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'Did he ever take a seismological truck into Saraifa?' I asked her.
She looked at me quickly, her eyes big and round in the starlight. I think s
he had forgotten for the moment that I was there. 'I don't know,' she said.
And after a long silence she added softly, 'I know so little about him reall
y. I don't know what he was doing, or why he was so depressed; and the truck
abandoned like that. I know so little.' And then she looked at me again and
said with great emphasis: 'But I know he was a man - a real man; and also t
hat he would endeavour to the limit for something he believed in.'
'Saraifa?'
She nodded. 'Perhaps - for Saraifa.'
'Because of his father?'
She didn't answer for a while. At length, she said, 'No. Not because of his
fat her.'
'What then?'
'The people, his friend Khalid - the sand killing the place. I don't know. T
he sand probably. That was something physical. He was always fascinated by p
hysical things. He liked action.'
'But he was a dreamer, too?'
She nodded. 'Yes, he was a dreamer, too. He was always a rebel in the worl d
he knew. When we were kids . . . he'd escape into a world of his own. A
m-mental world, you see.
It was always much larger than life. He'd invent games -just for the two of us
. And then, later - well, the gang life attracted him for the same reason. It
was a form of escape.'
'And you think his father's world - Saraifa - was an escape?'
She shrugged. 'Escape or reality - what does it matter? It was real to him.
I remember the second time he came to see me. He took me to dinner at the Fo
rt at Sharjah and he was full of plans, bubbling over with them. He was goin g
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to take over from a man called Entwhistle who was sick. And after that he was
going on a month's leave - to Saraifa. A busman's holiday; he was going to run
a survey for his father. He was so full of it,' she said a little sad ly. 'And
so bloody optimistic,' she added, almost savagely.
'Where exactly in Saraifa was he going to try for oil?'
'I don't know. What does it matter?'
'Was this in July of last year?'
She nodded, a glance of surprise. 'He had his own ideas; something he'd unea
rthed in some old geological report. I couldn't follow it all. When he's exc
ited he talks nineteen-to-the-dozen and I'm never certain what is fact and w
hat he's made up. He seemed to think he could do in a month what GODCO had f
ailed to do the whole time they'd had the concession. He was always like tha
t. He could build a whole kingdom in five minutes - in his mind.' She gave a
little laugh. 'Once, you know, he ran a tramp shipping line out of Cardiff.
It got so big that every ship that came into the docks belonged to him. Tha t
was the first time he got into trouble. He beat up a night watchman for te
lling him to get off the bridge of an old laid-up Victory ship.' She sighed.
'That was the sort of boy he was.'
'And after he'd been to Saraifa?' I asked. 'Did he come and see you?'
'No, he flew straight back to Bahrain. I didn't see him until December.'
She didn't seem to want to talk about it, for I had to drag it out of her.
Yes, he had been going to Saraifa again. She I
admitted it reluctantly. He'd been loaned to his father.
'Are you sure?' I asked.
'I can't be sure about anything, but that's what I understood.'
So The Times Correspondent had been right. And I remembered how Erkhard had
skated round the question.
'It was all so strange,' she muttered. 'I thought it was what he'd been wanti
ng all along. Instead he seemed - I don't know how to put it - almost appalle
d at the prospect. He was in a most extraordinary state of nervous tension--'
'Had he seen Erkhard?' I asked. 'Was it Erkhard who had loaned him to his fa
ther?'
'I don't know. He wouldn't talk about it. He just came to tell me where he wa
s going and what he was doing. He didn't stay long. In fact,' she added, 'it
was a rather awkward meeting and I had the feeling he'd only come because he'
d felt it was his duty.'
But I was barely listening to her, my mind on Erkhard and this extraordinar y
arrangement. If it was true, then it could only mean one thing - that Erk hard
and Whitaker had some sort of an arrangement ... an improbable combina tion if
Otto was to be believed. 'And this was in December?'
She nodded.
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'You said you'd seen him four times,' I said. 'When was the fourth?'
The fourth?' She stared at me and her face looked very pale. 'It was in Febr
uary.' She couldn't remember the date, but it was early in February. I knew
then that he'd come to her after he had boarded the Emerald Isle, probably t
hat same night, because she said she was called out well after midnight by a n
Arab boy and had found him sitting alone on the sand. 'Somewhere near here
,' she said, looking about her.
'Did he talk about his father?'
'No,' she said. 'Though--' She hesitated. 'I think they'd had a row. I can't b
e sure. It wasn't anything he said.' And she added, 'He wasn't very communicat
ive, you see.'
I asked her how he'd behaved. 'Was he scared at all? Did he behave as though
he was in fear of his life?'
She looked at me quickly, her eyes searching my face. 'No,' she said slowly.
'No, I don't think he was scared. More--' She shook her head. 'I can't explai
n. He just behaved strangely, that's all-very strangely.' In fact, most of th
e time he'd been with her he'd sat in absolute silence. 'David could do that.
As a kid I got used to those silences. But ... I don't know. This seemed dee
per, somehow, as though--' But she couldn't put it into words. 'He didn't tal
k much,' she reiterated. 'There was a moon and I remember his eyes riveted on
my face. It was as though he couldn't look at me enough. I felt... it was as
though he wanted to capture an impression, take a sort of mental picture wit h
him. It was a very strange, uncomfortable feeling - and he looked so like h is
father in the Arab clothes he was wearing.'
'Did he tell you what he was doing?'
'No. He wouldn't tell me anything, but I had the feeling that it was dangero
us. He was terribly thin, nothing but skin and bone, and his eyes, staring a t
me, looked enormous and very pale in the moonlight. When he left he kissed me,
not with warmth, but as though he were kissing a priestess who held the key to
the future in her hands. And just before he left me, he said a stran ge thing.
He said, "Whatever you hear of me, Sue, don't believe it." And he added that
if anything happened to him, I was to write to you. And then he l
eft me, walking quickly across the sand without looking back.'
We were sitting on a little rise and the sand fell away from us, sloping gentl
y to a barasti settlement, the dark shapes of the palm-frond huts barely visib
le, for the moon was new and only just risen. Nothing stirred and the only sou
nd was the bleat of a goat. 'I can't believe he's dead,' she said. 'I won't be
lieve it.'
And because it was what she wanted to believe I told her about the girl in
Bahrain and about her mother's reaction. 'Yes,' she said. 'Mum did everythi ng
she could to discourage his interest in Arabia. But too late. When we we re
small she shared her thoughts with us, and her thoughts were of the man she
called our "Uncle Charles". That album of press-cuttings - they were al most
the first pictures I ever remember looking at. And now here we are, th e two
of us, in Arabia.'
'And your father?' I asked. 'Did he talk to you about Saraifa?'
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'To me?' She smiled and shook her head. 'I'm only a girl. He wouldn't talk to
me about what he was doing.'
'You say David was loaned to him by GODCO,' I prompted.
She nodded and when I pressed her for the reason, she said almost sharply, '
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