Shah-Mak

by Alan Williams

  The only obstacle they encountered before leaving was the petite insistence of the head porter on either a written or telephoned authorization from Pol himself. Packer had anticipated this. He had asked for a note from Pol, but the Frenchman had seemed to be in no state to write even his own name. Packer now took the precaution of putting the call through himself, from the public phone in the lobby, before summoning the head porter to answer it. Pol sounded drowsy, but was coherent enough to satisfy the old Dutchman.

  A taxi had already been called, and while Pol’s three elegant suitcases were being loaded into the boot, Packer ostentatiously gave the head porter their destination as Schiphol Airport, Lufthansa counter, in time for the 2.00 p.m. flight for Munich. Once inside, he instructed the driver to take them to their hotel.

  The lobby reported no disturbances. Up in their room they found Pol still in the bathroom, dozing on the lavatory, with a half gnawed sandwich on his lap and an empty bottle of Vichy between his ankles. His cases were brought up a few minutes later. Packer forced the fat man’s head brutally under the cold shower, where Pol squealed like a pig, then frog-marched him back into the bedroom where Sarah was going through the suitcases, selecting a fresh silk suit, silk shirt and tie, and a pair of miniature crocodile shoes.

  ‘I’m leaving you to get him dressed,’ Packer told her, ‘while I go and fix up about a car. Come on, don’t look so shocked. Just think of yourself as his nanny.’ As he turned, he heard Pol urinating behind the open bathroom door.

  The nearest hire-car bureau was only two blocks away. It took him less than ten minutes to complete the formalities and pay the deposit — out of Pol’s roll of guilders. On reflection he decided that the more impressive the car, the less the risk of being stopped. In any case, Pol would be paying — all the way. Packer would make damn sure of that.

  When he arrived back at the hotel, he began to feel uncomfortably like a chauffeur as he sat in the Mercedes 280 and watched the Vuitton cases, followed by Sarah and the freshly clad, pink and perfumed figure of Pol, emerge with a retinue of hotel staff to see them off.

  A quarter of an hour later they joined the autobahn south to the Belgian border.

  There was only one Dutch policeman at the border post beyond Breda — a man with shoulder-length blond hair in a net, who waved the Mercedes through without leaving the shelter of his guard-room. Packer drove for several more kilometres without seeing any more police, and no customs. It was when he turned on to the autoroute to Antwerp that he knew they were well into Belgian territory.

  He felt more anti-climax than relief, the slowing of adrenalin, and a growing awareness of Sarah sitting slouched beside him, chain-smoking her Gitanes and complaining regularly of his hesitation at overtaking in the rain. More than anything, he felt in need of a drink. Meanwhile Pol snored in the back.

  The landscape was closing in, the sky drawn across with electric cables, the horizon a line of dismal slag heaps and factories and the guttering glare of burning gas waste. The rain was now coming down so hard that even with the windshield wipers working at double speed, he could see little through the filth and spray flung up by an almost unbroken chain of juggernauts.

  It was not quite four o’clock, on a late March afternoon — exactly three and a half hours since the slaughter of the tulips — when Packer manoeuvred the car across the heavy traffic, into the lane leading up to the minor ring road round Antwerp.

  It would be as good a place as any, he decided. The weather was foul, the light bad, and most drivers would be in a hurry. He slowed into the inside lane, almost under the bows of a TIR truck; then turned to Sarah. ‘Wake him up!’

  She hesitated, and turned in her seat. ‘Much better to let him sleep,’ she began.

  ‘Do as I say,’ he said. The road was curving over ragged marshland, cut diagonally by a canal. There were no houses, no paths, no signposts; and the only lights came from the traffic. Sarah leaned over the seat and shook Pol’s knee. He grunted and snuffled, and Sarah ducked as the Frenchman rolled down his window and spat into the slipstream. ‘Where are we?’ he asked, in a clogged voice.

  ‘In one of the great beauty spots of the Common Market,’ said Packer. ‘Anywhere in particular round here you want to be dropped off?’ In the mirror he could see Pol’s little wet eyes blinking. His foot touched the brake. ‘You’re getting out here, Monsieur Pol. You and your beautiful luggage. The Belgians won’t be too upset about a few Dutch tulips.’

