I also remember feeling piqued at being deserted by Maxie and Bridget simultaneously, and there was a low moment when I wished I was back at Penelope's party, which was what made me jump to my feet, determined to phone Hannah from the lobby, come what may. I was already descending the staircase — it had a highly polished brass handrail and I felt guilty putting my sweaty palm on it — and I was bracing myself to cross the hall under the eye of the grizzly bouncer, when the doors to the conference room parted in slow motion, and out poured its occupants in twos and threes until some sixteen of them were assembled.
• • •
I must exercise caution here. When you walk in on a large, buzzing group containing partly public faces, you take your mental snapshots and you start fitting names to them. But are they the right names? Of the ten or eleven white men, I am able here and now positively to identify two high-profile corporate chieftains from the City of London, one ex-Downing Street spin-doctor turned freelance consultant, one septuagenarian corporate raider, knighted, and one evergreen pop-star and intimate of the younger royals who had recently been the target of drugs-and-sex allegations in Penelope's great newspaper. The faces of these five men are engraved in my memory for good. I recognised them as soon as they emerged. They remained in a bunch and talked in a bunch, not three yards from where I was standing. I was privy to fragments of their conversation.
Neither of the two Indian men was known to me, although I have since identified the more boisterous of the two as the founder of a multi-billion-pound clothing empire with headquarters in Manchester and Madras. Of the three black Africans, the only one familiar to me was the exiled former finance minister of a West African republic which, given my present circumstances, I will refrain from naming further. Like his two companions, he appeared relaxed and Westernised in clothing and demeanour.
Delegates emerging from a conference tend in my experience to be in one of two moods: resentful, or ebullient. These were ebullient, but bellicose. They had extravagant hopes, but also enemies. One such enemy was Tabby, like Tabby the cat, spat out between the yellowed teeth of the seventy-something corporate raider. Tabby was a slimy bastard, even by the standards of his trade, he was telling his Indian audience; it would be a real pleasure to slip one past him when the opportunity arose. Such fleeting impressions were swept from my mind, however, by the belated emergence from the conference room of Maxie, and at his side, as tall as Maxie but more elegant in dress and deportment, the owner of the voice that had seemed to speak to me while I was waiting on the staircase: Lord Brinkley of the Sands, art lover, entrepreneur, socialite, former New Labour minister and — always his strong suit where I personally was concerned — long-time defender and champion of all things African.
And I will say at once that my impression of Lord Brinkley in the flesh amply confirmed my high regard for him as seen on television and heard on my preferred medium, radio. The clean-cut features with firm jaw and flying mane mirrored precisely the sense of high purpose I had always associated with him. How often had I not cheered him to the echo when he was berating the Western world for its want of an African conscience? If Maxie and Lord Brinkley were linking arms in a hush-hush pro-Congolese endeavour — and they were linking them now, literally, as they came towards me — then I was honoured indeed to be a part of it!
Lord Brinkley also enjoyed my esteem for a personal reason, namely Penelope. As I hovered deferentially at the edge of the gathering I remembered with relish how Sir Jack, as he then was, had hit her great newspaper for record damages arising out of baseless allegations regarding his financial dealings, and how his triumphant vindication had in turn imposed a strain on our domestic bliss, with Penelope as per usual defending the sacred liberty of the press to besmirch whomever it chose, and Salvo siding with Sir Jack in consideration of his outspoken sympathy for the continent of Africa, and his determination to free its peoples from the triple curse of exploitation, corruption and disease, thereby putting it back on the table economically where it belongs.
So great had been my indignation, indeed, that unbeknown to Penelope I had written a personal and private letter of support to Lord Brinkley, to which he was gracious enough to send a letter in reply. And it was this sense of personal kinship — mingled, I will admit, with a certain proprietorial pride as one of his loyal fans — that emboldened me to step forward from my place in the shadows and address him man to man.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said, having first reminded myself that this was a no-name operation, and therefore carefully not saying, which I might have done, “Lord Brinkley” or “My Lord” or “Your Lordship”.
