City of Gold. Len Deighton

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СКАЧАТЬ open. The dead man looked very old and small.

      Suddenly Ross stopped feeling sorry. He felt a pang of fear. They would say he’d done it, he’d murdered this military policeman: Captain Cutler. They’d say he’d fed him poison or hit him the way he’d hit that cowardly bastard he’d killed. He tried to still his fears, telling himself that they couldn’t hang you twice. Telling himself that he’d look forward to seeing their faces when they found him with a corpse. It was no good; he was scared.

      He stared down at the handcuffs. His wrists had become chafed. He might as well unlock them. That was the first thing to do, and then perhaps he’d get help. Cutler kept the key in his right-side jacket pocket, and it was easy to find. There were other keys on the same ring, including the little keys to Cutler’s other luggage that was in the baggage car. He rubbed his wrists. It was good to get the cuffs off. Cutler had been decent enough about the handcuffing. One couldn’t blame a man for taking precautions with a murderer.

      With the handcuffs removed, Jimmy Ross felt different. He juggled the keys in the palm of his hand and on an impulse unlocked Cutler’s leather case and opened it. There were papers there: official papers. Ross wanted to see what the authorities had written about his case.

      It was amazing what people carried around with them: a bottle of shampoo, a silver locket with the photo of an older woman, a silver-backed hairbrush, and a letter from a Glasgow branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland acknowledging that he’d closed his mother’s account with them. It was dated three months before. Now that the mail from Britain went round Africa, it was old by the time it arrived. A green cardboard file of papers about Cutler’s job in Cairo. ‘Albert George Cutler … To become a major with effect the first December 1941.’ So the new job brought him promotion too. Acting and unpaid, of course; promotions were usually like that, as he knew from working in the orderly room. But a major; a major was a somebody.

      He looked at the other papers in the case but he could find nothing about himself. Travel warrant, movement order, a brown envelope containing six big white five-pound notes and seven one-pound notes. A tiny handyman’s diary with tooled leather cover and a neat little pencil in a holder in its spine. Then he found the amazing identity pass that all the special investigation staff carried, a pink-coloured SIB warrant card. He’d heard rumours about these passes but he didn’t think he’d ever hold one in his hands. It was a carte blanche. The rights accorded the bearer of the pass were all-embracing. Captain Cutler could wear any uniform or civilian clothes he chose, assume any rank, go anywhere and do anything he wished.

      A pass like this would be worth a thousand pounds on the black market. He looked at the photograph of Cutler. It was a poor photograph, hurriedly snapped by some conscripted photographer and insufficiently fixed so that the print was already turning yellow. It was undoubtedly Cutler, but it could have been any one of a thousand other men.

      It was then that the thought came to him that he could pass himself off as Cutler. Cutler’s hair was described as straight, and Ross’s hair was wavy, but with short army haircuts there was little difference to be seen. When alive Cutler had been red complexioned, while Ross was tanned and more healthy looking. But the black-and-white photograph revealed nothing of this. Their heights were different, Cutler shorter by a couple of inches, but it seemed unlikely that anyone would approach him with a tape measure and check it out. He stood up and looked in the little mirror, and held in view the photo to compare it. It was not a really close likeness, but how many people asked a military police major to prove his identity? Not many.

      Then his heart sank as he realised that the clothes would give them away. He’d have to arrive wearing the white linen suit.

      Changing clothes would be too much; he couldn’t go through with that. He opened Cutler’s other bag. It was a fine green canvas bag of the sort that equipped safaris. Inside, right at the top, was the pair of white canvas trousers. Ross made sure that the blinds were down and then he changed into the trousers. Damn! They were a couple of inches too short.

      Then he had another idea. He’d get off the train in his corporal’s uniform and use the SIB pass. But that would leave the corpse wearing mufti. Would they believe that an army corporal would arrive in civilian clothes? Why not? They’d arrested Ross in the corporal’s uniform he was wearing. Had he been wearing a civilian suit, they would not have equipped him with a uniform for the journey, would they?

      He looked at himself again. Certainly those white trousers would not do. With an overcoat he might have been able to let the waist of the trousers go low enough to look normal. But without an overcoat he’d look like a circus clown. Shit! He could have sobbed with frustration.

      Well, it was the corporal’s uniform or nothing. He looked at himself in the little mirror and tried imitating Cutler’s Glasgow accent. It wasn’t difficult. To his reflection he said, ‘This is the chance you’ve always prayed for, Jimmy. The star has collapsed and you’re going on in his place. Just make sure you get your bloody lines right.’

      It was worth a try. But he wouldn’t need the voice. All he wanted to do was just get off the train, and disappear into the crowds. He’d find some place to hide for a few days. Then he’d figure out where to go. In a big town like Cairo he’d have a chance to get clear away. Rumour said the town was alive with military criminals and deserters and black-market crooks. What about money? If he could find some little army unit in the back of beyond, he’d bowl in and ask for a ‘casual pay parade’. He knew how that was done; transient personnel were always wanting pay. Meanwhile, he had nearly forty pounds. In a place like Cairo that would be enough for a week or two: maybe a month. He’d have to find a hotel. Such places as the YMCA and the hostels and other institutions were regularly checked for deserters. The real trouble would be the railway station and getting past the military police patrols. Those red-capped bastards hung around stations like wasps around a jam jar. He had Cutler’s pass, but would they believe he was an SIB officer? More likely they’d believe that he was a corporal without a leave pass.

      He sat down and tried to think objectively. When he looked up he was startled to find the dead eyes of Cutler staring straight at him. He reached out and gently touched his face, half expecting the dead man to smile or speak. But Cutler was dead, very dead. Damn him! Jimmy Ross got up and went to another seat. He had to think.

      About five minutes later he started. He had to be very methodical. First he would empty his own pockets, and then he would empty Cutler’s pockets. They had to completely change identity. Don’t forget the signet ring his mother had given him; it would be a shame to lose it but it might be convincing. He’d have to strip the body. He must look inside shirts and socks for name tapes and laundry labels too. Officers didn’t do their own washing: they were likely to have their names on every last thing. There was an Agatha Christie yarn in which the laundry label was the most incriminating clue. One slip could bring disaster.

      As the train clattered over the points to come into Cairo station, Ross undid the heavy leather strap that lowered the window. Everyone else on the train seemed to have the same idea. There were heads bobbing from every compartment. The smell of the engine smoke was strong but not so powerful as to conceal the smell of the city itself. Other cities smelled of beer or garlic or stale tobacco. Cairo’s characteristic smell was none of those. Here was a more intriguing mix: jasmine flowers, spices, sewerage, burning charcoal, and desert dust. Ross leaned forward to see better.

      He need not have bothered. They would have found the compartment; they were looking for the distinctive RESERVED signs. There were two military policemen complete with red-topped caps and beautifully blancoed webbing belts and revolver holsters. With them there was a captain wearing his best uniform: starched shirt, knitted tie and a smart peaked cap. A military police officer! The only other time he’d ever seen one of those was when he was formally arrested.

      It was the officer who noticed Ross СКАЧАТЬ