Read Online Shadows on the Nile by Kate Furnivall - Free Book Online Page B

and banners was due to arrive for a mass gathering in Hyde Park the following Tuesday, 27th October. But rumours were spreading already. That it was Communist-led. That they intended to smash the government. That London was in danger. Panic was seeping under the closed doors of government offices throughout London. Here in the slums of the East End the mood was sour, and this close to Archie, Jessie could see the anger in his eyes. But there was something else there, too. Shame. That was it, a dark grey wingof shame.
    ‘The police will be waiting for them,’ she warned in a voice too quiet for the men in the next room to hear.
    ‘That’s why you must tell no one. Promise me, Jess.’
    She nodded. ‘Of course I won’t. But you know you are taking a risk.’
    He leaned his back against the door, and kicked a cigarette butt that lay squashed on the floor. ‘Someone has to. Poor bastards. I am ashamed of this government.’ He raised his eyes to hers. ‘Ashamed of my father’s part in it.’
    For a moment in the miniscule kitchen with its greasy walls, they exchanged a look, as a thread of understanding stretched between them. It was what had always bound them together as friends, their mutual disconnection from their fathers. Never mentioned. Never discussed. As if words would inflict too much damage, spill too much blood.
    ‘I’m sorry, Archie.’ Jessie lightly touched her fingers to his sleeve. ‘But don’t get yourself into trouble. Those men are spoiling for a fight.’
    ‘Wouldn’t you be?’
    ‘I don’t want that pretty nose of yours to get into an argument with a policeman’s truncheon.’
    The muscles of his face relaxed, making him suddenly younger, turning him into the boy who used to be the conker king at school. He reached out for the dented tin kettle, ran water into it and placed it on a gas ring, all without moving more than a foot.
    ‘So,’ he rumpled his fiery hair and gave Jessie his full attention, ‘what has that bally idiot brother of yours done now?’
    ‘He has disappeared.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Vanished.’
    He laughed, a burst of sound that stirred up the chill air.
    ‘Don’t laugh,’ she told him seriously. ‘He’s been gone a week. Nobody has seen him since Friday of last week.’
    ‘Last Friday?’
    ‘Yes. Do you know where he is?’
    ‘Damn me! Vanished, you say.’
    ‘Do you know where he went on that Friday night?’
    ‘Yes, actually I do.’ He held his hand out to the blue flameof the gas burner for warmth. ‘The same as he did most weekends. He was obsessed with it.’
    ‘Tim? Obsessed? He never mentioned anything to me – except the museum’s Egyptian collection, of course.’
    ‘That’s because he knew you would disapprove. You know what he’s like, always desperate for big sister’s approval.’
    Jessie frowned.
Is he?
He had hidden that from her too.
    ‘So where did he go?’ she urged.
    Archie hesitated.
    ‘Where?’ She shook his arm. ‘Where?’
    He looked away, suddenly awkward. ‘To a séance.’
    ‘What kind of idiot would do that?’
    ‘For heaven’s sake, Jess, it was only a stupid séance. Don’t look like that.’
    She snatched her car key from her coat pocket. ‘Just tell me where.’
    Séance.
    A word that hissed and slithered. It crawled up her back and made her shiver.
Timothy, what were you thinking of?
She felt a tightness grip her chest. She wanted to sit down with her brother and talk to him calmly about this extraordinary secret obsession of his, but instead she was hurtling along the A40 at breakneck speed, knuckles white on the steering-wheel. Her little Austin Swallow swooped around a Saturday morning charabanc and a sign to Denham Village flashed past.
    Who was it he was reaching out to? Who was he so keen to contact?
    She shook her head, exasperated.
    It was all the fashion, this idea of seeking out the spirits of the dead, a nation in chaos trying to find guidance in the past. As if the previous generation hadn’t made