‘Have you seen snakes, Charlie?’
‘Two . . . and a lion.’
‘I didn’t think that there were any lions in Egypt. Where did it come from?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a mystery.’ There, I was saying it myself.
My old man had been arrested again. This time it had happened in Scotland, where the police are less forgiving, and he was still nursing his bruises from the encounter. I got this from Dolly, who was still looking out for him.
I asked her, ‘What did he do this time?’
‘There’s a Territorial Army camp site just outside Campbeltown. He painted something on the road outside.’
‘What?’
‘Redcoats go home. Then he chained himself to a lamp post. The police weren’t terribly amused.’
‘Is he going a bit odd?’
‘Not as odd as his son. I miss you so much, Charlie, and I never thought I would.’
‘I miss you, too. I dream of that beautiful mole in the middle of your back . . .’
There was one of the pregnant pauses which often happen in conversations between Dolly and me. Then she said flatly, ‘I don’t have a mole on my back,’ and hung up. I said sorry to an empty telephone.
Sod it!
Bozey told me that business – both Halton’s and ours – was brisk. I liked that word. Then we talked about David Yassine. When I put the phone down it was warm from my hand, and from my ear.
I walked into Daisy’s closet to find another glass of water. She was asleep with her ankles up on the edge of the desk. An electric fan standing on a cabinet stirred the air around us. Her skirt had slipped back, and I could just see her stocking tops. My dilemma was that if I tried to pull it up over her knees, and she woke up, she’d think I was trying to get my hand up her skirt – so I moved quietly out again.
As I did so she spoke, without opening her eyes, ‘It’s OK, Charlie. Panic over.’
‘Good,’ I told her. ‘Go back to sleep. I’ll close the door on the snib behind me, and no one will come in.’
I reckoned I had a couple of days, and then I’d be back out in the blue.
It was the old torch-shone-in-my-face job. Someone came clumsily through the tent flap, and shone a light on me.
Nansen moaned, ‘Whoever you are, fuck off. It’s sleepy time Down South.’
Watson corrected him with, ‘It’s sleepy time, sir, and you’re on a charge for being disrespectful to rank. See me tomorrow.’ To me he said, ‘Get some more clothes on, Charlie, we’ve got a job. I’ll wait for you outside.’ Then he turned back to Nancy and said, ‘. . . and start sleeping with some shorts on, or you’ll be on another bloody charge for being a bloody unnatural: you look disgusting.’ I was still tucking my shirt in when I went outside.
Watson observed, ‘I don’t know why you put up with him.’
‘Haven’t we had this conversation before, sir?’
‘No. You must have imagined it.’
It was cooler than I’d reckoned, so I ducked inside for a jacket, and while I did so a vehicle drew up. It was an anonymous-looking 1-tonner, driven by Pat Tobin. He handed me the keys, gave us a sloppy salute, and made off for the darkness. I hoped the lion wouldn’t get him. While Watson got behind the wheel, I climbed up into the other side – I should have made plain that it wasn’t only an anonymous-looking vehicle, but a very old one. In the 1940s the military had a strange preference for vehicles that stood eighteen feet off the ground: you needed crampons to climb into some of them.
He drove out of the main gate, did a left and a right, and headed for the Suez road. He was a surprisingly fluid driver; much better than me. He belched, and told me, ‘I always liked this old Bedford.’
‘Is it ours, sir?’
‘Pat says it is. That’s good enough for me. Why don’t you ask me what this is all about?’
‘What’s this all about, sir . . . or did the fancy for a moonlit drive just come on you suddenly?’
‘Bloody funny, aren’t you? This afternoon you told me that Yassine was in Suez and gave me a probable address, didn’t you? I looked it up, and we’re going to see if we can find him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the wogs down there have stolen a Comet tank; fully armed and ready for dancing. If someone doesn’t do something about it there’s going to be a bloody war on.’
‘Or a police action at the very least. I think those were the words you used, sir.’
‘Told you before, Charlie; stop being bloody funny – not in the mood for it. I checked with the MPs and the address you had is in the Arab quarter.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that there are two loaded .38 service revolvers, and a Stirling and two magazines, under your very seat. If you have a god, pray to him now that we don’t need to use
