The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [7]
With luck, Nasif and Newman might never compare notes on the subject of Alex Wolff.
The jeep drove through the busy, narrow streets. The familiar sights of an Egyptian town pleased Wolf: the gay cotton clothes, the women carrying bundles on their heads, the officious policemen, the sharp characters in sunglasses, the tiny shops spilling out into the rutted streets, the stalls, the battered cars and the overloaded asses. They stopped in front of a row of low mud-brick buildings. The road was half blocked by an ancient truck and the remains of a cannibalized Fiat. A small boy was working on a cylinder block with a wrench, sitting on the ground outside the entrance.
Newman said: “I’ll have to leave you here, I’m afraid; duty calls.”
Wolff shook his hand. “You’ve been very kind.”
“I don’t like to dump you this way,” Newman continued. “You’ve had a bad time.” He frowned, then his face cleared. “Tell you what—I’ll leave Corporal Cox to look after you.”
Wolff said: “It’s kind, but really—”
Newman was not listening. “Get the man’s bags, Cox, and look sharp. I want you to take care of him—and don’t you leave anything to the wogs, understand?”
“Yes, sir!” said Cox.
Wolff groaned inwardly. Now there would be more delay while he got rid of the corporal. Captain Newman’s kindness was becoming a nuisance—could that possibly be intentional?
Wolff and Cox got out, and the jeep pulled away. Wolff walked into Nasif’s workshop, and Cox followed, carrying the cases.
Nasif was a smiling young man in a filthy galabiya, working on a car battery by the light of an oil lamp. He spoke to them in English. “You want to rent a beautiful automobile? My brother have Bentley—”
Wolff interrupted him in rapid Egyptian Arabic. “My car has broken down. They say you have a tow truck.”
“Yes. We can leave right away. Where is the car?”
“On the desert road, forty or fifty miles out. It’s a Ford. But we’re not coming with you.” He took out his wallet and gave Nasif an English pound note. “You’ll find me at the Grand Hotel by the railway station when you return.”
Nasif took the money with alacrity. “Very good! I leave immediately!”
Wolff nodded curtly and turned around. Walking out of the workshop with Cox in tow, he considered the implications of his short conversation with Nasif. The mechanic would go out into the desert with his tow truck and search the road for the car. Eventually he would return to the Grand Hotel to confess failure. He would learn that Wolff had left. He would consider he had been reasonably paid for his wasted day, but that would not stop him telling all and sundry the story of the disappearing Ford and its disappearing driver. The likelihood was that all this would get back to Captain Newman sooner or later. Newman might not know quite what to make of it all, but he would certainly feel that here was a mystery to be investigated.
Wolff’s mood darkened as he realized that his plan of slipping unobserved into Egypt might have failed.
He would just have to make the best of it. He looked at his watch. He still had time to catch the train. He would be able to get rid of Cox in the lobby of the hotel, then get something to eat and drink while he was waiting, if he was quick.
Cox was a short, dark man with some kind of British regional accent which Wolff could not identify. He looked about Wolff’s age, and as he was still a corporal he was probably not too bright. Following Wolff across the Midan el-Mahatta, he said: “You know this town, sir?”
“I’ve been here before,” Wolff replied.
They entered the Grand. With twenty-six rooms it was the larger of the town’s two hotels. Wolff turned to Cox. “Thank you, Corporal. I think you could get back to work now.”
“No hurry, sir,” Cox said cheerfully. “I’ll carry your bags upstairs.”
“I’m sure they have porters here—”
“Wouldn’t trust ’em, sir, if I were you.”
The situation was becoming more and more like a nightmare