Flyaway / Windfall
‘No girl is too young for any man – I know. You’ll have to do better than that, Max.’
‘It was a chain of circumstances,’ I said tiredly. ‘For one thing I’m divorcing my wife and I wanted to get out of it for a while.’
‘Divorcing your wife,’ she repeated. ‘Because of Alix Aarvik?’
‘Because the man in her bed wasn’t me,’ I snapped.
‘I believe you,’ she said soothingly. ‘Okay, what’s your percentage? What do you get out of it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
A cold blue eye bored into me. ‘Look, buster; don’t give me any of that Limey blandness. You tell me what I want to know or you get nothing.’
I sighed. ‘Maybe I don’t like being beaten up,’ I said, and told her the rest of it.
She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘That’s a hell of a concoction – but I believe it. It’s too crazy to be a spur-of-the-moment story.’
‘I’m glad to hear you say that,’ I said feelingly. ‘Now it’s my turn. How do you happen to live in Algiers – for starters.’
She looked surprised. ‘Hell, I was born here.’ It seemed that her father was of French-Arab mixture and her mother was Canadian; how that unlikely match came about she didn’t say. Her mother must have been a strong-minded woman because Hesther was sent to school in Canada instead of going to France like most of the children of the wealthy French colonists.
‘But I haven’t been back in years,’ she said. That would account for her outdated slang.
She had met Peter Billson in Canada. ‘He was older than I was, of course,’ she said. ‘Let’s see; it must have been 1933, so I’d be seventeen.’
And Billson was thirty. Hesther was on vacation, visiting the home of a schoolfriend, when Billson came into her life. She was the guest of McKenzie, a wealthy Canadian who was interested in the development of air travel, particularly in the more remote parts of Canada. Billson had begun to make a name for himself, so McKenzie had invited him for a long weekend to pick his brains.
Hesther said, ‘It was like meeting God – you know what kids are. These days they go nuts over long-haired singers but in those days the fliers were top of the heap.’
‘What sort of a man was he?’
‘He was a man,’ she said simply. She stared blindly back into the past. ‘Of course he had his faults – who hasn’t?– but they were the faults of his profession. Peter Billson was a good pilot, a brave man ambitious for fame, an exhibitionist – all the early fliers were like that, all touting for the adulation of the idiotic public.’
‘How well did you get to know him?’
She gave me a sideways look. ‘About as well as a woman can get to know a man. 1933 was the year I lost my virginity.’
It was hard to imagine this tough, leathery woman as a seventeen-year-old in the toils of love. ‘Was that before Billson married?’
Hesther shook her head. ‘I felt like hell when I had to talk to Helen over the coffee cups. I was sure I had guilt printed right across my forehead.’
‘How long did you know him?’
‘Until he died. I was supposed to come back here in 1934 but I managed to stretch out another year – because of Peter. He used to see me every time he was in Toronto. Then in 1935 I had to come back because my mother threatened to cut off the funds. The next time I saw Peter was when he landed here during the London to Cape Town Air Race of ‘36. I saw him take off from here and I never saw him again.’ There was a bleakness in her voice when she added, ‘I never married, you know.’
There wasn’t much to say to that. After a few moments I broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘I hope you won’t mind telling me a bit more about that. Did you know his flight plan, for instance?’
‘I don’t mind,’ she said a little wearily. ‘But I don’t know much. I was a girl of twenty, remember – and no technician. He had that beefed-up Northrop which was a freight carrier. Jock Anderson had installed extra gas tanks in the cargo space and the plan was to fly south from Algiers to Kano in Nigeria. The desert crossing was going to be the most difficult leg, so Jock came here with a team to give the plane a thorough check before Peter took off.’
‘Jock Anderson – who was he?’
‘The flight mechanic. Peter and Jock had been together a long time. Peter flew the planes and pushed them hard, and Jock kept the pieces together when they threatened to bust apart. They made a good team. Jock was a good engineer.’
‘What happened to him afterwards?’
‘When Peter disappeared he broke up. I’ve never seen a man get drunk so fast. He went on a three-day splurge, then he sobered-up and left Algiers. I haven’t seen him since.’
I pondered on that but it led nowhere. ‘What do you think of Paul Billson?’
‘I think he’s a nut,’ she said. ‘Hysterical and crazy. Totally unlike his father in every way.’
‘How did you get to know him?’
