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'And what did he see?'
'He saw them take your car away. And they got away from him then, because he wasn't expecting that. So he phoned me– '
' – And you knew what to expect?'
'When my man told me they'd brought the car back I had my suspicions, certainly.'
'But you don't know what's been done exactly?'
It was curious that the fellow was so eager to explain exactly how he'd come storming into Bunnock Street like the U.S. cavalry. It made Roskill want to push him further, to find out what he didn't wish to explain. Like, for example, who the devil he was—which was one question Roskill couldn't humiliate himself with.
A shrug. 'They didn't take it away to give it a wash and a polish, obviously.'
'A shot of T.P.D.X. in the right place, maybe?'
For the first time the smile slipped a fraction. The Arab cocked his head again slightly and the light from the lamp above them picked out a long whitish scar that ran down from his cheekbone downwards, to be lost in one of his jowls.
But before he could begin to reply Isobel appeared beside his right shoulder. The Arab swung half round and faced her, incorporating a little bow into the movement.
'Lady Ryle – I do beg your pardon,' he said quickly. 'I was almost sure I'd seen you in the headlights...'
'Colonel Razzak,' said Isobel in her coolest Lady Ryle voice, 'I dummy2
thought I recognised you too, but in this light I wasn't sure at first either.'
No wonder the man had behaved as though Roskill knew him –
and no wonder he knew enough about Roskill to be suspicious in the first place.
But – damn it – it wasn't so much Razzak's arrival as his physical appearance that beat everything. From Audley's brief introduction he had imagined a lean, fanatical Bedouin – a throwback to those great days of Arab empire over which the Foreign Office man had enthused. He had never dreamed that the hero of Sinai would be hidden in the body of a roly-poly Levantine carpet salesman.
'It is a compliment that you should recognise me in any light, Lady Ryle.'
In another moment the fat slob would be kissing her hand. Except that the thought was hardly charitable to a man who had just broken the speed limit to stop them both being shredded into little pieces: no matter what his true motives were, and fat and ugly notwithstanding, Razzak's account was in credit.
And that, in itself, was an unforeseen complication. It didn't exactly exculpate Razzak from Alan's death. No sensible man resorted to violence in a foreign and neutral country if it could be avoided, and just because he had avoided it tonight it did not follow that he had done so in Alan's case. It could simply be that Alan had known too much, whereas Roskill knew practically damn all – after the Ryle reception debacle that must have been obvious dummy2
enough.
But that only made tonight's emergency more frightening: it meant that there was someone else beyond Razzak's control – and that could include both Hassan and the Israelis — who was prepared to turn a London back- street into a shambles for no very good reason.
The door behind him opened suddenly with a crash that made him jump. Framed in it was a Goliath of a man in shirtsleeves and a vast Fair Isle pullover.
The Goliath took in the scene with one slow dance from right to left – Roskill, Razzak, Isobel and the Mercedes with its doors open and its headlights glaring – and then swung his own glare to Roskill.
'I don't know wot your game is, mate,' he said in tones in which anger and scorn were carefully balanced, 'but you just go and play it somewhere else!'
Razzak stared coldly at the man for a moment, and then turned again towards Isobel.
'Allow me to offer you the hospitality of my car,' he said. He turned to Roskill. 'And you, too, Squadron Leader.'
The Goliath snorted.
Roskill leant into the Triumph and gently slid the keys out of the ignition.
'You can't leave it outside my property,' barked the Goliath, gratefully seizing the chance of being awkward. 'I'll have the bloody police take it away!'
Roskill was almost relieved that the man had sworn at last; the dummy2
absence of obscenities in his opening broadside had made his anger more threatening.
'The bloody police will be coming for it very soon anyway,' he replied with assumed indifference. 'It's a stolen vehicle. You lay a finger on it and you'll be in trouble.'
That might at least protect the car from outrage – and the Goliath from sudden death – until he could get the department's specialists to look it over, and in the meantime it took some of the wind out of the man's bellying sails.
He locked the car doors carefully and followed Isobel into the Mercedes. Razzak leant forward and flashed the headlights off and on before settling back beside them.
'You know, I have always admired, the independent spirit of the British working class,' he said gravely. 'But
