“And what this friend of mine has told me — in total confidence, after much agonising,” I continued, deciding to come straight to the point, “is that a secret meeting recently took place on an island somewhere in the North Sea” — I allowed a pause for this to sink in — “between your Mwangaza — I'm sorry to have to tell you this — and the representatives of certain East Congolese militias” — I was watching the lower half of his face for signs of dawning apprehension, but the most I got was a barely perceptible straightening of the lips — “and other representatives of an offshore anonymous syndicate of international investors. At this same conference it was agreed that they would jointly mount, with the assistance of Western and African mercenaries, a military coup against Kivu.” I again waited for some hint of a reaction, but in vain. “A covert coup. Deniable. Using the local militias that they have done a deal with. Units of the Mai Mai forming one such militia, the Banyamulenge another.”
Instinct having advised me to keep Haj and Luc out of the equation, I once more glanced at Baptiste to see how he was taking it. His Ray-Bans, so far as I could determine, were beamed on Hannah's bosom.
“The ostensible purpose of the operation,” I pressed on more loudly, “is to create an inclusive, united, democratic Kivu, north and south. However, the actual purpose is somewhat different. It's to milk the Eastern Congo of all minerals the Syndicate can get its hands on, including large stockpiles of coltan, thereby notching up untold millions for the investors, and absolutely nothing for the people of Kivu.”
No movement of the head, no change in the direction of the Ray-Bans.
“The people will be robbed. Ripped off, as per usual,” I protested, feeling by now that I was talking to no one but myself. “It's the oldest story. Carpetbagging by another name.” I had kept back my trump card till last. “And Kinshasa is in on the plot. Kinshasa will turn a blind eye provided it gets a piece of the action, which in this case means the People's Portion. All of it.”
From upstairs a child screamed and was soothed. Hannah gave a remote smile, but it was for the child, not for me.
Baptiste's blacked-out expression had not altered by a quaver and his impassivity was by now having a seriously retarding effect on my narrative powers.
“When is all this shit supposed to have happened?”
“You mean, when did I talk to my friend?”
“The meeting on the fucking island, man. When?”
“I said: Recently.”
“I don't know recent. Recent how? Recent when?”
“Within the last week,” I replied, because when in doubt stay close to the truth.
“Did he attend the meeting, your unnamed guy? Was he sitting on the fucking island with them, listening while they did the deal?”
“He studied the papers. Reports. I told you.”
“He studied the papers. He thought, holy shit, and he came to you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He's got a conscience. He recognised the scale of the deceit. He cares about the Congo. He doesn't approve of people starting foreign wars for their own profit. Isn't that a good enough reason?”
Evidently it wasn't. “Why you, man? He some kind of white liberal, and you're the nearest he can get to a black guy?”
“He came to me because he cares. That's all you need know. He's an old friend, I won't say how. He knew I had links to the Congo and that my heart was in the right place.”
“Fuck you, man. You're shitting me.”
Springing to his feet, he began pacing the room, Texan boots skidding on the deep-pile gold carpet. After a couple of lengths he came to a halt in front of Hannah.
“Maybe I believe this schmuck,” he told her, tilting his skull-like head at me. “Maybe I just think I do. Maybe you were correct in bringing him to me. Is he by any chance half Rwandan? I think he is half Rwandan. I think this may be the clue to his position.”
“Baptiste,” Hannah whispered, but he ignored her.
“Okay, don't answer. Let's do facts. Here are the facts. Your friend here fucks you, right? Your friend's friend knows he fucks you, so he comes to your friend. And he tells your friend a story, which your friend repeats to you because he's fucking you. You are rightly incensed by this story, so you bring your friend who is fucking you to me, so that he can tell it all over again, which is what your friend's friend reckoned would happen all along. We call that disinformation. Rwandan people are very clever at disinformation. They have people who do nothing except plant disinformation. Allow me to explain how it works. Okay?”
