Palace Circle Part 29

The instant the words left his mouth it was as if all the air in the room had been sucked out. The tension was palpable.

Delia hesitated and just as she was finally about to answer, the door of the dining room opened and Fawzia walked in. Her black hair was looped into a knot on the top of her head. Her skin gleamed pale gold. She was wearing a vivid emerald brocade dress more suitable for a c.o.c.ktail party than the early afternoon, and she looked like a princess straight out of the Arabian Nights.

"Daddy told me you were here!" she said a trifle breathlessly. "Isn't this wonderful? To be together again like this?"

He rose from the table, agonizingly aware that the moment between Delia and himself had been lost.

He kissed Fawzia with as much pa.s.sion as Delia's presence allowed, noticing that her perfume was as unsuitable for an afternoon as her dress. It was heavy, exotic, and very, very s.e.xy.

"How long are you here for?" she asked, her arms still around his neck. "Your father was in Cairo with Mr. Eden a few months ago, but only for three days. Then they flew off to Ankara. Is that what you will be doing, Jack?"

"No," he chuckled, amused at her naivete. "I will most likely be here for the duration of the war. We can't live together, though. Did your father tell you? We're going to have to behave like illicit lovers."

She laughed. "But that will be fun! Will you be in an apartment, or the barracks?"

"An apartment. I'll be sharing it with a couple of other officers."

She gave a small pout, but one that indicated she was going to accept the living arrangements. He was deeply grateful. Not many wives would have been so understanding, and it indicated that Fawzia had done a lot of growing up during their eighteen-month separation.

"Adjo is bringing some champagne," Delia said, as they joined her at the table, their arms around each other's waist. "So if you two happy people can bear to stay for just another few minutes, we'll drink it in celebration. D'you have a staff car yet, Jack? If not, you can borrow mine. The best place for a little privacy is still the Mena House Hotel."

Thirty minutes later, in Delia's open coupe they were on the road leading to Giza.

A mile out of Cairo Fawzia's hair suddenly tumbled free of its pins and cascaded past her shoulders, long and heavy.

He took his eyes from the road to shoot her a swift, amused glance. "You must have put your hair up in an awful hurry."

"Pins can never be trusted," she said, blushing slightly.

When they finally reached Mena House there wasn't a free room, but Fawzia's father's name carried a lot of weight.

A room was found for them-and not just any room. It looked south to a glorious view of the pyramids.

"It's a good job we can't see the Sphinx," she said as he tipped the bellboy and closed the door. "It's covered in sandbags-presumably in case the Germans attempt to bomb it."

He wasn't interested in the Sphinx.

He was only interested in taking her to bed.

Considering Fawzia's protected upbringing and her strict schooling at the Mere de Dieu, her abandonment in bed had always both surprised Jack and given him great pleasure. Now, within seconds, he knew that during the long months of their separation she had changed.

She was no longer delightfully abandoned in bed.

She was lasciviously wanton-and skillfully so.

Certain of what her new expertise signified, he pulled away for a moment, but his body wouldn't allow him to stop. It was like being on a roller coaster with no way of abandoning the ride until it came to a cataclysmic end.

As he finally collapsed on the tangled sheets, exhausted and covered with sweat, he knew that she hadn't been faithful to him. That she'd had-and possibly still had-a lover. A lover who, if the s.e.xual tricks she had revealed were anything to go by, was Egyptian, not English.

He slid from the bed, picked up his khaki shorts and put them on. Then he scooped up his shirt and took out a packet of Camels and a lighter.

Fawzia didn't move. She was lying on her back making small purring sounds, her eyes closed.

He remembered her first words to him: "How long are you here for?" He had thought she was desperately anxious for him to stay. But it had been just the reverse. She had been hoping to hear that in forty-eight hours or so he would be on his way back to Palestine. And her easy acceptance of the fact that they were not allowed to live together hadn't been a sign of understanding. It had been relief. Her dress, the exotic scent she was wearing, the way her hair had been so precariously pinned, this all made sense now. When she'd heard the news of his arrival she had come to him straight from her lover's bed.

He walked to the window and stood looking out toward the pyramids, his guts twisting deep in his belly.

He'd known, when he'd been transferred from Jerusalem to Cairo, that he was going to face emotional difficulties, but not this. Fawzia's affair had come straight out of left field.

He had to decide what to do. One thing was obvious: he had to be fair.

They had been apart for eighteen months-and it was wartime. Old values, old standards, had been overturned. She hadn't known they were about to be reunited. If she had, she would, no doubt, have ended the relationship with her lover immediately.

He wondered how many people knew about it. Someone had told her of his arrival and he didn't think it was her father. Though he knew that Zubair Pasha would have far preferred an Egyptian son-in-law, he couldn't imagine him condoning Fawzia's adultery. The person who had known where to find Fawzia and who had told her of his arrival was more likely to have been a house safragi in Fawzia's confidence, or, even more likely, her personal maid.

Delia obviously did not know that Fawzia was being unfaithful to him. It was one secret that Delia would never, in a million years, have been a silent party to.

It didn't mean, though, that other people weren't aware of the other man in Fawzia's life.

