‘Hardly literary,’ I said.
‘Oh, you’re your father’s son. He tried to make me read Walter Scott, especially Rob Roy, but I much prefer this. It moves a great deal quicker and there are fewer descriptions.’
‘Did Amis murder her?’
‘Of course not, but he is suspected by Colonel Hakim who has very cruel methods of interrogation,’ my aunt said with relish.
The telephone rang. I answered it.
‘Perhaps it’s General Abdul at last,’ she said, ‘though it seems a little late for him to ring.’
‘This is the reception speaking. Is Miss Bertram there?’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘I am sorry to disturb her, but Colonel Hakim wishes to see her.’
‘At this hour? Quite impossible. Why?’
‘He is on the way up now.’ He rang off.
‘Colonel Hakim is on the way to see you,’ I said.
‘Colonel Hakim?’
‘The real Colonel Hakim. He’s a police officer too.’
‘A police officer?’ Aunt Augusta said. ‘Again? I begin to think I am back in the old days. With Mr Visconti. Henry, will you open my suitcase? The green one. You’ll find a light coat there. Fawn with a fur collar.’
‘Yes, Aunt Augusta, I have it here.’
‘Under the coat in a cardboard box you will find a candle – a decorated candle.’
‘Yes, I see the box.’
‘Take out the candle, but be careful because it’s rather heavy. Put it on my bedside table and light it. Candlelight is better for my complexion.’
It was extraordinarily heavy, and I nearly dropped it. It probably had some kind of lead weight at the bottom, I thought, to hold it steady. A big brick of scarlet wax which stood a foot high, it was decorated on all four sides with scrolls and coats of arms. A great deal of artistry had gone into moulding the wax which would melt away only too quickly. I lit the wick. ‘Now turn out the light,’ my aunt said, adjusting her bed-jacket and puffing up her pillow. There was a knock on the door and Colonel Hakim came in.
He stood in the doorway and bowed. ‘Miss Bertram?’ he asked.
‘Yes. You are Colonel Hakim?’
‘Yes. I am sorry to call on you so late without warning.’ He spoke English with only the faintest intonation. ‘I think we have a mutual acquaintance, General Abdul. May I sit down?’
‘Of course. You’ll find that chair by the dressing-table the most comfortable. This is my nephew, Henry Pulling.’
‘Good evening, Mr Pulling. I hope you enjoyed the dancing at the West Berlin Hotel. A convivial spot unknown to most tourists. May I turn on the light, Miss Bertram?’
‘I would rather not. I have weak eyes, and I always prefer to read by candlelight.’
‘A very beautiful candle.’
‘They make them in Venice. The coats of arms belong to their four greatest doges. Don’t ask me their names. How is General Abdul? I had been hoping to meet him again.’
‘I am afraid General Abdul is a very sick man.’ Colonel Hakim hooked his walking stick over the mirror before he sat down. He leant his head forward to my aunt at a slight angle, which gave him an air of deference, but I noticed that the real reason was a small hearing-aid that he carried in his right ear. ‘He was a great friend of you and Mr Visconti, was he not?’
‘The amount you know,’ my aunt said with an endearing smile.
‘Oh, it’s my disagreeable business,’ the colonel said, ‘to be a Nosey Harker.’
‘Parker.’
‘My English is rusty.’
‘You had me followed to the West Berlin Hotel?’ I asked.
‘Oh no, I suggested to the driver that he should take you there,’ Colonel Hakim said. ‘I thought it might interest you and hold your attention longer than it did. The fashionable night clubs here are very banal and international. You might just as well be in Paris or London except that in those cities you would see a better show. Of course I told the driver to take you somewhere else first. One never knows.’
‘Tell me about General Abdul,’ my aunt said impatiently. ‘What is wrong with him?’
Colonel Hakim leant forward a little more in his chair and lowered his voice as though he were confiding a secret. ‘He was shot,’ he said, ‘while trying to escape.’
‘Escape?’ my aunt exclaimed. ‘Escape from whom?’
