Tremor (24 page)

When Lee and Letty left they saw that the ladies, having composed their differences with the croupier, were also on the point of leaving.

‘Before the chandelier falls on our heads,' said Françoise in a loud voice, and waved a flapping hand at Lee and Letty.

Outside, Lee's car was reluctant to start, so by the time they were driving away the three Frenchwomen were piling into their own car, and presently the noise of it, and the wobbling yellow lights, showed that they were in hot pursuit.

They arrived within moments of each other in the drive of the Saada. There was the screeching of brakes, the slither of tyres, the slamming of tinny doors as the three women beat Lee and Letty to the steps.

‘Get in a proper building,' said Vicky. ‘Case there's another shake.
Mon Dieu
, that place, that Casino, it is built of wood and straw. One puff and it'll blow over!'

Lee and Letty stood for a few moments while he locked the car. The wind had dropped. Dogs were howling, almost it seemed in unison; a donkey, tethered near the hotel, cried out and tried to wrest itself free. A flight of big birds wafted low overhead.

Someone spoke to them as they moved towards the doors. A big-built man and a smaller dapper individual, neither of whom commended themselves to Lee's fastidious antennae, used as he was to law courts and their occupants.

‘'Scuse me,' said the big man. ‘This the Saada?'

‘The Saada Hotel,' said Lee. ‘Yes.'

‘Light's gone out over the bleeding sign,' said Smith. ‘ Must have been that earth shake we had. Thanks.'

They followed Lee and Letty into the hotel. As they got their keys they heard the big man say to the night porter: ‘'Scuse me. You got a guest here called Frazier, eh? Dear friend of ours. Just enquiring.'

The clerk glanced down at the book. ‘ Er … We have a Mr J. Frazier, who arrived on Friday.'

‘That's the man,' said Big Smith heartily. ‘That's 'im. Our old chum. Our old friend. That's likely ' im, isn't it, Greg?'

‘I reckon,' said Greg.

‘Would you let ' im know we're here? What's the number of 'is room?'

The clerk, a young man called Basri, glanced round nervously at the keys behind him.

‘It isn't the policy of the hotel to – to give the numbers of rooms. I'm sorry. In fact Mr Frazier, whom you are enquiring for, has just gone up to his room. He has a guest with him, so I do not suppose—'

‘Guest? You mean someone from the hotel?'

‘Er – no. Just a friend, I presume.'

The doors of the lift closed to bear Lee and Letty up to their bedrooms on the third floor.

The two men at the desk had exchanged speculative glances. If this was their quarry they had no particular wish to run him to earth when there was an outsider present. Yet, having come so far today, they were slow to drop the scent here, to leave it hours to go cold again. Who knew what twists and turns the Judas bastard might get up to overnight? It was prime luck that they had apparently found their man at only the third hotel tried. Even if they could not bring their mission to a successful conclusion tonight, it would be of vital satisfaction just to be sure that this wasn't some innocent guy who happened to bear the same name.

Greg said: ‘Know how long this other bloke is staying?'

‘Bloke?' Basri blinked. ‘Oh, I have no idea, sir. But it is so late I would not think he would stay very long.'

In that case, Frazier might come down with him to see him off.

Greg Garrett felt in his jacket and took out a crocodile wallet. From it he fished a fifty-franc French note.

‘Can we have a cup of coffee here, eh? Not too late for that, is it?'

Basri was looking at the note. ‘It – er – I think it could be arranged.'

‘Could we wait, here in the hall?'

‘Uh, er, I suppose so.'

‘And if I give you this now, will you let us know, point him out, Mr Frazier's guest when he leaves?'

‘It would have to be in the next hour, but I would think …'

The note changed hands.

Basri was becoming less uncooperative. ‘If you were to sit in those leather armchairs under the indoor palms you could see the entrance to the hotel, and also I could see you.'

‘OK. OK. And two black coffees. The real stuff, y'know.'

‘Thank you, sir. I'll get that arranged for you.'

Big Smith trailed after Garrett, not quite convinced of his reasoning. Garrett winked as they sank down into the chairs.

