by Terry Morgan
By Monday evening, though, and no longer able to resist checking them, he bought a bundle of dailies outside Gloucester Road tube station, walked to the flat and, as he walked, checked the tabloid. And, yes, there was yet another cartoon of himself. For that paper, he had become a running joke. It was his long, gray hair they found amusing or useful. Not that it was, in his opinion, too long. He had worn it like that for years and liked it that way. It was just that it had become grayer and thinner and he had been likened to the old Labor party leader, Michael Foot. This was, Jim thought, a gross exaggeration, but it bothered him because he felt it was what was said and done that was important, not how one looked.
He let himself into the basement flat, threw the pile of papers onto the coffee table, switched on the TV and went to the kitchen to fill the kettle. With the tap still running, he swilled out a dirty mug that had lain on its side in the sink since Friday. He put it, still dripping, onto the kitchen table, opened the fridge to find it almost empty except for a tub of butter, a pot of marmalade and a carton of orange juice. There was no milk. “Black will do.” He tipped two spoons full of coffee into the wet cup and stood waiting for the sound of the kettle to come to the boil. Instead, it was a familiar voice on the TV that he heard.
“So what have you to say regarding the allegations about your husband?"
Jim rushed from the kitchen to stand in front of the TV. Margaret was standing surrounded by pushing reporters, microphones and TV cameramen. It was clear they had been waiting for her to either arrive home or come out to speak to them but she looked flushed and unsure how to deal with the situation. Jim fell into the nearest chair to watch. Margaret was standing by the gate leading to the gravel driveway of their house. The all-so-familiar blue cedar, the centerpiece of their front garden, was behind her. The front door of the house could be seen as the camera moved to keep Margaret in the center of the screen.
“Please,” he heard her say. “I can’t say anything just now. Please move away.”
“But surely you have seen the pictures in the press?”
“Yes,” he heard his wife say.
“So will you be standing by your husband?”
“Please,” Margaret said, “I can’t deal with this now.”
“Is he expected home this evening? Are you shocked by the pictures?”
Jim, in London, watched the scene unfolding from his chair. "What pictures?"
“So what do you say?”
He saw Margaret with a female reporter supporting her elbow. "What can I say?" Margaret said. "I am shocked. I really don’t want to say. I would ask you to please leave me alone so I can decide what to do. Nothing has been normal since the election. Please."
"Are you standing by your husband? Were you aware of indiscretions?"
What indiscretions? Jim Smith, watching helplessly, saw his wife push her way passed people, microphones and cameras to the front door of their house. Forgetting about his boiling kettle, he switched the TV off, fell back into the chair and put both hands over his face. Behind his hands, he felt ready to burst into tears and remained there for a minute or two, struggling with anger and a deep feeling of responsibility for Margaret. What was happening to him and to Margaret? He tried to phone her but the phone was disconnected. He tried her mobile. It was switched off. And what pictures? What were they talking about? He picked up the pile of newspapers from the coffee table and went straight to the tabloid. He had not made the front page but there it was on page 2—a picture and a headline—"Smith's Night Out."
The picture showed him, or someone identical, with his arm around the shoulders of a young blonde lady. She was laughing. He was smiling. His face looked directly at her as though he was about to kiss her. His hair was swept back with a parting, something he had never done in his entire life. It had been taken in a nightclub in Soho at around midnight a few weeks ago the report said. The paper had only now decided to publish it because, “faced with other controversy surrounding the Independent MP Jim Smith,” they felt it was now “in the public interest to do so.''
Jim slumped into the chair, the paper half-crumpled in his hand. He knew it was not him. He had never been inside such a club in his life. Bars, and so on, when abroad with clients, yes, but only occasionally. It went with the job. But he had no idea what went on in clubs of that sort in Soho in London. He again tried calling Margaret on the home phone and mobile. Both were still switched off. He tried Douglas Creighton but Douglas had just gone on holiday. Next morning at 5:30 he had driven down to Wiltshire to find Margaret, desperate to talk to her and to ask her why she had said those things, to console her, to tell her it was all lies and it would all blow over soon. But when he arrived he found the main gate to the house surrounded by reporters pushing and jostling for comments and trying to get him to confirm the finer details about his apparent relationship with a nightclub hostess called Polly. And Margaret was not there when, at last, he got inside the house. He had no idea where she was.
