The Night Manager

"But if the papers are confidential..."

"You must please attend me. I am a technical idiot. I am not myself." She picked up her cigarette from the ashtray and drew on it. Her eyes, stretched wide, seemed shocked by her own actions. "You do it, please," she ordered him.

So he did it.

He switched on the machine, inserted them ― all eighteen of them ― and skim-read them as they reappeared. He made no conscious effort to do this. Also he made no conscious effort to resist. The watcher's skills had never abandoned him.

From the Ironbrand Land, Ore & Precious Metals Company of Nassau to the Hamid InterArab Hotels and Trading Company of Cairo, incoming dated August the twelfth. Hamid InterArab to Ironbrand, outgoing, assurances of personal regard.

Ironbrand to Hamid InterArab again, talk of merchandise and items four to seven on our stock list, end user to be Hamid InterArab's responsibility and let's have dinner together on the yacht.

The letters from Ironbrand signed with a tight flourish, like a monogram on a shirt pocket. The InterArab copies not signed at all, but the name Said Abu Hamid in oversized capitals below the empty space.

Then Jonathan saw the stock list, and his blood did whatever blood does when it sets the surface of your back tingling and makes you worry how your voice will sound when you next speak: one plain sheet of paper, no signature, no provenance, headed "Stock available as of October 1st 1990." The items a devil's lexicon from Jonathan's unsleeping past.

"Are you sure one copy will be enough?" he enquired with that extra lightness that came to him in crisis, like a clarity of vision under fire.

She was standing with her forearm across her stomach and her elbow cupped in her hand while she smoked and watched him.

"You are adept," she said. She did not say what in.

"Well, it's not exactly complicated once you get the hang of it. As long as the paper doesn't jam."

He laid the original documents in one pile, the photocopies in another. He had suspended thought. If he had been laying out a dead body he would have blocked his mind in the same way. He turned to her and said, "Done," overcasually, a boldness he in no way felt.

"Of a good hotel one asks everything," she commented. "You have a suitable envelope? Of course you have."

Envelopes were in the third drawer of his desk, left side. He selected a yellow one, A4 size, and guided it across the desk, but she let it lie there.

"Please put the copies inside the envelope. Then seal the envelope very effectively and put it in your safe. Perhaps you should use some sticky tape. Yes, tape it. A receipt is unnecessary, thank you."

Jonathan had a specially warm smile for refusal. "Alas, we are forbidden to accept guests' packages for safekeeping, Madame Sophie. Even yours. I can give you a deposit box and your own key. That's the most I can do, I'm afraid."

She was already stuffing the original letters back into her bag as he said this. She snapped the bag shut and hoisted it over her shoulder.

"Do not be bureaucratic with me, Mr. Pine. You have seen the contents of the envelope. You have sealed it. Put your own name on it. The letters are now yours."

Never surprised by his own obedience, Jonathan selected a red felt-tipped pen from the silver desk stand and wrote Pine in capitals on the envelope.

On your own head be it, he was telling her silently. I never asked for this. I never encouraged it.

"How long do you expect them to remain here, Madame Sophie?" he enquired.

"Perhaps forever, perhaps a night. It is not known. It is like a love affair." Her coquettishness deserted her, and she became the supplicant. "In confidence. Yes? That is understood. Yes?"

He said yes. He said of course. He gave her a smile that suggested he was a tiny bit surprised that the question needed to be raised.

"Mr. Pine."

"Madame Sophie."

"Concerning your immortal soul."

"Concerning it."

"We are all immortal, naturally. But if it should turn out that I am not, you will please give those documents to your friend Mr. Ogilvey. May I trust you to do that?"

"If that is what you want, of course."

She was still smiling, still mysteriously out of rhythm with him. "Are you a permanent night manager, Mr. Pine? Always? Every night?"

"It's my profession."

"Chosen?"

"Of course."

"By you?"

"Who else?"

"But you look so well by daylight."

"Thank you."

"I shall telephone you from time to time."

"I shall be honoured."

"Like you, I grow a little tired of sleeping. Please do not escort me."

And the smell of vanilla again as he opened the door for her and longed to follow her to bed.

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