Michael Pearce - The Donkey-Vous

“Monsieur-?”

“Berthelot. The young man who accompanied Monsieur Moulin. His nephew.”

“Oh, I know the one you mean. The one with the bulging eyes. Well, no, I don’t think so, though you often see them together.”

“Does she come out on the terrace too?”

“Only in the evening. I expect,” said Lucy acidly, “that she doesn’t have time. It takes her so long to make up.”

“Then why,” asked Mahmoud, “when you came out on to the terrace yesterday afternoon and saw Monsieur Moulin looking around, did you think he had lost her?”

“My goodness!” said Lucy. “You are sharp! He’s caught me out, hasn’t he?” she appealed to Owen.

“He has.”

“I don’t know why I said that. It’s my silly tongue running away with me again. What did I mean?” She thought hard.

“Well, it’s true,” she said after a moment, “or it might have been true. She’s always hanging around him. It’s so blatant. I should think he jolly well might have felt lost when she wasn’t there for once.”

“And she wasn’t there?”

“No. And it is true that you don’t usually see her on the terrace in the afternoons. Not till later. I think,” said Lucy, giggling, “that she finds it hard to get up. Perhaps she’s worn out!”

Lucy shrieked with laughter. Mrs. Colthorpe Hartley, sitting obediently outside the alcove but not abandoning her post, looked at her disapprovingly. The young man beside her stirred unhappily.

“So she definitely wasn’t on the terrace yesterday afternoon but he definitely was?”

“Yes, that’s right. You’ve got it.”

“And you’re sure about that? About him being there, I mean?”

Lucy thought again. “Yes, I’m pretty sure.” She tossed her head. “No, I’m definitely sure.”

“And that would have been about fourish. You’re not able to place the time more precisely?”

“About five to four. We’re always on the terrace by four.”

“And then you had tea. Was Monsieur Moulin having tea?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“He was just sitting at the table?”

“Yes.”

“Looking around for someone? As if he was expecting them?”

“Yes. Of course, now I think about it, it might have been her.”

“And then what?”

“Well, then we finished our tea.”

“And did you notice Monsieur Moulin any more? Did you see him leave his table, for instance?”

“No.”

“Go down the steps?”

“He might have been ogling me,” said Lucy with a toss of her curls, “but I wasn’t ogling him.”

“You stayed on the terrace for about how long?”

“About an hour.”

“And when you left, was Monsieur Moulin still at his table?”

“No,” said Lucy.

“That’s definite, is it?”

“Yes, because I can remember seeing the tea things on the table and wondering why the waiters hadn’t cleared them. They’re very good here, you know.”

“One last question, Miss Colthorpe Hartley,” said Mahmoud. “You said your father joined you later?”

“A bit later.”

“Thank you. In fact, thank you very much for being so helpful.”

“I’m glad I’ve been helpful,” said Lucy. “I’m not usually. Daddy says I’m scatterbrained, but I’m not really. I just sometimes choose to be scatterbrained.”

She got up to go. Mahmoud rose too.

“You’re very nice, aren’t you?” she said to him. “You’ve got such sweet brown eyes. But such a sad face!”

“I haven’t got a sad face, have I?” asked Mahmoud.

They were having lunch ’round the corner. By the time they had finished with Miss Colthorpe Hartley, it was nearly noon. The heat had driven everyone off the terrace and back into the cool of the hotel, first to lunch and then to the darkness of their bedrooms.

Owen normally worked till one-thirty and then went to lunch at the Sporting Club, but today it was too hot even to do that, so he and Mahmoud found a small Turkish cafe in one of the side streets near the hotel. Even that was nearly deserted. Although there were one or two tables outside, none of them was taken. The few customers had retreated with the proprietor into the dark depths of the interior where the sun never penetrated. A small boy served them with cups of Turkish coffee and glasses of iced water. They would eat later.

“No, I don’t think so.” Owen considered him. “No, I don’t think so at all.”

Mahmoud if anything looked very bright and alert. Miss Colthorpe Hartley must have been misled by his Arab looks.

“Sometimes I feel depressed,” said Mahmoud. “I felt depressed this morning when I was talking to the old lady and the man.”

“Don’t take any notice of him. He’s just a stupid bastard.”

Mahmoud shrugged. “He’s just Army, that’s all. I’m used to people like him. But the old lady was different. She was very polite but she made me more depressed, if anything. She reminded me of Nuri.”

Nuri Pasha was a common acquaintance and the father of what might have been called, if anyone had dared risk the description since there was nothing petite about Zeinab and she was a forceful person, Owen’s own petite amie.

“It’s because they’re the same generation and have similar social backgrounds,” said Owen. “She put my back up too.”

“She’s rich, of course. She must be, to be at the hotel.”

“It’s not just that.”

“It’s the way they look down on you.”

“I wouldn’t let it bother you.”

“It’s easier for you.”

“Not much.”

“Being British, I mean.”

“We escape some things, but don’t escape others.”

“You feel about her the way I feel about Nuri?”

“More or less.”

Mahmoud thought this over. Then he said: “Of course it adds to it when they’re foreign. I sometimes feel quite pleased when something like this happens.”

“A kidnapping?”

“When a Moulin gets kidnapped.”

“You’ve got to take action.”

“Oh, I know that. And I do.” He suddenly cheered up. “Though not in the hottest part of the day. There’s no point in going back now. I’ll go back about four. He’ll be up from his siesta then.”

“He?”

“Mr. Colthorpe Hartley. He came out on the terrace later, remember. He may have seen something.”

“Fellow with long moustaches and sticks?” said Mr. Colthorpe Hartley. “Yes, I saw him. Always sitting there. Same table, same time. Looking as if he’s growing there.”

“You’re sure it was yesterday?”

Mr. Colthorpe Hartley considered a moment.

“Yes. Definitely. Saw him when I came out of the hotel. I was a bit behind the others, you know. Had a longer shower than usual. Bit damned hot just at the moment, isn’t it? You need a shower even when you’ve just been lying down.”

“And you definitely saw him?”

“Oh yes. Exchanged nods. Don’t know the chap, of course, but you sort of know him when you see him every day. We pass the time of day. I say something, he says something back. Nothing much. I don’t think he speaks much English. And I certainly don’t speak French.”

“He didn’t say anything yesterday? I mean, nothing particular.”

“No. Hardly noticed me. Seemed a bit preoccupied. Mind on other things. Didn’t stay there long.”

“Did you see him go?”

“Did I see him go? Let me think. No. I don’t think I saw him go. Saw he’d gone, but that’s not the same thing.”

“Can you pinpoint when that was? About how long after you’d got to the terrace?”

“Well, I must have got to the terrace about four. Saw him then. Nodded to him. Sat down. Had tea. Noticed he was a bit fidgety. Then when I next looked up he had gone. Say about twenty minutes. Between twenty past four and half past four.”