Cats sat around with their hands in their pockets and stared insolently back into the headlight beams. The driver parked the car with meticulous care and killed the lights. He opened a wrought-iron gate for me and conducted me to a first-floor front. A man silhouetted in the narrow rectangle of window was studying the café opposite with an enormous pair of binoculars. He moved to one side.
Across the street in the tiny tasoa the marble table-tops were covered in glasses of Valdepenas, the stone floor with prawn shells and dirty boots. The men in the boots were shouting, smoking, drinking wine and then shouting again. I applied my eyes to the soft rubber eye-pieces of the binoculars. They were trained on the window next door to the café. Iron bars divided the window into rectangles. The scene beyond was bright and clear. The Chevrolet was parked carefully with good reason. The car had more lenses, spotlights, fog lights, overtaking lights – more lenswork than a fly’s eye. Now I realized that one of the headlights had infra-red beams and was still switched on. Through the infra-red binoculars I saw two men taking scientific instruments out of their packing. Shavings and screwed-up paper littered the floor. Into my ear a voice said, ‘They must be nearly finished. They’ve been at it for nearly an hour.’ It was Stewart, one of the Navy’s Intelligence, who had probably been put on that frogman course just to watch me.
‘They aren’t setting it up,’ I said. It wasn’t the sort of room that would make a good laboratory. I moved aside for the other man to resume observation.
‘What do you want us to do, sir?’ Stewart asked.
‘Who does this house belong to?’ I asked.
‘We’ve put one of the embassy chauffeurs into it since …’ he nodded his head towards the house which held da Cunha’s equipment.
‘Perhaps he has a wife who will make some coffee,’ I asked.
‘Aye,’ said Stewart.
‘You’d better organize it,’ I said. ‘I have a feeling we’re in for a long wait.’
After a lifetime of travelling one is prepared for transient discomfort. A good-quality dressing-gown will double as a blanket, a bed will fold to the size of an umbrella and a pair of soft slippers go into an overcoat pocket. I had all of these things – in my baggage at the hotel.
Stewart and I took an hour each at the binoculars and the chauffeur took an embassy car around the block to cover the back. I don’t know what he was expected to do if they went out that way, but there he was.
At 3.30 in the morning, or what I call the night, Stewart woke me.
‘Now there’s a little van parked outside,’ he said. By the time I had got across to the binoculars they were moving the fluorimeter out.
‘Do you have a gun?’ I asked Stewart.
‘No sir,’ he said. I hadn’t considered the possibility that da Cunha would move the laboratory equipment elsewhere. I was waiting for him to turn up. When the van was sagging under the weight the three men locked the back doors and drove away. We followed. It wasn’t a long drive to the airport.
As dawn drew a pink frown across the tired forehead of night a small Cessna aeroplane turned its nose to south-south-west and buzzed happily towards the horizon.
‘Cessna’; I thought of Smith’s file-card; it had to be a Cessna. We watched from the tarmac because none of the three charter planes had a pilot available. Stewart beat on the doors of the padlocked offices and damned them, but it got us no nearer to the equipment that was now at three thousand feet and still climbing. It was 7.22 a.m., 15 December.
52 I see better with this
‘Do you know what time it is?’
A stout balding man in a threadbare dressing-gown barred my way.
‘Step aside, fatty,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got time for niceties.’ Stewart followed me into the empty, echoing hallway.
‘Get the Ambassador out of bed,’ I said, ‘I have special authority from the Cabinet and I want to see him at once, and that doesn’t mean in half an hour’s time.’
‘Who shall I say is calling, sir?’ said the man in a dressing-gown, aggressive but doubting. I wrote ‘W.O.O.C.(P)’ and the words ‘Minutes are vital’ on a piece of envelope and waited while he took it upstairs. I shouted after him, ‘And pull the blankets off your radio officer. I want him on the radio set in three minutes too.’
My treatment of the Madrid embassy staff was causing Stewart physical pain. The sight of H.E. in pyjamas was almost too much for him.
Gibraltar answered our radio signal with commendable promptness. I spoke quickly into the microphone.
