Moroccan Traffic (45 page)

My mother spluttered, and Rita thumped her and then waited while I got her a handkerchief. As she blew her nose, Rita waded with her to the steps. Rita said, ‘We were just killing time until Mo came. Thought you’d be sleeping for ever. They’ve brought the cases in now.’ She chucked a towel at my mother, who seemed to be wearing pyjamas and shark oil. Her bruise had got almost tanned over. She sat down with a wheeze, and inspected me as if checking for typos. She said, ‘You want to know about Oliver? He’s a strong boy. He’ll do. Henry patched him up good with paperclips, and they’re flying him straight to a clinic.’

I sat opposite. ‘Henry?’

Rita, draped in a towel, was giving orders. She came back and sat down between us. ‘That’s our doctor. Hooker’s Green and all that, remember? Wendy, are you all right?’

I remembered Hooker’s Green. I said, ‘Yes, I’m fine. Henry’s in Ouarzazate now?’

‘Was,’ said Rita. ‘Repairing Oliver, and giving out interviews on JJ’s recent concussion and subsequent ammonia.’

She was wearing disco-ball earrings and a searching, if kindly expression. I didn’t correct her, or ask where he was recovering from his ammonia. I was afraid to ask anything. I sat looking at the drink someone brought me. It looked like either whisky or brandy. I wondered if I was a closet alcoholic. I took a gulp and said, ‘So Henry’s here, then?’

‘Dropped in. He’s gone,’ Rita said. ‘Probably in Agadir by now, stocking up
Dolly.
Lenny sailed her down the coast from Essaouira.’

I took another drink. ‘To pick up Mr. Johnson?’ I said.

‘Eventually,’ Rita said. ‘I suppose. Nobody’s seen him yet. Go on. Drink up.’

‘I’m all right,’ I said for the second time. I sat up and looked at my mother. ‘You know what happened?’

‘Yes, Wendy. I know what happened,’ my mother said. ‘Short term planning, that was. Poorly conceptualised strategy. High risk quotient for zero results. If you don’t tell that fellow Johnson, I will.’

‘He’s been told,’ said Morgan’s voice. ‘In extremely certain terms. Hello, Doris. Hello, Rita.’ He touched my shoulder. ‘Wendy?’

His T-shirt said
Die, Yuppie Scum
and had epaulettes on it, and his hair had been washed and thrust into a ponytail that made his face seem narrower than ever. He looked as if he had been up a long time. I hadn’t been up long enough to know the answer to what he was really asking. I said, ‘The Lancia’s gone.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s all right. They know who the Americans are: they’ve got tabs on them. Exercise in debt reduction. They’re all working like mad.’

‘Who are?’ I said. Birds twittered. A gentle splashing came from the pool. A white-robed man began placing things on our table: a bread-basket with a woven spired lid like the ones in the market; a red clay camel which couldn’t run ahead of a Harley or it would have spilt the pepper and salt in its panniers. He went away to fetch silver and wine glasses. The scent of orange blossom was stifling.

‘Who do you think?’ Morgan said. ‘Johnson was responsible for the whole bleeding massacre, so the least he can do is help fix it. The telephone wires are red hot.’

‘What? How?’ I said.

My mother tapped my hand. Hers had a freshly rolled bent cigarette in it. She said, ‘Now you think what has to be done?
Sûret
é
coordination; legal advice, consular help; messages to and from London, Toronto, Washington, Marrakesh, Ouarzazate,

Agadir, Rabat. Medical procedures; mortuaries; documents. A nice Sunbeam ‘26 to get rid of. And all on the
qui vive.’

I have heard apter phrases. I said, ‘I should have thought he did more damage at the kasbah. Doesn’t that need some fixing?’

‘A landslide?’ said Morgan. ‘Act of Mohammed, dear. And the owners aren’t going to charge anyone. Folded their women and stole away, they all did, after attending to Mr. Daniel Oppenheim.’

‘He went in an ambulance,’ I said.

‘He didn’t get the chance,’ Morgan said. ‘Someone lifted him and chucked him back inside the kasbah. His friends or ours, I wouldn’t know. He didn’t survive.’

I saw that perhaps he hadn’t been up so long after all. He just felt as awful as I did. I wondered when Johnson’s jag had worn off. I said, ‘He made a start on those arrangements this morning?’

‘Must have done,’ Morgan said. ‘I reckon he got through an hour of it before Emerson arrived with the patch-and-mend specialists. They’ve rented a secure office: it’s in a separate building. I’m to take you there.’

‘Why?’ I said.

