The Mission Song (32 page)

‘You know something?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘That Lord Brinkley of yours. I think maybe he comes from a pretty bad tribe,’ she said, shaking her head and laughing until I had no choice but to do the same.

It was four-fifteen by Aunt Imelda’s watch when she woke me to tell me my cellphone was buzzing on the glass-topped table in the bay window. Having switched it on for my encounter with Lord Brinkley, I had neglected to switch it off when we got home. By the time I reached it, it had put the caller on record.

Penelope: My fucking
flat
, Salvo! The flat
you
deserted, not me. And you have the effrontery, you have the
arse
. . . D’you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to have an ASBO served on you. My cupboards. Daddy’s desk—
your
fucking desk—the one he gave you—locks smashed—your papers slung all over the room—(
breath
)—my clothes, you fucking pervert, all over my bedroom floor—(
breath
)—Okay. Fergus is on his way round here
now
. So look out. He’s no locksmith but he’s going to make sure you
never
,
ever
, get into this house again with
my
key. When he’s done that, he’s going to find out where you are. And if I were you, I’d run like hell. Because Fergus knows people, Salvo, not all of them very nice people. And if you think, for one minute . . .

We lay on the bed, puzzling it out backwards. I had left Brinkley’s house at seven-twenty. At seven-twenty and a half or thereabouts he had made the call to Philip or whoever he made the call to. By seven-thirty Philip or similar had established that Penelope was launched on the evening cocktail round. They had further worked out, if they didn’t already know, that there were blank notepads in Spider’s burn-bag purporting to be mine, and blank tapes nestling in his archive collection of stolen sound. Where better to look for them than in the marital home?

‘Salvo?’

An hour of semi-sleep has gone by without either of us speaking.

‘Why does a man who has been tortured sing a childish song? My patients don’t sing songs when they’re in pain.’

‘Perhaps he’s pleased to have got his confession off his chest,’ Salvo the good Catholic replies.

Unable to sleep, I tiptoe to the bathroom with my transistor radio and listen through the headphones to the BBC news on Radio 4. Car bombs in Iraq. Insurgents kill dozens. But nothing yet about a top interpreter and part-time British secret agent on the run.

16

‘The whole afternoon to find
one man
?’ I protest, playing the jealous husband in order to delay her departure. ‘What are you going to do with him when you’ve found him?’

‘Salvo, you are being ridiculous again. Baptiste isn’t somebody you just call up. The Rwandans are very cunning. He must hide his tracks, even from his supporters. Now let me go, please. I have to be at the church in forty minutes.’

Church is the Bethany Pentecostal Mission church somewhere in the sticks of North London.

‘Who are you meeting there?’

‘You know very well. My friend Grace and the charity ladies who are paying for our coach and finding accommodation for our Sunday School kids. Now let me go, please.’

She is wearing a pretty pillbox hat with a long-skirted blue dress and bolero made of rough silk. I know its story without her telling me. For a special day like Christmas or her birthday, after she’d paid the rent and sent her aunt the monthly allowance for Noah, she treated herself to a new outfit. She’s washed and ironed it a hundred times, and now it’s on its last legs.

‘And the beautiful young pastor?’ I demand severely.

‘Is fifty-five years old and married to a lady who never lets him out of her sight.’

I extract a last kiss, beg her forgiveness and extract another. Seconds later she is out of the house, hurrying down the pavement with her skirt swinging while I gaze after her from the window. All through the previous night we have held councils of love and councils of war. Other couples, I trust, do not experience in a lifetime the strains to which our relationship has been subjected in the course of four short days. My entreaties to her to run while there was time, to rid herself of the embarrassment of me, for her own sake, for Noah’s, for the sake of her career, et cetera, had fallen on deaf ears. Her destiny was to remain at my side. It was ordained. By God, by a fortune-teller in Entebbe, and by Noah.

‘By
Noah
?’ I repeat, laughing.

‘I have told him I have met his new father and he is very pleased.’

Sometimes I am too English for her, too indirect and withheld. Sometimes she is unreachable, an exiled African woman lost to her memories. My preferred strategy in the wake of the break-in at Norfolk Mansions was to change hiding places at once, get out, start afresh in a new part of town. Hannah did not agree, arguing that if the hue-and-cry was on, an abrupt change in our arrangements would draw attention to us. Better to stay put and act natural, she said. I bowed to her judgment and we had enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with our fellow guests rather than skulking like fugitives in our room. When we were done, she had shooed me upstairs, insisting she needed a private word with Mr Hakim, a shiny, self-admiring man, susceptible to female charms.

‘What did you tell him?’ I asked when she returned laughing.

