A Blind Man's War

by David Fiddimore

  ‘Because a bastard of a military governor will ratchet up the state of emergency, and take powers to control the prices of everything. Everything! That’s what military governments do. How can a businessman expect to take his profit when the army is in charge?’ He stood with his feet planted apart, and his hands on his hips. His stomach stuck out in front of him like a barrage balloon straining to break free.

  ‘Is that all, David?’

  ‘What do you mean, is that all? Isn’t it enough?’

  ‘It won’t happen. Believe me.’

  ‘You are suddenly an expert on politics?’

  ‘No, but I know the British ruling class, and it does not trust its armed forces – never did. After Oliver Cromwell dissolved parliament on the end of a pike, things were never the same for them. Our politicians will never put the army in charge of anything if they have a choice. They don’t trust it.’

  ‘Do they have an alternative?’

  ‘Bound to have. And another thing . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We Brits distrust schoolteachers even more than we fear the army – and no one ever pays any attention to anything they suggest. Too much flogging and pederasty. The day that teachers start being elected to parliament will be the day my country dies.’

  ‘And you really believe this.’

  ‘I’m willing to bet you fifty quid it will come to nothing. You can stop kicking the staff about now, and join me for breakfast.’ He probably didn’t need breakfast. He was half the size again, larger than the Yassine I had met three years earlier. He shrugged – but the tension went out of him. Then he smiled. It was like the sun coming out after a squall.

  ‘I take your word for it.’

  Over the fresh orange juice I scouted around him for the places that Pat might have taken off for, but David didn’t know either . . . or if he did, he wasn’t saying. I asked him about the girl Jessie. ‘She says you’ve given her a new name.’

  ‘I’ve given her more than that – she rides like a champion jockey. They are wonderful when they are young.’

  ‘You’re a dirty old man.’

  ‘So are you. I been to your club in Berlin, remember? Just because you don’t handle the money don’ make you a saint, Charlie.’

  I sat back in my chair. I thought the coffee was especially good that morning. The golden smell of fresh bread. He broke into a bread roll, and tapped his forehead with a fat finger. ‘You think I debauched a nice English rose too young for this sort of life, right?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Think again. She’s been on her back since she was twelve, and was wanted for killing a man in Hamburg. She gutted him with a skinning knife. I smuggled her here in a fishing boat – a friend did that for me. I saved her life so far. But I don’t live it for her, an’ she wouldn’t thank you for trying.’ There was a so there inflection in his last words. The girl had told me more or less the same herself, hadn’t she?

  ‘OK, David. I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘Take my wager instead, Charlie. I’ll bet you fifty pound that your Stephanie dumps you . . . jus’ like all the rest did. More coffee? It’s good this morning.’

  I looked out through the arches of the covered walkway behind the dining room, and into the garden. A pair of bulbuls was drinking at the fountain. I’d always thought Yassine a good judge of women. I wondered if Steve had spent the night alone, and knew I wouldn’t ask her.

  I sat in the garden and smoked a pipe, wondering which direction to head in, or who to telephone next. Steve must have come up behind me very quietly. She bent, and put her arms about me. I could feel her breasts against my shoulders through my shirt. She kissed me beneath my right ear – Grace had done that once – and said, ‘It might be quite nice to be your Old lady one day.’

  ‘Quite nice? Only that?’

  She nuzzled me. There’s little point to sexual desire when they’re in that sort of mood.

  ‘Quite nice. Don’t get greedy – I’ll think about it while you’re away.’

  They’re bloody psychic, but I suppose you knew that already.

  Jessie came out to us. Barefoot. It made her seem even younger.

  ‘A kid just ran in with a message for you, Charlie, and then ran away again. The boss said he was a Greek kid, but I don’t know how he tells the difference.’

  ‘What was the message?’

  ‘He said you should go to church more often.’

  I suddenly remembered what Collins had said, and click, click, click. I’ve told you before; you get these messages all of the time, but often you’re listening to the wrong stations.

