EBOLOWA 8

8

 

Rhone Valley, France

 

“And I told you to deal with whatever and whoever got in the way - - “

“I am dealing with it.”

“Good, because I’ve got problems with the passports.  The Swiss are still smarting about Félix Moumié.  They know who killed him.” 

“Your problem.”  Marc pushed the paperclip under his thumbnail until it hurt.  “The deal was two Swiss passports.”

“But as you said, easier said than done. Geneva has applied for extradition.  Quid pro quo.” 

“Let them have him then.”

“Out of the question.  We look after our own.“

“That’s not what the part-timers think.”

“Francois was not a part-timer.”

“That’s why they’re spitting blood.   You ditched them without even saying good-bye.”

“They were on a contract basis.  Anyway it’s your problem now.  Deal with it or there’ll be no pink sunsets in Casablanca.  Your little darling will be wriggling on a pole in the Rhone.”

“You bastard.  I’ll - - ” Marc ground his teeth: how he loathed this man.  “One day - - “

“No you won’t.  Calm down and concentrate on getting the guns in place.”

“You get the passports.”

“I said they were my problem.  You look after your’s.” 

“The visas will need changing.  Bigger bribes.  Five thousand.”

“Five - - ”

“Yes, five.  Our lives are on the line and Gaddafi’s men are all over the place.  They’ve tapped my phone.”

“I know, and he’s the other reason for bringing the date forward.  The lunatic wants a Bomb with uranium from Arlit.”

“Tough shit.”  No wonder Foccart was in a flap.  “He’s got as good a claim as France has.”

“You never did have much feeling for France did you Benet?”

“Why would I?  My father was just passing through.”

“So why all the heroics in 1940?”

“They weren’t for France, any more than this.”

“Just a business transaction - - “

“No transaction.  I was never one of your part-timers.”

“But now you are, mon amis.  Your precious integrity sold for the piffling price of a Swiss passport: how cheap can you get?”

Marc closed his eyes and clenched his fist: one day - - “What do you know about integrity?”

“I know about loyalty - - “

“To someone dead and buried.”

There was the sound of sharp intake of breath, “to a great man who saved France - - ”

“Fuck France and fuck de Gaulle.”

“Watch your tongue, Gitan - - ”

“You watch your back.”

“No problem.”  The bastard chuckled mirthlessly. “I don’t have a pretty little darling to distract me.”

“Just get me the extra money for the visas.”

“I’ll send it over with Luc Pleven.”

“I told you I wanted Guy Martin.  He can pass as an American.”

“No chance.  He betrayed us in Biafra.”

“He took a different line that’s all.”

“He misappropriated funds.”

Marc grunted: he knew Guy was a lost cause - - he’d intercepted blood money for Foccart’s mercenaries.  “So I have to make do with some fucking greenhorn?”

“Pleven is no greenhorn.  He’s the best of the new intake and can pass as an American better than Martin.  He went to school there.  His father was our man in the Embassy.”

“Oh that’s just fine then.”  Typical: a snot-nosed college boy with the right connections.  “I hope he can pick up a gun without filling his pants.”

“He can, never fear.”  The bastard was suddenly brimming over.  “Imagine Gitan, it’ll be like old times again!  How is the celebrated hip by the way?”

“Whinging about the fucking French weather,” he said and slammed the phone down. 

Outside the cold hit him and he pulled his hat down.  He glanced back.  There was no sign of Madeleine and the house glowered after him, the windows wall-eyed and morose,

 

 

 

Manchester, Thursday

    

The Midland Hotel reminded Harry of Gresham’s in Budapest, the same seedy grandeur redolent of times past, except it fronted onto a boarded-up railway terminal instead of the Chain Bridge and the majestic Danube.  It had been the same in London with celebrated stations from the Monopoly board once glass-roofed cathedrals from the age of steam darkened by soot and vibrating to the throb of diesel.  The Midland’s reception hall was dim and dingy but there was a middle-aged woman behind the desk clearly determined to add a glimmer of colour with a high-collared red dress and lipstick to match.  Harry had barely had a chance to put his valise down before she welcomed him with a smile.

“Mr Kaplan?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so,” she said with brimming satisfaction.  “I’ve just spoken to Mr Uttley.  There’s a problem at work and he asked if you could reschedule - - ” She gave the word an American drawl and smiled by way of an ‘old country’ plea for indulgence.  “He promises to meet you in the bar at six thirty o’clock sharp.”