Behind him he heard Fawzia stir.

He turned around. As she pushed herself up against the pillows, her silk-black hair grazing her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he said tersely, "Your lover, Fawzia. Who is he?"

Her face immediately became impa.s.sive, her expression shuttered. It was a look with which he was familiar. When necessary, Egyptians were more skilled at hiding their thoughts than any people he had ever met.

"I don't know what you mean," she said pettishly. "I don't have a lover."

There was a large bra.s.s ashtray on a nearby table and he ground out his cigarette. "Don't make this any harder than it needs to be, Fawzia. I'm not a fool. I know you have a lover. I need to know his name."

He saw something flicker in her eyes and read what it was immediately. She thought someone had told him. That he had been told even before he had left Jerusalem.

Angrily she swung her legs from the bed and stood up. "If you know that I am having an affair, then you also know who I am having it with." She s.n.a.t.c.hed a lace-trimmed black bra from a chair.

"I don't, as it happens." He watched her as she reached for a pair of silk camiknickers. Though she wasn't tall, her body was magnificently proportioned: her b.r.e.a.s.t.s full, her waist so narrow it was literally a handspan, her legs slim and exquisite.

Knowing Fawzia's body would never again have the power to move him, he said, "I do know that your father believes you've been spending time with Davina when, according to Delia, Davina is working all the time. Delia believes you've been spending time with Queen Farida, but I very much doubt that you've been anywhere near the palace. So where have you been?"

From the far side of the bed she glared at him with the venom of someone who has been tricked and who, if she'd realized how little he knew, would have kept her mouth very firmly shut.

"You're the intelligence officer!" she hurled at him. "You find out! I'm not going to tell you!"

The desire to shake her till her teeth rattled was almost more than he could control. He said through clenched teeth, "I'll find out all right. And when I do I'll make sure he never attempts to make contact with you again!"

"And how are you going to do that?" she spat, stepping into her brocade dress.

"I'll let him know that if he does, I'll kill him."

It wasn't an idle threat. He'd never been in a fight yet when he hadn't truly thrashed his opponent.

As she slipped her feet into her high-heeled sandals, she said with amus.e.m.e.nt, "You'll deck my lover? A lover I have no intention of giving up? And in public?"

His eyes held hers. "Yes," he said white-lipped. "That's a pretty accurate description of what I'll do, Fawzia."

She began laughing.

He reached for his shirt and pulled it on over his head. "I'm going back to GHQ," he said. "You'll have to get yourself a taxi. As you've no intention of breaking off with whoever it is you're sharing a bed with, we won't be having another reunion. It's over, Fawzia."

Controlling her laughter with difficulty, she said, "And will you still punch him on the jaw when you find out his ident.i.ty?"

"Oh, yes," he said grimly, yanking the door open. "That's a pleasure I've no intention of forgoing."

She laughed again and he slammed the door, knowing, as he strode away, that his unwise marriage was over.

As Delia's bright-yellow sports car was brought from the car park, he resolved to tell Zubair Pasha at the first opportunity. He wouldn't tell him why. He would simply say that he and Fawzia had always been incompatible and that it was a mutual decision. What Fawzia chose to say was up to her.

He punched the motor into life. He had decided to tell Delia as well. He knew she would believe that his ongoing feelings for Petra had played a major part in the breakup and that she would be deeply perturbed, but it couldn't be helped. Enough secrets had been kept from her in the past, without him adding another.

It was five o'clock by the time he got back to Grey Pillars, and with the heat of the afternoon over, the place was a hive of activity again.

"I've left another sheaf of files on your desk," Doris said efficiently as he entered his office. "Captain Reynolds's replacement hasn't arrived yet. Corporal Slade has found you a comfy billet with two other officers in a flat on Sharia el-Walda. He says it's pretty shabby, but the location is hard to beat. It's so near to the emba.s.sy, you can see into its garden."

"Thank you, Doris-and now a mug of tea if you can rustle one up." He flopped into a battered swivel chair, putting his feet up on the desk and reaching for the files. "Two sugars, please."

And then, with the paddles of a ceiling fan rotating creakily above his head, he settled down to do his reading. Two hours later he knew the names of all the informers on the British payroll-and the names of many anti-British informers.

"Though who the anti-British informers pa.s.s their information on to, we're not sure," said Slade, a young c.o.c.kney, when he handed Jack a key to the Sharia el-Walda flat. "The Romanians are always suspect. One of their number has already been expelled. Peter, the barman in the Long Bar at Shepheard's, is also a favorite bet but, to be honest, sir, there's not much to back up the suspicion. The only thing anyone's sure of is that the enemy is getting military information and that it's coming from an A-one source. Which has to mean from someone within GHQ or the emba.s.sy."

Having already come to that conclusion, Jack merely nodded and went on with his reading. Rommel had apparently earned himself the nickname of "Desert Fox" and Jack wryly noted that the nickname was even used in official communiques.

On the military front the Australians, with some British help, were still holding out at Tobruk. Rommel had the port city encircled and major British offensives were being undertaken to relieve it.