Gibraltar was very impressed with my cloak-and-dagger stuff. ‘I’ll put an officer on the radar set,’ the senior officer there offered.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I can’t afford a botch-up. Put the usual operator on.’ They were a bit hurt but linked me to the corporal on the set. It was 8.15 a.m. ‘The plane left here almost exactly an hour ago, corporal,’ I said. ‘If we assume it has an airspeed of 150 m.p.h. and stays on that south-southwest course, we’d expect it to be half-way between us. Can you see anything?’
There was a long silence while the corporal, sitting somewhere in the scooped-out heart of the rock of Gibraltar, watched a blue cathode tube.
‘Can you see anything?’ I said again to the radio. I had an awful feeling that the Cessna might have changed course or already landed.
‘It’s the Seville Traffic Control Zone, you see, sir. There’s a great mass of stuff around there and it’s almost directly on the expectation course. If it gets mixed into that traffic stack I’m not sure that I’ll be able to sort it out before it lands.’ His voice was brittle through the loudspeaker.
‘Perhaps if you increase your range,’ I coaxed. ‘Look for a blip north of Cordoba, over the Sierra Morena, perhaps even as far as Almaden.’ The Ambassador had combed his hair. He gave me a cup of coffee and I put down the map and microphone and we all waited while the corporal did his stuff. Every now and again his doleful voice said, ‘Still searching.’
‘What will you do if you get no result?’ the Ambassador asked Stewart.
‘This officer is in charge, sir,’ said Stewart, ‘I’m seconded to him.’
I let that thought settle, and then I told him, ‘I’ll put up airborne radar and I’ll send a jet fighter plane to every airfield in the Iberian peninsula until I find it.’
The Ambassador wiped coffee off his moustache and said, ‘That would take a bit of explaining, y’know.’
‘I’m sure the explaining will be in very capable hands,’ I said politely.
‘Gottit, gottit!’ The voice rumpled the loudspeaker as the radar operator sorted one pinpoint of blue light from a constellation of others.
‘How do you know it’s the right one?’ I asked.
‘I’d bet on it, sir. It’s one of the larger single-engine jobs. A bit under forty-foot wingspan (I’m guessing now of course) and it’s not on any of the commercial routes or charter runs either.’
‘You mean it’s not on a direct line between two airports?’
‘Affirmative, sir. He’s what we call “coasting”. He’s locked on to a course …’
‘You mean he has an auto-pilot. Doesn’t that make that blip more likely to be a big aircraft?’
‘No, sir. Even the little single-seaters have autopilots nowadays.’
‘What do you think he is going to do?’
‘Well, as I say, sir, he’s probably “coasting”, he’ll continue on that bearing until he reaches the coast. Then he’ll drift along the coast until he recognizes Malaga. Then the pilot will set himself a new course, using a wind direction and velocity according to how far he is off his original course. He probably has no navigational aids, you see.’
‘Will he cross the coast at Malaga?’
‘A bit east of it.’
‘Would you put the Group Captain on the line, corporal.’
The corporal’s voice gave a little lift of pleasure as he said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I suppose he enjoyed calling the Group Captain.
‘Take a close lo
ok at this aircraft, would you, Group?’ I said it as calmly as I could and I felt his hesitation through the ether before he said, ‘We’ll be over Spanish territorial waters, but if Sir Hubert thinks it will be in order …’
I said, ‘He does. I want high-speed fighters with Air Pass.* Can do?’
‘Well, I don’t know. You see my standing orders forbid …’
‘I want those planes over the coast by the time this Cessna gets there. Arrange a radio link so that I can speak to the planes as well as keep me connected to the radar set.’
The Ambassador gave me the merest whisper of a smile and raised his eyebrows in a tacit offer of support. I shook my head. The Ambassador and I stood looking at each other as we waited to see whether the Group Captain would give way before my brow-beating. Finally the loudspeaker gave a clip and there was a hubbub of voices before it went silent again.
‘Mission 58 to identify one target. Present position Juliet Juliet five zero zero two, at flight level 120 heading 190, estimated speed point three-zero. Climb on vector 040 and make flight level 150; interception 100 miles …’
We listened as the jet fighters moved in on the Cessna.
