He lit a cigarette, coughed and started to shave. He always smoked while he was shaving—it was the only way he knew to relieve the boredom of the inevitable daily task. Fifteen years ago he had sworn he would grow a beard as soon as he got out of the Army, but he was still in the Army.
He dressed in the everyday uniform: heavy sandals, socks, bush shirt and the khaki shorts with the flaps that could be let down and buttoned below the knee for protection against mosquitoes. Nobody ever used the flaps, and the younger officers usually cut them off, they looked so ridiculous.
There was an empty gin bottle on the floor beside the bed. Vandam looked at it, feeling disgusted with himself: it was the first time he had taken the damn bottle to bed with him. He picked it up, replaced the cap and threw the bottle into the wastebasket. Then he went downstairs.
Gaafar was in the kitchen, making tea. Vandam’s servant was an elderly Copt with a bald head and a shuffling walk, and pretensions to be an English butler. That he would never be, but he had a little dignity and he was honest, and Vandam had not found those qualities to be common among Egyptian house servants.
Vandam said: “Is Billy up?” “Yes, sir, he’s coming down directly.”
Vandam nodded. A small pan of water was bubbling on the stove. Vandam put an egg in to boil and set the timer. He cut two slices from an English-type loaf and made toast. He buttered the toast and cut it into fingers, then he took the egg out of the water and decapitated it.
Billy came into the kitchen and said: “Good morning, Dad.”
Vandam smiled at his ten-year-old son. “Morning. Breakfast is ready.”
The boy began to eat. Vandam sat opposite him with a cup of tea, watching. Billy often looked tired in the mornings recently. Once upon a time he had been infallibly daisy-fresh at breakfast. Was he sleeping badly? Or was his metabolism simply becoming more like an adult’s? Perhaps it was just that he was staying awake late, reading detective stories under the sheet by the light of a flashlight.
People said Billy was like his father, but Vandam could not see the resemblance. However, he could see traces of Billy’s mother: the gray eyes, the delicate skin and the faintly supercilious expression which came over his face when someone crossed him.
Vandam always prepared his son’s breakfast. The servant was perfectly capable of looking after the boy, of course, and most of the time he did; but Vandam liked to keep this little ritual for himself. Often it was the only time he was with Billy all day. They did not talk much—Billy ate and Vandam smoked—but that did not matter: the important thing was that they were together for a while at the start of each day.
After breakfast Billy brushed his teeth while Gaafar got out Vandam’s motorcycle. Billy came back wearing his school cap, and Vandam put on his uniform cap. As they did every day, they saluted each other. Billy said: “Right, sir—let’s go and win the war.”
Then they went out.
Major Vandam’s office was at Gray Pillars, one of a group of buildings surrounded by barbed-wire fencing which made up GHQ Middle East. There was an incident report on his desk when he arrived. He sat down, lit a cigarette and began to read.
The report came from Assyut, three hundred miles south, and at first Vandam could not see why it had been marked for Intelligence. A patrol had picked up a hitchhiking European who had subsequently murdered a corporal with a knife. The body had been discovered last night, almost as soon as the corporal’s absence was noted, but several hours after the death. A man answering the hitchhiker’s description had bought a ticket to Cairo at the railway station, but by the time the body was found the train had arrived in Cairo and the killer had melted into the city.
There was no indication of motive.
The Egyptian police force and the British Military Police would be investigating already in Assyut, and their colleagues in Cairo would, like Vandam, be learning the details this morning. What reason was there for Intelligence to get involved?
Vandam frowned and thought again. A European is picked up in the desert. He says his car has broken down. He checks into a hotel. He leaves a few minutes later and catches a train. His car is not found. The body of a soldier is discovered that night in the hotel room.
Why?
Vandam got on the phone and called Assyut. It took the army camp switchboard a while to locate Captain Newman, but eventually they found him in the arsenal and got him to a phone.
Vandam said: “This knife murder almost looks like a blown cover.”
“That occurred to me, sir,” said Newman. He sounded a young man. “That’s why I marked the report for Intelligence.”
“Good thinking. Tell me, what was your impression of the man?”
“He was a big chap—”
“I’ve got your description here—six foot, twelve stone, dark hair and eyes—but that doesn’t tell me what he was like.”
“I understand,” Newman said. “Well, to be candid, at first I wasn’t in the least suspicious of him. He looked all in, which fitted with his story of having broken down on the desert road, but apart from that he seemed an upright citizen: a white man, decently dressed, quite well spoken with an accent he said was Dutch, or rather Afrikaans. His papers were perfect—I’m still quite sure they were genuine.”
“But ... ?”
“He told me he was checking on his business interests in Upper Egypt.”
“Plausible enough.”
“Yes, but he didn’t strike me as the kind of man to spend his life investing in a few shops and small factories and cotton farms. He was much more the assured cosmopolitan type: if he had money to invest it would probably be with a London stockbroker or a Swiss bank. He just wasn’t a small-timer ... It’s very vague, sir, but do you see what I mean?”
“Indeed.” Newman sounded a bright chap, Vandam thought. What was he doing stuck out in Assyut?
Newman went on: “And then it occurred to me that he had, as it were, just appeared in the desert, and I didn’t really know where he might have come from ... so I told poor old Cox to stay with him, on the pretense of helping him, to make sure he didn’t do a bunk before we had a chance to check his story. I should have arrested the man, of course, but quite honestly, sir, at the time I had only the most slender suspicion—”
“I don’t think anyone’s blaming you, Captain,” said Vandam. “You did well to remember the name and address from the papers. Alex Wolff, Villa Les Oliviers, Garden City, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, keep me in touch with any developments at your end, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Vandam hung up. Newman’s suspicions chimed with his own instincts about the killing. He decided to speak to his immediate superior. He left his office, carrying the incident report.
General Staff Intelligence was run by a brigadier with the title of Director of Military Intelligence. The DMI had two deputies: DDMI(O)—for Operational—and DDMI(I)-for Intelligence. The deputies were colonels. Vandam’s boss, Lieutenant Colonel Bogge, came under the DDMI(I). Bogge was responsible for personnel security, and most of his time was spent administering the censorship apparatus. Vandam’s concern was security leaks by means other than letters. He and his men had several hundred agents in Cairo and Alexandria; in most clubs and bars there was a waiter who was on his payroll, he had an informant among the domestic staffs of the more important Arab politicians, King Farouk’s valet worked for Vandam, and so did Cairo’s wealthiest thief. He was interested in who was talking too much, and who was listening; and among the listeners, Arab nationalists were his main target. However, it seemed possible that the mystery man from Assyut might be a different kind of threat.