The Doomed Oasis

2. Enquiries of an Executor

The account of his actual arrival in Arabia was contained in the letter he dispatched to me almost immediately after he had reached Saraifa. For that reason, I suppose, it told me little about the actual meeting between himself and his father. Scribbled in pencil on scraps of paper, it had been written mostly on board the Emerald Isle. Except for the final page it had been completed at a water-hole somewhere in the desert where he and Yousif had spent the night. The final page was nothing more than a hastily-written postscript: Saraifa at last, but I arrived at a bad time — my father was with the Sheikh and an oil director and his pilot, and he leaves with them in the morning for Bahrain. He seemed angry at first, but it’s all right now, I think. The Sheikh’s son, Khalid, is to look after me whilst he is away and I am to go on a hunting expedition with him to get to know desert ways. My father is a great man here with a bodyguard and a mud fort or palace where I am writing now. He has only one eye and a black patch over the other, which makes him a bit terrifying at first and everybody seems afraid of him. Men keep coming into this room for one reason and another, but really to stare at me. It is all very strange — but exciting. Thank you again. David. At the end of the year he sent me a Christmas Card. It was a Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company card and was postmarked Basra. He was at an oil school studying geology and seemed happy. That was the last I heard of him until I received the news, three years later, that he was missing in the Rub al Khali desert, the Empty Quarter.

By then I was involved in his father’s affairs. It was a strange business and one that was causing me considerable concern — though at the outset it had seemed straightforward enough. In fact, I wasn’t in the least surprised when he asked me to act for him. A lawyer’s business is a very personal one and tends to grow through personal contact. What my son has told me about you, and the fact that your firm acted for me for many years in the matter of the settlement to his mother, leads me to place complete confidence in your discretion and in your ability to use your own initiative when required. He wanted to consolidate his financial affairs, he said, and he sent me Power of Attorney and gave me authority to collect all monies, meet any accounts that became due and generally manage his business interests. There was nothing particularly unusual about this, except that I was on no account to attempt to communicate with him in any way once the arrangement was working.

My correspondence with him lasted over several months. His letters were all hand-written and the only address he gave was his bank in Bahrain. Shortly after it was all agreed, money began to flow in from all over the Middle East, from Arab merchants and bankers, from traders, from a firm of stockbrokers in Cairo and a large sum from the cashier of the London Office of the Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company. This went on for about a year. Some of it was in kind — pearls from a dealer in Bahrain, even a box full of Maria Theresa dollars and another full of silver, presumably gifts from the local sheikhs.

Finally the flow had dried up and, presuming that the operation was against his retirement, I invested the money for him, mostly in local industry of which I had personal knowledge. The market, of course, was a restricted one, but it never occurred to me that he would almost immediately want large sums in cash. And then in May of the following year accounts began to come through for settlement — for stores, equipment, vehicles; the largest single item almost £5000 for a second-hand seismological truck, complete with geophones and all the necessary equipment for a geophysical survey, and there had been a shipping agent’s account for freighting it down from Basra to Muscat on the Emerald Isle. It was clear that he was embarking on a programme of oil exploration on his own, expecting it to be financed by the nominee account, and it worried me, for I’d no means of knowing where it was going to end. I ignored my instructions then and wrote him several times, care of his bank, but received no reply. And in the New Year I received another batch of accounts, this time for fuel and stores and drilling pipe. I was by then thoroughly alarmed about the whole situation. He obviously didn’t realize that there were restrictions on bank lending in force and I was reluctant to sell securities on a weak market. I was able to meet the immediate accounts, but I had to know what his future plans were. On March 5 I received an account for the hire of a complete drilling rig. I phoned an oilman I knew in Milford Haven, and he gave me figures for the probable cost of drilling, even with a hired rig, that staggered me. I wrote to Whitaker then stating that unless he sent me a statement of his plans and the probable cost by return, I should have no alternative but to fly out at his expense to discuss the whole situation.

That was the position on the morning of March 24 when I came into the office and found an airmail letter with a Bahrain stamp amongst my post. I thought it was the reply I was expecting, but when I opened it I found it was from Susan Thomas. Apparently she was now working as a nurse at a hospital in Dubai. She enclosed a copy of a cable she had received from the offices of the Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company in Bahrain. I read it through twice before my mind was able to take in and accept what the words meant, so great was my sense of shock.

Nurse Susan Thomas the Hospital Dubai from Godco — March 18: Regret inform you your brother David Whitaker missing desert Rub al Khali since February twenty-eight stop Truck now discovered abandoned some fifty miles west north west of Saraifa Oasis stop Extensive ground search with air co-operation RAF in difficult dune country has revealed no trace also unreported Nomad tribesmen stop Now reluctantly called off must be presumed dead stop Company offers deepest sympathy you and your mother — Erkhard.

Presumed dead! It was hard to believe. Dealing as I had been for the last two years with his father’s affairs I had often thought about him, wondered how he was getting on, what he was doing. I had even thought of writing to him to ask about his father’s plans. And now this. My own sense of disbelief was echoed by Susan’s letter — a purely intuitive reaction. We were twins, as you know, yet all this time, whilst they have been searching, I knew nothing, felt nothing. If David is dead, then surely I would have known. And then, a little further on in the letter: Early last month he came to see me, very late at night. He was in some sort of trouble. But what it was he wouldn’t say. He seemed withdrawn and he had a rather wild look. I felt he was in danger, but I still cannot believe he is dead. And then the words: He told me then that if anything were to happen to him I was to write to you at once. In the final paragraph she apologized for being a nuisance and added: But please, please contact the London Office of the Company and try to persuade them to have the search resumed. The letter was signed simply Susan as though I were an old friend.

I was due in court at 10 o’clock and still had the rest of my post to go through; I put the letter aside and didn’t get back to it until late that afternoon when I rang the London Office of the Gulfoman Oilfields Development Company. But of course they knew nothing. A thin, cultured voice informed me that all local administration was dealt with by the Bahrain office. The cable is signed Erkhard, you say?

Then I think you may take it that everything possible has already been done and the facts are as stated. Mr Erkhard is our General Manager out there and in charge of all developments.’ However, he took my name and address and promised to pass on my observations to Bahrain.

I cleared my desk and then got my car and drove down to Grangetown to break the news to Mrs Thomas; not a very pleasant task, but one that I couldn’t very well avoid, since Susan had written: This is something I cannot bring myself to do in a letter. It would be so much kinder if you would do it — more personal, and you can explain the circumstances better. Tell her I will write later. Mrs Thomas had aged, of course; but more so than I would have expected. Her hair was completely grey now, no longer drawn back tightly from her forehead, but hanging untidily in wisps. The dress she wore was none too clean and the eyes looked almost furtive as they flickered from one thing to another, never at rest and never looking directly at me. At the same time, the lines of strain had gone; her face seemed to have filled out, become smoother.

She invited me into the parlour where the couch was still in the same place, the roll-top desk still littered with books on racing form. She was nervous and she was talking all the time as we stood there, almost in the same positions, like actors cued to their places, talking about David, about Sue, about her life and how lonely it was now. ‘But Dafydd is a great comfort to me. He was never much of a letter writer, but since he went to Arabia-’ Her eyes flicked to my face. ‘Is it about Dafydd you’ve come, Mr Grant?’ But then they had fled to another part of the room and she was saying, ‘I’m expecting a letter from him soon. He doesn’t write regularly, of course. He’s in such strange places’. But such a picture he gives me, I can almost see it, you know … the Bedouin men and the camels and the heat; like a dream it is and me twenty again and waiting for letters.’ She gave a little hurried laugh, almost a titter. ‘I get confused sometimes. Over two years it is now since Sue went out there.

I’ve been alone ever since, you see, and the mind plays tricks-’

‘When did you last hear from David?’ I asked her.

‘Oh, recently. Quite recently. And I’ll have another letter from him soon. Any day now, I expect-’ And then, sheering away from the subject, she said, ‘You’ve never seen his room, have you? All his books. I’d like you to see his room.’ And without waiting for a reply, she bustled out of the room as though anxious to escape from me. ‘I’ve kept it just as it was, you know.’

She led me up the ill-lit stairs to a little room at the end of a short landing. The place smelt musty and had the chill of long abandonment. A flick-knife lay on the painted top of a chest of drawers like a warrior’s trophy from some forgotten war and above the bed was a shelf of books. ‘He was a great one for reading,’ she said. ‘Anything about Arabia. I did my best to get him interested in other things, but there … I knew he’d go there sooner or later. It was in the blood as you might say.’

There were about fifty books there, most of them books on Arabia, including expensive volumes like Doughty’s Arabia Deserta — all damaged, but stuck together with loving care. It was a strange glimpse of a young man’s yearning. ‘I believe Colonel Whitaker once wrote a book about Arabia,’ I said. ‘I tried to get a copy, but it was out of print.’

She nodded. ‘It’s a long time since anybody could get a copy. It wasn’t very successful, you see. But there is one here somewhere.’ She leaned her weight against the bed and ran a work-coarsened finger along the bookshelf. And then she took down a book and handed it to me. The title was Wanderings by Camel through the Empty Quarter. ‘Signed it is, you see,’ she said proudly. ‘He gave it to me before he left.’ And she added wistfully, ‘It was the only present he ever gave me.’

