Fuel for the Flame Read online

  3

  In Kuala Prang, in the darkened flat above Nelson Avenue, Lila stretched herself luxuriously among the pillows.

  ‘It gets better all the time,’ she said.

  ‘It’s going to go on getting better.’

  Each time there would be a fresh discovery; each time he would reveal to her another side of herself. All her life she would remember him.

  ‘When does Shelagh have to return?’ he asked.

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘When does she come back?’

  ‘In a week or so.’

  ‘Not till then? But I’ll see you before then?’

  ‘If I can fix it.’

  ‘You’ve got to fix it.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, I can’t promise anything.’

  It was said on a note of indifference, as though she did not care whether they met or not. His masculine vanity was ruffled. He shook her by the shoulders. ‘You’ve got to fix it. Do you see? You’ve got to fix it.’

  She laughed: a laugh that came from the depths of some deep self-satisfaction.

  ‘Hadn’t you better stop worrying about the future? Hadn’t you better make the most of me while I’m here?’

  She swung her feet over the bed. ‘It’s late. Poor Shelagh and that detective story. I want to show her my kimono.’

  It was black, with a gold dragon on the back. She modelled it in front of Shelagh.

  ‘Isn’t it heavenly? Altogether different from that wishy-washy thing he lent me Sunday. I wonder why he had it here at all. For some cheap creature, I suppose. It reeked of her.’ She laughed. She flung her arm round his neck. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sure it was the most expensive scent. I’m sure she’s heaven, but don’t let her wear my kimono, if you value your life. She’ll smell the “Joy” and scratch your eyes out.’

  She switched on the radio and began to dance by herself, her arms spread wide; opening the kimono. She hummed as she danced.

  ‘Angus, can’t we find Shelagh a nice boy friend? She looks so forlorn there with her detective story.’

  Shelagh had never seen her so happy, so relaxed. ‘All in good time,’ she said.

  Angus watched, smiling, amused. How prim and formal Lila had seemed in the drawing-room at the Residency. What would her stepfather say if he could see her now? The sight of her flattered his vanity. It was he who had transformed, transfigured her. Yet at the same time her light-heartedness irritated him. She had talked of Shelagh and a boy friend, as though any boy friend would do: as though anyone could have taken his own place.

  The flat seemed very empty after the two girls had gone. He walked round tidying away glasses, plates and cigarette butts, straightening cushions. He felt abandoned and despondent. After one of Blanche’s visits, he had felt light-hearted, very much as Lila had. He had turned on the radio, hummed a tune. He had sat back in the long chair, languid and at peace; savouring in memory the delights of the hour that had passed. But now he felt lonely and depressed. She had been here and now she was here no longer.

  He had meant to stay the night in town, and go to a cinema, but the prospect of returning to the lonely flat depressed him. He drove out to the estate.

  The moment he arrived, he felt guilty that he had not come before. His father had caught a cold a few days earlier. It was hard to shake a cold off in the tropics and it had settled on his chest. It was five days since his son had seen him, and Angus was shocked by his appearance. He looked weak and tired; his frame shook every time he breathed. In England a doctor would have ordered him to bed, but in the tropics there was little point in that. He lay out on a long chair, his arms along its rests, his hands hanging limply over the edge. His eyes were half-closed and he was talking to himself, a rambling political harangue against the English.

  ‘They’ve got to go. There’s no future in them: no future for them: not as Imperialists. Perhaps in their own small island—and weren’t they greatest then?—when that’s all they were; men living on an island: an island that produced Shakespeare and the men who shattered the Armada. … Let them be Englishmen again. We’ve no use for them out here. They said they would defend us and they didn’t. Angus doesn’t realize that. He was in England in the war. That was a proud place to be in then. Freedom’s last bastion. But here, for us—no, they must go, they must go. …’

  The voice went on. It had a biblical quality of prophetic utterance; his mind at the end of his life employing the language and vocabulary that he had learnt as a schoolboy; that he had not used for thirty years and to which he returned now in the same way that a man of sixty will find himself repeating a poem which he memorized when he was sixteen and of which he has not thought for forty years.

  ‘The English must go. The old men here are wise. They must build a new pattern, in tune with a new world. Even if they are ruthless, they are right. Crime is justified, in extreme cases: to build a sanctuary you must destroy a sanctuary.’

  The voice droned on. Angus sat at his side, listening, following his own thoughts. He had never been close to his father. When a son goes to the same school that his father did, wears the same colours, sits, often under the same masters, in the same classrooms, worships at the same altar, shares the same ambitions, the father recovers his youth, vicariously; the son turns to his father with the constant question, ‘Was it this way in your time, Daddy?’ They had never shared that, he and his father. And when he had returned to Karak, he had found himself welcomed by a stranger in the house that he remembered as his home. He felt closer to his father now than he had in fifteen years, as he sat beside him on the veranda, looking out on the jungle, listening to the jungle sounds; the croak and cry of animals, the crack of branches, the sigh of the wind among the pale fronds, breathing the thick, sweet scents of evening.

