She had left her small car parked behind my hut, which is why I hadn’t seen it the night before, and was going to follow Pat through the gate.
Before we split she asked me, ‘That woman you told me about – did you mean to do it?’
Pat walked on ahead, and gave us a minute. Steve and I stopped moving, and looked at each other.
‘No. It was the last thing in the world I would have wanted.’
‘I figured that.’
Chapter Seventeen
Love for Sale
‘How long have you been here this time, Charlie?’
‘A month? Have I been here longer than a month already?’
‘Seven weeks, Fiona tells me. By the way, she’s been a bit sweet on you ever since that Kermia trip – I don’t know how you do it.’
For the first time since I’d arrived in Cyprus Watson had dropped in to watch me at work. Not that there was any. It was a Saturday: the Saudis were having a day off.
‘I haven’t seen her since then.’
The days had merged into one another it seemed . . . and then the weeks followed them. Eight-hour spells, mainly, of listening to people I’d never met, broken up by regular deliveries of Spam. I had eaten Spam in every form known to man, and a couple that were even less predictable. I reckoned that if the British Army had found a way of compressing Spam into suppositories to shove up your jacksie they would have been on my breakfast plate one morning.
Every eight days I had a long weekend, during which I moved into Yassine’s place if Pat thought it was going to be safe. Only once, so far, it hadn’t been safe, and I kicked my heels around camp until the library found me a book of Sherlock Holmes stories, and Steve sent me in some fruit to break the monotony. The fruit box from Steve made me feel like a POW receiving his Red Cross parcel. She used less perfume than any woman I’d met, but even so I caught its muskiness from the wrapping of the parcel, and it made my head spin.
On better days we had a decent gin rummy school going at the hotel – and one of the Danish UN guys had brought a UN Jerry who taught us spoof – a wicked betting game with matches. Every time I looked at him across the bar I would wonder if he and I had been trying to kill each other ten years before.
On the bright side, no one had come to kill me in Cyprus yet. I scanned the English-language newspapers whenever I got my hands on them for news of the dastardly murder of a crippled English lady. Maybe the priest had done a deal with both of us after all, and either we’d both get it – or neither? No, that wouldn’t work – they wanted the money, didn’t they?
Watson and I sat and sipped iced water in air-conditioned glory. I’d slipped one headphone back so that I could talk to him. From the other I heard the friendly hiss of static. If ever they ask me on to Desert Island Discs I shall ask for a recording of radio static. It reminds me of safe, lazy days with little to do. Thirdlow was working one of the sets in the chapel on my left. Occasionally I cast an eye over the partition which divided me from her, and looked at her legs. She had kicked off her shoes, and had worked her skirt back above her knees to expose them to the cool air. They weren’t particularly pretty knees, but I had had precious little else to think about for the last two hours. She had a frown of concentration on her face, and was scribbling down one sheet after another. I had been told that the bay she was in was used for monitoring our allies: that was interesting. Occasionally she shot me one of her tight little smiles. That was interesting as well.
Watson asked me, ‘Isn’t that one of Collins’s women?’
‘Yes. Her name’s Thirdlow.’
‘Whose signal is she hooked into?’
‘I don’t know – you could always ask her.’ I knew he wouldn’t. ‘Are you still happy with my work, sir, or have you come along to have a good old moan?’
‘I hate it when you call me sir.’
‘Didn’t you lock me up for not doing precisely that when I got here?’
‘I was just making a point. I thought it would get us off on the right foot.’
‘I always kicked with the left foot when I was at school. I was a leftie.’
‘I’ll remember that.’
What the hell was the matter with the man? I told him, ‘I just gave a perfectly good opportunity to tell me what you wanted, and you muffed it, so now I’ll ask you directly. What’s the problem?’
He put his glass down.
‘The corporal is.’
‘Pat?’
‘The civvy cops are sniffing round him, and I don’t know why.’
‘Then ask them.’
‘I can’t. I made a point of not having anything to do with them. Their operation isn’t all that secure – it can’t be because they have to work with the island police. Now they won’t talk to me.’
‘Ask Pat.’
‘I can’t do that either.’
‘Why not?’
Thirdlow glanced over at us, and he’d caught the movement. He dropped his voice to a whisper, ‘Because I don’t know where the hell he is. He had at least a week’s leave coming, and took it two days ago.’
‘Ask your assistant, Fiona.’
‘Why should she know if I don’t?’ Ah. His surprise seemed genuine.
‘Just a thought,’ I said. ‘So, what do you want me to do about it?’
‘When’s your next rest period?’
‘Tomorrow. Monday and Tuesday. Back in this dump on Wednesday.’
‘Everything seems to have quietened
