Blaize Clement - Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons (Dixie Hemingway Mysteries)

Cat Among the Pigeons

THE WOMAN ON THE BALCONY

As Bob Rawlinson walked along the echoing marble corridors of the Palace, he had never felt so unhappy in his life. The knowledge that he was carrying three quarters of a million pounds in his trousers pocket caused him acute misery. He felt as though every Palace official he encountered must know the fact. He felt, even, that the knowledge of his precious burden must show in his face. He would have been relieved to learn that his freckled countenance bore exactly its usual expression of cheerful good nature.

The sentries outside presented arms with a clash. Bob walked down the crowded main street of Ramat, his mind still dazed. Where was he going? What was he planning to do? He had no idea. And time was short.

The main street was like most main streets in the Middle East. It was a mixture of squalor and magnificence. Banks reared their vast newly built magnificence. Innumerable small shops presented a collection of cheap plastic goods. Babies' bootees and cheap cigarette lighters were displayed in unlikely juxtaposition. There were sewing machines, and spare parts for cars. Pharmacies displayed flyblown proprietary medicines, and large notices of penicillin in every form and antibiotics galore. In very few of the shops was there anything that you could normally want to buy, except possibly the latest Swiss watches, hundreds of which were displayed crowded into a tiny window. The assortment was so great that even there one would have shrunk from purchase, dazzled by sheer mass.

Bob, still walking in a kind of stupor, jostled by figures in native or European dress, pulled himself together and asked himself again where the hell he was going.

He turned into a native caf and ordered lemon tea. As he sipped it, he began, slowly, to come to. The atmosphere of the caf was soothing. At a table opposite him an elderly Arab was peacefully clicking through a string of amber beads. Behind him two men played trictrac. It was a good place to sit and think.

And he'd got to think. Jewels worth three quarters of a million had been handed to him, and it was up to him to devise some plan of getting them out of the country. No time to lose, either. At any minute the balloon might go up.

Ali was crazy, of course. Tossing three quarters of a million light-heartedly to a friend in that way. And then sitting back quietly himself and leaving everything to Allah. Bob had not got that recourse. Bob's God expected his servants to decide on and perform their own actions to the best of the ability their God had given them.

What the hell was he going to do with those damned stones?

He thought of the Embassy. No, he couldn't involve the Embassy. The Embassy would almost certainly refuse to be involved.

What he needed was some person, some perfectly ordinary person, who was leaving the country in some perfectly ordinary way. A businessman, or a tourist would be best. Someone with no political connections whose baggage would, at most, be subjected to a superficial search or more probably no search at all. There was, of course, the other end to be considered. Sensation at London Air Port. Attempt to smuggle in jewels worth three quarters of a million. And so on and so on. One would have to risk that.

Somebody ordinary - a bona fide traveller. And suddenly Bob kicked himself for a fool. Joan, of course. His sister Joan Sutcliffe. Joan had been out here for two months with her daughter Jennifer who after a bad bout of pneumonia had been ordered sunshine and a dry climate. They were going back by long sea in four or five days.

Joan was the ideal person. What was it Ali had said about women and jewels? Bob smiled to himself. Good old Joan! She wouldn't lose her head over jewels. Trust her to keep her feet on the earth. Yes - he could trust Joan.

Wait a minute, though... could he trust Joan? Her honesty, yes. But her discretion? Regretfully Bob shook his head. Joan would talk, would not be able to help talking. Even worse, she would hint. I'm taking home something very important. I mustn't say a word to anyone. It's really rather exciting...

Joan had never been able to keep a thing to herself though she was always very incensed if one told her so. Joan, then, mustn't know what she was taking. It would be safer for her that way. He'd make the stones up into a parcel, an innocent-looking parcel. Tell her some story. A present for someone? A commission? He'd think of something...

Bob glanced at his watch and rose to his feet. Time was getting on.

He strode along the street oblivious of the midday heat. Everything seemed so normal. There was nothing to show on the surface. Only in the Palace was one conscious of the banked down fires, of the spying, the whispers. The Army - it all depended on the Army. Who was loyal? Who was disloyal? A coup d'tat would certainly be attempted. Would it succeed or fail?

Bob frowned as he turned into Ramat's leading hotel. It was modestly called the Ritz Savoy and had a grand modernistic faade. It had opened with a flourish three years ago with a Swiss manager, a Viennese chef, and an Italian maitre d'htel. Everything had been wonderful. The Viennese chef had gone first, then the Swiss manager. Now the Italian head waiter had gone too. The food was still ambitious, but bad, the service abominable and a good deal of the expensive plumbing had gone wrong.

The clerk behind the desk knew Bob well and beamed at him.

Good morning, Squadron leader. You want your sister? She has gone for a picnic with the little girl.

A picnic? Bob was taken aback - of all the silly times to go for a picnic.

With Mr. and Mrs. Hurst from the oil company, said the clerk informatively. Everyone always knew everything. They have gone to the Kalat Diwa dam.

Bob swore under his breath. Joan wouldn't be home for hours.

I'll go up to her room, he said and held out his hand for the key which the clerk gave him.

He unlocked the door and went in. The room, a large double-bedded one, was in its usual confusion. Joan Sutcliffe was not a tidy woman. Golf clubs lay across a chair, tennis racquets had been flung on the bed. Clothing lay about, the table was littered with rolls of films, postcards, paper-back books and an assortment of native curios from the Souk, mostly made in Birmingham and Japan.

Bob looked round him, at the suitcases and the zip bags. He was faced with a problem. He wouldn't be able to see Joan before flying Ali out. There wouldn't be time to get to the dam and back. He could parcel up the stuff and leave it with a note - but almost immediately he shook his head. He knew quite well that he was nearly always followed. He'd probably been followed from the Palace to the caf and from the caf here. He hadn't spotted anyone - but he knew that they were good at the job. There was nothing suspicious in his coming to the hotel to see his sister - but if he left a parcel and a note, the note would be read and the parcel opened.

Time... time... He'd no time...

Three quarters of a million in precious stones in his trousers pocket.

He looked round the room.

Then, with a grin, he fished out from his pocket the little tool kit he always carried. His niece Jennifer had some modeling clay, he noted, that would help.

He worked quickly and skilfully. Once he looked up, suspicious, his eyes going to the open window. No, there was no balcony outside this room. It was just his nerves that had made him feel that someone was watching him.

He finished his task and nodded in approval. Nobody would notice what he had done - he felt sure of that. Neither Joan nor anyone else. Certainly not Jennifer, a self-centered child, who never saw or noticed anything outside herself.