‘Circumstances?’
‘Well, the Hindawi case, Liz, the trial at the Old Bailey?’
‘I really don’t see how my personal friendship with Hafiz could be affected by anything of that kind.’
‘But all our positions here might well end up being affected by it. That’s the general feeling. And if you’re involved — really involved -’
She hadn’t felt inclined to answer with the truth — that she was intrigued, flattered, maybe infatuated even, but not in any deep sense ‘involved’, that it wasn’t anything she couldn’t walk away from when or if she wanted to. Because this sounded cheap: casual, meaningless…
So what if the relationship didn’t mean so damn much?
In the shower — cold — she told herself for the hundredth time that he couldn’t have any political or intelligence motive. She had no information to which he wouldn’t be entirely welcome, professionally he operated at a much higher level than hers, and he also happened to belong to an influential and well-connected family. One way and another Hafiz needed her, in terms of his career, reputation and future prospects, like a kick in the balls.
Maybe he just went for blondes. That, or one had to subdue one’s natural modesty and admit to the possibility that one’s personal charm, sex-appeal and intellect had deprived the young Syrian of his senses. She was smiling as she padded damp-footed into the bedroom, eased one shutter back by a few inches to let in some daylight. The swathe of brilliance stabbed through the semi-darkness, spotlighting the armchair which Hafiz habitually flung his clothes.
Something under it, on the floor. Greyish, crouching.
Rat!
She looked around quickly for some weapon. Nothing… Then as the blinding effect wore off and she focused properly, she saw it wasn’t a rat at all, but Hafiz’s wallet.
And he was on his way to Homs. About two hundred kilometres up the motorway which British residents here to as the M5. She wondered as she stooped and groped under the chair how the hell she’d get it to him: or whether he’d realise he’d lost it and come back. Or maybe he wouldn’t worry, maybe he could get by without it.
It was stuffed with Syrian pounds. And his driving licence… A cheque card — Commercial Bank of Syria. An ID card with his photograph on it, heavily overstamped, an official government pass. He’d be needing this lot, all right.
He might have stopped at his own house before leaving town, she thought, for a change of clofhes or to pick up a suitcase — unless he’d had it with him in the car. Worth trying, anyway… She sat on the bed, picked up the receiver and dialled.
No answer. She visualised him at the wheel of his Citroën driving north. She was about to hang up when a female voice asked in Arabic, ‘Yes?’
Liz used French. Her Arabic was practically non-existent but educated Syrians like Hafiz’s family spoke French, in which language she was quite at home. ‘May I speak to Hafiz Al-jubran, please?’
‘He’s not here. This is his sister. Who’s that, please?’
‘It’s Liz Thornton, Hoda. I’m at the British Embassy and I met you once with your brother, if you remember?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
Without much pleasure — judging by the sulky tone. And on the occasion of their meeting she hadn’t been exactly effusive. Liz said, ‘The reason I’m calling is that your brother was at the embassy earlier on, and apparently he dropped his — oh, what’s the word — his sac…’
‘Dropped what?’
‘Portefeuille?’
‘Oh—’
‘Anyway, I have it, it’s full of money and some other things, I think he might be stuck without it. Would you tell him, please?’
‘My brother is out of town, Miss Thornton. But if you could get it to me, I could arrange for it to be taken to him. He’s on a visit to Homs, but—’
‘I suppose I could bring it round.’
‘Would you be coming soon? Otherwise — you see, I know of another person who will be travelling in that direction, but—’
‘Yes. All right.’ She groaned inwardly: Out into that Turkish bath again… Resignedly: ‘In about half an hour, Hoda.’
She put on a cotton frock with a hemline a bit lower than she’d have worn in England, and sandals, slipped the wallet into her bag and went down into the street. Her Mini had been parked in the shade but it was still greenhouse-warm inside. She got it moving quickly, with all the windows open, to let some air through — warm, sticky air… Swinging presently into Al-Qouwatly Avenue, then right up to the big roundabout — completely circular but still known as Umawiyya Square — and off noreastward, over the Tora River and then left, to pass the British and Swiss embassies on Ru Muhammad Kurd Ali. Most of the world’s diplomatic representatives had their missions within about a thousand yards of this point.
