Twelve Red Herrings (15 page)

Bob sat on the
edge of his seat, mesmerised by the old man’s recollections.

“I’m grateful
for your candour, sir,” he said. “And you can be assured of my discretion.”

“Thank you,
Kefford,” said the old man, now almost whispering. “I’m only too delighted to
have been able to assist you. Is there anything else I can help you
with ?”

“No, thank you,
sir,” said Bob. “I think you’ve covered everything I needed to know.’

Bob rose from
his chair, and as he turned to thank Mrs. Elliot he noticed for the first time
a bronze cast of an arm hanging on the far wall. Below it was printed in gold:

H. 1. 1. DEERING
1909--10--11

(KEBLE, BO’) “You
must have been a fine oarsman, sir.”

“No, not
really,” said the old blue. “But I was lucky enough to be in the winning boat
three years in a row, which wouldn’t please a Cambridge man like
yourself
.” Bob laughed. “Perhaps one last question before I leave,
sir.”

“Of
course, Kefford.”

“Did they ever
make a bronze of Dougie Mortimer’s arm?”

“They most
certainly did,” replied the priest.

“But it
mysteriously disappeared from your boathouse in 1912. A few weeks later the
boatman was sacked without explanation – caused quite a stir at the time.”

“Was it known
why he was sacked?” asked Bob.

“Partridge
claimed that when the old boatman got drunk one night, he confessed to having
dumped Mortimer’s arm in the middle of the Cam.’

The old man
paused, smiled, and added, “Best place for it,
wouldn’t
you say, Kefford?” Bob thought about the question for some time, wondering how
his father would have reacted. He then replied simply, “Yes, sir.

Best place for
it.’

May 1986

HAMIV ZEBARI
SMILED AT THE THOUGHT OF HIS wife Shereen driving him to the airport.
Neither of them
would have believed it possible five years before, when they had first arrived
in America as political refugees. But since he had begun a new life in the
States, Hamid was beginning to think anything might be possible.

“When will you
be coming home, Papa?” asked Nadim, who was strapped safely in the back seat
next to his sister May. She was too young to understand why Papa was going
away.

“Just a
fortnight, I promise. No more,” their father replied.

“And when I get
back, we’ll all go on holiday.”

“How long is a
fortnight?” his son demanded.

“Fourteen days,”
Hamid told him with a laugh.

“And fourteen
nights,” said his wife as she drew into the kerb below the sign for Turkish
Airways. She touched a button on the dashboard and the boot flicked up. Hamid
jumped out of the car, grabbed his luggage from the boot, and put it on the
pavement before climbing into the back of the car. He hugged his daughter
first, and then his son. May was crying – not because he was going away, but
because she always cried when the car came to a sudden halt. He allowed her to
stroke his bushy mustache, which usually stopped the flow of tears.

“Fourteen days,”
repeated his son. Hamid hugged his wife, and felt the small swelling of a third
child between them.

“We’ll be here
waiting to pick you up,” Shereen called out as her husband tipped the skycap on
the kerb.

Once his six
empty cases had been checked in, Hamid disappeared into the terminal, and made
his way to the Turkish Airlines desk. As he took the same flight twice a year,
he didn’t need to ask the girl at the ticket counter for directions.

After he had
checked in and been presented with his boarding pass, Hamid still had an hour
to wait before they would call his flight. He began the slow trek to Gate B27.
It was always the same – the Turkish Airlines plane would be parked halfway
back to Manhattan. As he passed the Pan Am check-in desk on B5 he observed that
they would be taking off an hour earlier than him, a privilege for those who
were willing to pay an extra sixty-three dollars.

When he reached
the check-in area, a Turkish Airlines stewardess was slipping the sign for
Flight o4, New York-Londonistanbul, onto a board.
Estimated
time of departure, xo.o.

The seats were
beginning to fill up with the usual cosmopolitan group of passengers: Turks
going home to visit their families, those Americans taking a holiday who cared
about saving sixty-three dollars, and businessmen whose bottom line was closely
watched by tight-fisted accountants.

Hamid strolled
over to the restaurant bar and ordered coffee and two eggs sunnyside up, with a
side order of hash browns. It was the little things that reminded him daily of
his new-found freedom, and of just how much he owed to America.

“Would those
passengers travelling to Istanbul with young children please board .the plane
now,” said the stewardess over the loudspeaker.

Hamid swallowed
the last mouthful of his hash browns – he hadn’t yet become accustomed to the
American habit of covering everything in ketchup – and took a final swig of the
weak, tasteless coffee. He couldn’t wait to be reunited with the thick Turkish
coffee served in small bone china cups. But that was a tiny sacrifice when
weighed against the privilege of living in a free land.

He settled his
bill and left a dollar in the little tin tray.

“Would those
passengers seated in rows 35 to 4 please board the aircraft now.” Hamid picked
up his briefcase and headed for the passageway that led to Flight o4. An official
from Turkish Airlines checked his boarding pass and ushered him through.

He had been
allocated an aisle seat near the back of economy.

Ten more trips,
he told himself, and he would fly Pan Am Business Class. By then he would be
able to afford it.

Whenever the
wheels of his plane left the ground, Hamid would look out of the little window
and watch his adopted country as it disappeared out of sight, the same thoughts
always going through his mind.

It had been
nearly five years since Saddam Hussein had dismissed him from the Iraqi
Cabinet, after he had held the post of Minister of Agriculture for only two
years. The wheat crops had been poor that autumn, and after the People’s Army
had taken their share, and the middlemen their cut, the Iraqi people ended up
with short rations.