‘From me,’ Colonel Hakim said with shy modesty and he fiddled at his hearing-aid. A long silence followed his words. There seemed nothing to say. Even my aunt was at a loss. She sat back against the cushions with her mouth a little open. Colonel Hakim took a tin out of his pocket and opened it. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘eucalyptus and menthol. I suffer from asthma.’ He put a lozenge into his mouth and sucked. There was silence again until my aunt spoke.
‘Those lozenges can’t do you much good,’ she said.
‘I think it is only the suggestion. Asthma is a nervous disease. The lozenges seem to alleviate it, but only perhaps because I believe they alleviate it.’ He panted a little when he spoke. ‘I am always apt to get an attack when I am at the climax of a case.’
‘Mr Visconti suffered from asthma too,’ Aunt Augusta said. ‘He was cured by hypnotism.’
‘I would not like to put myself so completely in someone else’s hands.’
‘Of course Mr Visconti had a hold on the hypnotist.’
‘Yes, that makes a difference,’ Colonel Hakim said with approval. ‘And where is Mr Visconti now?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Nor had General Abdul. We only want the information for the Interpol files. The affair is more than thirty years old. I just ask you in passing. I have no personal interest. It is not the real subject of my interrogation.’
‘Am I being interrogated, colonel?’
‘Yes. In a way. I hope an agreeable way. We have found a letter from you to General Abdul which speaks about an investment he had recommended. You wrote to him that you found it essential to make the investment while in Europe and anonymously, and this presented certain difficulties.’
‘Surely you are not working for the Bank of England, colonel?’
‘I am not so fortunate, but General Abdul was planning a little trouble here; he was very short of funds. Certain friends with whom he had speculated in the old days came back to his mind. So he got in touch with you (perhaps he hoped through you to contact Visconti again), with a German called Weissmann of whom you probably haven’t heard, and with a man called Harvey Crowder, who is a meat packer in Chicago. The CIA have had him under observation for a long while and they reported to us. Of course I mention these names only because all the men are under arrest and have talked.’
‘If you really have to know,’ my aunt said, ‘for the sake of your files, General Abdul recommended me to buy Deutsche Texaco Convertible Bonds – out of the question in England because of the dollar premium, and away from England, for an English resident, quite illegal. So I had to remain anonymous.’
‘Yes,’ Colonel Hakim said, ‘that is not bad at all as a cover story.’ He began to pant again and took another lozenge. ‘I only mentioned those names to show you that General Abdul is now a little senile. One doesn’t finance an operation in Turkey with foreign money of that kind. A wise woman like yourself must have realized that if his operation had any chance of success, he could have found local support. He would not have had to offer a Chicago meat packer twenty-five per cent interest and a share of the profits.’
‘Mr Visconti would certainly have seen through that,’ my aunt said.
‘But now you are a lady living alone. You haven’t the benefit of Visconti’s advice. You might be tempted a little by the quick profits …’
‘Why? I have no children to leave them to, colonel.’
‘Or perhaps by the sense of adventure.’
‘At my age?’ My aunt beamed with pleasure.
There was a knock on the door and a policeman entered. He spoke to the colonel and the colonel transla
ted for our benefit. ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘has been found in Mr Pulling’s baggage, but if you wouldn’t mind … My man is very careful, he will wear clean gloves, and I assure you he will leave not the smallest wrinkle … Would you mind if I put on the electric light while he works?’
‘I would mind a great deal,’ my aunt said. ‘I left my dark glasses on the train. Unless you wish to give me a splitting headache …’
‘Of course not, Miss Bertram. He will do without. You will forgive us if the search takes a little longer.’
The policeman first went through my aunt’s handbag and handed certain papers to Colonel Hakim. ‘Forty pounds in travellers’ cheques,’ he noted.
‘I have cashed ten,’ my aunt said.
‘I see from your air ticket you plan to leave tomorrow – I mean today. A very short visit. Why did you come by train, Miss Bertram?’
‘I wanted to see my stepson in Milan.’
The colonel gave her a quizzical look. ‘May one ask? According to your passport you are unmarried.’
‘Mr Visconti’s son.’
‘Ah, always that Mr Visconti.’
The policeman was busy now with my aunt’s suitcase. He looked in the cardboard box which had contained the candle, shook it and smelt it.
