Look after mv friend.'
Before Roskill could protest, a slender stream of beer frothed into his tankard. Shapiro eased himself out from behind the table, but turned back towards him before he had taken two steps. He looked down at Roskill.
'You're always off target about Razzaik – and me. I don't have a low opinion of him at all. For a Gyppo he's quite a guy – he's quite a guy by any standard. You wait till I get back.'
Roskill watched him bulldoze across the room. Everyone seemed to know him and on his triumphal progress towards the back room he contrived to kiss the two prettiest girls along the way. They appeared to enjoy it, too.
The waiter smiled at Roskill and shook his head. 'That Jake – he's a bad man,' he confided happily. 'I am glad my girls are out of his reach, safe at home.'
He filled Shapiro's tankard – Roskill hadn't seen it being emptied, but empty again it undoubtedly was. 'Say – do you want something to eat? The egg and aubergine's special tonight– or the stuffed tomatoes, maybe? On the house, anything you want, yes?'
Roskill was torn between hunger and a faint queasiness deep down dummy2
which told him that he'd already drunk well but not too wisely on an empty stomach.
'Cottage cheese fritters – or if you're not really hungry, maybe a slice of honeycake?'
The mention of fritters and honeycake reinforced the shrinking feeling. In any case, if he started to eat now the night would develop into a carouse, and the morning after would be a purgatory when the clearest of heads was required.
He shook his head with feigned regret. 'It's tempting, but I've already eaten.'
'Well, if you change your mind, just sing out.'
Roskill stared down into his beer and tried to concentrate. For whatever reason, Razzak and Shapiro were each concerned to make no trouble for the other. And Razzak had even offered to get him information about Hassan. So perhaps Shapiro could be prevailed on to make an even belter offer.
And yet Hassan, who was everyone's bogeyman, was still a completely nebulous figure. There was absolutely nothing concrete so far to link him with East Firle, and consequently with Alan Jenkins. It was Razzak and Shapiro who were surely involved there
— the bastards
He nodded his head angrily. As usual, everyone was giving everyone else the runaround, and he couldn't even think straight any more with the liquor and the noise and the heat.
He picked up his tankard, glanced around to make sure no one was dummy2
watching him, and then quickly tipped most of it among the bright plastic blossoms arranged in a long display box on his right. If it was as good as Shapiro said it might bring them to life; at least it couldn't do them any harm.
He was only just in time, for a moment later the Israeli loomed up in front of him just as he was ostentatiously draining the last swallow of beer.
'Sorry about that, Roskill – my date got hung up at the hospital.
She loves her work far more than me, that's the trouble. But she'll be here any minute now.'
'Then perhaps I'd better be pushing along.'
'Before you've got what you wanted? Man – don't be silly. Besides, Rosie Halprin could tell you a thing or two about Muhammed Razzak. After we took him apart she put him together again, back in '67.'
'Put him together again?'
Shapiro drank, lowered his tankard and carefully wiped the froth from his moustache.
'How much do you know about Razzak's little war?'
'He was a hero of some sort, wasn't he?'
Shapiro shook his head. 'Not the half of it, friend – not the half of it. He was a special sort of old-fashioned, cold-blooded hero.'
He stared out into the smokey room, and then back at Roskill.
'You know what happened in Sinai? The first two days were the fighting days – the third day was Grand National Day. There was dummy2
nothing wrong with their defences, they had perfectly good Russian linear system positions. It's just that the Russians would have smacked us with counter-attacks once we were through the forward lines, and the Egyptians didn't do a damn thing – there weren't more than a couple of attempts at counter-attacking.
'On the second night I was picking up strays – tanks we reckoned we could put right quickly enough for the other fronts if we needed them. It was all over bar the shouting, and the odd mishap.
'And then I got a call that someone was hitting the junction of the roads from Abu Agheila and Bir Lahfan, just south-west of Jebl Libni – there'd been some sniping there earlier, but this was kind of determined. And inconvement, because next day we were going flat out for the Canal, as I say.
'But I had a few patched-up Centurions with me, and we picked up a few more en route, and we sorted it out. And that's where we took Razzak.'
'You mean Razzak organised a counter-attack?'
'It wasn't much of a counter-attack – more a forlorn hope. He'd scratched together a handful of T 54s and one
