The Constant Gardener (32 page)

The general's son soldiers gallantly on.

“One likelihood, according to the clever people who read entrails in these cases, is that Justin is in denial—that's to say, he refuses to accept that his wife is dead and he's gone looking for her. It's very painful, but we're talking of the logic of a temporarily deranged mind. Or we hope it's temporary. Another theory, equally likely or unlikely, says he's on a vengeance trip, looking for Bluhm. It seems that the Pellegrin, with the best of intentions, let slip that Bluhm was under suspicion for Tessa's murder. Maybe Justin took the ball and ran. Sad. Very sad indeed.”

For a moment, in his ever-fluctuating vision of himself, Woodrow became the embodiment of this sadness. He was the decent face of a caring British civil service. He was the Roman adjudicator, slow to judge, slower to condemn. He was your man of the world, not afraid of hard decisions but determined to let his best instincts rule. Emboldened by the excellence of his performance, he felt free to improvise.

“It seems that people in Justin's condition very often have agendas they themselves may not be aware of. They're on automatic pilot, waiting for an excuse to do what they're unconsciously planning to do anyway. A bit like suicides. Somebody says something in jest and—and bang, they've triggered it.”

Was he talking too much? Too little? Was he straying from the point? Ghita was scowling at him like an angry sibyl, and there was something at the back of Donohue's shaggy yellowed eyes that Woodrow couldn't read. Contempt? Anger? Or just that permanent air of having a different purpose, of coming from a different place and going back to it?

“But the most likely theory of what's in Justin's head at the moment, I'm afraid—the one that best fits the known facts, and is favored, I must tell you, by the Office shrinks —is that Justin has hit the conspiracy trail, which could be very serious indeed. If you can't deal with the reality, then dream up a conspiracy. If you can't accept that your mother died of cancer, then blame the doctor who was attending her. And the surgeons. And the anesthetists. And the nurses. Who were all in league with each other, of course. And collectively conspired to do away with her. And that seems to be exactly what Justin's saying to himself about Tessa. Tessa wasn't just raped and murdered. Tessa was the victim of an international intrigue. She didn't die because she was young and attractive and desperately unlucky, but because they wanted her dead. Who they are—I'm afraid that one's up to you. It can be your neighborhood greengrocer, or the Salvation Army lady who rang your doorbell and flogged you a copy of their magazine. They're all in it. They all conspired to kill Tessa.”

A patter of embarrassed laughter. Had he overspoken or were they coming to him? Harden up. You're getting too broad.

“Or in Justin's case it can be Moi's Boys, and Big Business, and the Foreign Office and us here in this room. We're all enemies. All conspirators. And Justin's the only person who knows it, which is another element of his paranoia. The victim, in Justin's eyes, is not Tessa but himself. Who your enemies are, if you're in Justin's shoes, depends on who you last listened to, what books and newspapers you've read recently, the movies you've seen and where you are in your bio-day. Incidentally, we're told Justin's drinking a lot, which I don't think was the case when he was here. The Pellegrin says lunch for two at his club cost him a month's pay.”

Another trickle of nervous laughter, shared by pretty well everyone except Ghita. He skated on, admiring his own footwork, cutting figures in the ice, spinning, gliding. This is the part of me you hated most, he is telling Tessa breathlessly as he pirouettes and comes back to her. This is the voice that ruined England, you told me playfully as we danced. This is the voice that sank a thousand ships, and they were all ours. Very funny. Well, listen to the voice now, girl. Listen to the artful dismantling of your late husband's reputation, courtesy of the Pellegrin and my five mind-warping years in the Foreign Office's ever-truthful Information Department.

A wave of nausea seized him as for a moment he hated every unfeeling surface of his own paradoxical nature. It was the nausea that could have him scurrying out of the room on the pretext of an urgent phone call or a natural need, just to get away from himself; or send him stumbling to this very desk, to pull open the drawer and grab a page of Her Majesty's Stationery Office blue, and fill the void in himself with declarations of adoration and promises of recklessness. Who did this to me? he wondered while he talked. Who made me what I am? England? My father? My schools? My pathetic, terrified mother? Or seventeen years of lying for my country? “We reach an age, Sandy,” you were kind enough to inform me, “where our childhood is no longer an excuse. The problem in your case is, that age is going to be about ninety-five.”

