Both the office and retainer came out of El Iskandryia's police budget, from an account reserved for high-level informers. Raf had never thought to mention this to Eduardo. Nor had he thought to cancel the arrangement when he resigned.
"This was delivered to my office."My office, Eduardo still liked the sound of that.
"When?" asked Raf.
Eduardo examined his rather impressive silver Seiko. "Twenty-eight minutes ago," he said firmly, then watched the big hand click forward and amended his answer to twenty-nine.
"Who delivered it?"
"A woman," said Eduardo, "very neat. Looked old, behaved young . . ." He paused, shuffling his thoughts into a logical order, the way he imagined an ex-detective like His Excellency might do. "She had a grey jacket, neat skirt, dark shoes. A watch . . ." Eduardo smiled at his own powers of observation. "Which was silver like this one."
It had been platinum and matched Eugenie's cigarette case. Made long enough ago that the metal was grey and slightly matte, having been manufactured in the early 1920s before jewellers discovered how platinum might be polished as brightly as white gold. A fact Raf didn't bother to mention.
"And her hair?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"Long," said Eduardo, "and grey." He stopped to look at the bey. "You recognize her?"
Taking the envelope, Raf noticed that its flap was folded inside, the way his mother insisted he do. The snakeskin he wasn't expecting; the photograph Raf was. He shook the skin from its envelope the way Felix once taught him, dropping it onto an open napkin without once touching it, so that he left no DNA traces of his own. To handle it this way was ridiculous, because Raf knew who'd sent it, as one simple call to her hotel would confirm.
In fact, one simple call was what he would make. Toggling his watch, Raf chose voice only and told his Omega to connect him to the Hotel Cavafy.
"I'd like to speak to Madame de la Croix."
"When?"
"You're certain?"
"What flight?"
Madame de la Croix had checked out. Her limousine had been booked the previous night. And the clerk on the desk didn't know which flight she'd been catching. Not one to Tunis, certainly. A UN resolution, bolstered by edicts from the IMF, had closed down commercial flights to Ifriqiya more than forty years before. To get the ban lifted, all the Emir had to do was sign the UN Biodiversity (Germ Line Limitation) Treaty and allow entry to an international team of inspectors, the makeup of which was to be chosen by Washington, Paris and Berlin.
Until then, flights to Tunis remained banned.
All this meant, of course, was that she'd catch a flight to Tripoli and join the bullet train for Tangiers, changing at the border before the turbani de luxe was sealed for its journey through Ifriqiya. A variety of local diesels ran from just over the border to Tunis itself.
Raf knew this because in the week following his arrival in El Iskandryia he'd checked the trans-Megreb timetable and in so doing had memorized it.
"Is Your Excellency all right?"
Raf looked up to find Eduardo standing rather too close. "Sit," Raf said and Eduardo did, suddenly self-conscious to find himself on view in the city's most famous café.
"Have you had lunch?"
Eduardo shook his head. In the top pocket of his coat he had a pair of Armani sunglasses, like the ones Raf wore. Only Eduardo didn't quite dare wear his, what with the grey sky and Place Zaghloul being a patchwork of slowly drying puddles.
His Excellency on the other hand always wore shades, even after dark.
"Omelette," Raf told the waiter. "And for you?"
"The same," said Eduardo. "And a Coke with ice," he added, keen to show his independence. "Make it Diet."
"As Your Excellency wishes."
Eduardo grinned.
While Eduardo ate most of the bread basket, Raf extracted the brittle photograph from its wrapping and flipped it over. Then spent the rest of lunch trying to make sense of the picture. He'd expected to find himself in the face of his father as he'd done once before. And in that, at least, Raf was right. A young man with a goatee beard and drop-pearl earring did stare into the camera, shading his eyes from sunlight. It was the two people with him who were wrong.
Behind the Emir stood a huge patchwork tent sewn from strips of striped carpet, old prayer rugs and squares of black felt, its flap held open with ropes. And in the entrance, smiling and topless was a blond girl wearing a smile and baggy shorts. A leather choker with a fat amber bead was around her neck and her breasts had been made prominent by a trick of the sun. She was unquestionably beautiful.
She was also, Raf realized, undoubtedly his mother.
A bare-chested boy in ripped jeans and open-toed sandals sat at her feet, his blond hair pulled up into a samurai topknot and tied with red ribbon. One of his legs was in plaster, his arm firmly around Sally Welham's legs. He was glowering.
On the back, in one corner, Raf found two dates in black ink, one under the other and beneath these a question mark. The second of those dates Raf knew. It was the death of his mother. While the first, presumably the death of Per, was long before Raf had even been born. Which made no sense at all.
"Suppose the Emir dies," Eugenie had written, "who will you ask then . . . ?"
"Yeah right," said the fox.
"What?" Eduardo glanced up from his omelette, realized he might have been rude and amended his question. "Did Your Excellency say something?"
CHAPTER 13
Flashback
Four nuns sat by one window, two pairs facing each other across the carriage like sour-faced crows. They had black habits and whatever those white hats were that went straight down, giving them cheekbones they didn't deserve.
They all wore sensible shoes for the journey, flat soles and laces. And they carried sandwiches wrapped in grease-proof paper and a salami in its own cotton case, like a fat cloth condom. Sally was pretty sure she'd seen sisters in New York wearing pale blue jumpsuits, God Loves Baseball caps and trainers; but maybe convents were tougher in North Africa or perhaps this kind were just a different genus–or should that be species?
Whatever, they didn't approve of Sally's bare legs and T-shirt and that struck her as unfair. Particularly as she'd been on her best behaviour ever since tumbling into the carriage at Banghazi in a clatter of rucksack and carrier bags, with her ancient Leica still safe in its pigskin case. And it wasn't her fault the boy opposite her had decided to practise his English, which was adequate, or his seduction techniques, which stank . . .
Sally, however, had to admit that whipping up his white shirt to show her a stab wound was a new one. Clever too, since it let the boy show off his six-pack and slim hips without being obvious. Unless, of course, it really was his wound she was meant to be admiring.
The scar was bigger than Sally expected. An ugly strip speckled with pigment-dark dots where both edges had been stitched. A nightclub was involved somewhere and a Danish girl, blond like her but not as beautiful, the last said hastily as if Sally might suddenly take offence . . .
"Seven litres," he told her proudly, "that's what I lost."
Sally considered pointing out that the human body couldn't hold seven litres of blood but restrained herself. Maybe the red stuff had been pouring out one side while being pumped in the other.
He'd told Sally his name, she was sure of that. And unfortunately they were several hours too far into a conversation for her to ask it again. Particularly since her name peppered his every sentence, Sally this and Sally that . . .