‘She died.’
‘Died?’ I said sharply. ‘Was murdered, do you mean?’
From the corner of my eye I saw Halide’s silks shimmer as she started, and Lethman turned quickly to look down at me. His back was to the lamp, and I couldn’t see him clearly, but his voice was edged with nerves. ‘Don’t be melodramatic. Naturally I meant no such thing. She died of natural causes.’
‘Melodramatic! Look who’s talking, what with your underground prisons and your sloe-eyed charmer there and your dear little pantomime dame upstairs with his White Slaver techniques. Natural causes my foot,’ I said angrily, ‘be precise. What did she die of and when?’
He said stiffly: ‘I’m not going to answer questions. Dr Grafton was her doctor, he’ll explain.’
‘By God he will,’ I said.
He had been moving towards the door, but my tone brought him round again to face me. The light was on him now. I saw in his face a sort of startled reappraisement, even a kind of alarm, and he opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again without speaking. I thought he looked as edgy as his voice, a down-drawn look, with pouched flesh under the eyes that betrayed lack of sleep, and lines which I had not noticed before and which had no business to be there. What had certainly not been there before was the swollen bruise at the corner of his mouth and a nasty-looking mark like a weal from the cheek-bone to the ear. I was just taking this in when Halide said, quickly and venomously:
‘Don’t let her talk to you like that. You are the master here.’
I laughed. ‘It looks like it, doesn’t it? For a start, who’s been knocking you about? And you think I’m the one who’s in trouble? Well, you’ll learn. And I do assure you it’ll pay you to listen to me and get me out of here. I should like to go now. At once, please.’
He drew a sharp little breath, either of anger or effort. His voice was deliberately braced. ‘I’m sure you would. But you’ll stay here just the same. Dr Grafton will see you later.’
‘He’ll see me now. After I’ve had a wash. And what’s more, I should like my handbag back.’
‘It’s there by the bed. Now stop being stupid, you must see you’ve got to do as you’re told. There’s some food. We’ll leave you now, and if you’ve got any sense you’ll take it quietly. If you behave yourself you’ll come to no harm. All right, Halide.’
‘I don’t want the blasted food!’ I said angrily. ‘Will you stop behaving like Oddjob and take me to the bathroom?’
‘Later.’ Halide was going, sliding out past him with a final gleam at me which made me want to slap her face. John Lethman was going too, closing the door.
I stood up and said sharply: ‘Don’t be such a clot, Mr Lethman. I want to go to the loo. You know – the loo, the lavatory, W.C. … do I really have to spell it out?’
‘Oh.’ He paused, and I saw with pleasure that he looked once more disconcerted. It seemed obvious that he had expected, possibily even braced himself for, a scene along set lines of outrage and perhaps fear, and that this intrusion of commonplace reality into his thriller-situation had thrown him completely. He said at length, lamely: ‘Oh, well, you’d better come along, I suppose. But don’t try anything. And it won’t do any good—’
‘“And it won’t do you any good to scream for help, because I have a hundred Nubian guards within call”?’ I finished the threat with a derision that got him right between the eyes, and sent my own morale rocketing. ‘Come off it and take me to the lavatory, Commander of the Faithful.’
He made no reply. I laughed again, and went out past him. My exit was spoiled by the fact that I stumbled in the dim light over a broken flagstone, and my head swam dizzily with the aftermath of the drug. He took my arm, and I controlled the impulse to shake him off. For one thing, I needed the help; for another, he was probably determined to hang on to me, and I might as well go on turning the tables by treating the gesture as one of solicitude. So I thanked him and allowed him to escort me from the room. I don’t know whether Halide followed: I didn’t glance her way.
I had been right. This was the corridor under the lake, and my door one of the locked storerooms. There was the pile of tins still outside it. John Lethman led me up the stairs towards Great-Aunt Harriet’s room. As we reached the heavy curtain and he drew it aside to disclose the bed, I gave an exclamation of surprise.
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know the way,’ he said sourly.
