This splendid palace had been built as a rest-house for the Empress Eugénie on her visit to Cairo in 1869 to open the Suez Canal; now it was a stopping place for a package tour holiday organization. A coach-load of tourists were getting down outside the doorway and another group was milling about inside the hall. There seemed little risk that anyone would spot him there; Henry had chosen the place well. He’d almost certainly gone there to use the phone, I thought, but I wanted to see if I could confirm it.
The booths were out of sight behind the reception desk and I stationed myself on the far side of a group of elderly Germans in sandals and plastic straw hats who were counting their suitcases earnestly in the middle of the lobby. A bag was missing.
“A scandal!” one of the ancient Brünnhildes was shouting, and she was soon joined by a chorus: a stream of vicious gutturals falling over several beady-eyed, sweating bearers and an assistant manager.
In a minute or so Henry appeared from behind the reception desk and walked straight to the door without looking left or right. It was worth trying. I went round to the booths — there were only two of them — and picked up the receiver.
“That last call I made — I was cut off — can I have it again?” I said to the hotel operator, even capturing something of Henry’s sardonic, busy colonial voice.
“The Kasr el Aini Hospital?” the operator asked me.
“Yes, please.”
I let the phone ring and put the receiver down when the call came through.
The Kasr el Aini? Something for their Gyppy stomachs? Where was Bridget off to then? Or had Henry some other contact to make there? Or had I simply not heard some amendment to their plans after I’d left the ventilator?
8
There was a note from Pearson waiting for me when I got back to the Semiramis towards lunchtime and I took it to the bar with me just off the main hall, the ancient air conditioning throbbing and shaking the floorboards as it had done ever since I’d first come here and had gin and tonics with Bridget and Henry ten years before. And there was another moment’s doubt then: I should have been drinking here with them now — and the hell with Williams, the Egyptians and all their various cloaks and daggers. Henry had wanted an end to all that and I had agreed with him. I had come out to tell him so. And now, less than a week later, I was snooping on him and Bridget with all the gracelessness which characterises the best traditions of our trade.
Pearson was at the bar, his back to me, leaning over a chalky drink. I hadn’t noticed him.
“Ah! Good to see you, I didn’t expect — ”
“Just got your message.”
“What will you have? I’m afraid I’m on the wagon. Upset stomach. I’m prone to it.”
“You should have it looked at.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I am. A specialist in gastric medicine. Dr. Novak, a Russian chap at the Kasr el Aini. Their fellows pick up a lot of that sort of thing out here.”
“They all go there?”
“Who?”
“The Russians.”
“Yes — why? The hospital’s full of them. Those that aren’t shipped back home at least.”
“It’s an easy way out for them, I suppose — if they were ill. The engineers at Aswan and the military people, the Russian ‘advisers’ here. They wouldn’t go on a normal flight if they were invalided out through the hospital — would they?”
As I talked I was learning — picturing a move, Henry’s move. It had never crossed my mind before. Henry the Russian defector, phoning a contact at the Kasr el Aini Hospital, Henry on his way over, without anyone knowing, not even Bridget.
“What are you getting at?” Pearson asked, curious at the direction I was taking.
“Background. Russian influence in Egypt. People want to know.”
“Yes, the Russians come in and out of here as they want. At Cairo West, at Jiyankis and Al Mansura in the north among other places. What are you doing — a piece on how to get from London to Moscow — via Cairo?”
I let that go. Pearson could think what he liked about my being in Cairo. He sipped the chalky mixture, the oiled Dixie Dean scalp and thin nose pecking in and out of the tumbler like a toy barometric duck. He looked up, smiled and spluttered, making an attempt at genuine good will.
“But you’ve not had one yourself.”
He called for Mohammed. The air conditioning plant drummed under our feet, stirring the whole floor beneath us in odd recurrent waves. It was like being on a ship in the Semiramis bar when the air conditioning worked.
Pearson said, “Look, I don’t want you to get me wrong — about all this. Let me explain: for whatever reason — let’s leave that out — I have the impression you’re looking for Henry Edwards. And why not? He’s a friend of yours — he’s a friend of mine too. And he’s missing. He came through Cairo airport last Tuesday with Yunis and he hasn’t been seen since. And Yunis, we know, is under house arrest — at the very least. That all adds up. We should be worrying about him. But now listen to this”—Pearson looked at me with pretended innocence and concern — “Someone arrived from London late yesterday, our contact at the airport picked him up for us, British passport, a business man, name of Donald MacMillan. He’s staying at the Hilton. We check them all. Businessman — what business? I said to myself. So I made a few enquiries with the hotel. Scotch whisky he was in. They didn’t know anything else. Well, I thought that was interesting enough, something I’d missed, and there might be something to file, for the Scottish papers at least, and I called down at the Hilton this morning, gave my name and asked to see him. But he wouldn’t play, wouldn’t even see me. Well, I was curious because although there’s a big market here for Scotch it’s all controlled by a single government import firm. I checked with them and they knew nothing about any Scots chap coming out
“So I waited around the Hilton and eventually, about nine, he came down to the grill restaurant for breakfast. I had eggs and coffee at a table nearby — that’s why I’m on the chalk. Well, of course, I knew at once who it was. It was that lawyer David Marcus, the one who used to be at the Scottish office and moved to the Highland Development Authority.”
Pearson obviously felt he’d come to a dramatic pause in his tale. But I had to be sure.
“So? He’s trying to do some new deal with the whisky people here. Sounds perfectly straightforward. Why tell me?”
“Because Marcus left the Development Authority six months ago. Came to Whitehall. One of the P.M.’s special advisers on security. After Blake. Interrogator chap. That’s why I thought you’d like to know.”
“If you break that sort of thing you’ll be in trouble straightaway. So I can’t see why you’re telling me about it. You’re just marking yourself and your agency before you’ve done anything. And what can you do? What’s the story? — no evidence. What have you got when you look at it? Some assorted people from British Intelligence in Cairo? All right, but that’s not going to make any headlines. You’ll just get a D notice slapped on you if the stuff gets back home. After all none of these people are smashing up lavatories or having drunken boating parties on the Nile. There’s absolutely nothing in the open on it.”
“Not now, no. It’s what might happen that interests me. I’m prepared to play this perfectly straight. There’s something on and I can make a very good guess as to what it is. Something is going to break — at the Number One court at the Old Bailey, in an apartment in Moscow, or more likely just down some dirty back street in Cairo.”