He left and, surrounded by the same reporters, he had sworn at one and then raised his hand to force his way through the melee. And, of course, it was all caught on camera and they then reported his swearing and that he had hit a reporter.
He had denied everything but, in reporting his denials, they would add other bits to suggest that there might be other as yet untold stories about infidelities and underhand business activities. They asked him where Margaret was and, of course, he said he didn’t know. Then they asked him for details about the club hostess and, of course, he denied ever having been there and told them that he did not even know where it was. And they all took notes and held microphones and voice recorders in front of his face.
Jim's life was being turned totally upside down. He had no idea where Margaret was and no one seemed to know. The broadsheet papers seemed generally to ignore the subject but by the following weekend all the tabloids were picking it up. And then they published another photograph of the same young, blonde-haired girl, posing in a short, red dress.
Jim remembered staring in disbelief at the picture after a researcher, Ann, handed it to him late in the evening just as the morning papers hit the London streets. She handed it to him and then left his office, shutting the door—loudly. Jim would always remember her disgusted reaction and that particular incident would return much later to both haunt him and help him.
And then the same blonde girl called Polly was in all the papers for what seemed like days. She sold her so-called story—her short, sad, life history.
‘Pretty Polly’ the tabloids had called her and she was famous for all of seven days. She said he had arrived late at night on several occasions and always sat with her. She liked him and thought he was good fun but she had no idea he was a politician. She came from Dagenham and her mother and father were divorced and her other boyfriend was a policeman. Jim had read it all, over and over again, but he had never seen her in his life.
Gradually a sense of hitting back drove him to sit and think clearly for the first time for a week. The alleged visit to the club was June 8th and he consulted his diary.
Around 7:00 p.m. he had given an interview with a German newspaper about funding for overseas development because, by then, his reputation for being a stirrer in this area was becoming widely known. He also knew that by 9:00 p.m., he had returned to his office to recover some papers. As usual he had sat and read things for a while but had then taken a taxi to the flat in Gloucester Road. He must have arrived there at about 10:30. There had been one phone call but no one spoke when he answered. It had been one of the quietest days and nights for weeks. But he knew he hadn't left the flat after 10:30 and certainly not to visit a nightclub in Soho.
Chapter Two
SIX THOUSAND MILES from where Jim Smith nursed his morning headache, stood a vast glass and concrete office block bedecked with flags of different nations.
Inside it, Committee Room 4/116 was identical to Committee Rooms 4/115 and 4/117 and all other such fourth floor rooms. The f
ocal point of each of the rooms was an oval table made of seasoned ash encircled by twelve chairs also made of ash with dark blue leather padding. In the corner of each room stood the essential machines for coffee and chilled water, the smaller table standing alongside each machine being for plates of biscuits, cookies and sandwiches for meetings that took longer than the two-hour bookable slots or extended over lunchtimes.
In Room 4/116, the Director General, known as "The DG" to the hundreds of staff that ultimately reported to him, had settled in the middle chair on one side of the table facing the door and wall clock. He was a slim, ordinary-looking, middle-aged man with graying hair receding from his forehead. He wore wide-rimmed glasses, a dark suit, white shirt and pale blue, silk tie. The heavy gold cufflinks he wore matched his watch. To his left, sat Katrine Nielsen—Danish, prim, upright, fair hair tied neatly back in a clasp, in her late twenties and wearing a dark gray trouser suit and white blouse. Spread out in front of them was a pile of papers with seven gray folders, a laptop computer and two cups of coffee.
"We'll take the Liberia one first, Katrine," the DG said. "Almost a foregone conclusion would you agree?"