He rode on. He was being brilliant again.

“What precise conspiracy Justin has dreamed up—and where we come into it, we in the High Commission—whether we're in league with the Freemasons, or the Jesuits, or the Ku Klux Klan, or the World Bank—I'm afraid I can't enlighten you. What I can tell you is, he's out there. He's already made some serious insinuations, he's still very plausible, very personable—when wasn't he?—and it's perfectly possible that tomorrow or in three months' time he'll head this way.” He hardened again. “In which case, you all—collectively and individually—are under instruction, please—this is not a request, I'm afraid, Ghita, it's a straight order-whatever your personal feelings toward Justin may be—and believe me, I'm no different, he's a sweet, kind, generous chap, we all know that-whatever time of night or day it is—to inform me. Or Porter when he's back. Or—” a glance at him—“Mike Mildren.” He had nearly said Mildred. “Or if it's nighttime the High Commission's duty officer immediately. Before the press or the police or anybody else gets to him—tell us.”

Ghita's eyes, covertly observed, seemed darker and more languorous than ever, Donohue's sicklier. Scruffy Sheila's were as hard as diamonds and as unblinking. “For ease of reference—and for security reasons—London has given Justin the code name of Dutchman. As in Flying Dutchman. If by any chance—it's a long shot, but we're speaking of a deeply disturbed man with unlimited money at his disposal —if by any chance he crosses your path-directly, indirectly, hearsay, whatever—or has done so already—then for his sake as well as ours, pick up the phone, wherever you are, and say, ”It's about the Dutchman, the Dutchman is doing this or that, I've got a letter from the Dutchman, he's just phoned or faxed or emailed me, he's sitting here in front of me in my armchair.“ Are we all completely clear on that one? Questions. Yes, Barney?”

“You said ”serious insinuations.“ Who to? Insinuating what?”

It was the dangerous area. Woodrow had discussed it at length with Pellegrin on Porter Coleridge's encrypted telephone. “There seems to be very little pattern to it. He's obsessed with pharmaceutical stuff. As far as we can fathom, he's convinced himself that the manufacturers of a particular drug—and the inventors—were responsible for Tessa's murder.”

“He thinks she didn't get her throat cut? He saw her body!” Barney again, disgusted.

“I'm afraid the drug dates back to her unhappy spell in the hospital here. It killed her child. That was the first shot fired by the conspirators. Tessa complained to the manufacturers, so the manufacturers killed her too.”

“Is he dangerous?” Donohue's Sheila is asking the question, presumably to demonstrate to all present that she possesses no superior knowledge.

“He could be dangerous. That's the wisdom from London. His primary target is the pharmaceutical company that manufactured the poison. After that, it's the scientists who designed it. Then there'll be the people who administered it, which means in this case the company here in Nairobi that imports it, which in turn means House of ThreeBees, so we may have to warn them.” From Donohue, not a flicker. “And do let me repeat that we are dealing with a seemingly rational and composed British diplomat. Don't expect some loony with ash in his hair and yellow cross-garters, frothing at the mouth. Outwardly, he's the chap we all remember and love. Smooth, well dressed, good-looking and frightfully polite. Until he starts screaming at you about the world-class conspiracy that killed his child and his wife.” A break. A personal note —God, what wells the man has! “It's tragic. It's worse than tragic. I think all of us who were close to him must feel that. But that's precisely why I have to beat the drum. No sentiment, please. If the Dutchman comes your way, we have to know immediately. Right, guys? Thanks. Other business while we're all here? Yes, Ghita.”

•      •      •

If Woodrow was having a hard time deciphering Ghita's emotions, he was for once closer than he imagined to her state of mind. She was getting to her feet while everyone else, including Woodrow, was sitting. That much she knew. And she was getting up in order to be seen. But mostly she was getting up because she had never in her life listened to such a pack of wicked lies, and because her impulse was quite literally not to take them sitting down. So here she was standing: in protest, in outrage, in preparation for branding Woodrow a liar to his face; and because in her short, bewildering life till now she had never met better people than Tessa, Arnold and Justin.

