Chapter Nine
Everyone piled out of the Uber and stood staring at the rented Hyundai Accent that was still parked at the end of the alley in Brixton.
“Looks okay,” Rafer said.
“Just like we left it,” Harley said. “Probably the bad guys didn’t even know it was our car.”
“Yeah, probably,” Rafer said.
No one made a move.
“Do you think we should check for a bomb?” Harley asked.
Gabriela thought a bomb was unlikely. She thought an AirTag planted somewhere on the car was a good possibility but not a threat. She was no longer in possession of the stone. There was no reason to track her… or blow her up.
“I don’t think we have to worry about a bomb,” she said.
“Yeah, but maybe someone should check anyway,” Harley said. “I’d do it, but I don’t know what a bomb would look like.”
“I’d do it, but I didn’t bring my bomb detection mirror with me,” Rafer said.
Gabriela unlocked the car, got behind the wheel, and started the car. “No bomb,” she said.
Rafer and Harley got into the car and Gabriela drove out of the alley and parked in front of John Mackey’s local Brixton pub.
There wasn’t a lot of traffic at this time of day, and the pub was open but empty.
A lone bartender was polishing glasses behind the bar.
Gabriela guessed the woman was in her midforties.
Dark hair pulled back. Slim. Pretty. She looked up when Gabriela, Rafer, and Harley walked in.
Gabriela cut her eyes to Harley. “This looks like your playpen. Do your thing.”
Harley grinned. “Yes ma’am.”
Gabriela and Rafer went to the end of the bar and Harley settled himself on a stool more to the middle.
The bartender gravitated to Harley. “What’s up with your friends? Don’t want to sit with you?”
“They have business to discuss,” Harley said. “I’m a third wheel.” He sent her his most endearing, slightly self-conscious smile.
“Would a pint help?” she asked him.
“Definitely.” The smile widened a little. “I’m Henry.”
She nodded and drew him his ale. “You’re American.”
“All the way,” he said. “And I bet you’re British and your name is Fiona.”
She placed the glass on a cardboard coaster in front of him. “Not even close.”
“Matilda.”
“No.”
“Petunia.”
She laughed. “My God, no. Julia.”
“That was my next guess,” Harley said.
Julia shifted her attention to Rafer and Gabriela. “Can I get you something?”
“Guinness,” Rafer said.
“Nothing for me,” Gabriela said. “I’m driving.”
Julia drew a Guinness and moved back to Harley.
“What brings you to Brixton?”
“A friend of a friend. And sad to say until I met you the day was a complete bust. I can’t find the friend. My wife left me. And my dog died.”
“Truly?”
“Not entirely. My wife didn’t leave me. I’m not married. I’ve never been married, but I thought that might sound like a failure.”
“And the dog?”
“That part’s true, but he died twenty years ago.”
“So sad,” Julia said. “What about the friend?”
“That’s real. He isn’t actually a friend. More of a friend of a cousin. I was looking him up as a favor, but I can’t find him. Turns out he’s no longer at his Brixton address.”
“So, you’re drowning your sorrows in my pub.”
Harley gave her his thousand-watt smile. “It was meant to be. What’s your story? Are you married? Do you have a dog? Did he die?”
“Who’s your friend? Maybe I know him.”
“Leon Blake.”
“He was a regular for a while. Fancied Foster’s.
Beyond that I can’t tell you much. He showed up about six months ago.
Was friendly with John Mackey. They both worked at the museum.
” She gave her head a small shake. “Horrible about John. He was a good man. He didn’t deserve what he got.
” She resumed polishing glasses. “You probably don’t know about him.
He was shot and killed on the way home from the pub one night.
Don’t think they ever found out who did it. They said it was a random robbery.”
“Was Leon Blake with him when it happened?”
“No. Blake wasn’t in that night. And he disappeared a couple days later. Stopped coming here. I thought maybe it was just bad memories keeping him away, but it sounds like he left town altogether.”
“So, he didn’t say where he was going?”
“No. Nothing. He and John were pretty tight, but he didn’t socialize a lot beyond that. And he wasn’t a flirt, like you.”
“I’m not a flirt,” Harley said. “I’m in love.”
“Nice, but I’d rather have a generous tip,” Julia said.
“I’m crushed,” Harley said, hand over heart. He finished his pint, blew Julia a kiss, and left her twenty quid.
Rafer and Gabriela joined Harley outside.
“No new information, except that Leon Blake wasn’t in the pub the night John Mackey was shot,” Harley said. “He was a bit of a loner. Not much of a flirt, either.”
“Moving on,” Gabriela said, getting back behind the wheel. “Next stop is Blake’s rental.”
Gabriela drove three blocks, turned left, and double-parked in front of Blake’s town house.
“Just to review, Blake was renting the top floor of this house, and the owner lives on the ground floor. Melvin Chessy. Age seventy-nine. Widowed.” She unbuckled her seat belt.