  I called Collins’s office from the phone on the bar. They said he was somewhere else and gave me another number. A woman answered the telephone. I thought I knew her voice, but couldn’t place it. Another Brit anyway.

  ‘How did you get this number?’ Cool. Distant.

  ‘I’m not going to say. Tell him it’s Charlie Bassett. He knows me.’

  She put the phone down, and although I could hear murmurings in the room they didn’t coalesce into sounds I could interpret.

  Eventually Collins’s voice asked, ‘Yes?’ He sounded wary. I supposed that he was working somewhere. Probably turning over some poor sod’s quarter.

  ‘It’s Charlie. I need some information.’

  ‘Only if I can.’

  ‘I need to contact Tony Warboys, but he moves about all the time, and I don’t have a number for him.’

  ‘Wait one.’

  More shadowy murmurings. What was he doing? Checking his address book? Thinking about it? Consulting?

  Eventually he came back and said, ‘Give me the number you’re at, and don’t go away. Wait for a call.’

  I read out the number on the circle of round paper on the telephone cradle. He asked, ‘Is that Yassine’s place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Wait there until he calls you.’ He put the phone down.

  Ten minutes later Warboys had not called, and I began to get impatient. Then I remembered that Collins wasn’t the only one with a line on him. I called Watson. Fiona answered the phone, and said he was away.

  ‘I know he’s away. He must have left you a contact number.’

  ‘Only for emergencies.’

  ‘This is one – my glass is getting empty. Give it to me now, love . . . please.’ She gave me another telephone number I didn’t recognize. I asked her, ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, Charlie.’

  I didn’t push it. As long as I could speak to him I didn’t need to know where he was.

  It all turned into déjà vu. I dialled the number, and again a woman answered. The first thing she asked was, ‘How did you get this number?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. Tell Mr Watson a Liquorice Allsort wants to talk to him, and put him on.’

  ‘A Liquorice Allsort?’

  ‘Yeah, you know – one of those sweets that come in boxes.’

  ‘Is that cockney rhyming slang?’

  ‘It might be. Please tell him . . .’

  I heard her lay the receiver down. Murmurings. Maybe laughter in the background. My imagination added clinking glasses. If it was Watson then he had to be in a bar. His voice came over loud and clear.

  ‘Hello, Charlie. Have you made some progress?’

  ‘Not really, sir. I need Tony Warboys’s telephone number, and I thought you probably had it.’ I thought I’d better give him the sir; I wanted something from him after all. He was quiet for so long I thought I’d lost the line. I did the Duke and ‘Caravan’, and got as far as the chorus. Then he just barked at me.

  ‘What are you bothering me for? You just asked somebody else for it.’

  Silence. My jaw probably dropped.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘Because someone was listening, of course, dear boy. Wake up, Charlie! Finish your beer and be patient, just like the man told you.’ And he hung up. Watson always loved being one up on me, and I
bloody hated it. I’d have to get him back before the end of this tour.

  I held my hand up to the bar boy, and he reached for another bottle of beer. I could get used to this stuff. No wonder returning squaddies were known to smuggle it back home in their kit. I had to wait for an hour; sat in the garden and took my book out again. The Pequod had just been hailed by another whaling ship looking for a lost boy: and the great white whale was in a foul temper. I could understand that. I’d met a few great white whales myself . . . even worked for them.

  I didn’t mince words when Warboys called.

  ‘I want to see your tame priest. A safe meeting.’

  ‘He may not want to see you. Is this about the offer you sent him away with?’

  ‘No. It’s about something else altogether.’

  ‘He still may not want to see you.’

  ‘Use your charm.’

  ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I suspect it will save you a lot of work in the long run.’ Then I added, just to dot the i and cross the t, ‘I don’t suppose you know where Pat Tobin is, do you?’

