CHAPTER 1          The Arabian tragedy

Thousands of golden pinpricks of stars studded the dark blue sky above the waters of the gulf.  Overlooking the bay, from some way off, the stately, big, white house reflected brilliantly the golden moonlight to bathe everything in a soft and seductive light. The house stood apart from its odd geometric clusters of numerous and varied neighbours, dominating what was a typical middle-eastern village.  A high wall surrounded its grounds to give the enclosed garden an aura of an oasis, separating it from the dry and sandy landscape outside. In places the sand was dusty and compacted, in others, it was as time and nature fashions it on countless thousands of beaches and desert sand dunes.

  An ill-defined strip of land served as the roadway for the occasional vehicle that went to and from the big house.  Within the grounds, a security guard walked along the manicured lawn.  The flowering shrubs and flower beds were pristinely laid out beneath the towering palm trees.  Palms which were topped with leaves that spread out like opened umbrellas for the rain that rarely came.

  The unmistakable noise of a party in progress gently floated over the lone guard on the balmy evening air, gradually increasing in level as he moved closer to the house itself. Inside, among the well-dressed and bejewelled revellers,  guests mingled, talked, danced and drank.  The noise of music and laughter, loud voices accompanying animated communication, the occasional shriek and the clink of bottles and glasses, made it impossible to hold any meaningful conversation.  Body language became far more important.

  The slim, good-looking Englishman again caught the eye of the devastatingly beautiful middle-eastern girl sitting at the nearby table.  With alcohol-induced courage, he raised his glass of champagne towards her, in a meaningful greeting. She smiled shyly at him, and held the eye contact for a few seconds. He smiled too.  For the earlier part of the evening, he had been unable to get any response from her at all.

  The slim Englishman's companion noticed the successful eye contact and leaned across the table towards him. 

  "Going for big stakes?" he said

  "Why do you say that Yousadif, because she's what...so gorgeous?" The Englishman's voice confirmed his inebriated state.

  The companion, an arab with a heavy, but neatly trimmed, black moustache and heavy eyelids, shook his head slowly.

  "Then why?   Who the hell is she?" the Englishman asked loudly.  The ambient noise almost drowned his boisterous manner of asking.

  The arab lowered his cultured voice, so that it was barely audible above the background noise, and spoke into the Englishman's ear. 

  "That's Zora, daughter of Ibn-cal-Rashan....."

  "You mean it?"   As he asked the question of his arab friend the Englishman kept his eye on the girl.  "Hey" he chuckled, "that somehow makes her more attractive."

  Yousadif did not want to encourage his companion too soon.  He offered some advice. 

  "She has the reputation of being wild and difficult to handle."

  The Englishman needed time to consider Yousadif's reply. There was still a smile on his face. "Nothing I can't cope with, Yousadif" he said.

  Yousadif, seeing that his companion was set on making contact with the girl, advised caution.  "You would need to handle it carefully, my friend.  It wouldn't do to cross the daughter of a king, even though she is one of a great number of offspring of whom he has probably lost count."

  "You mean there are more at home like her?"  The Englishman again laughed.

  "It is so."

  "How many?"

  "I don't really know.  Who does?  The thing that would worry me, eh," he hesitated, "if I were honoured with the opportunity, is that she has, I think it is thirty-eight, brothers."

  The two men, one tipsy, the other almost sober, looked at each other for a few moments before they burst out laughing.  The Englishman was not to be deterred.    "That makes it a challenge I cannot resist" he said, raising his glass to Yousadif this time.  "She really is quite gorgeous and more irresistible by the minute."

  Yousadif faced up to the inevitable.  "I can introduce you, you know" he said calmly, knowing his remark would impress the Englishman.

  "Then do it, do it" came the reply in a voice full of mock command.

  Yousadif got up and went to the nearby table and bowed politely to the girl.  She showed no surprise at his visit and offered him a place at the table.  She had seen the two men with their heads together, stealing glances towards her as they spoke.  Yousadif spoke to her for several minutes.  The conversation was no more than mime and smiles to the Englishman, but he could see that both cast glances at him as they spoke.  The girl rose from the table and accompanied his arab friend back to his table.  Yousadif made the introductions as best he could amid the noise before they sat down. The Englishman gestured to Zora the offer of a glass of champagne. She accepted.  He signalled for another bottle and they made attempts at some sort of conversation through irrepressible smiles. Talk was not important, the contact had been completed.

  Some dances, some hours and a few glasses of champagne later, Zora emerged with the Englishman from the palatial white-stoned private house that had hosted the party.  She got into the car that had been called and had waited for her in the driveway.  The Englishman needed the support of her shoulder, which she gave him partly to support herself.  She was content to help him into the car.  As they fell into the rear seat, Zora gave the driver some instructions in Arabic and pressed the appropriate button on the armrest.  The smoked glass screen between the chauffeur and the rear passengers rose, to give the couple complete privacy.   Even as it slid upwards into place, Zora and the Englishman fell into an energetic embrace, kissing each other about the face with open mouths, while the Englishman groped whatever his wandering hands could reach.