Thinking about Hoda, who was a grumpy, charmless little creature. The one time they’d met, Liz had been made acutely conscious of her disapproval — just for being with Hafiz, presumably, the two of them obviously enioying each other’s company. Liz had thought, If only you knew just how much we enjoy it, you surly little cow…
And maybe she did know, now.
There was one patch of shade outside the house. She backed the Mini into it and left the windows open. She was only going to be a minute, but that was all the time it took to become oven-hot.
Hoda answered the door herself. Little pointed face, shiny black hair pulled back tightly over very small ears. She was wearing a jellabah wide-sleeved, richly-embroidered gown which Liz guessed she might well have put on for her benefit, changing out of Western dress as soon as she’d put the phone down.
She opened her bag, and handed her the wallet. ‘I hope it won’t have inconvenienced him too badly.’
‘You were kind to bring it… Will you — come in?’
She’d smiled, but it hadn’t reached her eyes, or lasted more than a second. Liz said, ‘It would be nice, Hoda, thank you, but unfortunately—’
‘I should like it very much if you would. For just a few minutes, even?’
‘Well.’ Checking the time, and glancing back to the car… A cosy chat with Hafiz’s kid sister was about the last thing she wanted, in the circumstances. ‘The problem’s one of time, I’m afraid. I came out of my way, rather, and—’
‘Just for a moment? Please?’
‘Well — literally five minutes, then.’
It wouldn’t have helped matters to have refused, she thought. Following the squat figure — so totally unlike Hafiz’s — through a courtyard and then from a tiled hallway into a wide, cool room furnished mostly with cane furniture, bright cushions on it, expensive-looking rugs on polished boards: on the way through Hoda had offered her coffee, then tea, and she’d declined both. Now the girl had turned to face her: ‘Please take a seat. I want to speak with you about my brother.’
Liz wished to God she hadn’t decided to be polite, or diplomatic, whatever, that she’d had the sense to say ‘Sorry, can’t stop’ — and let her make the most of it. Too ate now. She was sitting, Hoda also seated and fadng her across the brown eyes fixed on her intently… ‘What do you want with my brother?’
‘Want?’ Liz smiled. ‘Nothing at all. I came to return his wallet.’
‘But he didn’t leave it at your embassy, did he?’
‘Didn’t he?’
‘You know he didn’t. You should also know that your association with him could very easily become a disaster for him, Miss Thornton.’
She sighed. ‘Hafiz is a grown man, Hoda, you’re a young girl, and while I have no wish to quarrel with you I may as well tell you right away that I don’t intend to be lectured by you. In fact I should be on my way, so—’
‘You haven’t realised that fundamentally he’s against you?’
‘Is he?’ She smiled faintly. ‘I’ll tell you, Hoda, if that’s true he hides it pretty well.’
‘He is against you and the Americans, against all colonialist—’
‘Heavens, we’
re into politics now?’
‘I’m telling you the truth, Miss Thornton!’
‘Well, I’d say the only surviving colonialists are now based in Moscow. But if that was what you were so anxious to tell me, OK, I’ve heard it. I’m an Information Officer, a PR girl if you like, I’m not a diplomat; so if you want to talk politics — which incidentally Hafiz and I do not discuss—’
‘No, of course he wouldn’t. But—’ Hoda leant forward — ‘look, Miss Thornton, I don’t want to be your enemy, and you’re right, politics are not your business or mine. My concern is for Hafiz and his future — which is also the future of my family. We are not new people here, you know, in fact if you mentioned the name Al-Jubran in the north — for instance in Halab—’
‘I don’t doubt it, Hoda, but it’s hardly a concern of mine, you know.’ She felt she was humouring a halfwit now. ‘Very nice for you and for Hafiz, no doubt—’
‘I thought that if you were genuinely fond of my brother you might have shared some concern for his future. Which in some ways is bound up in the background of his family. In fact, the present situation might well affect your future too — adversely, I may say…’ She shook her head. ‘Hafiz, my brother, has an important part to play in the future of this country. We have some problems, and he is the man who will solve them: in time, when it is all in his hands alone, he will create peace, unity and progress. By that time you will not be here: but you will hear his name, you will remember what I am now saying to you… But — Miss Thornton — as far as his — his friendship with you is concerned, this present situation could destroy such hopes, ruin him.