‘The truth, Salvo. Nothing but the truth. Just not all of it.’

I demanded a full confession. In English.

‘I told him we are runaway lovers. Our angry relatives are pursuing us and telling lies about us. We must count on his protection or find another boarding house.’

‘And he said?’

‘We may stay another month at least, and he will protect us with his life.’

‘And will he?’

‘For another fifty pounds a week of your Judas money, he will be as brave as a lion. Then his wife came round the door and said she would protect us for nothing. If somebody had only offered her protection when she was young, she said, she would never have married Mr Hakim. They both found that very funny.’

We had discussed the tricky matter of communication, which I knew from the Chat Room to be the clandestine operator’s weakest link. Mr Hakim’s emporium boasted no public phone. The only house phone was in the kitchen. My cellphone was a deathtrap, I explained to Hannah, drawing on my insider’s knowledge. With the technology these days, a live cellphone could reveal my whereabouts anywhere on the planet within seconds. I’ve seen it, Hannah, I’ve reaped the dividend, you should hear what I hear on my One-Day Courses. Warming to my subject, I allowed myself a digression into the arts of inserting a deadly missile into a cellphone’s radio beam, thereby decapitating the subscriber.

‘Well,
my
mobile will not blow you up,’ she retorted, extracting a rainbow-coloured version from her compendious carry-bag.

At a stroke, our secret link was established. I would take possession of her cellphone and she would borrow Grace’s. If I needed to call Hannah at the church, I could reach her through Grace.

‘And
after
church?’ I insisted. ‘When you are out hunting for Baptiste, how will I contact you then?’

From her closed face I knew I had again encountered the cultural divide. Hannah might not be versed in the dark arts of the Chat Room, but what did Salvo know of London’s Congolese community, or where its leading voices went to ground?

‘Baptiste returned from the United States a week ago. He has a new address and perhaps a new name also. I shall talk first to Louis.’

Louis being Baptiste’s unofficial deputy head of the Middle Path’s European bureau, she explained. Also a close friend of Salomé who was a friend of Baptiste’s sister Rose in Brussels. But Louis was currently in hiding, so it all depended whether Rose had returned from her nephew’s wedding in Kinshasa. If not, it might be possible to talk to Bien-Aimé who was Rose’s lover, but not if Bien-Aimé’s wife was in town.

I accepted defeat.

I am alone, bereft until tonight. To operate my cellphone requires, under the strict rules of tradecraft I have imposed on myself following the break-in at Norfolk Mansions, a mile-long walk away from Mr Hakim’s house down a tree-lined road to a vacant bus shelter. I take the distance slowly, spreading it out. I sit on a lonely bench, press green and 121 and green again. My one message is from Barney, Mr Anderson’s flamboyant adjutant and the Chat Room’s in-house Don Juan. From his eagle’s nest on the balcony, Barney sees into every audio cubicle, and down every eligible female’s blouse. His call is routine. The surprise would be if he hadn’t made it, but he has. I play it twice.

Hi, Salv: Where the fuck are you? I tried Battersea and got an earful from Penelope. We’ve got the usual dross for you. Nothing life-threatening, but give us a bell as soon as you get this message and let us know when you want to swing by. Tschüss.

With his seemingly innocent message, Barney has aroused my deepest suspicions. He is always relaxed, but this morning he is so relaxed I don’t trust a word of him.
As soon as you get this message
. Why so soon, if we’re talking the usual dross? Or is he, as I suspect, under orders to entice me to the Chat Room where Philip and his henchmen will be waiting to hand me the Haj treatment?

I’m walking again, but in a more sprightly manner. The desire to earn back my colours and hence Hannah’s respect after the débâcle with Brinkley is acute. Out of humiliation comes an unexpected ray of inspiration.

Did Hannah herself not advise me to go to Anderson in preference to his Lordship? Well now I will! But on my terms, not Anderson’s or Barney’s. I, not they, will choose the time, the venue, and the weapon. And when everything is in place, but not until, I will admit Hannah to my plan!

Practical things first. At a mini-market I purchase a copy of the
Guardian
in order to obtain small change. I walk until an isolated phone box beckons. It is constructed of toughened glass, affording the caller all-round surveillance, and it accepts coins. I settle my shoulder-bag between my feet. I clear my throat, shuffle my shoulders to unlock them, and return Barney’s call as requested.

‘Salv! Get my message? Good man! How about this afternoon’s shift and we do a beer afterwards?’

Barney has never in his life proposed a beer, before or afterwards, but I let this go. I am as relaxed as he is.

