Seven Dials (23 page)

Which raised the question in her mind, why had Victor Narraway sent him at all? Was the purpose that Pitt should be in Alexandria? Or that he should not be in London?

She remained with Ryerson another quarter of an hour, but she learned nothing further that was of use. She did not lie by offering him encouragement, she merely asked if there was anything she could send to him to help his discomfort.

“No, thank you,” he said instantly. “I have all I need. But… but I would value it above anything else if you would arrange a few comforts for Ayesha. See at least that she has clean linen… toiletries… I… another woman would have…”

“Of course,” she responded before he could finish. “I doubt they will permit me to see her, but I shall arrange for such things to be delivered. I can imagine what I would wish myself, and see that it is done.”

His face flooded with gratitude. “Thank you…” His voice caught with emotion. “I am profoundly…”

“Please!” she dismissed it. “It is a small thing.” She was already on her feet. “I hear them returning for me.” She met his eyes. She wanted to add something else, but the words died. She smiled, and turned to go.

IT TOOK HER another day and exhaustive enquiry, again a matter of discreetly seeking the return of past favors, a little flattery and a great deal of charm, before she learned where she could find Victor Narraway, and contrive to run into him. It was a reception to which she had been invited, and had declined. It was an awkwardness she loathed to have now to invent an excuse, and beg to accept instead.

Because her acceptance had been most uncomfortable she felt she had the choice either of dressing in excellent but subdued taste, something conservative in a soft color, or of being as bold and outrageous as possible, defying anyone to comment on her change of mind. She might speak with Narraway with less remark or interruption were she to choose the former, but no matter what she wore, she was not an unremarkable figure. She chose the latter, and had her maid take out a gown she had ordered in a moment of extraordinary confidence, a deep indigo silk of so fine a texture it seemed to float. The low neck and the waist were embroidered with silver thread and pearls in a rich, medieval design.

Standing in front of the glass, she was startled by the gown’s drama. She usually chose the aristocracy of understatement, neutral shaded satins and laces, subtle with her silver hair and clear eyes. But this was magnificent, arresting in its simplicity of line, and the somber color was like a whisper of the night itself, elemental and mysterious.

She arrived late at the reception, causing a very considerable stir. It was not her habit to be so obvious. The lateness was her fault rather than her intention. She had left herself little time for the journey, not wanting to be early, and directed her coachman to take a route around the park, which had unfortunately been blocked by a traffic accident-a coach wheel came off, or something of the sort-and they ended arriving late.

She walked into the room alone, and there was a momentary hush. Several people, most of them men, quite openly stared. She had an instant of wondering if she had made a misjudgment, and the gown was wrong after all. She had no jewelry but pearl earrings. Maybe she was too pale, too bleached of her own color for such a depth of tone?

She saw the Prince of Wales, his blue eyes widening with amazement and then appreciation. Beside him a younger man, whom she did not know, cleared his throat, but continued staring at her.

She was greeted by her host, and within five more minutes found herself presented to the Prince. Apparently he had desired to speak to her. They had known each other for years, but it was still a highly formal occasion. One did not presume.

It was over an hour before she managed to find Victor Narraway and converse with him without being overheard.

“Good evening, Victor.” She set the tone as she intended to continue it. She did not know him well, but she was quite aware of who he was, and of the regard in which he was held in the highest political circles, both his virtues and his shortcomings. But he was an intensely private man, and of his true self she knew very little. He mattered to her because of Ryerson, and she acknowledged to herself now, even more so because much of Thomas Pitt’s future lay in his hands.

“Good evening, Lady Vespasia,” he replied, a shadow of amusement in his dark eyes, but also a wariness. He was far too sophisticated to imagine she had found him more or less alone purely by chance.

There was no time to waste, they would be joined within minutes. “I visited Saville Ryerson yesterday,” she told him, and saw no change of expression in his face. “He is going to tell you nothing, in part because I think he knows nothing. It makes no sense that the woman intended to ruin him and hope for someone in his place who would be more favorable to Egyptian financial independence. No such person exists, and she must have been as aware of that as we are.”