‘Same way as I got to know you. I have ears all over this city and when I heard of a man looking into Peter Billson I was curious so I sent for him.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Where is he?’
‘Gone looking for his Daddy. By now he’ll be in Tammanrasset.’
‘Where’s that?’
Hesther gave me a crooked smile. ‘You go south into the desert until you’re going out of the desert. That’s Tammanrasset, in the Ahaggar about two thousand kilometres south of here. Plumb in the middle of the Sahara.’
I whistled. ‘Why there?’
‘If you’re looking for something in the Ahaggar, Tam is a good place to start.’
‘What’s the Ahaggar like?’
Hesther looked at me for a moment before she said, ‘Mountainous and dry.’
‘How big?’
‘Christ, I don’t know – I haven’t measured it lately. Wait a minute.’ She went away and returned with a book. ‘The Annexe du Hoggar – that’s the administrative area – is 380,000 square kilometres.’ She looked up. ‘I don’t know what that is in square miles; you’ll have to figure that yourself.’
I did, and it came to nearly 150,000 square miles – three times the area of the United Kingdom. ‘Paul Billson is crazy,’ I said. ‘What’s the population?’
Hesther consulted the book again. ‘About twelve thousand.’
‘There doesn’t seem much to administer. People are thin on the ground out there.’
‘If you go there you’ll find out why,’ she said. ‘Are you thinking of going after him?’
‘The idea has crossed my mind,’ I admitted. ‘Which makes me as crazy as he is, I suppose.’
‘Not really. You should find him easy enough. Getting to Tammanrasset is no problem – there are a couple of flights a week.’
‘If I can fly that does make it easier.’
She nodded. ‘Then all you have to do is to wait in Tammanrasset until he shows up. If he’s in the Ahaggar and wants more gas there’s no place he can get it except Tam.’ She considered for a moment. ‘Of course, if you want to chase after him, that’s different. You’d need a guide. Luke Byrne is usually in Tam at this time of year – he might fancy the job.’
‘Who’s he?’
She laughed. ‘Another crazy man. It would tickle his fancy to go looking for a lunatic.’ She lit an after-dinner cigar. ‘If you’re going to Tam you’ll need a permit. If you try to get one yourself it’ll take two weeks – I can get you one in two days. What will you do when you find Paul Billson?’
I shrugged. ‘Persuade him to go back to England if I can.’
‘You’ll find it hard cutting through that obsession.’
‘His sister might stand a better chance, and she said she’d come out. Would you help her, as you’re helping me?’
‘Sure.’
‘What do you believe?’ I asked. ‘Is Peter Billson’s body out there somewhere?’
‘Sure it is – what’s left of it. I know what you mean; I read about that South African son-of-a-bitch who said he’d seen Peter in Durban. I’ve often wondered how big a bribe the bastard took. I’ll tell you this, Max; Peter Billson wasn’t an angel, not by a long way, but he was honest about money. And Helen was the next thing to an angel and no one’s going to tell me that she perjured herself for half a million bucks. It just wasn’t their style.’
She sighed. ‘Let’s quit talking about it now, shall we? It’s not been my practice to look too deeply into the past, and I’m not ready to start now.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I’d better go.’
‘Hell, no!’ she said. ‘Stick around and have some more brandy and I’ll match you for dirty stories.’
‘All right,’ I said obligingly, and told her the limerick about the Bishop of Chichester who made all the saints in their niches stir.
I didn’t see Hesther again at that time, but she certainly had some pull because I was ready to leave in a day and a half complete with permit and a seat booked on the plane at her expense delivered to my hotel by her Arab chauffeur. In a covering note she wrote:
I hope you don’t mind about the plane ticket; it’s just that I’d like to do my bit towards the memory of P.B. If you do find that idiot, Paul, club him on the head, put him in a sack and ship him back to Algiers.
I wired Luke Byrne and he’ll be expecting you. You’ll find him at the Hotel Tin Hinan. Give him my regards.
I don’t know if it means anything but someone else is looking for Paul – a man called Kissack. I don’t know anything about him because he blew town before I could check on him.
Best of luck, and come back for another visit.
TWELVE
I didn’t know, what to expect of Tammanrasset but it was certainly different from Algiers. From the air it was a scattering of houses set in a mist of green at the foot of barren hills. Transport from the airstrip was by truck along an asphalted road which led between tall, square pillars which were the entrance to the town. They looked like the decor for a fifth-rate B-movie about the Foreign Legion.
