Gill grinned. Tall, blonde and tanned from the sun-bed, she had been noticed at once. The night before, at their first meal on-board, Emma, glancing round, had caught appraising looks cast in their direction by some of the men, not least the tour guide who, after doing the rounds of the tables, had finally settled in an empty chair next to them and introduced himself. His name was Mahmoud and, having established that they were without male escorts and so presumably potentially available, he hadn’t taken his eyes off Gill.

Emma sighed. She was used to this. Small in stature, shy, her dark hair cut to a shoulder-length bob, she had years ago resigned herself to being outshone by her friend. Strangely, in the end, Emma was the one who had married – even if it hadn’t lasted. And after all, it didn’t matter here. They hadn’t come to Egypt to meet new men. They had come to see the antiquities. Or she had.

Climbing onto the bus which was to take them from the boat through the teeming, noisy streets to the Temple of Karnak, she found herself sitting alone. Scanning the crowded seats in front of her she spotted Gill’s blonde head. She had taken a place near the front. Next to Mahmoud. Actually, Emma was quite pleased. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted just to look.

With a hiss of compressed air, the bus doors closed and it set off, lurching up the track from the river bank towards the road. On either side, mud-brick houses, adorned with brightly coloured rugs and blankets airing in the sunshine, alternated with groves of palm trees and exotic plantations. As the bus swung out to pass an old man perched perilously on the rump of a small donkey, Mahmoud stood up, holding on to a seat-back to keep his balance. Emma saw him glance down at Gill and wink as he launched into his running commentary. With a resigned smile, she sat back and turned towards the window. This was going to be the most wonderful holiday of her life and she was not going to allow anything to spoil it.

By the time they had disembarked and crossed the dusty car park to enter the Temple, Gill was once more at her side. Mahmoud was too busy, buying tickets and passes, ushering his charges through the gates and describing the avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, to pay her any attention. Emma smiled as she reached for her camera. ‘It looks as though you’ve made a conquest.’

Gill shrugged. ‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’

Emma was just standing there, staring at the statue of Rameses in front of them and nodded dreamily.

There was a peal of laughter from her companion. ‘Not that thing! I mean Mahmoud.’

Emma raised an eyebrow. ‘Each to his own. It’s the Pharaoh I fancy!’

Almost deliberately she found herself dropping further and further behind as Gill hung on Mahmoud’s every word.

The heat was unbearable. The sun beat down on hats and dark glasses, reflecting from every stone surface. Huge stone columns rose around her, casting black heavy shadows between ribs of vicious sunlight. Emma stared up at a distant lotus-shaped capital which had once, presumably, supported a roof. A group of Italian visitors passed her and for a moment she was engulfed in noise and laughter, then they disappeared towards the next gateway. Wistfully she watched them leave. Now they had gone, she was surrounded by silence. Even the cheeping of the sparrows had stopped. There was no one else in sight. She shivered. But not because there had been any relief from the heat. On the contrary, it was hotter than ever.

She stepped out of the shade and stared around, trying to orient herself. Suddenly she wanted to be back with Gill and Mahmoud and the other members of the tour. The Temple was teeming with visitors; she hadn’t strayed into some area that was closed. Only a moment or so ago, a tall, lithe Italian man clad from head to foot in Gucci had glanced back at her with a smile and lifted a hand with a soft ciao as he followed his compatriots out of sight.

She hitched her thumb determinedly into the strap of the day-sack on her back and walked straight down the avenue ahead of her.

It was so hot, it was hard to breathe, the air around her seemed almost solid. She stopped and stared around again. Although she had been walking for two or three minutes, she didn’t seem to have moved. By some strange optical illusion, the same vista of columns appeared to stretch endlessly ahead and behind and to the left and right, but now, suddenly, there was more shade. She glanced up. She had, without noticing it, walked into an area that was still roofed. Here, the sand of the floor had been brushed aside to reveal smooth paving stones and it was cooler at last.

There was a movement in the distance. Emma’s heart leaped. ‘Hello?’ Her voice sounded muted, strange. It hardly seemed to penetrate the vast shadows around her, but at that moment a young woman appeared, running towards her through the columns. She was wearing a long, white dress with a veil looped around her shoulders and neck and over her hair.

