Fuel for the Flame Read online

  ‘You have talked to us about this net, Colonel Forrester,’ he said. ‘I appreciate the simile. But perhaps you could be more explicit. Perhaps you could explain what happens when a large fly or perhaps a careless fly hits against a mesh?’

  ‘Something unusual, sir.’

  ‘Unusual?’

  ‘Something for which the obvious explanation is unsatisfactory.’

  It was the answer that Studholme had expected. But he had wanted this particular thing said to this particular audience. He hoped that they were loyal. He believed that they were loyal. But there might be, there probably was, one at least among this dozen who needed to be warned.

  ‘Can you give us an example of that, Colonel Forrester?’ he asked.

  The Colonel smiled. ‘May I, sir, quote you the example that was quoted to me on a staff course at Scotland Yard? A very well-dressed Londoner in the middle forties changed his tailor, there was no reason why he should. The new tailor to which he went was not any better, he was neither cheaper nor more expensive; he was an exact opposite number in the world of tailoring. He did not appear to have had any quarrel with his cutter or with the manager. He had settled his accounts regularly. Why had he changed his tailor? It set the police wondering. The reason why he had put him behind iron bars.’

  Studholme had watched the Colonel as he spoke. How bland, how innocent he seemed; a good mixer who liked one drink too many—but only one—and chuckled over a risqué anecdote. But he did not miss a point.

  ‘What makes you think that a fly may have got through your mesh?’ he asked.

  The Colonel shrugged. ‘I have a hunch. I cannot say why, but I have a hunch that something unusual is going to happen soon.’

  Studholme looked at him thoughtfully, then smiled. He knew the kind of man that he was dealing with. A man older than himself, wiser in many ways; but a man who had always worked behind the scenes, and perhaps resented—though he was not sure of that—the recognition that went to others. A man of depth, but a man of limitations. In many ways the most valuable member of his staff. He’s got to stay on my side, he thought. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much. That will be most helpful to us all.’

  2

  The meeting had been held in one of the smaller reception rooms in the Residency. Studholme’s study lay on the other side of the hall. A mail had just arrived, he was faced with a full morning’s work, but he liked to look in on his wife whenever he had a free five minutes. It was a habit that, he suspected, she did not relish. She had said more than once, ‘Men should go to offices after breakfast and not come home to lunch.’ But since that was not their routine, he took advantage of this disadvantage. He found a minute or two of his wife’s company a refreshing pause in the course of his daily duties.

  His wife, Muriel, with her daughter Lila, was taking morning coffee on the veranda of the dining-room. She was wearing a hat.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I told you at breakfast. To see the nurses at the children’s hospital.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound exciting.’

  ‘I can think of more thrilling things to do. Not here though.’

  She said it with a smile, but her voice had, or he thought it had, an acid undernote.

  ‘I’m afraid you have to do a great many boring things.’

  ‘If I didn’t, I’d go off my head with boredom. Will you have some coffee?’

  ‘Thank you. I’d like a cup.’

  ‘Lila, will you ring the bell?’

  Within half a minute it had been answered by an Indian butler in a white, stiffly pressed, high-collared jacket and ankle-length skirt; his long hair was held in place on the crown of his head with a high tortoise-shell comb. In London, Muriel had complained that with no servants she had so much housework that she had no time to do the things she really wanted. Here, where she had a large staff, she had to occupy her leisure with boring duties. She really doesn’t like it here, he thought.

  ‘What kind of a meeting did you have?’ she asked.

  ‘Not a bad one. Angus Macartney was quite helpful.’

  ‘That man,’ said his stepdaughter.

  ‘Now, Lila.’ That from her mother.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mummy, but I think he’s awful: that oily, greasy look.

  I’m sure he’s like that inside. He gives me the shivers. I can’t see what you all see in him.’

  ‘We don’t see anything particular in him,’ Studholme said. ‘We have to make the most of what there is here, and it’s less difficult to make something out of him than certain other gentlemen.’