None, so far, had been successful. Despite the huge number of tanks and troops, Rommel's use of 88-mm antiaircraft guns ensured that every British offensive ended in a murderous defeat. The enormous guns were dug deep into the sand with their snouts disguised by sand-colored tents. Even with field gla.s.ses it was impossible to distinguish them from the dunes.

Rommel's trick was to send light tanks on a fake attack. When the British tanks engaged in battle, the panzers would withdraw and the enormous flaks would open fire. The result was carnage of epic proportions.

It made for grim reading and Jack was glad when Doris waltzed in on him again. "Captain Reynolds's replacement has arrived, sir. Shall I send him in?"

"p.r.o.nto, Doris, please."

He swung his legs off the desk and as he did, Archie walked into the room.

Jack's eyes widened and as the realization dawned that it was Archie who would be his second-in-command, all the misery, anger, and tension of the afternoon vanished.

He rounded the desk in a flash. "Archie, you old sonof.a.gun!" he said, giving him a great bear hug. "I thought you were with special ops."

"Ah, well. You know what thought did, old mate," Archie said, a wide grin splitting his homely face. "It thought wrong."

"Let's go for a beer." Jack s.n.a.t.c.hed his peaked cap from the corner of his desk. "You and I have a spy to catch."

Three days later Jack was in the Khan el-Khalili bazaar. A reliable informer, a barber, had told him of a conversation he had overheard. "The father is a grocer and the son is in the Egyptian army," he had said. "The son wants money to pay his mess bills and his father won't give him any unless he lands a British army contract for vegetables. His exact words were, 'You'd do better to get that contract instead of involving yourself with crazy army plots that are bound to fail.'"

The term "crazy army plots" was one that couldn't possibly be ignored and Jack thought he could see a way of getting hard inside information about them.

The Khan el-Khalili was a mammoth maze of twisting alleys so crowded with narrow stalls that it was only possible for two people to pa.s.s each other by coming into jostling, physical contact. The bazaar sold far more than fruit and vegetables. Egyptians hawked perfumes, rugs, spices, silver, alabaster- and jewelry so fine that it was the one place in Old Cairo where Europeans could always be found.

Jack pushed his way through the noisy crowds. A few yards in front of him Petra suddenly stepped out of a dark shop doorway, her arms full of silks.

He came to such a sharp, abrupt halt that the Arab walking immediately behind him tripped hard over his heels.

"Maalesh," he said as the Arab struggled to regain his balance. "Sorry."

Petra, too, had come to a halt. With the shopkeeper standing beside her, she was examining the silks in sunlight coming from a gap in the long tin roof above their heads.

It was the first time he had seen her since his arrival in the city. Her glorious mahogany-red hair fell in a turbulent riot of deep waves to her shoulders, pushed away from her face on one side with a tortoisesh.e.l.l comb. Tall and slender, she was wearing a white linen suit with scarlet sandals. Her legs were suntanned and bare of stockings.

He felt as if his heart had ceased to beat.

She was completely occupied with what she was doing, frowning in concentration as she fingered first one roll of silk and then another.

He saw, as if for the first time, the long thick sweep of her eyelashes, the faint hollows under her beautifully sculpted cheekbones, the rich, generous curve of her mouth.

In that moment he knew that his love for her, and his need of her, would never fade.

And she no longer loved him. For years he'd been trying to hammer that information into his head and still there was a part of him that refused to believe it. He'd tried to move on; he'd tried to find happiness with Fawzia. But his marriage had ended with the hideous scene at Mena House.

In bitter despair he stood and drank in the sight of the woman he'd loved for as long as he could remember. Suddenly she raised her head from the rolls of silk and their eyes met.

One of the rolls of silk slipped from her hands and the shopkeeper darted forward to catch hold of it.

Jack forced himself into movement. Striving to look relaxed and at ease he strolled up to her.

"h.e.l.lo," he said as she clutched a roll of crimson cloth to her chest. "I wondered when we'd run into each other. Did your mother tell you I was back in the city?"

"Yes." The word came out clipped as if someone had just punched her. "It was bound to happen, wasn't it?" she said, her voice now as falsely bright as if she was talking to a casual acquaintance. "You know Cairo so well and you speak Arabic. Not many intelligence officers in Cairo do. Ivor says it's a wonder you weren't sent here a year ago."

"I wish I had been. Can I take that roll of silk from you before it follows the other one?"

Without waiting for her response he lifted the silk from her arms. As his hands touched hers, she trembled.

"Could we go for a drink together, Petra?" A pulse was throbbing at the corner of his jaw in exactly the same way a pulse always throbbed at the corner of his father's jaw when he was under intense stress. "The terrace at Shepheard's, or perhaps coffee at Groppi's?"

"I... no." She looked around wildly for a way of escape. "It isn't possible, Jack. I have an appointment-"

"Sholto," he said, determined to keep her talking for at least a few moments longer. "How is he? He's someone else I haven't run into yet."

"Sholto?" Her face took on an expression not so different from Fawzia's when he had asked her to name her lover. "Sholto's fine, thank you. And now I'm sorry, Jack, but I really do have to go."

Shattering all the stallholder's hopes of a hefty sale, she turned and plunged into the sea of humanity streaming down the narrow alleyway.