packet of postcards in her hand. I heaved a sigh a relief, then turned to find out what was going on.
Alan returned from the interior of the shop, wading through the gathering crowd, his arm protectively around the shoulders of a woman who was sobbing hysterically. He said something to her, and she responded in rapid French. Seeing the blank, helpless look in his eye, I stepped forward.
“She says, ‘He is dead, dead and covered in blood,’” I translated rapidly.
“You understand her? Here, take her to the restaurant and stay with her. I’ll be right back.” He pushed her at me and vanished again.
“Where are you going?” I called after him in outrage. The nerve of the man, giving me orders. I looked helplessly at the sobbing woman.
Kyla joined me. “Here, I’ll take her. You follow Alan.” She led the woman away without a word.
I wriggled my way through the crowd, no longer worried about being rude or accosted by vendors. I ducked under an elbow and then peered over the shoulders of two men. Sometimes being tall had its advantages.
In this case, advantage might not have been the right word. An Egyptian man lay on his face between two racks of souvenirs. A small trickle of blood marred the back of his neck and stained the collar of his galabia, although there was not enough to drip onto the ground. Had he been shot? No weapon was visible. It didn’t seem possible that he could have died from such a small wound. Alan knelt on the dusty floor beside the body, looking grim. He checked for a pulse in the neck, then gently lifted the man’s hands, examining the palms and fingertips. He said something in Arabic to one of the bystanders who knelt beside him. Arabic. Alan spoke Arabic? How did a guy from Dallas, a widower taking a trip he and his dead wife had planned, his first trip to Egypt, come to speak Arabic? He looked up and saw me and for a moment our eyes locked. For a split second, I saw my own doubt and suspicion mirrored back at me, but then he quickly rose to his feet. Looking around at the pathetic scene one last time, he then reached for my hand.
“Come on. We should get out of here,” he said quietly in my ear.
I didn’t argue.
We hurried back across the open market to the restaurant where Kyla waited with the sobbing French woman. I knelt beside her and spoke soothingly in French, asking her where her people were.
They had wanted to spend more time in the monuments, she said, and I translated quickly for Kyla and Alan. She herself had grown tired and decided to come back and spend some time in the little shops. She entered the most quiet shop where no one waited, and no one was calling and shouting. She thought the shop owner must have stepped out, and she was very glad to get to look at all the petit souvenirs without the attention of the vendeur. But then she kicked something with her foot and saw him lying on the floor. Tant de sang. All the blood. She burst into sobs again, then looking up she saw her husband