“Someone is walking around in the front room. I can see him through the window. Wait here. If he has a ferocious dog, I’ll give you a signal and you can send Harley in. ”
Melvin Chessy answered on the third ring. He was rail thin with a ruddy complexion, blue eyes, and white hair. He smiled when he saw Gabriela.
“Yes, miss?” he said.
“I’m looking for Leon Blake,” Gabriela said.
“I’m afraid he’s gone,” Chessy said. “He settled his account and moved out three weeks ago.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Gabriela said, handing him her card. “I needed to speak to him about a claim he filed. Would it be possible to see his flat?”
“I’m afraid it’s already rented. There’s a nice lady living in it.”
“Did he leave a forwarding address?”
“No, but he said he was going out of the country. Had a good job offer somewhere.”
“Did he have any friends that visited him?”
“Only one. Not that I’m nosy, but I can’t help seeing things. A couple days before Mr. Blake left, a man came to visit. Didn’t stay long. I can’t remember anyone else ever stopping by.”
“Did you get the man’s name?”
“No, but I heard Mr. Blake call him Fooze. Like ‘booze.’ I thought that was odd. And then I heard the man say he was leaving for Egypt. They were talking in the stairwell that goes to the apartment, and the sound carries into my front room. I couldn’t hear all of it.
Just the Egypt part at the end.” His eyes opened wide.
“Maybe that’s where Mr. Blake went. Maybe his job was in Egypt. ”
“Can you describe this visitor? Was he an Englishman?”
“Hard to say if he was an Englishman. They come in all shapes and sizes these days. This gentleman spoke with an accent of some sort.”
“Did he have a scar on his face?”
“I didn’t see his face. I just saw the back of him when he left. He got into one of those little Mini cars.”
Gabriela thanked Chessy and returned to the car.
“That was fast,” Rafer said.
Gabriela pulled away from the curb. “I couldn’t get in to see the apartment. It was already rented.”
“Did you get a forwarding address?”
“No, but Mr. Chessy said that a couple days before Blake moved out, he had a visitor. Male. Named Fooze. And Chessy heard Fooze say that he was going to Egypt.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt,” Harley said.
“You’re going to get your wish,” Gabriela said. “I need to go back to the hotel and do some research. I’ve been to Alexandria and Cairo. Short trips. All business. I don’t know much about the rest of the country.”
“I’m thinking there’s a lot of sand,” Harley said.
And a lot of history, Gabriela thought. Her fascination with ancient Egypt was second only to her obsession with pirates.
“I need specific information about the sarcophagus,” she said to Harley. “Tut had a stone sarcophagus and three inner nesting coffins. I couldn’t find any information on his brother’s sarcophagus. I also want the exact location and time of the theft.”
“I don’t have much information to share,” Harley said. “I was immediately cut out of the loop. All I know is that it wasn’t actually the sarcophagus. It was the inner coffin. Solid gold. It went missing two weeks after the Rosetta Stone was stolen. And the theft occurred in Cairo.”
“Do you know where in Cairo? Was it taken from the Grand Egyptian Museum?”
Harley shrugged. “I don’t know. The only report I saw is the one in the file I gave you. It was generated by the bank’s security officer.”
It was ten o’clock at night and the remnants of Gabriela’s room service dinner were still on the small writing desk in her room. A bottle of red wine and a selection of English cheeses and crispbreads were sharing space with Gabriela’s laptop.
She was sitting back, relaxed in her desk chair, looking around the room, thinking Tut would have found it to be comfortable.
He would have liked the mix of colors and the art selections.
He would have been in awe of electricity.
And he would have thought the hotel bed was large and luxurious compared to the usual pharaoh bed of woven reeds stretched between four carved posts.
At the time of his death, he was active but unhealthy, suffering from malaria and walking with a limp because of a deformed foot.
Unfortunately, when you’re descended from the gods and need to keep the bloodlines pure, the inbreeding doesn’t make for robust offspring. She didn’t know about the brother.
She’d studied some maps of Cairo and its surroundings by way of a self-refresher course in Egyptian geography. The city was part of a sprawling megalopolis that covered both sides of the Nile. There were over twelve million people in greater Cairo. The majority were Muslim.
She’d been to Cairo several times over the last five years.
In her experience, Egyptians were friendly and eager to help a stranger.
The city was noisy and dusty. Parts of it resembled any large city, with museums and hotels and high-rise housing and office buildings.
And other parts of it were filled with stray cats and dogs that picked through the garbage that collected in streets and on the edges of sidewalks.
Buildings were crammed together. Construction was everywhere.
The old mixed with the new. There were shopping malls and ancient bazaars, and there was no such thing as a free picture of a camel.
Streets were congested with cars and donkey carts that miraculously were able to coexist. It was safe for tourists because there were heavily armed police and soldiers everywhere.
It was August and very pleasant in London.
Cairo would be hotter than hell. She looked forward to going back.