The book, of course, brought back memories to her. She smiled at me shyly — almost coyly. ‘You know it was whilst he was home writing that and getting it published that I came to know him. I was in service then at Llanfihangel Hall. That was his family’s place.’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose he was bored really.’ The coy little smile had spread to her eyes so that her whole face was strangely transfigured. ‘But we enjoyed ourselves.’ She said it with a happy little sigh, and then she added, ‘Ah well, you only live once, Mr Grant. That’s what I tell myself whenever I’m feeling lonely. You’ve had your fun, Sarah, I say. You’ve had your fun and you’ve paid the price. Are you married, Mr Grant?’

‘No.’

‘And no illegitimate children?’ She gave a queer laugh as I shook my head. ‘Well, there you are. People like you miss a great deal in life.’ And she added with surprising perception: ‘You shouldn’t always live at secondhand, you know. Rummaging about in other people’s lives-’

‘We do our best to help,’ I murmured uncomfortably. And then I asked her if I could borrow Whitaker’s book for a few days. I thought it might help me to understand the sort of man he was. She looked at me in surprise. ‘No,’ she said quickly, her eyes darting to the book. ‘No, I don’t think I’d like anyone to borrow that.’ And she took it from me and put it quickly back in its place. ‘I’ll make you some tea if you like,’ she said as she took me back down the stairs.

At the bottom, under the light, there was a faded photograph of a pretty girl in a high-necked frock. ‘That was taken just about the time I met the Major,’ she said as she saw me looking at it. ‘He was a major then, you see — from the Kaiser’s War. You didn’t recognize’ it as me, I suppose?’ She smiled. ‘I was considered very pretty then, you know — though I didn’t look so pretty when he’d finished with me and I was bearing twins; more like a balloon, you know. Now won’t you stay and have a cup of tea, Mr Grant, and you can tell me how you managed to get Dafydd out to his father. I should have thanked you for doing that, shouldn’t I, but at the time I thought it might-’ she hesitated. ‘You see, I’ve always been afraid of what would happen when they met. And then Dafydd started to go wrong — all those Arab friends of his-’ We had reached the parlour again and she said, ‘I shall never forget that afternoon. Mr Thomas lying there on the couch, and Dafydd-’ She pointed towards the spot where he had stood. ‘And Dafydd standing there and swearing he’d kill his own Da. But there-’ She gave me a weak uneasy smile. ‘They’re together now. And nothing has happened, has it? It was silly of me to take a young boy so seriously.’ And she added almost violently, ‘But it scared me at the time. It scared me silly.’

‘You say they’re together now?’ ‘Oh, yes — in a place called Saraifa. That’s an oasis-’

‘What was the date of that last letter you had?’

‘I–I don’t remember.’ Her mouth was suddenly trembling. ‘It was quite recent, Mr Grant.’

‘Could I see it please?’

She hesitated, her eyes wandering round the room. And then finally she went to the roll-top desk and took a single sheet of paper from the top of a neat little pile of similar sheets. ‘August it was,’ she said almost in a whisper. ‘August the twenty-third.’

Seven months ago. ‘And you haven’t heard from him since?’

She shook her head, her hand trembling as she stared down at the letter.

‘And he was at Saraifa; does he say what he was doing there?’

‘He’d been on a gazelle hunt with Sheikh Makhmud and his son-’

‘What sort of work, I mean?’

‘No, he doesn’t mention work. But it would be something to do with oil. He’s a geologist, you see, and works for one of the oil companies.’ She was reading the letter to herself again, her lips forming the words which I was certain she knew by heart. ‘He writes beautiful letters, you know — all about the country and the people he meets. He writes so I can almost imagine I’m out there with him.’ She put the letter back on the pile. ‘That was my dream once, that I’d go out there to live.’ She stood there smiling to herself and staring out at the dingy street. ‘Just a dream,’ she repeated. ‘But with the books and the maps I can see it all from his letters. I’m a Welsh woman, you see. I have the gift of imagination.’ And then with a sudden edge of bitterness to her voice: ‘You need imagination sometimes in a hole like this.’

How could I tell her the boy was dead? ‘Have you heard from his father at all?’

She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve never heard from the Major — not once in all these years.’ There was a catch in her voice and she moved quickly away towards the door. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’

‘Please don’t bother,’ I said. ‘I have to go now.’

But she was between me and the door, her hands fumbling at her dress, her eyes searching my face. She had finally screwed herself up to the pitch of facing the implication of my visit. ‘What’s happened, Mr Grant?’ she asked. ‘What’s happened between them? As soon as I saw you standing there on the doorstep-’

‘Nothing has happened between them. According to my information-’

But she didn’t let me finish, wasn’t even listening. ‘I knew they should never have met,’ she cried. ‘They’re alike, you see. They’ve the same nature — obstinate, very obstinate.’ She was almost sobbing for breath. ‘I knew what it would mean. It’s in their stars. They’re both Sagittarius, you see. And he was such a fine man when I knew him. Such a fine man — and lusty, so full of fire and vitality.’ She was wringing her hands and a sound came from her lips like the sound of keening. ‘Known it I have, always. Oh God!’ she whispered. And then, staring straight at me: ‘How did it happen? Do you know how it happened?’

There was nothing for it then but to let her know the facts, such as they were. And because it was easier I handed her the copy of the cable her daughter had sent me. She read it through slowly, her eyes widening as the shock of it went home until they became fixed, almost vacant. ‘Dafydd!’ She murmured his name.

‘He’s reported missing, that’s all,’ I said, trying to comfort her, to offer her some hope.

But she didn’t seem to take that in. ‘Dead,’ she whispered. And then she repeated his name. ‘Dafydd?’ And her tone was one of shocked surprise. ‘I never thought it would be Dafydd. That’s not right at all.’ The fixed stare was almost trance-like. ‘It was never Dafydd that was going to die.’ And a shiver ran through her.

‘I’ll write to your daughter. No doubt she’ll let you have any further information direct.’ She didn’t say anything and her eyes still had that fixed, trance-like look as I took the copy of the cable from her nerveless hand. Her behaviour was so odd I didn’t like to leave it with her. ‘Don’t worry too much. There’s still a chance-’

‘No.’ The word seemed to explode out of her mouth. ‘No, better it is like this, God rest his poor soul.’

Appalled, I hurried past her, out into the fresh evening air. The stars — what a thing to be believing in at a time like this. Poor woman!

But as I drove away, it was the father I was thinking about, a sense of uneasiness growing in my mind, fostered by the violence of her strange reaction. Going back to that house, to that poor woman driven half out of her senses by an old love she couldn’t discard; it was all suddenly fresh in my memory — her fears and the way he’d sworn to kill his father. What had happened between those two in the intervening years? Or was this just an accident — one of those things that can happen to any young man prospecting out there in the remote deserts of Arabia?

Back at the office I got out the Whitaker file and read that postscript to David’s letter again. But there was nothing in it to give me a clue as to how his father had reacted. The words might have been written by any youngster plunged into new and strange surroundings, except that he had described his father as though he were looking at him with the eyes of a complete stranger. But then that was what he was. Right at the bottom of the file was the dossier Andrews had produced from press-cuttings in the library of the Welsh edition of a popular daily and I read it through again:

Charles Stanley Whitaker, born Llanfihangel Hall near Usk 1899. Joined the cavalry as a trooper in 1915, served with Allenby in the offensive against the Turks and rose to the rank of major. After the war, he stayed on in the Middle East. Policeman, trader, dhow-owner; he adopted the Moslem religion, made the pilgrimage to Mecca, has lived with the Bedouin. His book on his crossing of the Rub al Khali desert was published in 1936. By then he had already become something of a legend. Following publication of his book, he went back to the Middle East, and after three years with Gulfoman Oilfields Development, he joined Wavell’s staff on the outbreak of war with the rank of colonel. Awarded the VC for gallantry, wounded twice, served with Wingate and later with Wilson. Was still a colonel at the end of the war. He then rejoined Gulfoman Oilfields Development as political representative.

There was a picture pinned to the dossier which showed him in Arab dress standing beside a Land-Rover on a desert airstrip. The black patch over the right eye was plainly visible; so, too, was the prominent, beak-like nose. He was slightly stooped, as though conscious of his height; he was a head taller than the other two men in the picture. This and the beard and the black patch over the eye, gave him a very formidable appearance, and though the picture wasn’t a very clear one, looking at it again, I couldn’t help feeling that he was a man capable of anything, and I could appreciate the impression he had made on a Welsh servant girl all those years ago. He would have been thirty-six then, a good deal younger, and I suppose he had taken her the way he would have taken a slave girl in a Bedouin encampment; but for her it had been something different, an experience so out of the ordinary that she had thought of nothing else for the last twenty-five years.

I wondered whether she still possessed that album full of press-cuttings. I would like to have looked through it and also through the letters from her son, but I couldn’t face the thought of going back to the house. I returned the file to its place and wrote to Susan advising her to make the journey to Bahrain and see Erkhard. Nothing can be done, it appears, at this end, I told her. Erkhard seems to be the only man who has the authority to order the search to be resumed. Two days later the news of David’s death was in The Times, a rather guarded account it seemed to me. It was clearly based on a Company handout, but it did include a brief description by one of the RAF pilots who had flown the search.

Flight-Lieutenant Hill described the truck as similar to those used by oil companies for seismological work, though no company markings showed on either bonnet or sides. It was halfway up the side of a big sand dune as though it had stalled or bogged down in an effort to surmount this obstacle. It was hardly surprising, he said, that he had flown several times over the area without seeing it; high winds — the local shamal — had piled the sand up on one side of it. He had only sighted the truck because the sun was low and it was casting a shadow.