‘I’m not pretending anything,’ I said. This was the truth; what had amazed me was the light. It was not morning, as I had expected, but golden afternoon, six o’clock of a blazing day. And it must be the same day on which I had set out for Damascus or my watch would have stopped by now. The pentothal had laid me out for barely two hours.
John Lethman stepped carefully through on to the dais, and handed me after him. I added: ‘I’m just surprised it’s daylight still. It feels like a month since I was out in the open air and in pleasant company. Tell me one thing, Mr Lethman, how did you get me here? Don’t tell me you carried me over from the village in broad daylight.’
‘The car didn’t touch Beirut at all, or Sal’q. There’s a road off past Zahle, and after that a quite negotiable track up behind the head of the valley. You only had to be brought down a couple of kilometres or so from the car.’
‘Down the path behind the palace? I suppose that’s why I’m as stiff as a board. What did you bring me on, a mule?’
Absurd though it may seem, I think I was angrier at that moment than I had been almost through the whole affair, angry and ashamed. There was humiliation in the knowledge of how these men had manhandled my unconscious and helpless body. So far, the thought made me want to run away and hide; but perhaps later on the anger would help.
He said: ‘The bathroom’s this way.’
It was the next door opening off the Prince’s garden. I escaped into the labyrinth of the hammam like a rabbit scuttling down a safe burrow.
It had in its day been a grander hammam than the women’s quarters had boasted. The walls were alabaster, and the light came from overhead in all the rooms from lozenges of stained glass which threw jewels of amber and jade and lapis on to the rosy floors. The sunshine, muted by this, glowed among the labyrinth of peach-coloured columns like light through a transparent shell, and the murmur of water trickling through the shallow channels and dripping into marble basins echoed like the sea in the corridors of a cave.
The cool touch of the water, the light, the blinding glimpse of the little garden as I had crossed to the hammam, dispelled immediately the claustrophobic nightmare of my prison. I threaded my way through the complex of rooms to the centre of the cool stone maze. Here water splashed and glittered into a blackened shell that had once been silver, and a stone faun leaned out with a cup of water-thin alabaster. I took it from him, filled it, and drank, then took off everything but pants and bra and washed deliciously in the cool water, drying myself on my slip. The sunlight swimming down in its shafts of amber and amethyst seemed to soak into my body like oil smoothing away the stiffness of the bruises. I shook my frock out and put it on, did my face and hair, and last of all dried my feet and put my sandals on again. I dropped the soaked slip in a corner, took another drink of water, rinsed the cup for the faun, then went out to meet John Lethman.
He was sitting on the edge of the dry fountain, I had only previously seen this garden at night, and now I got no more than a brief impression of a maze of yellow roses and a tumble of honeysuckle over broken pillars. John Lethman got quickly to his feet and started to speak but I cut across it abruptly.
‘You needn’t think you’re going to get me back into that foul little room again. If this Dr Grafton wants to see me, he can see me here. What’s more he can see me now, in daylight. He needn’t pretend any more that he likes staying up half the night, so he can leave his turban and his nightie off.’ I marched past him into Great-Aunt Harriet’s bedroom, flinging over my shoulder: ‘and if you want me to eat anything you can make the girl bring i
t in here.’
He hesitated, and I thought he was going to insist. But he said merely: ‘As long as you realise that this part of the palace is locked right away. If you do try to bolt you won’t go far, and even if you hid, the dogs would find you.’
I laughed. ‘And tear me limb from limb? Big deal!’
I crossed to the red lacquer chair, and sat down with as much of the grand manner as I could muster, while Lethman, with a look of acute dislike at me, mounted the dais to pull the bell.
The familiar jangling peal bounced and ricocheted through the stillness, and, immediately, the clamour from the hounds tore the afternoon to shreds. Somehow, the noise was comforting; they were on my side, the ‘Gabriel Hounds’, Aunt H’s dogs who had known my voice and my cousin’s step, and who (I saw it now as the thought lit my mind like a sudden flare) perhaps disliked ‘the Dr’ as much as Samson had done, and so were kept shut away except when on guard at night to keep the nosy Miss Mansel within bounds.
