by KJ Griffin
Chapter 9: Oxford: October 13
Sophie arrived in the Warden’s undercroft at 7:15, fifteen minutes earlier than the invitation had stated. It was a one-off soirée to which all undergraduates were invited once in their college careers, though few regarded it as a landmark of any note. In the emotional turmoil she had been plunged into since she had met Al-Ajnabi, Sophie had first thought of turning down the invitation, but time spent with Marcus had restored her self-confidence. Besides, her finances were so fragile she couldn’t be sure how much longer she would be able to stay on. All the more reason to indulge herself in such silly old Oxford pageantry.
Dress was formal. Sophie entered the ancient undercroft in black dinner gown with matching stockings, relieved to see Isabelle, Simon, and a couple of other less familiar friends with whom she could sip a nervous sherry.
There were four or five other groups in the room, mostly tutors and outsiders. Another quartet of students was struggling with a verbose don at the far end of the room next to the fireplace.
The Warden, hovering somewhere just behind Sophie, was an infamously randy old devil. Rumour had it that his only consolation in hosting the dull student dinners was the sight of some nubile flesh or the occasional eccentricity of one of the non-academic guests he invited.
Sophie cringed when she saw the Warden homing in on her group, then flushed with embarrassment as he ignored the others and took hold of her elbow, chuckling inanely with semi-inebriate bonhomie.
‘Delighted to meet you…umm…Sophie,’ he gurgled, peering at the nametag and simultaneously taking in as much of Sophie’s cleavage as his eyes could swallow. ‘Allow me to introduce you to the other guests, my dear.’
And without waiting for her assent, he detached Sophie from her group and started to display her around the room like a trophy.
Only the two English tutors, Richard Chase, and the ultra-feminist Emily Ockenden, were familiar faces to Sophie. Most of these older guests had been hitting the sherry hard, except, of course, for the teetotaller Ockenden. Among the non-academics were a barrister, a QC, a leading economist, a famous journalist, a senior policeman and a female MP—all old alumni, she soon found out, and personal friends of the Warden or Dean.
Diverse conversations drifted towards Sophie’s ears from around the room. A couple of earnest young men to her right were jousting energetically about gay marriage. A group straight ahead with strong views on changes to the benefit system discussed welfare reform over champagne. Elsewhere Europhiles jostled with Europhobes.
As the Warden led her to a group containing Ockenden, Sophie seized the opportunity to ask her tutor if today’s generation of female graduates could expect to receive fair and equal treatment in the workplace, and so succeeded in removing the Warden’s overfamiliar hand from the back of her elbow.
A bell was rung for dinner. The guests filed in dribs and drabs into the oak-panelled dining room, where waiters in white tunics stood long-faced behind the scrolled silverware.
Ockenden kept up her discussion all the way to the dinner table, and Sophie was relieved to find that she had been placed opposite her tutor, near the Warden’s huge wooden throne at the end closest to the undercroft entrance. To Sophie’s left a stout, young barrister with severely cropped hair, a pudgy face and an intention to impress introduced himself as Max Stein.
The Warden was last to enter the dining room, talking heartily to a guest he seemed anxious to please. Sophie froze, gripping the back of her chair. Too late, she looked down at the name of the missing guest on her right and read the name that threw her into delirious confusion: His Excellency Prince Omar Adil Al-Ajnabi Al-Janoubi, special envoy of the Royal Embassy of Ramliyya.
Al-Ajnabi looked impressive and regal in his flowing desert finery, the gold embroidery of his headdress catching the dim light of the chandeliers.
‘Ah, here we are, Your Excellency,’ said the Warden, motioning his guest to the seat beside Sophie. ‘Allow me to introduce you to Superintendent Whitaker of the Thames Valley Police.’
The grey man between Ockenden and the Warden lent across the table to shake the Arab’s hand.
‘Next to the Superintendent is Miss Ockenden, senior lecturer in English.’ There was only a half-smile and a formal greeting from the lecturer. ‘And opposite Miss Ockenden is one of our charming undergraduates, Miss…er,’
‘Palmer?’ suggested the stranger.
‘You know each other?’ The Warden was incredulous.
Al-Ajnabi looked matter of fact. ‘We met somewhere by the river. A most charming young lady.’
Al-Ajnabi caught Sophie’s eyes, giving her the briefest of those vampire smiles. Taken off guard, Sophie could only stammer the blandest of acknowledgements. Her see-through embarrassment aroused the table’s curiosity, from which she was saved only just in time by the bell ringing for grace. The Warden delivered something appropriately ecumenical and the guests took their seats.
As they pulled the heavy oak chairs to the table, Superintendent Whitaker charged into the small talk.
‘There’s been a lot about you and your country in the papers lately, Prince Omar.’
