The Sweeney 03

by Ian Kennedy-Martin

  He turned and followed the chauffeur and the Bahraini across the fresh grit tarmacadam and up the steps, through the doors, and into the wall of cold air guarding the hotel lobby.

  Reception appeared poised, waiting for them as if they had been expected all morning. In the next few minutes they made their processing under the roof somehow an event of significance, but also discreet. The Hertz chauffeur who had driven them in from St. Raphael spoke little English. Hijaz, it turned out, spoke French like a native. There was some formal talk in both English and French about the impending arrival of Sheikh Almadi. What time would the sheikh be arriving? Should they send a car for him? No, Hijaz said, there would be several cars prearranged at the airport. He was arriving between five and six.

  ‘If you would require anything, you must not hesitate to ask ...’ the senior clerk addressed Regan. But Hijaz nodded to him, well acquainted with the formalities, as if he’d spent his life booking into hotels. He turned to Regan.

  ‘Would you mind to go ahead to the suite. I do have details to discuss with these gentlemen.’

  Regan nodded and followed a bellhop up the white stairs.

  The bellhop bowed him into the suite. There were signs and smells of the place just having been cleaned – lavender polish, and bath scour. He went to the French windows, two sets with two balconies, and opened them wide.

  Silence trapped in the still air, no movement on the lawn spreading out to fringe the cobalt water. The colours of the garden slightly shrill to his eyes.

  He was aware of someone behind him and turned. There was a frizzy-haired man, middle-aged, with a tray of scotch, demi-bottle of Evian and ice in a second glass. Presumably a present from Hijaz. He gestured the man to put the tray down on a massive escritoire. The waiter went out silently.

  He turned to his scotch on the tray. He put one ball of ice into the glass, then topped up with a lot of Evian. He sipped, and felt the fatigue soak into him as his body relaxed. He studied out of the window to the view of the sea again. ‘What the fuck am I doing here?’ he asked himself, half aloud, and he suddenly realized it was a real question and not rhetorical.

  He heard the door close and Hijaz was standing there. ‘You like it? Nice hotel, eh? Classy views.’ Hijaz moved over and took up a stance at one of the open French windows. ‘Place looks good.’ His eyes on the gardens, clipped lawns and high trees, the look that of a businessman who has just bought the hotel ‘When was the last time I was here? Two years. It never runs down, this hotel. The buildings, the grounds, like they have just been freshly laundered. Charming.’

  Regan pondered. ‘I’m studying the lay-out from the point of view of an assassin’s bullet.’

  ‘Relax. We don’t have to worry for a few hours until Almadi comes.’

  Two porters entered with the suitcases, eight of them. Seven belonged to Hijaz, one was Regan’s. Hijaz directed the porters to take his luggage up to the Almadi suite.

  The phone rang. Hijaz went over and picked it up. He said one ‘Oui’ into it, and put it down. He turned to Regan. ‘Rejoice,’ he said, ‘the crumpet has arrived...’

  Sheikh Almadi had sent his girls on in advance – six of them. The stay in Hotel du Cap was not scheduled to last more than a week. It didn’t have the formality of an official visit, so he didn’t bring his wives. The girls were all European, three French, two German, and an English girl named Jo. Regan had met her at the nightclub in Frith Street. He had forgotten her. She had remembered him.

  They arrived in three cars. They all knew each other from Almadi’s regular sorties in Europe. Regan had a problem believing his eyes. They were all extremely beautiful. It was like a fantasy from a tit mag. The Sheikh and the retinue of pretty girls. And then the extension of that. These girls were not here to decorate the foyer of Hotel du Cap – these were working girls. They all knew each other. So what was the work?

  They arrived in the hotel between two and three p.m. Hijaz met them, embraced them, was not too sure about each of their names, but introduced them and laughed when they corrected his pronunciation. Regan was introduced as ‘a very important policeman from London’.

  ‘You on duty?’ Jo asked.

  ‘No,’ Regan said. ‘You come here often?’

  ‘We met in London,’ she said. ‘Prive Numero Un. You don’t remember?’

  He shook his head. Alcohol had stepped between the projector and the brain screen that night.

  ‘You raped me in a Rolls Royce with six other people in it.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘Not sure, but you certainly tried. I remember we dropped you off at an engine shed in Hammersmith where you said you lived.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘I remember you were funny.’

  Regan said nothing, gave a smile. She was lovely. The mistake would be to rush fences. He had to find out what the Hell was going on – six girls and a sheikh. He caught himself shaking his head in a mimic of mild Victorian disapproval as the lovely girls spilled in and out of Reception, sorting out their room numbers within the Almadi suite, arranging for baggage to be brought in from cars, all this under the quiet no-questions stares of the hotel staff. Then he caught himself further along the extension of his thoughts. There was no doubt who was the prettiest of the six – Jo. Twenty-two to twenty-four, tall, straw-coloured blonde, silk fine hair. She was not at all the shape that Regan’s dad would have gone for – no tits or arse, built to an age of compromise and sexual ambivalence. Regan’s dad would have said her legs were too long. Regan’s eyes followed the length of them tight in Newman jeans, and his mind speculated on long nights and the spaces between. A face like an adolescent boy, but a young girl’s full lips.