  ‘Les Belges?’ Pol muttered.

  Packer half turned and continued in French. ‘Yes. But first I’ve got a few questions to ask. And I want the answers quickly. Otherwise we drop you here.’ He had slowed the car down to less than twenty kilometres an hour. Sarah was busy lighting another cigarette, while Packer prolonged his moment of drama. Usually he was embarrassed by speaking French in front of Sarah, for her command of the language — with a beautifully refined accent — was one of the rarer attributes she had picked up from her finishing school near Lausanne. But the tension in the car released Packer’s inhibitions.

  ‘How did you get hold of my name and rank, Monsieur Pol?’

  ‘Where are we, for God’s sake?’ Pol cried again.

  ‘We’re heading for the autoroute to Lille. But it’s still a long way. And it’s not a good day for hitchhiking — even if it’s legal.’ He had pulled on to the emergency shoulder and stopped.

  Pol’s face loomed up in the mirror. ‘You are trying to take advantage of my condition, Monsieur Packer. I am not accustomed to being treated in this manner.’ He spoke with forced dignity, while Packer drummed his fingers on the wheel, in rhythm with the rain.

  ‘As I see it, Monsieur Pol, we have three choices. We can either stay here all night until you talk. Or we can throw you out and drive on. Or I can turn round and drive you straight back to Amsterdam.’ Pol was silent. Packer added: ‘Why did you get so drunk this morning?’

  Pol gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Oh, if you knew, if you knew! The troubles I have had — first a good card, then a bad card. A whole run of bad cards, now a run of good cards. I must be allowed to think.’

  ‘Just tell me how you knew about us and why you followed us this morning.’

  Sarah sat sideways, her tinted glasses pushed up on to her forehead, and looked first at one, then the other.

  ‘It is a matter for serious discussion,’ Pol said at last. ‘Tête à tête, in the strictest confidence.’

  ‘You followed us both, so you talk to us both. Are you some filthy private detective employed by her parents —?’

  Sarah gave a little gasp, but Pol cut her short. ‘You underestimate me, mon cher Capitaine Packer.’

  Packer switched off the engine. ‘Now listen, Monsieur Pol. I got you out of a lot of trouble this morning. I’m not particularly interested in why you got drunk on the job. I just want to know what that job is, and why.’

  Pol sat back with a miserable sigh. ‘I am not feeling well. It is not just.’

  ‘You’d find things a lot less just in a Dutch gaol,’ Packer said reasonably. ‘Unless they let you off with a stiff fine. Could you pay it?’ He gave Sarah a quick wink which she did not return.

  Pol groped inside his silk jacket and brought out his crocodile wallet. To Packer’s surprise, and faint disappointment, he watched the Frenchman riffle through another stack of notes, whose value and nationality he could not see. ‘I will pay you,’ Pol croaked. ‘Pay both of you. Pay you well. Just take me to a little spot where we can talk quietly.’

  There was a silence, broken only by the rain muttering on the roof.

  ‘Let’s get on,’ Sarah said in English. ‘We can’t just stay here on the side of the road. Anyway, it may all be a misunderstanding. Perhaps he saw us last night in the hotel and heard one of the porters call your name.’

  ‘None of the porters called me “Captain”,’ said Packer savagely. ‘No one’s called me that in ten years.’ He looked round to see if Pol had understood, but the Frenchman was busy spi
tting out of the window again. ‘There’s just one other thing,’ said Packer. He took out his own wallet and extracted the folded envelope that he had found in Pol’s hotel bathroom. ‘Charles Pol!’ he said loudly, and turned the envelope over, so that the Frenchman could see the back flap. ‘SMRTS,’ he read out. ‘What are you doing running around with a crowd of madmen like that?’

  ‘What?’ Pol looked blearily back at him and a tear began to form in the corner of one eye.

  ‘Listen. I found this in your room. It’s addressed to you. The initials stand for SPECIAL MILITARY RESERVE TRAINING SCHOOL —’ he spoke the words in English — ‘Headquarters, Clifton, near Mead, Wiltshire. London office in High Holborn.’ He paused.

  Sarah gave a thin laugh. ‘Off down Memory Lane again, are we?’

  ‘You should be asking him that, not me,’ said Packer, and thought, you stupid bitch! It was a long time now since he’d had anything exciting happen to him, and she’d be sure to try and take the cream off it.