‘That is the box for my candle,’ my aunt said. ‘As I told you, I think, they make these candles in Venice. One candle does for a whole journey – I believe it is guaranteed for twenty-four hours continuously. Perhaps forty-eight.’
‘You are burning a real work of art,’ the colonel said.
‘Henry, hold the candle for the policeman to see better.’
Again I was astonished by the weight of the candle when I lifted it.
‘Don’t bother, Mr Pulling, he has finished.’
I was glad to put it down again.
‘Well,’ Colonel Hakim said with a smile, ‘we have found nothing compromising in your luggage.’ The policeman was repacking the case. ‘Now just as a formality we must go through the room. And the bed, Miss Bertram, if you will consent to sit in a chair.’
He took part in this search himself, limping from one piece of furniture to another, sometimes feeling with his stick, under the bed and at the back of a drawer. ‘And now Mr Pulling’s pockets,’ he said. I emptied them rather angrily on the dressing-table. He looked carefully through my notebook and drew out a cutting from the Daily Telegraph. He read it aloud with a puzzled frown: ‘“Those that took my fancy were the ruby-red Maître Roger, light red, white-tipped Cheerio, deep crimson Arabian Night and Black Flash, and scarlet Bacchus …”’
‘Please explain, Mr Pulling.’
‘It is self-explanatory,’ I said stiffly.
‘Then you must forgive my ignorance.’
‘The report of a dahlia show. In Chelsea. I am very interested in dahlias.’
‘Flowers?’
‘Of course they are flowers.’
‘The names sounded so oddly like those of horses. I was puzzled by the deep crimson.’ He put the cutting down and limped to my aunt’s side. ‘I will say goodnight now, Miss Bertram. You have made my duty tonight a most agreeable one. You cannot think how bored I get with exhibitions of injured innocence. I will send a police car to take you to your plane tomorrow.’
‘Please don’t bother. We can take a taxi.’
‘We should be sorry to see you miss your plane.’
‘I think perhaps I ought to stop over one more day and see poor General Abdul.’
‘I am afraid he is not allowed visitors. What is this book you are reading? What a very ugly fellow with a red fez. Has he stabbed the girl?’
‘No. He is the policeman. He is called Colonel Hakim,’ my aunt said with a look of satisfaction.
After the door had closed I turned with some anger on my aunt. ‘Aunt Augusta,’ I said, ‘what did all that mean?’
‘Some little political trouble, I would imagine. Politics in Turkey are taken more seriously than they are at home. It was only quite recently that they executed a Prime Minister. We dream of it, but they act. I hadn’t realized, I admit, what General Abdul was up to. Foolish of him at his age. He must be eighty if a day, but I believe in Turkey there are more centenarians than in any other European country. Yet I doubt whether poor Abdul is likely to make his century.’
‘Do you realize that they’re deporting us? I think we should call the British Embassy.’
‘You exaggerate, dear. They are just lending us a police car.’
‘And if we refuse to take it?’
‘I have no intention of refusing. We were already booked on the plane. After making my investment here I had no intention of lingering around. I didn’t expect quick profits, and twenty-five per cent always involves a risk.’
‘What investment, Aunt Augusta? Forty pounds in travellers’ cheques?’
‘Oh no, dear. I bought quite a large gold ingot in Paris. You remember the man from the bank …’
‘So that was what they were looking for. Where on earth had you hidden it, Aunt Augusta?’
I looked at the candle, and I remembered its weight.
‘Yes, dear,’ my aunt said, ‘how clever of you to guess. Colonel Hakim didn’t. You can blow it out now.’ I lifted it up again – it must have weighed nearly twenty pounds.
‘What do you propose to do with this now?’
‘I shall have to take it back to England with me. It may be of use another time. It was most fortunate, when you come to think of it, that they shot poor General Abdul before I gave him the candle and not after. I wonder if he is really still alive. They would be likely to glide over any grisly detail like that with a woman. I shall have a Mass said for him in any case because a man of that age is unlikely to survive a bullet long. The shock alone, even if it were not in a vital part …’
I interrupted her speculations. ‘You’re not going to take that ingot back into England?’ Ingot – England. I was irritated by the absurd jangle which sounded like a comic song. ‘Have you no respect at all for the law?’
