‘So, he is slow?’ Schmidt said pleasantly. ‘All the better for me, you will allow me to assist you into the seat.’

‘I don’t see him.’ She shielded her eyes with her hand, ignoring the one Schmidt had offered.

Feisal turned. ‘He decided to walk. It isn’t far, he’ll be there soon after us. Get in, please, we only have forty-five minutes at the site.’

Forty-five minutes was long enough for me, and even Schmidt wandered off after a while. I caught sight of him talking to a man who appeared to be an archaeologist – he was dressed sloppily enough – working in one of the areas blocked off to tourists. I didn’t see John – not that I was looking for him – until we were almost ready to leave. Mary’s face lit up at the sight of him, and she hurried to take his arm.

‘Darling, I was worried about you. Where have you been?’

‘Having a look round,’ John said vaguely. He caught my eye and added, ‘And avoiding certain people.’

The hints were becoming less subtle. I took this one too.

In the space of a few hours Schmidt had managed to become best friends with most of the others. He was particularly taken with Suzi, whom he described, as I might have expected, as ‘a fine figure of a woman!’ Safely surrounded by listening ears, I managed to stick to generalities during the ride back to the boat.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were joining the tour, Schmidt?’ I asked.

‘I wanted to surprise you.’ Schmidt beamed at me.

‘You succeeded.’

‘I wanted all along to come. I told you that.’

‘At some length.’

‘But duty came first.’ Schmidt was talking at the top of his lungs, inviting the interest and admiration of his newfound friends. ‘So to Amsterdam I went. But it was a fiasco, Vicky, the gentleman could not make up his mind, he kept putting me off, and anyhow he did not have anything of great interest. So finally I said, “Vielen Dank, auf Wiedersehen,” and I put a call to the travel bureau and they said there had been a cancellation. I arrived last night in Minya, by the train, and hired a boat to carry me across the river first thing this morning, because I wanted to be here waiting for you. They were to bring my luggage to the boat later.’

He turned to answer a question from Alice – whom, of course, he had met at some conference somewhere, sometime – and left me a prey to painful reflections. Apparently the travel bureau hadn’t mentioned – why should they, after all? – that a space had been made available by the illness of one of the passengers. John had said Jen would be joining us at Luxor. Did this mean she wasn’t going to, or had there been an earlier defection, another cancellation? I wanted, rather badly, to find out.