his efficiency. 'I put them - flowers, vase, the lot -in a wardrobe to mask the sound and then called you on the mobile.'
'Yes.' It was a 'yes' pregnant with reservations.
'That's it.' Harry waited.
Zahir brought his hands together and cracked the knuckles. 'The operation was called off at your suggestion, yet you remained in the room. Why didn't you get out while you had the chance?'
His worst scenario. They suspected he was in collusion with the police. 'If you remember,' he said, feeling the blood drain from his face, 'I asked you to let Rhadi know the problem, and you said you couldn't because he didn't have a phone. It was clear to me he was going to get arrested if I didn't help. He'd walk straight into the trap. He's an old friend.' He glanced towards Rhadi, who was clearly uncomfortable and avoiding eye contact. 'There's such a thing as loyalty. So I waited until he came to let him know the whole thing had gone pear-shaped.'
'Pear-shaped?'
Rhadi interpreted, and there followed an earnest dialogue in Arabic between Zahir and Rhadi.
Finally Zahir said, 'Your old friend confirms that you sent him away. He believes you.'
Harry gave his old friend a look of gratitude. 'He would have done the same for me.'
Then the sting. 'Yet you remained in the room with the men we now know to have been detectives.'
'For a time, yes.'
Zahir's tiny feet curled upwards. 'Why, Mr Tattersall? Why?'
He tried to make it sound the most obvious thing in the world. 'That was my best chance - to bluff my way out, and that's what I did by letting them think there was a bomb in the suitcase. I told them I was CIA.'
'Are you?'
'Good God, no.'
'But they believed you?'
Rhadi said in support, 'He does a very good American accent.'
'It got me out and away. The alarm system went off, there was a hotel evacuation and I stepped out to the street along with everyone else.'
'That's all?' The dissatisfaction was all too evident in Zahir's voice.
'What else can I say except I'd like to know who stitched us up, and why? It certainly wasn't me. I was going to get a hundred K.'
'We were all looking forward to a share,' Zahir pointed out. 'None of us had any obvious reason to play traitor, yet someone did.'
The right moment, Harry decided, to point the finger elsewhere. 'We were sold down the river before the scam got under way. Those gunmen were in place when I was shown into the room. The police knew where to lie in wait. They must have been tipped off well ahead.'
'Wrong,' Zahir said.
'Why?'
'If they'd known in advance they'd have bugged the room already. They wouldn't have needed to send a woman in with flowers.'
Clever. This was a point Harry hadn't considered. He frowned in the silence, grasping desperately for an explanation. Finally one came to him. 'Well, maybe the police suspected some of the hotel staff were in on the scam. They couldn't risk taking them into their confidence. They played along with the plot and waited to see which suite we were sent to. They knew it must be on the same floor as the Prince's suite, so they posted their firearms team on the roof garden.'
Zahir's large, shrewd eyes studied Harry. After an interval he conceded, 'You could be speaking sense now. So if you are not the informer, who is?'
'How would I know?' Harry said. 'I didn't even meet everyone.'
'You met us all except one.'
'Yes, the inside man, the ex-RAF type on the staff of the hotel.' The injustice fired Harry to say more than he'd intended. 'I can't think why he gets special treatment. If he's on the team he should be here, ready to face the music like the rest of us.'
'Music?'
The phrase had to be explained. Then, as if such details were beneath him, Zahir gestured to Rhadi to enlighten his friend.
'The man at the Dorchester went missing the day after we were there. No one knows where he is. He's lost his job, moved out of his old address and gone.'
'Who is he?'
'His name is Dixon-Bligh.'
Harry had never heard of him. 'The police must be onto him if he quit the next day.'
'They're trying to find him, yes, but it's complicated. He's also wanted for questioning in connection with the killing of his former wife.'
'He's a killer?' Harry piped up. 'How did we get into bed with this monster?'
