‘Of course.’ He rose to his feet, and grabbed the table from going over. ‘I go down there now. Hilda, I come back for you soon.’
He reached across for her hand, kissed it and was gone. ‘Charming,’ I said. ‘He’s mad about you. When you set up house see you get good, solid teak furniture and screw it to the floor.’
‘He’s a good kind man.’
‘That’s what I’m saying. And you’re lucky—he comes in the king size.’
‘Why are you interested in this steam yacht if the matter is finished?’
‘I like to tie up the loose ends. But don’t worry about going back to Cairo. You’ll get there. But first I’d like you this morning to go into town and send a cable to a Miss Jane Judd at the Mountjoy Hotel in Dorset Square. Sign it in my name and ask for a reply Post Restante here.’
‘I could do it from the hotel.’
‘I know you could, but anything you send from there is probably handed first to the police.’
‘Look—’
‘I said I was just tying up loose ends. I am. Just say—Cable if M.F. has abdominal scar left-hand side.’
‘I presume this body had?’
‘Yes. It’s about the only thing left for identification except the teeth.’
‘I don’t think I want to do this.’
‘Why not?’
‘Freeman is dead. Olaf and I want to go to Cairo. And you won’t ever leave well alone. The police out here are very touchy about interference.’
‘They are everywhere. Touchiness is essential. Even if you’re the right height you can’t get into the police without it. And there’s something else.’
‘I’m not surprised. You’ve got that look. What is it this time? Some woman—or just money?’
‘Both. And in addition, a man.’
‘What man?’
‘Bill Dawson. Captain Asab, whom I saw at Police Headquarters, was remarkably uninterested in Dawson. No policeman can be remarkably uninterested in a man who was probably playing golf with Freeman a day or so before he was shot through the head.’
‘Shot?’
‘Didn’t I mention that?’
She looked at me with steady blue eyes and shook her head slowly, pursing her lips. Next to Olaf, but a long way behind, I was her concern. I hoped that she wasn’t going to overdo it.
‘You have no intention of giving up this case, have you?’
‘I don’t like loose ends. I’ll give it up when it’s all tidy. Look at this.’
I handed over to her a copy of the Sunday Ghibli which I had found in the hotel lounge.
‘What about it?’
‘Read the headline.’
She read it. Looked at me, then read it again. I lit a cigarette.
She said, ‘It’s a common enough name.’
‘Sure. Like Smith, Brown and Jones.’
She sniffed. ‘I think you should go back to London.’
I shook my head. ‘Think about Bill Dawson. William Dawson. A common enough name. Something about that keeps niggling in my mind. You could check it.’
‘A call to the British Embassy would confirm it.’
T don’t want it confirmed officially yet. I just want to know privately. I thought you’d like to do it.’
‘What I’d like to do is to go to Cairo, and know you were back in London. At least there your mercenary instincts are reasonably limited.’ She tapped the paper. ‘If what I’m thinking you’re thinking is so, your plain duty would be to tell all you know to the authorities.’
‘You remember the three times in the last eight years that I’ve done that? It did nothing for my reputation, my pocket or my comfort. Will you check it for me? I don’t want to poke around. But there’s a British Reading Room here. You’ll probably find it full of dead-beat Libyans having a quiet snooze, but there’s sure to be some gabby type in charge of the out-of-date newspapers and magazines. Turn on the charm.’
‘There could be thousands of Dawsons.’
‘That’s it. And some of ’em get to the top. By the way, do you still remember our private code?’
‘Now listen, Mr Carver!’
‘All right, all right. . . I raised a placatory hand, my left through years of practice because you always want the right free in case it doesn’t work.
Wilkins stood up and gathered herself together. She could do it better than anyone I knew. The temperature dropped and from inside the glacier she said, ‘I’ll do this and then Olaf and I are going back. When I joined you, you know it was agreed that I should not have to do field work.’
‘You make it sound as though I’m running a cotton plantation.’
‘You need,’ she said, ‘your head examined. And I wish I knew this time what you were after. I don’t believe it’s money, because you’ve got plenty at the moment.’
‘A woman, perhaps.’
‘No, because you would have been talking about her already and have that silly, self-satisfied look on your face.’
‘What then?’
‘I think you’re just doing it for the hell of it. For excitement. In the same way that teenagers take blue pills and eventually find themselves hooked on heroin. If you can’t get a kick out of chasing money or a woman, then you find something else to chase.’
I said, ‘That’s a very attractive straw hat you’ve got. The ribbon matches your eyes. And you are looking well.’
She didn’t say ‘pig’, but she swept out.
*
From the Del Mehari to the British Embassy was about two or three hundred yards along the sea front towards the town. After the first fifty yards I realized that Captain Asab had put a tail on me. He was a young man in a leather jacket and tight black trousers, open-necked white shirt and a very worn round astrakhan hat. He was talking to the hotel gardener who was watering the gravel of the hotel forecourt when I came out. He drifted after me down the road and I checked him by going twice round the block in which the Embassy stood. He went round conscientiously after me and then looked a bit foolish as I stood at the foot of the Embassy steps waiting for him to come by.
