Knox imagined it was his sister, Bee, standing there.
He shook his head angrily. The girl was nothing like Bee. She was an adult. She made her own choices. Next time she’d know better. That was all. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the sea was clear behind him, put his regulator into his mouth, bit down hard and threw himself backwards to explode like fireworks into the womb-warm waters of the Red Sea. He resolutely didn’t look back as he led Roland towards the reef, staying a modest four metres deep, in easy reach of the surface should anything go wrong. A masque of tropical fish watched their progress intently but without alarm. Sometimes it was difficult to know which was the show and which the audience. A Napoleon fish, surrounded by a shoal of angels and wrasse, turned regally, effortlessly away. He pointed it out to Roland with exaggerated diving gestures; beginners always enjoyed feeling like initiates.
They reached the coral shelf, a wall of ochre and purple that fell dizzily away into blackness. The waters were still and unclouded; visibility was exceptional. He glanced around unthinkingly, and saw the dark hull of the boat and the menacing blurs of distant big fish in the deeper, cooler waters, and he felt a sharp twinge as he suddenly remembered the worst day of his life, visiting his sister in an intensive care unit in Thessalonike after the car crash. The place had been oppressive with the sounds of life support, the steady wheeze of ventilators, the dull, precarious pulse of monitors, the respectful, funeral-home whispering of staff and visitors. The doctor had tried her best to prepare him, but he’d still been too numb from his trip to the morgue, where he’d just had to identify his parents, and so it had come as a shock to see Bee on the business end of a feeding tube and all the other attachments. He’d felt dislocated, as though he’d been watching a play rather than real events. Her head had been unnaturally swollen, and her skin had been pale and blue. He could remember its waxy pallor still, its uncharacteristic flabbiness. And he’d never before realised how freckled she was around her eyes and in the crook of her elbow. He hadn’t known what to do. He’d looked round at her doctor, who’d gestured for him to sit down beside her. He’d felt awkward putting his hand on hers; they’d never been a physically demonstrative family. He’d pressed her cool hand beneath his own, had felt intense and startling anguish, something like parenthood. He’d squeezed her fingers between his own, held them to his lips, and remembered how he’d joked to friends about what a curse it was to have a younger sister to look after.
He didn’t any longer.
He tapped Roland on the arm and pointed upwards. They surfaced together. The boat was perhaps sixty metres away. There was no sign of anyone on deck. Knox felt a flutter of nerves in his chest as his heart realised his decision before his head. He spat the regulator from his mouth. ‘Stay here,’ he warned Roland. Then he set out in strong strokes across the crystal water.
III
Mohammed el-Dahab clasped his case protectively in front of his chest as the woman led him up to the private office of Ibrahim Beyumi, head of the Supreme Council for Antiquities in Alexandria. She knocked once upon his door then pushed it open, beckoned him through. A dapper and rather effeminate-looking man was sitting behind a pine desk. He looked up from his work.
‘Yes, Maha?’ he asked.
‘This is Mohammed el-Dahab, sir. A builder. He says he’s found something on his site.’
‘What kind of something?’
‘Perhaps he should tell you himself,’ she suggested.
‘Very well,’ sighed Ibrahim. He gestured for Mohammed to sit at his corner table. Mohammed looked around, dispiritedly assessing with a builder’s eye the bulging wood-panelled walls, the fractured, high ceiling with its missing clumps of plaster, the mildewed drawings of Alexandria’s monuments. If this was the office of the top archaeologist in Alexandria, there wasn’t as much money in antiquities as he’d hoped.
Ibrahim read his expression. ‘I know,’ he complained. ‘But what can I do? Which is more important, excavation or my comfort?’
Mohammed shrugged as Ibrahim came to sit beside him. He, at least, looked expensive, with his sharp suit and gold watch. He settled his hands primly in his lap, and asked: ‘So you’ve found something, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘You care to tell me about it?’
Mohammed swallowed. He was a big man, not easily cowed by physical dangers, but educated people intimidated him. There was something kindly about Ibrahim, however. He looked like a man who could be trusted. Mohammed set his case on the table, opened it, withdrew his framed photograph of Layla, laid it facing Ibrahim. Touching and seeing her image restored his courage. ‘This is my daughter,’ he said. ‘Her name is Layla.’
Ibrahim squinted curiously at Mohammed. ‘Allah has indeed blessed you.’
‘Thank you, yes. Unfortunately Layla is sick.’
‘Ah,’ said Ibrahim, leaning back. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘They call it Burkitt’s lymphoma. It appeared in her stomach like a grape and then a mango beneath her skin. Her surgeons removed it. She had chemotherapy. We thought she’d conquered it.’
Ibrahim rubbed his throat. ‘Maha said you’d found something—’
‘Her doctors are good people,’ said Mohammed. ‘But they’re overworked, under-equipped. They have no money. They wait for—’
‘Excuse me, but Maha said you’d found—’
‘They wait for her disease to progress so far that there’s nothing more they can do.’ Mohammed leaned forwards, said softly but fiercely: ‘That time is not yet here. My daughter still has one chance.’
Ibrahim hesitated, then asked reluctantly: ‘And that is?’
‘A bone-marrow transplant.’
A look of polite horror crossed Ibrahim’s face. ‘But aren’t those incredibly expensive?’
Mohammed waved that aside. ‘Our Medical Research Institute has a programme of publicly funded transplants, but they won’t consider a patient unless they’ve already identified a donor match. But they’ll not run tests for a match unless the patient is already in the programme.’
‘Surely that makes it impossible—’
‘It’s their way of choosing without having to choose. But unless I can finance these tests, my daughter will die.’
Ibrahim said weakly: ‘You can’t expect the SCA to—’
‘These tests aren’t expensive,’ said Mohammed urgently. ‘It’s just that the chances of a match are low. My wife and I, our closest family, our friends, we’ve all taken the tests, but without success. I can persuade others, more distant cousins, friends of friends, but only if I organise and pay. I’ve tried everywhere to borrow money for this, but already this disease has put me so far in debt that …’ He felt tears coming; he broke off, bowed his head to prevent Ibrahim seeing.
There was silence for a while. Then Ibrahim murmured: ‘Maha said you’d found something on your site.’
‘Yes.’
‘Am I to understand that you want
