Love is Dangerous

Chapter 1 - 1949-2

She would promise to repay it. She would be able to do that, not in small instalments but almost as soon as she returned home.

There was a brooch of her mother’s, a diamond star that she had kept when everything else had to be sold, because she had loved it so much.

She could see it now nestling in her mother’s hair as she had come to say goodnight to her.

“Where are you going, Mummy?”

“To a party with Daddy. Go to sleep like a good girl. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”

How lovely she had looked! Melina gave a little sigh and opened her eyes. The diamond star would have to go although somehow she felt that she betrayed her mother’s memory in getting rid of it. But her father would understand. He would know why she had to see Morocco and why it meant so much.

She bent forward to touch the scarlet geraniums with gentle fingers.

She could telegraph to her uncle and aunt at Wimbledon, but she knew, if she did, what tiresome explanations there would have to be when she returned.

Why had she been so stupid as to throw up her good job in that nice Solicitor’s office? It was so ridiculous to go junketing half across the world and then get stranded so that she had had to ask them for money.

She could hear their voices reiterating the same things over and over again, being annoyed by her behaviour and finally forcing her to admit that the whole adventure had been stupid and misconceived and that she had made a fool of herself.

No, no, she would not eat humble pie to them. They meant well, but they wanted her to be safe and secure and clamped down in that deadly Solicitor’s office, month after month, year after year, so that they could feel that they had done their best for her in giving her the job in the first place.

No! The diamond star would have to go, but at least she had two more days in Heaven.

She sat down on the tiny wooden seat that was fixed to one of the walls on the balcony. The space was too small for a chair, but the hotel had done its best to provide a seat.

She raised her face to the sun and let her head drop back against the warm brick wall behind her. She could feel the warmth of it through her thin cotton dress and she felt the rays of the sun again on her eyes and on her lips almost like the kiss of a lover.

‘I must not stay like this for long,’ Melina thought to herself. ‘It’s too hot. I shall get sunstroke. But it’s so wonderful to feel it, the glorious sun of Morocco.’

She could smell the sweet fragrance of mimosa drifting up from the gardens.

She could hear in the distance the cries from the native market that lay below the hotel on a different level. The voices were like a note of music one has always been trying to hear and could never quite remember until it came again.

‘I am happy,’ Melina thought suddenly. ‘Happier than I have ever been in my whole life, despite the fact that I have lost my job and I am here all alone.’

Perhaps that was what was making her so happy, she mused, the fact that she was no longer trammelled. She was free, free to do as she wished for two days – or until the money she held in her hand ran out.

She realised in surprise that she was still holding it, and, laughing a little at herself, she bent forward and threw it through the open window on the nearest of the twin beds.

The envelope burst open and the money lay there scattered. Six pounds, three half-crowns, two shillings and a threepenny bit. Mrs. Schuster had paid her exactly, Melina noted with a little smile, having deducted her national insurance.

She laughed at the thought. There was something ridiculous, somehow, in Mrs. Schuster with her twenty thousand pound diamond ring on her finger and her two thousand pound mink stole draped over the chair, deducting the money for national insurance stamps.

“I’m free!”

Melina said the words aloud and this time there was laughter in her voice.

It was then that a sudden noise startled her.

There was a scuffle, the sound of a tile falling and smashing, then almost before she could realise what was happening a figure came flying off the roof and onto the balcony beside her.

She stared wide-eyed, too surprised and, a second later, too frightened to move.

It was an Arab, his face shadowed by his cotton kosia, but there was a gash of blood on his cheek while his right hand clasped a short bloodstained knife.

They stared at each other and his dark eyes seemed to Melina to glitter frighteningly. There was a shout from somewhere above!

The Arab looked up swiftly, then turned his face towards her again.

“You are English?” he asked and to her surprise he spoke in English.

Melina nodded, somehow her voice would not come.

“Then help me,” he begged. “Please help me, because it is of the utmost importance. There is no time to explain, but I am not what I appear. I won’t hurt you. The men who are after me are evil and if they catch up with me they will kill me. It sounds rather like something from the movies, but it happens to be true.”

There was another cry from above and it seemed to Melina as if it was nearer. The man stepped into her bedroom.

“Where can I hide?” he asked frantically.

With an effort, as if she awoke from same strange incredible dream, Melina found her voice.