That much Ghita was aware of. But when she peered across the room—over the stern heads of the Defense Attache and the Commercial Attache and Mildren the High Commissioner's private secretary, all turned toward her—straight into the truthless, insinuating eyes of Sandy Woodrow, she knew she must find a different way.

Tessa's way. Not out of cowardice, but out of tactic.

To call Woodrow a liar to his face was to win one minute of doubtful glory, followed by certain dismissal. And what could she prove? Nothing. His lies were not fabrications. They were a brilliantly devised distorting lens that turned facts into monsters, yet left them looking like facts.

“Yes, Ghita dear.”

He had his head back and his eyebrows up and his mouth half open like a choirmaster's, as if he were about to sing along with her. She looked quickly away from him. That old man Donohue's face is all downward lines, she thought. Sister Marie at the convent had a dog like him. A bloodhound's cheeks are called flews, Justin told me. I played badminton with Sheila last night and she's watching me too. To her astonishment, Ghita heard herself addressing the meeting.

“Well, it may be not a good time for me to be suggesting this, Sandy. Perhaps I should leave it over for a few days,” she began. “With so much going on.”

“Leave what over? Don't tease us, Ghita.”

“Only we've had this inquiry through the World Food Program, Sandy. They are agitating most vigorously for us to send a representative from EADEC to attend the next focus group on Customer Self-Sustainment.”

It was a lie. A working, effective, acceptable lie. By some miracle of deceit she had dug a standing request from her memory, and revamped it to sound like a pressing invitation. If Woodrow should ask to see the file, she would not have the least idea what to do. But he didn't.

“Customer what, Ghita?” Woodrow inquired, amid mild, cathartic laughter.

“It is what is also called aid parturition, Sandy,” Ghita replied severely, dredging another piece of jargon from the circular. “How does a community that has received substantial food aid and medicare learn to sustain itself once the agencies withdraw? That is the issue here. What precautions must be taken by the donors to make sure that adequate logistical provisions remain in place and no undue deprivation results? Great store is set by these discussions.”

“Well, that sounds reasonable enough. How long does the jamboree last?”

“Three full days, Sandy. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with a possible overrun. But our problem is, Sandy, we don't have an EADEC representative now that Justin's gone.”

“So you wondered whether you might go in his place,” Woodrow cried, with a knowing laugh for the wiles of pretty women. “Where's it being held, Ghita? Up in Sin City?” His pet name for the United Nations complex.

“Lokichoggio, actually, Sandy,” said Ghita. •      •      • Dear Ghita,

I had no chance to tell you how much Tessa loved you and valued the times the two of you spent together. But you know that anyway. Thank you for all the things you gave her.

I have a request of you but it is only a request and you should please not let it trouble you unless the spirit takes you. If ever, in the course of your travels, you happen to be in Lokichoggio, please get in touch with a Sudanese woman called Sarah who was Tessa's friend. She speaks English and was some kind of house servant to an English family during the British mandate. Perhaps she may shed some light on what really took Tessa and Arnold up to Loki. It's only a feeling, but it seems to me in retrospect that they went up there with a greater sense of excitement than was justified by the prospect of a gender awareness course for Sudanese women! If so, Sarah may know of it.

Tessa hardly slept the night before she left, and she was, even for Tessa, exceptionally demonstrative when we said good-bye to each other—what Ovid calls “good-bye for the last time,” though I assume neither of us knew it. Here's an address in Italy for you to write to if you should have occasion. But please don't put yourself out. Thank you again. Fondly, Justin

Not Dutchman. Justin.

Justin arrived in the little town of Bielefeld near Hanover after two unsettling days of trains. As Atkinson he checked into a modest hotel opposite the railway station, made a reconnaissance of the town and ate an undistinguished meal. Come darkness, he delivered his letter. This is what spies do all the time, he thought, as he advanced on the unlit corner house. This is the watchfulness they learn from their cradles. This is how they cross a dark street, scan doorways, turn a corner: Are you waiting for me? Have I seen you somewhere before? But no sooner had he posted the letter than his common sense was taking him to task: forget the spies, idiot, you could have sent the damn thing round by taxi. And now by daylight, as he advanced on the corner house a second time, he was punishing himself with different fears: Are they watching it? Did they see me last night? Do they plan to arrest me as I arrive? Has someone phoned the Telegraph and discovered that I don't exist?