Upon which, he came to a smart halt, as did Maxie. From their puzzled demeanour I deduced they were unsure which sir I was addressing, so I shifted my stance until I was engaging Lord Brinkley directly. And I was pleased to note that, while Maxie appeared to be reserving judgment, Lord Brinkley was once more smiling graciously. With a certain kind of person, if you've got my skin colour, you get the double smile: first the token one, then the white liberal's overbright number. But Lord Brinkley's smile was a full-on application of spontaneous goodwill.
“I just wanted to say I'm very proud, sir,” I said.
I would have liked to add that Hannah would be equally proud if she only knew, but I contained myself.
“Proud? Proud what of, dear boy?”
“Being aboard, sir. Working for you in whatever capacity. My name's Sinclair, sir. The interpreter that Mr Anderson sent. French, Swahili, Lingala, and minority African languages.”
The gracious smile did not waver. “Anderson?” he repeated, searching his memory. “Not a name to me. Sorry about that. Must be a chum of Maxie's here.”
This naturally surprised me, since I had wrongly assumed that the Jack of Mr Anderson's conversation was standing before me, but such was clearly not the case. Meanwhile, Lord Brinkley's fine leonine head had lifted, apparently in response to a summons from down the room, though I hadn't heard one.
“Be with you in just one jiffy, Marcel. Got a conference call booked for midnight and I want the three of you at my side. Dot the i's and cross the t's before that bugger Tabby does any more eleventh-hour cliff-hanging.”
He hurried off, leaving me with Maxie, who was regarding me in a quizzical manner. But my eyes remained fondly on Lord Brinkley. Arms gracefully outstretched, he was gathering the three Africans together in a single embrace: a regular persuader in any language, as I could tell by the radiant expressions on their faces.
“Something bothering you, old boy?” Maxie enquired, his Bogey-like eyes peering at me in veiled amusement.
“Nothing really, sir. I wondered whether I had spoken out of turn.” At which he gave a raucous laugh and clapped a bulletproof hand on my shoulder. “You were first rate. Scared the shit out of him. Got a bag? Where's your bag? Front desk. March.”
With barely a wave for the distinguished company he hurried me through the throng to the lobby, where a blond boy stood proffering my night-bag. A people-carrier with blackened windows and open doors was parked at the kerbside, a blue light turning on its roof, plainclothes driver at the wheel. A wiry man with a crew-cut hovered on the pavement. A giant with a grey ponytail and leather jacket was already seated in the rear corner of the car. The crew-cut bundled me into the back seat next to him and sprang after me, slamming the door shut behind him. Maxie plonked himself in the front beside the driver. As he did so, two police motorcyclists came roaring into the square from the direction of Mount Street and our driver pulled out at speed behind them.
But I still managed to peer back over my shoulder. Under pressure, I'm like that. Tell me to look one way, I'll look the other. I turned, and through the rear window, which had a dusty translucence, I took a long look at the house we'd just left. I saw three steps or four leading to a dark blue, maybe black door, closed. I saw two CCTV cameras above it, big ones, high up. I saw a flat Georgian-style brick facade with white-painted sash windows and the blinds drawn. I looked
for a number on the door and there wasn't one. The house was gone in a flash, but never tell me it wasn't there. It was there and I saw it. I had passed through its portals and shaken hands with my hero Jack Brinkley, and according to Maxie I had scared the shit out of him.
• • •
So was Salvo our neophyte secret agent not terrified out of his skin, you ask, to be hurtling at breakneck speed through the clogged Friday traffic of bombed London in the company of men he didn't know, destined for what perils he could only guess? He was not. He was off to serve his employers, do good for his country, the Congo, Mr Anderson and Hannah. I am again reminded of our neighbour Paula, confidante to Penelope and suspected wolverine, who studied psychology at a minor Canadian university. Being short on paying clients it is Paula's habit to practise her arts on anybody incautious enough to wander into her range, which is how she came to inform me, after imbibing the major part of a bottle of my Rioja, that what I lacked among my other deficiencies was predator awareness.
