by Len Deighton
‘There is something I’ve got to tell you,’ she said leaning close to him and speaking in a quiet confidential tone. ‘Your predecessor at the office assigned me to an undercover job.’
‘Did he?’
She blushed. ‘Yes, he did.’
Ross guessed that she was exaggerating somewhat, but he drank his tea and indicated that she should tell him more about it.
‘I am to rent a room in the Hotel Magnifico and stay there undercover.’
‘Why?’ he said, although in his mind he was already approving the suggestion. It would be to his advantage to have her away from the office and would provide an excuse for him to disappear.
‘We had an anonymous tip that one of the people in the Magnifico is a German spy.’
‘You sound doubtful.’
She decided to be truthful with him: disarmingly so; it was her way. ‘I am. He’s an elderly Russian. My family and I have known him since before the war. Everyone in Cairo is saying that he’s a German spy. These rumours come and go, like fashions in hats. Poor old man, he’s quite harmless.’
‘So why bother?’
‘There was a general feeling in the office that we should follow up everything.’
‘Is that a polite way of saying that no one in the office has any clue to anything that’s happening?’
‘No,’ she said, her face saying yes. ‘The Magnifico is very bohemian. I’m sure I would pick up something valuable there.’ He wondered what she would classify as bohemian, but before he could ask her, she said, ‘Did you sew those crowns on yourself?’
‘What’s wrong with them?’ he said defensively. For one terrible moment he thought perhaps he’d sewn Cutler’s rank badges on his shoulder straps the wrong way up. He’d sewn the crowns onto his old working uniform. He’d had to use that one so that he could dirty the sleeves a little to hide the places where his stripes had been. But it made him feel out of place amongst all the ‘gabardine swine’ here in Groppi’s.
‘Nothing. They are fine. But … I’m sure one of the girls in the office would do it more neatly. Or I will, if you like. But why don’t you get a new uniform? There’s an awfully good tailor just a hundred yards from here in Kasr el Nil. My father had suits made there.’
‘Yes, that’s a good idea.’
‘He will do them in two or three days, but you have to bully him.’
‘You’d better come with me.’
‘Is it all right then? The undercover job? The Magnifico?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘That’s very encouraging,’ she said bitterly, suddenly forgetting that she was a lowly subordinate.
He smiled. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘It might help. Wear the corporal’s outfit,’ she said.
‘Don’t be bossy,’ he said. ‘But yes, I will.’
‘It’s not going to be easy getting a room there. We’ll have to give them a sob story.’
‘We’ll think of something,’ he said. Already there was an intimacy between them. At least he felt there was. Perhaps she had that effect on every man she met.
‘Can I get you something else, sir?’ said the waiter.
Ross was hungry. Maybe he should hang on here for a couple more days before disappearing. Not longer. He certainly didn’t want to find himself giving evidence to an inquiry about his own death.
5
Having finished her shift at the Base Hospital, Peggy West arrived at the hotel in which she lived, thinking only of a hot scented bath. In the hotel lobby she found an army corporal and a tall long-haired civilian girl. The soldier was arguing with Ahmed, a tall Arab with dyed red hair, who was sweeping the tiled floor in that dreamy way that all the hotel servants seemed to assume when working. The soldier seemed to speak no Arabic beyond the half dozen words that every foreigner learns in the first couple of days. He was getting nowhere. Peggy had to sort things out. ‘You can’t have a room here, because this is not a hotel,’ she explained.
‘It says hotel on the sign outside,’ the soldier protested.
Peggy looked at him. His uniform was the ill-fitting khaki trousers and baggy khaki jacket that the British wore in winter. The corporal was in his middle to late twenties, older than most of the soldiers to be seen in the streets. The coloured patches were from some unit she’d not noticed before. The heavy boots, so painstakingly shined, made her guess he was from one of the new transit camps that had been built on the Canal Road. At his feet there rested a crocodile leather suitcase bearing the labels of exclusive hotels: Lotti, Gritti Palace and Bayerischer Hof. It obviously belonged to the girl.