It was less a news story than a short article and most of it was about Colonel Whitaker — that strange, half-Arab figure, so prominent in the search for Gulf oil during the past twenty years. It was ‘From Our Own Correspondent’, and I had a vague sense as I read it that there was something behind the piece, something that he was not in a position to reveal but that was nevertheless there for those who could read between the lines. Such phrases as: The fascination of this man who has maintained his theory about oil in the face of persistent failure; and Whether he is another Holmes or not, whether the oil company he served for so long will live to regret his departure, only time will tell. Finally there was this: It appears there is some foundation for the rumour that his son, though employed by GODCO, was on loan to him for some private purpose, presumably connected with prospecting for oil. The suggestion that David have been on loan to his father at the time of his disappearance did nothing to allay the uneasiness that had resulted from my visit to Mrs Thomas. And then the following morning Captain Griffiths walked into my office and I knew for certain that there was something more to the boy’s death than the Company had so far revealed.

Griffiths had docked at first light and was still in uniform, having come straight from his ship. ‘I promised to deliver this personally into your hands.’ He put a fat envelope down on the desk in front of me. ‘Personally, you understand. He wouldn’t risk it through the post.’

‘Who’s it from?’ I asked. But the address was handwritten, the writing familiar. I knew it was from David before he answered my question. ‘Young Whitaker,’ he said and sat himself down in the chair opposite my desk.

I was too startled to say anything for a moment, for the boy had been alive when he’d handed this to Griffiths. I picked it up, staring at the address as though that would give me some clue as to what was inside. ‘When did he give you this?’

‘Well now-’ He frowned. ‘It was Sharjah and we were anchored about a mile off-’

‘Yes, but what was the date?’

‘It’s the date I’m trying to remember, man.’ His little beard bristled. ‘Without my log I can’t be sure. But we left Basra on January twenty-third and we called at Kuwait, Bahrain, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai before we anchored off Sharjah; it would be about the middle of the first week in February.’

And David had been reported missing on February 28. Griffiths must have been one of the last people he saw before he went out into the desert — perhaps one of the last of his own race to see him alive. ‘Still the same offices, I see.’ Griffiths had pulled his pipe out and was busy filling it. He didn’t know the boy was dead.

‘The trouble is the clients don’t pay their bills,’ I said and slit the packet open. The old rogue had never settled my account, though he’d admitted that Whitaker had made him a present of fifty quid for getting the boy out to Arabia. Inside was a hand-written letter folded around another envelope that had GODCO. BAHRAIN, printed on the flap. Across the front of it he had typed: DAVID WHITAKER — TO BE OPENED ONLY IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH.

Those words — they came as a shock. I stared at them, wondering how he could possibly have known he was going to die. Or was it just a coincidence?

‘What’s the matter?’ Griffiths asked. ‘What’s he been up to?’

I suppose he thought he was in some sort of legal trouble. ‘You haven’t seen The Times then?’

‘Of course not. I only got in this morning. Why?’

‘David Whitaker is dead,’ I said. And I told him about the truck they’d found abandoned and the description of it given in The Times. ‘You must have been one of the last people to see him alive.’

‘I see.’ His acceptance of it might have surprised me. except that my mind was still on that envelope. ‘It’s almost uncanny,’ I murmured.

‘What is?’

‘Your coming here, with this.’ I turned the envelope round so that he could see what was typed across it. ‘He must have had some sort of a premonition-’

Griffiths nodded his head slowly. ‘That explains it.’ And he added, ‘May his soul rest in peace, the poor devil.’ He said it quietly, with reverence, as though he were on the deck of his ship and consigning the boy’s body to the deep.

‘Explains what?’ I asked him.

‘The circumstances-’ He hesitated. ‘Very strange they were.’ And then he looked at me, his gaze very direct. ‘I don’t think you quite understand, Mr Grant. That boy risked his life on a filthy night with a shamal blowing to get that packet to me without anyone knowing.’

‘Risked his life?’ I was reading through the covering letter, only half listening to him.

‘Yes indeed, for he came off in one of those fisherman’s dugouts and just an Arab boy with him. It was a damned foolhardy thing to do. There was a wicked sea running. He needed a lawyer, he said, somebody he could trust.’

‘Why? Did he say why he needed a lawyer?’

‘No.’ Griffiths shook his head. ‘No, he didn’t say why, and it’s something I’ve been asking myself ever since I put that envelope away in the ship’s safe. What would a young geophysicist want with a lawyer out there in the middle of Arabia?’

I finished reading the letter and then I put it down on the desk. Griffiths was lighting his pipe, his head cocked on one side. ‘Well, he’s dead now, you say.’ He was eyeing the unopened envelope the way a thrush eyes a worm.

‘Perhaps you’d tell me just what happened?’ I suggested.

‘Well-’ He hesitated, his eyes still on the envelope. ‘It was night, you see. We had finished unloading and the deck lights had been switched off about an hour when one of my Arab crew reports a dugout alongside and a white man in it called Thomas asking for me. Well, I couldn’t recall his name, how should I? I have so many passengers; they come and go along the coast — oilmen, Locust Control, Levy officers, Air Force personnel, Government officials. How should I remember his name, even if he was another Welshman? It was four years since he’d used it anyway. And then he came stumbling into my cabin and I recognized him at once of course.’

I thought he was going to stop there, but after a moment’s silence he went on: ‘Only the previous voyage I’d had him on board as a passenger, from Bahrain down to Dubai. He’d changed a great deal in those six months; all the vitality of youth seemed to have been whipped out of him, his skin burned almost black by the sun and the hard, angular bones of the face showing through. But it was the eyes, man. They weren’t the eyes of a youngster any more; they were the eyes of a man who’d looked the world in the face and been badly frightened by it.’

‘Who was he afraid of?’ I was thinking of the father then.

‘I didn’t say he was afraid of anybody.’

‘Did he talk to you at all — about himself?’

‘Oh yes, indeed. He was talking all the time. To be honest, Mr Grant, I thought he might be going round the bend. Some of them do that you know … the heat and the sand, and it’s lonely work-’

‘Yes, but what did he say?’

‘Nothing very much. Nothing that I can remember, that is. He was talking very fast, you see, the words tumbling over themselves — about his job and where he’d been.’

‘And where had he been? Had he been to Saraifa?’

But Griffiths shook his head. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said. ‘I don’t think he mentioned Saraifa. It was talk for the sake of talking, you know — for the sake of hearing the sound of his own voice and having somebody listen to it. He’d been in some wild places, I think, and mostly on his own, with nobody with him but Arabs.’

I asked about the packet then. ‘Did he talk about that at all?’

‘No. He sat at my desk and wrote that covering letter. And when he’d finished it, he borrowed an envelope from me, sealed the whole thing up and asked me to put it in my safe and deliver it to you personally the moment I docked.’

‘Didn’t you ask him why it was so urgent?’

‘Of course I did. I was damned curious about the whole thing. But his manner was so odd-’

‘He didn’t say anything about it being political dynamite then?’

‘Political dynamite?’ Griffiths’s bushy eyebrows lifted. ‘No, he didn’t say anything like that.’ A wary look had come into his eyes. ‘Is that what he says in that letter?’

I nodded. ‘Where’s Colonel Whitaker now? Can you tell me that?’

But he didn’t know for certain. ‘Probably in Saraifa,’ he said. ‘Why?’ His tone was suddenly cautious as though he were a witness under cross-examination, and since I had no intention of telling him the reason for my interest in Whitaker, I asked him about the previous voyage when he’d had David on board as a passenger. ‘Was he going to join his father, do you know?’

But he couldn’t even tell me that. ‘All he said was that he was going down into the Rub al Khali.’ He took out his watch and glanced at it. ‘It was a hell of a time to be going down into the Empty Quarter,’ he added as though glad to escape into generalities. ‘That time of the year the sand is hot enough to burn the tyres off a truck and the soles off your boots.’

‘It was summer?’

He nodded. ‘Early July it would have been.’

And that was the month I’d received the shipping agent’s account. ‘Did you have a seismological truck on board?’

‘Yes.’ He stared at me curiously, surprised that I should know about it. ‘It was deck cargo and we shipped it down to Muscat. I remember that because we had a devil of a job getting it ashore; had to lash four of the local boats together and bridge them with planks.’

‘You don’t think it could be the same truck — the one that was found abandoned?’

But of course he couldn’t tell me that.

‘Did you know he was on loan to his father? Did he say anything about that?’

He shook his head and got to his feet.

‘Did he talk about his father at all?’

‘No, he didn’t mention him.’ He said it flatly as though to discourage any further questions. ‘I must be going now, Mr Grant. Just docked — a lot of things to see to, you know.’

I was reluctant to let him go. ‘One more question, Captain Griffiths.’ I was standing facing him then. ‘You said once that you heard all the gossip out there. Have you heard any rumours about Saraifa?’

‘Rumours?’

That Colonel Whitaker is prospecting for oil there.’

He started to say something, but then he seemed to think better of it and shook his head. ‘A man like that, you never know what’s true and what isn’t. And Saraifa is a long way from the coast. A trouble spot, too.’ He glanced uneasily at his watch again.

