The Moses Legacy

Chapter 16

‘So you admit that you were at the house that morning?’ asked the Detective Chief Inspector.

‘ Yes! ’ said Daniel for the umpteenth time. ‘I went there to speak to him just before I flew off to Egypt.’

‘And you flew off to Egypt at short notice, at the invitation of the Vice Minister of Culture.’

‘You can call him and verify that yourself.’

‘We will. But perhaps in the meantime you can tell us what you talked to Professor Carmichael about?’

‘It was just a bit of catching up on old times. Nothing special.’

Daniel was aware of how implausible this sounded.

‘You’re about to leave the country at short notice, at the request of the Egyptian Vice Minister of Culture, and take a detour from your drive to the airport to stop off at your old professor’s house for small talk?’

The DCI shot a sceptical glance at his colleague who shrugged his shoulders as if to express his own disbelief of Daniel’s account.

‘He was my mentor,’ Daniel continued. ‘I hadn’t seen him in a while and I was quite surprised at Mansoor’s invitation. So I wanted to ask for his advice.’

‘But how could he advise you, if you didn’t know why you were being invited to Egypt?’

‘That was the point. I figured he might be able to tell me how to play it.’

‘And did he?’

Daniel looked away awkwardly. He had nothing to hide on this point, but the truth made him feel uncomfortable.

‘He was too far gone to help.’

‘Too far gone?’ the DCI echoed.

‘Dementia. I could tell that he wasn’t really with me.’

‘Is it possible that he had something on his mind? Something that might explain why someone would want to kill him?’

Again Daniel lapsed into thought. On this point he did have something to hide. For the next few seconds, he thought carefully about how much he wanted to share with the DCI. Did he want to mention Carmichael’s paranoid claims about his unpublished paper? The belief that the plague of boils could make a resurgence? At the time it had seemed preposterous. But Harrison Carmichael was dead and there was no question that he had been murdered. Even if the fire could be dismissed as an accident, the injuries to Roksana and to Carmichael himself could not.

But did he want to share his suspicions with the police? Would they come over as credible? Did he really have anything to tell them? Certainly nothing that Carmichael had told him amounted to solid information. All Daniel had was a nagging suspicion, but what he really wanted was an explanation and he wasn’t going to get that from the policeman.

Daniel saw no reason to stick his neck out by offering what might come over as a self-serving explanation. So he decided to hold his peace.

‘I can’t think of anything.’

‘Okay, Professor Klein. Interview suspended at 5.45 p.m.’

‘Look, I know you have to investigate thoroughly. But I’ve told you all I know and I’m a very busy man. Is there any possibility that I could be released on bail?’

‘We’re awaiting the results from the forensic team. If we can eliminate you – and assuming that we have no other grounds to hold you – you will be released at that time.’

Daniel didn’t see how the forensic tests would eliminate him. If he had started the fire, he could have taken the clothes he was wearing to Egypt and disposed of them there. They would certainly find his fingerprints and DNA on the garden chair where he had sat and it was unlikely that they would find any of the killer’s DNA in the house, because of the fire. Even if the forensic tests came up negative, he knew that a cloud of suspicion would hang over him until the case was solved.

In the meantime he was going right back to the police cells, to await his fate.