  The telephone bell rang. It was Blanche’s voice, breathless, eager. ‘At last I’ve run you to earth, the last place I expected. I’ve been ringing all the hot spots. What about tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Darling, I simply can’t.’

  ‘But you must. I leave tomorrow.’

  ‘You leave?’

  ‘My boy’s got appendicitis. I’m going back to England: catching the noon plane.’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘In town, with Harry. I flew in this evening.’

  ‘But if you’re with Harry …’

  ‘I can slip away; pretend I’ve got some shopping, from nine till ten. You can manage, surely. I must see you before I go.’

  He hesitated, but only for a second. Lila’s memory was all compelling.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I really can’t. There’s a conference at the Residency, that …’

  4

  At twenty-five past eleven, when he was expecting to hear the lunch hooter, Basil’s telephone bell rang; at the other end of the line was the Indian’s voice. Once again it instructed him to report at the Chinese barber’s, at half past four. ‘You have got that clear? At Ah Chong’s, on Thursday at half past four.’

  ‘O.K.’

  There was the click of a replaced receiver. He doesn’t waste time, Basil thought. It was not till he was sitting in the car by Julia that he remembered that she had arranged a foursome for that evening and had made an especial point of his joining it. Julia had been enlisted in the campaign to make Iris Sinclair feel at home; her husband was a good golfer. ‘I want it to be a close game,’ Julia had said. ‘Which day suits you?’

  It was he who had chosen Thursday. He could not back out now. He remembered how irritated Julia had been that other time; there had been no occasion then. Now there was. He hesitated, then made up his mind. He wasn’t at anybody’s beck and call. He was his own master. To hell with it.

  5

  Iris Sinclair had prepared a curry for her husband’s lunch. It was one of his favourite dishes, but his nose wrinkled as he came inside.

  ‘What a dish to choose on a day like this.’

  She looked at him anxiously. A ridge of lifted flesh—the relic of a war
wound—showed red upon his forehead. It was a danger signal. Last night there had been a committee meeting of the cricket club. She knew he had been drinking, but she did not know how much. She should have guessed from the speed and quickness with which he had got up.

  ‘Breakfast together is one of the barbarities of marriage,’ he had told her on their honeymoon. He fixed his own breakfast. She had hers after he had left. He usually came and talked to her before he drove off to work; he had not this morning; she should have guessed. After a cricket meeting, too. Will I never learn? she thought. When she had seen him first she had been attracted by his size and strength, now she thought him gross.

  He must feel awful, she thought, and the thought consoled her. If he did not spend so much money on drink, they could afford a new convertible. The worse he felt the more likely he was to learn his lesson.

  ‘I’m going to read over my part this afternoon with Blanche Pawling,’ she informed him. ‘She thinks I may be all right as Katheryn Howard.’

  ‘Fine, that’ll give you something to do when I’m with the boys.’

  With the boys, indeed. If he wanted to spend all those evenings ‘with the boys’, why had he bothered to get married?

  ‘I’ll enjoy the rehearsals,’ she said. ‘I like the Pawlings. He’ll be nice to act with.’

  ‘He’ll make up well as Henry VIII. He’ll only need a pillow in his trousers. His face is old enough.’

  ‘I don’t think he looks old at all.’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘I think he’s very attractive, in his way, of course.’

  ‘So you find Harry Pawling attractive? If he were King of England, I suppose you could fall in love with him just as Katheryn Howard did.’

  She made no answer. Let him talk. When he was in this mood, there was no coping.

  He went into the bedroom, flung himself down upon the bed. ‘Mix me a gin and tonic, there’s a good girl; bring it to me here.’ He did not move when she came in with it. ‘Come and sit beside me.’ He took the glass from her. With his other hand, he held her by the wrist. He swallowed the gin and tonic in a fast series of long sips. He held it away from him, looked at it, then looked at her.

  ‘You do me more good than that does. You’re young and fresh. You make me feel that way, too.’

  He pulled her down beside him. ‘To hell with lunch,’ he said.

  After he had gone, she fixed herself a sandwich, munched it slowly then leant across the table on her elbows, her head in her hands. I can’t stand it, she thought, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

  6

  Next morning Basil had a headache. The Sinclairs had come back to dinner with them. It had been quite an evening. He wondered how angry the Indian had been. He had been distinctly mandatory the first time when Basil had suggested another day. It’s his own fault, Basil thought, he shouldn’t be so abrupt. He should give me time to think. He can’t behave as though he had complete control over my diary. For seventy-five pounds! To hell with him.

  Nevertheless, he did feel nervous. Every time the telephone bell went, he had to make an effort of will to lift the receiver. Each time he heard another voice, his heart sighed with relief. Yet as the morning wore on, relief yielded to anxiety. He wanted to get it over, either to take his medicine or to be assured that there was no medicine to take. He did not know whether he was relieved or not when the hooter went. He was silent as he took his seat beside Julia. She noticed his moodiness. ‘Is there anything wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing that a Martini won’t cure.’

  It was rare for him to take alcohol at lunch time on a working day.

  ‘You’ll have one too, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He mixed it six to one. He took a long sip quickly.

