Redhead Page 3

  Out of the sunlight, it was cold and dank, and the nasty stories associated with the place crowded into Rebecca’s mind, making her feel uneasy. As she turned to leave, she thought she detected a movement among the shadows. She was trying to discern if anything was there when Ali touched her elbow, making her jump.

  “Shall we go now?” he said, smiling. “There’s nothing much more to see here. Let’s go on to the Punic ports.”

  Rebecca was about to follow him, when she smelled something pungent. “Did you say people were burnt to death here?” she asked. The smell seemed to get stronger and more acrid.

  “That’s right. Sacrificed to Tanit and Baal Hammon.”

  “Can’t you smell burning?”

  He sniffed the air and then laughed. A Frenchman puffing on a Gaulois cigarette emerged out of the gloom at the end of the vault. “Bonjour,” he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke, and went off to join his friends.

  Laughing together, they didn’t notice another figure in the shadows of the far corner; a man bent over a carved stone which he was studying closely. As Ali and Rebecca turned to leave the vault to go back into the sunlight, he straightened up, his eyes following their departure. There was a sharp click as a flick-knife sprang open. Impassively, he cleaned his fingernails.

  Ali could see that Rebecca was disappointed by the sight of the Punic ports. After all, they looked like nothing more than two big ponds.

  “But, can you imagine,” said Ali, “this is where the Carthaginian naval and merchant fleets were based.” He spread his arms wide. “They traded from here all over the Mediterranean. They explored far and wide and set new limits to the known world. They even got as far as Cameroon. Amazing people. And it was from here that they fought all their naval battles. They were slaughtered in the end, by the Romans. And now, this is all that remains. It’s so sad.”

  He brightened as he looked over the water. “I think our friends are over there.”

  Rebecca could see that an excavation site had been fenced off near the Oceanographic Museum. A number of workers, supervised by a Tunisian, were carefully scraping soil away from the foundations of a building. She noticed that two of the workers had noticeably dark red hair.

  Ali called over to the supervisor, took him to one side and spoke quietly to him. The supervisor nodded and beckoned to one of the red-haired men. Ali took him to one side and conversed with him in rapid Arabic. He then got out his wallet and gave him a few notes.

  “It’s okay. They have agreed to talk to us,” he said, as he returned to Rebecca. “But they are not very happy about it. They are worried that people will think they are mad and will laugh at them. So they don’t want any photos taken, and they don’t want to be named. I said that was all right.”

  “Why don’t we just ask them what happened and let them do the talking?” suggested Rebecca.

  “Okay,” Ali said. “Let me introduce you.” He spoke again in Arabic. Looking a little sheepish, the two men shook hands with her.

  “Ask about the crying babies,” said Rebecca.

  Ali addressed them once more. One started telling the story, calmly at first and then with some animation. The other one joined in, occasionally nodding in agreement but obviously disputing some points.

  “What are they saying?” asked Rebecca impatiently.

  Ali held up his hands to them. They stopped talking and looked at her.

  “Just as I told you. They say it was barely dark when they heard the sound of crying. When it got louder, they stopped working. Then they saw the faces of the poor children. They were scared stiff and wanted to leave. The other men said they couldn’t hear or see anything and laughed at them. But just as they were about to leave, they saw something else.”

  “What was that?” asked Rebecca.

  “I was just going to ask,” said Ali, and turned back to them. One man spoke quietly while the other listened and nodded. He stopped talking and waited for Ali to interpret. “This is something new. I hadn’t heard about this before,” he said. “They say they saw a man dressed in white robes. They recognised him as a kohanim, a Punic priest. According to them, he walked straight across the tophet and disappeared through a solid brick wall. He was carrying a baby.” Ali looked a little uncomfortable. “The baby had red hair as well.”

  Rebecca felt a tingling sensation run down her spine.

  “They probably told us about this only because you are here,” said Ali.

  As they thanked the two men, Rebecca caught sight of a man who she felt sure could only be English. He was ambling nonchalantly over to them from the direction of the museum, clasping what she assumed was a large mug of tea.