‘Wouldn’t it be Hafiz who’d have ruined himself?’
‘But you could stop this happening! You, alone, if you had his true interests at heart—’
‘I’m not so sure that he’d go along with any such plan, Hoda.’
‘You say this.’ Hoda was leaning forward and getting shrill again. Liz had only made that last remark to needle her, and she’d succeeded. Hoda spat out: ‘You don’t matter to him at all!’
‘Well.‘ She smiled. ‘If you say not.’
‘My brother is an Arab, he fights for the Arab cause. This is his life, it will be all his life, he knows this and knows that nothing else — including you — is anything but trivial, a pastime… Do you think he admires the English? I tell you, I could prove to you that—’
‘Hoda — really — I’ve had enough of this.’ The child was raving: crazed with jealousy, Liz guessed, using the political stuff as a smokescreen. She, maybe, at this moment hated the English — for her own personal reasons… Liz picked up her bag, in preparation for departure. ‘I really don’t want to seem rude, Hoda, but also I really do have to leave now. I did tell you I don’t have any time to waste this afternoon. And I’ve got the message — you dislike me and your brother being as close as we are. I’ll bear it in mind—’
‘It could become a great embarassment for you, Miss Thornton. For you as an official at the British Embassy: you have no idea how very, very serious it could become!’
Liz was on her feet. ‘We’re in 1987, Hoda. It’s not Queen Victoria on the throne now, you now.’
There was actually some slight element of truth in what she’d said, for all that. Liz had been well aware, right from the start of her affair with Hafiz, that she’d have to be discreet about it. So she’d been careful not to flaunt her relationship with the beautiful young Syrian, she’d made it easy for her superiors to look the other way… Hoda’s voice broke through again: ‘It’s possible you misunderstand me. I wasn’t speaking of the obvious embarassments — scandal, the gossip and so forth. I was speaking of something entirely practical and — well, immediate… This is why I have forced myself to speak to you now, Miss Thornton. Otherwise I would not, could not.’ Shaking her shiny head… ‘It’s not a small thing, you see, it’s a matter — political, very sensitively political, in which my brother is closely involved. Prominently involved. And if it were to emerge suddenly — I mean this situation, the political issue, and also the fact that you are closely associated with him — you, an Englishwoman and embassy official—’
‘Hoda — please, calm down, just tell me what—’
‘I should not be telling you, but—’
‘Telling me what, for God’s sake?’
Then she saw it: thinking — wrongly — We’re into that bloody Old Bailey trial again… Hoda blurted, ‘Have you heard of an Englishman, his name is Stillgoe, captured in Beirut by the Hezbollah?’
Liz nodded. Failing to see what this could possibly have to do with her. Anyone who read newspapers would have read of Vernon Stillgoe, who’d been kidnapped, snatched from a car on the airport road when he’d been on his way home from Beirut, heading back to London. She heard Hoda say, ‘He is not in Lebanon now, he is in Syria. Can you guess who has authority over those who are holding him?’
She felt she might be dreaming this. It was how dreams sometimes went, switching from one form of nonsense to another. Hoda said — predictably, when one recognised the line of confusion — ‘My brother, Hafiz, controls this person’s custody, also his—’ her eyes flickered — ‘his interrogation… Hafiz told me that in Beirut he was a British spy — did you know this, too?’
‘No.’ Liz turned away. ‘But if you like I’ll take your word for it. And I really do have to go now.’
‘I think you don’t want to understand! But I am breaking a confidence, to tell you these things! Because it is necessary you should hear, that there are such matters in which my brother is concerned — in comparison with which you are as nothing — which is maybe why he thinks it’s of no importance that he fornicates with you!’
