I leaned back against the reed wall of the tent. 'I'd like that in more detail.'

'Paul Billson is an idiot. He filled his tank with gas and went. No spare. Five days is overlong to be away, and if he has no spare water he'll be dead by now.'

'How do I get there?' I said evenly.

Byrne looked at me for a long time, and sighed. 'If I didn't know Hesther thought something of you I'd tell you to go to hell. As it is, we start at first light.' He grimaced. 'And I'll have to go against my principles and use a stinkpot.'

What he meant by that I didn't know, but I merely said, 'Thanks.'

'Come on,' he said. 'Let's help Mokhtar get chow.'

'Chow' proved to be stringy goat, hard on the teeth and digestion, followed by a strong cheese which I was told was made of camel's milk. Byrne was taciturn and we went to sleep early in readiness for an early start. I lay on my back at the entrance to the tent, staring up at a sky so full of stars it seemed I could just reach up an arm to grab a handful.

I wondered what I was doing there and what I was getting into. And I wondered about Byrne, who spoke almost as archaic a slang as Hesther Raulier, a man who referred to his food by. the World War Two American army term of 'chow'.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Byrne's 'stinkpot turned out to be a battered Toyota Land Cruiser which looked as though it had been in a multiple smash on a motorway. Since there wasn't a motorway within two thousand miles, that was unlikely. Byrne saw my expression and said, 'Rough country,' as though that was an adequate explanation. However, the engine ran sweetly enough and the tyres were good.

We left in the dim light of dawn with Byrne driving, me next to him, and Mokhtar sitting in the back. Jerricans containing petrol and water were strapped all around the truck wherever there was an available place, and I noted that Mokhtar had somewhat unobtrusively put a rifle aboard. He also had a sword, a thing about three feet long in a red leather scabbard; what the devil he was going to do with that I couldn't imagine.

We drove north along a rough track, and I said, 'Where are we going?'

It was a damnfool question because I didn't understand the answer when it came. Byrne stabbed his finger forward and said briefly, 'Atakor,' then left me to make of that what I would.

I was silent for a while, then said, 'Did you get a permis?'

'No,' said Byrne shortly. A few minutes went by before he relented. 'No fat bureaucrat from the Maghreb is going to tell me where I can, or cannot, go in the desert.'

After that there was no conversation at all, and I began to think that travelling with Byrne was going to be sticky; extracting words from him was like pulling teeth. But perhaps he was always like that in the early morning. I thought of what he had just said and smiled. It reminded me of my own reaction to Isaacson's treatment of Hoyland. But that had been far away in another world, and seemed a thousand years ago.

The country changed from flat gravel plains to low hills, barren of vegetation, and we began to climb. Ahead were mountains, such mountains as I had never seen before. Most mountains begin rising gently from their base, but these soared vertically to the sky, a landscape of jagged teeth.

After two hours of jolting we entered a valley where there was a small encampment. There was a bit more vegetation here, but not much, and there were many sheep or goats – I never could tell the difference in the Sahara because the sheep were thin-fleeced, long-legged creatures and I began to appreciate the Biblical quotation about separating the sheep from the goats. Camels browsed on the thorny acacia and there was a scattering of the leather tents of the Tuareg.

Mokhtar leaned forward and said something to Byrne, who nodded and drew the truck to a halt. As the dust drifted away on the light breeze Mokhtar got out and walked over to the tents. He was wearing his sword slung across his back, the hilt over his left shoulder.

Byrne said, 'These people are of the Tegehe Mellet. Mokhtar has gone to question them. If a Land-Rover has been anywhere near here they'll know about it.'

'What's the sword for?'

Byrne laughed. 'He'd feel as undressed without it as you would with no pants.' He seemed to be becoming more human.

'The Teg-whatever-it-is-you-said… is that a tribe of some kind?'

'That's right. The Tuareg confederation of the Ahaggar consists of three tribes – the Kel Rela, the Tegehe Mellet and the Taitoq. Mokhtar is of the Kel Rela a nd of the noble clan. That's why he's gone to ask the questions and not me.'

'Noble!'

'Yeah, but not in the British sense. Mokhtar is related to the Amenokal – he's the boss, the paramount chief of the Ahaggar confederation. All you have to know is that when a noble Kel Rela says, "Jump, frog!" everybody jumps.' He paused, then added, 'Except, maybe, another noble Kel Rela.' He shrugged. 'But you didn't come out here to study anthropology.'

'It might come in useful at that,' I said.