  The car pulled up at the entrance to the Englishman's hotel some fifteen minutes later.  By now, he was feeling sufficiently less inebriated to be able, with an extreme effort, to effect a dignified entrance.  Having the regal Zora at his side helped.  Their entrance appeared reasonably discrete and uneventful.  From his room the Englishman ordered champagne.  It arrived quickly, as though it had been prepared in anticipation.  To his surprise, as he had been ordering the champagne, Zora had discarded her dignified exterior along with several items of her clothing. She disappeared into the bedroom as the trolley with the drinks arrived. The attendant quickly despatched the cork of one of the bottles.  While the Englishman slowly peeled off his light outer jacket, Zora emerged from the bedroom scantily clad.  She flippantly poured out the champagne, not caring too much if it went into the glasses or not.  She handed one of the glasses to the Englishman and sat on his lap, sipping from her own glass, kissing him and laughing, before getting up and dancing across the room towards the bathroom.  He followed.

  It was not long before they were both in the shower together being drenched by the cascading hot water and still partly clothed.   They both made attempts, sometimes successfully, to help each other to discard the remaining clothing.  Neither was very capable, but each enjoyed the other's fumbling attempts to help one another.  It was sometimes an attempt to help and sometimes a deliberate grope and fondle.  Neither knew exactly what was happening, except that it was adding to their mutual arousal.  It was fun and fumble - until Zora was stark naked.  As the water flowed over the silky skin of her voluptuous body, the Englishman could not resist kissing her heavy, well-formed breasts.  As his hands cupped around her bottom, he pulled her in towards him.  Taking each of her large brown nipples into his mouth in turn, he rolled them between his tongue and the back of his upper teeth as he sucked hard.  Zora shrieked with delight, throwing back her head, wanting to be caressed and fondled as the pleasurable feelings surged throughout her vibrating body.

  They laughed as they mutually indulged themselves in physical sensations under the torrent of water.  They both knew, through the bursting sensations in their loins, that this was a prelude to explosive sex.  The Englishman broke off the playing, went out and brought back two glasses filled with champagne.   He handed one to Zora.  She took it, but almost at once, the shower water splashed into the champagne glasses, drowning the drinks and adding to their mutual delight.  Abandoning the attempt to drink the champagne, they howled with more laughter and almost fell out of the shower together as the Englishman tried to put the glasses outside the glass door.  He pulled himself back into the cascading water and discarded his remaining clothing, but, by now, the effort of trying to stand upright was becoming too much.  The two naked bodies, entwined almost as one, slid down the walls of the shower until they sat entangled on the floor.  The proximity of her naked body, her breasts and then her thighs, to his face, aroused his lust to even higher levels.  He tried to position himself so that he could make love to her.   In his semi-stupor he could not open her legs to get between them, even though she helped all she could. It was hopeless in the restricted space.  He took hold of her hand and both struggled up onto their feet.

  His voice was slurred, but he managed to say  "There must be a better place than this" as he pulled her out of the shower and stumbled towards the bedroom. Halfway across the room, he remembered that he had left the shower running.  On instinct, he went back to turn it off.  Zora unsteadily swayed her way on into the bedroom, stopping only to take a swig of champagne from a half-empty bottle still standing on the drinks trolley.  She picked up the Englishman's tie and used it as a mock veil as she danced seductively into the bedroom.  The Englishman followed and found her face-down across the bed.  Just lying there, she looked mouth-wateringly sexy.  Her curvaceous, light brown, fully-mature body was beautifully made.  Her shapely legs and thighs were those of a professional dancer, and were topped by two semi-spherical mounds of proud flesh that formed her shapely bottom.  Her large, round, breasts pushed their way out on either side of her supine body as she lay there so still.  Her legs were spread. The sight of her rosebud of an anus and the pouting lips of her moist vagina, perfectly placed between the mounds of her bottom, brought the needed life back to the Englishman's flaccid organ.  Feelings of uncontrollable lust surged throughout his body, but it was the reaction in his mouth that stirred him the most.  It began to water as a desire to eat what he could see between her legs welled up inside him.

  He bent down and gently kissed the cheeks of her bottom, gradually moving his lips along the canyon formed by her spherical mounds, until he was kissing her vagina.  The wonderful aroma of her sexual flesh drove him wild.  He pushed his tongue up inside her sex-drenched gateway to carnal pleasure and slid it in and out.  The feeling was too intense for Zora.  She shrieked with delight and turned over onto her back, deftly throwing her leg over his bent head.