  Blue, mildly worried eyes, even when she laughed – a girl who had probably run a gamut of problems and worked them out enough to remain reasonably intact. Her voice, just like the other girls of Prive Numero Un, Buckinghamshire County Council, Cordon Bleu cookery classes, nil academic attainments, but despite that, bright. She laughed a nice clear laugh, had a sense of humour about this situation. Here she was in a bunch of international call girls, all here to wriggle their fannies at some old fart.

  Hijaz had said Almadi was sixty years old. Was he also a perfectionist, in which case he must give the major part of his attention to the English Jo, or was he decrepit, shortsighted, gone blind with too much of it, in which case Jo might have spare time? The half dozen sentences she had said to Regan implied spaces between suggesting that she might maybe be interested in him, given a little encouragement.

  The girls took twenty minutes to settle everything, dispatch their luggage to the suite, re-do their make-up. Then they all decided they were hungry. They strolled down towards Eden Roc. The desk clerk had told them the restaurant would stay open for an extra half hour. It was ten past three. The gardens were empty apart from the sound of the girls and their laughter, and the plopping of some tennis balls hit by unseen players behind screens of herbage.

  They went into the Pavilion Eden Roc.

  There were six late lunchers still eating. And too many waiters talking in low voices to each other as they busied themselves doing nothing in a series of fast ferrying trips around the sea of empty tables.

  Hijaz ordered the table for eight, then stood about like a mother hen telling the girls where they should sit. Regan ignored him, and when Jo sat, he sat down next to her.

  Regan looked at his menu. It all looked exotic. All he wanted was something light, grilled, plain. He had to work this afternoon. He turned to Jo. ‘Tell me, what do you and your pals do for this old sheikh?’

  ‘We mind our own business.’ She said it like she meant it, her eyes not leaving the menu. Then she relaxed and looked up. ‘I’ll have some lamb navarin.’ Then she said, ‘Almadi’s nice. He likes us to run around without any clothes on. He’s pretty uncomplicated. He has simple tastes. He likes a bit of a cuddle and a feel. Seldom more. Got it?’

  Regan nodded without committing himself
to approval or disapproval. ‘How much d’you get paid for this ...?’

  Her laugh was open and ironic. ‘You expect an answer?’ Then she shrugged it off. ‘The answer is he’s very generous. I turned down four days modelling on a big new Chrysler model launch, to be here.’ She smiled again. ‘What does he pay you...?’

  ‘I’m on Met cid overseas per diem. Eight pounds fifty a day plus reasonable travelling allowances, and I would have qualified for Colonial outfitting at Allkits except I didn’t know the weather would be like this.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Acting as a security adviser for Almadi.’

  ‘He’s as secure as the Bank of England. What’s your Christian name?’

  ‘Jack.’

  ‘It is beautiful weather, Jack. I think you and I are going to have a nice time.’

  At the end of lunch they all trailed back to the hotel. Jo found the gravel too hot to the touch. She had taken her shoes off, tied the laces together and slung them over her shoulder. ‘Let’s go for a drive.’

  Everyone agreed. It was still several hours before Almadi arrived. They would go up for the best view of the coastline. Hijaz chose three of the girls and led the way in a Mercedes. Jo announced she would take the other two. Regan did not get a specific invitation to join them in the little Hertz Simca. But he went over and sat in the front seat next to her.

  They headed off, the Simca trailing the Merc, down the coast road to Nice, through the vacant pre-season city and round the back on to the Moyenne Corniche. It took half an hour to navigate up on to the Grande Corniche and up again to the crystal air of Eze then in five minutes down from Eze to Les Hauts for the Hollywood view of the Cote d’Azur. Two miles below the white piano keys of the new tower blocks of Monaco mixed in with the minarets of original baroque, and thirty miles visibility of the coast and the resorts stretched in each direction.

  The girls spilled out of the cars and moved through the tall grass. One of them had a frisbee, and it passed around spinning high and awkward from the gusts of wind below. One of the French girls had lived in Menton some years back, said she knew some beautiful and attainable men there, and after Almadi had returned to Bahrain she would go to Menton and not sleep for a week. There were catcalls and Hijaz threw the frisbee to bump her on the head. Regan wandered through the rocks and rye grass down to the edge of the cliffs. The drop was spectacular – the first drop an almost perpendicular fall of fifteen hundred feet. He heard footfalls in the rocks and turned. Jo was coming through some gullies to join him.

  ‘Beautiful,’ she said of the view.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What a day.’

  ‘It’s cold.’

  ‘It’s sunny, after the filth of England these last few weeks.’