Before the echoes of the bell had died the bed-curtains were pulled violently back and Henry Grafton came through the private door like a genie erupting from the lamp, and said furiously: ‘What the hell’s happened to that girl? The door’s wide open, and if she gets as far as the main gate that idiot’s probably forgotten his orders by now, and he’ll see her on her way with an illuminated address.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Lethman, ‘she’s here.’
Dr Grafton came up short like someone running into a wire, and swung round on me where I sat in the high-backed chair. For a nasty moment I thought he was going to come and grab, but he seemed to hold himself in with an effort, and gave me instead a long summing-up look that I by no means liked.
‘What’s she doing here?’ He spoke to John Lethman without taking his eyes off me.
‘She asked for the bathroom.’
‘Oh.’ The simple demand of Nature seemed to disconcert Henry Grafton as much as it had Lethman himself. He teetered there on the edge of the dais, seemingly at a loss, while I sat poker-spined on my chair, trying to look several degrees cooler than an ice cube, and preparing to fight every step of the way should they decide to force me back into my dungeon.
‘You rang?’ said Halide, at the garden door. At least I suppose that’s what she said, it was in Arabic. She was wearing Great-Aunt Harriet’s ring.
She was looking at Grafton, but I answered in English. ‘Yes, we rang. Not for you, but since you’re here you might as well bring the tray in here for me. I don’t want the soup, thank you, but I’ll eat the bread and cheese, and I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee while I’m talking to him.’
She spat something at me – no pretences now – and whirled furiously on the men:
‘You’re not going to leave her out here? Why don’t you put her back in the room and shut her up again? Why do you let her sit there like that and give orders? Who does she think she is? She is nobody, I tell you, nobody, and very soon she will know it! When we get her—’
‘Look, Halide—’ It was John Lethman, feebly, but she ignored him, blazing at Grafton.
‘You are afraid of her too? Why? Dare you not leave her there? Then why not give her some more of the drug and put her in the other prison? Or tie her up? I would do it, me!’
‘Oh, belt up,’ I said wearily. ‘Never mind about the tray, I can last out, just stop yelling and making me feel like an extra in Kismet, will you? And I’d still like the coffee. You can heat it up again before you bring it. I dislike lukewarm coffee.’
The look she gave me this time was pure bastinados and boiling oil, and I was glad to have deserved it. She swung back to Grafton, simmering like a kettle, but he cut her short. ‘Shut up and do as you’re told. John, for God’s sake can’t you clout some sense into her? It won’t be long now.’ He added something in Arabic to Halide, more conciliatory in tone, and there was a brief exchange which seemed to mollify her. After a while she went, scowling.
John Lethman gave a sigh, half of relief, half of exasperation. ‘Sorry about that. She’s been like a snake with the jitters for days. She’ll come to heel when the time comes.’ He dabbed at his face, winced, and dabbed again. ‘Shall I take the Mansel girl back?’
‘Not for the moment. You can get on. I’ll talk to her here. And afterwards—’ he finished the sentence in Arabic, and John Lethman nodded. His reply was wordless and quite horrible. He merely drew the edge of his hand across his throat in a murderous little gesture, and Henry Grafton laughed.
‘If you can,’ he said in English. ‘All right, ruh.’
Lethman went out. I wanted to keep what miserable initiative I could, so I spoke immediately. My voice came out harsh and high with nerves, and surprisingly formidable.
‘Well, supposing you start, Dr Grafton. You’ve got quite a bit of explaining to do, haven’t you?’
15
So bury me by some sweet Garden-side.
E. Fitzgerald: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
He didn’t answer for a moment. He stood there eyeing me under dropped lids, still with that appraising, almost clinical look. His eyes were dark and shiny as treacle, and in contrast the heavy lids looked thick and waxen. The skin all round the eyes was brownish, like overripe plums.
‘Well?’ I said curtly.
He smiled. ‘You’re a fighter, aren’t you? I admire you for it.’
‘You excite me beyond words. Sit down and get on with it.’ He stepped down from the dais and crossed the room to get a chair which stood against the wall. He had changed his neat businessman’s suit for dark trousers and a high-necked Russian shirt in olive green which made him look sallower, and did nothing to flatter his thick build. He looked very strong, with strength in the back of his neck, like a bull. My rudeness didn’t even ruffle him. His manner was perfectly civil, pleasant even, as he brought the chair over and sat himself opposite me.