  The Englishman was being driven mad with his lustful desire.  He neatly turned her again, this time so that she was on her knees and supporting her upper body with her elbows on the bed.  The sight of her wide-open legs and the view of her rear brought a throbbing sensation surging up through his penis.  It raised itself erect and hard as he took it in hand and, parting Zora's labia, he inserted the tip of it before slipping the shaft fully up inside her delicate, delightful, lubricated flesh.  He soaked up the sheer pleasure that saturated his loins, before starting to pull his penis back and then sliding it slowly fully home again.  He repeated the action once more, savouring the honey-sweet, crotch-tingling thrill.  He could hold off no longer as he moved into a pumping rhythm.

  Zora felt the warmth of his insertion.  She raised herself off her elbows on to her hands and knees as he pumped away and, groaning in ecstasy, she slowly brought her body into time with the rhythmic bucking activity.  He thrust fully into her fabulous body, as she arched herself and threw back her head to get the maximum pleasure from the friction of his thrusting organ.  He slipped his arms down around her to take hold of her large, hanging breasts.  Holding the handfuls of heavy, firm flesh, he rode her lustfully, pumping away as they both searched for their toe-curling orgasms.  

  The struggle was one-sided, with Zora exploding in a shrieking, body-shaking tremor of drawn-out orgasmic pleasure, while her partner, still pumping away, saw no sign of his.   He worked at it for some time, but it was a desperate struggle between his once-raging lust and the anaesthetizing effect of the alcohol.  His orgasm finally came, but it had as much physical thrill as a cold, tea-soaked biscuit instead of a body-drenching exhilaration he had hoped for.  In his intoxicated state, it satisfied his internal sexual drive sufficiently for him to abandon his thrusting.  He fell over on to the bed alongside Zora, who was equally as effected by the drink as he was. 

  Filled with the warm internal glow of sexual satisfaction, she closed her eyes and slipped into a deep sleep.  He too, after throwing a bed sheet over himself and Zora, joined her in the unconscious state that his energy-sapped, alcohol-assaulted, body craved.

It was many hours later when the Englishman began to emerge from the world of sleep into the world of consciousness. He became aware of an apparent coldness about his body.   In his drowsiness he reached across to pull the light covering sheet over him.  It made little difference to the feeling.  His befuddled brain suggested that, perhaps, there was an annoying cold draught blowing from somewhere.  He turned to find from where.  As he did so, he realised that the coldness was something solid which he had to move.  He tried to push the solid object away, but his efforts were in vain.  By now he was more awake than asleep.  Groggy and feeling a little delicate from the previous night's activities, his trace of a hangover put paid to any further sleep.  He had to do something about the cold.  He turned again, this time grumpily, to find out what the hell it was. His eyes fell on a sight that gripped the inside of his stomach like a steel claw.  Alongside him was a girl.  Her face was twisted.  She was ice-cold. The recollection he had of the night before was hazy, but the sight of the girl brought a lot more than his eyes into focus.  It was Zora!  But why was she ice-cold?  It did not make sense!  His befuddled brain was not much help as it struggled to provide an answer.

  He raised himself on to his knees and touched her.  As he did so, the full impact of the whole sickening scene hit him like a sledgehammer.  As he stared at the girl, he not only realised from her grotesque expression that she was stone cold dead, but he could see also that around her neck was a tie.  His tie!

  He shrank back, almost leaping away, in horror and numbness, making a conscious effort not to panic.  He had no clear recollection of all that had happened the night before although he tried, desperately tried, to think of the details.  How  could he possibly have done this?  Little snapshots of recollection appeared in his memory, of the two of them showering, of Zora dancing seductively, of sex and of...what else?  Little else came to mind, he had to admit. The seductive dance came to mind again.  Zora was dancing naked, with just his tie being used as a tease.  Was the answer there?  How could he tell?  He felt awful, groggy, shocked, sick.  What he could not understand is, why he would have murdered her, for it began to look as if it must have been him.  He shuddered at his own conclusions. 

  "Why would I do that?" he cried out as he ran across the room and back, clenching his hands in despair.  "My god, what have I done?"   He strode out to the lounge and hurriedly poured himself a glass of wine from a champagne bottle.  He took a drink as if to wash the overnight staleness and the taste of death out of his mouth.  He grimaced and spat out the flat, acidic liquid.  By now, he was beginning to feel a little less panicky, but he knew he was in a lot of serious trouble.  In desperation, he turned to pace one way, then the other, almost instinctively, until his brain told him to search for his small pocketbook!  Find some phone numbers!  Contact someone who might be able to help! He looked for it in his briefcase.  It was not there.  Nor was it in the drawers of the bedside furniture.  Where could it be?

  "Damn" he repeated several times, each time the expletive louder than the one before,  "damn, damn, damn ......"

