Ken Follett - The Key to Rebecca

Newman seemed politely interested. “What brings you here?”

Wolff had prepared for that one, too. “I have business interests in several towns in Upper Egypt.” He smiled. “I like to pay them surprise visits.”

They were entering Assyut. By Egyptian standards it was a large town, with factories, hospitals, a Muslim university, a famous convent and some sixty thousand inhabitants. Wolff was about to ask to be dropped at the railway station when Newman saved him from that error. “You need a garage,” the captain said. “We’ll take you to Nasif’s: he has a tow truck.”

Wolff forced himself to say: “Thank you.” He swallowed dryly. He was still not thinking hard enough or fast enough. I wish I could pull myself together, he thought; it’s the damn desert, it’s slowed me down. He looked at his watch. He had time to go through a charade at the garage and still catch the daily train to Cairo. He considered what he would do. He would have to go into the place, for Newman would watch. Then the soldiers would drive away. Wolff would have to make some inquiries about car parts or something, then take his leave and walk to the station.

With luck, Nasif and Newman might never compare notes on the subject of Alex Wolff.

The jeep drove through the busy, narrow streets. The familiar sights of an Egyptian town pleased Wolf: the gay cotton clothes, the women carrying bundles on their heads, the officious policemen, the sharp characters in sunglasses, the tiny shops spilling out into the rutted streets, the stalls, the battered cars and the overloaded asses. They stopped in front of a row of low mud-brick buildings. The road was half blocked by an ancient truck and the remains of a cannibalized Fiat. A small boy was working on a cylinder block with a wrench, sitting on the ground outside the entrance.

Newman said: “I’ll have to leave you here, I’m afraid; duty calls.”

Wolff shook his hand. “You’ve been very kind.”

“I don’t like to dump you this way,” Newman continued. “You’ve had a bad time.” He frowned, then his face cleared. “Tell you what—I’ll leave Corporal Cox to look after you.”

Wolff said: “It’s kind, but really—”

Newman was not listening. “Get the man’s bags, Cox, and look sharp. I want you to take care of him—and don’t you leave anything to the wogs, understand?”

“Yes, sir!” said Cox.

Wolff groaned inwardly. Now there would be more delay while he got rid of the corporal. Captain Newman’s kindness was becoming a nuisance—could that possibly be intentional?

Wolff and Cox got out, and the jeep pulled away. Wolff walked into Nasif’s workshop, and Cox followed, carrying the cases.

Nasif was a smiling young man in a filthy galabiya, working on a car battery by the light of an oil lamp. He spoke to them in English. “You want to rent a beautiful automobile? My brother have Bentley—”

Wolff interrupted him in rapid Egyptian Arabic. “My car has broken down. They say you have a tow truck.”

“Yes. We can leave right away. Where is the car?”

“On the desert road, forty or fifty miles out. It’s a Ford. But we’re not coming with you.” He took out his wallet and gave Nasif an English pound note. “You’ll find me at the Grand Hotel by the railway station when you return.”

Nasif took the money with alacrity. “Very good! I leave immediately!”

Wolff nodded curtly and turned around. Walking out of the workshop with Cox in tow, he considered the implications of his short conversation with Nasif. The mechanic would go out into the desert with his tow truck and search the road for the car. Eventually he would return to the Grand Hotel to confess failure. He would learn that Wolff had left. He would consider he had been reasonably paid for his wasted day, but that would not stop him telling all and sundry the story of the disappearing Ford and its disappearing driver. The likelihood was that all this would get back to Captain Newman sooner or later. Newman might not know quite what to make of it all, but he would certainly feel that here was a mystery to be investigated.

Wolff’s mood darkened as he realized that his plan of slipping unobserved into Egypt might have failed.

He would just have to make the best of it. He looked at his watch. He still had time to catch the train. He would be able to get rid of Cox in the lobby of the hotel, then get something to eat and drink while he was waiting, if he was quick.

Cox was a short, dark man with some kind of British regional accent which Wolff could not identify. He looked about Wolff’s age, and as he was still a corporal he was probably not too bright. Following Wolff across the Midan el-Mahatta, he said: “You know this town, sir?”

“I’ve been here before,” Wolff replied.

They entered the Grand. With twenty-six rooms it was the larger of the town’s two hotels. Wolff turned to Cox. “Thank you, Corporal. I think you could get back to work now.”

“No hurry, sir,” Cox said cheerfully. “I’ll carry your bags upstairs.”

“I’m sure they have porters here—”

“Wouldn’t trust ’em, sir, if I were you.”

The situation was becoming more and more like a nightmare or a farce, in which well-intentioned people pushed him into increasingly senseless behavior in consequence of one small lie. He wondered again whether this was entirely accidental, and it crossed his mind with terrifying absurdity that perhaps they knew everything and were simply toying with him.

He pushed the thought aside and spoke to Cox with as much grace as he could muster. “Well, thank you.”

He turned to the desk and asked for a room. He looked at his watch: he had fifteen minutes left. He filled in the form quickly, giving an invented address in Cairo—there was a chance Captain Newman would forget the true address on the identity papers, and Wolff did not want to leave a reminder.

A Nubian porter led them upstairs to the room. Wolff tipped him off at the door. Cox put the cases down on the bed.

Wolff took out his wallet: perhaps Cox expected a tip too. “Well, Corporal,” he began, “you’ve been very helpful—”

“Let me unpack for you, sir,” Cox said. “Captain said not to leave anything to the wogs.”

“No, thank you,” Wolff said firmly. “I want to lie down right now.”

“You go ahead and lie down,” Cox persisted generously. “It won’t take me—”

“Don’t open that!”

Cox was lifting the lid of the case. Wolff reached inside his jacket, thinking Damn the man and Now I’m blown and I should have locked it and Can I do this quietly? The little corporal stared at the neat stacks of new English pound notes which filled the small case. He said: “Jesus Christ, you’re loaded!” It crossed Wolff’s mind, even as he stepped forward, that Cox had never seen so much money in his life. Cox began to turn, saying: “What do you want with all that—” Wolff pulled the wicked curved Bedouin knife, and it glinted in his hand as his eyes met Cox’s, and Cox flinched and opened his mouth to shout; and then the razor-sharp blade sliced deep into the soft flesh of his throat, and his shout of fear came as a bloody gurgle and he died; and Wolff felt nothing, only disappointment.

IT WAS MAY, AND THE KHAMSIN WAS BLOWING, A HOT DUSTY WIND FROM THE south. Standing under the shower, William Vandam had the depressing thought that this would be the only time he would feel cool all day. He turned off the water and dried himself rapidly. His body was full of small aches. He had played cricket the day before, for the first time in years. General Staff Intelligence had got up a team to play the doctors from the field hospital—spies versus quacks, they had called it—and Vandam, fielding on the boundary, had been run ragged as the medics hit the Intelligence Department’s bowling all over the park. Now he had to admit he was not in good condition. Gin had sapped his strength and cigarettes had shortened his wind, and he had too many worries to give the game the fierce concentration it merited.