  ‘No, but you’re not the only one who’s asking. The civvy police are asking questions about the cargo of a coastal oil tanker – can you imagine what that’s worth? This isn’t anything to do with that, I suppose?’

  Trick or treat? Lie or truth?

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘OK, but don’t get mixed up with the civil authorities, Charlie. They hate both Collins and your boss with a passion. Nobody will be able to get you out of trouble once you get in – not even me.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Tony, I consider myself properly warned. What happens next? Will you call me?’

  ‘Someone will.’

  It was one of those days when people are always putting the phone down on you. It pissed me off, but there was nothing I could do about it. I’d already drunk enough beer, so I called for some coffee. A very beautiful girl dressed in something not unlike a silk sari of swirling greeny colours walked into the bar. She travelled in a mist of invisible thin blue perfume; maybe it was an aphrodisiac, because it made my head swim. She smiled and I smiled. I wish I could stop myself doing that. I said, ‘I remember you. You’re Laika, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Alison’s upstairs changing. We got in an hour ago.’ I’ve told you before, you lose some . . . and you lose some. Story of my life. But for once I knew which girl I really wanted, so I made myself scarce until I had rehearsed my lines.

  That night I sat at the same table near the dance floor, but with Alison, Laika and the three men flying with them – a pilot, co-pilot and radio operator. That left them one short by my reckoning.

  ‘Where’s your engineer?’

  ‘That’s me, mate,’ the co-pilot told me. ‘Co-pilot and engineer rolled into one – just like a Marine’s a soldier and sailor too. They’re getting rid of the radio ops next year. It won’t be long before the bloody things fly themselves, and we can all go home.’ He held his hand out for the manly shake. He had a grip of iron. A bloody Kiwi. ‘Jonathan Crane.’

  ‘Charlie Bassett.’

  ‘Someone said you were a radio man, out here on a government contract. Any jobs going for the likes of me?’ That was the radio operator: Maurice Kacik. They called him Little Mo because he was small, like me. If you don’t understand that one you’ll have to get out your book of sporting heroes and heroines of the 1950s: she’s in there somewhere.

  ‘I can give you a couple of telephone numbers. The job’s shite, but the money’s not bad.’ I tore the top from his fag packet and scribbled the two numbers I had for Watson on it with my lucky pencil. Watson would be livid at getting a call from an unvetted outsider to his private sanctum. Their skipper had been introduced to me as Brome. I didn’t know if that was his first or last name, but he wanted to keep the conversation. He asked me, ‘I know you’re a sort of sparks out here, but what do you do back home?’

  ‘I run an airline. They released me for six months to help the Queen.’

  I could see that that set him back a peg or two. He leaned closer.

  ‘Which airline?’

  ‘Halton. We’re at Panshanger now.’

  ‘Christ, skipper!’ That was Crane. ‘Aren’t they the bastards who’ve nicked half our War Office work?’ This was how I found out that Old Man Halton had kept himself busy while I was away.

  ‘Come and see me when I get back, ‘I told them. ‘We’ve always got room for talent.’ I was grandstanding, of course – probably showing off in front of the girls. I had never taken on anyone personally in my life, except Bozey and Randall: the old man did the hiring and firing all himself.

  Someone once told me the old man recruited the women who worked with us by touch – that instead of interviewing them for positions, he tied a scarf around his eyes and stretched out his hands. That sounded like company legend to me, but it might explain why most of our female colleagues had busts to die for. I thought suddenly of Elaine back at Panshanger now, and wondered if he’d recruited her that way: I could have watched the sun come up over her tits for the rest of my life, as long as I never had to commit to anything. Which is why I had one of those eureka! moments there and then – with Alison’s crew all around me. I realized that I could commit myself to Steve without feeling trapped. That was interesting.

  It became even more diverting halfway through the evening when she came out to dance: for a start Crane and Brome’s eyes came out on stalks. Then every time she came close to our table she shot me, and the girls with us, a mean eyeful of daggers. You’ll agree, that was interesting too. Alison grabbed for my hand under the table; I’m sure that was what she was aiming for, and anyway that was all she got.