‘Well, I’ll see myself out—’
‘What d’you think he’s doing now in Homs?’
‘Fornicating with someone else?’
Hoda had rushed past her. She was leaning against the door, barring the way with her short, squat body in its brightly-coloured gown, the intricate embroidery. She was loud again, insistent… ‘Stillgoe might have been released, if he had been left in Beirut or anywhere in Lebanon. That’s why we have him now. Not in Homs, but — in that district. This is why my brother—’
‘Why he’s shot off there. OK, I’ll believe you. But it’s no concern of mine, you see.’ Liz told her again, ‘Hoda, I want to go, please, d’you mind?’
‘Do you think this would be nice for you, in the English newspapers? When these facts become known? That Hafiz Al-Jubran is the lover of a woman who works in the British Embassy?’
‘I told you — it’s not my business, nothing to do with me… But you know — what you just told me, you have to be crazy, really. I mean, your President has been working for the release of the people who’ve been kidnapped in Beirut!’
‘It has nothing to do with President Al-Assad. And true nothing to do with you. I have only been telling you so as to prove to you—’
‘All you’ve proved is what I knew already — that you don’t like my relationship with your brother. OK, message received, out… I mean me out, now—’
‘If I show you proof — then will you believe me?’
Liz stared at her. Feeling slightly dizzy, and thinking I’m Alice in crazyland, I’m on a trip… She said a pretence of patience, calm, ‘You’re asking me to believe that Hafiz is mixed up in some conspiracy against the President?’
‘No, I said nothing of this kind!’
‘Well, what exactly—’
‘Hafiz knows many people, all the leaders. My family have very wide connections. We are not — not new people, like certain—’
‘Yes, I know, you told me.’ She gestured, towards the courtyard and the street. ‘And really I do think I’d better leave, before you tell me anything else that you might afterwards wish you hadn’t… Leave it to Hafiz to sort this out when he gets back, OK?’
Hoda had her back against the door. Biting her lips, staring at Liz, as if she was trying to make up her mind about somethi
ng, finding it difficult. Whether or not to stand aside, be… And maybe she really was crazy… Liz forced a smile: ‘Let’s leave it now, think it over? I promise you this — if Hafiz agrees with you that it’d be better we stopped seeing each other — OK, no problem…’
And no move. She might not have heard. Liz kept the smile on. ‘Hoda?’
Hoda let out a breath so suddenly that she might have been holding it for minutes. She said, ‘Would you please wait — two minutes, please? So I can bring something from my brother’s desk to show you?’
*
Liz told Tom Elwell, an hour later in his flat which was only a stone’s throw from the Embassy, ‘When I heard her coming back I suddenly thought God, she’s been to fetch a pistol, she’s going to shoot me…’ She spread her hands: ‘But wow, relief, it was a map, a large-scale military map, all grids and stuff. The bit that was supposed to impress me was a ring he’d drawn in what looked like red felt-pen around an area that has its centre in mountains twenty miles northwest of the town of Homs. The ring‘s diameter roughly ten miles.’
Elwell was Head of Chancery. Forty-three, and overweight. Hilary Elwell, who was as skinny as her husband was far, had brought them a tray of tea and biscuits a few minutes ago, then made herself scarce. Elwell asked Liz — nibbling on a biscuit, and with a clipboard in front of him on which he was making neatly tabulated notes — ‘Are you sure of those figures, distances, as — what, approximations?’
She nodded. ‘That kind of map has latitude and longitude scales marked not just at the sides like charts have, but more or less all over. As well as the grid, which I’m sorry to say doesn’t mean a lot to me.’
‘You could estimate distances from those scales, though?’
‘From the latitude scale. It was shown on longitude 35 east, which is roughly fifty miles off the coast.’
‘You sound like a navigator.’
‘I’ve sailed quite a bit, I’m used to charts.’
‘I see… anything else to say about this map?’
Special Deception Page 7