‘Because we’ve got to agree on our story, for one thing. And they’ll need to talk to us, since we’re mixed up in it. In fact, they ought to bloody well pay us, after all we’ve been through this last week, ending with the rock-folly shoot-out with Sullivan. Christ!’ said Morgan; and his expression was one of awe. ‘He’ll never sodding well do
that
again.’

He meant Johnson. Rita looked at him. She said, ‘The trouble is that he will. But next time, he’ll make sure we don’t know it.’

The door to the conference room was shut. I sat outside, now tidily dressed as for the Hotel Golden Sahara while Mo paced up and down jerkily. Once, a girl went in with a Fax and, for a few minutes, left the door open. Inside, it was just an ordinary Boardroom with a green-topped table with papers and men sitting around in shirts and ties, talking in French. Sir Bernard Emerson sat at the top. Beside him, taking notes, was Roland Reed, the MCG accountant. On his other side sat Johnson, studying some sort of checklist. There were two telephones at his elbow.

It was one of those days when his face consisted of nothing but bifocal spectacles. His shirt and tie looked as if they might be his own, but the linen jacket must have come from the Wardrobe. Although speaking only when spoken to, he didn’t appear especially ragged, but rather a model of unemphatic officialdom. The assignment was damage containment, and he was not, for the moment, a person.

Sir Bernard took the Fax, interrogated the girl, explained something to the most formally dressed of the men, and then asked Johnson a question, to which he replied. Then Johnson picked up the phone and put through a call, this time in English. As he waited, he looked up at the door. It was still open, but he gave no sign of having seen us. Then the girl came out, and the door shut.

Morgan stood and looked at it as if it had sworn at him. He said, ‘They’ve got a bloody nerve, all of them.’ He added, ‘Including Johnson.’ I thought he was going to walk out, but he sat down again.

The next time the door opened, the meeting was finishing. A knot of men came out, in the process of switching chat modes. The topics seemed to be the same as at home: summer holidays, children and golf. Another batch began to emerge, glancing at us and then away as
Die, Yuppie Scum
swam into their various kens. Then Rolly Reed came to the door. He looked worn, reassuring and friendly. ‘Wendy? Mo? Will you come in?

Emerson and Johnson were the only two left at the table. Emerson was presenting packets of stuff to his document case. He rose and sank as I came in, but Johnson only rested one preoccupied arm on the table and looked up and nodded to each of us. He didn’t ask how we were, although he did seem to examine us both. Then he returned to studying papers.

Sir Bernard Emerson didn’t ask after our blood pressures either. ‘Please sit. This won’t take very long. When you get back to London, I’ll have to ask you to fulfil an appointment, but meantime a signature will keep everyone happy. Although I’m sure neither of you is a gossip.’

I said, ‘My mother ought to sign something as well.’

‘She has,’ Emerson said. He waited while Reed produced two sheets of paper, and I read one, and wrote my name at the foot. Johnson didn’t look up.

Morgan said, ‘What if I don’t?’

Johnson looked up. ‘Don’t be an idiot. It wouldn’t change anything.’

‘No, it wouldn’t,’ said Emerson sharply. He waited while Morgan signed, and then checked the result before Reed took the papers. The accountant put them in his briefcase, hesitated, and left. Sir Bernard Emerson sat back and surveyed us. I could feel Morgan resisting him.

Emerson said, ‘Reed and I have to go. Morgan, we all have the future to think of. It’s up to other people to talk to you about that, and Johnson knows enough to tell you something today. I hope it will work out in a way that will please you. All I want to do at the moment is thank you both for the extraordinary help you’ve given, in the face of considerable danger. Miss Helmann in particular had no idea what was going on, and was asked to do that most difficult thing, to transfer her loyalties. At the very least, it’s up to us to make sure her career doesn’t suffer. Morgan. . .’

He had smiled at me, but his glance at Morgan was on the grim side. He said, ‘You helped us of course, quite immeasurably. Oliver probably owes you his life. I can’t quite forget, however, that but for you, none of any of this need have happened. You realise that?’

‘Free enterprise,’ Morgan said. His jaw had set, but he had flushed.

‘Oh, quite,’ Emerson said. ‘In its place, much to be commended. It seems to have infected my friend here, and resulted in what could have been your death and his own, if you hadn’t been there to rescue him. I hope you will be satisfied with his apology. It is more, I must say, than I am.’

He was a big man, between fifty and sixty, with neatly waving grey hair and the style of a debater rather than a negotiator. He was a professor, I later found when I looked him up. Professor Sir Bernard Emerson with one wife, Frances and one daughter, Joanna. Johnson sat hunched over his linked hands, and gazed at his thumbs as if they were rabbit’s ears.