“Of course,” he agreed. If he was curious as to what she wanted of him, he was not going to allow her to see it. He remained politely interested, as a dutiful man towards an older woman of rank, but no importance.

It irritated her. “Victor, do not treat me like a fool!” she said, her voice low but her diction so crystal clear as to be cutting. “I know that you have sent Thomas to Alexandria. What on earth for? The first answer that comes to my mind is in order to keep him out of London.” She was satisfied to see him stiffen so imperceptibly that she could not have told which muscle had moved, only that the tension in his body had increased.

“Lovat and the Zakhari woman knew each other in Alexandria,” he replied. His words were innocent but his eyes held hers, probing, trying to feel for what she sought from him. “It would be remiss not at least to make enquiries.”

“To find what?” She raised her eyebrows slightly. “That they had a love affair? One takes that for granted. Ryerson loves her, and I imagine he does not wish to know of her past admirers, but he is not naÏve enough to imagine there were none.”

She stopped speaking as a small, thin woman in peach-colored silk moved past them, clinging to the arm of a gentleman with receding hair.

Narraway smiled to himself, his composure perfect.

Vespasia wished she knew him better. She was aware, with amusement at herself, that were she younger she would have found him attractive. His inaccessibility was in itself a challenge. There was emotion behind the cool intelligence, of what nature she did not know. Was there moral or spiritual courage? The answer mattered, because of his power over Pitt.

“If you are considering the possibility that there was some scandal over which Lovat could have blackmailed her,” she went on when they were alone again, “then you could have written a letter to the British authorities in Alexandria and asked them. They would be in a position to find out for you and advise accordingly. They will speak the language, know the city and its inhabitants, and have contacts with the kind of people who inform of such things.”

He drew his breath in as if to argue with her, then looked more clearly into her eyes, and changed his mind. “Perhaps,” he conceded. “But they will answer only what I ask them, whereas Pitt may find other things, answers to questions I have not thought of.”

“Ah…” She believed him, at least as far as he had spoken. There was far more that he was not saying, but had she been able to draw from him anything he did not wish to tell her, then that would have meant that he was inadequate to his job, which thought would wake in her a real fear, deep and abiding.

He smiled very slowly. It had a charm that surprised her. For the first time she wondered if he had ever loved anyone sufficiently profound to disturb that thick layer of self-protection around him, and if so, what kind of woman she had been.

“And of course you are looking into Ryerson, and Lovat’s other associates here yourself, or have someone else doing so,” she stated. “One wonders whether that other person is more able to enquire into London than Thomas would be… or less able in Alexandria.” She did not make it a question because she knew he would not answer.

His smile stayed perfectly steady, but the tension in him increased yet again, perhaps only in the totality of his stillness. “It is a delicate matter,” he said so quietly that she barely heard him. “And I agree with you entirely, judging by what we know now, that it makes no sense. Lovat was nobody. Ayesha Zakhari may be vulnerable to blackmail, but I doubt profoundly that anything a man like Lovat could tell Ryerson would affect his feelings for her. It would be infinitely more likely to end in Lovat’s being charged, or more simply dismissed from his position in the diplomatic service, and unable to find a new posting anywhere at all. He would probably be blackballed from his clubs as well. He had already contrived to make himself more than sufficient enemies. Also, Miss Zakhari’s patriotism is easily understandable, but imagining that she could affect British policy in Egypt shows a naÏveté which an intelligent woman could hardly have sustained for long, once she was here in London.”

“Exactly,” she agreed, watching every shadow in his face.

“Therefore…” he said somberly and in little more than a whisper, more like the sighing of a breath, “I am obliged to consider what profound thing it is, worth committing murder and going to the gallows for, that we have not yet considered.”

Vespasia did not answer. She had been trying to avoid the thought, but now it was dark and inevitable on the horizon of her mind as it was of Victor Narraway’s.

