The 92nd Tiger (20 page)

The Colonel replaced the receiver thoughtfully. He would have preferred threats to such studied politeness.

After lunch he approached the reception clerk and said, ‘Will you please prepare my bill. I shall be using my room for one further night, but shall not be dining at the hotel this evening. I may have to leave very early tomorrow morning, and should like to discharge my account now.’

When the bill came, the Colonel paid it, in dollars, and added a very handsome sum ‘To cover contingencies’. When the clerk came back with the receipted bill he conveyed to the Colonel the compliments of the manager, and the hope that he had enjoyed his stay. The Colonel said that he had enjoyed it very much. He proposed now to take a siesta in his room, and would the exchange please be told to put through no calls until six o’clock.

The reception clerk assured the Colonel that he would attend to this personally, and was further rewarded. Ten minutes later the Colonel was asleep. One of his most formidable attainments was an ability to relax in times of stress.

The telephone woke him. He looked at his watch. It was five o’clock. The receptionist was most apologetic. If the caller had not assured him that it was of the utmost urgency—

‘All right, all right,’ said the Colonel. ‘I’m awake now. Put him through.’

It was Sharif, and his voice was thin with fear. He said, ‘This afternoon, at three o’clock—’

‘Speak more slowly. What happened at three o’clock?’

‘Hafiz was killed. A car ran him down. It failed to stop. The police—’

‘Never mind about the police. Was it an accident?’

‘I do not think so.’

‘All right. Now we know.’ The Colonel considered the matter coldly. ‘We shall have to revise our plans. Come to the hotel at seven o’clock. You may come quite openly. By then I shall have made the necessary arrangements.’

By then, he would have made the necessary arrangements. By then he should be on the evening plane to Cairo.

Against just such an emergency, he kept, in a cleverly constructed pocket in his suitcase, a second passport. It was in the name of D. E. Martin, and a few simple alterations in his appearance, a toupee covering his bald patch, a touch of matching colour in his hair, and a pair of heavy gold-rimmed glasses transformed him into a sufficient likeness of the serious middle-aged man in the passport photograph.

In the time available to them the opposition would not have been able to mount any very thorough blocking operation at the airport. He had little doubt that the innocuous Mr. Martin would pass.

The only question was whether he could get clear of the hotel. The front would certainly be watched. Would they trouble about the back? There was only one way of finding out.

A glance out of the kitchen door was enough. The young man whom he had evaded that morning was standing on the other side of the alley, apparently admiring the pointed toes of his own shoes. The Colonel, who was wearing rubber-soles, crossed the alley in six quick and silent steps. The youth looked up, and started, much too late, to take his hands out of his pockets. The Colonel hit him a swinging back-hand blow on the side of the neck, and, as his body came forward, jerked a knee up into his face.

By the time the youth, spitting blood, teeth and obscenities, had gone on to his knees, the Colonel was three streets away, and walking fast. Speed, at this point, was more important than secrecy. The changes to be made in his appearance, though trivial, had to be made carefully, and took time. To be certain of a seat on the plane he ought to be at the airport soon after six. It was now twenty past five. Enough time, but by no means too much.

As he let himself into the house and climbed the stairs to Fara’s apartment he ran over, in his mind, the plans he had made, the contingencies he had to cater for, the unexpected elements of bad luck which complicated the most perfectly conceived schemes, and had to be met by improvisation.

The door was locked and he assumed therefore that Fara was out. He was fumbling for his key when she heard him, and shouted, ‘All right. I’m coming.’

She opened the door, and stood there for a moment. As he stepped forward to kiss her, the look in her eyes told him the truth, but much too late. The man who had been standing behind the door with a knife had never had an easier mark.

When Sharif arrived at the hotel at seven o’clock, the receptionist was unable to help him. The Colonel had paid his bill, and vacated his room. He had left no forwarding address. (It is a fact that, at the precise moment that he said these words, the Colonel’s body was being carefully sewn up in a long sack, the bottom half of which was full of dry cement. As soon as it was dark, a motorboat would tow the sack a mile out to sea, and the tow-rope would be cut.)