‘He's fixed,' he said. ‘When this feller's gone I reckon another hundred-franc note and he'll be discreetly giving us the number of the bedroom.'

‘Ah,' said Smith. ‘And then what?'

‘Dunno. See how the cookie crumbles. Could all be done tonight.'

Basri was aware that all the dining-room staff were off, but there was always – or should be – one waiter on duty until midnight. He went in search of him and was annoyed to find the kitchens empty. He looked out over the lighted swimming-pool and heard voices in the staff pavilion that was used to service the pool for light refreshments and drinks. Basri knew what had happened. The waiter was out there chatting to a girl.

Swearing under his breath, he went out to call him, unaware that this action saved his life. He reached the pavilion, found the situation exactly as he had supposed, rebuked the sulky waiter, gave the order and started back.

As he did so there was a crackling crumbling roar and a belch of sulphur. As the ground hit him the swimming-pool broke in two, a piece of concrete briefly sticking up in the air. And then, scrambling to his knees, he saw the great six-storey hotel in front of him fall to pieces. First the roof came off, scattering tiles and slates and timbers, and then the walls followed, buckling and sinking quite slowly towards the ground, crumbling, breaking, splitting, powdering into a shapeless ruin.

The ground weaved and waved; hot air like a breath from hell blew over him. And then every light went out.

The earthquake lasted twenty seconds. The Hôtel Saada, built only five years ago, collapsed entirely, going down as the ground opened under it. The Mahraba, where Smith and Garrett were staying, split down the centre but remained drunkenly upright, masonry from it falling all over the garden. The Préfecture, opposite the Saada but built on seismic-resisting principles, stood alone among the ruins round it. (Though, its being Ramadan, most of the police force were on leave and were killed piecemeal in cafés and in their own homes.) The hospital totally collapsed, as did the Chamber of Commerce and the Post Office. The Casino fell upon itself but, being built of wood, caused less injury to those still gambling, except for the unlucky few who were under the chandelier. The new central market – not yet opened – went with the rest.

The Taborit quarter, where thousands of Moroccans lived in blocks of flats, was laid waste. In the walled Kasbah on the hill its entire population of six hundred people were buried. The barracks collapsed and three companies of the Royal Moroccan Infantry were wiped out. The official residence of the Governor, M. Bouamrani, caved in upon itself, killing his three sons. Dr Berrada lost his wife and family. In pitch darkness in the space of half a minute four-fifths of the city was shaken to pieces. What was worse, many of the victims were buried alive without hope of help.

Of the one hundred and fifty guests at the Hôtel Saada, nineteen survived.

Matthew was in Nadine's room. He was lying on the bed beside her, in a lovely comfortable state of lassitude, when the heavens cracked, the walls shook and gave way, the ceiling and part of the floor above fell upon them; the bed tipped, and they half slid off it as they tumbled into the abyss.

When they finished falling Matthew tried to struggle out from the remnants of a wardrobe that trapped his leg. Clothes from the wardrobe had spilled out, almost smothering him. He was dizzy and shaken, and there was something warm and wet on his arm. It was pitch dark, all lights having instantly gone.

‘Nadine!' he called hoarsely. ‘Where are you?' She did not reply, and he raised his voice. ‘ Nadine! Nadine!'

After the terrible roar accompanying the shock and the fall, silence seemed to settle on the building from which as minutes passed all the other noises began to emerge, to surface, to identify themselves. There were cries and shrieks and groans, and the crackle of wood and masonry as these continued to settle. And all in intense, murderous darkness.

He kicked his feet free, reached out across the sloping bed to touch Nadine. She was not there. He called her name a couple of times more. He was almost naked; but he had come into the room in trousers and jacket and had dropped them beside the bed. But where was the bed?

He stretched up, the other way, climbing the tilt, painfully pulled himself further from the wardrobe, attained the edge, reached down. Clothes. But they were not his. Then a pair of slacks. His. But nothing in the pockets except a handkerchief and a key-ring. A jacket.

Something settled with a great thunderous sigh quite near to him – some other part of the building coming down, murmuring and groaning, tons of masonry settling around him.