Then suddenly a ‘contact’ call came through. ‘Roger, keep him in sight,’ came the controller’s voice.
The pilot read the registration number to me and it checked with the plane that had taken off from Madrid airport: Smith’s plane. It was 9.5 a.m. As soon as the identification was made the fighter returned to North Front Air port. Radar continued to plot the Cessna. I told the Group Captain to send a fast plane up to Madrid to collect me and take me to wherever the Cessna landed.
Meanwhile the Ambassador offered me breakfast.
53 Long arm
Marrakech lies coiled in the shadow of the High Atlas mountains like a cobra on a rumpled blanket. By the latter half of December the season is in full swing. Livers are being ruined in the bars of the big white hotels and limbs cracked on the ski slopes of the Middle Atlas. The call to prayer ricochets down the tortuous alleys, comes quivering through the orange and lemon trees and out across the crowded palm plantations that surround the dusty walled town. Overhead, interwoven matting squeezes sunrays like orange pips and transforms the dried mud into startling dazzle patterns. Smoky fires press dust into the sunlight beams and give them tangible dimensions. Fatty kidney slices crackle in aromatic cedar smoke. Light-skinned Berbers, ruddy-faced men from Fes, blue men and the black-enamel faces from Timbuctoo and farther south crowd together in the narrow thoroughfares.
The crowds moved as a white Land Rover came to a halt. On its door I could read the word ‘policia’. No sooner had the servant announced ‘A gentleman to see you’ than he was unceremoniously brushed aside by a short burst of Arabic. Three men entered the room. Two of them wore khaki drill, white peaked caps, Sam Browne belts and gauntlet gloves. The third man was in a white civilian suit. A soft red fez rode side-saddle on a thin brown pointed face. His moustache was sad and well cared for, and a large nose drove a wedge between his small eyes. He tapped the nose with a silver-topped cane. He looked like something dreamed up by central casting. He spoke:
‘Baix of the Sûreté Nationale. Let me welcome you to our beautiful country. The oranges are plump on the trees. The date is moist and the snow is crisp and firm on our mountain slopes. We hope you will stay long enough to take advantage of the wonders of our land.’
‘Yes,’ I said. I watched his two policemen. One opened the fly screen and spat into the street, the other riffled through my papers, which lay on the table.
‘You are conducting an investigation. You will be the guest of my department. Whatever you wish, it will be arranged. We hope you have a long and pleasurable habitation.’
‘You know what capitalism is like,’ I said, ‘work, work, work.’
‘The capitalism system is for what we work to preserve,’ said Baix. One policeman was looking through the clothes closet and the other was polishing his boot with a handkerchief. Overhead I heard the whine of a MIG 17 of the Maroc Air Force.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘In any narcotics investigation we are most enthusiastic that the criminal is apprehensive.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I said.
‘You intend to make the arrest of persons here in Marrakech?’
‘I don’t think so, but there are a few people that might be able to assist me in my inquiries.’
‘Ah, that famous English words of Scotland Yard, “able to assist those in their inquiries”,’ said Baix. He said it again for practice. He stopped twirling his baton for a moment. He leaned close and said, ‘Before you make the arrest, which I hope is not, then you tell me because it may not be permitted.’
‘I’ll tell you,’ I said, ‘but I am employed by the World Health Organization of the United Nations. They will be unhappy if you do not permit.’
Baix looked sad.
‘So,’ he said, ‘we shall consult again.’
‘O.K.,’ I said.
‘Meanwhile,’ said Baix, ‘I have transported your colleague from the railway station. Your colleague Mr Austin Butterworth.’
Baix shouted some Arabic and one of the policemen drew a pistol. Baix shouted very loudly, using one or two very rude Anglo-Saxon words. The policeman put away the gun with a shamefaced expression and went downstairs to get Ossie out of the Land Rover.
‘Your friend is a specialist for the narcotics investigator?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I think I am recognizing his face, your friend.’ Ossie came through the door wearing a gigantic war-surplus bush shirt, a panama hat and trousers with thirty-inch cuffs.