I called it a town, but it would be more appropriate to call it a village. Be that as it may, it was the metropolis of the Ahaggar. The main street was wide, shaded by acacia trees, and bordered by single-storey houses apparently made of dried mud which looked as though they’d wash away in a half-way decent shower of rain. The truck driver blared his horn to clear a path through the pedestrians, tall men dressed in blue and white who thronged the centre of the street as though the internal combustion engine hadn’t been invented.
The truck drew up outside the Hotel Tin Hinan where there was a tree-shaded courtyard filled with spindly metal tables and chairs at which people sat drinking. From a loudspeaker above the hotel entrance came the nasal wail of an Eastern singer. I went inside into a dusty hall and waited until someone noticed me. There was no reception desk.
Presently I was noticed. A dapper man in none too clean whites asked in massacred French what he could do for me. I said, ‘There should be a reservation. My name is Stafford.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘Ah, M’sieur Stafford! M’sieur Byrne awaits you.’ He steered me to the door and pointed. ‘Voilà!’
I stared at the man sitting at the table. He was dressed in a long blue robe and a white turban and he looked like nobody who could be called Byrne. I turned back to the receptionist only to find that he had gone back into the hotel, so I walked over to the table and said hesitantly, ‘Mr Byrne?’
The man hesitated with a glass of beer half way to his lips and then set it down. ‘Yes,’ he said, and turned to face me. Under shaggy white eyebrows blue eyes stared out of a deeply tanned face which was thin to the point of emaciation so that the nose jutted out like a beak. Beneath the nose was a wide mouth with thin lips firmly compressed. I could not see his chin because a fold of his turban had somehow become wrapped about his neck, but his cheeks were bearded with white hair. He looked like Moses and twice as old.
I said, ‘My name is Stafford.’
‘Sit down, Mr Stafford. Have a beer?’ He spoke in English with an American accent which, under the circumstances, was incongruous.
As I sat down he beckoned to a waiter. ‘Deux bières.’ He turned back to me. ‘Hesther told me about you. She said you might need help.’
‘I might. I’m looking for a man.’
‘So? Most men look for women.’
‘His name is Billson. He’s around here somewhere.’
‘Billson,’ Byrne repeated thoughtfully. ‘Why do you want him?’
‘I don’t know that I do,’ I said. ‘But his sister does. He’s looking for a crashed aeroplane. Are there any of those about here?’
‘A couple.’
‘This one crashed over forty years ago.’
Byrne’s expression didn’t change. ‘None as old as that.’ The waiter came back and put down two bottles of lager and two glasses; Byrne nodded at him briefly and he went away. It seemed that Byrne had a line of credit at the Hotel Tin Hinan.
I poured the beer. ‘I’m told the Ahaggar is a big place – very mountainous. A wrecked plane may not have been found.’
‘It would be,’ said Byrne.
‘But, surely, with the thin population …’
‘It would be found.’ Byrne was positive. ‘How did Billson get here? By air?’
‘He has a Land-Rover.’
‘How long has he been here?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. A week – maybe two.’
Byrne stared into the street without moving his eyes and was silent for some time. I leaned back in the chair and let him think it over. This was a man I found hard to assess because I had no notion of the springs which moved him. He was as alien to me as any of the men dressed like him who strolled in the street, in spite of the fact that he spoke English.
Presently he asked, ‘How well do you know Hesther Raulier?’
‘Hardly at all. I met her only two days ago.’
‘She likes you,’ he said. ‘Got a bag?’
I jerked my thumb in the direction of the hotel entrance. ‘In there.’
‘Leave it lay – we’ll pick it up later. I’m camped just outside Tam; let’s take a walk.’ He arose and did something complicated with his head cloth, making quite a production of it. When he had finished his face was hidden, and the cloth left only a slit at eye-level through which he looked.
We left the hotel and walked along the main street of Tammanrasset in a direction away from the airstrip. Byrne was a tall man, yet no taller than any of the other men who, similarly dressed, walked languidly in the street. It was I who was the incongruous figure in that place.
‘Do you always dress like an Arab?’ I asked.
‘Not if I can help it. I don’t like Arabs.’
