Fiona in the souk

Fiona sprinted naked through the Khan el-Khalili, Cairo’s famous souk, before thousands of startled eyes. Snake charmers, rug merchants, booksellers, veiled perfume dealers, antiques traders with warehouses full of old pots all fell about laughing as the mortified nude Englishwoman raced through narrow alleys and between covered stalls, feeling thousands of leering eyes creep across her skin.

Stripped naked! In the Shepheard’s Hotel ballroom! Before the eyes of the International Lady Archaeologists’ Association, which as an educated woman she knew was one of the most respectable scientific establishments in the world! She’d never live it down. She couldn’t possibly show her face there again, ever in her life.

But all her clothes were there! Oh, what was she to do!

“In here,” she heard a woman’s voice cry out. A pleasant, cultured voice, with just a trace of a French accent. Fiona saw a graceful hand beckoning her inside a shop, and followed it as quickly as she could. She had to duck under the narrow doorway, into the darkness of the medieval building.

She couldn’t see a thing. “Who are you?” she said, raising a hand.

There was the click of a handcuff around her wrist.

“I,” said the cultured French voice, now sounding infinitely amused, “am le Filou Rouge.”