Al-Ajnabi nodded graciously and began to digress lengthily on the vast Ramli business projects soon to be inaugurated—a big boost for British business and jobs. The Warden, Whitaker, Ockenden and the barrister, Stein, all listened intently. Sophie was glad to find the pressure off. She fished distractedly at the consommé quatre legumes, sloshing down most of her first glass of red, while Al-Ajnabi fielded questions on the magnitude of the sum he held at his disposal.
The Warden interrupted his guest, smiling with commendable obsequiousness.
‘And we are very fortunate to be among the first beneficiaries of Ramli largesse,’ he announced to the table. ‘Yesterday Prince Omar pledged a gift of £180,000 towards the cost of our renovation work.’
Whitaker and Stein murmured appreciatively.
‘And why did you single out Magdalen College in particular for this generous gift?’ Ockenden asked, just in time to stall another waiter intent on filling her glass with wine.
‘Simple,’ Al-Ajnabi replied with a dramatic sweep of the hand. ‘Yesterday my assistant, a Mr Hasan, informed me of an unexpected saving of the same figure from my relocation expenses. As I had already met Miss Palmer, and she had been kind enough to tell me which college she attended, I decided to make an instant donation to her college as a token of my appreciation. So really, you have Miss Palmer to thank for my donation.’
Sophie was glad that she had just swallowed her last mouthful of consommé or she would have been sure to spit the soup straight out onto the Prince’s plate. She looked up. By now, prying faces starting from the Warden, to several way past the barrister were staring at her, some smirking, some with more honest smiles on startled faces. But Sophie hadn’t been listening to Al-Ajnabi’s words, so much as his delivery. Something in his accent struck her as false. His voice had lost the clipped ring she had heard on their first meeting; he was now making a conscious effort to sound Middle Eastern and not quite succeeding. Recovering her nerve in front of the spotlight, Sophie decided to riposte.
‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, Prince Omar, but there is one question I wanted to ask you the other day.’
He cocked an eyebrow, encouraging her to continue.
‘Are you a real Ramli, Prince? It’s just that you don’t look or seem like an Arab despite your dress; nor even, at times, sound like one.’
The rest of the table fidgeted uneasily. Only Ockenden, and curiously, Al-Ajnabi himself, smiled for unfathomable reasons of their own.
‘You are quite right, Miss Palmer,’ he replied, ‘Neither of my parents were Arabs. It is not uncommon in the Jazeera—the Arabian peninsula—for non-Arab Muslims to settle in the area after making the Hajj, or pilgrimage, to Makkah.’
‘Hence the name Al-Ajnabi, or ‘The Foreigner’.’ It was Ockenden’s turn to smirk.
Al-Ajnabi raised his eyebrows.
‘Exactly!’
‘I have some familiarity with Arabic literature,’ the tutor explained before she was disturbed by the arrival of a waiter. And she seemed intent on further comment, but the main course had arrived just in time to thwart a more expansive discourse. A choice of beef Wellington or truite à la meunière, steamed on silver dishes. Ockenden was obliged to wait for vegetarian. Sophie began to look around the table when she wasn’t picking disinterestedly at the bones in her trout. She needed a diversion and was desperate to avoid conversation with the tormentor on her right. And in her agitation it seemed to her that even his copycat menu choice of fish was just another attempt to mock and unnerve her.
For a few moments the Warden recaptured Al-Ajnabi’s attention; Sophie relaxed and glanced around the table. Most of the guests looked as if they had already taken full advantage of the rich selection of wines on offer. Only Ockenden’s conspicuous fruit juice flouted the flow from the college cellars.
‘And you do not observe the Islamic ban on the consumption of alcohol?’ the tutor asked Al-Ajnabi when at last her nut roast arrived.
Al-Ajnabi took an extra-long pull on his wine glass. ‘As you can see, Ms Ockenden, I do not. For I am a great believer, even a fanatic some might say, in freedom—but by that I mean a freedom unfettered from the invisible shackles that few, even in the West, would have the courage to cast aside.’
The Warden looked worried by the barrage of insolent questions raining down on his star guest.
‘Bravo!’ he applauded. ‘There speaks an enlightened man of his religion!’
But Ockenden was enjoying herself.
‘Yet you come from one of the most conservative and repressively orthodox Islamic countries, Prince Omar, a country that refuses its people, especially its women, even the most basic of freedoms.’
‘My country is not politically free, as you quite rightly suggest, Miss Ockenden,’ he smiled again, ‘but I think that I may claim for it one small advantage over the liberal West.’
‘Which is?’ asked Stein, evidently amazed to hear a Gulf sheikh discussing politics so openly.
