‘M’sieur, croyez-moi!’ Sherrif cried. ‘When I heard what had happened to those poor people in the Casino I wept — I prayed for them, I could not sleep, I wept all night at the thought of them!’
Neil looked at him in dismay; a dreadful suspicion began to creep over him. ‘I was there,’ he said, ‘I went in just after the bomb went off. I had a friend who was killed there — a Dutchman. He had nothing to do with this country. He and about forty other people who were enjoying themselves dancing in. the afternoon, harming no one, were murdered in cold blood. Do you really think that is how you are going to free your people?’
Sherrif put his hands over his ears and moaned: ‘You call me a murderer! They all call me a murderer! I am not, m’sieur, I am not!’ He stared at Neil with his dead smile and Neil stared back with a curious thrill of horror. This man was Ali La Joconde.
‘If you were responsible for what happened at the Casino de la Plage,’ Neil said, with a boldness that even astonished him as he spoke, ‘then you are a murderer, Monsieur Sherrif.’ He sat back, gripping his brass teacup, waiting. The polite preamble, the eastern ritual of barter, was over. There was a dead silence. It was broken by the sobbing of Ali La Joconde. Neil found the sound slightly obscene. He turned at last to Marouf: ‘Doctor, why have I been asked to come here?’
The directness of the question upset Marouf; he looked awkwardly at his hands and made a little coughing noise. It was as though the Harley Street surgeon had been asked to perform an abortion.
It was Boussid who answered. He squinted through his green bifocals and said, ‘In the last three days we have lost two hundred and forty dead — murdered by Fascist thugs in the streets on their way to work, on their way to buy food for their families. This is senseless slaughter, m’sieur. The Secret Army are foolish. They do not understand that their struggle is not with the Arab Front — it is with the French Government. Why do they send their terrorists against us — killing innocent working people, when their true enemies are sitting in Paris, in the High Command headquarters on the hill?’
Neil said, ‘I cannot answer for the Secret Army. But it seems to me that they believe in terrorism for the same reasons that you do — to demoralize the population and destroy the rule of law.’
‘That is so,’ said Boussid, ‘but the Arab Front are not the rule of law. We are peaceful people, we want to live in peace with everyone, including the Europeans in this country. We do not wish to go on killing Europeans, if they will only stop killing us.’
He spoke fluently, without the passion of Ali La Joconde. More tea was poured, and Boussid’s words flowed in the smooth patter of a political PRO. Neil looked into the small cod’s eyes, at the impassive Dr. Marouf and the sad smiling face of Mohammed Sherrif. ‘Do I understand, messieurs,’ he said slowly, ‘that you wish to stop the terrorism?’
None of them around the brass table moved, except Sherrif who gave a little shudder. Boussid went on as though Neil had not spoken: ‘The Secret Army is not our problem — it is an internal French problem which must be solved by the French. The Paris Government may soon grant us our independence. Then we will have no more quarrel with France. All we want is peace and freedom. Let us have peace with the Secret Army, and the Secret Army can be left to work out its own problems with the High Command and with Paris.’
‘So you desire to make a truce with the Secret Army?’ said Neil.
Boussid was silent. Dr. Marouf pressed his fingertips together and nodded. Ali La Joconde went on staring at the table, shuddering.
‘The Secret Army don’t know this?’ asked Neil.
‘No,’ said Marouf.
‘Does the French Government know?’
‘We have no relations with the French Government,’ said Marouf, ‘that is why we have asked you here today.’
Neil paused, controlling his excitement. Boussid began to speak, softly, urgently: ‘Monsieur, we are told that you are a man of some influence. You are British — you are not involved in the problems here. You can meet with the Secret Army, you can meet with us. If you can contact the leaders of the Secret Army, talk with them, explore their feelings, tell them that we wish to spare the innocent, then perhaps we can prevent a repetition of what happened yesterday at the Casino de la Plage. We cannot do this ourselves. The French will not do it for us. It must be done by someone like you.’
Neil sipped his tea and contemplated the role of Ingleby the Peacemaker. It satisfied most of his ambitions and a few of his fantasies. Secretly he had always hankered after fame, although the fame enjoyed by most public figures rather appalled him. He wanted to be seen as a remote romantic figure, aloof from publicity, going down in history as a lone force who called halt to murder and terrorism.
He liked the role. The only thing that worried him was Pol’s part in it; but he did not bring this up now with Marouf or Boussid. It was a problem that could be tackled later. It was 11.52. He had been in the Casbah for nearly an hour. He remembered the car waiting outside and said, ‘You want me to contact the Secret Army and tell them you are prepared to call a truce? Then what?’
‘You will hear from us,’ said Marouf.
Neil produced the packet of Chesterfields he had bought from the murdered Moslem outside the hotel, and offered it round. They