Emma smiled and raised a hand in greeting, then the smile froze on her lips. The woman stopped, glancing over her shoulder, every gesture and line of her body denoting fear. There was a man behind her. Pounding over the paving slabs in sandalled feet, he was dressed in the long, loose, everyday garb of so many Egyptians, the galabiya. In his hand he was brandishing a knife. He stopped. Even at that distance Emma could see he was gasping for breath, the hand which was not clasping the knife clamped to his side as if he was winded. The man and the woman stared at each other for an interminable moment as Emma watched. She could see the longing in his eyes and the regret as he raised his hand towards her, a hand that was smeared with blood. For a moment, the woman hesitated. She reached out to him in a gesture which spoke of poignant love and loss and then she turned and started to run again, towards Emma. She was so close now that Emma could see her face, her dark eyes, huge with terror, her long hair, torn free of the veil, streaming black behind her, streaks of blood on her dress, her breast, her hands. Her cheeks were wet with tears.

Terrified, Emma stepped back out of the way. Between one second and the next, she was there, close enough to touch, to see the detail of her torn, embroidered neckline, the shredded silk of the veil wrapped around her neck, the bare, slender feet soundless on the paving, and then she had run past. Emma spun round to stare after her, but she had gone. Trembling, Emma turned to where she had seen the man bending double to catch his breath. There was no sign of him either.

Hardly daring to breathe, Emma crept towards the spot and stared down. There must be traces of blood. Some sign of the man’s anguish. Some sound. There was nothing.

She looked back to where she had been standing. The sun blazed down between the pillars onto the sand.

‘Oh God!’ Slowly she turned full circle, staring up. There was no sign of a roof now – only lofty columns towering above her. Beneath her, there were no paving slabs either. She was beginning to panic. She was imagining things. It was the heat. The exhaustion. The strangeness of it all.

‘Gill?’ Her frightened cry echoed for a moment through the silence. ‘Mahmoud? Is there anyone there? Anyone?’ She took a deep breath, then she paused, listening. A voice was answering. She strained to hear it.

‘Hello?’

There it was again. Nearer, this time. A man’s voice. She spun round, trying hard to locate the sound. It was deadened; strange.

And then she saw him. Tall, his shock of fair hair obscured by a wide-brimmed sun hat, his eyes a clear green, like a cat’s, he appeared suddenly from behind a pillar only a few yards in front of her. For a moment they stared at each other in astonished silence, then his face relaxed into a grin. ‘It’s Emma isn’t it?’

‘Oh, thank God!’ Confused and still unnerved, she almost threw herself at him. ‘Did you see what happened?’ To her embarrassment, she found she couldn’t hold back the tears of shock.

His arms closed around her, holding her steady, then gently he pushed her away, his hands on her shoulders. ‘I didn’t see anything. What’s wrong?’ He could feel her trembling violently.

‘I saw this woman.’ She could barely get the words out between her sobs. ‘There was a man chasing her. I don’t know why, but I got the feeling he had tried to strangle her! She must have stabbed him. He was bleeding!’ She was staring round wildly.

‘And where are they now?’ He frowned. For a moment she thought he was going to turn away, then she realised that his quick glance was as nervous as her own. He took off his hat and pushed his hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand.

‘I don’t know. I could feel their emotion. It was as if their love and their fear were tangible! Then it had gone!’ She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes, suddenly conscious of the fact that nothing she said made any sense, and that she had thrown herself into the arms of a total stranger. A stranger who knew her name.

As though reading her thoughts, he asked, ‘You don’t remember me? I’m Patrick.’ His voice was deep and mellow. ‘I was at the next table on the boat last night. I saw you stray away from the party just now and I thought what a good idea to get out of the sun. I’m writing up the cruise for a travel mag. I was photographing the columns.’ He had a camera bag slung over his shoulder, a Nikon around his neck. ‘Then I heard you calling.’

She gave him a watery smile. ‘I’m sorry I threw myself at you. I was so frightened. It was so strange. And after they disappeared it was as though suddenly I was the only person in the world.’

He glanced round. ‘We still might be.’ He frowned. ‘There is an eerie atmosphere in here, I agree. Come on.’ He held out his hand. ‘We’d better find someone and tell them what you saw. I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as it looked. Whoever they were, they seem to have gone now.’ There was something about Patrick which she found comforting.