‘Should a dire emergency face our country, an apocalyptic threat that required tough, decisive and unpopular actions to save us from imminent catastrophe, then the will and authority of one man could achieve what was necessary. What chance here in the West? If radical change is needed that would entail even minor inconvenience to the comfort and lifestyles of the electorate, then no politician will ever even dare propose that change. Your voters will never be aware of what they need to do to save themselves because the right course of action will simply not appear as a choice at the ballot box. Your leaders necessarily care about winning elections first and foremost; principles and policies, they say, are no good without the power to implement them. So if the true path to salvation is too hard to sell, then it will not find a willing seller. The result? An insidious and lethal honey trap. Even if your electorate is diagnosed as terminally sick, a victim of a sugary diet that is slowly but steadily killing the patient, none of your professional politicians will wreck a career on a hard-sell cure. And so the spoiled child will perish, for no one could save the over-indulged brat from its miserable self.’
Amid the growing consternation around the table, even the Warden put his glass on the table. Only Ockenden looked amused. Sophie studied Al-Ajnabi, surprised to hear him voice publicly more of those dark political opinions he had raised at her interview.
‘So you do not approve of our democratic ways?’ asked the Warden glumly. Sophie could tell that the Warden liked his foreigners to be interestingly different, but wannabe British at heart—Queen, cricket and conservative with a small c. This one did not fit the mould.
Ockenden leant over the table for the kill, looking as if she hadn’t had such fun since she’d heard that one about Casanova being gay.
‘So if you agree that your Ramli monarchical system isn’t fair, and yet you despise our democracy, what politics do you approve of, Prince Omar?’
Sophie looked on with interest as Al-Ajnabi gave her tutor that malevolent half-smile she recognised from the interview, before draining his glass and pushing his plate aside with a flourish.
‘I once heard a tale from the early days of ancient Rome, Miss Ockenden,’ he eventually sighed, ‘a tale that I am sure you know far better than me. Once, in the early days of the Republic, when Rome was in imminent danger of being destroyed by its enemies, the Senate realized that desperate times called for desperate measures. So, casting aside their repugnance at the idea of kings and tyrants, they turned to one man, a retired general, and gambled everything on surrendering total power to this general to deal with the enemy, however he saw fit. The messengers found Cincinnatus ploughing his fields. And when they told the former general that the senate had begged him to take total control of Rome under the title of dictator, Cincinnatus immediately donned his long-neglected armour, hurried to the city, raised a fresh army, and single-handedly crushed Rome’s enemies. In those days, the victors of an ancient battle would gorge themselves on the blood of the vanquished, but once again Cincinnatus showed himself to be a leader of a different calibre. For having listened to the appeals of Rome’s defeated enemies, Cincinnatus promised he would spare the lives of the conquered soldiers if their leader, the bloodthirsty Cloelius, was brought to him in chains. When the reviled Cloelius arrived, manacled and prostate before him, Cincinnatus spared the enemy leader his life by forcing him to pass under a yoke made of three spears, symbolizing his acceptance of the power of Rome. And even though he was the saviour of his country and was surely entitled to be treated as a king, six months to the day after taking office, Cincinnatus left the city, gave up the dictatorship, returned to his farm and handed the reins of government back to the people and Senate of Rome.’
When Al-Ajnabi had finished his story a reverent hush had descended on Sophie’s end of the table and she watched in fascination as silent faces stared into their plates or swilled the dregs of a wineglass in quiet contemplation.
Again, it was Ockenden who broke the silence.
‘A moving tale, Prince, and one I do indeed recall very well. But in today’s world the scars of Hitler, Stalin and Mao linger long in the collective conscience. Which is why we value our democracy come what may. Your latter-day Cincinnatus will never be invited to become set up a dictatorship here.’
‘Then maybe he will come unbidden to you,’ Al-Ajnabi smiled at the tutor with an intensity that made Sophie shudder.
The warden cleared his throat.
‘And what political leaning would you anticipate your latter-day Cincinnatus to take, my dear Prince? Would he be of the Left or the Right?’
‘Which political ideology?’ Al-Ajnabi mused, shaking his head. ‘No, no, such political ideologies are irrelevant in today’s global world, are they not, Warden? Or, to be more accurate, they have been forced into irrelevance by the triumph of the one system, yaani, the capitalism or rather the corporationism of the global free market.’
“But surely you must approve of that?” interrupted Stein. ‘Didn’t we all read in this morning’s papers that your own mission here is to build a Ramli financial powerhouse big enough to compete with the major market movers?’
Al-Ajnabi looked sharply at the barrister then smiled acerbically, ‘Feeding the markets is what the game is all about, Mr Stein, is it not? If my plans are successful, I hope to give the markets something they can really get there teeth stuck into.’
‘Or just stuck in!’ Sophie heard Ockenden chuckle, but she had made the remark largely to herself and only Al-Ajnabi seemed to have picked up on it, for he returned her laughter with a sly grin of his own.
