A Cold Touch of Ice. Michael Pearce

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      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       1

       2

       3

       4

       5

       6

       7

       8

       9

      10

      11

      12

      13

      14

      15

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      17

       Keep Reading

      About the Author

      Also by Michael Pearce

       About the Publisher

       1

      A man pushed his way through the crowd and arrived at the bar beside Owen.

      ‘Wahid whisky-soda!’ he instructed the bartender. ‘No, make that a double. After all,’ he said, turning to the company, ‘it’s not every day that one gets a death threat in the mail.’

      ‘Yes, it is,’ objected the man on his other side. ‘I get one every morning.’

      ‘Ah, but that’s just from colleagues or from the Finance Department. Mine,’ said the man, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket and waving it with a flourish, ‘is the Real Thing.’

      ‘Can I have a look?’ Owen stretched out his hand. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it’s the same handwriting.’

      ‘Same as what?’

      ‘The one I got.’

      Someone peered over his shoulder.

      ‘It’s just an ordinary bazaar letter-writer!’ he said disgustedly. ‘That doesn’t count!’

      ‘Just because you haven’t got one, Patterson!’

      ‘How many other people have had one?’ asked Owen.’

      Several other people put up their hands.

      ‘You see!’ said the first man. ‘It’s just people who are important. Sorry about that, Patterson!’

      Some had their letters with them.

      ‘I was going to have mine framed, so that my grandchildren will see that once upon a time I was a man to be taken seriously.’

      They passed them to Owen.

      ‘It’s all the same handwriting,’ said Owen.

      ‘You mean it’s only one man? Well, that is a relief. I thought it was everybody that wanted to kill us.’

      ‘It’s just some nut? Well, I do fell let down.’

      ‘Don’t worry prematurely,’ counselled Owen. ‘Perhaps he means it.’

      There was no doubt, thought Owen, as he sat in a meeting later that afternoon, that the British were unpopular in Egypt. The letter-writer was not an isolated case. Since the war had started, there had been a number of such expressions of hostility. Stones had been thrown, British-owned premises vandalized and solitary soldiers attacked on their way back to barracks.

      And yet, for once, it was not Britain’s fault. When, a few months before, Italy had invaded Tripolitania, and Turkey, to whom Tripolitania belonged, had retaliated by declaring war, Britain sought to stay neutral. Unfortunately, that was not what most Egyptians wanted. Egypt was still, at least in theory, part of the Ottoman Empire and Egyptian sympathies were heavily with Turkey.

      ‘Egypt is, after all,’ Ismet Bey, the Turkish representative at the meeting, was saying now, ‘our country.’

      Well, yes and no. Yes, it was true, Egypt was still formally part of the Ottoman Empire and the Khedive, Egypt’s ruler, owed allegiance to the Sultan at Istanbul. But in practice СКАЧАТЬ