Maloney's Law by Anne Brooke Read Free Book Online

may?’
    There’s no choice but I nod anyway, trying to ease the irregular pounding of blood to my ears. Blake Kenzie smiles and saunters away to his desk. Turning his back to me a little and picking up a letter opener, surely for decoration only, he slides it from hand to hand like a toy as he talks.
    ‘The truth,’ he says. ‘The truth for me is that I have nothing to fear and little of consequence to hide. It pleases me that your client, Mr. Allen, is interested enough in Delta Egypt to go to the extraordinary lengths of hiring you, a private eye from a part of London I have never been unfortunate enough to visit, to do his dirty work for him. I too have people for that kind of business, but I choose not to use them against friends and, I hope, partners. Therefore I suggest you leave and go back to your home. And when you do, I trust you’ll tell Mr. Allen one important thing.’
    He pauses, and I see my chance. ‘And what do you suggest that might be, Blake? I may call you Blake, mayn’t I?’
    My voice is steadier than I expected, but when he swings round, he’s clutching the paper-knife in his fist and I flinch. After a heartbeat or two, instead of impaling me with it, he drops it onto the table and rearranges his face into another smile. The unexpected anger is more real, though, and I’m pleased I’ve managed to rouse it.
    ‘No,’ he says. ‘My name, to you, is Mr. Kenzie. Not that it matters, Paul, as I do not think we will need to worry about such niceties again. But, please, be so good as to tell your wage-master two important things instead of one.’
    ‘These are?’
    ‘The first is this: If he learns to trust me, then the business we do together will be profitable, and he has little to fear. He will find nothing wrong with Delta Egypt.’
    ‘And the second, Mr. Kenzie?’
    ‘The second is perhaps more to the point for us today; tell Mr. Allen that if he uses bad seed, then he cannot expect to harvest good wheat.’

    Outside, the air clings to every item of clothing and every part of my body. After such a meeting and the realisation of how much Blake Kenzie knows about me, I need to regroup. There’s no use thinking about it — it won’t change anything. So shaking away all thoughts of the past, I flag down a taxi.
    ‘Khan al-Khalili,’ I say, the name almost identical to where I took breakfast only an hour and forty minutes ago, but the meaning a lifetime of difference away. The old bazaar, Cairo’s commercial centre. A good place to get Jade a present. Something normal, something expected. A perfume bottle perhaps or an item of Muski glass, as the blue will go with her eyes. A good place also to shake any tail, if there is one. How does Blake know what he shouldn’t? And why?
    The taxi deposits me in a square bordered by several cafés and a mosque. I give the driver enough baksheesh to keep his family in stuffed lamb and baklawa for a week, glance ’round to see if I recognise any of the cars now hooting for supremacy around us — I don’t — and amble off in the direction of the nearest water-seller. Once I’ve checked the top’s not been tampered with, I sit on the small stone wall of the square, open the bottle, and pour half of it over my face and neck. The water runs inside my shirt and over my skin, as cool and refreshing as the first touch of a lover’s hand. I shut my eyes for a moment and enjoy the respite, before the blast of city heat rolls back, then I drink the rest of the water and gaze at where I find myself now. Or more vitally who I find myself with.
    Several groups of men are drinking at the nearest café, and there are women with young families milling outside the mosque. Donkeys and carts trot through the square and disappear into side streets, their owners shouting and gesticulating as they go. In front of me, a small boy covered with dirt carries a casket of bread twice his size on his head, yelling over and over again in accented English, ‘Bread! Buy!