Guy Fawkes Day

by KJ Griffin

  Chapter 22: Folly Bridge, Oxford

  Chapman was talking to a company director and Dr Al-Badawi, keeping one eye on Prince Omar Al-Ajnabi as the Special Envoy flitted from group to group. Most of the guests had long since abandoned the unfamiliar, low-lying feel of the cushions to stand in unsteady groups in the centre of the room.

  Prince Omar spent some time chatting to the business types. Judging from the expressions on their faces, the reporter guessed that Al-Ajnabi was entertaining them with more of those unorthodox political views that Sophie had mentioned over lunch in Little Clarendon Street.

  With half-formed theories still fomenting in his mind, Chapman was especially interested in Al-Ajnabi’s dealings with Douglas Easterby. The longer he watched, the more obvious it became that the prince was at pains to avoid all contact with the colonel; at times, it was almost comical. Easterby would join a group or conversation; Al-Ajnabi would instantly leave it to migrate elsewhere.

  The feminist tutor whom Chapman had spoken to over dinner followed Prince Omar around the salon with limpet-like tenacity. Eventually their errant orbit brought the pair to some lounging cushions in a dim corner, where Marcus and Sophie were trying to get intimate.

  Chapman was glad to see that little tête à tête disturbed. But despite the poor light, the soft look he caught on Sophie’s face as she looked up to recognize Al-Ajnabi filled the journalist with a dread far greater than anything Marcus could ever inspire. Compulsively, he hurried across the room to investigate and intercede.

  Al-Ajnabi sank casually on top of the cushions to Sophie’s right; Ockenden settled with catlike stealth opposite. Sophie smiled at both mentors, dropped Marcus’s hand and sat up.

  Chapman had arrived behind the quartet, eyes still fixed on Al-Ajnabi. The Special Envoy ordered another pipe from a passing waiter, then looked across a central rug, on top of which shiny bowls brimming with dates and exotic fruits gleamed in the candlelight. His gaze fell nonchalantly on Marcus Easterby.

  ‘I hate to intrude into your private business, Mr Easterby, but I must inform you that I have booked Miss Palmer’s services for later on tonight.’

  Chapman couldn’t believe his ears. It was too dark to see the colour on Sophie’s cheeks, but even the tutor, Ockenden, looked quizzical.

  ‘Services, Soph?’ Marcus stammered, ignoring the host to stare incredulously into his girlfriend’s dark eyes.

  ‘Just some liaison work,’ Al-Ajnabi clarified obscurely. ‘My projects are nearing their climax, and I need all the support I can lay my hands on right now.’

  It was too much for Sophie. She cupped her head in her hands and burst into laughter; Ockenden accompanied her with something a little more circumspect. Marcus stared speechlessly at the Ramli prince, then back at Sophie in search of explanation.

  Though he enjoyed Marcus’s frustration, Chapman was shocked by Sophie’s reaction. Suddenly, he had no more doubts—Sophie had fallen under the spell of this curious man, and together they were hatching some sort of plan. It was time to intervene.

  ‘I say, can we have a private word, Soph?’

  Stifling her giggles, Sophie patted Marcus’s shoulder and got up, following Darren to a quiet spot near the door, for she was glad of the opportunity to escape the two men who exerted such very different influences over her life. Marcus Easterby glared bitterly at his host, gloomily watching the coils of smoke purl from the summit of the prince’s hookah pipe.

  ‘You seem very fond of my most promising undergraduate, Prince Omar,’ Ockenden teased. ‘I do hope you intend to take good care of her.’

  ‘I have Miss Palmer’s best interests at heart,’ Al-Ajnabi replied, his voice dry and oblique. ‘Don’t you think it’s a good idea for your undergraduates to be exposed to the real world outside your college walls, Ms Ockenden? Isn’t being here amid such influential company as useful to Miss Palmer’s development and education as any of your lectures and tutorials? After all, unless your students come from very wealthy or well-connected families,’ he smiled coldly at Marcus, exhaling plumes of sheesha smoke over the young man, ‘the non-academic world can be cruelly disappointing for young adults.’

  ‘Can it? Are you speaking from personal experience, Prince Omar?’