  Lila wrinkled her nose. She was not at all like her mother. Muriel Studholme was small, dark, plump, kittenish. Lila was amazonian, tall, fair-skinned, fair-haired, with a strong nose. Her stepfather had done his best to like her, but without success. He prayed for the day when she’d get married. Why couldn’t the A.D.C. fall in love with her? Wasn’t that what A.D.C.s were for? And she was quite good-looking.

  ‘By the way,’ his wife said, ‘Judy Farrar rang up. She’s down with ‘flu. She can’t dine on Tuesday.’

  ‘Too bad. We must find another girl. Have you any suggestions?’

  ‘Not off hand.’

  ‘Then I’ll get our young man on to it.’

  Their young man, Captain Gerald Fyreman, was a casualty from Cyprus. He had lost his foot there, and with it a very good chance of playing cricket one day for England. He had taken on the job of A.D.C. as a form of sick leave, during which he could make up his mind whether or not to retire from the service. He was twenty-six years old, of medium height, stockily built, with sandy hair. He was not exactly good-looking, but he had a friendly, open face. He was waiting in Studholme’s study.

  ‘Miss Farrar’s just rung through, sir. …’

  ‘I know. We’ve got to find another female. Can I see the guest list?’ He glanced down the names. It was a routine party for certain local notables.

  ‘I don’t worry about even numbers, but we can’t sit down thirteen. I wonder …’ He paused. He looked at the list and then up at his A.D.C.

  ‘Wouldn’t this be a good opportunity for you to have an evening off? I don’t want to make a slave of you. You can see us in to dinner, then

  There was a twinkle in his eye as he said it. But the A.D.C. did not respond. He flushed. He looked embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry sir … if you don’t mind … but really, this particular party … I had been looking forward to it … if you don’t mind … I would prefer …’

  His flush deepened, he became more flustered. His chief looked at him steadily. What’s behind this? he thought. Some woman, clearly. Who?

  He looked down at the list. The only unmarried girl on it was Lila. It couldn’t be she. Gerald saw her every day. Had the young idiot fallen for some married woman? He looked up at his A.D.C. There was an expression of marked anxiety on his face. It made Studholme want to smile, but at the same time it sent a twinge of nostalgia along his nerves. It was good to be twenty-six and feel that the whole world was lost if you didn’t see a certain person on a certain night. ‘All right, Gerald. You pick out somebody respectable upon our list: anyone you like.’

  He watched his A.D.C. walk with a slight limp towards the door. The limp replaced nostalgia with remorse: perhaps it was not so good after all to be twenty-six in a world like this; to be sent on a tragic mission, to lose one’s chance of an English cap, to be denied so many of the things to which one’s youth entitled one. His remorse was tinctured with guilt. He had not seen action in the war. He had been in Cairo in September 1939. His ambassador had insisted that he was indispensable. For seventy months, while London was being bombed, while his contemporaries were being killed and maimed in every corner of the globe, he had worked in warmth and comfort: with a sense of shame that he had let no one see.

  He shrugged. It was no good going over that. He had done what he had been told to do. He had lived austerely. He had worked relentlessly, he had become a genuine Arabist, he had perfecte
d his French and German. To those six years of unremitting work was due his fast promotion since the war. If he made a success of it here, it would be hard to put a limit on his progress. He was only forty-six.

  Two piles of letters were set out on his desk. The larger was the official mail: the smaller one was personal. He flicked over the smaller pile. It contained, as he had hoped it would, a blue air-letter form, addressed in the Italianate script that had recently become the fashion in English schools. It was from his son Eric, now in his last year at his prep. He would read that first, then tackle his official letters.

