Notorious by Roberta Lowing Page B

course. And the Americans when it suits them.’
    ‘My employers have some wild idea that arms from Algeria are being funnelled through Morocco and Tunisia,’ I say, ‘and on to Sicily, just a boat ride away.’ I watch closely. She is impassive. ‘Then on from Sicily to bomb targets in Europe.’
    ‘And elsewhere,’ says Sister Antony.
    At the base of the hill with the Asylum directly above us, she faces what looks like solid rock; I think she is going to walk straight into it. But at the last moment she turns sideways and disappears through a narrow opening.
    I squeeze in behind her. Almost immediately the gap widens into a shallow cave. The roof presses down on me. The temperature drops ten degrees.
    Ahead is a doorway: reinforced wood with metal brackets and hinges hammered into the rock. The Sister takes out a large iron key and heaves the door open, revealing stairs cut into the same dark rock that I had seen in the underground bedrooms.
    We climb through the dusky light to the next level. The wall is cool, even slightly damp when I touch it. I smell salt.
    Sister Antony takes a torch from her pocket and points to a passage running off to our left. ‘The well,’ she says. She opens a door on our right. Meat on hooks is hanging in rows; chests filled with ice line the whitewashed rock walls. There are lanterns by the door and stacked candles. In Casablanca, the hanging meat is coated in flies, turning a dull green. But there are no flies here.
    Sister Antony points to the wet sheen on the flagstones. ‘The well is drawn off a channel which runs under the Massif to the Kabir mountains. Somewhere deep below the rock, they think there is an underground lake which feeds the channel.’ She draws a breath. ‘To find that . . . ’
    ‘You could irrigate the desert.’
    ‘Then the people would come.’
    ‘Businessmen,’ I say. ‘Non-believers. Americans.’
    She refuses to be drawn. ‘Abu N’af will always be a refuge for solitaries, hermits, people who cannot survive in the noisy world.’
    We climb the stairs. Light comes down to meet us and I see the numbers on my watch. The old sickness is back in my stomach. It is as though it has never left me. It has only vanished briefly, during that time in Sicily. With her.
    I sway against the rock. Sister Antony grips my elbow, hard.
    ‘Everyone plays their own games in the desert,’ she says. ‘For amusement, for money, for revenge. Laforche knows exactly when the Saudis come hawking; they radio ahead.’ She lets me go, steps back. ‘The desert will send you crazy with suspicions, with mirages.’
    ‘Crazier,’ I say.
    ‘Remember,’ says Sister Antony, ‘you can always make a fresh start with your next breath.’

THE SECOND EVENING
    W e are at the door of the infirmary. Laforche stares at me. ‘You understand this is your last chance to speak to her. After this, she says – ’
    I snort. ‘She doesn’t have a choice.’
    ‘But I do, Monsieur. Remember that.’
    We go in.
    Through the half-closed shutters, the fierce light is already fading. Grey is soaking up the sky. The wind whines against the hill.
    ‘It will storm tonight,’ says Laforche as we walk across the floor, our feet hitting the tiles like castanets.
    ‘Rain?’ I am trying to breathe slowly, clear my mind.
    ‘Dry lightning.’
    We reach the bed. Again, Sister Antony is sitting, her head bowed. Laforche stands at the foot of the bed, arms behind his back.
    ‘You look different,’ says the woman.
    I put my hand to my open collar, to where my tie should be.
    ‘Not the office boy.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Not the patsy.’
    ‘That’s your interpretation. Not mine.’
    I pull a wooden chair out from the wall, sit next to the bed, my briefcase on my knee.
    ‘Still got your beloved case,’ she says. ‘Your identity.’
    ‘Always.’
    ‘You can’t keep files on everyone.’ She presses her lips together, her back arched. I half rise from my seat. She continues, in gasps, ‘Ashes to