‘Your pragmatism is commendable, Prince,’ laughed the Warden, attempting to divert the course of a conversation of which he was evidently not the master. But Stein and Whitaker wanted to hear more from the European-looking Arab who iterated unorthodox views in faultless English, scarred by a mesmerizing accent.
&n
bsp; ‘But would you not agree, Prince Omar,’ Whitaker continued, ‘that it is precisely the emergence of the global free market and the accompanying worldwide drive towards democratic government, free trade and transparency that offers the best hope for billions to escape from the clutches of poverty.’
Al-Ajnabi nodded his head.
‘In a way, you are right, Superintendent Whitaker. I think that when historians look back at our times they will note above all else an era of exponential population growth, which, coupled with a dramatic shift towards globalisation and liberalisation of trade, produced an age of strong economic growth that led to a period of astounding consumption of goods and resources.’
‘And is this not to everyone’s benefit?’ snorted Stein.
‘It is to the benefit of those who support dynamic economic growth and increased consumption,’ replied Al-Ajnabi quietly.
‘But you do not?’ asked Ockenden, less ferociously than the others.
Again, Al-Ajnabi smiled with some good humour at her tutor. Sophie was aware of a closet alliance springing up between the two but could not pinpoint its origin.
‘I do not,’ Al-Ajnabi replied, placing a wineglass emphatically on the table. ‘To my thinking, the free-market, global capitalism you have thrust on the world has many flaws. Most importantly, given the limitation of resources, it is quite certainly unsustainable. It is a monster machine that will consume itself. Those same historians will one day, all too late, alas, point to the fallacies that lay unnoticed at the heart of the world system until they had all but killed the poor creature off. Simply in order to survive, you see, this economic behemoth needed to increase economic growth every year. Appealing in principle, lethally cancerous in practice. For such economic growth needed population growth to fuel its continuous boom. And the world economic system found a potent and willing ally in the primitive religious beliefs that still enslaved the world, belief systems that allowed their adherents to take one pill to prevent themselves falling sick and dying while discouraging the faithful to swallow the other pill which would control their breeding; for children, they argued, were a gift from God. So under the command of these two henchmen, free market capitalism and traditional religion, the world’s population soon rose at an increase of two people per second, growing to such catastrophic levels that food and water supplies were exhausted and before long the pollution produced by ten billion humans had fatally poisoned the entire global ecosystem.’
‘If this is what you really think, Prince Omar, why have you come to pump so much money into our system?” asked Stein, as if he had just listened to a personal insult.
Al-Ajnabi shrugged,
‘Haven’t your own bankers just shown the whole world how much damage they could do with a fistful of dollars?’
Which brought a communal guffaw from Sophie’s end of the table.
‘So you Ramlis see yourselves as bringing down the system from within?’ laughed the Superintendent.
‘It is important to realize that my views are gained from my own experience and reflections. They do not necessarily represent the thinking of my government,’ Al-Ajnabi conceded.
‘There’s some good news for us,’ laughed the Warden. ‘Anyway, you’ll find the financial markets won’t care what your motives are, Prince Omar, as long as you bring them plenty of cash to play with.’
At his second attempt, the Warden had successfully trivialized conversation. Rich desserts and cheeses washed down by sweeter wines accompanied the lighter conversations that sprang up between neighbours.
Sophie felt Al-Ajnabi watching her from the corner of his eye while Stein started an earnest conversation with her about career plans, so she kept an ear in as the Warden started to tell the Ramli prince about certain quaint college customs and rituals just in case there were any further shocks or revelations. Ockenden looked less than thrilled with the dour superintendent, glancing across at Al-Ajnabi from time to time in the hope of luring the Ramli prince into a repeat conversation. And when the guests started to leave the table for coffee and liqueurs in the undercroft, Ockenden seized the opportunity to pounce on Al-Ajnabi and dismiss the policeman.
Sophie looked on in bewilderment when she saw her ultra-feminist tutor captivated by the charming and unconventional foreigner, and not for the first time caught herself wondering about what common bond could possibly unite such disparate souls. For what would Ockenden make of Al-Ajnabi if she ever found out about the demeaning offer he had made her at the interview? Would she still feel so warm towards the Ramli prince if she knew he tried to buy women into his bed?
Intriguing a question though that was, right now Sophie had more imminent problems, for she was starting to feel drunk, having swigged too much wine too quickly in the confusion Al-Ajnabi’s arrival had thrown her into at the start of the meal. Now the Warden was plying her with Armagnac and Cointreau, and had lined up a Bailey’s in reserve, just in case neither of those appealed.
