‘And this was in Saraifa?’ I asked.
‘Out. Saraifa. With David it is always Saraifa. He has a — a folie for that place.’ She said it almost sadly, and she added, ‘He wish to prove something there, but what I do not know — ‘imself per’aps.’ For a while she sat quite still and silent, and then she said very softly: ‘He was a man with a dream.’ She looked up at me suddenly. ‘And dreams don’ die, do they? Or are men’s dreams like the seed in a place like this — all barren?’
I didn’t know what to answer. ‘You loved him, did you?’ I asked gently.
‘Loved?’ She shrugged. ‘You want everything black and white. What is love between man and woman — and in a place like this?’ Her shoulders moved again, slight and impatient. ‘Per’aps. But sometimes he could be cruel. He had a vein of cruelty in him — like the Arabs. At other times-’ She smiled. ‘He showed me a glimpse of what life could be. And when he talked about his dreams, then he is near to God. You see,’ she added, her voice suddenly tense, ‘he is important to me. The most important thing in my whole life. That is why I cannot believe he is dead.’
I asked her when she had last seen him and she laughed in my face. ‘You don’ see a man when he is lying in your arms. You feel — feel … if you are a woman.’ She stared at me and then she giggled like a girl. ‘You look so shocked. Have you never been with a woman like me before? But no, of course, you are English. I forget. You see, I am Algerienne, from Afrique Nord. All my life I am accustomed to Frenchmen — and Arabs.’ She spat the word ‘Arabs’ out as though she hated them. ‘I should have been still in Algerie, but when the Indo-China war is on, they send us out to Saigon, a whole plane-full of women like me. We come down at Sharjah because of engine trouble and we are there in the Fort for two weeks. There I met a merchant from Bahrain, so I don’ go to Saigon, but come ‘ere to Bahrain, and later I am put into the al-Menza Club as hostess. That is ‘ow I come to meet David.’
‘Yes, but when did you last see him?’ I asked again.
‘In July of las’ year. And it was not ‘ere, but at the place where I live.’
That was just before he sailed for Dubai?’
‘Oui.’ Her eyes were searching my face. ‘He was — how you say?’ She hesitated, searching for a word. But then she shrugged. ‘Vair sad I think. He say that there is only one man in the ‘ole world that ‘e can really trust and that this friend is in England.’
‘Didn’t he trust his father?’ I asked.
‘Le Colonel?’ She moved her shoulders, an expressive shrug that seemed to indicate doubt. ‘When I see him that las’ time he trust nobody out here — only this friend in England. You are from England and yesterday you are at the Company’s offices enquiring about David.’ She leaned forward so that the deep line between her full breasts was a black shadow. ‘Tell me now, are you this friend?’
‘Didn’t he tell you his friend’s name?’
‘No, he don’ say his name — or if he do, I ‘ave forgot.’
‘Well, I’m his lawyer. Does that help?’
‘A man of business?’
‘Yes. His Executor, in fact. That means that I carry out his instructions when he is dead.’
‘And now you carry them out? That is why you are ‘ere in Bahrain?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you never his friend — before?’
‘Once,’ I said. ‘Four years ago.’ And I told her how I’d helped him to get away in the Emerald Isle. Evidently she knew this story, for she nodded her head several times and her eyes were bright with the memory of his telling of it. ‘Yes,’ she said when I had finished. ‘Now I know you are the man.’ And then she leaned forward and gripped hold of my hand. ‘Where you go now — after Bahrain?’ she asked. ‘You go to find him, yes?’ And she added, ‘You will give him a message pleez? It is important.’
I stared at her. Her dark face was so intense, her belief in his immunity from death so tragic.
‘Pleez.’ Her voice was urgent, pleading. ‘It is vair important.’
‘He’s dead,’ I reminded her gently.
She dropped my hand as though she had hold of a snake. ‘His truck is found abandoned in the desert. That is all.’ She glared at me as though challenging me to destroy her belief. ‘That is all, you ‘ear me? Pleez.’ She touched my hand again, a gesture of supplication. ‘Find ‘im for me, monsieur. There is trouble coming in the desert and he is in danger. Warn him pleez.’
There was no point in telling her again that he was dead. ‘What sort of trouble?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘War. Fighting. What other trouble do men make?’ And when I asked her where the fighting was going to break out, she said, ‘In Saraifa, I think. That is the rumour in the bazaar. And that boy who bring you ‘ere, Akhmed; he is the son of a famous pearl-diver. He knows the naukhudas of all the dhows and there is talk of sambuqs with arms coming across the sea from Persia. I don’ know whether it is true or not, but that is the talk. And ‘ere in Bahrain we hear all the talk. That is why I ask to see you, to tell you that you must warn him. He is in great danger because of ‘is father.’
‘What’s Colonel Whitaker got to do with it?’ I asked.
‘He is drilling an oil well in Saraifa. Oh,’ she said angrily, ‘the greed of you men. Money, money, money — you think of nothing else and you must cut each other’s throats to get more and more. But with David it is different. He don’ want money. He want something … I don’ know. I don’ know what he want. But not money. He don’ care about money.’
It was extraordinary; this girl telling me what Colonel Whitaker was doing, confirming what I had already guessed. ‘How do you know Colonel Whitaker is drilling for oil?’ I asked.
‘How? I tell you, this place is for oilmen. They ‘ave their intelligence and because they are ‘omesick and half dead with ennui, they talk.’ She gave a little laugh. There is so much talk in this ‘ouse that I can almost tell you what each oilman eat for breakfast from Doha right down the Gulf to Ras al-Khaima.’
I sat for a moment thinking about the rumours she’d heard, remembering what Ruffini had said out there on the Jufair jetty.
‘You will tell him what I say. You will warn him?’
‘Of course.’ What else could I say?
‘Do you go to Saraifa? If you go there, pleez you should talk with Khalid. He is the sheikh’s eldest son. He and David hunted together when he is first in the desert. They are like brothers he always say.’
I gave a little shrug. How would Khalid know? How would anybody know what had happened? The boy was dead. ‘I’ll see his father,’ I said. ‘If I can.’
‘Non, non.‘ There was urgency, a sense almost of fear in her voice.
I stared at her hard. ‘Why not?’ But if she knew anything, she wasn’t saying. And because I didn’t like the way my thoughts were running, I asked her where David had been going that last time she had seen him.
‘To Dubhai,’ she answered. ‘By ship.’
The Emerald Isle?’ She nodded.
‘And after that — after Dubhai?’
Again that slight, impatient movement of the shoulders.
‘He don’ say. He don’ tell me where he go.’
‘Was it Safaira?’
‘Perhaps. I don’ know.’
There’s some suggestion that he was on loan to his father, that he was doing a survey for Colonel-’
‘Non, non.’ Again the urgency, the leap of something stark in the wide dark eyes. ‘C’est impossible.’ She shook her head emphatically.
‘Why is it impossible?’
‘Because-’ She shook her head again. ‘He cannot go to work with him. I know that now.’ And she added under her breath: ‘Que le bon Dieu le protege!’ I felt I had to know the reason, but when I pressed her for it, she shied away from the subject. ‘I must go now.’ She got to her feet in one easy, balanced motion. It was as though my questions had started an ugly train of thought — as though to admit that he’d gone to Saraifa to join his father was to admit the fact of his death. And as I stood up I was remembering again the nagging suspicion that had been in my mind that day Griffiths had come to see me in Cardiff.