I stared at him because his answer was incomprehensible. ‘But …’
He bent his head and said, with some amusement, ‘You have a lot to learn, Stafford. These guys aren’t Arab, they’re Imazighen – Tuareg, if you prefer.’
Byrne’s camp was about two miles outside the village. It consisted of three large leather tents set in a semi-circle, their backs to the wind. The sand in front of them had been swept smooth and, to one side, a small fire crackled, setting off detonations like miniature fireworks. In the middle distance camels browsed.
As we approached, a man who had been squatting next to the fire stood up. ‘That’s Mokhtar,’ said Byrne. ‘He’ll look after you while I’m away.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To snoop around. But first you tell me more about Billson.’
Byrne strode over to the fire and the two men had a brief conversation. Mokhtar was another tall man who wore the veil. Byrne beckoned me to join him in the middle tent where we sat on soft rugs. The inner walls of the tent were made of reeds.
‘Right; why does Billson want to find a forty-year-old crash?’
‘It killed his father,’ I said, and related the story.
I had just finished when Mokhtar laid a brass tray before Byrne; on it was a spouted pot and two brass cups. ‘You like mint tea?’ asked Byrne.
‘Never had any.’
‘It’s not bad.’ He poured liquid and handed a cup to me. ‘Would you say Billson was right in the head?’
‘No, I wouldn’t. He’s obsessed.’
‘That’s what I figured.’ He drank from his cup and I followed suit. It was spearminty and oversweet. ‘How does Hesther come into this?’
‘She knew Billson’s father.’
‘How well?’
I looked him in the eye. ‘If she wants you to know she’ll tell you.’
He smiled. ‘Okay, Stafford; no need to get sassy. Did you learn this from Hesther herself?’ When I nodded, he said, ‘You must have got right next to her. She don’t talk much about herself.’
I said, ‘What chance has Billson of finding the plane?’
‘In the Ahaggar? None at all, because it isn’t here. Quite a few wrecks scattered further north, though.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘Hell, I put one of them there myself.’
I glanced at him curiously. ‘How did that happen?’
‘It was during the war. I was in the Army Air Force, flying Liberators out of Oran. We got jumped by a gang of Focke-Wolfs and had the hell shot out of us. The cockpit was in a mess – no compass working – we didn’t know where the hell we were. Then the engines gave up so I put down. I guess that airplane’s still where I put it.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I walked out,’ said Byrne laconically. ‘Took a week and a half.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’
I watched him walk away with the smooth, almost lazy stride I had already noticed was common to the Tuareg, and wondered what the hell he was doing in the desert.
Presently Mokhtar came over with another tray of mint tea together with small round cakes.
It was three hours before Byrne came back, and he came riding a camel. The sun was setting and the thorn trees cast long shadows. The beast rocked to its knees and Byrne slid from the saddle, then came into the tent carrying my bag. The camel snorted as Mokhtar urged it to its feet and led it away.
Byrne sat down. ‘I’ve found your boy.’
‘Where is he?’
He pointed north. ‘Out there somewhere – in the mountains. He left five days ago. He applied at Fort Lapperine for a permis but they wouldn’t give him one, so he left anyway. He’s a goddamn fool.’
‘That I know,’ I said. ‘Why wouldn’t they give him a permis?’
‘They won’t – not for one man in one truck.’
‘He’ll be coming back,’ I said. ‘Hesther said Tam was the only place he can get fuel.’
‘I doubt it,’ said Byrne. ‘If he was coming back he’d be back by now. Those Land-Rovers are thirsty beasts. If you want him you’ll have to go get him.’
I leaned back against the reed wall of the tent. ‘I’d like that in more detail.’
‘Paul Billson is an idiot. He filled his tank with gas and went. No spare. Five days is overlong to be away, and if he has no spare water he’ll be dead by now.’
‘How do I get there?’ I said evenly.
Byrne looked at me for a long time, and sighed. ‘If I didn’t know Hesther thought something of you I’d tell you to go to hell. As it is, we start at first light.’ He grimaced. ‘And I’ll have to go against my principles and use a stinkpot.’
What he meant by that I didn’t know, but I merely said, ‘Thanks.’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s help Mokhtar get chow.’
‘Chow’ proved to be stringy goat, hard on the teeth and digestion, followed by a strong cheese which I was told was made of camel’s milk. Byrne was taciturn and we went to sleep early in readiness for an early start. I lay on my back at the entrance to the tent, staring up at a sky so full of stars it seemed I could just reach up an arm to grab a handful.