‘My cousin desperately needs a place to sleep,’ he said indicating the young woman at his side. ‘Everywhere’s been requisitioned.’
‘Surely there are lots of places,’ said Peggy. The girl was very beautiful in that way that rich English girls sometimes were. Her face was composed and detached. She said nothing. It was almost as if she were deaf.
‘If she was in the army, it would be simple enough,’ said the corporal. ‘But none of these damned clubs and hostels will take civvies. Only the YWCA, and that’s full.’ Peggy looked at him more closely. He was a tough fellow. Despite the faint Scots accent, she decided that he was like an English foxhound, dogs noted for their pace, their nose and their stamina.
‘This place was a hotel once, long ago,’ said Peggy feeling that some explanation was due. ‘Now people live here on a permanent basis. We never have vacant rooms – everyone wants them.’
The corporal glanced round the lobby, and Peggy saw it through his eyes. It looked like a hotel. There was the unmanned reception desk and behind it a long mail rack, each pigeonhole bearing a painted room number and a hook. Stuffed under a large brass ornamental scarab, there was a pile of uncollected mail, with postage stamps from Britain, South Africa and Australia. Some of the letters had grown dusty with age. From hooks there hung room keys with the Hotel Magnifico’s heavy brass tags. Along the right-hand-wall, four tall amphorae were arranged. Above them there was an ancient engraving of a view of Cairo seen from the Citadel. In the corner an imposing mahogany cubicle, with oriental motifs and a frosted glass window, was marked ‘telephone’ in English, Italian and Arabic. Immediately inside the front door a green baize noticeboard was buried under typewritten notices and posters of all shapes and sizes and colours: dances and concerts, whist drives and jumble sales, tours and lectures, voluntary nursing and language lessons. Cairo had never been more active.
‘It says Hotel Magnifico on the sign,’ said the corporal again.
‘I know it does,’ said Peggy. The late Signor Mario Magnifico – whose daughter Lucia inherited the place – commissioned the sign, after hearing his establishment rightfully called a pension by a client he didn’t like.
‘Then can we sit down here for a minute? I need to talk with my cousin,’ said the corporal. ‘It’s a private matter, and very urgent.’
There were no seats in sight. Peggy looked round. Where the lobby ended at a staircase, glass-panelled doors gave onto the bar. One door was partly open and Peggy could see one of the residents – Captain Robin Darymple – holding forth to the usual crowd. Darymple turned in time to see Peggy looking at him. He gave her a wonderful smile that lit up his face. She smiled back. Robin’s charm was unassailable. She knew this would not be the right time to take two strangers into the bar. ‘Perhaps you could sit in the dining room,’ said Peggy.
Net curtains obscured the oval-shaped little windows in the dark mahogany doors. She swung one open and ushered them through. The dining room was gloomy, only one electric light bulb was lit. There was no one else there.
Through the doors Peggy heard footsteps on the marble as someone came out of the bar, leaving the doors wide open. Darymple’s high-pitched voice was now clearly audible. It was the tone he used when telling his stories. ‘So he said he had spent all night with the carps. Fish? I said. He said, No, dead carps! Crikey, I thought, he means a corpse. I said, And this all happene
d in Belgravia? And the big fellow with the beard said, No, Bulgaria.’ There was appreciative laughter from throats down which much drink had been poured. She recognised it as one of Darymple’s stories. His skill as a storyteller was renowned throughout the clubs and bars of Cairo.
For the two strangers, Peggy indicated a small table near the window. Again there came the sound of footsteps across the lobby and of the doors swinging closed to hush Darymple’s voice. The corporal put down the brown leather suitcase and looked round. It was very still, as only a well swept, carefully prepared, empty dining room can be. He said, ‘This will do nicely. Can we sit here for half an hour?’
Peggy nodded.
The girl watched her corporal. Only when he seemed to approve it did the girl sit down.
‘They’ll start coming in for dinner soon,’ said Peggy. ‘There are no spare tables so –’
‘We understand,’ said the corporal. ‘I suppose it’s officers only.’