Still standing before Hannah, he turns his blacked-out eyes to me, then back to Hannah.
“Here's how it works. A great man — a truly great man — I am referring to my Mwangaza — is offering a message of hope for my country. Peace, prosperity, inclusiveness, unity. But this great man is not a friend of Rwandans. He knows that his vision cannot be achieved while the Rwandans borrow our land to fight their fucking wars on, colonise our economy and our people and send teams of killers to wipe us out. So he hates the fuckers. And they hate him. And they hate me. Know how many times those bastards have tried to take me out? Well, now they're trying to take out the Mwangaza. How? By planting a lie inside his camp. What is the lie? You have just heard the lie. It was spoken by the friend you are fucking: the Mwangaza has sold out to the white man! The Mwangaza has mortgaged our birthright to the Kinshasa fatcats.”
Forsaking Hannah, he places himself in front of me. His voice has risen a scale, forced upward by the rap coming through the gold carpet.
“Do you happen to know by any chance how one little match in Kivu can send the whole fucking region up in flames? Is that information available to you, in your head?”
I must have nodded, yes I know.
“Well, you're the fucking match, man, even if you don't want to be, even if all your good thoughts are in the right place. And this unnamed person of yours who loves the Congo so much, and wants to protect it from the white invader, he's a fucking Rwandan cockroach. And don't think he's the only one either, because we've got the same story being fed to us from about twenty different directions, all telling us the Mwangaza is the biggest fucking anti-Christ of all time. Do you happen to play golf? The noble game of golf? Are you a fucking golfer, sir?”
I shook my head.
“No golf,” Hannah murmured on my behalf.
“You said this great meeting took place within the last week. Right?”
I nodded yes, right.
“Know where the Mwangaza has been this last week? Every fucking day without exception, morning and fucking afternoon? Check his green fees. In Marbella, south Spain, taking a golf vacation before returning to Congo and resuming his heroic campaign for peaceful power. Know where I've been, every fucking one of these last seven days right up to yesterday? Check my green fees. In Marbella, playing golf with the Mwangaza and his devoted associates. So maybe, just maybe, you should tell your friend to shove his island up his ass, and his dirty lies with it.”
All the time he had been talking, Baptiste's Rolex watch with its eighteen-carat bracelet and phases of the moon had been winking at me. The more he talked, the chunkier and more intrusive it became.
“You want to go somewhere, be driven someplace? You want a cab?” he asked Hannah in Swahili.
“We're fine,” Hannah said.
“Has the man you fuck got something in that bag he wants to give me? Libellous writings? Coke?”
“No.”
“When you get tired of him, let me know.”
I followed her back through the café, into the street. A new black Mercedes limousine was double-parked, its driver at the wheel. From its rear window, a black girl in a low-cut dress and white fur stole stared at us like somebody in peril.
17
Hannah was not a woman who naturally wept. The sight of her seated on the edge of Mrs Hakim's bed in her Mission girl's nightdress at one o'clock in the morning, face buried in her hands and th
e tears rolling between her fingers, moved me to depths of compassion hitherto unplumbed.
“We can do nothing to save ourselves, Salvo,” she assured me between sobs when, after much coaxing, I persuaded her to sit upright. “We have such a wonderful dream. Peace. Unity. Progress. But we are Congolese. Every time we have a dream, we go back to the beginning. So tomorrow never comes.”
When I had done what I could to console her, I set to work making scrambled eggs, toast and a pot of tea while I prattled to her about my day. Determined not to compound her grief with contentious propositions, I was once more careful to omit all mention of certain phone calls I had made, or a certain classified document entitled J'Accuse! that I had tucked behind the wardrobe. In twelve short hours she would be departing for Bognor. Better by far to wait till she returned, by which time I would have put my plan into action and all would be resolved. Yet when I proposed sleep, she shook her head distractedly and said she needed to hear the song again.