Harry smiled back.  “No problem.”

She pressed a bell on the counter.  “I’ll have your luggage taken up to your room.”

“Thank you, but I can manage fine.”

She smiled again with a nervous flutter of her hands and Harry wondered when they‘d last had an American visitor.

“It’s just that Mr Uttley thought you might like to acquaint yourself with some of our local landmarks - - ” She put a sheet of paper on the counter.  “He suggested I draw you a map.”

“Fine,” he said.

Another smile and another flutter and she spun the sheet around for him to get a good look.  Her nails were painted the same colour as her dress.  “We’re here. This is the main shopping street, Dean’sgate, with Kendal’s, Manchester’s Harrods, at the far end.  Beyond is the Cathedral and Boddington’s brewery, which Mr Uttley swears by, and Strangeways, the prison.  It’s high security; even you won’t want to go that far.”

“Even me?”

She coloured under her thick make-up and was momentarily lost for words.  She shook her head and said, “it’s just that - - well, Chicago is the world’s capital of crime isn’t it?”

“In Al Capone’s day,” he said, unconvinced.  It felt as if she’d grabbed at the first thing that came to mind.

“Of course, silly me,” she said, still flustered and taking refuge in the map.  “This is Albert Square and the Town Hall and just here in Lincoln Square there’s a statue of your President Lincoln.  Mr Uttley was sure you’d want to take a look at that.”

“Really.”

Her composure largely restored, she smiled and said,  “Yes.  The thing is Mr Kaplan, Mr Uttley’s family has been in the cotton trade for three generations and he says it’s what made Britain Great.  Cotton, that is, Coal and Cargo.  That’s what he always says, the Three C’s, and he should know, a Cambridge graduate and such a charming man, quite the gentleman.  His aunt is Alison Uttley, the famous children’s author.  I gather she has quite a following in America.”

“I don’t read too many children’s books.”

“Princess Anne has the whole set.”

“Really.”  People’s obsession with monarchy baffled him.

She leant forward, her voice lowered to a whisper, “they say she’s a very difficult woman.”

“Princess Anne?”

“No, no, Mr Uttley’s aunt.  Very difficult indeed: her husband drowned himself in the Mersey.”

“Did she push him?”

“Gracious me no.” She recoiled, looking startled.  “Whatever do you mean?”

He shrugged.  “You made it sound like she was responsible.”

“That’s what people say - - ”

“Yeah, well, people say a lot of things.”  They said his grandfather had fallen down the stairs, stairs he’d climbed a million times, and that Annie Fayol had been asking for it. 

The woman turned crimson under her make-up but a balding man in a worn uniform came through the revolving doors and rescued her.

“Ah, here’s Aubrey.  He’ll look after your luggage Mr Kaplan.”  She handed the man a key.  “Room 134 Aubrey.  Mr Kaplan is from Chicago.”

Aubrey gave him a stony look as if Chicago was not going to impress him, and he picked up Harry’s valise without a word. 

“The other thing Mr Uttley suggested - - ” She pointed at the map.  “Down here is the Free Trade Hall.  It’s nothing to look at but Mr Uttley regards it as a monument to the other thing that made Britain Great, Free Trade.  He said you’d know all about it from your Boston Tea Party, but it’s all over my head.  I just remember Mr Uttley’s three C’s, although I must admit I’ve never really understood what he means by Cargo.”

Harry took the map.  “I’ll ask him,” he said and with a quick wave he spun through the doors into an evening of thin drizzle and underpowered streetlights. 

“You’ll need an umbrella!” 

Harry turned back to see her brandishing a sturdy black umbrella with a hooked wooden handle.         

“April can be wet,” she said with another smile.

He was glad of it because the drizzle got heavier and beat a steady rhythm on the umbrella as he walked alongside a brick viaduct down to the main drag.  At the junction he passed a pub called The Briton’s Protection with stained glass windows like a church and a dim light within.  A man in the porch was regaling a woman about “bloody miners” and something about “the three day week”.  The area had an industrial feel with massive iron pillars and rusting girders plastered with peeling posters from the General Election asking the question, Who Governs?  A young advocate on the train had sold him a paper and given him a lecture on how the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ would benefit the masses but Harry hadn't had the energy to tell the guy how it hadn’t worked in Hungary.  He left the paper on the train.

