Tree of Pearls

‘Get in,’ came the voice, the figure leaning over from having opened the door. I ignored it. How did he know I was me, anyway? Presumably they had bothered to acquire a photograph of me, somewhere down the line. I don’t like the idea, but neither do I imagine there is anything I can do about it.

‘Get in!’ Louder.

I rubbed my mouth, and looked this way and that up and down the road, and then went round to the driver’s side. He wound down the window. Very pale face. Putty-coloured. Very dark brows, very arched.

I said: ‘How would you, as a police officer, encourage your wife or daughters to respond to a stranger in a car who shouts “get in” at them?’

For a moment I thought he was going to tell me to grow up, but he didn’t. He sighed, and said, ‘Where do you want to go?’ There was something so tired in it that I gave up. I got in the car, and directed him to a done-up pub down by Ravenscourt Park where they have a wood fire and nice food and good coffee. I yearn for comfort.

I chose an upright little table and ordered what Lily still calls a cup of chino. He had a lime juice cordial thing, and I realized he was an alcoholic. Don’t know how. It was just apparent. We sat in silence for few moments, and I thought: ‘I don’t want this to start up again. I don’t want any more of this. Not again.’ I know that I am strong, that I can deal with it. But.

‘Cairo,’ he said. I felt my insides begin to subside. Like all the lovely crunchy fluffy individual concrete ingredients in a food mixer – switch the button and they turn to low gloop. ‘You know more or less what this is about.’

I didn’t answer. A slow burning anger was running along a fuseline direct to my heart.

What, through the gloop? The absurdity of mixed metaphors always cheers me up, makes me sharpen up.

Cairo meant only two things to me now. Not the time I spent there in my previous life, nine or so years ago, though it seems like a lifetime (well, it is a lifetime – Lily’s lifetime, and more), living in the big block off Talat Haarb that we called Château Champollion, and dancing for my living in the clubs and on the Nile boats. When I saw every dawn and not a single midday. Not the friends I’d made then, the girls of all nations, the musicians of all Arab nations, the ex-pats and chatterboxes at the Grillon. Not the aromatic light and shade of the Old City, or the view from the roof of the mosque of Ibn Tulun, not the taste of cardamom in coffee or the flavour of dust. No … Cairo, now, only means Sa’id. And this could not be about Sa’id. So it had to be about Eddie Bates.

‘You flew to Cairo on Friday October 17th, on October 20th you continued to Luxor, and you returned to London via Cairo on October 24th. Is that right?’

He pronounced it Lux-Or. Not Looksr. Definitely not an Egyptophile. Well, why would he be?

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Can you tell me about your visit?’

‘Can you tell me why you want to know?’

It’s not that I don’t trust the police. I’d say not more than half of them are any worse than anyone else in life, which given their opportunities is probably a miracle. It’s just that last time I sat in a pub with a policeman he ended up blackmailing me into spying on Eddie Bates in a stupid effort to save his own corrupt arse, and that was the beginning of the whole hijacking of my life and Lily’s by these absurd people. So I am wary.

He looked at me under his sad eyebrows. ‘Have you ever heard of obstructing a police officer in the course of his duty?’ he said.

‘Have you ever heard of taking the trouble to gain a witness’s trust before expecting them to tell you all their business?’

He squinted at me.

‘Or aren’t I a witness?’ I said. The food mixer went again in my belly. ‘All I want to know,’ I said, tetchily, ‘is what this is about.’ Not quite true. What I really wanted was for it not to be happening.

‘How many things have you got going on in Cairo that might be of interest to the police then?’ he replied.

I wasn’t going to tell him anything. Not unless he told me first. As I can’t remember which country and western singer said, in big hair and blue eyeshadow: ‘I’ve been to the circus and I’ve seen the clowns, this ain’t my first rodeo.’

‘Nothing that I know of,’ I said. ‘That’s why I’m asking.’

He looked disappointed in me.

‘Eddie Bates,’ he said.

‘Eddie Bates is dead,’ I replied. That’s the official version and there is no reason for me to know any different. ‘He died in prison,’ I said. I even managed to look a little puzzled.

‘François du Berry, then,’ he said. ‘Could we just get on?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I lied. I knew exactly what he meant.

It was Harry who had told me that Eddie was not dead, but living in Cairo under an assumed name. What I didn’t know was whether Preston Oliver knew that Harry had told me – risking his career and maybe saving my life by doing so. I’m not telling any big policeman who I don’t know anything about this.

‘What were you doing in Egypt?’ he said.

‘I was on holiday,’ I said.

He just looked at me.

Sooner or later one of us was going to lose our temper, and I was afraid it was going to be me. I decided to do it the controlled way. Like the angry posh lady hectoring the Harrods shop assistant.

‘I think you’ll find,’ I said, ‘that asking the same question over and over is going to get you nowhere. I have no desire whatsoever to hamper you in the course of your duties, indeed I am happy to tell you anything that may be of use to you, but it is not unreasonable of me to want to know why. Do you think I am a witness to something? Do you suspect me of something? I have to insist that you be specific, because otherwise I’m afraid I can’t help you. You can think about it. I’ll be back in a moment.’

‘I think you’ll find.’ What a great phrase. And as for ‘I have to insist’ …

I found the public telephone, snatched up the receiver and rang Harry at work. Not there. Rang his mobile.

‘Harry?’

‘What is it?’ he said. He can smell urgency. Logically, I would be calling about our domestic and emotional situation, and he would have no business saying ‘What is it?’ to me in that tone. But he could tell.

‘Simon Preston Oliver – mean anything to you?’

‘Why?’ he said.

‘He’s here. Not right here – you know. He wants to know about Cairo.’

Harry knew about Cairo. Harry knows it all, pretty much. Well … most.

A moment passed.

‘Tell him,’ he said.

‘Everything?’

‘Everything you told me.’

‘Does he know you told me about Eddie?’

‘Not … not as such. I mean yes, he does, he must do. But we haven’t talked about it.’

‘So—’

‘I think he’s cool with it, but. But. Slide by it if you can.’