It seemed a quaintly childish thing to do, yet the woman was far from a child. Waiting to check in, behind a line of impatient guests, Cameron Murchison watched the woman drink. She sat beside a table on which a display of dried flowers stood. It was the kind of table found around hotels; people sat at them for brief moments as they waited for elevators or fellow guests. Murchison saw the woman’s throat moving as she tilted back her head. It seemed, for a brief moment, as if a faint, purple light danced around her head. He was tired. The plane had been full to capacity and he’d had the misfortune to be seated near to a woman carrying a baby that whined peevishly and continually. Once they landed, the heat of Egypt had sapped his strength; his mind felt muzzy. The increase in political troubles meant that visitors from overseas had to be escorted by police to their hotels. Security was high upon the streets, the atmosphere fervid. The visitors’ coach drove steadily through streets blanketed with thick smoke, in which the smell of burning flesh simmered faintly.
