Wings of the Morning (11 page)

He gazed intently at David for a second or two before concluding, ‘I don’t know what you think, knowing Africa as you do, but I can tell you that my views attract very little
sympathy within our Order.’

David struggled with his reply, making several false starts before he was able to express himself clearly.

‘Just as a gut reaction, Pente, I will say three things to you. First, you must have real courage to be holding such a view and articulating it within your community. I admire you for that
and I can imagine what pressure you provoke from both your colleagues and your conscience. Secondly, you can count on me as an interested listener. I love travelling in Africa, but the plain fact
is that I’m just a bird of passage. It takes a lot of time and patience to get to know even one country, let alone the whole continent. That said, I must say that wherever I go, it does seem
that the great majority is being taken to the cleaners by a very small minority and the rest of the world seems neither to recognise this nor to care too much.

‘But finally Pente, I ask you to hang on in there. I honestly believe that the best way to deal with your worries is to keep them to yourself for a while. Let a bit of healing time flow
over the whole question of where your personal faith is trying to lead you. Use your remaining time in Madagascar for what it is, an opportunity to explore yourself. That’s my advice, and for
what it’s worth, that’s what I’m doing. To be frank, I don’t know whether or not I’ll keep working in this area for life. My instinct is that I will, because every
time they open the plane door in Khartoum or Kigali, I feel that I’ve come home again. Wonderful places and wonderful people, but oh my word, do they ever create a shambles.’

David rose and started to collect his few belongings together.

‘We’d best get going and get seated together. Let’s return to this weighty subject in a few months’ time because I need something a bit more flippant on the way over to
Paris.’

‘You’re right,’ Pente said as he heaved himself to his feet, ‘I’ll start by telling you about my first funeral which really did turn out a dead loss ... Ho
Ho!’

They walked away together, unaware of how much help they could have been right then to Connie Aveling, sitting in the neighbouring terminal building and wondering about the fifth member of their
Oxford Five who was only yards from him.

Conrad had been happy to arrive early at the airport. He liked to be organised; he was not yet an experienced traveller and had never been further East than Cyprus. He was therefore content to
make his way slowly through the departure formalities, eventually to take up a lounge seat near the gate from which his Qantas flight would depart in the early evening, calling at Frankfurt,
Bahrain, Karachi and Singapore where he would disembark, allowing the plane to continue via Darwin to Sydney.

He was sitting there, reflecting on a happy Christmas and the promise of this crucial posting. He was not concentrating on his crossword and kept on looking up in distraction. That is how he
came to see Alexa Labarre, who was apparently inspecting a bookstall in the company of a large black man. Connie was mesmerised by the sight. Alexa had been his first love and she remained among
his most precious memories. But they had not seen each other since university, and of course he hadn’t expected to see her now. There was something else. It was Alexa ... and yet it
wasn’t. Could this be another girl, a complete stranger? There was something about her wandering gait, a slightly brittle, almost tarty look to her which was so unlike the Alexa of his past.
He was spellbound, and being cautious by both nature and training, he settled to being inconspicuous as he studied the couple.

THIERRY CESTAC — 1970

The traffic was light. It was barely mid-morning on New Year’s Day. He was comfortably settled in the rear of his opulent Mercedes, watching the final outskirts of Paris
give way to frozen countryside as they took the main highway south and west towards the Dordogne. His chauffeur, Olivier, was at the wheel. Cestac did not attempt any conversation, being occupied
with his private thoughts and a review of his position. He was satisfied enough with the night’s work and relieved to have the package out of his hands. He was glad of the instinct that it
was the final deal for him. His conviction was strengthened by the colossal profit he was making, but it was time to move on. He had already started to do so. The new business was very attractive
although he sensed it would be short term. The income was excellent but the competition was intense and growing ever more ruthless. Cestac could not shake off the nag of concern which had hit him
that morning as he left his apartment and looked up the street He had seen the Citroen parked fifty metres away with a tell-tale, fine plume from its exhaust rising in the cold, early morning air.
He neither looked nor lingered as Olivier held the door of the car for him, but he had snatched a glimpse of two figures in the front of the Citroen and was conscious that the driver had killed the
engine. Was that coincidence, or had the occupants been sitting in patient wait for him? He didn’t know, but he was not going to challenge the natural, furtive cunning which served him well.
He would go to ground for a few weeks in his country cottage near Bergerac and would sniff the air carefully before he emerged and returned to Paris. In addition, as he told himself, it had been a
hard couple of months. He could do with the rest.

Thierry Cestac was a complete, gold carat villain, concerned with serving no one but himself, dedicated to his luxurious lifestyle, titillated by causing pain and discomfort to others. He had
been brought up in the southern French city of Pau, nestling beneath the Pyrenees. He seemed predestined to make his way through the diligent practice of any number of black arts and his first
motivation had been to escape a life of provincial ennui. His father was a diffident civil servant and his mother a simple girl from a remote farming community. There was no indication in their
gene pool to explain the talents and temperament of their son, and whatever influence his mother might have brought to bear on him was lost as she developed cancer whilst carrying him and died
within a year of his birth. An unmarried aunt helped to raise him, a large woman as dominating as her brother was weak, and she thrashed away at Thierry both physically and mentally without any
consciousness that she was making a bad situation worse. As Cestac turned fifteen, all he wanted was to escape his stifling surroundings, and there came the day when he packed a bag, walked to the
station and caught a train to Paris. He never returned, nor had further contact with his father.