‘It depends, dear, to which law you refer. Like the ten commandments. I can’t take very seriously the one about the ox and the ass.’
‘The English customs are not so easily fooled as the Turkish police.’
‘A used candle is remarkably convincing. I’ve tried it before.’
‘Not if they lift it up.’
‘But they won’t, dear. Perhaps if the wick and the wax were intact they might think they could charge me purchase tax. Or some suspicious officer might think it a phoney candle containing drugs. But a used candle. Oh no, I think the danger is very small. And there’s always my age to protect me.’
‘I refuse to go back into England with that ingot.’ The jangle irritated me again.
‘But you have no choice, dear. The colonel will certainly see us on to the plane and there is no stop before London. The great advantage of being deported is that we shall not have to pass the Turkish customs again.’
‘Why on earth did you do it, Aunt Augusta? Such a risk …’
‘Mr Visconti is in need of money.’
‘He stole yours.’
‘That was a long time ago. It will all be finished by now.’
16
IT seemed at first another and a happier world which I had re-entered: I was back home, in the late afternoon, as the long shadows were falling; a boy whistled a Beatle tune and a motor-bicycle revved far away up Norman Lane. With what relief I dialled Chicken and ordered myself cream of spinach soup, lamb cutlets and Cheddar cheese: a better meal than I had eaten in Istanbul. Then I went into the garden. Major Charge had neglected the dahlias; it was a pleasure to give them water, which the dry soil drank like a thirsty man, and I could almost imagine that the flowers were responding with a lift of the petals. The Deuil du Roy Albert was too far gone to benefit, but the colour of the Ben Hurs took on a new sheen, as though the long dry chariot race were now a memory only. Major Charge looked over the fence and asked, ‘Good journey?’
r /> ‘Interesting, thank you,’ I said drily, pouring the water in a thick stream on to the roots. I had removed the absurd nozzle which serves no useful purpose.
‘I was very careful,’ Major Charge said, ‘not to give them too much water.’
‘The ground certainly seems very dry.’
‘I keep goldfish,’ Major Charge said. ‘If I go away, my damned daily always gives them too much food. When I return I find half the little buggers dead.’
‘Flowers are not the same as goldfish, Major. In a dry autumn like this they can do with a great deal of water.’
‘I hate excess,’ Major Charge said. ‘It’s the same in politics. I’ve no use for Communist or Fascist.’
‘You are a Liberal?’
‘Good God, man,’ he said, ‘what makes you think that?’ and disappeared from sight.
The afternoon post arrived punctually at five: a circular from Littlewood’s, although I never gamble, a bill from the garage, a pamphlet from the British Empire Loyalists which I threw at once into the waste-paper basket, and a letter with a South African stamp. The envelope was typewritten, so that I did not at once conclude that it had been sent by Miss Keene. I was distracted too by a package of Omo propped against the scraper. I had certainly not ordered any detergent. I looked closer and saw that it was a gift package. What a lot of money manufacturers waste by not employing the local stores to do their distribution. There they would have known that I am already a regular purchaser of Omo. I took the packet into the kitchen and noticed with pleasure that mine was almost exhausted, so I had been saved from buying another.
It was getting chilly by this time, and I turned on the electric fire before opening the letter. I saw at once that it came from Miss Keene. She had bought herself a typewriter, but it was obvious that as yet she had not had much practice. Lines were unevenly placed, and her fingers had often gone astray to the wrong keys or missed a letter altogether. She had driven in, she wrote, to Koffiefontein – three hours by road – to a matinée of Gone with the Qind which had been revived at a cinema there. She wrote that Clark Fable was not as good as she remembered him. How typical it was of her gentleness, and perhaps even of her sense of defeat, that she had not troubled to correct her errors. Perhaps it would have seemed to her like disguising a fault. ‘Once a week,’ she wrote, ‘my cousin drives into the bak. She’s on very good terms with the manager, but he is not a real friend as you always were to my father and me. I miss very much St John’s Church and the vicar’s sermons. The only church near here is Dutch Deformed, and I don’t like it at all.’ She had corrected Deformed. She may have thought that otherwise I might take it for an unkindness.