I read him The Times Correspondent’s report, the paragraph about David being on loan to his father. But all he said was, The Whitaker Theory. It crops up whenever anybody writes about that man.’ And then he was moving towards the door. ‘Well, I’ve done what I promised, and that’s that.’ He held out his hand. ‘Sad about David Whitaker, very sad. Good boy — lots of character.’ He shook my hand briefly, cast a quick glance at the envelope still lying unopened on my desk and then went to the door. His last words to me as I saw him out were: ‘It’s a tricky business — oil. Lot of money involved; politics, too. And if he was operating anywhere near the Hadd-Saraifa border … Well, you’d understand if you’d ever been out there.’ He said it in a fatherly way as though he were giving me some sound advice.

I was reluctant to let him go. That little Welsh sea captain was stuffed full of all the gossip of the Gulf if I could only have wrung it out of him. But I don’t think he wanted to talk and anyway I was anxious to find out what that envelope contained. The covering letter had given me no real indication.

You helped me once long ago. Now I’m asking you to help me again. He mentioned the envelope then and asked me to put it in a safe place and only open it in the event of his death. You ‘re the only man I feel I can trust with a thing like this. And he added, I should warn you that it’s political dynamite, and if anybody knew it was in your possession it might lead to trouble. He concluded with apologies for bothering me with his affairs, and then these words: Thank you again for helping me to a life that has suited me and that I have enjoyed. It was signed: Yours gratefully — David. I read it through again standing at my desk, and there was no escaping the significance of those final words. For some reason he had believed he was going to die. Had he been ill, suffering from some terrible disease? But that didn’t fit Griffiths’s description of him. Nervous, wrought up, even frightened — yes; but not ill. And why the secrecy anyway?

I picked up the envelope and slit it open. Inside was a typewritten letter, his Will, and two envelopes — one addressed to Sir Philip Gorde at the London Office of GODCO, the other marked: LOCATION AND SKETCH MAP. Location of what? But it wasn’t difficult to guess, for what else but the discovery of oil could be described as political dynamite in the deserts of Arabia?

The letter didn’t say so in so many words, but it made it pretty clear. And because it gives some indication of his frame of mind — and also because it formed the basis of my subsequent actions — I give it here in full. It was dated December 29 of the previous year and above the date he had typed — Somewhere in the Sheikhdom of Saraifa: Dear Mr Grant,

The time has come to put my affairs into the hands of somebody I know and can trust. I am working here on an old survey. It was carried out a long time ago and the man who did it is dead now. If my own results confirm his report — and I shall know very shortly — I shall try and catch Captain Griffiths at Sharjah when the Emerald Isle stops there about the end of next month. I cannot explain to you why it is necessary. All I can say is that this is a forbidden zone and that I am working against time and without authority. Everything is against me — almost like it was when I came to you last. I’ve always been a bit of a rebel at heart. But outside of the pack, you’re on your own. And whatever happens to me, I’m determined that Saraifa shall have the benefit of my efforts. The oasis fights a losing battle with the desert. Without money it is doomed. And I spent six of the happiest months of my life there.

When you read this I shall be dead. Please then take the following action: Contact Sir Philip Gorde. who is on the board of directors of GODCO, and give him the envelope I have addressed to him. It contains a document which is correctly-phrased and is a copy of other concession agreements. It will also contain my survey report, but without the locations. The locations will be contained in a separate envelope, together with additional copies of my survey report. This envelope is only to be handed over after Sir Philip Gorde has signed the concession agreement and legally bound the Company, to your satisfaction, to drill four test wells at the locations indicated. (The four had been written in ink, presumably later.) In the event that Sir Philip Gorde refuses to sign, then you will please take whatever action you think best in the interests of Saraifa. Khalid, the Sheikh’s son, knows what I am doing and you will find he fully understands what is at stake so far as the oasis is concerned. It is essential that somehow you get the concession taken up. Saraifa needs oil desperately and if you succeed you will not find Khalid lacking in appreciation, or Sheikh Makhmud for that matter. You may, of course, make what use you can of the circumstances of my death, my parentage and my past to achieve publicity and so attract the interest of other oil companies.

Enclosed also is my Will. I have appointed you my Executor and after making the necessary arrangements with my bank in Bahrain, you will please draw on the account for fees and expenses. Please understand that I would not again involve you in my affairs if I were not desperate. In the event of my death I have instructed my sister to contact you immediately.

David Whitaker

It was an unusual communication for a solicitor to receive, most unusual; and reading it through again I was struck by the fact that he made no mention of his father. In the whole of that document there wasn’t one reference to Colonel Whitaker. Everything is against me. There were other phrases, too. I was greatly disturbed about the whole thing, particularly as I knew that Whitaker was engaged in an operation that must run counter to the interests of the company he had served and which David was serving at the time of his death.

However, there was no point in speculating. His instructions were clear and I picked up the phone and rang the London Office of GODCO. And whilst I was waiting for the call to come through I had a look at the Will. He had typed it himself, but it was a perfectly legal document even though the witnesses to his signature were two Arabs. It appointed me Executor and his sister, Susan, sole legatee with instructions to take care of their mother. Again no reference to his father.

This and the letter and the fact that he had made such careful provision against the possibility of death, gave a strange quality of isolation to his activities, as though he were operating alone in a hostile world. I think it was then that I seriously began to consider the possibility that his disappearance was no accident.

My call to GODCO came through and I was put on to the same thin, cultured voice. No, Sir Philip was not available, would not be for some time. He was on a tour of the Company’s Middle East properties and not expected back for at least a month. I could contact him through the Bahrain Office if the matter were important.

I put the phone down and sat there for a long time, considering. But I don’t think there was ever any real doubt in my mind. I hadn’t heard from Whitaker and, quite apart from his son’s death, the necessity for a meeting with him was urgent. It was just that the Persian Gulf was a long way away and I had got out of the habit of travelling. Fortunately I now had an arrangement with another firm of solicitors which enabled me to get away when necessary and in the end I put a call through to a local travel agency. BOAC flights direct to Bahrain were weekly, leaving on Thursdays at 1000 hours and arriving 0305 hours Friday. That just gave me time to make all my arrangements, get visas and clear my desk of the more urgent matters. I told them to book me out on the next flight, locked the contents of the envelope in the safe and went out for a drink. I needed to think, for I was beginning to realize what it was he’d landed on my desk. Political dynamite! If he was a good geophysicist, then what I’d locked away in my safe might well be the location of a new oilfield.

Three days later I flew out of London Airport in a storm of rain and wind. March going out like a lion; but at Rome it was hot and all down the Mediterranean we had bright sunshine. And I sat in my seat with an empty feeling inside me, for the day before I’d left Cardiff a man had come to see me, a tired-looking, hard-faced man with a skin like leather who’d refused to give Andrews his name or state his business.

Even when he was alone with me in my office he went about it in such a tortuous way that it only gradually dawned on me what he was after. It was cleverly done — a hint here, a hint there, and the abyss gradually opening up at my feet. He knew David had boarded the Emerald Isle off Sharjah, knew, too, that Griffiths had delivered that packet to me. He’d been down to see him at his cottage in the Gower. He’d been to the police, too; had talked with Sergeant Mathieson and had checked the files. He knew the boy’s real name, his whole background, everything, and what he wanted from me was that packet.

He smiled when I told him I couldn’t discuss my client’s affairs. ‘Professional etiquette? Your profession! etiquette, Mr Grant, is somewhat elastic, if you follow me.’ It was a cat-and-mouse game, for he knew I’d helped the boy to get out of the country. ‘There are several charges outstanding and a warrant.’

‘The boy is dead,’ I reminded him.

But it made no difference. He had his instructions, he said. These were to take possession of the packet. ‘You can hand it to me or forward it to the Company — one or the other.’ I asked him what authority he had for making such an outrageous proposal, but all he’d say was that it was in the country’s interests. One knows, of course, that there are men like that employed by Government and by large companies, but one doesn’t expect to come across them. They belong to a half-world that lies outside the experience of ordinary citizens.

‘In your own interests I suggest you hand it to me. Nobody need know anything then.’

It was blackmail and by then I was sweating, for I was beginning to realize what I was up against. Politics and oil — the Middle East; the scope of a provincial lawyer doesn’t cover that sort of world … I just hadn’t the right sort of pull, the contacts, the friends in high places.

‘You can go to the devil,’ I told him.

He got to his feet then, ‘I had hoped for your cooperation.’ And he added, Think it over, Mr Grant. The police have an interest in this and if they begin an investigation. … It could be very unpleasant for you. A man in your position, a lawyer-’ He left it at that and picked up his hat.

I wondered then whether he knew I was leaving for Bahrain in two days’ time. The Foreign Office had my passport. They could still refuse to grant me the necessary visas. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll think it over.’

And the next day, in London, I found I had been granted a visa for Bahrain, but not for either Dubai or Saraifa. A note pinned to my passport stated that for any further visas you should apply to the office of the Political Resident Persian Gulf in Bahrain. Darkness fell, the port light showing red. I woke to the touch of the air hostess’s hand on my shoulder and the sighing sound of the flaps going down. The silver of a new moon had risen, reflecting with the stars in the still surface of the sea coming up to meet us, a steel mirror suddenly patterned with the arrowheads of fish traps as we skimmed the shallows. A moment later we touched down in Bahrain. And at three-thirty in the morning the air was still heavy with the day’s heat. It came at us as soon as the door was opened, suffocating in its humidity.

The squat, white-fronted coral houses of Muharraq were without life as the airport bus drove us across the long causeway to the main island and the town of Manama. A solitary dhow was putting to sea, the curve of its sail a thing of ghostly beauty against the blackness of the water; all the others lay dormant in the mud or bare-poled against the coral hards with sails furled.