‘Then I shall leave you to the meeting,’ said Baix.
‘Allah go with you,’ I said.
‘So long big boy,’ said Baix; he tucked a smile under his sad moustache.
The Land Rover hooted its way up the narrow street.
54 Ossie moves like double this
As Baix had said, it was a country of wonders, and the days sped by as I prepared, watched and calculated. In the market we sat wrapping skewered kidney into the rich coarse bread and swallowing the smoke. We went to the cafés for sweet tea and hid in back rooms to drink Stork Beer for fear of offending the faithful. Ossie sketched plans of the local style of house and I lectured him from my scanty knowledge of elementary radio.
On the third day I visited Herr Knobel.
He wasn’t a cheerful hooligan like H.K. or a sad fanatic like Fernie Tomas. Here was a special kind of brain, and you never know where you are with a brain of this sort.
Knobel was da Cunha’s name. He lived in the old town. The street was five feet wide. The door was a hatch in the battered white wall. Inside the courtyard, wrought-iron gates made shadow pictures on the hot tiles. A small yellow bird high on the wall sang a short cadenza about how it would like to escape from its golden cage. A golden cage, I thought. A trap for the prisoner who has everything.
Da Cunha sat on a fine antique carpet reading Hoja de Lunes – the Madrid paper. Other carpets lined the walls and behind them bright coloured tilework shone with complex Arabic calligraphy. Here and there were leather cushions and through the dark doorway, just visible down the corridor, was a cool green patio; the slim leaves turning to silver swords as the breeze moved them under the hot sun.
Da Cunha sat in the middle of the room. He looked different, fatter. He wasn’t fatter, he wasn’t different. When I had seen him before he was trying to look like a slim, ascetic, Portuguese aristocrat. Now he was bothering no longer.
‘“Investigating”, your letter said’ – his voice was booming and plummy – ‘investigating what?’
‘Narcotics activities at Albufeira,’ I told him. He laughed a coarse spiteful laugh that was rich with gold.
‘So that’s it,’ he said. His eyes moved behind the thick lenses like bubbles in a glass of champagne.
‘I’m going to pull you in for it,’ I said.
‘You wouldn’t da
re.’ It was my turn to laugh.
‘They sound like famous last words,’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘I know that it’s impossible to connect me.’
Over da Cunha’s shoulder I could see through the window across the patio. The yellow bird was singing. Over the edge of the flat roof came a foot, slowly, waving from side to side looking for a foothold.
‘I was the person who assisted you,’ said da Cunha. ‘I told the V.N.V. to contact you. I gave you the sovereign die. I gave it to you.’
‘At Smith’s suggestion?’ I asked.
Da Cunha shrugged. ‘The fool had it all wrong. He would never leave everything to me. He for ever interfered.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘Would you think me rude if I solicited some coffee? I just love coffee.’ Da Cunha arranged it immediately.
‘My friends here are very powerful,’ said da Cunha.
‘You mean Baix,’ I said. The servant boy brought a big brass bowl and an ornamental kettle. He set the bowl at my feet and poured water over my hands. It is the Muslim custom before food is eaten. I hoped the servant wouldn’t turn to da Cunha too quickly. I washed my hands slowly and efficiently. The figure that I had seen on the roof was now suspended from the parapet by both hands.
‘Baix came to see me a few days ago,’ I said, trying not to look out of the window. The feet came a few inches lower. I said, ‘But, as I told him, I am working with the authority of the World Health Organization. There are few governments that will hinder such authority.’ The feet sought and found the grille of the top-storey window.
‘Really,’ said da Cunha. The voluminous war-surplus bush jacket was billowing in the breeze.
‘Yes,’ I said. How could they fail to see Ossie? ‘It’s an important thing, health.’ Da Cunha smiled. I finished my hand-washing as Ossie disappeared through the window. The boy took the brass hand-washing gear to da Cunha.
‘You are a very clever man,’ I said to da Cunha. ‘You must have known what was going on at Albufeira.’ Da Cunha nodded.