A flow of people under umbrellas climbed the red brick stairs to Deansgate Station, seemingly sober and stoical, a people accustomed to making do rather than raising the Red Flag.  Was that the famous Dunkirk spirit?  By the time he got to the department store it was raining hard.  The 1930s façade reminded him of pictures Lazlo had brought back from Moscow but on a smaller scale.  Workers were pouring through the doors at the end of the day and the lights were going off leaving the shop window mannequins and three-piece suites shrouded in darkness.  The street lighting in Lincoln Square was so weak it was impossible to read the inscription on the statue and Harry decided he’d done enough sight seeing.

“Mr Uttley is in the bar,” the red dress told him as he returned the umbrella.  “His usual table by the fire.”

The bar was cavernous and at the far end a man was stirring the fire with a poker to such poor effect that it occurred to Harry that maybe there could be smoke without fire.

“Mr Uttley,” he said and the man straightened up.  Annie Fayol’s callow youth from Cameroon with the unkempt hair and gangling limbs was recognisable, but he had filled out below the neck and thinned out above it.  He was wearing a tweed jacket with elbow patches and a green necktie, and on his upper lip there was a passable version of a toothbrush moustache.  A half-full glass of beer sat on the table with a newspaper and pipe.

“Damned coal,” he said, casting the poker aside, “it’s full of slack.  Welcome to Manchester Mr Kaplan.  I’m sorry we’re not on better form.”  He shrugged.  “But what can we do, caught between OPEC and the Nation Union of Mineworkers?”

Harry took his outstretched hand.  “Good to meet you.  Eileen O’Connell sends her regards.”

“Ah, yes, thank you. Your charming assistant told me Miss O’Connell suggested you got in touch.” He turned to the bar.  “A pint of Boddy’s for our American guest please Fred.”

“Coming up, Mr Uttley.”

Harry could just make out the figure of a man behind the bar.  “They don’t light the candles until seven,” said Uttley with a hollow laugh.  “As I said you catch us on an off day.”

“Off year more like,” said the barman pulling at the pump handle.

“How did you like Meg’s little tour?”

“She said it was your’s.”

“She’s modest.”

“She gets the point of cotton and coal but doesn’t understand cargo.”

“Ah, she told you - - ” He filled his pipe from a soft leather pouch and tamped down the tobacco.  “The British merchant fleet dominated world trade from London, Liverpool, Glasgow, the greatest ports in the world.”

“Right,” he said, “gotcha.”  Lenin and Harry’s history teacher had called it imperialism, the last stage of capitalism before being brought down by its internal contradictions, an image which always put Harry in mind of Samson tearing down the temple.

The barman passed him the glass of beer, a golden yellow with a head of thick cream.

“Cheers,” said Uttley, raising his glass, “welcome to the seat of Free Trade.”

“Good health,” said Harry, raising his before taking a long drink.  “That’s pretty good.”

“Isn’t it?  Brewed for the Empire, IPA or Indian Pale Ale.  Out on the North Western frontier a fellow needed a long cool drink, not the heavy sweet muck they used to drink here.”

“How about in Cameroon?”

“Same story.  The French brought in Trente Trois, which was maybe a bit thin by Boddy’s standards but it still hit the spot.”

“I think it features in a couple of Annie Fayol’s photographs.”

Uttley finished his beer with a flourish and smacked his lips before waving at the barman for a refill. 

“You know, Mr Kaplan,” he said lighting his pipe with a spluttering match, “I’ve been waiting to see those photographs for years.”  He drew on the pipe covering the bowl with the box of matches and leant back in his chair with a dreamy look on his face and his gaze settled on some distant memory.  “These are hard times,” he said shaking his head, “maybe as hard as the Great Depression, but we got through that and the Blitz, so we’ll get through this.  How are you managing across the pond?”

“Badly.  Americans are used to dirt cheap gas and they’re pissed with the Arabs for spoiling their sacred Way of Life.”

“Idiots.”  He swigged at his fresh pint and wiped the cream off his moustache.  “They should’ve seen it coming.  Richard Burton and T L Lawrence did.  At least the penny finally dropped at Shell.”

“How d’you mean?”

“They explored for oil outside the Middle East, like in the Niger Delta.”

“That was one of Annie Fayol’s stories - - young Scots on a rig drilling in the jungle.”  Harry started to get the file out of his bag but Uttley stopped him.