‘Cigarette?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘It’ll help compose your nerves.’
‘Who said they needed composing?’
‘Oh, come, Miss Mansel, I thought you were a realist.’
‘I hope I am. All right. There, my hand’s shaking. Please you?’
‘Not at all.’ He lit my cigarette, and waved out the match. ‘I’m sorry I had to do what I did. Please be sure I don’t mean you any harm. I just had to get you back here and talk to you.’
‘You had to—?’ I opened my eyes at him. ‘Oh, come off it, Dr Grafton! You could have talked to me in the car. Or you could have talked to me before I left Dar Ibrahim, if you were going to drop the disguise anyway.’ I leaned back, drawing on my cigarette. The gesture helped to give me the extra touch of confidence I needed, and I felt my nerves beginning to relax. ‘I must say, I liked you a lot better in that neat little number you were wearing the other night. I quite see why you only interviewed guests at midnight. You and the room looked a whole lot better in the dark.’
As far as the room was concerned this was certainly true. What could have passed in the lamplight for romantic shabbiness was shown up by daylight as plain dirt and neglect. The bed hangings were tattered and filthy, and the table beside me was sordid in the extreme with used cups and plates and a saucer half-full of cigarette stubs. ‘Well, all right,’ I said, still aggressively, ‘let’s have it. And start at the beginning, please. What happened to Aunt Harriet?’
He looked at me frankly and showed an apologetic hand. ‘Be sure I’m only too willing to tell you everything. I admit you’ve every ground for suspicion and anger, but believe me it’s only on your own account, and I’ll explain that in a moment. As far as your great-aunt is concerned there’s nothing to worry you, nothing at all. She died quite peacefully. You know of course that I was her doctor: I was with her all the time, and so was John.’
‘When did she die?’
‘A fortnight ago.’
‘What of?’
‘Miss Mansel, she was over eighty.’
‘I dare say she was, but there ha
s to be a cause. What was it, heart? This asthma of hers? Plain neglect?’
I saw him compress his lips slightly, but he answered with the same pleasant appearance of frankness. ‘The asthma was a fiction, Miss Mansel. The most difficult thing for me to disguise was my voice. When John told me how persistent you were, and we realised you might be impossible to fob off, we concocted a story that would allow me to speak in a whisper. And as you must realise now, the picture I had to give you of a forgetful and very strange old lady was far from the truth. Your aunt was very fully in possession of her faculties right up to the time of her death.’
‘What was it, then?’
‘Primarily her heart. She had a very slight coronary last autumn, and another in late February – after I had come to live with her here. Then, as you may know, she was difficult about food, and latterly had periodic sickness and stomach trouble which added to the strain. She had one of these gastric attacks three weeks ago, a bad one, and her heart wouldn’t take it. That’s the story, as simply as I can put it. She was, I repeat, over eighty. One would hardly have expected her to get through.’
I said nothing for a moment, drawing on my cigarette and staring at him. Then I said abruptly: ‘Death certificates? Do you have them here?’
‘Yes, I signed one, for the record. You can see it any time you wish.’
‘I wouldn’t believe a word of it. You concealed her death, you and John Lethman and the girl. One might even say you went to pretty fair lengths to conceal it. Why?’
He turned up a hand. ‘Heaven knows I don’t blame you, in the circumstances I wouldn’t believe a word of it myself; but the plain fact is that, far from wanting your great-aunt out of the way, I’d have done a lot – in fact I did do a lot – to keep her alive. I don’t ask you to believe me when I tell you that I liked her but you may believe me when I tell you that her death was damned inconvenient, coming when it did, and could have cost me a fortune. So I had a base motive for keeping her alive as well.’ He tapped ash on the floor. ‘Hence the mystery and the masquerade, which I’ll explain in a moment. It didn’t suit me to have lawyers or family invading the place, so I didn’t report her death, and we’ve allowed the local people to think she’s still alive.’