PITT WAS GAINING an increasingly clearer picture of Ayesha Zakhari and the people and political issues which had driven her. But as he stood at the window of his hotel room gazing at the wide, balmy night, the smell of spices and salt thick in the air, it was with a start of amazement that he realized he had never seen a picture of her. She would be dark, naturally, and he had assumed that she was beautiful, because he had taken it for granted that that was her stock-in-trade. But as he faced out towards the sea, the vines stirring very gently in the breeze, and stared up at the vast bowl of the sky, pale with stars, he thought of her differently. She had become a person of intelligence and strength of will, someone who fought for beliefs with which he could very easily sympathize. If it were England and not Egypt which was occupied, almost governed, by a nation foreign not only in language and look, but in faith and heritage as well, a comparatively new nation that had been civilized-building, writing, dreaming-when his own people still were savages, how would he have felt?

He heard the sound of laughter in the wind, a man’s voice and then a woman’s, and a stringed instrument, full of curious half tones. He took off his jacket; even at this hour the air was so warm, the cotton of his shirt was more than sufficient. He had worn it for dinner as a formality.

He gazed around, trying to imprint it all on his mind so he could tell Charlotte about it, the sounds that were so unlike England, the close, comfortable feel of the air on the skin, almost clammy, the heaviness of smell, sweet, close to stagnant at times, and of course always the flies. There was no cutting edge to the wind. It was languorous, hiding danger in ease, resentment behind smiling faces.

He thought of the wave after wave of peoples over the centuries who had come here as soldiers, religious conquerors, explorers, merchants, or settlers, each absorbed by the city, staying here and changing its nature.

Now it was the time of his own people, the English, unalterably foreign with their pale skins and Anglo-Saxon voices, their stiff backs and unshakable ideas of right and wrong. It was at once admirable and absurd. And above all it was monumentally inappropriate. This was an Egyptian city and they had no right here, except as they were invited.

He thought about Trenchard and his obvious love of the land and its people. Later, after their shopping, he had spoken a little of his life here. Apparently he had no close family in England anymore, and the woman he had loved, although not married, was Egyptian. He had spoken of her only briefly. She had been Muslim-in fact, the daughter of an imam, one of their holy men. She had died less than a year ago, in an accident that Trenchard had been unwilling to speak of, and naturally Pitt had not pressed him.

It was in some turmoil of emotions that he stood now, not yet ready to go to bed because he knew sleep would elude him. He could understand Ayesha so easily, the patriotism, the outrage at the way her people were robbed, the poverty and the unnecessary ignorance, and then in London with Ryerson, the torn loyalties.

But had it led her to murder? He still had not escaped the driving conclusion that it had. If not she, then who else?

In the morning he would continue learning what he could about Edwin Lovat. There must still be people here who had knowledge of him that would be more vibrant, more detailed and perhaps more honest than mere written records.

He turned away from the window and prepared to go to bed.

IT DID NOT take him long to discover exactly where Lovat had spent most of his time, and he was on his way there when he passed through the carpet bazaar. It was a baked-mud street perhaps forty feet wide, or more, and roofed over, three stories high, with vast wooden beams stretching from one side to the other and loosely filled over with more timber so the roof cast a barred and dappled shade on the ground. Everywhere there were awnings, over doorways, from windows, from poles like those set horizontally for flags.

Scores of people, almost entirely men, sat around with bales of cloth, rolled-up carpets, brassware, and magnificent hookah pipes emanating lazy smoke. There were many reds-scarlet, carmine, crimson, terra-cotta-and creams, warm earth shades, and black. Noise and color pressed in on every side in the heat.

Pitt was making his way down the middle of the street, trying to avoid looking as if he was there to buy, when there was a scuffle ahead of him, and voices raised in anger.

At first he thought it was merely a haggle over prices that had gotten out of hand, then he realized there were at least half a dozen men involved, and the tone was uglier than that of bystanders watching a squabble.