  Pol had reached out for the envelope and was looking at it with an expression of mild annoyance. ‘Monsieur Packer,’ he said at last, ‘I think it would be best if we drove on. I know an excellent little spot in France — very quiet — where I can begin to explain things in full.’

  As he spoke, a pair of headlamps flashed twice in the mirror, and a siren howled. A moment later a dark blue car screeched to a halt directly in front of them. Two policemen slowly got out and strolled towards them through the rain. Packer lowered his window, and a blunt red face with a moustache grunted, ‘Nederlander?’

  Packer opened the glove compartment and took out the car’s papers. The man studied them for some time, while his companion had moved round to the back of the Mercedes. ‘Passeports!’ the red-faced man said.

  Packer obliged, without a word. The man turned the pages and frowned, glanced at Sarah, then at Pol, and back at the passport. ‘You know, please,’ he said in English, with the ugly Flemish glottal, ‘that you are forbidden absolutely to stop on this road?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Packer, ‘but my friend in the back is ill.’

  The policeman stared at Pol, looked again at Sarah, then seemed to make up his mind. ‘One thousand francs Belges.’

  ‘Now just a minute —!’ Packer began. He could feel Sarah watching him, testing him. ‘My friend is ill!’ he repeated, with a helpless gesture towards the back seat.

  ‘One thousand francs Belges,’ the red-faced man insisted, taking out a pink, carbon-backed pad. The second policeman had joined him from the back, his hand resting on his gun belt. ‘Un instant, s’il vous plaît.’

  Pol was leaning forward, smelling strongly of scent, reaching over Packer’s shoulder and holding a card in a celluloid frame. The Frenchman said something rapidly, which Packer did not catch, and both policemen saluted. As Pol’s hand withdrew, all Packer could make out on the card was a diagonal red, white and blue stripe.

  One of the policemen had moved out into the road, and now signalled them to go. For several seconds they rode in silence. ‘These little theatricals, Monsieur Packer,’ Pol said at last; ‘they are unnecessary and undignified. This morning I was drunk and you were my friend. This afternoon I am sober and I hope I can be your friend.’

  ‘Friendship requires trust,’ said Packer.

  Sarah interrupted, in English, ‘Oh, don’t be so bloody pompous, Owen!’ — and she smiled at Pol. ‘Where are we going, Monsieur?’

  ‘A little place I know on the Somme Estuary, called Le Crotoy. The patron does an excellent soupe de poisson and fruits de mer. Drive to Lille, then on to Abbeville, and from there I will direct you.’

  He’s got himself into the driving seat, Packer thought bitterly; and I’ve lost the advantage. Cunning sod. If it hadn’t been for Sarah, he’d have been inclined to press on with the interrogation; but Pol’s performance with the police had clearly drawn her well into his sphere of influence. From now on it would be two against one, with Packer up against the ropes.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘Naturally,’ said Pol, ‘you were treated abominably. The English are so quick to accuse our French justice, but even after the Algerian story we never treated our officers as you were treated.’ He sipped his black coffee and sighed. ‘To kill many men in war is called “duty”. To kill one man, under special circumstances, so easily becomes a cause macabre, even a crime. You British are particularly vulnerable, of course. Your authorities hate nothing more than to be embarrassed; and the cause of that embarrassment is often sacrificed with a terrible fury.’

  Owen Packer looked through the French windows across the mud flats of the estuary to the distant town of Saint-Valery-sur-Somme. The tide was out and the fishing boats were lolling under the jetty, showing their rusted bellies to the darkening sky. Outside the hotel there was a little square with a triangle of plane trees, their branches cropped like poodles, arranged around a statue of Joan of Arc. The fishermen, in their flat black caps and blue boilersuits, were drinking downstairs in the bar, while Sarah was in Room 3, preening herself for the evening meal.

  ‘You are absolutely forbidden to drink alcohol?’ Pol asked abruptly.

  ‘It is not advisable,’ Packer said.

  Pol did not pursue the matter. Together they watched the wild duck sweeping down over the mud flats. ‘How did you feel when you killed this man?’

  ‘Like putting a girlfriend off for dinner at the last moment.’