“The – the bathroom is the only place.”

“Good,” he said. “Keep them out as long as you can. Tell them anything – that I am your husband, but for God’s sake give me time.”

He crossed the room in one quick stride and she heard the bathroom door slam behind him.

She stared, thinking that she must have dreamed it. A native dressed as he was could not have spoken in English, which she knew without any shadow of a doubt was his natural tongue. What could it mean? Was it a trick?

She saw her money lying on the bed. Was he after that? And then even as her thoughts rushed bewildered through her head, a tile crashed down on the floor of the balcony and a moment later two men came scrambling after it.

They were Moroccans, dressed in native clothes and she saw with a feeling of sickness that they both carried knives in their hands.

Almost without thinking of what she should do, she took the initiative.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “What do you want?”

Her tone was aggressive and she saw that it seemed to surprise the men who glanced quickly at each other and then back at her. One of them, a tall dark man with a small moustache, replied in broken English with a pronounced accent,

“The man, he has come down here. We saw him.”

There was something about both these Moroccans that made Melina decide that the first man had been right. They were evil and she could not trust them.

“You are mistaken,” she said firmly. “It must have been some other balcony. Certainly nobody has come this way.”

“We saw him,” the man repeated, while the smaller man muttered something in Arabic that obviously confirmed what had been said.

It was then, sliding slowly from the roof behind them, that they were joined by a third man. He was fatter and older than the other two and he was out of breath, but Melina saw that he wore the uniform of a Police Officer.

The taller man, who had spoken first, quite obviously relayed in Arabic his conversation with Melina and the Police Officer, still breathless, took the initiative.

“My men tell me that a criminal who has escaped from us dropped onto your balcony, madame,” he said with an air of authority.

“Your men are mistaken,” Melina replied. “I was sitting on the balcony a moment ago and nobody came that way.”

Even as she spoke, she saw on the worn rug on the floor between her and the Police Officer that there was a spot of blood. She saw it without really looking down at it, without taking her eyes from the officer’s face, but she knew without being told that it was incriminating evidence unless she could hide it.

She stepped forward, covered it with her foot and pointed, as she did so, to the money on the bed.

“If any criminal had come in here,” she said, “do you imagine he would have left that behind?”

The three men looked at the money and then back at Melina.

“He is not a thief,” the Police Officer said briefly. “I have my orders. This room must be searched.”

He snapped his fingers and the two Moroccans moved forward to open the wardrobe where Melina’s few dresses were hung and the cupboard, which held nothing except her two small suitcases.

It was then that the Police Officer walked towards the bathroom door.

He turned the handle. The door was locked.

“Who is in there?”

His voice was almost drowned by the sudden rush of water. Someone had turned on both the bath taps full blast.

The Police Officer knocked on the door. There was no answer. It was doubtful if the occupant inside could hear him above the noise of rushing water.

He knocked again, this time more thunderously and now the taps were turned off and a voice asked,

“What do you want, darling?”

The Police Officer turned towards Melina.

“Who is in there?” he enquired again.

“My – my husband.”

Melina told the lie and felt the blood rush accusingly to her cheeks. The Police Officer looked at her for a moment and she felt that he did not believe her.

“Your husband!”

He looked round the tidy bedroom. It did not look like a room that was being shared. There were no clothes belonging to a man either in the wardrobe or on the chair.

“Your husband!” he repeated reflectively. “He is staying here with you?”

“As a matter of fact,” Melina answered, “he has only just arrived. I was not expecting him – but he turned up. He – he came by plane.”

Again she could see that the Police Officer was not inclined to believe her.

“I should like to speak to your – husband,” he said grimly.

He hammered on the bathroom door.

“Come out, if you please.”

“Who’s there?” came the question.

“The police. Kindly open the door. We wish to question you.”

“Question me? Good Lord, darling! What have you been up to?”

The voice was the gay, unconcerned voice of an Englishman who has nothing to fear and believes that the Police are only concerned with the parking of a car or the fact that one has left it without the lights on.

“They – they are looking for a man,” Melina called out.

She somehow felt that she had to take part in this strange drama. At the same time she knew that her hands were trembling a little.

The man, as she had first seen him, had looked so villainous with blood on his face and on the knife he held in his hand. What had he done? Who was she helping to evade justice?