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.’

‘She’s out here in Dubai — a nurse.’

I nodded. ‘You cabled her the news. She sent me a copy.’

‘Yes. A very unfortunate business. It’s not often we have a casualty.’ There was a long pause, and then he said, ‘Why are you here, Mr Grant? Are you hoping to persuade us to resume the search? I had a message, something to that effect from London Office.’ And he added, ‘I assure you it would be quite useless.’

‘Perhaps if I had a full account of the circumstances,’ I suggested.

‘Of course. There is a report of the search. I’ll see that you’re given a copy before you leave.’ Another long pause. ‘You were asking for Sir Philip Gorde, I understand. Why?’ And when I didn’t answer, he added, ‘I signed that cable to Nurse Thomas and you’ve been in touch with London. You knew perfectly well that I gave the order for the search to be abandoned.’ He stared at me. ‘Perhaps you would care to explain?’

‘There’s nothing to explain,’ I said. ‘It happens that I have to see Sir Philip on a private matter.’

‘Connected with Whitaker?’

‘Yes.’

He got suddenly to his feet. ‘I’m the General Manager in Arabia, Mr Grant. Whitaker was employed by me. His death is my responsibility, not Sir Philip Gorde’s.’

‘I appreciate that.’

‘Then your correct approach was surely to ask for an interview with me?’

It seemed to worry him and I wondered why. He was staring down at me, waiting for an answer. Finally he turned away and stood looking out of the window at the brown, dried-up landscape. His light tropical suit was obviously tailored in London and the silk shirt was monogrammed with his initials. ‘Sir Philip is in Abu Dhabi.’ He said it quietly as though he were speaking to himself. ‘Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, he will be going on to Sharjah. That’s another of the Trucial sheikhdoms, further to the east. He will not be back here for at least a week, perhaps a fortnight.’ He turned then and looked directly at me again. ‘How do you propose to contact him? Have you thought of that?’ ‘I only got in this morning,’ I said. ‘Have you visas for the Trucial sheikhdoms?’ ‘No. I have to apply to the Political Resident’s office-’ ‘Mr Grant.’ He was smiling again. ‘I don’t think you understand. It isn’t easy to get visas for the Trucial Oman. The PRPG is very naturally extremely reluctant-’ He gave a little shrug. ‘This is Arabia, you know, not Europe. The political situation is far from stable and there is a great deal at stake; enormous sums of capital have been sunk in this area.’ He paused there to give me time to consider. ‘Of course, we could help you. Not only in the matter of your application for a visa, but in transport, too. We have flights going east along the coast to our various development projects. In fact, I think there is one going to Abu Dhabi tomorrow. But,’ he added, ‘in order to help you we should have to know the exact purpose of your visit.’

He was taking a lot of trouble over this. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Beyond saying that my business with Sir Philip concerns the Estate — a matter of a signature — I cannot disclose-’

‘You have a document for him to sign?’ He sounded puzzled, and when I refused to be drawn, he gave a little shrug and returned to his desk. ‘Since it is a private matter and not the concern of the Company, I’m afraid I can’t help you, Mr Grant. I’ll send Gorde a personal note, of course, to tell him you’re here.’ A fractional hesitation and then with that little smile that never remotely touched his eyes: ‘And if you’d care to communicate with him direct, then I’ve no doubt we could arrange for a letter to be delivered to him by tomorrow’s plane.’ His hand reached out to the onyx bell-push on the desk.

I

‘One moment,’ I said. I wasn’t sure how to handle it, but I knew that once I was out of that office, the opportunity to question him would be gone for ever. ‘I wonder … perhaps you would be good enough to clear up one or two points for me?’ I said it tentatively. ‘Whilst I’m here,’ I added.

There was a momentary hesitation whilst his hand still hovered on the bell-push.

‘I’m a little puzzled about certain aspects of the boy’s death,’ I murmured.

The hand moved back from the bell-push, reluctantly. And then he smiled and leaned back in his chair. ‘Of course.’

‘You say he was employed by you at the time of his death?’

‘He was employed by the Company, yes.’

I hesitated. The devil of it was I didn’t know what I was after. Something … but what? The map, towering behind him, caught my eye. ‘Could you show me exactly where it was his truck was found?’

He got up at once, almost with relief, I felt. The position he indicated was well to the south-west of Buraimi Oasis, a position where three dotted lines met. Peering over his shoulder I saw that these marked the boundaries of Saudi Arabia, the Sheikhdom of Saraifa and the emirate of Hadd. His finger rested on a point inside the Saudi Arabian border. The whole area was shaded with little dots. The sands of the Rub al Khali,’ he explained. ‘Dune country. It’s called the Empty Quarter.’

‘You’ve no concessions in Saudi Arabia, have you?’

‘No.’

‘Then what was he doing there?’

That’s something we should like to know, Mr Grant.’

‘He was there without your authority then?’

‘Of course.’ His nod was very emphatic.

‘If he was carrying out a survey, then presumably he had a survey crew. What happened to them?’

He hesitated and the quick glance he gave me suggested that this was something he didn’t want to go into. But in the end he said, ‘He had an Arab crew. They were picked up by Askari of the Emir of Hadd. However, the men have been interviewed. It appears they became nervous. Hardly surprising in that area. Anyway, they downed tools, took the Land-Rover and left Whitaker there on his own.’

‘In Saudi Arabia?’

‘No, no.’

‘Where, then?’

He glanced at me quickly again, his eyes narrowing. ‘They wouldn’t say. At least … they couldn’t give the exact location.’

‘Was it somewhere on the Hadd border?’ I asked, remembering what Griffiths had said.

He ignored that. ‘Doubtless they could have led us to the place, but the Emir refused to allow them outside the Wadi Hadd al-Akhbar.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘The Emir is very difficult.’ And he added, ‘But of course this is hardly a matter that concerns you.’

‘On the contrary,’ I said sharply, ‘it’s important that I know exactly where the boy was supposed to be operating at the time of his death. Until I know that-’

But he shook his head. ‘Best leave it at that, Mr Grant.’

‘Because of the political aspect?’ I was convinced now that the locations in my briefcase would show that David had been operating somewhere along the Hadd-Saraifa border.

‘Politics come into it, yes. They always do in Arabia.’

‘And particularly where oil is concerned?’

He nodded agreement, and I asked him then whether he thought there was oil in that area. He looked at me very tight-lipped and said:

‘We’ve no reason to imagine so.’

‘Then what’s the political problem?’

He hesitated, and then half-turned to the map again. Those borders,’ he said. They’re all three in dispute.

Particularly the border between Hadd and Saraifa.’

‘Would you describe that as “political dynamite”?’ His eyes narrowed and I pushed it further: ‘If oil were discovered there?’

‘Yes,’ he said, and turned back to his desk. ‘I think, Mr Grant, we are getting a long way from the purpose of your visit.’

‘I don’t think so.’ He wanted to terminate the interview. Equally I wanted to continue it. ‘Did David Whitaker submit a survey report to you at any time during, say, the two months before his death?’

‘No.’

I stared at him, wondering whether that was the truth. And then I decided to play the thing I’d been holding in reserve. ‘Suppose I told you that I have in my possession the location he was working on at the time of his death?’

He affected disbelief. But it lacked something, the quickness of spontaneity, the sharpness of genuine surprise. And suddenly my mind clicked. ‘Four days ago,’ I murmured, ‘in my office in Cardiff … I was visited by a gentleman who attempted by threats to get those locations from me.’ He didn’t say anything and I let the silence drag out. ‘He didn’t get them, of course,’ I said quietly. I was staring at him, but he kept his eyes on the desk.

‘I don’t think this concerns me.’ The silence had forced it out of him. His hand reached for the bell-push.

I waited, and he hesitated. Curiosity had won. He turned to me and said harshly, ‘David Whitaker was employed by us. We should know the locations he was surveying. We have a right.’

‘Have you?’ I asked.

‘Yes. And I’ll add this: I find it very difficult to understand why you should have been given this information whilst the Company has been left in the dark.’

He was facing me, and after what seemed a long time his eyes fell away to the desk again. He was puzzled. A little frightened, too. I thought he’d every reason to be both.

‘David Whitaker knew he was going to die.’ I said it slowly and with emphasis. And before he had time to recover from the shock of what I’d said, I shifted my ground. ‘Does Colonel Whitaker know his son’s dead?’

‘I really cannot say.’ He was still considering the implication of what I’d told him, and I was convinced it was something he hadn’t known before.

‘We regarded the sister as the most suitable person to inform.’ And he added, ‘The boy was illegitimate, you know.’ It was a mistake, for it confirmed something I had come to suspect — that David’s background was known to the Company. But he didn’t seem conscious of it. Nor did he seem conscious of the drift of my questions. ‘I think you will agree, when you’ve read the report of the search, that everything possible was done.’

‘But they didn’t find his body?’

‘No. And if you knew the sort of country it is there, that wouldn’t surprise you.’ He seemed anxious to reassure me on this point. ‘It’s a big dune country and the sand is moving all the time. It obliterates everything. Even his truck was half-buried when they located it.’

‘It was a seismological truck, I believe?’

He nodded.

‘One of yours?’

He didn’t answer immediately and there was a sudden stillness in the room. And when he spoke he chose his words carefully. ‘I’ve already told you he was employed by the Company at the time of his death.’

‘Oil company trucks are usually marked with the name of the company, aren’t they?’

