The Alamut Ambush

same for Shapiro's without dummy2

bothering to find out whether it was empty. Presumably it was more often empty than not.

'There now!' said Shapiro with a growl of satisfaction. 'You'll not find a better beer than that in London – it's as near as you'll get to the old London strong ale. Man I get it from swears it's all in the fining and filtering and dry- hopping, but I think it's just got more malt and less water. All the rest of it's bullshit.'

Good beer it might be, Roskill reflected unhappily, but on an empty stomach lined with whisky it was likely to be disastrous.

Yet the laws of hospitality and the honour of Britain demanded that it should be drunk, and drunk properly. 'Open your throat and pour it down' had been the first boozing rule he'd learnt: there was nothing he could do but obey the rule.

He took the tankard, opened his throat and poured it down in.

Surprisingly, it descended very easily – smooth, heavy and only moderately cool.

'Bravo!' Shapiro regarded him with enthusiasm. 'The same again?'

'With what I've had already tonight I think that'll do very well. I shan't be fit to drive – ' Roskill stopped in mid- sentence, sobered by the thought that as of the moment he had no car; for the time being it was the dangerous property of the soft-voiced Scotsman.

'Ah! The breathalyser!' Shapiro nodded regretfully. 'I never use a car in London, and I forget that some people still do. You should use public transport, my friend – it's like they say on the posters: car free, carefree. There are too many cars in London anyway.'

'So one blown up here and there doesn't matter?'

dummy2

Shapiro stared in silence at the check tablecloth in front of him.

When he raised his eyes to meet Roskill's, there was no longer any amusement in them.

'Now that was a bad business — a sad business,' he said heavily.

'Not the car – the car is nothing. But you lost a man, didn't you?'

'A good man.'

'All men are good when you lose them. We know that in Israel better than most, because we can't afford to lose anyone. There are too few of us as it is.'

'Then you'll understand that we want to know why we lost him.'

Shapiro raised his eyebrows expressively. 'Doesn't Llewelyn know?' He paused, and then went on, nodding to himself.

'Obviously he doesn't know, so because I was having dinner with him he thinks I might have set up the whole thing – is that it? Does he think that? Do you think that?'

'I think – ' said Roskill slowly, searching for the right answer, and finding it in Audley's own words ' – I think it's not quite your style.'

'My style?' Shapiro smiled a rather sad, twisted smile. 'There's no style in killing. You either do it, or you don't do it. But I'm glad you don't think I did it. You see, I haven't any reason for killing Llewelyn. I don't like him and he doesn't like me. But he's working for peace in the Middle East, and frankly I'd rather have any sort of peace, on almost any terms, than what we've got now.'

It sounded an honest answer, thought Roskill. It was just a pity that it wasn't an answer to the real question. But the time to put that one had not yet arrived.

dummy2

'So if it wasn't me, who was it? Is that what I'm supposed to tell you?' Shapiro grinned again, some of his good humour re-turning.

'I'm sure you didn't come slumming down here just to put my little mind at ease.'

'I did rather think you might be able to tell me about Muhammed Razzak, for a start,' said Roskill.

'Razzak?' Shapiro frowned. 'You don't mean to tell me that old Razzak's a suspect? I doubt whether he knows Llewelyn from the Earl of Snowdon. He's a soldier, not a terrorist, any– '

'Plenty of soldiers have changed their jobs, Colonel Shapiro. Like you, for instance.'

'Huh! Like you too, Squadron Leader,' Shapiro murmured ironically. 'And I don't doubt we shall both live to regret it. But Razzak's been in Paris – is that supposed to be a suspicious alibi?'

What was downright odd, if not suspicious, was that these two old enemies each discounted the other's guilt. At the very least, and whatever they might think privately, they ought to be doing each other as much mischief as they could.

'Being in Paris doesn't clear him any more than being on the spot makes an assassin of you, Colonel. You've both got dogs to do your barking for you.'

'And you think Razzak may have loosed his dogs?'

'I think I don't share your low opinion of Colonel Razzak. And I don't really know what his style is.'

Shapiro waved his hand impatiently. 'Style – I tell you, that's a lot of balls. I know the man, and I tell you he's not – ' He broke off dummy2

abruptly as the waiter materialised in front of them, beer jug at the ready. Roskill reached forward to cover his empty tankard with his hand, but this time the man spoke instead of pouring.

'Phone in the back room for you, Jake,' he said familiarly, indicating the back room's direction with his thumb. 'Urgent.'

'It's always bloody urgent,' Shapiro complained. 'Thanks, Shabby.