He stopped. If it was a real brawl he did not want to be caught up in it. He needed to make his way to the edge of the city and out to the village where the military camp was where Lovat had served. It was east, towards the nearest branch of the Nile delta, and the Mahmudiya Canal, beyond which lay Cairo and, over the sands from that, Suez. He could not afford to get caught up in a local quarrel, and if it became unpleasant, it was the job of the police here, where he had no authority, to deal with it.

He turned back. He knew there was another way around to the street beyond. It was longer, but in these circumstances, better. He started to walk more rapidly, but the noise behind him increased. He turned to look. Two men in long robes were arguing, waving their arms around and gesticulating, apparently over the price of a red-and-black rug near the feet of one of them.

Behind him a group of men pressed closer, also curious to see what the hubbub was about.

Pitt swiveled around again to continue walking, but now his way was blocked. He had to step aside not to be caught up in the heat of the crowd. Another carpet was unrolled, completely barring his way. Someone shouted out what sounded like a warning. There were voices all around him, and he understood none of it.

Overhead the dark beams gave a patchy shade, but still the heat was intense because there was no wind. The dust seemed baked under his feet, and the smell of wool, incense, spices, and sweat were heavy in the motionless air. Another mosquito bit him and he slapped at it automatically.

A young man was running, shouting. A pistol shot rang out and there was instant silence, then howls of anger. There seemed to be police of some sort, four or five of them at the far end of the bazaar, and another two only yards away from Pitt. They were European, probably British.

Someone threw a metal bowl and it hit one of the policemen on the side of the head. He staggered a little, caught by surprise.

There were cries which were unmistakably of approval and encouragement. Pitt did not need to speak the language to understand the meaning, or see the hatred in the bearded faces, most of them turbaned, dark and more African than Mediterranean.

He tried to move away from the increasing violence, and bumped into a pile of carpets, which swayed. He spun around to stop it from falling, grasping hold of it with both hands, fingers digging into the hard wool, but he could not save it. He felt himself pulled forward, losing his balance, and the next moment he was sprawled on the pile of rugs, rolling into the dust.

Men were running, robes flying. There were more shouts, the clash of steel on steel, and shots again. Pitt tried to scramble to his feet, and stumbled over an earthenware pot, sending it rolling fast until it caught another man and knocked him off balance. He fell hard on his back, swearing furiously-in English.

Pitt clambered to his feet and ran toward the man, who was still lying on the ground, apparently stunned. Pitt reached out to help him up, and was hit with great force from behind. He pitched into darkness.

He woke up lying on his back, with his head pounding. He thought it was moments since he had fallen and that he was still in the carpet bazaar, except that when he opened his eyes he saw that the ceiling was dirty white, and when he moved slightly he could see walls. There was no red anywhere, no rich colors of wool, only striped ochre and black and unbleached linen in a heap.

He sat up slowly, a little dizzy. The heat was motionless, suffocating. There were flies everywhere. He swatted at them uselessly. He was in a small room, and the heap of cloth was another man. There was a third propped up against the farthest wall, and a fourth under the high, barred window, beyond which was a square of burning blue sky.

He looked at the men again. One was bearded and wore a turban; he had a dark, heavy, swollen bruise around his left eye. It looked painful. A second was clean-shaven except for a long, black mustache. Pitt guessed him to be Greek or Armenian. The third smiled at him, shaking his head and pursing his lips. He held out a leather water bottle, offering it to Pitt.

“L’chaim,”
he said wryly. “Welcome back.”

“Thank you,” Pitt accepted. His mouth was dry and his throat ached. An Arab or Turk, a Greek or Armenian, a Jew, and himself, an Englishman. What was he doing here, in what was apparently a prison? He turned around slowly, looking for the door. There was no handle on the inside.

“Where are we?” he said, taking another sip of the water. He should not drink too much, it might be all they had. He passed it back.

“English,” the Jew said with bewildered amusement. “What are you doing fighting the English police in a riot? You’re not one of us!”

They were all looking at him curiously.

