The thought filled her with febrile excitement; and the best she could say for Mrs Braintree was that her medicine seemed to have worked. Not only had her stomach recovered, but her rash seemed to be clearing up too.
Steiner found her in a mood of tentative elation. ‘Good morning, my dear Sarah.’ He looked fresh and at ease. ‘I apologize most sincerely for the disgraceful lack of water. But I am afraid we are not in the West any more. However, I trust you have not been too greatly inconvenienced?’
Sarah said something noncommittal and waited. For a long moment Steiner gazed out at the pool, which was still covered with a film of grey sand, like the skin of a toad.
‘We are taking a trip into the city,’ he said at last. ‘There are some things I want to show you. And things I want to discuss. Are you ready?’
‘I’ll just get my bag.’
She felt a guilty excitement as she climbed into the upholstered gloom of the Fleetwood, sitting well back in the seat away from him. She remembered Mrs Braintree’s warnings against the man, and although Sarah had never found Shiva Steiner anything but courteous and charming, she could not help feeling that it would take quite a lot to shock an old bag like the Ambassador’s wife.
Steiner said little during the drive. When they left the house the road was empty, but a few miles on, when Sarah looked back through the smoked rear window, the unnumbered grey car was there again with two men inside. She pointed it out to Steiner, but he seemed uninterested; then she told him about the car last night.
‘You are very observant,’ he murmured. He. sounded preoccupied or bored; and she was reminded of his behaviour during their dinner with the Ruler in Klosters, when he had dropped his easy social manner, suddenly, like an actor abandoning his role once he has stepped off stage.
‘But who are they?’ she asked.
He turned slowly and looked at her. ‘Why are you so interested, my dear?’
‘I talked to the British Ambassador’s wife last night. She said some very odd things — not only about being followed, but about you.’
‘I do not suppose they were very complimentary. In my experience, the wives of Western diplomats live on rumours and gossip, as some people live on vitamins.’
There was a long pause. They were coming into the city now, leaving the private villas with their gardens and swimming-pools, and were driving between squalid modern buildings divided by dark alleys and crowded bazaars. The traffic had not yet built up, but there seemed to Sarah to be a great many troops and armoured vehicles about. Near the city centre, they were to be seen in every doorway, at every street corner: most of them carried short-muzzled machine pistols, and several of them had radios.
She asked Steiner about them, and he gave a small, patronizing smile. ‘You must know, my dear Sarah, that this country has one of the largest armies in the world.’
‘But why so many today?’
‘They are probably on manoeuvres. An army has to be given something to do. You cannot keep it locked up in barracks all the time.’
His reply struck her as a trifle too glib, but she did not feel qualified to argue. She looked back through the rear window; and after a moment she saw it again, a few cars back. She turned again to Steiner and said fiercely, ‘You still haven’t told me who they are.’
‘Who?’
‘The men in the car behind — the ones who followed me last night. Who are they?’ Steiner’s lack of interest was not only irritating her, it was making her nervous.
‘Security police,’ he replied.
‘But why do they follow us? Why did they follow me last night?’
Steiner sighed. ‘My dear, they follow anyone they think is important. Particularly foreigners. It is partly a form of protection for, regrettably, there are still many beggars in the city — wild men who have come in from the desert and the mountains where they used to be brigands. And this is a very security-minded country.’
Again Sarah found that the explanation seemed a little too elaborate, and not quite convincing.
They had reached the end of a street which opened on to a large deserted square: at the far end was an ornate white building which reminded her of a French casino. On one side of it stood a mosque, with a glittering dome and a pencil-shaped minaret; on the other, a long building faced with colonnades.
The street was blocked by a couple of jeeps and a row of troops in leopard-spotted uniforms. The driver turned the car so that it was facing across the street, then stopped. Steiner nodded in the direction of the square.
‘That is the Royal Palace you see directly ahead — the Ruler’s official residence. On the right is the Great Mosque, and on the left the Senate Building.’ He spoke with the indifferent precision of a tour guide.
She looked at him, puzzled. ‘Shiva, I saw all this the other day when we all came into town together. But then we were able to go right round the square. Now it’s all blocked off.’
‘Quite.’ There was an uncharacteristic note of irritation in Steiner’s voice. He gestured with his squat flat fingers. ‘It is precisely this roadblock that I wished you to see. You will be passing through it tonight.’
She caught her breath and stared at him.
‘They will not be the same troops on duty,’ he