‘If you should be able to contact Colonel Delmaison in the future,’ said the receptionist, ‘perhaps you could tell him that we hold a cable for him, from Umran. It was delivered five minutes after he left. It is marked urgent.’

‘It’d be nothing more than he deserves,’ said Tammy, ‘if you refused to have anything more to do with him.’

‘I’m afraid I’m stuck with him,’ said Hugo.

‘He’s a murderer.’

‘Not proved.’

‘It’s obvious. He knew they’d put a bomb in his car and he faked things so that poor little Urban walked into it.’

‘I didn’t know you knew Mr. Nussbaum.’

‘I’d met him. He came along to make his mark with Bob. Arms salesmen always keep in with the Department of the Exterior. I thought he was a nice little man. He told me all about his wife and children.’

‘Watch the fish. It’s going to fall off that stick in a moment.’

It was a very small shark. They had caught it on their way over to the island. With its scrawny neck, its bulging stomach and its sad eyes it looked like an advertisement for Oxfam.

Tammy had constructed the fire out of driftwood, showing remarkable expertise.

‘I learned to do this sort of thing at Summer Camp,’ she said. ‘It’s an American institution. Any parents who can afford it, shoot their children off to one at the beginning of the long vacation. It does both parties good, I guess. It gets the children out of their parents’ hair for a while and teaches them how to get along with other people. For the first twenty-four hours you were homesick, then you met some marvellous boy—’

She sighed, and rotated the small shark. She had spitted it on a long stick, balanced between two uprights. It was beginning to go brown at the edges.

‘Some marvellous boy—?’

‘His name was Homer. I was ten and he was fourteen. I thought he was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen. Like a young god, or something.’ She sighed again. ‘I met him last year. He’s in an office on Wall Street, and he’d already begun to get
fat.
Would you believe it?’

‘I expect there were others.’

‘Certainly.’ She looked at him out of the corner of her cat’s eyes. The first time I was actually
seduced
was on my fifteenth birthday.’

‘I’m surprised it didn’t happen before.’

‘It was meant to make you feel grown-up. It just made me feel messy.’

‘Watch it,’ said Hugo. The fish had canted dangerously.

‘Tell me something,’ said Tammy when the fish had been rescued. ‘What are you aiming to get out of this?’

‘Out of what?’ Hugo’s mind was entirely on her.

‘Out of coming out here. You had a lovely job, plenty of money, and a lot of lovely girls to play around with—’

‘The lovely job had finished. I had a bit of money, but certainly not enough to keep me warm for the rest of my life. And as for the lovely girls, if you think it’s fun making love to a girl with four cameras, two sound booms, and a studio full of extras leering at you, then think again.’

‘O.K. I’ll give you that. But why Umran?’

‘It’s a job. Come to that, why are you here?’

‘It’s a job.’

‘Not a very suitable job for a girl, I should have thought.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong. What you see here is no ordinary girl. It’s a dedicated, case-hardened agent of the U.S. State Department. And anyway, there are jobs girls can do and men can’t.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as, for instance, if Prince Hussein should wish for a consort. I’d be right in line for the situation. It’s been suggested in certain quarters already.’

Hugo sat bolt upright and said, in tones of outrage,
‘Who
has suggested it?’

The young man hinted at it. He implied that his father would not be averse.’

‘And Bob would let you do it?’

‘If it cemented the entente, he would surely regard it as my dooty.’

Hugo lay back again. He said, ‘I thought for a moment you were serious.’

Tammy said nothing. She had buried both of her small, square feet in the sand and was twiddling them round until the tops of her toes appeared like little pink and white sea creatures coming up for air. Finally she said, ‘Tell me something, Hugo. If there really was trouble and we cleared out by kind permission of the Officer Commanding United States Battle Cruiser
Archimandrite,
would you come along?’

‘I’d like to, but I don’t really see how I could.’

‘Bad for the Tiger image?’

‘Don’t talk rubbish.’

‘What then? British phlegm. The stiff upper-lip. I say, old man, do you think those Wuzzies are going to attack up? Can’t, old boy. It’s the fourth of June. Everybody knows the fourth of June’s a holiday.’

