The Night Manager

Sophie herself is by comparison an insignificant feature of this havoc. Half crawling, perhaps toward the open French windows leading to her white roof garden, she lies in what the Army First Aid Manual used to call the recovery position, with her head on her outstretched arm, a counterpane draped across her lower body, and over the upper part the remnants of a blouse or nightdress, of which the colour is unlikely ever to be known. Other policemen are doing other things, none with much conviction. One man is leaning over the parapet of the roof garden, apparently in search of a culprit. Another is fiddling with the door of Sophie's wall safe, making it plop as he works it back and forth across its smashed hinges. Why do they wear black holsters? Jonathan wonders. Are they night people too?

From the kitchen a man's voice is talking Arabic into the telephone. Two more policemen guard the front door, leading to the landing, where a bunch of first-class cruise passengers in silk dressing gowns and face-cream stare indignantly at their protectors. A uniformed boy with a notebook takes a statement.

A Frenchman is saying he will call his lawyer.

"Our guests on the floor below are complaining about the disturbance," Jonathan tells the inspector. He realises he has made a tactical mistake. At a moment of violent death it is neither natural nor polite to explain one's presence.

"You was friends with thisser woman?" the inspector asks.

A cigarette hangs from his lips.

Does he know about Luxor?

Does Hamid?

The best lies are told face-to-face, with a touch of arrogance: "She liked to make use of the hotel," Jonathan replies, still fighting for a natural tone. "Who did this? What happened?"

The inspector shrugs a prolonged, disinterested shrug. Freddie is not normally troubled by the Egyptian authorities. He bribes them, and they keep their distance.

"You was having sex with thisser woman?" the inspector asks.

Did they see us board the plane?

Follow us to the Chicago House?

Bug the flat?

Jonathan has found his calm. He can do that. The more terrible the occasion, the more certainly can his calm be relied upon. He affects a certain irritation: "If you call the odd cup of coffee sex. She had a bodyguard. He was employed by Mr. Hamid. Where is he? Has he disappeared? Perhaps the bodyguard did it."

The inspector appears unimpressed. "Hamid? What is Hamid, please?"

"Freddie Hamid. The youngest of the Mr. Hamids."

The inspector frowns as if the name is not agreeable to him, or not relevant, or not known. Of his two assistants, one is bald, the other ginger-haired. They wear jeans and bomber jackets and a lot of facial hair. Both are listening intently.

"What you talk with thisser woman? You are political with her?"

"Small talk."

"Small?"

"Restaurants. Social gossip. Fashion. Mr. Hamid sometimes took her to the yacht club, here or in Alexandria. We'd smile at each other. Wave good morning."

"You killer this woman?"

Yes, he replies in his mind. Not in quite the way you think, but yes, I definitely killered her.

"No," he says.

The inspector hitches his black belt with both his thumbs at once. His trousers are also black, his buttons and insignia gold.

He loves his uniform very much. An acolyte is addressing him, but the inspector pays him no attention.

"She ever tell you that someone wish to killer her?" the inspector asks Jonathan.

"Of course not."

"Why, please?"

"If she had done I would have reported it to you."

"Okay. You go now."

"Have you contacted Mr. Hamid? What are you going to do?"

The inspector touches the peak of his black cap in order to give authority to his theory. "Was burglar. Crazy burglar killer woman. Maybe drug."

Bleary-eyed medics in green overalls and sneakers are arriving with a stretcher and a body bag. Their leader wears dark glasses. The inspector grinds the stub of his cigarette into the carpet and lights another. A camera is flashing, operated by a man in rubber gloves. Everyone has raided the properties chest in order to wear something different. Lifting her onto the stretcher, they turn her over, and one white breast, much diminished, slips free of its torn covering. Jonathan notices her face. It has been almost obliterated, perhaps by kicks, perhaps by a pistol butt.

"She had a dog," he says. "A Pekingese."

But even as he speaks he spots it through the open doorway to the kitchen. It lies on the tiles, straighter than it has ever lain before. A gash like a zipper runs along its underbelly from its throat to its back legs. Two men, Jonathan thinks dully: one to hold, one to cut; one to hold, one to beat.

"She was a British subject," Jonathan says, using the past tense to punish himself. "You'd better call the embassy."

But the inspector is no longer listening. The bald assistant takes Jonathan by the arm and starts to lead him to the door.