‘What are you implying?’

There were no markings on this particular truck.’

‘How do you know?’

There was a report of the search in The Times.’ ‘Oh, so you’ve seen that.’ He hesitated. ‘Not every truck, you know, is marked with the Company’s name.’

That doesn’t answer my question,’ I said. ‘Was that truck a Company truck or not?’

I thought he was going to evade the question. But then he said, ‘No. No, it wasn’t one of our trucks.’

‘Whose truck was it then?’

But he’d had enough. ‘I’m not prepared to discuss the Company’s affairs. The truck has no bearing on the boy’s death.’

‘I think it has,’ I said, as his hand reached for the bell-push again. And I added, ‘One final question. Can you tell me where I’ll find Colonel Whitaker?’

‘Whitaker? I thought it was Gorde you’d come to see?’

‘Whitaker, too,’ I told him. ‘David may have been employed by you, but he was on loan to his father at the time of his death.’

‘Quite untrue. The Times is in error.’ And he pressed the bell. The interview was at an end.

As though he had been waiting for his cue, the secretary came in immediately. ‘See that Mr Grant has a copy of the report on the Whitaker search, will you, Firweather. He can take it away with him.’ Erkhard turned to me. ‘Have you a taxi waiting?’ And when I shook my head, he told his secretary to arrange for a Company car to drive me back to Manama.

‘You haven’t told me where I’ll find Colonel Whitaker?’ I said as I got to my feet.

He couldn’t very well refuse to answer me in front of his secretary. ‘In Saraifa, I imagine.’ And he added, ‘But if you’re thinking of going there, I should remind you that you will not be granted a visa.’

Did that mean he’d use his influence to prevent me getting one? I hesitated, glancing up at the map. The flags had names on them and because it might be the only opportunity I’d have, I went across to it and had a close look at them. There were only two anywhere near the Saraifa-Hadd border and the names on them were Ogden and Entwhistle. That map is confidential, Mr Grant.’ It was the secretary, at my side now and quite agitated.

‘You needn’t worry,’ I said. ‘I know nothing about oil, so it doesn’t tell me anything. Who did the ground search?’ I asked Erkhard.

‘Entwhistle,’ he answered without looking up.

‘I’ll give you that report now,’ the secretary said.

Erkhard didn’t look up as I left, determined to give me no excuse for further questions. In the outer office I asked if I could write a note to Sir Philip Gorde. The secretary gave me a sheet of Company notepaper and I wrote it at his desk with him more or less standing over me. I marked the envelope Personal, but I was careful to say nothing in it that Erkhard didn’t know already. The secretary promised to see that it went out by the next plane. ‘If there is a reply, I’ll send it down to your hotel.’ He gave me a duplicated copy of the report of the search and showed me out.

I read that report in the car driving back to Manama. It told me very little that I didn’t already know. The truck had been discovered by nomads of the Rashid tribe who had passed the news on to some Harasis going down to the Gulf of Masira. The naukhuda of a dhow had brought the news across to Masira Island and the RAF Station there had radioed it on to RAF HQ Aden. A Valetta, landing at Masira on the milk-run up from Kormaksar, had begun the aerial search on March 11, and the abandoned truck had been located after a three-day search. Erkhard had then ordered Entwhistle, who was operating about seventy miles away, to break off his seismological survey work and proceed at speed to the area.

Due to a broken spring Entwhistle had not reached the abandoned truck until three days later. He had then carried out a systematic search, but had found no trace of David and the few nomads he encountered knew nothing about him. After four days lack of supplies had forced him to” retire. Meantime, the Valetta, supported by a plane chartered by GODCO, had carried out an intensive air search, but the rough going had put Entwhistle’s radio out of action and it was not until he joined up with Ogden’s outfit on March 24 that he was able to report his failure to find even the body.

It was obvious that no blame attached to the Company. As Erkhard had said, everything possible had been done. I put the report away in my briefcase. The only man who could tell me anything more was Entwhistle, and remembering the position of his flag on Erkhard’s operations map, I knew there wasn’t much chance of my having a talk with him.

We were approaching the town now, the twin minarets of the Suq al-Khamis Mosque standing slender against the sky, and I told the driver to take me to the Political Resident’s office. The PRPG, sir?’ He slowed the car. ‘Is not in Manama. Is out at Jufair by the Naval Base.’ He hesitated. He was a very superior-looking Bahraini. ‘You wish me to drive you there?’

“Please.’

He turned right and we reached the Jufair road by the National Cinema. ‘Have you a pass, sir? Everybody need a pass to enter Jufair Naval Base.’ But the native sentry on the gate knew the car and he let us through without question. We were close to the sea then with a frigate lying white as a swan on the oily-calm water. The road curved amongst the trees, the Government blocks standing discreetly back in semblance of a country estate. It was all manifestly English, and so, too, was the Passport Control Office with its forms. Purpose of visit … what did I put for that? I handed my passport to the clerk, together with my application for visas. ‘Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Saraifa. That’s quite a tour.’ He shook his head doubtfully, turning over the pages of my passport. The first three, they’re Trucial sheikhdoms — they may be possible. But Saraifa; that’s quite out of the question.’

‘Isn’t that for the Ruler to decide?’ I asked. ‘I understand it’s an independent sheikhdom.’

The suggestion seemed to strike him as a novel one.

‘We decide who goes to Saraifa,’ he said stiffly. And he added, ‘If you’ll come back later-’

‘This afternoon? I want to leave for Abu Dhabi tomorrow.’

‘This afternoon?’ He sounded doubtful. ‘Well, perhaps-’

I drove to the BO AC office then, only to discover that if I wanted to fly to Abu Dhabi I should have to charter a plane. Gulf Airways ran a service to Sharjah, but not to Abu Dhabi. It was my first experience of the difficulties of communication in the country. Back at the hotel in time for lunch I was hailed by Ruffini, sitting alone like a pale blue toad in front of a tall glass. ‘You like a beer?’

He had seen one of the chief executives of BAPCO — the Bahrain Petroleum Company — out at the oil town of Awali, and then had an interview with Erkhard. ‘This afternoon I go to Jufair, but I do not think they tell me anything.’ He leaned towards me across the table. ‘You puzzle me, Signer Grant,’ he said. ‘A lawyer, always with your briefcase. You say you are not interested in oil, yet your business is with two of the most important oilmen in the Gulf.’

The boy brought my drink. ‘Salute!’ Ruffini raised his glass. That girl at the reception desk — she is new to GODCO and she talk. This morning, when you ask for Sir Philip Gorde and he is not there, Erkhard immediately sees you ‘imself. Why?’ His eyes were fixed on my face, full of curiosity. ‘Why are you so important? What is in that briefcase of yours, signore?’ He shook his head and gave a mock sigh. ‘You will not tell me, of course. Not yet.’ His face creased in a smile and he gulped down the rest of his drink. ‘Let’s go and eat.’

Over lunch he told me why he was in Bahrain. He worked for a newspaper group in Milan and he’d had a tip-off from one of Italy’s leading oilmen. ‘I think he is right,’ he said. There is trouble. But where?’ He had been up since six talking in the bazaars, to Indians chiefly. A squadron of bren-gun carriers of the RAF Regiment was rumoured to have been sent to Sharjah and two RAF reconnaissance planes had been fitted with long-range tanks. There was talk, too, of additional transport allocated to the Trucial Oman Scouts and the GOC Persian Gulf was known to be on a tour of inspection. ‘If there is trouble ‘ere,’ he said, ‘then it mean only one thing — oil.’ And suddenly, without warning, he said, ‘What about this David Whitaker, eh?’ He smiled at me. ‘Now you are surprised. But that little girl knew him and you told her your business is about this boy who is missing.’ He stared at me. ‘But you don’t want to talk about it, eh?’

‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ I said. ‘I’m his Executor, that’s all.’

‘An’ you ‘ave to see Sir Philip Gorde, who is four years ago one of the most important men in the Gulf, but not any more — who is also the life-long friend of Colonel Whitaker, the boy’s father. An’ you ‘ave nothing to tell me, eh?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Per’aps, you do not know it, my friend — but I think maybe you are sitting on the story I want.’ He stared at me a moment, and then very seriously: ‘You will think I am being very stupid now, but walk with care. I like you. I like men who ‘ave a sense of duty. That is why I am warning you.’

‘You sound very serious.’ I wanted to laugh it off. But he said, ‘I am very serious. Oil is big money. And in a country like this it is also political dynamite.’ Probably he misread the shock his choice of words gave me, for he added quickly, ‘You don’t believe that, eh? Well, I will take a bet with you. You will not get to Abu Dhabi or to Sharjah. Saraifa is closed anyway. You will, in fact, not be allowed out of Bahrain. And you will be got out of ‘ere somehow before Sir Philip Gorde returns. Have you got your visas yet?’

‘I have to go back to Jufair this afternoon.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You can come with me. But you will not get any visa.’

He was right there. They were very apologetic about it down at Jufair but the only man who could deal with my application had unfortunately been called away on urgent business. Perhaps if I came back tomorrow. There was no point in arguing. The brick wall of officialdom can’t be battered down unless you have the right contacts, and I’d no contacts at all. I went for a walk along the naval jetty. There was a wind blowing off the anchorage, but it was a hot wind and did nothing to refresh me. Half an hour later Ruffini joined me. ‘Do you get your visas?’ He gave me a wicked smile. He knew I hadn’t got them.

