“Zara would like this…” “Probably,” said Raf, glancing at his Omega a second ahead of it beeping to remind him that he should be somewhere else. Pashazade Ashraf Bey was in demand. Three weeks after the shocking murder of Lady Jalila by a renegade Thiergarten assassin, he was still a hero for the daring rescue of his niece, Hani al-Mansur, and of the daughter of Hamzah Effendi, a well-known industrialist. Charities begged Raf to be on their committee. There was the rumour of a Japanese miniseries. General Saeed Koenig Pasha called him almost daily. He had until two p.m. to decide if he wanted to be Iskandryia’s new Chief of Detectives. He didn’t. The only person not interested was Zara; not interested in Raf and not interested in the polite, handwritten little notes the Khedive had taken to having delivered to Villa Hamzah. As soon as she’d been polygraphed, her statement taken and affidavit signed, she’d stormed back to Glymenapoulo Bay.