  ‘It has always been commonplace for the young to find the outside world a cruel and disillusioning place. But finding that out is merely a necessary and banal part of growing up. It is one’s reaction to the disillusionment that determines the shape of later life.’

  ‘And what sort of reactions are you talking about, Prince?’

  Al-Ajnabi sighed and gave the tutor a sad smile.

  ‘Unfortunately the righteous anger of the young has a very poor track record of putting the world to rights. From 1848 to 1968, what lasting impact have the young hotheads ever achieved? And just as well, too, perhaps. With nearly seven billion people sitting on our crowded planet we couldn’t risk the turmoil of smashing the system to bits before rebuilding from the roots.’

  Ockenden had sat up. She leaned towards the Prince, looking serious and interested.

  ‘But what other solutions do we have, Prince?’

  Again, Al-Ajnabi sighed and looked askance.

  ‘It would take someone who has the bitter disappointments of youth long undigested inside but the maturity of experience to know what to cut and what to keep. It would take someone who has the power, the will and skill to perform a radical set of keyhole surgical procedures on a moribund patient and then leave the patient to regain consciousness and follow his own cures.’

  ‘And you are such a revolutionary surgeon, Prince Omar? What an unlikely Che Guevara you make! Marcus, what do you think of Prince Omar in that role?’

  Marcus had been listening to little of the discussion, but had been nurturing a welling dislike for the man who was in control of it. The voice both hypnotized and irritated him. The more animated it became, the more it seemed to shed its Middle Eastern outer skin, turning into something far more sinister and closer-to-home.

  But it was not the political philosophy that bothered Marcus—he hadn’t been listening to much of that crap. No, he sensed a different malice in the man. The Ramli was making a bold ploy for Sophie with the detestable arrogance of some jumped-up greasy foreign millionaire used to snapping his fingers at tarts in a Vegas casino. Christ, couldn’t Soph see that? Wasn’t she disgusted by the Ramli’s brash effrontery? It sickened him to see the doting, captivated looks she kept giving the pompous Arab. In the bitterness of jealousy, Marcus worried that his hitherto invincible arsenal of looks, wealth and class might have finally come up against an unassailable opponent.

  ‘With due respect, I’d say Prince Al-Ajnabi’s views sound like a load of cock,’ he snapped back when the tutor asked his opinion for the second time.

  Al-Ajnabi shrugged. Ockenden smiled for an unfathomable variety of reasons. Further conversation was disrupted by the noisy departures of several guests.

  Soon Ockenden, too, chose to say her goodbyes, for she had spotted the tottering Warden making a circuitous approach by way of a lengthy bending of Colonel Easterby’s ear.

  ‘I hope you will remember that the young are very impressionable, Prince Omar,’ she said meaningfully to Al-Ajnabi, with a glance in Sophie’s direction. ‘If you are fighting against cruelty and injustice, you should remember that.’

  But Al-Ajnabi was lost somewhere in the coils of fruity smoke pungently invisible in the dim light. Seeing Sophie and Chapman coming back, Marcus, too, got huffily to his feet.

  ‘I’m off, Soph,’ he announced glumly, sweeping a blond lock from his eyes with all the beguiling come-and-get-me innocence he could muster. ‘You not coming, then?’

  He had never wanted her so much before. All the things that he had ever taken for granted about his girlfriend suddenly returned to choke him like drug-resistant bacteria.

  Sophie looked bittersweet, not sad; indecisive more than emotional. Their familiar roles had been unexpectedly reversed. This tim
e she was the one a “play-it-cool-Soph” (as he would have put it) away from true passion.

  ‘See you tomorrow, Marky,’ she smiled, giving him a hug and long, soft kiss.

  ‘That’s it, then, for tonight?’ Blue eyes sad and downcast; more hair flicked back.

  Sophie squeezed his arm; he had picked the worst possible moment to turn irresistible and in love.

  ‘I’m sorry, Marky,’ and she looked it, too. ‘I promised Omar I’d help him tonight as a one-off favour. I’ll call round tomorrow. Promise.’

  ‘What time?’

  Fake cheeriness: ‘Umm…morning, some time.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting.’ Last despairing backwards look. Abrupt about-turn. Marcus marched off in search of his father without acknowledging the host.

