Hidden in plain sight

Hidden in plain sight

So here’s a thing…[Spoiler Alert]

Not many people know that buried deep in the pages of Havoc is a small scene that really happened, in the real world. It happened to yours truly and was so strange at the time that it felt only right to give it, in part, to a few of my characters.

So which scene am I talking about, you may ask? It occurs in chapter 11 - Into the belly of the whale, it’s the scene where privates, Squires, Dipp and Rogerson meet the perfume salesman Armarni. Honest, that scene actually happened. Let me explain…

The year was 1989 and, as a young chap back then, I was backpacking through Egypt. (Now you see where all the desert stuff in the book comes from - cunning me). Anyway, I was enjoying a rather fun trip. Funded in part by being knocked down by a police car, but that’s another story. I had travelled extensively throughout the land, soaking up all the treasures it had to offer. In doing so I met up with a group of like-minded souls, some Brits, some Germans and some Dutch travellers. If memory serves me right, there were about ten of us. So when it came for us to go our separate ways we decided to make a night of it. 

We were in the middle of Cairo, which is an unbelievable place. That night we agreed we’d find a restaurant. Cairo is massive and teems with people. As we walked through the city we became more and more disoriented. The city has a way of turning you around. After about an hour we were thoroughly lost. We ended up standing on a street corner looking this way and that. It was at this moment that Armarni entered our lives. I call him Armarni but in reality I haven’t a clue what his name was. I’m sure he introduced himself but I have a lousy memory for names. After a few probative questions he said that he could help and would lead us to a ‘very fine’ restaurant. 

Just as in ‘Havoc’ we followed him, and just like in ‘Havoc’ we were led a torturous path through the city, ending up in his house/apartment. The perfume and coffee were passed round, the latter being so strong that it made your head spin. The only change to the story being we did not leave by the bathroom window. After a few people had made purchases, Armarni passed around ledgers which he asked us all to sign. They were basically giant guest books. Inside were hundreds of little statements in all sorts of languages, all based on the same thread. ‘I don’t know how I ended up in this guy’s apartment but he’s a sorted geeza!’ True to his word, Armarni later led us to a lovely little restaurant and we had a great night. After that we went our separate ways and I thought no more of it.

Speed forward twenty years. I was working in a television studio with a great bunch of people. We were rehearsing for that night’s show when we stopped whilst engineers fixed some problem or other. I started chatting to a cameraman called Matt. He informed me that he was going to take his girlfriend on a trip to Cairo. I immediately broke into my story of Armarni and explained how I thought we were all going to be sold into white slavery but how it turned out to be a very special night. I explained that the Egyptians I met were such nice people and some of the greatest street sellers on the planet. Soon after I finished my story the engineers fixed the problem and we got back to work. I put the story out of my mind. But it seemed that the story had a third act to tell.

A month or so later, Matt returned form his trip to Egypt and would you believe it… He and his girlfriend found themselves ‘kidnaped by a perfume seller.’ Matt thanked me for the heads up as he would have been terrified if he’d not known what was going on. I think his girlfriend thought he was mad. Now, I don’t know if the man Matt met was my Armarni, it seems unlikely, but I like to imagine it was. To this day my signature sits in a book in Cairo with a much later addition from my friend Matt. How could I not put that into the book?