  Tall, gangly, loose-limbed and well-tanned, his dark brown hair was slightly unkempt, betraying an obvious lack of concern with style and custom. It was just possible to discern the logo of a London scuba-diving club on his faded T-shirt. Not quite thirty, he could have been mistaken for an athlete, but for his ill-judged, too heavy, black-rimmed spectacles.

  “What have we got here then?” he asked, beaming with enthusiasm, as the supervisor handed him a shard of pottery. He took out a coloured handkerchief from a trouser pocket, removed his spectacles and polished them. Without them, Rebecca was instantly struck by his good looks, though she got the impression that he was unaware of them, or at least indifferent.

  He pushed his hair back and wiped his brow with his handkerchief. “Looks Punic to me. Not really my field, though,” he said, rubbing away the soil. Then he turned to Ali, with a twinkle in his eyes. “Checking out all those rumours of spooks and ghosts again then, Ali?”

  “Well, Dr Cavendish,” said Ali, almost imperceptibly fluttering his eyelashes, “these rumours, as you call them, are interesting enough to bring the Metropolitan newspaper all the way from London. May I introduce Rebecca Burns?”

  Rebecca couldn’t help feeling slightly embarrassed as, smiling, he firmly shook her hand.

  Her professional side quickly took over. “Nice to meet you. Do you know anything about the visions these men say they’ve had, Dr Cavendish?

  “Jim – please,” he said. “’fraid not. I’ve just called in for a few days on my way back to Cambridge from Egypt. In fact, I have to leave in few minutes to get a plane. I’ve got a lecture to give tomorrow. And somebody actually wants to meet me to talk about funding. Can’t miss that.” He caught the eye of the supervisor and tapped his watch. “Okay, Mohammed?”

  “Okay, Jim,” the supervisor replied. “I’ll get the car.” He went off in the direction of the museum.

  “What were you doing in Egypt, Jim?” Rebecca asked.

  “Looking at temples dedicated to the sun. Actually, I’m a scientist – solar physics. But anything to do with the sun interests me. That’s what brought me to Carthage. Heliolithic cultures were often associated with the Phoenicians.”

  Rebecca looked blank. “Heliolithic cultures?” she asked.

  “You know – cultures associated with sun worship. Sea-faring peoples like the Phoenicians helped to spread them. That’s why I called in here. I like to keep up to date with the excavations.” He gestured to the works. “But this building here really isn’t that interesting. It was probably just a warehouse.”

  Rebecca decided to ask a direct question. “Did the Carthaginians really sacrifice children with red hair?”

  “They probably did sacrifice children,” Jim answered. “Don’t know about the red hair, though.” He paused. “But they certainly sacrificed redheads in ancient Egypt. Probably to ensure a good harvest, because the ripe corn was red.” Rebecca noticed that he glanced at her hair with just a hint of a smile. “You know that women with red hair were picked on in witch-hunts in the West until a couple of hundred years ago?” he said. “Funnily enough, there are stories about people with red hair in most cultures, and in some of the most amazing places.”

  “Really? Like where?” asked Rebecca, just as the car pulled up alongside them.

  “Easter Island in the Pacific, for
example. In fact, I shall be heading out there myself soon. I’ll be working with Larry Burton on a dig there. Now there’s somebody you should meet. He’s a specialist in the ancient Near East – one of the best in the business.” Mohammed got out of the car and opened the door for him. “Look, sorry about this, but I have to go now. Tell you what – give me a bell in the UK. I’ll tell you what I can and maybe arrange for you to meet Larry. Have you got your notebook?” He jotted down a number and passed it back to her.

  Waving goodbye to everybody on the site, he clambered into the car, and in a few seconds was gone. Rebecca glanced at the phone number, feeling very happy with the way things were going.

  As they walked back up the hill, Ali turned to her, smiling mischievously. “Dr Cavendish seems very pleasant?”

  Rebecca flushed slightly. “He could be a very good contact for background to this story.”

  “People here say that he is a member of your aristocracy, a lord even.”

  “I really don’t know,” said Rebecca.

