The Moses Legacy - Adam Palmer [65]
‘Very well.’
He called for a female officer to escort her to the bathroom. Only when they got there did Sarit say, ‘I haven’t got any tampons or sanitary pads.’
The policewoman didn’t react.
Not wanting to alert the policewoman to the fact that she spoke fluent Arabic, Sarit spoke hesitantly and falteringly, like she had been taking lessons but lacked confidence.
‘Leisal adeiya ay al-fau’ad asahaya.’
The policewoman reacted to this. ‘Sa ahduru lekawa ahad.’ I’ll get you one.
And with that she left. Sarit knew that there was no prospect of simply walking out of there. There would be a policeman outside the door. But she had a few minutes to act. There was a window. It was high, but it could open. The problem was how to reach it.
The cubicle on the end was empty. She went in and stood on the toilet. She gripped the ledge of the window and pulled herself up, using all her upper-body strength and the tension of her legs and feet against the sides of the cubicle. With an almighty effort, she found herself perched precariously on top of the cubicle – its door and walls a couple of feet below the ceiling.
She pulled down the latch and opened the long thin window. Then she inserted her head and hands and then arms and began pulling herself through. Now came the tricky bit. She was thin enough to get through, but the problem was landing safely. The building was set over different levels and this window opened out on to a stretch of roof. But it was an eight- or nine-foot drop from the window to the roof.
Falling head first would probably break her neck. Of course if she slid through slowly and lowered herself as she did so, the actual drop would be less than that. And of course, she could also take the fall on her hands, albeit at the risk of a broken wrist or worse. But then she noticed some kind of a utility box against the wall. By putting her hands on this as she hung there, she was able to angle her body, swing her legs round and…
Yes!
She landed on her feet, albeit awkwardly, like a springboard diver whose dive had gone horribly wrong. But there were no points to be had here; it was all about escape and survival. Right now she was on a section of the roof. She didn’t know how long it had been, but she realized that if her escape hadn’t been discovered yet, it pretty soon would be. And escape was perhaps not quite the right word. She had escaped from the toilet, but she had not yet escaped from the building.
She looked for a way down, realizing that if there was a utility box on the roof then there had to be a ladder or some other way of reaching the ground. All large public buildings must have accessible roofs to enable work to be done. The question was where was it? And would it simply take her back into the building, which would almost certainly be locked down before she could affect a complete escape?
Then she saw it: a fire escape, diagonally across the roof from where she was standing. She raced towards it, but as she did she thought she heard someone shouting out to her in Arabic.
Chapter 49
Breakfast on board Walid’s boat was shakshouka – fried eggs in a thick sauce made from fresh tomatoes, onions and chillies, that he had bought from a riverside vendor. As they ate, they listened to the radio in the background. It was tuned to some local music station, lulling Walid and his crew into a state of restfulness. But it was coming up to the hour and the news came on.
Daniel and Gabrielle both listened out just in case anything was said about the tomb incident. The first two items were about local politics and the third was about the United States. But then another item came on that caught them by surprise.
‘Police in Luxor are looking for a Western couple after an attempt was made on the life of Akil Mansoor, the Deputy Minister for Culture and Head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Professor Mansoor was locked in a tomb together with the Western couple in an apparent attempt to kill him, but the three of them