Slowly, he realized that his blundering fall must have looked like a deliberate assault. He had been arrested as part of the demonstration of feeling against the British authority in Egypt. He had sensed the resentment, the slow anger simmering beneath the surface, ever since his second or third day here. Now he began to appreciate how widespread it was, and how thin the veneer of daily life which hid it from the casual eye. Perhaps it was a fortunate chance that had put him here, if he seized it. But he must think of the right answer now.

“I’ve seen another side of the story,” he replied. “I know an Egyptian woman in London.” He must be careful not to make a mistake. If he was caught in a lie it might cost him very dearly. “Heard about the cotton industry…” He saw the Arab’s face darken. “She gave a good argument for factories here, not in England,” Pitt went on, feeling his skin prickle and smelling sweat and fear in the air. His hands were clammy.

“What’s your name?” the Arab asked abruptly.

“Thomas Pitt. What’s yours?”

“Musa. That’s enough for you,” came the reply.

Pitt turned to the Jew.

“Avram,” came the answer with a smile.

“Cyril,” said the Greek, also giving only his first name.

“What will they do to us next?” Pitt asked. Would it be possible for him to get a message to Trenchard? And even if he could, would Trenchard be willing to help him?

Avram shook his head. “They’ll either let you go because you’re English,” he replied, “or they’ll throw the book at you for betraying your own. What did you attack the police for, anyway? That’s hardly going to get cotton factories built here!” The smile did not fade from his lips, but his eyes were suspicious.

The other two watched, holding judgment by a thread.

Pitt smiled back. “I didn’t,” he admitted. “I tripped over a carpet.”

There was a moment’s silence, then Avram roared with laughter, and the second after the others joined in.

But judgment still hung in the balance. There was something here to learn, beyond just survival, and Pitt knew it. They might well think he had been placed with them to seek out the leaders of any potential trouble. There must be an equivalent to Special Branch in Alexandria. He must not ask questions, except about Ayesha, and perhaps Lovat, although Lovat had left Alexandria over twelve years ago. It was becoming increasingly important for him not only to learn the facts but to understand them, although he could not easily have justified it to Narraway, had he asked.

The three men were waiting for him. He must respond innocently.

“Tripped over a carpet,” Avram repeated, nodding slowly, the laughter still in his eyes. “They might believe you. Just possibly. Is your family important?”

“Not in the slightest,” Pitt answered. “My father was a servant on a rich man’s estate, so was my mother. They’re both dead now.”

“And the rich man?”

Pitt shrugged, memory sharp. “He’s dead too. But he was good to me. Educated me with his own son-to encourage him. Can’t be beaten by a servant’s boy.” He added that to explain his speech. They probably knew English well enough to be able to tell the difference between one class and another.

They were all watching him, Cyril with deep skepticism, Musa with more open dislike. Somewhere outside, a dog began to bark. In the room it seemed to grow even hotter. Pitt could feel the sweat trickling down his body.

“So why are you in Alexandria?” Musa asked, his voice low and a little hoarse. “You didn’t come just to see if we wanted cotton factories, and you didn’t get here for nothing.” That was an invitation to explain himself, and perhaps a warning.

Pitt decided to embroider the truth a little. “Of course not,” he agreed. “A British diplomat, ex-soldier, was murdered. He was stationed here for a while, twelve years ago. They think an Egyptian in London killed him. I’m paid to prove she didn’t.”

“Police!” Musa snarled, moving very slightly, as if he would get up.

“They pay police to prove who is guilty, not who isn’t!” Pitt snapped back at him. “At least they do in London. And no, I’m not police. If I were, don’t you think I’d have got out of here by now?”

“You were senseless when they carried you in,” Avram pointed out. “Who were you going to tell?”

“Isn’t there a guard out there?” Pitt inclined his head towards the door.

Avram shrugged. “Probably, although no one imagines we’re going to break out, more’s the pity.”

Pitt squinted up at the window.

Cyril stood up and went over to it, pulling experimentally at the central bar. He turned around and glared at Pitt, a slight sneer on his lip.

“You need brains to get out of here, not force,” Musa said to him. “Or money?” He raised his eyebrows questioningly.