  ‘Are you ready, Sophie?’ Al-Ajnabi was on his feet and looking into Sophie’s eyes.

  ‘Right now?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What about the other guests? Aren’t you going to see them off?’

  He puckered his lips. Imperious and disdainful shake of head.

  ‘Well…,’ she exhaled sharply, ‘I suppose I’m ready.’

  There was only one person in the room watching Sophie follow the Special Envoy into the corridor who felt as desperate as Marcus Easterby. Chapman had made a pact with the devil. Yes, Sophie had whispered to him in the corner of the room, she did have secret business with Omar. No! Of course it wasn’t anything like that! Tonight was the night when Omar had promised to take her into his confidence, explain his hidden agenda. Casting aside persistent suspicions, Chapman had agreed that Sophie was doing the right thing; she should tread extremely carefully and keep him fully informed of her every move.

  But it still pained him to see Sophie leaving like that, meekly following the eccentric Ramli diplomat to some inner lair. And it wasn’t Prince Omar’s secret schemes that bothered him right now. Something in Sophie’s erratic behaviour gave him cause to worry that she was as interested in the man himself as the mysteries surrounding him.

  Al-Ajnabi escorted Sophie as far as the door to her apartment.

  ‘Take your time to get what you need, Sophie. Then call Hasan and have him show you upstairs.’

  As on the first night, Sophie felt her bravery beginning to evaporate the closer she got to it and him. But there was still some stubbornness left.

  ‘There’s no need for that, Omar. I’ve been before, remember?’

  ‘As you wish,’ he shrugged, walking off towards the staircase.

  This time Sophie did not delay inside the apartment. She washed quickly, selected the sexiest underwear she could find and slipped a dressing gown on top. The best weapon would be attack, for it was certain that Omar was as apprehensive of what lay ahead as she was.

  The corridors were deserted, though echoes of the last guests filtered up the staircase. Hearing them, Sophie’s thoughts turned to Marcus and a tinge of sadness blended with her nervous trepidation. Was what she was about to do really that terrible? It wouldn’t alter her affections for Marcus, and the detestable artificiality of her forthcoming infidelity could surely only kill off any affection for Omar that might be growing inside with a will of its own.

  The door to his apartment was open. Sophie knocked and stepped inside without waiting for a reply. He was at the far end of the room, straining to read a piece of paper by the light of a candle. Evidently, his love of the dark was not easily compromised. He had changed into casual Western clothes but was otherwise just as unready for bed as he had been when she had last seen him. The usual cut-glass crystal of whisky gleamed in his other hand.

  ‘Come in, Sophie.’ His voice was friendly but distant. ‘Will you join me for a drink?’

  Despite all the champagne she had already drunk, Sophie asked for a Cointreau. She needed a further anaesthetic.

  Omar called up Mousa with the order, placed the paper on the table, and asked for Sophie’s impressions of dinner and the guests.

  He was friendly and natural but sad, too. Every now and then he would wander to the balcony windows and continue the conversation with his back turned against her.

  Sophie was confused again. Feelings of empathy that Omar had done nothing to arouse returned with increased intensity. She sat on the edge of the bed and flicked her hair.

  ‘A man came to see me in college today, Omar. He knew that I was living in your house. He asked a lot of questions about you.’

  Al-Ajnabi took a long swig of whisky and crushed an ice cube in his teeth. Mousa knocked with Sophie’s Cointreau. The master told him to leave the bottle and waited for Mousa to depart. When he did, Omar’s voice had frozen to a whisper.

  ‘What did he want to know?’

  Sophie told him everything she could remember.

  ‘But I didn’t tell him about Hennessy or any of the other guests at your house the first night.’

  He looked at her warily, then his voice gained a couple of decibels.

  ‘This man told you that he worked for a government agency, you say? Can you describe him to me?’

  Sophie was embarrassed. ‘Well…actually, he looked a lot like you, Omar, only perhaps a tiny bit taller. Umm…brown hair…fit and trim…forties something maybe.’

  Omar was smiling at her; it was that horrible vampire’s smile again.