  ‘You are very cynical for an Anglo-Saxon. I have never heard a man compare the act of killing to using a telephone.’

  ‘You know what happened.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Pol. ‘The British were playing nursemaid to one of those ridiculous old syphilitic sheikhs. The sheikh was senile and stupid enough to send his favourite son to Paris and Oxford, where the young man picked up a lot of dangerous ideas about progress and social reform, and other absurdities. He even went on a goodwill trip to Moscow, and when he got home to papa’s kingdom, one of the first things he did was to attack the ancient custom of stoning women to death for adultery. Unfortunately the old man was a bit passé, and didn’t seem too keen on either telling his boy to shut up, or on having his head chopped off. So the paternal British felt they had better take a hand in the affair.’

  He grinned at Packer. ‘You were a comparatively new boy at the game — a bright clean graduate. The commandant called you in and gave you a drink — eh?’ He giggled. ‘Maybe several?’

  Packer said nothing.

  ‘You were perhaps a little “cooked” as we say. And then he made you his proposition.’

  ‘Oh God,’ said Packer, ‘get me something to drink. A brandy — or at least some beer.’

  ‘You would not make such a suggestion, I think, if Mademoiselle Sarah were here?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’ Packer said angrily.

  ‘You are an alcoholic.’

  Packer stared at the floor. ‘I don’t know.’

  Pol sat nodding slowly. ‘You know. It is in your dossier. It was the main reason why they threw you out.’

  Packer looked up quickly. ‘They threw me out because I killed the wrong man.’ He laughed nastily. ‘Those Arabs are like the Chinese, they all look the same! But please, go on.’

  ‘They found the poor fellow with a broken neck in his crashed sports car a few miles from the town. Apparently another bad habit he had picked up at Oxford — driving too fast while under the influence. Only, as I said, he wasn’t the only one that night who had been enjoying himself. There was a certain Captain Packer who happened to be in Abud Zur, on some confidential mission for the British War Office. He had been drinking with his Commanding Officer just before the incident. Perhaps he had had one glass too many and had forgotten — or perhaps he did not know — that the old sheikh had more than one son. Two of them, to be precise, with almost identical names. So easy to confuse Arab names, don’t you think, Capitaine Packer? And doubly unfortunate that they both drove English sports cars.’


  ‘I was badly briefed.’

  ‘Quite, quite. There is no need to upset yourself, my friend. The British authorities merely wanted to protect their own interests. They could hardly have you kill the original son after what had happened. Even the Arab conception of Fate has its limits! So they put you behind a desk in Aden, where you were in charge of leave schedules. That’s when the little problem of drink began, I believe? It was soon so bad that they sent you back to England where you spent six weeks in a military hospital near Andover.’ He paused. ‘I do not remember the exact medical details, but it appears that your addiction to alcohol was accompanied by outbursts of extreme violence.’

  Packer did not move. Pol stirred the dregs of his coffee and said gently, ‘I have purposely begun at the end — at the tragic end. But it was not all tragedy. I know nothing of your family background, except that you went to one of those English private schools for the bourgeoisie, which you call “public” schools, I think?’ He gave Packer a bright smirk. ‘And afterwards you spent a year in Grenoble, where you learnt French. Then you were conscripted into the army for two years, and after six months were sent to Malaya during the Emergency, where you underwent a training course at the Jungle Warfare School in Jahore Baru. From there you were sent on special anti-terrorist operations. The reports state that you did well.’

  ‘What reports?’

  Pol ignored him. ‘Would you like me to go on?’

  ‘Why not? Tell me the routine textbook stuff they taught me — the twenty-nine elementary ways of killing a man with one’s hands and feet. Use of explosives, detonators, cyanide bullets, as well as all those sophisticated methods of interrogation which don’t quite infringe the UN Charter of Human Rights.’

  ‘You sound bitter, mon cher Capitaine?’

  ‘Not at all. I’m nostalgic.’ He leaned forward. ‘Did your information tell you that I killed, personally, a total of forty-seven men in Malaya, eighteen in Cyprus, and two in Aden? Not counting the sheikh’s son with the sports car. And all of them civilians. Students — professors — lawyers —’ he smiled — ‘not necessarily terrorists, just left-wing intellectuals. Or do I shock you, perhaps?’