is your real reason? Forget the bullshit for a minute or two. Tell me the real reason.’
Smith gritted his teeth. He’d been bursting to tell the real reason, and now he could no longer resist it. ‘You’re selling all this gear to the Jews, aren’t you?’ His smile was fixed and challenging.
‘Jews?’
‘Come off it, you little bastard. This stuff is all going to the Jew boys in Palestine. They’re getting ready for the big show-down with the Arabs. That’s where the money is, and you lot know where the dough’s to be got.’ And then he looked down at the notes and said it again. ‘You know where the money is, all right. What I get is probably just a spit in the ocean.’
Percy looked at him soberly and without expression.
‘I was stationed in bloody Haifa, mate,’ Smith said. ‘I know what they are up to. Those Jews are worse than the bloody Arabs. They’ll skin you alive for a handful of small change. Don’t lie to me; I’ve heard them all. One of my mates was beaten up by a gang of them –…’
There was a tentative knock at the door. ‘Come in!’ called Percy. Now was the time when Percy had to make his decision. Could Smith be made to see reason, or had he gone off the rails? A malicious blabbermouth could betray them all.
The young Tunisian girl came in with a brass tray. On it was a pot of mint tea and a selection of small oriental pastries, over which rose water and thin dribbles of honey had been poured. She wore ornamental slippers and a brightly patterned cotton cloth that was tucked in and held only by the shape of her body. She eyed the two men with placid curiosity. She did not seem frightened or intimidated. Working for Lady Fitz had shown her men in all their many moods and tempers. It would be hard to surprise her. She put the tray on the bedside table and poured two cups of tea. She gave one to Percy. He nodded to her, and she gave a slight movement of the head that acknowledged his signal. Then she offered the other cup of tea to Smith, wafting the steam towards him with the side of her hand, inviting him to smell the fragrance of the mint. Smith sniffed it as he was expected to do, keeping his feet stretched out on the bed and letting his head relax against the pillow.
‘I think she likes you,’ said Percy. ‘Why not take a little tumble with her? It will put you in a better mood. We will talk again later.’ He got up as if to leave the two of them in privacy.
‘No, no. Stay where you are,’ said Smith, but Percy could detect a lack of resolution in his voice.
The girl lightly stroked Smith’s arm and walked her fingers across his body. Smith shivered. ‘What is your secret, Smith? She wants to get into bed with you, you can see she does.’
The bed creaked as Smith laboriously sat up on it, brushing the girl’s hand away. ‘You never give up, do you, Percy?’
‘What are you talking about? Have you never had the full treatment at Lady Fitz?’ said Percy with good-natured interest. ‘It is not the hurried gallop you are used to back home. This girl will anoint you with perfumed oils, smoke a little hashish with you to get you into the right mood, and afterwards she will bathe you. An hour in paradise: this is the way it is done in the East. You should try it. By God, she is a beautiful young creature.’
‘She’s just a kid. She can’t be more than fifteen.’
‘In a country where life expectancy is thirty years, fifteen is middle-aged. Look at her face; she wants you.’
‘And she must have cost you a packet,’ said Smith.
Undaunted by Smith’s words of rejection, the girl had opened his shirt and put her hand against his chest. Smith sat very still. His good sense told him that the behaviour of the girl was something of Percy’s devising, but his ego, fed by his desire, was overcoming that belief. He could smell the sweet lotions that the girl had used. Temptation, after months of celibacy, was fast overwhelming him.
Percy stepped over to the tray and helped himself to a pastry. ‘You can’t get this Turkish delight anywhere but Cairo,’ he said conversationally. He held it up to show Smith: dusted with powdered sugar it shone in the lamplight. Percy popped it into his mouth and chewed it with studied relish.
As if following this exchange, the young girl got a cube from the same plate and brought it close to Smith’s lips. She’d completely unbuttoned his shirt to expose his hairy chest, and now with her left hand she stroked him gently.
‘Open your mouth and shut your eyes, you lucky bastard,’ said Percy amiably.
Smith could smell the rose water and taste the dusted sugar as he bit down hard upon what turned out to be a cube of softened mutton fat. ‘Uggh!’ But the tepid fat clung to his teeth. He could not scream. It clogged his mouth and tongue and would not budge. Before he could spit it out he felt a strong hand clamped across his face. Unable to breathe through his mouth, he snorted violently like a frightened horse.
‘Imshi!’ said Percy.
The girl drew back. As she slid aside from the reclining figure, Percy brought a dagger down fiercely into Smith’s bared chest. Smith gave a mighty heave, but with his heart pierced the violent movement served only to pump blood and hasten his end. Still pressing down on the thrashing body, Percy glanced at the girl. She held her hand to her face, palm outward, splaying her fingers wide so that she could see between them. Her lips were moving, and he wondered if she would scream. Even if she did, it would not matter in a place like this, where screams and groans and gasps were commonplace.
But she did not scream. She watched the scene from behind her spread fingers as Percy twisted the knife a little, keeping his other hand pressing down upon Smith’s face.
Expiring through his nose, the dying man arched his trunk, gave one heave, and vomited fiercely through Percy’s fingers but did not break free. One leg shook violently, scattering the money across the bed. He writhed and seemed to shrink and then was still. Percy waited a minute or two before letting go of him. For a moment he stood looking down at the body. The bedding was marked by blood and smelly vomit. Dozens of tiny splashes of blood made a pattern on the bed cover, the pillows and up the wall. His military training had taught him to kill sentries quickly and silently, but they’d given no advice about not leaving a mess behind. He wondered how much more blood would spurt if he removed the dagger. For the time being he left it there. As if reading his thought the girl brought a towel and wrapped it around the handle of the dagger. Then she went and began to remove the pillows from the bed.
‘As soon as I have gone, you go quickly and get the men,’ he told her. They would know what to do. ‘Do you hear?’ He recognised the splayed fingers and the other gestures she was making with her hand as a sign to give protection against the evil eye. She was moving her lips soundlessly reciting verses from the Koran. He did not laugh at her; he felt like seeking the same sort of protection.
After a moment to catch his breath, he lifted Smith’s heavy body from the bed and thankfully dumped it onto the carpet. He flapped the ends of the carpet over Smith’s mortal remains.
At that moment the door opened. ‘All done, Percy, old bean?’
A slight young man was standing in the doorway. He was hatless; dressed in khaki shirt and officer’s-style khaki gabardine trousers, without any signs of rank or unit. The tone of voice, accent and confident manner were unmistakably the product of some exclusive school in England.
‘It is done,’ said Percy without looking at him. ‘He had cracked. He even checked the engine number of the truck. And he started on about the Jews. It was only a matter of time before he betrayed us.’
Percy gathered together the money that littered the bed. He went through the bundle of Egyptian notes. There were flecks of blood on them, but money was money. He took a couple of notes from the bundle and held them out to the girl. She took them without a change of expression, tucked them away and went on changing the bed cover. Irritated at the way she failed to thank him, Percy put the rest of the money back into his inner pocket.
‘All for one and one for all,’ said the newcomer. He said it solemnly, as he