Morgan glanced at him before answering Emerson. He said, ‘What’s the big number? We chose to be involved. We could have gone to Ouarzazate: we took our own decision to travel with Johnson. He didn’t kill Pymm. I was the one who fixed Gerry. And it was you yourself who shot Sullivan. I tried to save him, damn it to hell. He might have said a lot more.’

‘A mistake, I agree,’ Emerson said.

Johnson laid his hands on his chair-arms and rose.

Emerson said, ‘Where are you going? I want you to explain to Morgan what will be happening.’

Johnson stood still, a hand on the back of his chair. He still faced the door. Morgan said, ‘Sir Bernard, tell me what’s happening now. Why did you shoot Sullivan? Did you think he’d no more to say?’

‘At the time, he wasn’t sure he’d said anything,’ Johnson said. He had turned his gaze to Emerson.

Emerson rose. He said, ‘Is any of this relevant? I didn’t intend to bring this up here and now, but the fact is that Johnson left to tackle these two men himself, without informing us or arranging for backup. As it was, I didn’t trust him and followed. But for us, Sullivan might have killed you.’

I said suddenly, ‘You didn’t help at all till the end.’

‘He didn’t want to kill Sullivan,’ Johnson said. ‘He wanted me to be forced to do that, before Sullivan talked.’ He had released his hand and was standing properly, as if back in uniform.

‘But—?’ Morgan said. He remembered, as I did, what Sir Bernard had ordered at Marrakesh. Morgan said, ‘But Sir Bernard
wanted
him questioned.’

‘Not by me,’ Johnson said. ‘Sullivan answered the wrong questions, my questions. He might have had a lot more to say to the authorities. What he had to tell might have changed all our records. But Sir Bernard put an end to him, simply to stop him talking to me.’ His eyes had never left Emerson’s. He said, ‘I suppose Kingsley told you later he
had
talked?’

‘Yes,’ said Emerson. Like Johnson, he was not standing casually.

‘He asked me,’ Johnson said. ‘Sullivan asked me why I’d done nothing about Judith for ten years.’

There was a long silence. At the time, I thought they had forgotten us. Then Emerson gave an impatient sigh. He said, ‘Frances thought this was why you kept working. So now what? Your suspicions prove to be right. The Onyx team didn’t all die. So you jack in all those years and go private?’

‘I expect so,’ Johnson said. ‘You’re not going to use public money to finance a one-man campaign against what’s left of a bunch of mad mercenaries. They’re a pin-prick in Europe. They’ll be reaching senility soon, like war criminals.’

Emerson said, ‘So do you blame me for scotching the Sicilian blood-hunt? An irreversible waste of irreplaceable resources, for what? What do they matter? Who was that unpleasant lout ten years ago? An apprentice mercenary: he didn’t even remember your name. But you lost your head, and yesterday was the result: muddied thinking and needless destruction. I should get rid of you anyway. I thought I could trust you.’

‘And you can’t?’ Johnson said. The passion clearly remained, but his voice, at least, was merely exasperated.

‘Evidently not. You failed to tell me MCG were threatened by Kingsley’s, and you further failed to tell me that you were freelancing to help them. Don’t pretend your excuse was this other matter.’

‘All right, I won’t,’ Johnson said.

Emerson waited. Then he said, ‘Bystanders get killed in vendettas. You don’t always work on your own.’

‘No, that’s right,’ Johnson said. ‘You teamed me with Daniel Oppenheim.’

He leaned over suddenly and picked up his papers. ‘Would you excuse me then, sir? If you’re staying after all, you might care to put Miss Helmann and Mr. Morgan in the picture. If there is more to say, we could discuss it in London.’ He had recovered the Senior Service style: quiet, respectful and civil. Translated, it meant go to hell.

He added, ‘Wendy. Morgan. Excuse me.’ Sir Bernard moved. Morgan began to jump up. Without waiting, Johnson walked to the door.

Filling the space like Stonehenge, my mother opened it from the outside. She said, ‘I have come to be told what is happening today to my daughter. They are bringing lunch. We shall all sit down except Sir Bernard, whose car and chauffeur are waiting.’

She knew Sir Bernard by sight. Of course she did: she’d been at Ouarzazate. She had changed back to layers of cotton and her hair was lined up in hairgrips and she had her knitting bag with her which, having sat down, she proceeded to open. Her feet were in Kentoh massage sandals, planted apart like a Japanese wrestler’s. She appeared not to notice the battlefield.