“Haj's song. The one he sang after they tortured him.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Wishing by all available means to humour her, I extracted the relevant tape from its hiding-place.
“You have the business card he gave you?”
I fetched it for her. She examined the front and managed a smile at the animals. She turned it over and, frowning, studied the back. She put on the earphones, switched on the recorder and sank into an inscrutable silence while I waited patiently for her to emerge.
“Did you respect your father, Salvo?” she enquired, when the tape had twice run its course.
“Of course I did. Hugely. So did you, I'm sure.”
“Haj also respects his father. He is Congolese. He respects his father and obeys him. Do you really believe that he can go to his father and say, ‘Father, your lifelong friend and political ally the Mwangaza is a liar,’ without any proof to show him? not even the marks on his body if his torturers did their work well?”
“Hannah, please. You're dead tired and you've had an awful day. Come to bed.” I put my hand on her shoulder but she gently removed it.
“He was singing to you, Salvo.”
I conceded that such was my impression.
“Then what do you think he was trying to tell you?”
“That he'd survived and to hell with all of us.”
“Then why did he write his e-mail address to you? It's in a shaky hand. He wrote it after he was tortured, not before. Why?”
I made a bad joke of it.
“Rustling up business for his nightclubs, most likely.”
“Haj is telling you to contact him, Salvo. He needs your help. He is saying: help me, send me your recordings, send me the evidence of what they did to me. He needs the proof. He wants you to provide it.”
Was I weak, or merely cunning? Haj was in my book a playboy, not a knight in armour. French pragmatism and the good living had corrupted him. Three million dollars by Monday night was clear evidence of this. Should I destroy her illusions? — or should I enter into a bargain with her that I was confident I would not be obliged to honour?
“You're right,” I told her. “He wants the proof. We'll send him the tapes. It's the only way.”
“How?” she demanded suspiciously.
It's dead simple, I assured her. All you need is someone with the gear — a sound recordist, a music shop. They turn the tape into a sound file for you, and you e-mail it to Haj. Job done.
“No, Salvo, not done” — her face puckering as she struggled to reverse her role just as I this minute had reversed mine.
“Why not?”
“It's a big crime for you. Haj is Congolese and these are British secrets. At heart you are British. Better to leave it.”
I fetched a calendar. Maxie's planned coup was still eleven days off, I pointed out, kneeling at her side. So there's no vast hurry, is there?
Probably not, she agreed doubtfully. But the more warning Haj had, the better.
But we could still hold off for a few days, I countered artfully.
Even a week would do no harm, I added — secretly remembering the ponderous pace at which Mr Anderson moved to perform his wonders.
“A week? Why must we wait a week?” — frowning again.
“Because by then we may not need to send it. Maybe they'll get cold feet. They know we're on the case. Maybe they'll call it off.”
“And how shall we know they have called it off?”
To this I had no answer ready, and we shared a somewhat awkward silence, while she rested her head pensively on my shoulder.
“In four weeks, Noah has his birthday,” she announced abruptly.
“Indeed he does, and we've promised to find him a present together.”
“He wishes more than anything to visit his cousins in Goma. I do not wish him to be visiting a war zone.”
“He won't be. Just give it a few more days. In case something happens.”
“Such as what, Salvo?”
“They're not all monsters. Maybe reason will prevail,” I insisted, to which she sat up and gave me the kind of look she might have bestowed on a patient she suspected of lying about his symptoms.
“Five days,” I pleaded. “On the sixth, we send everything to Haj. That still gives him all the time he can possibly need.”
I recall only one conversation of later significance. We are lying in each other's arms, our cares seemingly forgotten, when suddenly Hannah is talking about Latzi, Grace's crazy Polish boyfriend.
“You know what he does for a living? Works at a Soho recording centre for rock bands. They record all night, he comes home in the morning completely stoned and they make love all day.”
“So?”
“So I can go to him and get a good price.”
Now it is my turn to sit up.
