Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy

'Deduction. Something very small and he might have tried to conceal it. Even something of a medium size would have tempted him to take it into a village post office and address it post restante in the U.S.A.'

'Screw it,' said Mann. 'Maybe they won't even leave the airport.'

'Big,' I said. 'It will be big.'

Percy locked the car and led the way through a maze of alleys, each one narrower than the one before it. Every third shop seemed to be a butcher, and the carcases were displayed complete with skin and fur. 'Ughh,' said Mann.

Percy had first discovered this place during the war when he was a young officer with the First Army. He'd returned in 1955, and on and off he'd lived here ever since, right through the fighting and the restrictions and difficulties that followed it. Of course Percy spoke Arabic; not just the elegant stuff used by Cairo eggheads who came to the university to lecture on poetry, but the coarse dialects of the southern villagers and the laconic mumblings of the nomad.

The alley in which Percy lived was steep and narrow. Most of the windows were shuttered, but a cafe was marked by bright yellow patches of light and the ululating song of Om Kalsum, the Ella Fitzgerald of Arab pop.

This part of the old Arab quarter must have been unchanged for a thousand years. Only by common consent were the premises defined, for the rooms of one house were the upstairs of the place next door. Percy's frontage was no more than the width of his battered old door, but once inside the place opened up to become a dozen rooms, with — at the back — a view into the courtyard of a dilapidated mosque.

I heard Percy Dempsey go to the back of the house and tell the servant to fetch food. Then he returned to the front, and poured wine for me and a Jack Daniels for Major Mann. Percy had that sort of memory.

Three of the original cell-like rooms had been knocked together. The changes of level that provided a step at the entrance to each room put the dining space on a platform at the end of the living-room. Antique swords were ar ranged over the fireplace, where smoke rose from a log fire that was only just alight. Over the dining table — it was too large, and the ceilings too low, for it to fit anywhere else — there was a brass chandelier that was said to have been looted from a house in Oran when the French departed. An ornate 'Chinese Chippendale' mirror provided anyone sitting at the head of the table with a chance to see into the kitchen. The floor was pine boarding, polished like glass. The carpets were brushed, the books were placed in the shelves according to size rather than subject, and the mirror was gleaming as brightly as the brass chandelier and the blades of the swords. And yet there was no cosiness. Here was obsessional cleanliness, combined with masculine orderliness in a way you seldom find, except in a lighthouse.

Mann lowered himself on to the sofa, holding his drink high so that none of it would spill. 'How do you know they will phone in good time?'

Percy said, 'Just relax for a moment, you've had a long journey.'

'Why don't you just check that your telephone is working? ' It wasn't a suggestion, it was an order.

'Because I've already done so,' said Percy. He poured himself a little tonic water, and turned to look at Mann. Now that his hat was off, you could see the shaved patch of skull, the stains of the antiseptic and the large pink piece of sticking-plaster that the doctor had applied to the bullet graze. The bruising from its impact reached all the way from his discoloured eye to his stiff neck. Percy studied it with interest but did not comment.

Mann scowled and sipped at his Jack Daniels. I could tell that he approved of the high standards of hygiene that were present on every side..

Percy said, 'I hope you like Arab food.' He leaned over the dining table to rearrange the cutlery and the glasses. I got the idea that he'd been rearranging them all the afternoon.

'I didn't come all this way for fancy cooking,' said Mann.

'But this is delicious,' said Percy.

'Look, pal. My idea of culinary exotica is hot pastrami on rye bread.'

Percy smiled, but the smile became rather fixed, and he continued to adjust the table setting in a more mechanical manner.

I walked through the kitchen to the balcony at the back. It was like being in the dolls-house, the balcony was no larger than a pocket handkerchief, and it was spitting distance from here to the street. There was a wonderful view. The rain had almost stopped and stars peered through gaps in the cloud. You could see the old port and the black ocean beyond. The Grand Mosque was outlined against the night sky, and I could hear the same Arab music that I'd heard from the street.

Percy came into the kitchen whistling. He lifted the lid from a pot and brought a cooked lobster out of the water. He split it into sections with all the skills and strength of a professional chef. 'Your friend…' he said, still looking down at the lobster,'… do you think that crack on the head affected him?'

'No, he's always like that,' I said.

'Odd chap… and he can't sit still for a moment.' There was the sound of the front door opening. 'It's my servant with the food,' said Percy.

From the next room Mann bellowed. 'Hey, Pop. There's a waiter arrived with a mountain of chow.'

'Oh, dear,' said Percy, and sighed.

By the time I got back to the dining-room, the table was arrayed with the tiny dishes that the Arabs called mezze. There were miniature kebabs, sliced tomato, shiny black olives, stuffed vine leaves and bite-sized pies of soft flaky pastry. The servant was a young man. There was rain on his starched white jacket, and I guessed he'd been to some local restaurant to get the food and the strong Arab coffee that I could smell. He was a handsome youth, very slim, with carefully arranged hair and large, sad, brown eyes. He watched Percy all the time. At one time I would have been indifferent to Percy's choice of such handsome young employees — smiled even — but now I found it more difficult to write it off as just a part of the fascinating spectrum of human passion.

'I don't want a foul-up,' said Mann. He tucked a napkin into his collar, and leaned forward over the table, sniffing at the mezze and pushing the dishes aside until he came to the platter of hot lobster. He speared a large piece of it.

'Nothing will go wrong,' said Percy. He gave the servant the emptied tray, and indicated that he would serve the coffee himself. The boy withdrew. 'I'll drive,' said Percy. 'I know these roads. I've spent the best part of twenty years going into the desert. But the roads over the mountains are dangerous and narrow, with hairpin bends, crowded villages and bus-drivers who know only the horn and accelerator. If a man is young enough and reckless enough…' Percy paused,'… to say nothing of frightened enough, he'll outstrip any car that follows him.'

'Or get killed himself,' said Mann, with a large piece of lobster in his mouth.

'Or get killed himself,' said Percy, as he picked up a knife and fork. 'There's local beer or ouzo, or you can continue with the Jack Daniels.'

'And when you get over the mountains?' asked Mann. He leaned back in the delicate chair until it creaked, and then held a speared chunk of lobster aloft, chewing pieces from it and nodding approval at the flavour.

'The high plateau and then more mountains — the Ouled Nail — before you reach Laghouat, where the real desert begins: about 400 kilometres in all.'

'By that time they will know they are being followed,' said Mann.

'My dear fellow,' said Percy. He chuckled. 'He'll know he's being followed before you're in the hills, before you're out of the suburbs even. If you were hoping to be inconspicuous, forget it. At this time of year there will be hardly any private cars down there in the desert. He'll see your dust for a hundred kilometres.'

Mann prodded at some cubes of grilled cheese before putting one into his mouth. They were very hot. He tried not to show his discomfort, although tears came into his eyes.

'I think Percy should drive,' I said.

Mann clamped a napkin to his mouth, nodded, looked up to see if anyone was watching him, and finally swallowed the burning-hot cheese.

'That's settled then,' said Percy and reached for the same grilled cheese cubes. He put three of them into his mouth and chewed impassively. I realized then that it was the similarity of their upbringing that made them so antagonistic. Exchange Percy's public school for the Mid-West military academy where Mann's estranged parents had sent him, and each would have become the other.

It was the small hours before the Algerian jet arrived at Algiers Airport. Mrs Bekuv must have known that we'd be waiting for her on the other side of the barrier. Whatever kind of deal the men from the Russian Trade Delegation made with the authorities, it included permission for her to leave the airport on the far side. We almost