Someone had to
take the blame, and the obvious scapegoat was the Minister of Agriculture.
Hamid’s father, a carpet dealer, had always wanted him to join the family
business, and had even warned him before he died not to accept Agriculture, the
last three holders of that office having first been sacked, and later
disappeared – and everyone in Iraq knew what ‘disappeared’ meant. But Hamid did
accept the post.

The first year’s
crop had been abundant, and after all, he convinced himself, Agriculture was
only a stepping stone to greater things. In any case, had not Saddam described
him in front of the whole Revolutionary Command Council as ‘my good and close
friend’? At thirty-two you still believe you are immortal.

Hamid’s father
was proved right, and Hamid’s only real friend friends melted away like snow in
the morning sun when this particular president sacked you – helped him to
escape.

The only
precaution Hamid had taken during his days as a Cabinet Minister was to
withdraw from his bank account each week a little more cash than he actually
needed. He would then change the extra money into American dollars with a
street trader, using a different dealer each time, and never exchanging enough
to arouse suspicion. In Iraq everyone is a spy.

The day he was
sacked, he checked how much was hidden under his mattress. It amounted to
eleven thousand two hundred and twenty-one American dollars.

The following
Thursday, the day on which the weekend begins in Baghdad, he and his pregnant
wife took the bus to Erbil. He left his Mercedes conspicuously parked in the
front drive of his large home in the suburbs, and they carried no luggage with
them – just two passports, the roll of dollars secreted in his wife’s baggy
clothing, and some Iraqi dinars to get them as far as the border.

No one would be
looking for them on a bus to Erbil.

Once they
arrived in Erbil, Hamid and his wife took a taxi to Sulaimania, using most of
the remaining dinars to pay the driver.

They spent the
night in a small hotel far from the city centre.

Neither
slept as they waited for the morning sun to come shining through the
curtainless window.

Next day,
another bus took them high into the hills of Kurdistan, arriving in Zakho in
the early evening.

The final part
of the journey was the slowest of all. They were taken up through the hills on
mules, at a cost of two hundred dollars the young Kurdish smuggler showed no
interest in Iraqi dinars. He delivered the former Cabinet Minister and his wife
safely over the border in the early hours of the morning, leaving them to make
their way on foot to the nearest village on Turkish soil. They reached Kirmizi
Renga that evening, and spent another sleepless night at the local station,
waiting for the first train for Istanbul.

Hamid and
Shereen slept all the way through the long train DO NOT

PASS GO journey
to the Turkish capital, and woke up the following morning as refugees. The
first visit Hamid made in the city was to the Iz Bank, where he deposited ten
thousand eight hundred dollars.

The next was to
the American Embassy, where he produced his diplomatic passport and requested
political asylum. His father had once told him that a recently sacked Cabinet
Minister from Iraq was always a good catch for the Americans.

The Embassy
arranged accommodation for Hamid and his wife in a first-class hotel, and
immediately informed Washington of their little coup. They promised Hamid that
they would get back to him as quickly as possible, but gave him no clue as to
how long that might take. He decided to use the time to visit the carpet
bazaars on the south side of the city, so often frequented by his father.

Many of the
dealers remembered Hamid’s father – an honest man who liked to bargain and dnk
gallons of coffee, and who had often talked about his son going into politics.
They were pleased to make his acquaintance, especially when they learned of
what he planned to do once he had settled in the States.

The Zebaris were
granted American was within the week and flown to Washington at the
government’s expense, which included a charge for excess baggage of
twenty-three Turkish carpets.

After five days
of intensive questioning by the CIA, Hamid was thanked for his co-operation and
the useful information he had supplied. He was then released to begin his new
life in America. He, his pregnant wife and the twenty-three carpets boarded a
train for New York.

It took Hamid
six weeks to find the right shop, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, from
which to sell his carpets. Once he had signed the five-year lease, Shereen
immediately set about painting their new Americanised name above the door.

Hamid didn’t
sell his first carpet for nearly three months, by which time his meagre savings
had all but disappeared. But by the end of the first year, sixteen of the
twenty-three carpets had been sold, and he realised he would soon have to
travel back to Istanbul to buy more stock.

Four years had
passed since then, and the Zebaris had recently moved to a larger establishment
on the West Side, with a small apartment above the shop. Hamid kept telling his
wife that this was only the beginning, that anything was possible in the United
States.

He now
considered himself a fully-fledged American citizen, and not just because of the
treasured blue passport that confirmed his status.

He accepted that
he could never return to his birthplace while Saddam remained its ruler. His
home and possessions had long ago been requisitioned by the Iraqi state, and
the death sentence had been passed on him in his absence.

He doubted if he
would ever see Baghdad again.

After the
stopover in London, the plane landed at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport a few
minutes ahead of schedule. Hamid booked into his usual small hotel, and planned
how best to allocate his time over the next two weeks. He was happy to be back
among the hustle and bustle of the Turkish capital.

There were
thirty-one dealers he wanted to visit, because this time he hoped to return to
New York with at least sixty carpets.

That would require
fourteen days of drinking thick Turkish coffee, and many hours of bargaining,
as a dealer’s opening price would be three times as much as Hamid was willing
to pay – or what the dealer really expected to receive. But there was no short
cut in the bartering process, which – like his father – Hamid secretly enjoyed.

By the end of
the fortnight, Hamid had purchased fifty-seven carpets, at a cost of a little
over twenty-one thousand dollars. He had been careful to select only those
carpets that would be sought after by the most discerning New Yorkers, and he
was confident that this latest batch would fetch almost a hundred thousand
dollars in America. It had been such a successful trip that Hamid felt he would
indulge himself by taking the earlier Pan Am flight back to New York. After
all, he had undoubtedly earned himself the extra sixty-three dollars many times
over in the course of his trip.