Then one of the men lost his footing on the shadowed, slimy stones, a box crashed down, and half the work-party threw themselves flat.
* * *
Ranklin was placed midway along the dinner table between the seemingly inevitable Lunn and the wife of a British resident – a lawyer, he gathered. A string quartet in what might have been Albanian costume played in a corner.
Luckily the wife wasn’t at all interested in Snaipe’s diplomatic past: what fascinated her was the brigands and the Kaiser’s carriages – such as did Lady Kelso really sleep in the Kaiser’s bed?
“Er, no, we didn’t have the Kaiser’s actual Schlafwagen-”
“And when the brigands attacked you, is it true that she offered herself to them?”
“Good Lord, no. They didn’t get within a hundred yards of our carriages.”
Obviously disappointed, the wife gazed at Lady Kelso, seated next to the Ambassador. “I do think it’s noble of H.E. to entertain a woman with such a reputation. Does she usually wear Turkish – no, it was Arabian – dress?”
“She didn’t on the train and I doubt she does in Italy.”
“I’ve heard that when she was here as a diplomatist’s wife, that was how she made her assignations. All wrapped up like that, even your own husband wouldn’t recognise you, everyone assumes you’re just a servant carrying a message. That’s how Turkish wives do it today. In the streets of Constantinople, one feels one is absolutely surrounded by infidelities.”
“Really? That must make shopping trips much more interesting.”
Across the table, between a vase of flowers and a lump of Embassy silver, he caught Beirut Bertie’s lazy smile.
So did the wife. “Now, M’sieu Lacan, you know all about Turkish and Arab customs, isn’t that so?”
“Not those customs, alas, dear lady. Only dull matters such as the proper conduct of blood feuds.”
“Come now, I’m sure a Frenchman wouldn’t waste all his time on the laws of feuding.”
“Ah, but my time belongs to my Government.”
Ranklin asked: “Are you also a diplomatist, M’sieu Lacan?”
The wife said: “Beirut Bertie – that’s what we call him and he has to pretend he doesn’t know – has worked for everybody out here.”
“True, but it began with the Diplomatique – as it now seems fated to end. All my life I have sought only simple luxury. Early on, I was seduced by childhood books of life in the East: I pictured myself reclining on cushions, sucking sherbet – have you ever sucked sherbet, Mr Snaipe? It is quite disgusting – and surrounded by poorly-clad dancing-girls. I was, I admit,” he sighed, “a rather advanced child. But when I found no dancing-girls in the Diplomatique, I moved to work for the Imperial Ottoman Bank. And alas, they had no dancing-girls either, so I went to the Anatolie – the Railway company when it was French owned – and can you guess what I found?”
“No dancing-girls?”
“You have great insight, Mr Snaipe. All the luxuries I have found in the East have been brought from Paris or London. Including the dancing-girls. So – why argue with fate? – I came back to the Diplomatique.”
“Where he does nobody-knows-what, mostly in Beirut and Damascus and Baghdad,” the wife said, “but I think he’s a spy.”
Bertie made an elegant gesture of hopelessness. “You see, Mr Snaipe? – how my search for a life of humble luxury makes me a misunderstood outcast of good society?”
* * *
When a trained soldier throws himself flat, others don’t stand about asking questions, and O’Gilroy almost vanished under his table. Certainly he spilled his coffee. But nothing else happened. The Germans picked themselves up and wiped themselves down, while the Turks in the work-party watched in astonishment. Then Herr Fernrick moved in, bollocking the man who’d slipped while his companion – presumably speaking Turkish – reassured the others.
The waiter came up and suggested, in French, that O’Gilroy would want another coffee. But apart from feeling such coffee was better spilt than drunk, he wanted something stronger now. A little bad French and good will narrowed the decision down to a raki, whatever that was.
On the quayside, work restarted, slower and more cautiously, and O’Gilroy looked around to see if anyone else in the front of the cafe had noticed. Then, because Herr Fernrick was also glaring round to see if he’d attracted attention, went back to his postcards. But his hand was trembling. He had, guessing the weight of that box, been altogether too close to a hundred pounds of explosive nearly going off.
14
When the ladies had withdrawn, the men remained standing for a few moments, waiting politely to see who wanted a private word with whom. Bertie murmured to Ranklin: “In small, isolated communities, do you not find that female conversation seldom rises above the waist? As a topic, Lady Kelso must be a Godsend.”
“Have you run across her before?”
“No. But her trail. . . stories, memories, they live on in the desert . . . It is a bit like meeting a living myth . . .” His face went serious, and he looked away.
The male guest of honour, Izzad Bey from the Porte, roughly the Turkish Foreign Office, had now moved up alongside H.E. the Ambassador and they were also, and openly, discussing Lady Kelso.
“But,” Izzad was saying, “her liaison with Miskal Bey must be twenty, at least twenty-five years ago now.”
“Then you don’t put her chance of success very high?”
“The time is not the problem. Perhaps she will get to meet Miskal Bey again. But no matter how good her arguments may be – to be merciful, to let the engineers free – how can he appear to be influenced by a woman? Rather than risk that, he may even harden his resolve to keep them as prisoners.”
“Might be counter-productive, you think?”
“It is just possible.”
“Hmmmm.” It was half a hum, half grunt. “Well . . . we aren’t sending her, we only offered her as a possible mediator. And your Government and Wangenheim – the German Ambassador here,” he explained to Ranklin, “accepted the offer, so . . .”
Izzad smiled. “And if the Railway is not restarted soon, perhaps you will not weep too much.”
“Oh, I think the recent discussions have settled everybody’s position on the Railway quite amicably.”
“Or swept them under the carpet. The very best Turkish carpet, of course.”
“But probably you’ve got enough on your plate with the new loan negotiations. Am I allowed to ask how they’re going, now that you’ve got M’sieu Lacan back from Paris? Talking to Mrs Finn tonight, she didn’t seem too happy. But I thought she was only out here as fiancee of . . . who is it?”
“D’Erlon,” Bertie supplied. “Edouard d’Erlon. But no, the lady is here very much in her own right – or her father’s. She most certainly understands finance.”
“Really? We’re quite beset by influential women tonight. They seem to be taking charge. Perhaps my successor will be wearing skirts. Although I wonder if she’ll appreciate a good cigar.” And he puffed luxuriously.
They all laughed. Then Bertie went on: “But I fear she has some trouble appreciating the problems of finance in this country. As does her countryman, Mr Billings.”
“Finds it difficult to see how you translate your passion for Arab interests into eighths of one per cent, eh? I can’t blame her for that.”
Bertie smiled politely, but this was obviously a delicate subject. “But doubtless matters will arrange themselves. Indeed, tonight I am invited on board Mr Billings’ yacht for a ‘pow-wow’ when I leave here.”