City of Gold. Len Deighton

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      ‘The Sweet Melody Club, perhaps?’ said Solomon. It was a joke; the Melody was a notorious place where every evening’s performance ended with the Egyptian national anthem, to which British soldiers bellowed obscene words. A riot always ensued. Lately the band had been protected behind barbed wire.

      Marker looked at him for a moment, and then sniffed. ‘Inspector Khalil’s men will search your boat.’ Through the wooden bulkheads and deck came noises made by men opening and closing cupboards and containers. Solomon recognised the sounds as those made by police specially trained to search carefully and thoroughly. Sometimes the British brought men who were encouraged to break furniture and chinaware and do as much damage as possible.

      ‘Of course,’ said Solomon. ‘Search. Yes. I insist. Please treat this boat in the same way as any other. I want no special treatment. It is my privilege to cooperate with the security forces in any way possible.’

      ‘May I see your papers, miss?’ said Captain Marker. He was looking at Peggy.

      Solomon answered. ‘I can vouch for Peggy West. She is one of Cairo’s fairest and firmest fixtures.’

      Captain Marker still looked at Peggy as if he’d not heard Solomon. ‘Is that your 1938 Studebaker parked under the trees, Miss West?’

      ‘Mrs West. No, I don’t have a car. I walked here.’

      ‘It’s a chilly night for a stroll. Do you have your passport, Mrs West?’

      ‘I don’t have it with me. It’s at the Hotel Magnifico. I live there.’

      Solomon said, ‘She drops in on me once a week. I let her have recent English newspapers. We were just saying good night.’

      ‘Recent newspapers?’ said Marker raising his eyes to give all his attention to Solomon.

      ‘The planes come via Gibraltar – sometimes ships too. One of the senior customs officials lets me have them.’

      Solomon turned away from the Englishman’s stare. He got his passport from a drawer and handed it to the captain. The cover announced that it was a US passport.

      ‘We’re in the war together now, Captain,’ said Solomon as he passed the American passport to him. ‘We’re friends and allies now, right?’

      Marker studied the cover, then the photo and then looked at Solomon. The passport was in the name of Solomon Marx. ‘We always have been, Mr Marx.’ He gave him the passport back. ‘Thank you, sir. My men will not take long. Since you’re just saying good night, I’ll take you back to your hotel, Mrs West. You’ll be able to formally identify yourself.’

      She hesitated but then agreed. There was no alternative. It was wartime. Egypt was a sovereign state and technically a neutral in the war, but any order of the British military police here was law.

      When Peggy West, Captain Marker and all the policemen had departed, Solomon sat down with a large bottle of beer. His manservant shed a measure of his deference. ‘What was that all about, then?’ he asked Solomon. The servant was in fact his partner, a Palestinian Jew named Yigal Arad. He’d lived amongst Arabs all his life and had no difficulty in passing himself off as one. For a year or more he’d been an officer of the Haganah, an armed Jewish force. He collected a British army commendation and a gunshot wound in the knee from a Châtellerault machine gun, when guiding British troops across the Syrian border to attack the Vichy French forces the previous summer. The 7.5mm round, now a bent and twisted talisman, hung from a cord round his neck.

      ‘What was it all about?’ repeated Solomon as he thought about the question. ‘The British simply want to let us know they have their eye on us.’

      Solomon was the leader of this two-man Cairo mission. Solomon al-Masri – or to those who knew him well, or got a look at his US passport: Solly Marx – had also been born in Palestine, the son of a Russian Jew. His father had lost all his relatives in a pogrom and had never come to terms with the strange and sunny land to which he’d escaped, except to marry a young Arab woman who gave birth to Solomon and five other children. When his father became bedridden, it was Solomon who’d found ways of keeping the family clothed and fed. Some of those ways he now preferred to forget about. That’s why he had taken the first opportunity to leave his homeland. Never now would he discuss his early life, and yet the key to all Solomon’s thoughts and actions could be found in the pity and disgust he felt for that child he’d once been.

      ‘That’s all?’ Yigal persisted.

      Solomon yawned. It was an affectation, like his languid manner and the fictitious stories about his father, and the sumptuous Cairo mansion which he liked to pretend had been his family home. ‘There are not many real secrets in this town. We must let the British discover some of our little secrets in order to keep our big secrets intact.’

      ‘She always wants unsweetened coffee.’

      ‘Perhaps she doesn’t want to get fat.’

      ‘At home we drink it sweet. Unsweetened coffee is only served for funerals.’

      ‘Because your people are all peasants,’ said Solomon without rancour. ‘Here in Cairo people are more sophisticated.’

      ‘Will you confide in the woman?’ He poured a beer for himself.

      ‘Peggy West? I might have to.’

      ‘And take her with us when we leave?’

      ‘You know that would be impossible.’

      ‘She’ll talk.’

      Solomon looked at him but didn’t reply.

      ‘She’ll talk, Solomon. The British will squeeze her, and she’ll tell them everything she knows.’

      ‘Don’t rush your fences, Yigal. I’ll tell her nothing until I’m quite certain that she’s not already spying for the British.’

      ‘Peggy West?’

      ‘Figure it out for yourself. The British must be curious about the prince for the same reasons we are. Peggy was here before the war. She must be registered with the embassy, with the Hotel Magnifico as her permanent address. It would be sensible of them to ask Peggy to report on what the prince is saying at his parties.’

      ‘You have a devious mind, Solomon.’

      ‘I am logical. That is why Tel Aviv gave me this job.’

      ‘You are cynical, and that is quite different.’

      ‘All men serve two masters; that is human nature.’

      ‘Two masters?’

      ‘We both know British soldiers who salute the union jack but who are also Jews. I know some British soldiers who even combine loyalty to their king with a faith in Soviet communism. Prince Piotr no doubt has a love for Mother Russia, but he detests Uncle Stalin and might well be helping the Germans. We know proud Egyptians who faithfully obey the British. It is a lucky man indeed who works for only one master.’

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