‘That sort of thing went out thirty years ago.’

‘There must be a little of it left,’ said Tammy wistfully. ‘In odd holes and corners. Don’t tell me the last pair of spats has been laid away in moth-balls, the last monocle broken.’

‘If you want to hear the true voice of Britain,’ said Hugo, rolling over on to his stomach and reaching for his discarded jacket, ‘I will read you the text of a message received at eighteen hundred hours last night. It is marked Top Secret, so I am committing a serious offence against the Official Secrets Act by revealing the contents to you. No matter.’ He adjusted an imaginary monocle in his right eye and read out, ‘Your telephonic communication timed fourteen thirty hours local time on April 26 and your request transmitted in that message now considered by all relevant authorities here. Stop. Concluded that on balance of politico-diplomatic considerations and taking account all factors transmitted you verbally by department Foreign Office concerned not presently desirable initiate or suggest any visit armed forces from your Southern neighbours to you. Stop. Should situation change will inform you forthwith.’

‘What does it mean?”

‘It means “no”. It took them seventy expensive words to say it, but it means “no”.’

‘I can’t make out that last bit at all about them telling you if the situation changed. You’d know about that before they did, I should think.’

‘I agree. Palmerston would have sent a gun boat. Or a message saying, “Not bloody likely, chum. You stick it out.” Now we have to put in slush about relevant departments and politico-diplomatic considerations.’

‘It’s not just you,’ said Tammy. ‘We all do it. The U.S. State Department is just as bad. Worse, I guess. They’d have taken a hundred words to say it, and put in something about the man on the spot exercising independent judgement and a prayer for the United Nations. That would be to cover them, if things went badly wrong.’

‘I bet the Russians don’t behave like that.’

‘The Russians! My goodness, have you ever seen one of their messages. They’d have been twice as long again. They’re
terrified
of saying anything which isn’t authorised in writing by some superior authority.’

‘Have you ever seen a Russian message?’

Tammy looked a shade embarrassed, and said, ‘Once or twice. In the line of duty. What I really wanted to say was that you mustn’t think too badly of Bob. He has to keep in wireless touch, through the navy, with his bosses in Washington. He really is tied by the leg.’

‘Did I sound as though I was thinking badly of him yesterday evening?’

‘I was waiting for you to insert your fingers in the top pocket of your vest, extract a white feather, and hand it to him.’

‘He could have handed it right back,’ said Hugo. ‘I’m a terrified coward. Do you think that fish is ready?’

‘I guess it’s as ready as it’s ever going to be.’ Tammy removed the stick, and tilted the incinerated lumps of shark on to two cardboard plates which they had brought with them. They tasted surprisingly good. The rest of the meal was tunny-fish sandwiches made with unleavened bread, apples and a bottle of red wine bought from Moharram. It was labelled, ‘Jolly-grape – guaranteed produce of many leading French vineyards.’

After the meal Hugo buried the bottle and the debris and said, ‘I’m going to sleep,’ and in a few minutes was asleep. Tammy propped herself up on one elbow and took a long and thoughtful look at him. He slept easily, on his right side. His face was a bit red, but he was not sweating or snoring.

When Hugo woke up, he rolled over, saw the remains of the fire, remembered where he was and sat up. There was no sign of Tammy. Then he saw her red head, bobbing in the water fifty yards out to sea. She swam leisurely towards him, and got to her feet as the ground shelved towards the island. He then saw that she was naked.

She said, ‘I couldn’t put on a bathing costume. The water’s heaven. Just the right temperature, and like it was full of bath salts—’ She added politely, ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Not a scrap.’

She spread a towel in the dip in the sand, disposed herself on it, and said, ‘Now that you have seen all of me, there’s not much point in covering anything up, is there?’

‘None at all,’ said Hugo. He started to take off the cotton singlet which, with a pair of shorts, was all he was wearing at that moment.

‘Were you planning to have a bathe?’

‘I had more immediate plans,’ said Hugo thickly.

‘Involving me?’

‘Involving you.’

‘Well, all right. Only one request from this girl. Do everything terribly slowly. I’ve always found that the prologue is better than the play.’