  ‘What did I say? There’s no better medicine.’

  He had been a fool to worry. What was there to worry over? What harm could that Indian do to him? ‘How long do you give that Sinclair ménage? One year or two?’ he asked.

  On his return to work, he went first into the main office. He spoke to the chief clerk. ‘Where’s that new chap sitting, Ahmed Abrusak?’

  ‘Over there, sir, in the centre row.’

  ‘I see. How’s he doing?’

  ‘I’ve nothing to complain about.’

  ‘That’s a high mark. I’ll have a word with him.’

  He walked to the centre row.

  ‘Hello there, Ahmed, no, don’t get up. How are you making out?’

  ‘All right, sir, thank you.’

  ‘Have you found yourself a house?’

  ‘I stay with my cousin for the moment. He find me a house.’

  ‘Then your children haven’t come here yet?’

  ‘Not yet, sir. Soon as my cousin finds us house.’

  ‘If you’ve any difficulty you tell me. We can often be of help in that kind of thing.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.’

  Ahmed’s face expressed nothing but the most simple, doglike gratitude. It was impossible to believe that there could be any harm in such a man. Why had Forrester put him on his list?

  He felt so self-confident that he experienced no nervousness when, later in the afternoon, he heard the Indian’s voice on the telephone.

  ‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ he said. ‘You rang off before I had time to explain that I couldn’t make it. It was an engagement I could not possibly break.’

  ‘It was a great inconvenience to me. But I do not wish to talk about it on the telephone. Could you meet me on Monday at ten o’clock in the supermarket?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘It is most important that you should.’

  Ten o’clock on a Monday was the busiest hour at the supermarket. The week-end’s supplies had been exhausted and half the housewives in the village were replenishing their stores. The Indian could not have chosen a time when a conversation with Basil was less likely to cause comment. The Indian was pushing a trolley, laden with groceries.

  ‘Mr. Hallett, I must impress on you that it is most important that you should keep any appointment that I make with you.’

  ‘But my dear fellow, if …’

  ‘Please let me finish, Mr. Hallett. There are things that I cannot explain in detail; you must realize by now that I have your interests at heart. Please believe that I am not being an alarmist when I warn you that it might even be dangerous for you not to follow my instructions. I have now little time to spare. There are one or two things I have to ask you. In the first place, do you play chess?’

  ‘I played at school.’

  ‘That will be sufficient. You know the numbering of the places. I would suggest that you join the camp’s chess club, that you buy a chess set and in the evenings you occasionally work on a problem. It may be that I shall find it difficult to visit you every time I want. There are some things that are better not put down in writing. I will send you from time to time what appears to be a chess problem. It will actually be a message. When you set out the pieces on the board, you will be able, by aid of the code that I shall give you, to read the message.’

  ‘Now listen, what’s all this about?’

  ‘That is something that there is no need for you to know.’

  ‘Isn’t it? I’m not so sure. Why did you want me to find a place for that friend of yours?’

  ‘Because he is a friend of mine.’

  ‘Is that the only reason?’

  ‘What other reason could there be?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know. The police are making inquiries about him.’

  ‘What kind of inquiry?’

  ‘They want to see the references he brought with him.’

  ‘They were good references.’

  ‘I daresay they were, but why do the police want to see them?’

  ‘Indeed, why should they? This is very interesting. Are the police making inquiries about other members of your staff?’

  ‘Yes.’

&nb
sp; ‘A great many?’

  ‘Fifteen or so.’

  ‘You have the list?’

  ‘At the office.’

  ‘Now this is an occasion when that chess code would come in useful. It would not be wise to send that list to me in a letter, but you could send it to me as a chess problem addressed to the Kuala Prang Chess Club.’

  ‘But listen, I can’t do that. It’s a breach of confidence.’

  ‘I do not think so. I am inquisitive about this man. It was on my recommendation that you employed him. I trust that my confidence was not misplaced. I must make sure on this point. I shall almost certainly recognize some of the fourteen names upon that list. I shall be able to know whether my friend has been keeping bad company, or whether, as I think more likely, the police have taken fifteen names at random, to test your security precautions. It is not wise for us to spend too long here talking. I am going to that counter where the Bantam books are kept. After I have left, will you pick up the bottom copy from the pile of A Woman of Bangkok? It is a good book. You will enjoy reading it and it will contain a copy of the code. Good day to you, Mr. Hallett. I trust that your so charming wife is well.’

  At lunch time Basil returned with a set of chessmen. ‘I’m going to take up chess again,’ he said. ‘It relaxes the mind, so everyone assures me.’

  He also took a set of chessmen to his office.

  Two days later the Indian found in his pigeonhole in the chess club a set of problems. He worked them out. None of the names meant anything to him. There were two explanations: the one he had given Hallett, that the police had made a chance list of names so as to check on the camp’s security measures, or that they were suspicious of Ahmed but did not want the camp to know they were suspicious and had included his name in a list of names. He was inclined to think the latter was the likelier. It was puzzling and interesting. Young Mr. Hallett was proving more useful than he had expected. He made out a cheque for twenty-five pounds.