Peggy West was too tired to be provoked into argument. She said, ‘Tell them Peggy said it was all right. Peggy West.’
‘Thank you,’ said the girl. ‘It’s most kind of you.’ It was the first time she’d spoken. She had a soft upper-class voice. Perhaps, thought Peggy, that explained something about their relationship; the way in which the young corporal was so prickly about the privileges accorded to officers. ‘My name is Alice Stanhope,’ said the girl.
The corporal extended a hand and Peggy shook it. ‘Bert Cutler.’ He amended it to ‘Corporal Albert Cutler, if we are being formal.’ Peggy found the Scots accent hard to detect. Perhaps he’d found it expedient to eliminate it. Or perhaps Peggy had been away from Britain too long. Cutler had a confident handshake, tanned face, pleasant smile, and clear blue eyes. He was an attractive man. It would be easy to fall in love with such a man, thought Peggy, but he would not be easy to keep. English foxhounds were never seen at dog shows and she’d never heard of one being kept as a pet.
‘Peggy West. I live here. Second floor.’
‘Thank you again, Miss West.’
Peggy smiled and left them to themselves. She didn’t believe they were cousins. Once back in the lobby she looked behind the desk to see if there was a letter from her husband, Karl, or from her brother in Canada, but there was nothing in the box. She was not surprised; mail took months and months, and it was very uncertain now that everything had to go round the Cape and so many ships got sunk.
She had gone up a few steps when a thought struck her. She retraced her steps and went into the dining room with enough fuss for them to recover themselves if they were embracing. She need not have troubled herself; they were sitting decorously, facing each other solemnly across the small marble-topped table.
‘I’m sorry to bother you’ – she looked at the girl – ‘but I suddenly wondered if you could type.’
‘Type?’ The girl looked at her as if humouring a lunatic. ‘Yes, I can type a bit. At least I could last year.’
‘You’re not looking for a job, by any chance?’
The corporal said, ‘She’s got to find somewhere to stay.’ He looked at his wristwatch. ‘I have to get back to my unit tonight.’
‘Where I work – at the Base Hospital – we need a full-time typist. In fact someone to sort out the office,’ said Peggy looking from one to the other. ‘We are getting frantic, really frantic.’ Her voice was hearty. This was Peggy West who’d been the school hockey captain, Peggy West who bargained remorselessly in the bazaars.
‘I have nowhere to sleep,’ said the girl.
Peggy closed her eyes. Those who knew her recognised such gestures as marks of great emotion. ‘I’ll find her a place to sleep if she’ll come and work for us.’ She said it to the corporal. He was the one who made the decisions, and he would not mistake the tones of a solemn promise.
The girl and the corporal looked at each other. She smiled at him. It was a smile of love and reassurance.
‘Here? A room here?’ said the corporal, suspecting perhaps that Peggy meant to send the girl to some flea-bitten lodgings on the other side of town.
‘You’d have to share a bathroom with me and another woman,’ she said. ‘The room you’d be using rightfully belongs to an officer at the front … He’s been gone into the blue since November, but he could return any time.’
The girl smiled as if she’d achieved something quite remarkable, and the same look was on her face as she turned to the corporal.
Peggy added, ‘I hope you haven’t got too much luggage. There isn’t room to swing a cat.’
‘Just the one case. That’s all I have,’ said the girl looking down at it. It was small to be a case that contained all one’s worldly possessions. The girl smiled sadly, and Peggy felt sorry for her. ‘I was beginning to think I’d spend the night in the railway station waiting room.’
Peggy wondered if she had any notion of what a night in Cairo’s main railway station would be like. The girl was like a china doll. It was difficult to guess what sort of person she was behind that shy exterior. Peggy hoped that she would get along with the others at the hospital.
‘I’ll leave you two alone now,’ said Peggy. ‘Come up to the second floor. My room is to the left of the staircase. The door has a hand-of-Fatima brass knocker.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t go wandering farther upstairs. The top floor belongs to a Russian prince. He’ll eat you alive if you go into his sanctum.’
‘Thank you, Peggy,’ said Alice softly.
