Secret of the Sands by Sara Sheridan

found out very little, though outside Aden I encountered a group of Bedu . I heard the men were prisoners of the emir – that they had offended him in some way and were being held in his caravan. The description the Bedu gave was consistent with the appearance of the men though the captain – Captain Haines, that is – believes them dead. When we made rendezvous with the Benares however, Captain Moresby was of the view that we must be sure.’
    Mickey scratches his cheek with a long, carefully manicured finger, which sports a thick ring of yellow gold with a red stone embedded on the face. He takes a sip of his strong coffee.
    ‘Captured by an emir’s caravan and held there? Now that’s not good. I will make enquiries,’ he says. ‘Leave it with me, Lieutenant Wellsted, and I will see what I can find out.’
    ‘It is a matter of some urgency, sir.’
    Ibn Mudar bows. ‘Of course. Immediately.’
    With the efficiency of a man who is used to getting a great deal done, Ibn Mudar calls his slave boy.
    ‘Bring me Rashid,’ he snaps. The yellow-robed child immediately disappears to find the chief clerk, who is stationed at Mickey’s warehouse, a few streets away.
    Wellsted’s cup is refilled and the agent asks polite questions.
    ‘And your work? How goes the survey?’
    ‘Slow but sure,’ Wellsted grins. ‘The reefs are all but impossible but the charts are coming along.’
    ‘Any French vessels?’
    This is of interest to any trader with ships on the nearby seas.
    ‘Only very close to the Egyptian coastline. Where you would expect, really.’
    ‘It will be good to have maps,’ Mickey points out and Wellsted says nothing in reply, only downs the rest of his coffee.
    ‘Do you think they might still be alive?’ he asks.
    The agent’s face does not alter its expression one iota. ‘My brothers would say it is in Allah’s hands,’ he says. ‘Let me see if I can find out what Allah has in mind. I will send Rashid the moment he comes. He is the man for this job. Leave it to me.’
    The men shake hands and Mickey sees the lieutenant to the door of his office.
    While he waits, Mickey strokes his thick, salt-and-pepper beard and retreats back onto the comfortable cushions in the corner of the room to consider matters. The British survey interests him tremendously, for if it is successful there will be a far greater volume of English ships in the Red Sea and he will be contracted to see to their needs. He is determined to do his job well for the English. Mickey is inclined to do everything well – he is careful and fastidious in all his dealings. He will apply this to the search for Jessop and Jones – which potentially, he realises, is one of the most dangerous situations with which he has been asked to help. Men die all the time, but kidnap is a different matter.
    Watch out, he says to himself. God knows what they are up to, the tricky bastards. And now there are two of them missing.
    When Mickey thinks of the English, the voice in his head is always that of his Irish wife, Farida, who maintains that without question the English are untrustworthy. Her tribe, it seems, are perpetually at war with the lily-skinned sailors, though they share the same tongue. Mickey trusts Farida’s judgement. He was young when he bought her at auction after she had been captured on a shipwreck. He was a brash, young buck of a merchant of twenty who had made his fortune quickly. He wanted to show the world that he was cosmopolitan and he knew an exotic, white-skinned beauty in his harim would make his name as much as any bale of fine silk ever had. There was no question of love. When he met her, however, he realised just how much he had focussed all his attention on his business and how little he knew of the world beyond it. At first he expected she resented being captured and sold, but she told him frankly after only a fortnight, that his house was a hundred times the size of the cottage in Rowgaranne, County Cork, where she was