Between them, the Warden, Stein, and a first-year undergraduate called Paul, were growing wine-wearily tedious. And to cap it all, Sophie couldn’t help feeling a little slighted seeing Al-Ajnabi so engrossed with Ockenden on a couch in the corner. The reference he had made at dinner to the huge donation had hurt badly. She knew what that meant. It was her money, and she felt its loss as keenly as if it had actually been taken from her bank account and scattered like litter from a bank holiday fun fair all around the college grounds.
So, with the Warden drooling in one ear, Stein growing louder and closer in the other, and the pretty young boy Paul throwing her some meaningful glances, Sophie came to a sudden decision. Lurching unsteadily to her feet, she walked across to the deep leather sofa where Al-Ajnabi and Ockenden were talking all hushed and serious in some secret powwow and slumped into a chair just to the right of the pair, her dress unintentionally snagged to reveal a length of black-stockinged leg.
‘Come and join us, Sophie,’ Ockenden smiled at her favourite student. ‘You can carry on entertaining our Arabian guest in my absence.’
With that the tutor straightened her own cream dress and took to her feet with austere sobriety. ‘I’ve really got to go, Prince Omar,’ she smiled. ‘But it’s been a pleasure listening to your most unusual views.’
Al-Ajnabi rose himself from the sofa and smiled at Ockenden, but the frostiness returned to his voice when he sat down again and they were left alone.
‘How nice it has been to see you again, Miss Palmer,’ he said, sounding as if it was anything but.
Ignoring the hint of menace that seemed to underlie everything Al-Ajnabi said, Sophie came straight to the point.
‘Is your offer still open?’ she blurted out, feeling prostrate and vulnerable.
In the delay that ensued, Sophie sensed the impending slap of rejection. That would be too much! Al-Ajnabi looked pensive, eyeing her with the ghost of a smirk, before taking a large swill and draining the last of his balloon of Armagnac.
‘You wish to accept?’
‘Yes, I do,’ and she looked down shame-faced at the vermillion carpet. How was it that he always made her feel as if she were waiting to hear a verdict read against her in court?
‘Then it will be as we agreed,’ he sighed, with a devastating insouciance, putting down his glass on the coffee table and rising to his feet. His fingers fumbled about in a concealed pocket inside his robes and eventually he produced a business card. ‘Call Hasan in the morning. He will help you to move your belongings.’
Oxford: October 14
Sophie woke to face Joanna’s questions, her head cocooned in a poisonous haze. For a couple of yawns and groans she couldn’t remember anything about agreeing to move into Al-Ajnabi’s mansion, let alone having told Joanna of the arrangement when she’d got back home to Iffley Road the night before, late and very drunk. But now, feeling as if her stomach was about to be sick into her head, she found herself persuading Joanna of the wisdom of a decision she already regretted taking. And amid all the fuss the d
oorbell rang, followed by Lucy running upstairs shouting, ‘Anyone know a guy called Hasan?—he won’t say anything but he’s got a Roller.’
‘Oh shit, I thought it was up to me to get in touch with him. I had no idea he would just turn up,’ Sophie moaned as she dashed downstairs wearing only a T-shirt to bundle a wide-eyed Hasan away from her stupefied housemates.
But the dark-skinned smart-dresser had already aroused an excessive curiosity in the house, forcing Sophie to face a barrage of where-did-you-meet-him’s? and isn’t-he-too-old-for-you’s? And to make things worse, Sophie knew that every evasive answer would be flashed over Joanna’s hotline straight to Marcus and Darren.
Hasan waited stoically in the car for nearly two hours, refusing every invitation to come inside from every housemate, until Sophie appeared in the doorway, wobbling under the weight of the first box.
But seeing Sophie’s predicament, Hasan rushed inside the house to help, ruthlessly efficient but obstinately taciturn. Joanna and Lucy could only look on like helpless sisters from a Victorian romance while the heroine was whisked away by a dark and handsome stranger to the secret rendezvous.
Sophie fidgeted all the way to Folly Bridge. Fragments of the previous night’s conversations echoed in her ears—all the curious views Al-Ajnabi had expressed at the dinner table, the sound of his soft, sardonic voice and the tacit approval that Ockenden, of all people, had given him. The ravages of her hangover, combined with a growing sense of nervousness made her want to curl up on the backseat.
Past Folly Bridge, Hasan swung into the drive, crunching the tyres over the gravel. He pulled up by the colonnades in front of the house, under the watchful eye of two security guards.
The tall black one walked snappily across from a fountain, opening the car door for Sophie with the sort of flamboyance he might have accorded a movie star arriving for her gala première night. But Sophie felt so sick that she didn’t respond to the VIP treatment, or notice the splendour of the mansion now that it had been decked out according to its proprietor’s taste.