  Steve finished with a flourish, and stalked off the small dance area with applause ringing in her ears. People stood for her. I didn’t see her again that night, and spent it alone. When I awoke in the morning someone had pushed a small sheet of white paper, with a big black spot inked on it, under my door. Why the hell had I ever told her about Treasure Island?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chasing the Dragon

  The same kid. I reckoned we were about sixty miles from where I’d last seen him, so he covered the ground. I was taking breakfast in the garden on my own when he marched through Yassine’s hotel as if he owned the place, and then stood in front of me not saying a word. When I looked up he said, ‘You can finish eating if you wish, sir. I am not in a hurry – no school today.’

  ‘But you’re hungry, I’ll bet?’

  ‘I’m always hungry.’

  ‘Go to the kitchen and get yourself something. Tell them I sent you. Then come back here.’

  He came back with a bowl of cornflakes, swimming in milk and liberally buried in Golden Syrup, a sausage sandwich and a glass of orange – all precariously balanced on a tray.

  ‘The English lady said I needed fattening up,’ he told me. Jessie.

  ‘You and I both, chum. Did you bring me a message from the Lion?’

  He looked mystified.

  ‘No. I brought you a letter from Father Adonis.’

  ‘Let me see it. I’ll read while you eat.’

  The priest had agreed to meet me mid-afternoon, and gave me directions to a ruined church on the Karpas peninsula. That was more than seventy miles distant.

  ‘Would the priest have had a problem coming to Famagusta?’ I asked the boy.

  ‘More than you will have getting to Agios Filion.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t read the letters you carry?’

  ‘I don’t, sir . . . but I wrote this one with him. I check his English writing sometimes, my English is better.’

  ‘You go to school at TES, I take it?’

  His face split with delight.

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I didn’t. I guessed.’

  The only thing that worried me was that I’d asked Warboys for a safe meeting, and the letter said nothing about safety. The kid studied my face.<
br />
  ‘You’re worried for your personal security?’ That was a bit of a mouthful for a kid of that age, but he had been spot-on in his assessment. I reckoned he’d be a psychologist practising in Athens before he was twenty-five.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Do not be, sir. When the father gives his word he keeps it.’

  ‘Why can’t he come here?’

  ‘Because he is wanted by the police.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘You will ask him that yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I will. Am I supposed to give you money?’

  ‘The father said I should ask for five shillings English, but I hoped for more. My little sister needs new shoes.’ I gave him two crumpled ten-bob notes for which he thanked me gravely; he carefully smoothed them out before pocketing them. ‘Thank you, mister.’

  ‘My pleasure. Make sure you buy your sister’s shoes one size too big, so she will grow into them.’

  ‘You have a family?’

  ‘Two sons. One is about your age.’

  ‘Tell them Demetrius sends them a greeting – when next you see them.’ Unless he was an ace little liar, at least he thought I would live long enough to see them again then.

  ‘I shall.’

  I don’t want you to think I’m a complete dummy. I phoned Collins to check out the security situation. He said, ‘There’s a hell of a hoo-ha going on over the UN killing, so it could be OK for a few days. EOKA will probably keep its head down, and wait to see what happens next – they overstepped the mark, and they ruddy well know it. Why? Thinking of going sightseeing?’

  ‘Yes. I was going to take a drive along the Karpas peninsula – take in a few old churches. What do you think?’

  ‘It’s your funeral, squire, but as long as you take your side arm and are prepared to use it, you should be OK. There hasn’t been a problem up there for months – not that that means anything, of course.’ It’s been my experience that policemen frequently change from being comedians into manic depressives with nothing in between to warn you.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll bear everything you’ve said in mind.’

  ‘Do that, and check in this evening, just in case.’ The poor sod actually sighed as he put the phone down.