Rachel Arian pushed back her bulky sun hat and regarded the diggers working in the hot sunshine; by her side Nigel Hawkins riffled through the book in his arms and yelled in halting Egyptian at them to work harder.

“I’m going inside” she said, turning away and heading back towards the large canvas tent but shouting stopped her in her tracks. She looked back over her shoulder to see two of the diggers dragging a raggedy looking figure between them up the sand dune she had been standing on a moment ago to throw at Nigel.

“What do they want?” she shouted to him and he adjusted his glasses and then beckoned her forward.

“A thief” he said quietly, pointing to the wretched creature at his feet.

“I’m not a thief!” the creature said suddenly, rising its face up to look defiantly at Nigel and Rachel gasped because it was a woman lying in the sand.

one of the diggers kicked the woman who tumbled forward again, something gold and glinting tumbled onto the sand and the woman looked up horrified.

“Not a thief?” Rachel asked, smirking as she bent to pick the golden thing from the ground and expect it – it was a golden statuette of a cat.

“I’m sure I don’t know how the got there” the woman said and Rachel wondered for a moment how someone who looked like a desert waif could have spoken with such clear and perfect English.

Nigel looked at Rachel, unsure what to do about the thief and Rachel sighed and grabbed the woman’s arm, hurling her upright.

“What’s your name?” she asked, staring coldly at her but the woman just stared right back, hardly looking flustered.

“Eva” she said and Rachel nodded grimly.

“Nigel, I’m taking Eva here to the tent with me – she could use some cleaning up”

“But…but she stole from us!” Nigel said, flabbergasted and Rachel rolled her eyes.

“She’s the only person to have found anything so far!” she smiled crookedly at him and, pushing Eva in front of her marched onward to the tent.

“You can’t do this!” Nigel said, English ethics getting the better of him and Rachel cast one look over her shoulder and she steered Eva inside the tent.

“I’m the money Nigel, I can do whatever I want!”

***

“So” Rachel said sometime later when Eva was sitting in the old tin bath that had been placed in one corner of the tent and then roped off by hanging sheets up on clothes horses whenever anyone wanted a bath, waist deep in lukewarm water and dripping wet “Do you want to tell me what your doing steeling from my dig site?”

Eva looked at her from under lowered eyelashes, her wet hair framing her face and smiled.

“You don’t have very good security, I’ve been here for days”

“That still doesn’t answer my question” Rachel said, a little exasperated.

“I wanted to sell some of your stuff to the museum in Cairo but your digging in the wrong place, whoever worked out your calculations doesn’t know much about geography”

Rachel bit her tongue to keep from saying that had been her and instead took a comb and proceeded to brush the tangles from Eva’s hair, taking a perverse delight when the young woman whimpered at knots.

“You know about the museum in Cairo?”

“I worked for them” Eva said and she frowned “but there where…complications and I had to leave”

Rachel nodded, she could guess what those complications might have been.

“I could give you a job Eva, you seem to know where to dig” she offered her hand to seal the deal and Eva regarded it for a moment before excepting.