She followed Hasan underneath the billowing folds of bright cloth that swelled from the ceiling of the hall, turning left into a lateral corridor and then right through a magnificent dining room and out onto a terrace overlooking the Isis and the towpath. Al-Ajnabi was lounging there on top of an elaborate creation of oriental rugs and cushions. Opposite him sat a European man in his early forties, all pink cheeks, cheeky smiles, and albino-blond hair. Each man sat low on the ground, reclining on Arabic lounging cushions, a conglomeration of rugs cushioning them against the freshness of the October morning. Seeing Sophie, Al-Ajnabi craned his neck in her direction. He was wearing sunglasses, despite the overcast sky.
‘Welcome, Miss Palmer,’ he smiled coldly, sounding unnecessarily formal. ‘Hasan, tell Mousa to make another place, please. Miss Palmer, may I introduce you to Mr Hennessy; Mr Hennessy, my personal assistant, Miss Palmer.’
The blond man grinned impishly her way.
‘And what a delight to behold you are, my dear!’ he said in thick brogue.
Mousa promptly appeared carrying more bright cushions and another couple of props, which he banked up between the two men, at a half turn between the house and the river. Sophie flopped down where he indicated, shivering in a thin sweatshirt and jeans. Al-Ajnabi noticed her discomfort and sent Mousa back for more rugs, coffee and croissants.
When she was more comfortably settled, Al-Ajnabi asked her a few questions about the move, but was evidently uninterested in the answers she gave. Hennessy winked at Sophie, and she stared back at him suspiciously. Had Al-Ajnabi told the Irishman of the ‘little arrangement’ he had struck with her? The thought of such indiscretion made her feel even more nauseous than her hangover demanded. But suddenly, at a nod from the Ramli prince, Hennessy got to his feet.
‘Well, I hope I’ll be seeing a lot more of you, Miss Sophie. Will you be joining our meeting this evening?’ he asked, glancing at Al-Ajnabi with a glint in his eye for confirmation. But the host seemed absorbed with the bridge and the ducks on the river.
‘Meeting?’ Sophie asked.
Al-Ajnabi snapped out of his daydream.
‘It’s nothing special. I am entertaining some foreign guests tonight. We have private business to discuss until nine o’ clock. After that, however, I would be delighted to introduce you to the party, if you so wish.’
‘Yes, I’m sure…’
Hennessy chuckled at this, winked again at Sophie, and said his goodbyes. Sophie watched the back of his Aran sweater disappear into the living room and waited for a few seconds.
‘Does he know?’ she hissed, pointing indignantly at the Irishman’s back.
‘Know?’
‘About our ‘arrangement’?’
‘Of course not, Miss Palmer. That is my private business and we have much more important business to discuss. And you, too, should think no more of the matter. It is a simple and uneventful duty. Now please have some croissants. You are suffering this morning, I think. The sugar will do you good.’
He was right. The strong coffee and sticky croissants were lifesavers.
They sat in silence, watching the river and the odd walker, most replete with errant dog, ambling along the towpath. Now and then Sophie sneaked a glance at her curious host. His relaxed manner seemed contrived; she was sure he was trying too hard to appear casual.
Only Mousa’s arrival eventually broke the stalemate. He was carrying a hookah pipe in one arm, and the long coils that connected mouthpiece to water filter were draped over his arm like a brightly-coloured snake. Lighting the thing was a complex ritual. On top, he placed a glowing charcoal cube, sucked heartily till the smoke started to come, then handed the mouthpiece to his master.
Al-Ajnabi leaned over towards Sophie, offering her the stem.
‘You smoke mu’assil, Miss Palmer?’
She shook her head and sighed.
‘I don’t smoke at all, actually. But I suppose if I’m really going to have to go ahead with this sleeping thing, you’d better call me Sophie. And what should I call you, Prince Al-Ajnabi? ‘Prince’ or ‘Your Excellency’ might be a little long in bed!’
She watched him laugh with that rare streak of genuine humour that made him so much more attractive.
‘You are quite right, Sophie. You can call me Omar.’
‘OK, then—Omar it is,’ she chuckled nervously, then stopped abruptly, looking at him inquisitively.
‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, but has ‘Omar’ always been your name? You said at dinner last night that your parents were not Arabs.’
Al-Ajnabi was surprised enough to remove his narrow sunglasses.
‘I mean, it’s your accent—it doesn’t sound Arabic at all. Almost South African, but not quite,’ Sophie explained.
The Ramli puffed on the pipe, lost in thought. Clouds of fruity smelling smoke wafted towards her.
‘You are on the right track with the accent,’ he conceded. ‘I have spent a lot of time in southern Africa.’
‘So are you saying you are of South African descent?’
‘Not necessarily. And my time in South Africa was a long time ago,’ he sighed with a noncommittal shrug, looking piercingly at her again. ‘Before I rose to my present rank, yaani.’
‘And were they very hard times—before, in South Africa or elsewhere, I mean?’