‘Did you get the low-down on the political situation?’ I asked him.

He gave a fat chuckle and shook his head. ‘The same thing. Nobody is saying anything. What is more,’ he added, ‘you and me, we are in the same boat. No visas for Ruffini also. He is to stay ‘ere and mind his bloody business.’ He hoisted himself on to the sea wall. ‘Officials can be very stupid. If I have to stay on in Bahrain and write my story from ‘ere, then I have to guess at what goes on, and maybe I guess wrong.’ He was staring out across the anchorage, his eyes screwed up against the dazzle of the water. ‘That gunboat for instance-’ He nodded towards the frigate, which was slowly fetching up to her anchor, the clatter of her winch coming to us very clear across the water. ‘An exercise, they tell me. Routine. Maybe that is all it is and they are speaking the truth. But ‘ow do I know?’

We stayed and watched her steam out of the anchorage and then Ruffini heaved himself down off the wall. ‘Do you ever ‘ear of the Emir of Hadd?’ he asked as we walked back to the taxi. The Emir Abdul-Zaid bin Sultan? Well, no matter.’ He wiped the perspiration from his face. ‘But try shooting that name at the political people ‘ere and see ‘ow their faces go blank. I tell you,’ he added, ‘this country is worse than a Sicilian village, full of old vendettas and not a clear boundary anywhere to mark the finish of one sheikh’s piece of sand and the beginning of the next.’

He took me back to the hotel and I lay and sweated on my bed till dinner time, wondering how I was to contact Gorde and thinking about Ruffini. Was there really trouble brewing? But it all seemed remote — as remote as Colonel Whitaker out there in Saraifa and utterly inaccessible. And next day, after a full morning’s work, I was no nearer either of my objectives.

I rang the Passport Office, but nothing had been decided. And when I checked on transportation I found that even if I were willing to charter a plane, there was none available with sufficient range to fly direct to Saraifa, and in any case flights there were prohibited. I went to the bank then and settled David’s affairs as far as I was able. It was the same bank that his father dealt with and the manager was helpful. He confirmed that Colonel Whitaker was living in Saraifa, this contrary to his very strict instructions. But he could tell me little else and I went back to the hotel and had a drink with two RAF officers and a civilian pilot, a Canadian named Otto Smith. After lunch we all went down to the Sailing Club for a bathe.

Half the English colony was there, for it was Saturday, and amongst them was the girl from the GODCO reception desk sprawled half-naked on the cement of the old seaplane jetty. ‘So you’re off to Sharjah, Mr Grant?’ And when I told her I was having visa trouble, she smiled and said, ‘I think you’ll find it’s all right.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Oh, I know everything.’ She laughed. ‘No, I happened to see your name on the flight list for tomorrow’s plane.’

She was perfectly right. When I got back to the hotel that evening I found my passport waiting for me, stamped with visas for Sharjah and Dubai. There was also a message, signed by Erkhard’s secretary, informing me that ‘owing to the Company’s desire to help you in every possible way’ free passage was being granted to me in a Company plane leaving for Sharjah at 1030 hours the following morning, Sunday. The message added that accommodation would be available at the Fort and it was not anticipated that I should have to wait long before Sir Philip arrived from Abu Dhabi.

There was no doubt in my mind that Erkhard had intervened to get me the necessary visas. But why? The day before he had made it clear that he didn’t intend to help me. And after the way I had cross-examined him I hadn’t expected it. And yet here he was giving me a free ride on a Company plane. I sat on my bed and smoked a cigarette whilst the hot evening breeze blew in through the open window, and the only conclusion I came to was that they had sent my note to Gorde and he had given the necessary instructions. Whatever the reasons, it was a great relief to me and I got up and started to pack.

I had just closed the larger of my two suitcases when there was a knock at the door. It was one of the house-boys to say there was a young Arab asking for me at the desk. ‘It is a boy from the bazaar, sir. From the al-Menza Club.’ And he grinned at me.

I had a wash and then dressed. The boy was still there when I got down quarter of an hour later. He was little more than an urchin and none too clean, and when he realized I didn’t speak Arabic, he seized hold of my wrist, pulling at me and hissing the words al-Menza and girl-want. Girl-want seemed to be the sum total of his English and I told him to go to hell. He understood that for he grinned and shook his head. ‘Girl-spik. Spik, sahib.’

I got hold of the house-boy and then he said the boy had been sent by one of the girls at the al-Menza Club. ‘She wishes to speak with you, sir.’ This time he didn’t grin. And he added with a puzzled frown. ‘It is a personal request. This boy is from the house where she lives.’

I didn’t like it. ‘Tell him No,’ I said and I went over to an empty table and ordered a beer. It took two house-boys and a lot of argument to get rid of the boy. I drank my beer and then went in to dinner, a solitary, dreary meal. I had just finished when the waiter came to tell me a taxi-driver was waiting outside for me. It was Mahommed AH. ‘There is a boy in my taxi,’ he said. ‘Is wishing you to go to the al-Menza to meet a girl.’

‘I’ve already told him I’m not interested.’

‘You should go, sir. She ‘as something to tell you.’

I hesitated. But after all the man was a taxi-driver attached to the hotel. ‘You’ll drive me there, will you?’

‘Okay, sir.’

It wasn’t far to the bazaar area and we finished up in a side street that was barely wide enough for the car. The al-Menza was sandwiched between a cobbler’s shop and a narrow alley, the door guarded by a turbanned Sudanese. I told the driver to wait and the boy took me by the hand and hurried me down the alley and through the black gap of a doorway into a dark passage. He left me there and a moment later footsteps sounded, high-heeled and sharp, and then a girl’s voice, low, with a peculiarly resonant quality, almost husky. ‘Monsieur.’ She took my hand, her fingers hard, not caressing. ‘Through ‘ere, pleez.’

A door was pushed open and there were soft lights and the faint beat of Western music, a jive record playing somewhere in the building. A beaded curtain rattled back and we were in a little room no bigger than a cell. The floor was bare earth with a rug and a few cushions. A naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling showed me my companion.

I don’t know quite how to describe that girl. She certainly wasn’t beautiful, though I suppose that is a matter of taste, for she was obviously Arab; Arab mixed with something else — European, I thought, with a touch of the real African. She stood very straight with a lithe, almost animal grace. She was the sort of girl you could picture at the well drawing water and striding across the sand with a pitcher on her head. She was that, and she was the other sort, too — the husky voice; dropped a shade it would be totally erotic, a vicious invitation. No point in dramatizing; she was just a Middle Eastern tart, but I’d never met one before and it made an impression.

We sat cross-legged on the cushions, facing each other.

She wore a queer sort of dress and I had a feeling that at the touch of a secret button she’d come gliding out of it like a butterfly out of a chrysalis. Her hands were pressed tight together and she leaned forward, her eyes, her lips devoid of invitation, hard almost and urgent. ‘You know why I ask you to come ‘ere?’

I shook my head.

‘You do not guess?’ There was the ghost of a smile on her half-open lips. But when I said, ‘No,’ she snapped them shut. ‘If you are not the man,’ she blazed; ‘if you ‘ave come ‘ere because it is the sort of place-’ At that moment she didn’t look at all nice. ‘All right,’ she said, biting on her teeth. ‘You tell me now — is it because of David you come to Bahrain or not?’

David! I stared at her, beginning to understand. ‘Did David come here then?’

‘Of course. He was an oilman and this place is for oilmen. They ‘ave the same devil in them as other men where the sun is ‘ot — but David was nice, a vair nice boy.’ She smiled then and the hardness went out of her face leaving it for a moment like a picture of Madonna-with-child, despite the slightly flattened nose, the thickened lips. It was a queer face, changeable as a child’s. ‘How did you know I was here on account of David Whitaker?’ I asked her. ‘It is David Whitaker you’re talking about?’

She nodded. ‘One of them from the GODCO Office is ‘ere las’ night. He tol’ me about you.’ She didn’t say anything after that, but sat staring at me with her big, dark eyes as though trying to make up her mind about me. ‘You like some coffee?’ she asked at length.

‘Please.’ I needed time, and I think she’d guessed that. She was gone only a few moments, but it gave me a chance to collect myself and to realize that she was perhaps the one person in Bahrain who could tell me what sort of a man David had become in the four years since I’d seen him. She put the coffee down between us, two small cups, black and sweet. I gave her a cigarette and sat smoking and drinking my coffee, waiting for her to start talking. I had that much sense. If I’d rushed her she’d have closed up on me.

‘Have you seen his sister?’ she asked finally.

‘Not yet.’ It wasn’t the question I’d expected.

‘But you ‘ave ‘card from her, no? Does she think he is dead?’

I sat there, quite still, staring at her. ‘What else could she think?’ I said quietly.

‘And you? Do you think he is dead?’

I hesitated, wondering what it was leading up to. ‘His truck was found abandoned in the desert. There was a ground and air search.’ I left it at that.

‘I ask you whether you think he is dead?’

‘What else am I supposed to think?’

‘I don’t know.‘She shook her head. ‘I jus’ don’ know. He is not the sort of boy to die. He believes too much, want too much of life.’

‘What, for instance?’

She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’ know what he want. Is a vair strange boy, David. He have moods; sometimes he sit for hours without saying nothing, without moving even. At such times he have a great sense of-of tranquillite. You understand? I have know him sit all night, cross-legged and in silence without moving almost a muscle. At other times he talk and the words pour out of him and his eyes shine like there is a fever in him.’