  Ali smiled again. “There is something else I should tell you – something that Madame Bourguiba told me. It was François Attali and his companion Paul Durand who found the famous ‘Priest Stele’ in the tophet. It shows a carving of a priest carrying a baby, and it’s here in Tunis, in the Bardo Museum.”

  “Can we see it?” asked Rebecca.

  Ali looked at his watch. “We can go right now if we catch a taxi and go straight there. I need to be at the university by three o’clock, and you have an appointment with Madame Bourguiba at four.”

  Ahead of them, a man was getting into a taxi.

  CHAPTER 5

  Ali took pleasure in sharing his knowledge of Tunis. In the taxi, he told Rebecca that the Bardo Museum was housed in the former royal palace of the Bey, in the west of Tunis. Proudly, he explained that as well as its Punic remains, it was renowned worldwide for its collection of Roman mosaics.

  He took Rebecca straight to the Priest Stele, which stood close to the entrance, enclosed in a glass case. He enthusiastically showed it to her and stood back so that she could study it.

  “We’re lucky the French didn’t take it back to the Louvre,” he said.

  Rebecca was rather underwhelmed, until she looked at it more closely. Through the reflected light of the glass case, she could gradually make out the figure of a priest holding a very small child. The horror of what it represented began to dawn on her.

  “It is quite something, isn’t it?” said Ali. “Let’s get some baguettes and take them to the garden.”

  The beautiful gardens of the Bardo were covered with Punic and Roman stones, placed tastefully among tree-shaded benches, inviting relaxation after the effort of visiting the museum.

  Ali wiped invisible dust from a stone bench with his handkerchief and politely motioned Rebecca to sit down, offering her a filled baguette.

  “What would you like to do?” he asked. “You can either stay here for a couple of hours, or I can drop you off at the entrance to the Medina. You could look around the Medina before you meet Madame Bourguiba.”

  “That sounds fun,” she answered. “Is it easy to find her house?”

  “I’ve got a map for you. She lives in a very smart quarter of the northern Medina. Here – I’ll show you.” He unfolded a map, took out a gold pen from his inside pocket and studied the map for a second. “She lives here, rue du Pasha, number 42.” He marked it on the map. “I will drop you here at place de la Victoire. This is the main entrance to the Medina, near to the old British Embassy. There are so many places to see – mosques, tombs, palaces. But if you see nothing else, you should visit the Jemaa Zitouna – the Great Mosque. And if you want to do some shopping, there are souks all around that area.”

  “Is it safe?” asked Rebecca, suddenly feeling the need for reassurance.

  “Oh, yes, quite safe enough in the daylight. Just keep an eye on your handbag, that’s all.”

  His expression became serious. “But make sure you leave before sunset. I wouldn’t advise being stuck in the Medina after dark – it can be dangerous. When you’ve finished with Madame Bourguiba, you can get a taxi back to your hotel. If you have difficulty getting one, go back to the place de la Victoire. You’ll always get one there. If you get lost, here’s Madame Bourguiba’s number, and you already have mine.”

  He jotted down Madame Bourguiba’s phone number on the map and glanced at his watch. “We need to go now.”

  As he got up, he looked over Rebecca’s shoulder. “Do you know anyone here in Tunis?” he asked.

  “No, nobody except you. Why?”

  “There was a man there just now. He was looking at you, as if he recognised you. He’s gone now.”

  She looked around. There was nobody to be seen apart from a young family. “What did he look like?”

  “Not a typical Tunisian I would say. Large nose. Middle Eastern, perhaps. Middle-aged, with slick black hair. Very smartly dressed, nice suit. Something a little strange about his eyes. They were green. Perhaps not exactly the sort of person you would want as a friend. Something a little sinister about him.”

  “I don’t think there’s anybody around here who would know me,” said Rebecca. “And certainly not somebody who looks like that.” She decided to put her uneasiness to the back of her mind. “Shall we get a taxi? You don’t want to miss that protest.”