‘Today’s a bit tricky for me actually, Barnes. Heavy legal stuff. Boring but they pay a bomb. I could do you something tomorrow, if that’s any good. Preferably evening, kind of four till eight.’

I’m fishing, which is what my brilliant plan demands. Barney is fishing and I am fishing. The difference is, he doesn’t know I am. This time he is a little slow to answer. Perhaps someone is standing at his shoulder.

‘Look, why not now, for fuck’s sake?’ he demands, abandoning the soft approach which is not his style at the best of times. ‘Put the buggers off. A couple of hours won’t make any difference to them. We pay you first refusal, don’t we? Where are you, anyway?’

He knows very well where I am. It’s on his screen, so why does he ask? Is he buying time while he takes more advice?

‘In a phone box,’ I complain cheerfully. ‘My cellphone’s sick.’

We wait again. This is Barney in slow motion.

‘Well, get a cab. Put it on expenses. The Boss wants to press you to his bosom. Claims you saved the nation over the weekend, but won’t say how.’

My heart does a double somersault. Barney has played into my hands! But I remain calm. I am not impulsive. Mr Anderson would be proud of me.

‘The earliest I can make it is tomorrow evening, Barney,’ I say calmly. ‘The Boss can press me to his bosom then.’

This time there is no delayed action.

‘Are you fucking mad? It’s a
Wednesday
, man. Holy Night!’

My heart performs more antics, but I allow no triumphalist note to enter my voice.

‘Then it’s Thursday or nothing, Barnes. Best I can do for you unless you tell me it’s dead urgent, which you say it isn’t. Sorry, but there we are.’

I ring off. Sorry for nothing. Tomorrow is Holy Night and legend records that Mr Anderson hasn’t missed a Holy Night in twenty years. Philip and his people may be beating on his door, vital notepads have escaped the flames, audio tapes have gone missing. But Wednesday night is Holy Night and Mr Anderson is singing baritone in the Sevenoaks Choral Society.

I am halfway. Repressing the desire to call Hannah immediately on Grace’s phone and acquaint her with my stroke of genius, I dial Directory Enquiries and in a matter of seconds am connected with the Arts Correspondent of the
Sevenoaks Argus
. I have this uncle, I explain artfully. He is a leading baritone in the local choral society. Tomorrow is his birthday. Could she very kindly tell me where, and at what time, the Sevenoaks Choral Society meets of a Wednesday evening?

Ah. Well now. She can and she can’t. Do I have
any
idea at
all
whether my uncle is
authorised
or
unauthorised
?

I confess I have none.

This pleases her. In Sevenoaks, she explains, we are unusual in having
two
choral societies. The UK-wide SingFest in the Albert Hall is only three weeks off. Both societies are entered, both hotly tipped for a prize.

Perhaps if she could explain the difference between them, I suggest.

She can, but don’t quote her.
Authorised
means linked to a respectable church,
preferably
C of E but it doesn’t
have
to be. It means having
experienced
teachers
and
conductors, but
not
professionals because you haven’t got the money. It means using local talent
only
and
no
invited singers from outside.

And unauthorised?

Un
authorised, but again don’t quote her, means
no
church, or none that any of us has heard of, it means
new
money, it means buy, borrow or steal whoever you can get hold of from outside never mind
what
it costs, it means
no
residential qualifications and
practically
treating a choir like a professional football team. Has she made herself clear?

She has indeed. Mr Anderson has never done anything unauthorised in his life.

Returning to Mr Hakim’s boarding house in what Maxie would call tactical bounds, I wasted no time in calling Hannah with every intention of acquainting her with my achievements to date. My call was taken by Grace, who had troublesome news.

‘Hannah’s real low, Salvo. Those charity folk, they got so many problems, you wonder where they get their charity from.’

When Hannah came on, I barely recognised her voice. She was speaking English.

‘If we were just a
little
bit less black, Salvo. If we had some white excuse in our blood somewhere. Not you, you’re okay. But we are
shocking
. We are black-black. There’s no way round us.’ Her voice faltered and recovered. ‘We had three kids lodging with a Mrs Lemon. They never met kind Mrs Lemon but they love her, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Two nights in her boarding house at the seaside, that’s a dream for them.’

‘Of course it is.’

Another pause while she collects herself. ‘Mrs Lemon is a
Christian
so she wasn’t going to charge. Amelia, she’s one of my Sunday School kids. Amelia made a painting of the sun shining on the sea, and the sun was a big smiling lemon, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Well, now Mrs Lemon isn’t feeling very well.’ Her voice rose in anger as she mimicked Mrs Lemon’s voice. ‘ “It’s my heart, dear. I mustn’t get upset. Only I didn’t know, you see. We thought the children were just deprived.”’