It flashed through her mind that now she was hopelessly involved. There would be a case and she would have to give evidence. She would have to explain to a jury in a crowded court why she had championed a man who had dropped onto her balcony, obviously fleeing from justice, obviously an assailant of some sort.

Why could she not have had the sense to tell him to run to somewhere else in the hotel and then directed the other men after him?

But, she told herself, he was English!

She would expect to be helped if she appealed to one of her fellow countrymen abroad and she must do the same.

“Well, give me a moment,” she heard the voice say from behind the bathroom door. “Tell whoever is there that I am having a bath. Offer them a drink or something.”

“I am afraid I have no drink up here,” Melina answered resisting an absurd desire to giggle hysterically.

It was all so ridiculous, she thought, just like a rather bad film. And yet the knives in the hands of the two Moroccans were real enough and so was the pistol in the belt of the Police Officer.

“I don’t suppose my husband will be long,” she said with an effort at unconcern and walking to the bed picked up the money that was lying on it.

To do so she had to pass very near the two Moroccans.

They smelt of sweat and excitement and – something else. Something that made her remember the words of an old Nanny she had had once.

“There’s many kinds of smells,” she had said, “and evil’s the worst of them.”

Yes, they were evil. Melina was sure of it. She gathered up her money, feeling, although she did not look at them, the eyes of the men were glinting enviously as she put it away in her handbag.

Then deliberately she forced herself to move to the looking glass. She tidied her hair, patting it neatly over each ear.

“It’s a nice day for my husband to arrive in Tangier,” she said conversationally to the Police Officer. “He has never been here before and I did so want him to see it at its best.”

The men were looking at her uncertainly. She knew that her unconcern was making them uneasy and doubtful if they could really trust what they had seen with their own eyes.

As if agitated by his own thoughts, the Police Officer hammered again on the bathroom door.

“Open the door, please, sir. We cannot waste time waiting for you.”

Melina noted the word ‘sir’, and felt a sudden rise of hope in her heart. If only when they saw him they would not recognise him. If only somehow he had got rid of those bloodstained garments.

“I can’t think what all the fuss is about,” a lazy voice said and then the door was opened and he was standing there.

He was wearing the white towelling peignoir that the hotel provided not only for those who wanted to have a bath but for those who wished to go down and swim on the beach.

Above it his face was very sunburnt, but his hair was fair and one side of his face had been newly shaved while the other was lathered with soap and in his hand he held the razor that Melina used to keep her legs smooth before she went swimming.

“Now, what’s all this about?” he asked, looking with what Melina thought was quite unexaggerated surprise at the three men standing in the bedroom.

“My men saw a criminal we were chasing drop down onto this balcony,” the Police Officer said, but now his voice was less aggressive and there was something not quite positive in his tone.

“Well, your men must have been mistaken, mustn’t they?” the Englishman replied in a drawly voice. “And what am I supposed to do about it? He’s not here in the bathroom with me, as you can see for yourself. Have you looked under the bed? My wife will tell you he certainly was not in the room when I went to my bath and she has been here ever since.”

“There – must have been a mistake,” the Police Officer mumbled.

“There must, indeed,” the Englishman answered. “And had you not better be running about looking for him instead of standing here asking me a lot of questions I cannot answer? Now if you will excuse me, I will go back to my shaving.”

He turned as he spoke towards the glass over the basin in the bathroom and started to move the razor with precision down his lathered cheek.

The Police Officer looked at his assistants.

Melina did not understand what he said, but the gist of his words was quite obvious. ‘Fools and imbeciles that they were, they had let the man they were seeking slip through their fingers!’

The Police Officer bowed to Melina.

“Your pardon, madame. Good afternoon, monsieur.”

Knowing that the other two men were watching her and that there was still a look of suspicion in their eyes, she turned unconcernedly back to the dressing table and, picking up a lipstick, began to outline her lips.

She heard the door shut behind them and then she turned, only to see the Englishman at the open door of the bathroom with his finger to his lips.

Then for a moment he disappeared and she heard the taps running again – a barrier of sound to prevent eavesdropping, she thought, before he walked back to her.

And now she saw that the lather had gone from the unshaven side of his face and there was a long scratch that was still bleeding slightly.

“Oh, your face!” she exclaimed involuntarily.

He smiled.

“My face does not matter,” he said quietly. “I have to thank you for saving my life!”