When the corporal made no response, Peggy looked again at him. He was staring into space. For just one brief moment she saw within him a different person. Peggy smiled at him but he did not respond. She had the feeling that he wasn’t seeing her. Then suddenly his face changed, and he was relaxed and smiling again as if the moment had never been.
‘Yes, thank you, Peggy,’ said Cutler. ‘Thank you very much.’
Peggy West didn’t sleep well that night. She went to bed and closed her eyes tightly, but still she worried about what she had done and what she had promised. Suppose Lieutenant Anderson arrived back here without warning and wanted his room? Lieutenant Anderson was not a man to cross. A rough spoken car commander from Leeds, Andy liked everyone to know that he had been a sergeant until the desert fighting started. Since then he’d won a chestful of medals and a battlefield commission. Andy was a nice friendly fellow – despite his pug’s face and scarred cheek – but she dreaded to think what he’d be like if he came back and found his room occupied, his door locked and his kit stowed away in the storeroom.
At four-thirty AM Peggy gave up trying to sleep. She slid out of bed, boiled a kettle and quietly made herself a pot of tea. At least tea was something freely available here – only sugar and kerosene were in short supply – and tea kept the British going in times of danger. With only the bedside light on, she sat down at the dressing table that she used also as a desk. Waiting for the tea to brew, she pulled a comb through her hair and suddenly saw her mother staring at her with that wide-eyed shock and maternal concern that she’d so often provoked from her. Her mother had loved her, of course, just as her mother had loved her father. But mother’s deepest love was reserved for those damned dogs she kept in her kennels, barking and whining ceaselessly so that it drove her distracted. Her mother would stay up all night with a sick dog, but when Daddy was ill she went and made up her bed in the spare room. Peggy had never forgiven her mother for that.
Peggy poured herself a cup of tea and put some milk into it. Drinking tea revived her, and brought back memories of her childhood in England. But other thoughts intruded. Suppose the girl couldn’t type? What if she turned out to be some kind of bad-tempered monster that the other people in the office detested? Suppose she wanted too much money?
And what about that soldier? The look in Cutler’s face was that of a man under extreme stress. She had seen such symptoms at the Base Hospital. Of course when he realised that she was looking at him, he made every effort to smile and relax, and the tension went away. But that did
not alter what she had seen, and what she had seen had frightened her.
Until her husband went away Peggy had never worried about anything at all. Things were different now she’d gone back to living on her own. Her finances were precarious. Would Karl ever return to her? At their first meeting, Solomon had given her a note in Karl’s handwriting. Since then the brief notes from Karl had been typewritten, and Solomon harshly dismissed any idea of her talking to her husband on the telephone. She had a nasty feeling that Karl’s money might stop any time Solomon decided that it should. She didn’t trust Solomon. There had been an unmistakable element of blackmail in his request that she keep an eye on the wretched Russian prince upstairs.
Her hospital pay would not go far without Karl’s money. Without extra income, her savings would last no more than a month or two in this town. More and more men were arriving every day: British, South Africans, Australians, soldiers and civilians, all with money to spend. Prices were rising steeply. The Magnifico’s rents had increased twice in the previous twelve months.
She poured more tea. Now that it had fully brewed the tea had darkened. She liked it like that: the way that Karl always drank it. She wished he’d never gone to take up the job in Iraq; there had been an attempt to overthrow the British rule there last year. Now Solomon said he was in trouble in Baghdad. It was such a long way away. She worried about him.
She was convinced that Karl West was not an uncaring man, but why couldn’t he get a job and settle down and make a proper home with her? Last year she’d almost abandoned all hopes of seeing him again and asked to go home to England. The British authorities in Egypt had ordered compulsory repatriation of army wives and families. Grief and anger turned to rage when some of the wives of senior officers were exempted from the order. There were places on the ships for other British civilians. At first she’d been tempted, but now she was glad she’d never put her name down. Her prospects had changed when Solomon brought her the good news of Karl. It wasn’t the money; now Peggy had something to hope and plan for. Or so she told herself.