  ‘Is there something I should know, Omar? It’s about your business here, isn’t it? You’re up to something. I can tell.’

  He was standing even closer to her now.

  ‘That’s what your visitor wanted you to find out, I suppose?’

  Sophie stood up in front of him, close enough to see the filaments of tiny runnelled creases at the corners of his eyes. ‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ she barely whispered. ‘And he’s asked me to meet him tomorrow, actually. Wants me to spy on you, I think.’

  For a while, there was silence between them. Then, without knowing why she did it, she ran a couple of fingers up the sleeve of his shirt and caught his eyes. ‘But I’m not going to, Omar. It’s you I want to help. All I ask for in return is to know what this is all about. Even the very briefest outline would be something.’

  The next move caught Sophie off balance. His left arm came across his chest to scoop up the fingers tickling the inside of his right arm. With his right, he slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her towards him. Their eyes met deeply before their mouths touched. The kiss, when it came, was soft and languid on her lips.

  This wasn’t how she had it expected it to happen. She had imagined all along that when the time came she would let herself be taken, non-resistant yet non-cooperative. So where had this active collusion of hers come from? From an inner force she could neither fathom nor subdue.

  When their lips broke free, Sophie thought she had better get the rules of bed understood before Omar progressed any further. Presumably he intended to use some sort of protection.

  But he had already backed away and was walking towards the balcony.

  ‘I’ve got one last proposal to put to you, Sophie.’ His voice sounded remote and distant again, as if nothing had happened between them.

  A feeling of dread washed over Sophie. What more could he possibly want now?

  ‘Proposal? Whatever can that be? I don’t have anything left to give you, Omar!’

  But he ignored the irony.

  ‘I have business abroad and I would like you to come with me. It should last a week, at most. If you agree to accompany me, then I will release you from your sexual obligation, though the house and the money will still be yours, as we agreed.’

  ‘And if I refuse to join you?’

  He smiled with disarming honesty.

  ‘You win either way. Even if you refuse my request, I will still be forced to release you from your sexual commitment. The house and money will be yours for free. When I leave tomorrow, I will not return here again to disturb you. You will have your money for nothing.’

  Sophie let out a sharp breath. She should have been overjoyed at what she was
hearing, but she only felt hopelessly perplexed.

  ‘What do you mean, Omar? Why are you doing this? Why did you go to all this trouble just to…hang on a minute, it’s the same thing again, isn’t it? It’s something about me you…’

  ‘I’ve already told you the reason why, Sophie,’ he interrupted curtly, enunciating his words clearly and slowly, almost without accent. ‘I am not one of them; I do not believe that the rich and powerful should be allowed to do as they please, that Might is Right, or that political and economic power gives the mighty the right to rape the world in their insatiable lust for more. If I made you spend the night here as an object for my sexual gratification, then I would be the same as them: that will never happen.’

  She sat for a long time on the edge of the bed trying to digest what she had just been told. A glut of conflicting emotions swarmed inside her, thrusting and parrying till only one survived. It seemed like an age after he had finished speaking before she lifted herself from the corner of the bed, walked slowly towards him and took a long look into those green eyes.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and stroking a cheek with the rims of her nails. ‘You are by far the craziest person I have ever met, Omar—but…thank you.’

  They lingered fractionally face to face, neither willing to break a tense emotional barrier. It was Sophie who finally broke the spell, brushing the side of his cheek with a gossamer kiss before turning on her heel. She had almost reached the door when he spoke up.

  ‘So will you come with me? I warn you, it may not be a pleasant trip.’

  ‘Sophie’s head was bowed; she was looking away from him towards the door.

  ‘I would like to, Omar, but it’s not possible. I’m not allowed to leave Oxford during term time.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ve already cleared it with the Warden and Miss Ockenden.’

  His presumptuousness shattered the overwhelming tenderness that had suddenly swept over her, like a nagging fly in a sunny beauty spot; it was the sort of thing he would have said and done in those malicious, early meetings.

  ‘If you want it so much, then I’ll come,’ she answered coolly. ‘What time do we leave?’

  ‘Early. Hasan will call you in the morning.’

  ‘And where are we going?’

  ‘You will see. Pack for warm weather, then get some sleep.’