‘What makes you ask that?’
At least the surprise had made his voice sound more normal. Sophie was encouraged.
‘Because you sound very bitter. Did something happen to you in South Africa or somewhere else in your past that made you that way?’
Al-Ajnabi sucked hard, making the water gurgle in the pipe. Taking time to exhale, he studied the river carefully, as if the conversation bored him or had taken a turn he did not like.
‘Why do we talk only of me? Miss…er,…Sophie. Why don’t you tell me a little about your own background?’
‘Oh, that’s far more simple,’ she
said, gaining in confidence. ‘My own story is far too dull, I’m afraid. Typical London suburban upbringing—only Mum had to bring me up alone. Dad died in a car crash when I was still a baby.’
‘Can you remember him?
‘No, I was too young. Not even born.’
‘And your mother never remarried?’
‘Actually my mum and dad were never married. But no, I don’t have a stepfather, if that’s what you mean?’
‘So Palmer is your mother’s name?’
Sophie nodded, opening her mouth to say more. But she stopped abruptly before the words came out, turning away from Al-Ajnabi to look down at her shoes.
‘Look…um…Omar. About this sleeping thing—I think I should tell you that I’ve got a steady boyfriend here in Oxford.’
She watched the suggestion of a frown flutter across his forehead.
‘Of course. You are a very attractive young lady, Miss Sophie.’
‘I mean—I sleep with him, you understand?’ she persisted.
Al-Ajnabi squinted silently into the distance again, declining to comment. Her persistence seemed to irk him.
‘Yes, well—as long as we understand each other from the start,’ Sophie continued. Then, more cheerily,
‘So, when are we going to do it?—‘bed duty’, I mean. We might as well get the first one over with as soon as possible. Tonight, even, is fine by me.’
For a tense second Sophie thought she had caught a hint of alarm in his face; the pipe had fallen limp in his hand. But just as quickly he recovered some poise.
‘As you wish, Miss Sophie. Tonight is as good as any other.’ ‘Good…well…we’ll see each other later, I suppose—after nine, when I’m allowed to your party, perhaps. Meanwhile, I’d better get on. I’ve got my things to unpack. Then I must go into college and get down to some work.’
Al-Ajnabi smiled humourlessly and watched Sophie get up.
‘I will send Hasan to knock for you at nine,’ he scowled, waving a dismissive hand. ‘Meanwhile your other commitments are your own concern. You do not need to explain them to me or to anyone else here.’
But as she walked off he called after her,
‘Be sure to have Hasan take down your bank details. He will pay the first instalment of your allowance immediately.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied and turned again towards the house, entering by a set of French windows that led to the widest room Sophie had ever set foot in. Here too the Regency décor had been ransacked and replaced by what looked like the contents of Ali Baba’s cave: billowing coloured silks of every hue, delicately latticed wooden screens and furniture; jewelled trinkets and rich Persian carpets that adorned both floors and walls. Sophie snooped for a while, marvelling here and there at a succession of opulent distractions, and it seemed to take her forever to cross what she imagined had formerly been a period ballroom, before she emerged at the far end and found herself in a long, panelled corridor. She followed it to the left, where an open door attracted her curiosity. Perhaps she would find Hasan inside? She called out. No answer. An impulse sent her inside.
In front of her lay a series of offices. But unlike the rooms she had seen so far, these were decorated with modern sophistication: airy whites, abstract designs and rubbery plants. A whole network of computer terminals, CCTV screens, phones and printers gave the rooms an aura of control-centre importance. And walking into the last office, which faced the peristyle garden at the front of the house, Sophie saw the backs of two computer operators.
She cleared her throat, “Hi, do you work here?”
A trendy looking, casually dressed young man swung round from his screen.
“Oh, hi! Are you looking for someone?” he stammered, looking very flummoxed.
But before Sophie could answer, a young woman sprang up from the adjacent terminal and raced towards her, standing straight in front of Sophie in an effort to block the doorway.
‘Excuse me, do you have permission to be here?’ The flat, London voice was more aggressive than assertive.
Sophie was flustered. She began to apologise and back away.
‘Wait a minute, please,’ the young woman continued sharply, reaching for a phone. ‘Does Prince Omar know you’re here?’
‘Omar? Well, no, as a matter of fact, I don’t think he does. I was looking for Hasan, you see; on Omar’s own instructions. Do you know that I am Omar’s new personal assistant?’
The young woman was not satisfied. With a nerve-twitch of irritation she dialled a number and talked cagily to a voice on the other end. Sophie had the impression that the girl was talking to Hasan, not Al-Ajnabi.
‘All right, you can go now,’ she huffed, eventually slamming the receiver down. ‘But you really shouldn’t come here again without Omar’s explicit permission. At least, those are the instructions Mr Hasan gave me.’