  ‘Dear Daddy,’ it ran. ‘We beat Highfield 3-2. I did not score a goal but helped get two. Mr. B. said “Well played” afterwards. It has rained a lot. Gainsford has made a whacko model aeroplane. May I get a kit like his? Mason has got German measles. Perhaps we shall have to cancel our match against Remenham. I hope not. When will you be made a knight? I shall be so proud writing Sir Kenneth Studholme. Sorry no more news. Love, Eric’

  When would he be made a knight? Karak had been a trivial dependency thirty years ago, but the discovery of oil had made it an important contributor to the national economy—particularly since the loss of Abadan. His post of British Political Agent carried the rank of minister. He had been here now six months. If his name did not appear in next year’s Honours List, it should be in the Birthday List in June … if nothing went wrong first. And why should anything go wrong?

  He crossed to the window. The Residency was built half-way up the high hill that flanked the town. A broad terrace stretched in front of it. The main entrance was on the other side. A row of steps led to the tennis courts. The courts were flanked with crotons. The gardens to the left and right were shaded by mango trees. The sun had mounted in the sky, and the palm fronds and the broad tattered leaves of the banana plant glistened like burnished shields. Half a mile away, the straight streets of the city smouldered in the heat. Beyond, a faint pale blue, scarcely visible through the haze, the sea stretched to the horizon. You would scarcely recognize that it was the sea but for a ship, its white superstructure gleaming in the sunlight, that was passing on its way to Singapore. It all looked so beautiful, so peaceful. Why had he this niggling fear that he was seated on a volcano?

  3

  Angus Macartney’s offices were in the centre of the town. They were on a corner and were a block in depth. They had three entrances. That was why he had chosen to install his flat here. It made it easy for him to be visited discreetly.

  He hurried back there straight from the Residency meeting. ‘Any messages?’ he asked.

  The girl shook her head.

  So Blanche wasn’t coming. If it had been any day but Saturday, or had this happened three months ago, he would have felt foiled and disappointed: with the sensation of living in a vacuum. But the affair had been going now half a year; they had lunched on Monday. And it was a Saturday.

  The desk clock marked ten past ten. There was only a small pile of letters on his desk, and there was not a mail plane out till the Monday night. He could get his desk cleared by eleven. That would give him time to get down to the cricket ground. A little bowling at the nets, and then a sandwich lunch; no hurry: that was the way to start a cricket match, rested, one’s limbs loosened and one’s nerves at peace.

  The telephone bell rang. ‘Is that you, Angus? It’s me. I’m here. I had to do some shopping. I couldn’t call before.’

  She had a quick breathless voice that made his heart beat faster. It was her voice as much as anything that had first attracted him. She had a fascinating way of saying ‘little’ without pronouncing the ‘t’s, making them sound like a slurred ‘d’. He tried to ask her questions to which the answer would include the word ‘little’.

  ‘How soon can you get round?’

  ‘Right away.’

  ‘You mean really right away?’

  ‘Within half an hour.’

  That ruled out the nets.

  ‘And when does your plane leave?’

  ‘Quarter past two.’

  And the match began at two. But the airport was half an hour away and the cricket ground ten minutes. That should work out all right.

  ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘Hurry now.’

  The moment she had rung off, he called the captain of his cricket team. ‘I don’t think I shall be late. But I may be; not more than five minutes. I’ve a lunch date.’

  ‘I know what that means.’

  They laughed; they were good friends who understood each other. ‘Next time don’t have it on a Saturday,’ the captain said. ‘You can’t bowl fast after that kind of lunch.’

  ‘Oh, but I can. You wait. You’ll see.’

  Angus picked up the pile of letters. He’d take them upstairs and read them while he was waiting. He had not long to wait. With a cry she ran into his arms.

  She was little and lithe and blonde, vivid and vivacious, with a birdlike, pointed nose. She cuddled close against him.