‘What did he talk about?’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘So many words. I don’ understand half of what he say. About the desert mostly, and the Bedou. Water, too; he loved water — much more than oil, I think. And the falajes; he often talk about the falajes and about Saraifa — how the desert is moving into the oasis.’

I asked her what the word falaj meant, but she couldn’t explain it. ‘Is something to do with water; tunnels I think under the ground because he say it is vair hot there, like in a Turkish bath, an’ there are fishes. And when you look up you can see the stars.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know what it is, but he say once it is like the wind-towers at Dubai — something brought from Persia. But I have never seen the wind-towers at Dubai,’ she added.

‘And this was in Saraifa?’ I asked.

‘Out. Saraifa. With David it is always Saraifa. He has a — a folie for that place.’ She said it almost sadly, and she added, ‘He wish to prove something there, but what I do not know — ‘imself per’aps.’ For a while she sat quite still and silent, and then she said very softly: ‘He was a man with a dream.’ She looked up at me suddenly. ‘And dreams don’ die, do they? Or are men’s dreams like the seed in a place like this — all barren?’

I didn’t know what to answer. ‘You loved him, did you?’ I asked gently.

‘Loved?’ She shrugged. ‘You want everything black and white. What is love between man and woman — and in a place like this?’ Her shoulders moved again, slight and impatient. ‘Per’aps. But sometimes he could be cruel. He had a vein of cruelty in him — like the Arabs. At other times-’ She smiled. ‘He showed me a glimpse of what life could be. And when he talked about his dreams, then he is near to God. You see,’ she added, her voice suddenly tense, ‘he is important to me. The most important thing in my whole life. That is why I cannot believe he is dead.’

I asked her when she had last seen him and she laughed in my face. ‘You don’ see a man when he is lying in your arms. You feel — feel … if you are a woman.’ She stared at me and then she giggled like a girl. ‘You look so shocked. Have you never been with a woman like me before? But no, of course, you are English. I forget. You see, I am Algerienne, from Afrique Nord. All my life I am accustomed to Frenchmen — and Arabs.’ She spat the word ‘Arabs’ out as though she hated them. ‘I should have been still in Algerie, but when the Indo-China war is on, they send us out to Saigon, a whole plane-full of women like me. We come down at Sharjah because of engine trouble and we are there in the Fort for two weeks. There I met a merchant from Bahrain, so I don’ go to Saigon, but come ‘ere to Bahrain, and later I am put into the al-Menza Club as hostess. That is ‘ow I come to meet David.’

‘Yes, but when did you last see him?’ I asked again.

‘In July of las’ year. And it was not ‘ere, but at the place where I live.’

That was just before he sailed for Dubai?’

‘Oui.’ Her eyes were searching my face. ‘He was — how you say?’ She hesitated, searching for a word. But then she shrugged. ‘Vair sad I think. He say that there is only one man in the ‘ole world that ‘e can really trust and that this friend is in England.’

‘Didn’t he trust his father?’ I asked.

‘Le Colonel?’ She moved her shoulders, an expressive shrug that seemed to indicate doubt. ‘When I see him that las’ time he trust nobody out here — only this friend in England. You are from England and yesterday you are at the Company’s offices enquiring about David.’ She leaned forward so that the deep line between her full breasts was a black shadow. ‘Tell me now, are you this friend?’

‘Didn’t he tell you his friend’s name?’

‘No, he don’ say his name — or if he do, I ‘ave forgot.’

‘Well, I’m his lawyer. Does that help?’

‘A man of business?’

‘Yes. His Executor, in fact. That means that I carry out his instructions when he is dead.’

‘And now you carry them out? That is why you are ‘ere in Bahrain?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you never his friend — before?’

‘Once,’ I said. ‘Four years ago.’ And I told her how I’d helped him to get away in the Emerald Isle. Evidently she knew this story, for she nodded her head several times and her eyes were bright with the memory of his telling of it. ‘Yes,’ she said when I had finished. ‘Now I know you are the man.’ And then she leaned forward and gripped hold of my hand. ‘Where you go now — after Bahrain?’ she asked. ‘You go to find him, yes?’ And she added, ‘You will give him a message pleez? It is important.’

I stared at her. Her dark face was so intense, her belief in his immunity from death so tragic.

‘Pleez.’ Her voice was urgent, pleading. ‘It is vair important.’

‘He’s dead,’ I reminded her gently.

She dropped my hand as though she had hold of a snake. ‘His truck is found abandoned in the desert. That is all.’ She glared at me as though challenging me to destroy her belief. ‘That is all, you ‘ear me? Pleez.’ She touched my hand again, a gesture of supplication. ‘Find ‘im for me, monsieur. There is trouble coming in the desert and he is in danger. Warn him pleez.’

There was no point in telling her again that he was dead. ‘What sort of trouble?’ I asked.

She shrugged. ‘War. Fighting. What other trouble do men make?’ And when I asked her where the fighting was going to break out, she said, ‘In Saraifa, I think. That is the rumour in the bazaar. And that boy who bring you ‘ere, Akhmed; he is the son of a famous pearl-diver. He knows the naukhudas of all the dhows and there is talk of sambuqs with arms coming across the sea from Persia. I don’ know whether it is true or not, but that is the talk. And ‘ere in Bahrain we hear all the talk. That is why I ask to see you, to tell you that you must warn him. He is in great danger because of ‘is father.’

‘What’s Colonel Whitaker got to do with it?’ I asked.

‘He is drilling an oil well in Saraifa. Oh,’ she said angrily, ‘the greed of you men. Money, money, money — you think of nothing else and you must cut each other’s throats to get more and more. But with David it is different. He don’ want money. He want something … I don’ know. I don’ know what he want. But not money. He don’ care about money.’

It was extraordinary; this girl telling me what Colonel Whitaker was doing, confirming what I had already guessed. ‘How do you know Colonel Whitaker is drilling for oil?’ I asked.

‘How? I tell you, this place is for oilmen. They ‘ave their intelligence and because they are ‘omesick and half dead with ennui, they talk.’ She gave a little laugh. There is so much talk in this ‘ouse that I can almost tell you what each oilman eat for breakfast from Doha right down the Gulf to Ras al-Khaima.’

I sat for a moment thinking about the rumours she’d heard, remembering what Ruffini had said out there on the Jufair jetty.

‘You will tell him what I say. You will warn him?’

‘Of course.’ What else could I say?

‘Do you go to Saraifa? If you go there, pleez you should talk with Khalid. He is the sheikh’s eldest son. He and David hunted together when he is first in the desert. They are like brothers he always say.’

I gave a little shrug. How would Khalid know? How would anybody know what had happened? The boy was dead. ‘I’ll see his father,’ I said. ‘If I can.’

‘Non, non.‘ There was urgency, a sense almost of fear in her voice.

I stared at her hard. ‘Why not?’ But if she knew anything, she wasn’t saying. And because I didn’t like the way my thoughts were running, I asked her where David had been going that last time she had seen him.

‘To Dubhai,’ she answered. ‘By ship.’

The Emerald Isle?’ She nodded.

‘And after that — after Dubhai?’

Again that slight, impatient movement of the shoulders.

‘He don’ say. He don’ tell me where he go.’

‘Was it Safaira?’

‘Perhaps. I don’ know.’

There’s some suggestion that he was on loan to his father, that he was doing a survey for Colonel-’

‘Non, non.’ Again the urgency, the leap of something stark in the wide dark eyes. ‘C’est impossible.’ She shook her head emphatically.

‘Why is it impossible?’

‘Because-’ She shook her head again. ‘He cannot go to work with him. I know that now.’ And she added under her breath: ‘Que le bon Dieu le protege!’ I felt I had to know the reason, but when I pressed her for it, she shied away from the subject. ‘I must go now.’ She got to her feet in one easy, balanced motion. It was as though my questions had started an ugly train of thought — as though to admit that he’d gone to Saraifa to join his father was to admit the fact of his death. And as I stood up I was remembering again the nagging suspicion that had been in my mind that day Griffiths had come to see me in Cardiff.

‘Au revoir.’ She held out her hand and I was conscious again of the steel grip of those thin fingers. ‘You are his friend. I know that now. And when you find him you will warn him?’ I nodded, not saying anything. ‘And you can give him my love also,’ she said with a sudden flash of gaiety. And then serious again: ‘The boy Akhmed will be waiting each morning for you at the ‘otel. I have arranged it. He knows many people and he can help you if you wish. And remember please,’ she added, ‘this is an island very close to the great deserts of Arabia — much closer than Algerie is to the Sahara. And the desert is Arab. Your Eenglish officials and the oilmen, they know only what ‘appen on the surface. They can see the bees swarm, but they do not know when the old queen die. You understand?’ And with that she pulled back the bead curtain and I was out in the passage again where the dance music sounded faintly. She took me as far as the alleyway where the boy was waiting and then with a final touch of those fingers, a flash of white teeth, she was gone.

It was only after I was back in the car that I realized I didn’t know her name. I got it from the boy — Tessa; a very European name for a girl of her mixed parentage. Later I learned that it was a shortened form of Tebessa, the town on the Algerian-Tunisian border where she had been born. I lay awake a long time that night wondering about David, about what had really happened. Three women — his mother, his sister, and now this girl Tessa — all convinced he was alive. And the picture she had sketched of him, the warning of trouble brewing. I went to sleep with the unpleasant feeling that I was being caught up in the march of events. And in the morning Mahommed Ali drove me to the airport.