  His outburst was interrupted by a knock on the door.   "Oh my god" he exclaimed, almost under his breath, "who the hell is that?"  He looked back at the girl on the bed and, in his dazed state, still sick with fear, all he could think of doing was to close the bedroom door.  Shutting away his dreadful secret, he approached the main door cautiously.

  "Who is it?" he asked.

  "Yousadif" came the reply.

  He went to the door and, after a slight hesitation as though the doorknob might be too hot to touch, opened it.  Yousadif strode in cheerfully and asked as he did so "You are well?" There was a twinkle in his eye.

  "I am, eh, yes." the Englishman replied.  He was really feeling dreadful.  A now painful hangover did nothing to help the dread he felt over the death of the girl whom he must have murdered, here, in his own hotel room.

  "And Zora?" Yousadif asked as he smiled, knowingly.  "You were able to cope as you predicted?"

  The Englishman swallowed hard.  He had fought to control his panic and had tried to project an air of normality, but the effort was too much and his bravado dissolved.  The front he had managed to put up for the first few moments fell away.

  "Yousadif" he said, his voice trembling "I'm in trouble."

  "With the girl?" Yousadif's question was not serious.

  "Yes, here, look" he said as he grabbed the arm of the intrigued Yousadif, pulling him towards the bedroom.  He pushed open the door.  As it swung back, the sprawling body of the naked girl came into view.  It was enough to shock anyone, but no emotion showed on Yousadif's face.  He walked unhurriedly towards the bed, appearing to take in all the details.  The beautiful pale olive skinned body lay in a strangely erotic pose, but the head of rich, dark wavy hair surrounded a face which wore the grotesque expression.  Death by strangulation was unmistakeable.  The eyes were still wide open as though the victim had been terrified in the moments before her departure from the mortal world.  Yousadif took her hand and felt her wrist, although he could tell from everything he saw that it was a superfluous gesture, like the touching of a fabric, or commodity, in a shop, to verify the feel.  He turned to the Englishman who had slumped into a nearby chair.

  "First we'll have to get you out of here.  You'll have to have never been here"

  Even in his disturbed state the Englishman knew exactly what Yousadif meant. 

  "What about the body?" he managed to ask.

  "I'll have to make some phone calls first" Yousadif replied.  "How could you have done such a, such a thing as this?" he asked, almost rhetorically, as though he did not expect an answer.

  The Englishman protested "But I didn't do it!  I, I cannot remember a thing about doing it.  I..." he shook his head as he became lost for words that might offer some kind of explanation.

  Yousadif sat on a chair near the bedside table.  Picking up the phone, he dialled a number even as the Englishman was replying.  The proximity to the dead girl did no seem to bother him.  He waited for a response before speaking in arabic, then waited a short time again before speaking yet again.  This time, it was a more animated conversation and with someone for whom he, obviously, had some respect.  What he was being told must have surprised him.  A look of shocked emotion flitted across his face for the first time since he had entered the room.    After several minutes of talking, listening and responding, he put the phone back on its rest.

  "You are very fortunate, my friend" he said.  "Arrangements will be made to spirit you out of the country.  You'll have to go North to Baghdad and get back to your England as soon as possible."

  The Englishman recovered some of his composure out of sheer relief and got to his feet.  "Yes, uh, can we go today?"

  "Today? Ha!  Within fifteen minutes" Yousadif last three words had the authority of a command.  "After we have gone, the girl's body will be taken care of."

  "In fifteen minutes" the Englishman responded. It was not a question or a statement, but more a dazed and automatic response.

  "In any part of the world your predicament would be serious, but you would probably get a fair trial. In this part of the world my good friend....." Yousadif paused and looked at the ceiling as he drew in a breath through clenched teeth "...the brothers I mentioned would ensure that you died by a thousand cuts......"

  "A thousand cuts.." the Englishman echoed as he gazed downwards with unfocused eyes.  He shuddered.

  "Come, we have no time to lose" Yousadif said sharply, as much to snap the Englishman out of his stunned state as anything else.  "Get all your things together."

  They both moved quickly around the untidy rooms, picking up every personal item belonging to the Englishman, including the tie, and stuffing them into two travelling bags.  Twelve minutes after Yousadif had put down the telephone, they were ready to leave.

  "Make sure you do not leave anything, especially anything traceable to you" Yousadif advised.

  "I'm sure I've got everything" the Englishman obediently replied.

  "Good.  Let's go."  

  Yousadif led the way down the rear stairway and out through the fire exit doors to the street.  A large Mercedes with windows of blackened glass waited outside.  They both got into the back of the car, each carrying a holdall apiece.  The car moved off even as they closed the door.

  Some five hours of hard driving later, they reached the outskirts of Baghdad.  Two more hours and the Englishman was sitting in his seat, on a plane that had just left Iraqi soil, bound for Charles de Gaulle airport at Roissy, near Paris.

CHAPTER 2           An offer of a superboat