“Hannah. I do not want you complicit. If anybody has to send those tapes to Haj, it will be me.”
To which she says nothing at all, and I take her silence for submission. We wake late and are in a flurry of packing. At Hannah's bidding, I fly downstairs barefoot and beg Mr Hakim to get us one of his minicabs. When I return, I find her standing at the rickety wardrobe, holding my shoulder-bag which has evidently slipped from its hiding place in the rush — but not, thank Heaven, my precious copy of J'Accuse!
“Here, let me,” I say and, using my greater height, put the bag back where it came from.
“Oh Salvo,” she says, in what I take for gratitude.
She is still only half dressed, which is fatal.
• • •
The non-stop express service from Victoria coach station to Sevenoaks had laid on extra buses for train travellers who since the bombings prefer the open road. I approached the queue warily, conscious of my pulled-down bobble hat and shade of skin. I had made the journey partly on foot and partly by bus, twice alighting at the last moment in order to shake off my hypothetical pursuers. Counter-surveillance takes its toll. By the time the security guard at the coach station had patted me down, I was half wishing he would identify me and be done with it. But he could find no fault with the brown envelope marked J'Accuse! that I had folded into the inside pocket of my leather jacket. From a phone box in Sevenoaks I rang Grace's cellphone to find her in fits of laughter. The coach journey to Bognor had not been without its moments, apparently:
“That Amelia, she threw up you wouldn't believe, Salvo. All over the bus, all over her new frock and shoes. Me and Hannah, we're just standin' here with mops, rationalisin'!”
“Salvo?”
“I love you, Hannah.”
“I love you too, Salvo.”
I had my absolution, and could proceed.
St Roderic's School for Boys and Girls lay in the leafy fringes of old Sevenoaks. Amid expensive houses with new cars parked on weedless gravel drives stood a lookalike of the Sanctuary, complete with turrets, battlements and an ominous clock. The glass and brick Memorial Hall had been donated by grateful parents and former pupils. A f
luorescent arrow pointed visitors up a tiled staircase. Following large ladies, I arrived at a wooden gallery and took my place next to an elderly clergyman with perfect white hair like Philip's. Below us, forming three sides of a military square, stood the sixty-strong members of the Sevenoaks Choral Society (authorised). Perched on a rostrum, a man in a velvet coat and bow tie was addressing his flock on the subject of outrage.
“It's all very well to feel it. It's another for us to hear it. Let's think it through for a moment. The moneylenders have set themselves up in God's house, and what could be worse than that? No wonder we're outraged. Who wouldn't be? So lots of outrage. And very careful with our S's, tenors particularly. Here we go again.”
We went again. And Mr Anderson in the full expression of his outrage puffed out his chest, opened his mouth and saw me: but so completely and directly that you would think I was the only person in the hall, let alone the gallery. Instead of singing, his mouth snapped shut. Everyone round him was singing and the man on the rostrum was flailing at them with his little velvet arms, oblivious to the fact that Mr Anderson, having broken ranks, was towering beside him, scarlet with embarrassment. But the choir was not oblivious, and the singing slowly wound down. What passed between Mr Anderson and his conductor I shall never know for I had by then descended the stairs and placed myself in front of the doors that led to the main hall. I was joined by a middle-aged woman wearing a kaftan, and a thickset adolescent girl who, if you took away the green hair and eyebrow rings, was the spitting image of her distinguished father. Seconds later Mr Anderson himself squeezed his bulk round the door and, looking past me as if I wasn't there, addressed his womenfolk in tones of command.
“Mary, I'll trouble you both to go home and await my return. Ginette, don't look like that. Take the car, please, Mary. I shall find alternative transport as required.”
Her charcoaled eyes beseeching me to witness the injury being done to her, the girl Ginette allowed herself to be led away by her mother. Only then did Mr Anderson acknowledge my presence.
“Salvo. You have personally interrupted my choir practice.”