Neil saw to his amusement that six burly ghosts were standing firmly round Graham Flint who looked as though he was about to freeze solid. His face was white with cold, the tip of his nose shone red and his eyes were desperate. Then the unthinkable happened. Graham Flint — the tough guy, the bully of the school for as long as Neil could remember — Graham Flint began to cry.
Miss Mackenzie looked flabbergasted, as well she might. Neil hid a grin and the rest of the class looked alarmed and excited at the same time. We’ll be texting one another about this all evening, thought Neil.
“It is cold, isn’t it!” Stan tried to make light of the wrenching sobs that emanated from Graham in heaving, hiccupping snorts. “No central heating in those days, I’m afraid,” he announced, rubbing his hands together and deciding there and then to cut the tour short. “Now, we’ll just go through this door here and you’ll be in Mary King’s Close itself.”
Neil gasped as he stepped into the gloomy, lamp-lit close that curved steeply downhill. A vague mist curled eerily round the houses and the atmosphere was strange, heavy and oppressive. The ghosts were there, too; some clustered in the doorways of the narrow, cobbled alley while others peered at him through the barred windows on either side of the close. He shivered as the grim reality of the seventeenth century curled about him; for although picturesque, it was an old, old street that spoke of grinding poverty and deprivation. It petered off into distant darkness and, looking up between the high walls, Neil saw that there was no strip of sky to lighten the gloom; just the dark outline of beams and stones.
“Those are the foundations of the City Chambers,” Stan said quietly, thankful that the tour was over at last. “They didn’t bother to demolish the old city in these days. They just built right over it.”
It was time to go. Miss Mackenzie fussed around counting them all. Never, she thought, had a class formed a neater, straighter line faster than this one. They all looked cold, pinched and, like herself, desperately anxious to leave. Neil stood beside Stan at the end of the line and was just about to move off when he saw the writing on the wall and froze as he read what it said.
“Come on, laddie. It’s time to go,” Stan gestured encouragingly as the rest of the class moved off.
Neil didn’t hear him. He stood rooted to the ground for, written in huge letters in a blood-red, glowing script that covered the walls of the houses, was a message. A message for him.
Neil. Come again. We need your help.
Mary King.
4. The Well at Al Antara
Lewis Grant bumped over the sand track in the 4x4 feeling excited and, if the truth be told, more than a little scared. Despite his boasts, he wasn’t nearly as confident about driving on his own as he’d let on to Peter and the gang. So far, however, all had gone well. He’d often been to Al Antara in the past and he more or less knew the route — anyhow, there was no way he was going to get lost.
Nevertheless, as the track wound its way steadily across stretches of open desert, he started to worry for it was turning out to be a much longer journey than he’d remembered. But then, he supposed, when they’d been on desert picnics, he’d always been with friends; talking all the way without really looking at the scenery.
He drove on, clutching the steering wheel tightly and wishing that he’d never agreed to the ridiculous dare but when he topped a rise and saw before him the long, low, black tents of a bedouin encampment, he triumphantly punched the air with both hands; for beyond it he glimpsed the palm trees that marked the oasis of Al Antara.
He’d forgotten about the Arabs but wasn’t particularly bothered about them as he knew they never went near the village at night. Most of them worked for the oil company anyway. Nevertheless, he took care to bypass the tents at a distance so that no one would see that it wasn’t a man in the driving seat. The bedouin, however, are noted for their razor-sharp eyesight and as the sheikh of the tribe watched the vehicle bump its way towards Al Antara, he looked thoughtful. The driver was a boy — in itself disturbing — and he was heading for the oasis.
“Ya, Hassan,” he beckoned to one of his sons. “Take the pick-up and go to the office of Mr Williams. Tell him that this vehicle …” he wrote the number on a piece of paper and handed it to him, “this vehicle, driven by a boy, is heading for Al Antara. He is on his own and I am worried for him. It’ll start to get dark soon …”
Hassan’s face suddenly changed to one of alarm. “Father, look! A shimaal!” He pointed a quivering finger in the direction of the distant township.