  ‘Oh, darling, darling, I was so afraid I wouldn’t get here. Harry wanted to come, too. It was only at the last moment that he found he couldn’t. And if he had come, what excuse would I have had for coming in next week? After Monday, too. Oh, darling, you can’t imagine what it’s like out there. It’s a kind of prison. All day long there’s nothing but talk of oil. There’s the smell of oil in the air. It pervades everything. Seeing the same people every day. Nothing new to talk about, except the Jones’s curtains. Those endless mornings. Harry out of the house by seven. All the housework done by eight. Nothing to do till he comes back at half past eleven. And is that anything to look forward to? I ask you. After twelve years of marriage. And then the heat. Oh, darling, I’m so hot now. Let me take a shower.’

  He had bought her a Japanese kimono; a soft cerise pink silk, that barely reached below her hips. She slipped her feet into his sandals. The curtains were half-drawn and the room in twilight. It was impossible to believe that she was thirty-three, that she had a son of twelve, a daughter of nine. The harsh tropical sunlight might show the wrinkles by her mouth and eyes, but here in the dusk she seemed seventeen. She sat on the edge of the low divan. ‘Are you going to give me something long and cool to drink?’ she asked.

  ‘All in good time,’ he said.

  4

  Forrester and Keable walked away together from the meeting.

  ‘What about a gimlet at the Club?’ the policeman asked.

  Keable shook his head. ‘I’m going down to the docks. They’re unloading Barbara’s car.’

  ‘And she’s come in to see it?’

  ‘You bet she has.’

  ‘If it doesn’t make her jump, then she’s made of marble, which I don’t think she is.’

  ‘That’s how I hope it will be.’

  ‘See you here next month, then.’

  ‘Unless you’re dining at the Residency next Tuesday.’

  ‘Am I ever at that kind of party?’

  They laughed together. ‘Why don’t you come out to Kassaya one day and check on our security?’

  ‘Oh, you know me. I’m the lazy old spider sitting in the centre of his web. I leave all that to my young men.’

  ‘Even so, you might come out one day. We have good parties there, you know.’

  ‘I do know, and I might at that, and bring the old Prima Donna, too. She doesn’t get the fun she should. No, I’ll not forget.’

  It was ten past ten and Forrester’s head was aching. The temptation to look into the club was tantalizing, but it was too early, when one was alone at least. One gimlet became two, twice two were four, the day was ruined, and he had work to do.

  The Police Offices were in the centre of the town, part of the general square of office buildings, the secretariat, the law courts, the customs. They had been built in the eighteen-eighties and had a solid, dignified, Victorian look.

  Forrester’s room was on the second floor. It looked over the harbour. He had a telescope, and he liked to watch the movements of shipping. It was a large u
ntidy room, with stacks of newspapers piled upon the floor, a large safe and three filing cabinets. There was a book case, filled with reference books; over it was a large poster of the Queen, on horseback. Beside his desk was a table on which two chess games were set out. There were only a few pieces on each board. He had had a large mail in that morning, but he turned to the chess problems first. They had fooled him that morning, but now he saw how one of them worked out. That wasn’t bogus anyhow. He turned to the other. That still puzzled him. He’d leave it until after lunch.

  He sat at his desk and pressed a button at its side. A smartly turned-out policeman answered it.

  ‘Is Mahmoud here?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He waiting half-hour now.’

  ‘Right, show him in. He’s lucky not to have waited longer.’

  Mahmoud was an Indian, short, neat, wearing a dark summer-weight suit. There was nothing noticeable about him. He made no impression at a first or indeed at a third meeting.

  ‘Have you arranged for some friend of ours to join the chess club?’ the policeman asked him.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Have you a list of the members?’

  ‘Not yet, sahib. I am not sure that one exists.’

  ‘The secretary must have a list. At any rate, get all the names you can, in particular the new members. Perhaps we should introduce a second member, but not anyone who knows our friend.’

  ‘I see, sahib.’

  ‘Have you anything to report about the Orient bookshop?’

  ‘My friend has made friends with the proprietor. He has purchased some left-wing literature. He has discussed Communism with the proprietor in a guarded manner.’