  As the taxi pulled up in the place de la Victoire, Ali got out and opened the door for Rebecca. “See you this evening, then. I’ll be at your hotel at eight. Remember – any problem – just call me.”

  He got back into the taxi, opened the window as it drove off, and waved to her. As the clamour and bustle of downtown Tunis closed in around her, she felt a surge of excitement.

  CHAPTER 6

  Rebecca stood at the roadside for a while and then dodged through the crowd to the side of the entrance to the Medina. She got out the map and worked out a route to rue du Pasha. It seemed straightforward enough.

  As she folded up the map, a small boy approached her. “You want good guide? I know Medina very well. You want buy carpet, gold bracelet?”

  “No, thank you,” Rebecca replied. Then, slinging her handbag over her shoulder and pinning it hard to her side, she plunged into the Medina.

  Overwhelmed by the jostling throng, she edged along the narrow street, determined to get to the Great Mosque without being sidetracked by the over-eager stall-holders who called over to her in English. “Look here, Madame. Fine jewellery. Real silk. Very nice. Very cheap.”

  How the hell do they know I’m English? Why not German or Scandinavian? she thought. “Merci, non,” she kept saying with a fixed smile, as she pushed forwards running a gauntlet of traders.

  Yet, as she approached the Great Mosque, she could not resist stopping at a colourful open-fronted shop, crammed with the most beautiful soft leather handbags. A bag in a delicate shade of beige caught her eye. She had seen a designer bag almost identical in Covent Garden, but the price tag had been well over five hundred pounds. Way outside her limit. She could not resist asking the price, trying not to sound too enthusiastic.

  “One hundred dinars, Madame. Very good price. Very best leather. Feel it.”

  She did a quick calculation in her head. Less than fifty pounds, and that was just the starting price. Ten minutes later, she had haggled the price down to seventy-five dinars – just thirty-six pounds. Feeling pleased with herself, she slipped her own bag from her shoulder, found her purse, and paid the shopkeeper.

  It all happened very fast. Just as she dropped her purse back into her bag, she felt a pull on the strap. There was a flash of light on the knife as it sliced though the strap, and a small hand appeared from nowhere to grab the bag as it fell. Rebecca caught sight of a boy, no more than eight years old, dodging into the crowd and disappearing. The angry shopkeeper yelled out something in Arabic. A few people turned around, but it was too late. He had gone.

  “That’s all I bloody well need,” she groaned to hers
elf, quickly realising her money, her credit cards and her mobile had all gone. She thanked God that she had left her plane ticket and passport in the hotel safe.

  The shopkeeper got out his phone and phoned the police. “They say you should go to the police station,” he said, after a short conversation. “I can show you how to get there.”

  Rebecca looked around forlornly, but the few interested witnesses had moved on. She checked the time on her watch. It was already three-thirty. Closing her eyes for a moment, she took a deep breath and made a decision.

  “Can you just write down the address for me. I’ll go there later. I have to get to rue du Pasha first.”

  He went into the back of the shop, came back with a sheet of paper and wrote down the address of the police station. Still in shock and disorientated, she found it difficult to concentrate as he explained, writing a few notes, how to get there as well as to rue du Pasha. As she slipped the new bag over her shoulder, the shopkeeper looked at her with a friendly smile of sympathy.

  She had no problem finding her way to the northern part of the Medina. The few notes were precise. Only when she reached the deserted end of a street did it dawn on her that she was not in the right place. Instinctively, she reached to get her phone out of her bag and check with Ali or Madame Bourghiba, but stopped short and swore to herself.

  She looked around for somebody to ask for directions, but there was only a group of boys kicking a ball around. Taking out the sheet of paper, she started walking over to the boys. They stopped playing and stared at her. All of a sudden, one picked up the ball and kicked it as hard as he could straight at her, catching her on the shoulder.

  “Why did you do that?” she said, bewildered.

  The boy pointed at her hair and laughed. “Witch, witch, witch, witch,” he chanted. The others joined in, one after another.

  Then they all started closing in on her and pointing at her hair. She turned and started to walk away back down the street, but they followed her, chanting “Witch” together.