That day he had bought a rose, put it in his lapel. His fingers closed on it, still fragrant, identifying. Leaning like a man out of a sinking lifeboat, he reached with both hands and pulled his jacket to him. His head was swimming and he was out of breath, but trembling fingers found their way to his jacket pocket. A round cool cylinder with a thin band round the middle. Cigarette lighter. Flip. Flip. Flip. The third time it sparked, came to life. He stared round at a flickering yellow nightmare of slanting beams and heaped rubble, a bed tilted like an upended raft, and more rubble below him, eight feet below him, things sticking out of the rubble, a wash basin, a clock, an arm, a broken table, a chair …

Arm.

They had been on the third floor but must have fallen through to the second or further. He got hold of his shoes, his trousers, he pulled them on, then launched himself over the edge, thumped on to the rubble and slithered down it until a table stopped him. The lighter had gone out but re-sparked when he tried it. The thing would probably only last a few minutes. Desperate not to lose it. His only eyes.

Arm. He slithered down towards it, peered at the hand. Dear Christ, it was Nadine's.

There was a block of masonry which looked stable, too heavy to move again; stand the lighter on it, touch the hand, begin to pull the rubble away. Among the plaster and the powder there were great stones and blocks that he could hardly shift, roll them further down; someone was moaning; not Nadine, a man; someone else buried even deeper? How breathe? He unearthed more of the arm and a naked shoulder, reddish-black curling hair. He coughed out the smell of sulphur, plucked with bleeding fingertips at the mess, praying, half-crying: ‘ Oh God, oh God, oh God!'

The forehead, the face, the neck; the beautiful eyes had been open but were smothered in white dust. He put his hand to her mouth, to her neck, the pulse of the neck. There was no pulse in the neck. For some minutes he went on digging, careless of where his diggings were sliding to, uncovering the top quarter of her body. Then he stopped, face in hands. He could see it was no use, could be no further use. Nadine was dead.

He sat there for an unmeasured time, face in hands, tears trickling between fingers and mixing with his blood. Some time later he began to be aware again of shouts and groans around him. His light had gone out but there was now some sort of light flickering through the ruins. He forced himself to move. His own bedroom was on the second floor, so he was probably now on a level with that. Whoever had been in the room below this must also be dead. His own room was on the opposite side of the corridor.

Was there still a corridor? Did he have a room? If he clawed his way through the ruins … He staggered and slithered over the rubble to a piece of open flooring from which a draught of poisonous air seemed to be emanating. The door of this second-floor bedroom had gone altogether but an area of carpeted passageway existed beyond. A body lay across his path but no sound came from it, and he moved on. A door, actually his door, but it was jammed. Next to it was another gap, and he peered in.

This had been the next door bedroom, and all the floors above had collapsed upon it, carrying part of it down to ground level. He peered over a precipice and nearly fell. People were crawling about down there like maimed insects. Some were digging, clawing at the rubble and the wood and the stone. Stink of sulphur whose hot breath might have come from a volcano.

A quarter of this room had somehow survived, protected by a mighty concrete beam which had fallen diagonally across it. Part of the bed, a wardrobe; two bodies lying beside the bed, both dead, he could see by their sprawling limbs; it was the beam maybe that had crushed them, though on his way across he stumbled over a half-dozen lethal pieces which had also come down from the floors above.

The light coming through to what was left of the collapsed building derived from a fire in the staff pavilion where the swimming-pool used to be. Beyond the beam he could see this, for all the side of the hotel had gone; he was staring through piled masonry at the open beach and the sea. But there was no beach, and the sea occupied the gardens and lapped around a few stark figures struggling away to get help. No fire in the hotel.

His head and his heart were bursting. The enormity took his breath. He had no time to think of the rest of the town, or even to wonder about fellow guests: all he knew was that he had been struck as with a thunderbolt, and his love, his very own new love, just found, now lost after only three days: it was to be the love of his life; it was at an end. Nadine was gone, all that youth and entrancing beauty was lost, crushed under mighty tons of falling rubble, out of his life, out of all life.