There were five of us inside that people-carrier as we tore off westward from Berkeley Square, chasing our police escort down bus lanes, shooting lights after them, circumnavigating traffic islands on the wrong side, yet the atmosphere inside was as calm as a day's outing on the river. Silhouetted against the windscreen our plainclothes driver was slipping so nimbly through the gears that he seemed scarcely to move at all. Next to him lounged Maxie without his seat belt. He had his gasmask case open on his lap and was consulting a mildewed notebook by the overhead light while he issued a string of casual orders over a cellphone:
“Where the fuck is Sven? Tell him to get off his elbows and take tonight's flight. I want sixty ready to go by the end of next week. If he's got to charter them up from Cape Town, tough shit. And fit, Harry. Seasoned but not over the hill, got it? Top dollar, full insurance. What else do you want? Free hookers?”
I was making the acquaintance of my disparate companions either side of me. The grey ponytail to my right was Benny, he told me over a crushing introductory handshake, and he had the spread body and pocked complexion of a boxer gone to seed. By his voice I guessed he was white Rhodesian. The crew-cut to my left was half Benny's size, and a root-and-bough cockney, although he called himself Anton. He wore a better sports coat than mine, sharply ironed gabardine trousers and brown shoes with boned toecaps. I have referred already to my respect for well-polished shoes.
“And that's all the luggage we've got, is it, governor?” Anton murmured, prodding with his toecap at my Rexine night-bag.
“Anton, that is all our luggage.”
“What's in it then?” — parting his lips so little that from any larger distance it would have been hard to tell he was speaking at all.
“Personal effects, officer,” I replied jauntily.
“How personal's that then, governor? Personal like tape recorder? Personal like a nine-millimetre automatic? Or personal like frothy knickers? You never know what's personal these days, do you, Benj?”
“Always a mystery, the personal aspect,” big Benny agreed from the other side of me. Maxie's raunchy monologue continued unabated from the front seat:
“I don't care what time of night it is, Corky never slept in his life. If he can't be ready in five days from now, he'll miss the party. Well, have you got a fucking pencil, or have you lost that too?”
Knightsbridge sailed by, then Chelsea, where I was pleased to observe that no frozen child was clinging to the embankment wall. Our motorcycle escorts were heading west. Shooting another traffic light, they swerved left and swung due southward, causing an uncontrolled detonation inside my head. We were crossing Battersea Bridge! We were a thousand yards from number 17, Norfolk Mansions, Prince of Wales Drive, my apartment, her apartment, our apartment, and closing on it by the second! An idealised vision of our married life appeared before me, similar to the one I had forced on Bridget. To my left lay our park where any year soon I had planned to be taking our child to the funfair! Behind me lay our river! How many post-prandial, post-coital saunters had Penelope and I not shared along its towpath? Look, I could see our bedroom window! In my haste to get into my dinner jacket, I had left the lights on!
I steadied myself. Secret Servants of the Crown must not overreact, not even part-time ones, not even when struck by thunderbolts. Yet the sight of my own Battersea reaching out to her errant son had reduced me to a state of unreasoning terror familiar to all first-time adulterers: the terror of being turfed into the street with just the one suitcase; of losing the respect of the superb woman you remember too late that you cherish and desire above all others; of forfeiting your CD collection and your place on the property ladder, even if it's only a toehold; of dying a no-name death under a bush on Hampstead Heath.
We were over the bridge and within hailing distance of my front door when our police escorts peeled away leaving our driver to veer left yet again, this time down a ramp and through an open gateway before screeching to a halt. The doors of the people-carrier slammed open to admit the ear-splitting roar of engines, but in my confusion I did not locate the source. Then I saw, not thirty yards from us, glistening under a ring of sodium lights, a silver helicopter with its rotors turning.
