The Alexander Cipher Page 0,40
really hate eating alone in restaurants. I feel so conspicuous, you know. As though everyone’s watching.”
“And why wouldn’t they watch?” asked Augustin gallantly. “A pretty girl like you. Which hotel are you staying at?”
“The Vicomte.”
“That terrible place! But why?”
She shrugged sheepishly. “I asked my taxi driver for somewhere central and cheap.”
“He took you at your word, then,” laughed Augustin. “Tonight, then. Eight o’clock, yes? I’ll pick you up.”
“Great.” She looked past him to Knox, standing in the shadows. “You’ll come, too, yes?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it, I’m afraid.”
“Oh.” She patted her hips and made a shrugging kind of face. “Well, then,” she nodded. “Until later.” And she retreated up the corridor away from them with a slightly stilted walk, as though she sensed—quite correctly—that she was being watched.
Chapter Ten
BACK AT AUGUSTIN’S APARTMENT, Knox sat on the couch and tried to kill time. It wasn’t easy. Tintin was bad enough once. He paced around the sitting room, went out onto the balcony. It seemed forever before the sun set. And still no sign of Augustin. The phone rang at seven thirty, but Knox dared not answer, letting the answering machine chug out its message. “It’s me,” shouted Augustin, loud music thumping in the background along with raucous laughter and the clinking of glasses and bottles. “Pick up, will you.”
Knox did so. “Where the hell are you? You said you’d be back hours ago.”
“Listen, my friend,” replied Augustin. “A difficult situation at work.”
“Work?” asked Knox dryly.
“I need you to call that photographer girl for me. Gaille Dumas. The one from the Vicomte. Explain to her that I’m in the middle of a crisis; I’m putting out fires.”
“She’s in town all on her own,” protested Knox. “You can’t stand her up.”
“Exactly,” agreed Augustin. “That’s why I need you to do it for me. After all, if she hears this noise, maybe she’ll wonder if I’m telling her the complete truth.”
“Why don’t you ask her to join you?”
“I have plans. You know that Beatrice I mentioned?”
“For Christ’s sake! Do your own dirty work.”
“I’m asking as a friend, Daniel. How was it you put it? Yes. I’m in trouble. I need help.”
“Okay,” sighed Knox. “Leave it to me.”
“Thanks.”
“And good luck with your crisis,” said Knox venomously. He picked up the phone directory and flipped through it for the Vicomte Hotel. He felt bad for the girl, and vicariously guilty. He was puritanical about such things, he supposed. When you asked a girl out, particularly one who so evidently hankered for company, you showed up. The shadow of a long evening stretched out ahead of him. No one to talk to, nothing to read, nothing to watch on TV. Sod it, he thought. Sod Hassan and his thugs. He needed to stay hidden, but Alexandria was a vast city, and its streets offered the cover of crowds. He went into Augustin’s room for a clean shirt and a baseball cap. Then he went down to the street and hailed a cab.
IBRAHIM COULDN’T GET COMFORTABLE at home that evening. His upper arm itched from where the nurse had taken blood for his HLA test, and he kept thinking of that poor girl’s wide brown eyes. He kept thinking of her predicament, her courage. In the end, he couldn’t sit at home anymore. He went through to his study and plucked a book down from the shelves, one from which his father had read to him as a child. Then he went out to his car.
Mohammed’s apartment was on the ninth floor, but the elevators were broken. When Ibrahim finally made it up the stairs, he had to put his hands on his knees a minute, and wheezed for breath. What an effort it must be with an invalid child! It made him think about his own privileged childhood and education, everything made easy by his father’s wealth. He heard, inside, the suppressed rancor of a married couple on whom too much strain has been placed, trying not to let their beloved child overhear. He felt embarrassed suddenly, an intruder. He was about to walk away again when the door opened unexpectedly and a woman emerged, a scarf over her hair, dressed formally as if off on a visit. She looked as startled to see him as he was to see her. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“Excuse me,” he said, flustered. “I have something for Mohammed.”
“What?”
“Just a book.” He pulled it from the