Solomon sipped his beer. For a moment it seemed as if he would not reply. Then he said, ‘Many years ago there lived a scholar who asked an old rabbi what could be learned from the Talmud. The rabbi told him of two men who fell down a chimney. One man arrived at the bottom dirty, while the other arrived clean. Is that the lesson of the Talmud? the scholar asked. No, replied the old rabbi, listen to me: the dirty man looked at the clean man and thought himself clean. Is that the lesson of the Talmud? asked the scholar. No, replied the rabbi, for the dirtied man looked at his own hands and seeing them sooty knew he’d been dirtied. This then is the lesson of the Talmud? said the scholar. No, said the rabbi. Then what am I to learn from the Talmud? asked the scholar. The rabbi told him: You will learn nothing from the Talmud if you start by believing that two men can fall down a chimney and not both be dirtied.’
4
They’d given Jimmy Ross his predecessor’s quarters. He was in the massive Citadel of Muhammad Ali, which overlooked the whole city. In this ancient fortification the British garrison had long made their home. Within its bounds there were a military hospital, swimming pool, tennis courts, stables and extensive parade grounds. He’d been assigned a comfortable bedroom plus cramped sitting room in what – until the families had been evacuated – had been the army’s married quarters.
Jimmy Ross dined alone in his room that night. It was not considered unusual. Senior SIB personnel were a law unto themselves, everyone knew that. In fact, many of the other officers stayed well clear of these ‘secret policemen’. He got a decent meal of stewed chicken, rice and steamed pudding with jam. Then he systematically sorted through Cutler’s kit and his own. He must get rid of that kit bag. With the name Ross still faintly legible on the side of it, it was incriminating evidence. There were a few other things. He tore from his books the pages on which he’d written his name and flushed them down the toilet. He scraped his name from the back of a shoe brush and tore off some Ross name tags from his underclothes.
His worst shock came when he tried on the battle dress from Cutler’s suitcase. He’d not calculated on Cutler’s having such long arms. Battle dress was the same for all ranks, so he’d reckoned on wearing Cutler’s top with his own trousers. But the khaki blouse did not fit him. There was no getting away from it; it looked absurd. He could, of course, continue to wear the corporal’s uniform, but there was always the chance that some bright copper would take note of the fact that the dead prisoner from the railway train just happened to be a corporal too. He slept on his problems and woke up rested. It was a wonderful sunny morning. It gave him renewed vigour and renewed hope.
He didn’t want to tackle the Bab-el-Hadid barracks alone. A new sentry might well make difficulties for someone in a shabby corporal’s uniform. He phoned his office and spoke with Marker. ‘I’ve got some things to do in town,’ he said airily. ‘Give the Stanhope girl my new pass and have her bring it to me at lunchtime. I’ll be in the bar in Groppi’s.’ The famous Groppi was the only restaurant he’d ever heard of in Cairo.
‘Very good, sir,’ said Marker. ‘I don’t think there is a bar there; I’ll say the restaurant at about one o’clock. Is that the Groppi Rotunda or Groppi Garden?’
For a moment Ross was floored. ‘Which do you recommend?’
‘Alice will have her car, of course. She could pick you up and take you to Soleiman Pasha; that’s the one I always prefer.’
‘Good, good,’ said Ross. ‘Groppi in Soleiman Pasha then.’ Marker had jumped to the conclusion that Ross intended to use the girl as a guide and driver around the town. Well, that was a good idea. It might prove very convenient.
‘Tell her to pick me up from here at twelve noon,’ said Ross. ‘Any sign of the brigadier?’
‘He’s away duck shooting. Back next week his office says.’
‘Okay.’
‘There was one other thing, sir.’
‘Yes?’
‘That fellow died.’
‘The prisoner?’
‘Yes, I forget his name for the moment. But the man you escorted. He died.’
‘What was it?’
‘Heart attack. I don’t know the drill for that sort of thing. I suppose there will be a post-mortem and some sort of enquiry. They will probably need you to give evidence.’
‘Did he die in hospital?’ said Ross. He could hear himself breathing too loudly and capped the phone.
‘The pathology wallahs will sort all that out,’ said Marker.
Ross didn’t like the sound of it.
‘One other thing, sir. Did the prisoner not have any kit?’
‘He was arrested on the run,’ said Ross. ‘That’s why he was in civvies.’
‘I thought that might be it,’ said Marker. ‘I just didn’t want to take a chance. You get next of kin kicking up a fuss about personal effects sometimes. Can be a nuisance.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Next of kin! There was no worry about his next of kin; he had none. But what about Cutler? Suppose there was some loose end in Cutler’s life that would come home to haunt him? Then he had an idea so obvious that he kicked himself for not thinking of it all along. The army issued everyone with a ‘housewife’: a packet of needles and pins, with a selection of buttons and thread. He must still have his somewhere in his kit. Yes. He got a razor blade and started cutting the crowns from Cutler’s uniform blouse.
‘If you are my personal assistant, we’d better get to know each other,’ he said.
Alice Stanhope smiled at him as if he was the first man ever to take an interest in her.
For a moment, Jimmy Ross was disconcerted. She seemed to see right through him. He supposed there were plenty of men making advances to her; she was so lovely. Beautiful, but not in the flashy way that was to be seen all around them in this fashionable eating place. Alice Stanhope was tall, with long blonde hair and a clear complexion. Her face was still rather than animated, but her eyes suggested an artful sense of humour and a quick brain. Only a very beautiful woman could have shone in the severe clothes she wore. This, thought Ross, was the sort of outfit a middle-class English mother would consider suitable for a daughter going out into the wicked world: a checked wool suit and pale blue twin set with pearls. On her wrist she wore an expensive gold watch – a twenty-first birthday present, no doubt – but there were no rings on her fingers.
‘There is something I’ve got to tell you,’ she said leaning close to him and speaking in a quiet confidential tone. ‘Your predecessor at the office assigned me to an undercover job.’
‘Did he?’
She blushed. ‘Yes, he did.’
Ross guessed that she was exaggerating somewhat, but he drank his tea and indicated that she should tell him more about it.
‘I am to rent a room in the Hotel Magnifico and stay there undercover.’
‘Why?’ he said, although in his mind he was already approving the suggestion. It would be to his advantage to have her away from the office and would provide an excuse for him to disappear.
‘We had an anonymous tip that one of the people in the Magnifico is a German spy.’
‘You sound doubtful.’
She decided to be truthful with him: disarmingly so; it was her way. ‘I am. He’s an elderly Russian. My family and I have known him since before the war. Everyone in Cairo is saying that he’s a German spy. These rumours come and go, like fashions in hats. Poor old man, he’s quite harmless.’
‘So why bother?’
‘There was a general feeling in the office that we