I wondered what I was doing there and what I was getting into. And I wondered about Byrne, who spoke almost as archaic a slang as Hesther Raulier, a man who referred to his food by the World War Two American army term of ‘chow’.
THIRTEEN
Byrne’s ‘stinkpot’ turned out to be a battered Toyota Land Cruiser which looked as though it had been in a multiple smash on a motorway. Since there wasn’t a motor-way within two thousand miles, that was unlikely. Byrne saw my expression and said, ‘Rough country,’ as though that was an adequate explanation. However, the engine ran sweetly enough and the tyres were good.
We left in the dim light of dawn with Byrne driving, me next to him, and Mokhtar sitting in the back. Jerricans containing petrol and water were strapped all around the truck wherever there was an available place, and I noted that Mokhtar had somewhat unobtrusively put a rifle aboard. He also had a sword, a thing about three feet long in a red leather scabbard; what the devil he was going to do with that I couldn’t imagine.
We drove north along a rough track, and I said, ‘Where are we going?’
It was a damnfool question because I didn’t understand the answer when it came. Byrne stabbed his finger forward and said briefly, ‘Atakor,’ then left me to make of that what I would.
I was silent for a while, then said, ‘Did you get a permis?’
‘No,’ said Byrne shortly. A few minutes went by before he relented. ‘No fat bureaucrat from the Maghreb is going to tell me where I can, or cannot, go in the desert.’
After that there was no conversation at all, and I began to think that travelling with Byrne was going to be sticky; extracting words from him was like pulling teeth. But perhaps he was always like that in the early morning. I thought of what he had just said and smiled. It reminded me of my own reaction to Isaacson’s treatment of Hoyland. But that had been far away in another world, and seemed a thousand years ago.
The country changed from flat gravel plains to low hills, barren of vegetation, and we began to climb. Ahead were mountains, such mountains as I had never seen before. Most mountains begin rising gently from their base, but these soared vertically to the sky, a landscape of jagged teeth.
After two hours of jolting we entered a valley where there was a small encampment. There was a bit more vegetation here, but not much, and there were many sheep or goats – I never could tell the difference in the Sahara because the sheep were thin-fleeced, long-legged creatures and I began to appreciate the Biblical quotation about separating the sheep from the goats. Camels browsed on the thorny acacia and there was a scattering of the leather tents of the Tuareg.
Mokhtar leaned forward and said something to Byrne, who nodded and drew the truck to a halt. As the dust drifted away on the light breeze Mokhtar got out and walked over to the tents. He was wearing his sword slung across his back, the hilt over his left shoulder.
Byrne said, ‘These people are of the Tégéhé Mellet. Mokhtar has gone to question them. If a Land-Rover has been anywhere near here they’ll know about it.’
‘What’s the sword for?’
Byrne laughed. ‘He’d feel as undressed without it as you would with no pants.’ He seemed to be becoming more human.
‘The Teg-whatever-it-is-you-said … is that a tribe of some kind?’
‘That’s right. The Tuareg confederation of the Ahaggar consists of three tribes – the Kel Rela, the Tégéhé Mellet and the Taitoq. Mokhtar is of the Kel Rela and of the noble clan. That’s why he’s gone to ask the questions and not me.’
‘Noble!’
‘Yeah, but not in the British sense. Mokhtar is related to the Amenokal – he’s the boss, the paramount chief of the Ahaggar confederation. All you have to know is that when a noble Kel Rela says, “Jump, frog!” everybody jumps.’ He paused, then added, ‘Except, maybe, another noble Kel Rela.’ He shrugged. ‘But you didn’t come out here to study anthropology.’
‘It might come in useful at that,’ I said.
He gave me a sideways glance. ‘You won’t be here long enough.’
Mokhtar came back, accompanied by three men from the camp. All were veiled and wore the long, flowing blue and white gowns that seemed to be characteristic of the Tuareg. I wondered how they kept them so clean in that dusty wilderness. As they came close Byrne hastily adjusted his own veil so that his face was covered.
There were ceremonial greetings and then a slow and casual conversation of which I didn’t understand a single word, and I just sat there feeling like a spare part. After a while Byrne reached into the back of the truck and produced a big round biscuit tin. He took out some small packages and handed them round, and Mokhtar added his own contribution. There was much graceful bowing.