City of Gold. Len Deighton

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      ‘Major Cutler?’ The officer didn’t know whether to salute this man in corporal’s uniform.

      ‘Yes. I’m Cutler. An investigation. I haven’t had a chance to change,’ said Ross, as casually as he could. He was nervous; could they hear that in his voice? ‘I’m stuck with this uniform for the time being.’ He wondered whether he should bring out his identity papers but decided that doing so might look odd. He hadn’t reckoned on anyone’s coming to meet him. It had given him a jolt.

      ‘Good journey, sir? I’m Captain Marker, your number one.’ Marker smiled. He’d heard that some of these civvy detectives liked to demonstrate their eccentricities. He supposed that wearing ‘other ranks’ uniforms was one of them. He realised that his new master might take some getting used to.

      Jimmy Ross stayed at the window without opening the train door. ‘We’ve got a problem, Marker. I’ve got a prisoner here. He’s been taken sick.’

      ‘We’ll take care of that, sir.’

      ‘Very sick,’ said Ross hastily. ‘You are going to need a stretcher. He was taken ill during the journey.’ With Marker still looking up at him quizzically, Ross improvised. ‘His heart, I think. He told me he’d had heart trouble, but I didn’t realise how bad he was.’

      Marker stepped up on the running board of the train and bent his head to see the figure hunched in his corner seat. Civilian clothes: a white linen suit. Why did these deserters always want to get into civilian clothes? Khaki was the best protective colouring. Then Marker looked at his new boss. For a moment he was wondering if he’d beaten the prisoner. There was no blood or marks anywhere to be seen but men who beat prisoners make sure there is no such evidence.

      Ross saw what he was thinking. ‘Nothing like that, Captain Marker. I don’t hit handcuffed men. Anyway he’s been a perfect prisoner. But I don’t want the army blamed for ill-treating him. I think we should do it all according to the rule book. Get him on a stretcher and get him to hospital for examination.’

      ‘There’s no need for you to be concerned with that, sir.’ Marker turned to one of his MPs. ‘One of you stay with the prisoner. The other, go and phone the hospital.’

      ‘He’s still handcuffed,’ said Ross who’d put the steel cuffs on the dead man’s wrists to reinforce his identity as the prisoner. ‘You’ll need the key.’

      ‘Just leave it to my coppers,’ said Marker taking it from him and passing it to the remaining red cap. ‘We’d better hurry along and sort out your baggage. The thieves in this town can whisk a ten-ton truck into thin air and then come back for the logbook.’ Marker looked at him; Ross smiled.

      Ten billion particles of dust in the air picked up the light of the dying sun that afternoon, so that the slanting beams gleamed like bars of gold. So did the smoke and steam and the back-lit figures hurrying in all directions. Even Marker was struck by the scene.

      ‘They call it the city of gold,’ he said. There was another train departing. It shrieked and whistled in the background while crowds of soldiers and officers were fussing around the mountains of kitbags and boxes and steamer trunks that were piling up high on the platforms.

      ‘Yes, I used to know a poem about it,’ said Ross. ‘A wonderful poem.’

      ‘A poem?’ Marker was surprised to hear that this man was a devotee of poetry. In fact he was astonished to learn that any SIB major, particularly one who’d risen to this position through the ranks of the Glasgow force, would like any poem. ‘Which one was that, sir?’

      Ross was suddenly embarrassed. ‘Oh, I don’t remember exactly. Something about Cairo’s buildings and mud huts looking like the beaten gold the thieves plunder from the ancient tombs.’ He’d been about to recite the poem, but suddenly the life was knocked out of him as he remembered that his own kitbag was there too. His first impulse was to ignore it, but then it would go to ‘Lost Luggage’ and they’d track it back to a prisoner named James Ross. What should he do?

      ‘I should have brought three men,’ said Marker apologetically as they stood near the baggage car, looking at the luggage. ‘I wasn’t calculating on us having to sort out your own gear.’

      ‘Just one more bag,’ said Ross. ‘Green canvas, with a leather strap round it. There it is.’ Then he saw the kitbag. Luckily it had suffered wear and tear over the months since his enlistment. The stencilled name ROSS and his regimental number had faded. ‘And the brown kitbag.’

      ‘Porter,’ called Marker to a native with a trolley. ‘Bring these bags.’ He kicked them with his toe. ‘Follow us.’ To his superior he explained, ‘You must always get one with a metal badge and remember his number.’ He politely took Cutler’s leather briefcase. ‘It’s not worth bringing a car here,’ explained Marker. ‘We’re in the Bab-el-Hadid barracks. It’s just across the midan.’

      Marker kept walking, out through the ticket barrier, across the crowded concourse and the station forecourt. The porter followed. Once outside the station, there was all the bustle of a big city. It was the sort of day that Europeans relished. It was winter, the air was silky, and the sun was going down in a hazy blue sky.

      So this was Cairo. Ross was looking around for a way of escape but Marker was determined to play the perfect subordinate. ‘You’ll find you’ve got a pretty good team,’ said Marker. ‘And what a brief! Go anywhere, interrogate anyone and arrest almost anyone. “You’re a sort of British Gestapo,” the brigadier told us the other day. The brigadier’s a decent old cove too; you’ll like him. He’ll support you to the end. All you have to worry about is catching Rommel’s spy.’

      Ross grunted his affirmation.

      Marker froze. Suddenly he realised that this probably wasn’t the way the army treated a newly arrived superior. And not the way to describe a brigadier. Marker had been the junior partner in a law office before volunteering for the army. It was the way he treated his colleagues back home, but perhaps this fellow Cutler was expecting something more formal and more military.

      They walked on in silence, brushing aside hordes of people. All of them seemed to be selling something. They brandished trays upon which were arrayed shoelaces, flyswatters, sweet cakes, pencils and guidebooks. The great open space before the station was alive with peddlars. And there was Englishness too: little trees, neat little patches of flowers, and even green grass.

      ‘That’s the barracks,’ said Marker. ‘Not far now.’

      In the distance, Ross saw a grim-looking crusader castle of ochre-coloured stone. The low rays of the sun caught the sandstone tower so that it too gleamed like gold.

      Ross looked around. He didn’t want to go into the barracks; he wanted to get away. There were too many policemen in evidence for him to run. Half a dozen men of the Cairo force came riding past, mounted on well-groomed horses. The British army’s policemen were not to be seen on horses. With their red-topped peaked caps they stood in pairs, feet lightly apart and hands loosely clasped behind their backs. They were everywhere, and all of them were armed.

      Back at the train compartment, the two MPs were waiting for the doctor to arrive. The elder of the two men assumed seniority. He wore First World War ribbons on his chest. He’d leaned into the compartment and spoken to the dead man a couple of times and got no response. Now he said, ‘Dead.’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Stone СКАЧАТЬ