Only the BOAC hotel showed any sign of life at that hour. It was down an empty side street, the airline’s bluebird insignia standing out against the drab of concrete; lights were burning against our coming. I was given a room with a balcony that was full of the sounds of a late-night party, laughter and the clink of glasses. There was a lot of coming and going in the passage outside and I went to sleep,
to the sound of a girl’s voice, harsh and loud and slightly drunk.
Sunlight woke me four hours later, the hard sunlight of a hot country. An Arab boy brought me tea and I drank it, lying naked on the bed, a stale feeling at the back of the eye-balls and my body hot and without energy. Getting up, shaving, having breakfast — it was all an effort. And this was only April. I wondered what it must be like in mid-summer.
When I enquired at the desk for the offices of the Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company I was told that they were several miles out of town on the Awali road. A fat man in a tropical suit of powder blue was asking about a taxi he’d booked for Awali. He was an Italian who had joined the flight at Rome and I asked him whether he would give me a lift. ‘Si, si, signore. Of course.’
His name was Ruffini and he was a journalist. ‘You are in oil?’ he asked as we drove past the Customs Quay crowded with dhows. And when I said No he looked surprised. ‘But you ‘ave an appointment at GODCO, no?’
‘A matter of an estate,’ I told him. ‘A client of mine has died.’
‘So!’ He sighed. ‘A lawyer’s business — always to concern itself with death. Is depressing for you, no?’ He offered me an American cigarette. ‘Who do you see at this Company? Is none of my business,’ he added quickly, seeing my hesitation. ‘But though I am never in Bahrain before, I ‘ave contacts, introductions you say. If I can ‘elp you-’ He left it at that, reaching into his breast pocket for a pair of dark glasses. And because he was being helpful I told him who it was I’d come to see.
‘You know anything about this Sir Philip Gorde?’ he asked.
‘He’s a director of the Company in London.’
‘But not the most important man out here, I think.’
And he leaned forward and asked the driver, a pockmarked Bahraini with a lot of gold teeth. ‘Who is the big man at GODCO?’
‘Is Meester Erkhard.’
Ruffini nodded. ‘Alexander Erkhard. Bene. That is also my information.’
‘Many years,’ the driver added, turning to face us. ‘Many years it is Sir Gorde. Not now.’ The car touched the road verge, sending up a cloud of dust. ‘Ten years now I have taxi and am driving down the Awali road, sir, with men from BAPCO, GODCO, ARAMCO. I speak not well Eenglish, but understand plenty, get me? I look after the boys good, very bloody good. They all friends of Mahommed Ali. That my name, sir.’ He was looking over his shoulder again. ‘You want something, you find my car outside BOAC Hotel.’
‘When did Mr Erkhard come out to Bahrain?’ I asked.
‘Five, six years ago, sir. Before I get this Buick.’
‘And Sir Philip Gorde was the big man then?’
‘That’s right, sir. He is here before Awali, before I am born — a friend of the Ruler, of all Arabs. Very great man, Sir Gorde. But then he is sick and this Mr Erkhard, he come to Bahrain. Everything different then. Not friend of Ruler, not friend to Arabs.’ And he spat out of the open window. ‘Here is GODCO office now.’
We turned left with a screech of tyres. The dusty date gardens were left behind and a white building stood at the end of a tree-lined road. Beyond it lay the sea, a blue line shimmering on the horizon. ‘Ecco!’ Ruffini gripped my arm, pointing away to the right, to a litter of small mounds. ‘Tumuli. E molto interessante. There is a Danish man who dig in those tumuli. The oldest burial ground in Arabia per’aps.’
The brakes slammed on and the car stopped with a jerk. I got out. ‘I will see you at the ‘otel. Per’aps we ‘ave a drink together, eh?’ I thanked him for the lift and he waved a pudgy hand. ‘Ciao!’ The taxi swung away and I went in through the double glass doors. It was like walking into a refrigerator, for the place was air-conditioned to the temperature of a London office. Glass and tiled walls, steel furniture and the girl at the reception desk cool and immaculate. But when I asked for Sir Philip Gorde she frowned. ‘I don’t think Sir Philip is back yet. Have you an appointment?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I’ve flown out from England specially to see him.’
She asked me my name and then got on the phone. A white-faced electric clock ticked the seconds away on the wall above her head. Finally she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. It’s as I thought. Sir Philip is still in Abu Dhabi.’
‘When will-he be back?’ I asked. Abu Dhabi was the first of the Trucial sheikhdoms and at least a hundred and fifty miles from Bahrain.
She started talking on the phone again and I lit a cigarette and waited. At length she said, ‘Could you tell me the nature of your business with Sir Philip please?’
‘If he’s in Abu Dhabi,’ I said, ‘there’s not much point, is there?’
She cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. ‘If it’s urgent, then I think they’d contact him for you. I told them you’d come out from England specially.’
I hesitated. But there was no point in concealing what I’d come about. ‘It concerns David Whitaker,’ I said. ‘I’m a lawyer.’
‘David Whitaker.’ She repeated it automatically, and then the name suddenly registered and her eyes widened. ‘Yes,’ she said quickly. ‘Of course. I’ll see what I can do.’
I leaned on the desk and waited, watching her as she talked into the phone. There was a long pause while she just stood there, holding it, and occasionally glancing at me with an expression of curiosity she couldn’t conceal. And then I heard her say, ‘Yes, of course, sir. I’ll send him up right away.’ She put the phone down and came back to the desk. ‘Mr Erkhard will see you himself.’ She said it on a note of surprise. ‘If you’ll go up to the first floor his secretary will be waiting for you.’
I thanked her and went up the stairs. Erkhard’s secretary proved to be a man, neat and immaculate with a copy-book smile of greeting. ‘Mr Grant? Will you come this way please.’ He took me along a cool corridor and into an office that looked out across the tumuli. ‘Mr Erkhard’s very busy and you’ve come unexpectedly without an appointment. If you’d keep it as short as possible.’
‘I didn’t ask to see Mr Erkhard,’ I said, and that seemed to upset him. ‘No, no, of course. I understand.’ He paused at the communicating door on the far side, a discreet little pause that gave emphasis and importance to the moment. Then he opened the door. ‘Mr Grant, sir.’
The room was dove-grey, the furniture black steel. The big window looking out across the tumuli was a single sheet of flawless glass fitted with plastic Venetian blinds. The desk at which Erkhard was seated filled most of the far side of the room, and all the wall behind him was taken up with a relief map of Arabia dotted with flags. He didn’t rise to greet me, but simply waved me to the chair opposite his desk. ‘You’re a lawyer, I understand?’
I nodded and sat down.
‘And you’re out here on account of young Whitaker’s death?’
‘I’m his Executor.’
‘Ah, yes.’ There was a peculiar softness about his manner, a smoothness almost. It was something to do with the roundness of his face and the way the lips were moulded into the suggestion of a smile. He was sitting perfectly still, watching me — waiting, I felt. It was disconcerting and I found him a difficult man to place, probably because he wasn’t a type I had met before. In a weaker man that half-smile might have appeared ingratiating. But there was nothing weak about Erkhard. And the eyes were cold as they stared at me unblinkingly. ‘Have you see the young man’s family?’ There was an accent, but so slight it was barely noticeable.
‘The mother,’ I told him. ‘I haven’t seen the sister yet.’