Sophie mumbled another apology and hurried off. As ever with Al-Ajnabi, just as she started to feel relaxed about him and his environment, a few words, or an incident like this would spring up to reinforce a perpetual feeling of unease. And when it came to business, her host was evidently as obsessively secretive as he was about his personal life.
But stepping inside her own apartment gave Sophie a thrill of unaccustomed luxury. All that space, the sumptuous décor, all those electrical gadgets she had never been able to afford. She prowled round each room several times, taking it all in, leaving her boxes piled just inside the front door. But on the third lap, guilt pulled her up; she had been neglecting her friends. She rummaged in her jeans pocket and dug out her mobile. No answer from Joanna. Her ex-housemate must have gone to the Library. Then she remembered Darren Chapman and dialled him in his London office.
She had met Darren at a college party the year before. Three years her senior, the high-flying ex-collegiate was already a young prodigy at the Guardian. And on that night last September, holding centre-stage in the middle of the first-floor rooms, the inexhaustible raconteur had managed to slip out a tentacle and pull Sophie into his circle the moment he saw her stepping over the comatose bodies by the doorway. Sophie had taken to him straight away, too, but not in the way Darren was hoping for. She liked his drive, the non-stop chat and the Woody Allen glasses. But she had always resisted the temptation to take them off, ruffle that wild, curly black hair and give Darren the big wet kiss that would have left him unfamiliarly speechless.
‘Hello, Darren, are you busy?’
‘Soph! About time! Hey, what’s happening? Joanna’s just texted me to say you’ve moved out—been whisked off by some dark man in a dark car with diplomatic plates. You’re not shagging the Crown Prince of Lesotho, are you?’
Sophie laughed, giving Darren a carefully edited account of her move that omitted all but the barest description of her mysterious host. But when she had finished, the young journalist still sounded sceptical.
‘Don’t like it, Soph. All sounds like some elaborate hoax to me. Philanthropic millionaire? My arse! Are you sure you’re being sensible about this?’
She was.
‘Well, I’m not! Tell you what, I’m coming up to Oxford tomorrow lunchtime. Let me take you out and fatten you up a bit. And if we’ve got time after that, I’ll come over and check out the strange ghoul that’s dragged you into his haunted house.’
As she rang off Sophie remembered Marcus with a pang of conscience. At Marcus’s own insistence their relationship had never been ‘heavy’—to Sophie’s thinking, sometimes so light she could have watched it float away above the dreaming spires. She paused by the window to think about her predicament: Tonight she would be sleeping in another man’s bed. All right, nothing would be happening—it had better not—but she felt treacherous nevertheless. Marcus was only the second boyfriend she had ever slept with, and she had never dreamt of two-timing either. Was she being fair on Marcus now? Should she tell him? What would he say if knew of her ‘arrangement’ with Al-Ajnabi? Probably nothing much, would brush that blond fop of his and say, ‘Ya, well, Soph…
bizarre…absolutely bizarre!’
The movement of a bodyguard outside the window pulled Sophie from her thoughts. Time to go to college and get on with some work. She was getting behind. Marcus could wait till later, till after the ‘event’.
South Bank, London
Contacts! Clayton was thinking, triumphantly looking at the dismal south of the river view he was shortly going to leave behind for a week back on the trail. Contacts—you couldn’t bloody beat them!
For all the theorizing and analysing the ‘deskies’ like his boss, the Director-General, did, those pencil-necks didn’t stand a chance of hitting the jackpot because they didn’t know where to put the coins or pull the levers.
Most of the other cretins around him had never strayed too far from ‘recognized procedure’, had done nearly all their snooping by mainframe computer; had never got rat-arsed with the grey men in dim bars or swapped scorecards with the blokes on the other teams in windswept car parks. You scratch about in my grey areas, I’ll arrange your promotion—that was how they operated on the front line. And that, he recognised, was how Max Clayton had got where he was today.
Take that Kennedy bloke, for example—another appalling ‘deskie’. Didn’t have much more on the situation in Ramliyya than you could find in your average almanac! But with one phone call to the right man, yours truly had just arranged a stopover in Cairo en route to other business in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong that was bound to give him the low-down on whatever it was those Ramli ragheads were up to with their dodgy dollars.
Clayton checked his watch again. It was still before ten, and his British Airways flight to Cairo didn’t take off till three in the afternoon.
Travel lust gripped him. Even after all these years, he was never happier than when he watched the aircraft wheels fold in over those reservoirs around Heathrow. Something about being back in England still pricked the conscience. Too many bad memories, he guessed. After all, it had been the desire to escape abroad that had made him leave the army and join the Service in the first place. The past was a pigsty, and a large chunk of the mess being mashed up and mauled under the hooves of the greedy trotters was of his own making.