  He kept looking at her. ‘Why are we talking about the weather?’

  ‘What else shall we talk about?’

  He shrugged.

  She laughed, a feminine laugh, no nervousness or fake pretension. ‘You name it.’

  ‘Okay, when do we get together and fuck?’

  She made a little biting gesture of her lips, working it out. ‘I’ve never met a detective before.’

  ‘Is that good?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She looked out across the fall of land to the blue water, and further to the soft blue horizon. ‘What are you doing with Hijaz and this Almadi group?’

  ‘I think it’s all right to tell you, there have been some attempts against certain people’s lives. Almadi is known to be a target.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How interesting.’ She sounded like she meant it.

  ‘I was working on a case in London, they’ve shipped me down here.’

  ‘Probably not tonight, maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The answer to your question.’

  He took her hand, studied it, and was silent for a moment. Then they turned and walked up the pathway through another group of rocks and round and back to the cars.

  On their return to the hotel the group split up to prepare for Almadi’s arrival. Regan went to his room and put in a call to Scotland Yard. He asked for Chief Superintendent Maynon. Maynon’s voice came on the line. He sounded tired. ‘Yes, Jack. Anything to report?’

  ‘Good food, digs, nice gardens, girls, not necessarily in that order.’

  ‘Almadi?’

  ‘Not arrived yet. But the pillow talks organized. I’m not invited. I can’t understand how people who lay on orgies always get prudish at the idea of an extra guest...’

  ‘Have you anything to report, Regan?’ Maynon’s voice irritated.

  ‘Yes. There is a point to this call. Just to remind you, and the ACC, and the Special Branch, and any others involved, that I still reserve my position. If I find out that I’m being led up the garden path by Special Branch, you or anyone else for whatever reason, then I’ll be giving you a lot of problems...’

  ‘Goodbye, Jack,’ Maynon said, and put down the phone.

  Hijaz rang the bell of Regan’s room at six o’clock. Regan opened the door. The Bahreini stepped in and crossed to the window and looked out as if he expected to see something or someone below. ‘What do you want to do tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you and Almadi about security. I’d like to check the hotel by night...’

  ‘What sort of check?’

  ‘From the point of view of someone walking in with a gun.’

  ‘What sort of discussion do you want with Almadi?’

  ‘I want to know his movements for the next two days. I’d also want to describe to him the killer I saw in the Wellington. I’d like to see if I can get him thinking about anywhere in his life he might have met the guy. Questioning people is the Pandora’s box, sometimes they turn up answers they didn’t even know they had...’

  ‘Jack, I’d like if possible you don’t press to meet Sheikh Almadi tonight. He has many matters to attend to. Tomorrow morning would be a good time.’

  Regan wondered about that and decided he didn’t really care. If Almadi wanted to give himself a coronary with one or all six ball-breakers and save the assassin a bullet, then that was his own business. Although he would shortly make sure that the sheikhs suite was as secure at night as by day. At the same time Regan felt it was a pity that his own attitudes were so unsympathetic to these people. He couldn’t really get worked up about the idea of someone pot-shotting at sheikh’s. Did it matter – was it relevant to him, his life, his career in London as a Flying Squad detective? ‘Wish him joy on the many matters he has to attend to. The morning will do to meet him.’

  ‘Ten a.m. For one hour. The French Foreign Minister is to see him at eleven.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Will you have dinner with me later tonight?’ Hijaz asked.

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Say eight-thirty?’

  ‘Fine.’

  The broad-built Bahreini started moving to the door.

  Regan stopped him. ‘Hijaz.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I like the girl Jo. Would she get into trouble with her employer if she spent a few hours with me?’

  ‘I’m glad you raised the point,’ Hijaz said coldly. ‘When Almadi pays a great deal of money for his women, he doesn’t like being taken for a ride. Jo is his favourite.’

  ‘So bugger him,’ Regan said quietly.

  Hijaz shrugged and walked out of the room.

  They made love. The bed was by the window, and the stars looked down. She had a great physical passion but she used it subtly so that Regan felt he was offering as much to her as she to him. He paced her needs, learning that she found love a violent thing that she could take more than the deepest thrusts, and then more. She stopped him once, not just for simple want but real need that it last longer. And in the end she was crying, but not from pain or failure, but because she was happy and holding him hard into her beautiful body because she could not let
him go.

  It was midnight, somewhere a clock in the hotel made truncated chimes, not a dozen of them. Regan counted six as he held her and studied the stars. Out there the moon retreating and the blanket of the night covering over the aftermath of sweet mysteries. Regan alarmed to find such a girl, worried at the exotic circumstances in which he’d found her, because he now saw it as unlikely that this sudden love could transfer back to London. And he wanted that, as he wanted her. And he scanned his memory over the dozen beds and couplings of these last years since his divorce, and he could not remember any woman who had loved and remade him like this girl Jo had done tonight.