When first in Paris at school boy age, Cestac had been severely tested. He knew no one in the capital and he was short of money. He was helped by the pressures of the time. These were mid-war
years in German-occupied Paris and neither individuals nor the authorities had much time for stray teenagers. To help him, Cestac had his wits which were considerable and his morals which did not
exist. Within a month of arrival and living in a cheap doss house, he contrived to be picked up by a seasoned old roué, a sixty something year old pouf who was an established literary critic
and lived in some style in the Latin Quarter. Cestac was happy to be used in whatever way pleased the old boy, who became unreasonably devoted to him, admiring his brain and natural guile,
insisting that he complete an excellent education at the expense of his patron. Cestac stuck to it for ten years, recognising the value of all he was gaining from studies, qualifications and life
experience, whilst at the same time building his own circle of contacts. By the age of twenty-five, he had achieved the dominant role in the relationship and then came the night when his carnal
exertions achieved such a result that the old chap expired from heart failure. Cestac was gratified but not surprised to find himself the beneficiary of a considerable will. This was not a
windfall. He had worked for it. Now he set himself to make the best use of his legacy. His life strategy was simple. Be wealthy, be secure. Exploit the weaknesses of others. Be calculating. Be
cruel, because you enjoy it.

Comfortably settled, Cestac moved carefully. He avoided the commonplace criminal fraternity. He was not interested in robbery. He would not get involved in financial fraud and would not have
anything to do with kidnap and ransom. He was determined to work alone. He was available to befriend the lonely and wealthy if there was the chance for substantial gain, but he was no longer
offering his body as part of his attraction. His insistence on what he would not do came to pay dividends sooner than he had expected. Moving freely in the twilight criminal world of the
1950’s, Cestac found that he could do well as a kingmaker who could put people together. If an introduction clicked and a consequent scheme succeeded, he would earn nicely, and if not, then
he got nothing. But this way his bona fides became clear and respected.

Later, his strategy started to pay huge dividends as the world moved into the swinging sixties. This was all about sex. Cestac had been quick to see the opportunity offered by changing
attitudes. A small number of wealthy people with extravagant tastes now felt empowered to go out and buy the sort of entertainment which had hitherto been unavailable except in their wildest
imaginings. Cestac set out to be the purveyor of dreams, assuring absolute discretion in return for stratospheric fees. He got involved in providing girls and boys and children and even animals. He
became known within this warped community as the man who could arrange, and this soon moved from France to an international client base.

By 1965, Thierry Cestac was dealing with the English, the Spanish, Scandinavia and Russia. Not with the USA. He had his chances but did not pursue them. He had a recurring suspicion that his
privacy would be threatened so he kept his distance. Then there was the Middle East which became a dominant source of business. There was no shortage of money of course, but it did surprise him
that there was such a demand for his services. He had assumed that religion, practices and penalties would annul the attractions of all he had to offer. But he was wrong, and happy to be so.

During the second half of the 1960’s, Cestac prospered mightily in the white slave trade. This was an ill-defined term. There was a trade, but not in slavery as such and not all the
victims were white. The transactions revolved around the kidnap and delivery to those whose taste and wallet qualified them, of humans of both gender, various ages and any colour suitable to meet
the cravings of the client in question. The victim was unconscious of selection, not consulted in advance and not expected to survive for very long. The traffickers operated with caution, fearful
on the one hand of the international authorities and on the other of clients claiming dissatisfaction with menace as their appetites were temporarily reduced. And occasionally, there were the
relatives of victims, hell bent on any form of revenge. The suppliers protected themselves through checks and cut outs and Cestac was the best at this management control. He did not meet or speak
to a single one of his end users. He used a number of intermediaries with whom he kept guarded contact as he trusted none of them. He employed ‘mules’ as companions to ensure safe
delivery of the merchandise to the client. This was the most delicate and risky aspect of the transaction but Cestac developed it into a fine art, calculating the combination of calming drug,
deceit, bribery and blandishment required to ensure that the captive went willingly to a chilling fate while he was counting his profits.

It was thus that Thierry Cestac had moved over twenty-five years from bored child through teenage villain into an evil maturity. He was always a loner. He had great wealth and lived with every
comfort at his disposal. But restraint was his style. The gap yawned between his true personality and the way in which he presented himself. He was probably psychotic but it would never have
occurred to him to consider the point.

Cestac was now taking stock of the present and considering his future. The swinging sixties had passed and international standards for the sexual norm were shifting. This was sure to lead to a
reduction in demand for his specialist talents and he felt it beneath him to compete in a dying market. And then there were fresh opportunities, of which the most significant lay in drugs,
especially heroin. He was doing some good business in arranging supply at a fabulous profit to some of the smart set in Paris. But he was wary. This was not a product which he could source himself.
To obtain supply, he had to negotiate with two brothers of Bulgarian extraction with contacts through Turkey into Afghanistan. They were savage men, unreliable and unpredictable. At the other end
of the chain lay the using punters, men and women who lived too close to the world of Cestac to permit him to relax in the anonymity he cherished. He was also sure that the drug trade was set to
blossom and grow. This would lead to reduced prices and reduced margins while the whole business would become increasingly more cut throat and less exclusive. Not at all right for him.