“Where are we going?” I yelled after Anton as he leaped deftly onto the tarmac. “For the ride of your life, governor! London by night! Get your arse out of the car, now!”
Maxie had not taken three strides towards the helicopter before he spun round, his gasmask case banging at his hip. Shoving Anton aside, he leaned in.
“Something amiss, old boy?”
“It's my home, sir. Up the road. Five hundred yards. It's where I live with my wife. It's her night,” I explained, forgetting once again in my perturbation that I was supposed to live in a post-office box.
“What do you mean, her night, old boy?”
“Her party, sir. She's been promoted. In her job. She's a top journalist.”
“All right. Which is it to be? Come with us, or go home to Mummy and dump us in the shit?”
The improbable figure of Thorne the Horn came galloping to my rescue, accompanied by all the other Thornes before him, plus all the chicken dinners I had metaphorically shoved down the waste-disposal unit, or failed to. In the kind of mood-swing that I was coming to expect of myself, I felt bathed in shame that in a moment of frailty my sense of high purpose had given way to such trivial considerations. With Maxie leading and Benny and Anton to either side of me, I scampered towards the waiting helicopter. Big Benny heaved me up the steps and through the open hatch, Anton pressed me into a window seat and sat himself firmly next to me, Maxie wedged himself beside the pilot and jammed on a pair of headphones.
Suddenly we were Fram come true. Battersea Power Station sank into the ground beneath us, taking Prince of Wales Drive with it. We were six hundred feet above reality and swinging north. Skimming over traffic crammed nose-to-tail in Park Lane, I took a glance at Lord's Cricket Ground but nobody was playing. Then to my heart's delight and pain, I saw the very hospital where, at a dying man's bedside, I had yesterday evening been reborn. Craning my head, I watched it sail into the far horizon. My eyes filled with tears, I closed them and must have slept for a few minutes because when I looked again, the lights of Luton airport were rising to enfold us, and my one desire was to phone Hannah come what may.
• • •
Every airport, I now know, has a light side and a dark side. In the distance, normal planes were landing and taking off, but the loudest sound as we hurried across the fenced-off area came from the heels of my borrowed shoes clattering on the concrete. A moist dusk was falling. Ahead of us lay a green shed sunk amid banks of earth, its doors open to receive us. The atmosphere inside was of an army drill hall. Eight able-bodied white men in casual wear stood about, kitbags at their feet. Maxie strolled among them, a pat on the back here, an African's double handshake there. I cast round for a public phone but saw none. And anyway what was I going to use for change?
“Where's Spider, fo
r fuck's sake?”
“Any minute, Skipper,” came Anton's respectful reply. “Says his van is walking wounded.”
I spotted a door marked STAFF ONLY and stepped inside. No phone on offer. I emerged to see Maxie in conversation with a dyspeptic-looking man in a sloping black beret and long raincoat standing in a corner of the room, clutching a documents case. The two were attempting to communicate in French. Maxie's, as he had correctly informed me, was atrocious. Could the other man perhaps be the mysterious Philip or Philippe? I had neither time nor appetite to explore the question. A boy in a tracksuit was collecting cellphones, sticking labels on them, dropping them into a cardboard box and handing out cloakroom tickets as receipts. With each instrument that went into his box I saw my chances of talking to Hannah recede.
I appealed to Anton: “I'm afraid I need to make a rather urgent phone call.”
“Who to then, governor?”
“My wife.”
“And why do we need to talk to our wife, if I may ask? I haven't talked to mine for eight years.”
“We're having a bit of a family crisis. A dear friend of ours is ill. She's at his bedside. My wife is. In the hospital. Tending him. He's dying.”
Maxie had abandoned his Frenchman in order to join our discussion. It seemed he missed nothing.
“Dying where, old boy?”
“Hospital, sir.”
“What of?”
“Acute blood disorder. Too advanced for them to cure.”
“Fucking awful way to go. Which one?”
“North London District.”