"Yes, I expect so."
"And we'll discuss the smaller, Climate Change one from Yemen last. It looks to me as if it needs more work. Certainly that was Lisa's opinion when I spoke to her yesterday afternoon."
The DG looked at the clock on the wall. The room had been booked until 4:00 p.m. It was now nearly 2:00 p.m. but two hours should be enough to discuss, approve and sign off seven funding applications. He did a quick sum on the corner of a pad.
"Only twelve million, six hundred thousand Euros, so it shouldn't take very long. But not a bad afternoon's work, Katrine. What do you think?"
"Yes, assuming they are all approved," Katrina replied and looked at him as he scribbled over his calculation and obliterated it.
"Where are they?" he asked, meaning the six other officers whose presence was necessary to comply with the procedures for vetting funding bids for international aid.
"Some of them were at an earlier meeting on renewable energy, Mr. Eischmann. It should have finished at midday. Perhaps it overran and they were late getting to lunch.”
"Phone Carlos, will you Katrine? Tell him we're here and waiting. He needs to get his team working together. Oh, and by the way, about that guy Jan Kerkman. I've spoken to him. He should fit into the team quite nicely."
Katrine just nodded.
At that moment—it was 2:00 p.m.—the door opened and in came six others, each carrying seven folders. Among them was the tall, athletic form of Jan Kerkman—newly promoted to the steering group.
By 2:10 p.m., with the essential coffees, teas and biscuits organized around the paperwork, the meeting began.
By 3:50 p.m. Katrine had officially recorded the approval of six funding applications to the value of eleven million, one hundred and thirty-eight thousand Euros. As forecast, the Yemeni one was deferred on the grounds that it had failed to comply with one pre-set condition. Katrine duly noted that the applicant should be notified and that a re-application with the missing elements in place would be considered provided it was received within three months.
By 4:00 p.m., the DG, Dirk Eischmann, was the only person left in the room. He removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes and then got up to look out of the big window and down into the street and heavy afternoon traffic below. Then, gathering his own few papers, he left Committee Room 4/116, took a lift to the sixth floor, swiped his security card over a doorway and walked down a carpeted corridor to a door with a sign over it confirming his name and title.
Once inside, he dropped everything on his desk. Then he opened a drawer, took out a bottle of 21-year-old Glen Scotia Scotch whiskey and a crystal tumbler, poured himself a glassful and sat sipping it for a few minutes. At 4:25 p.m. he returned the bottle and empty glass to the drawer, got up, closed the door of his office and left the building.
Chapter Three
THE STRONG COFFEE Jim Smith made himself every morning had helped to quell his throbbing headache, but he still wasn't feeling particularly sprightly. He wobbled unsteadily down the four wooden steps that led from the ramshackle hut that he called home, to the ground. Shading his sore eyes from the hot, early morning sun, he struggled to pull his motorcycle out from where, during the night, it had toppled and come to rest against one of the worm-infested stilts that supported the house.
As it often did during the ride into the local town, the feeling of exhaustion slowly evaporated—that was until, after parking the motorcycle amongst an untidy group of others in the main street, he caught a glimpse of his sun-lit reflection in the shaded window of the farmer's hardware shop. Jim Smith did not like what he saw.
"Dear God. You look like a seriously malnourished refugee, my boy." He stuck a finger into his mouth, stretching his cheek to try to see the back teeth. "And you need a dentist—and how about a decent pair of shorts? Look at you. Your mother would be shocked."
Staring back at him was a scrawny-looking stranger carrying a dusty duffel bag and dressed in cheap, rubber flip flops, a pair of sun-bleached shorts and what was once a white tee shirt. He saw a gaunt man who, when he had finished growing as a teenager fifty years ago, had stood six feet tall, but now looked smaller and shorter. Thankfully, the deeply lined face was somewhat obscured by the gray beard and the straggle of long, untidy and thinning hair of the same color. The prominent bony knees, the bare legs and veined arms were the color and texture of brown shoe leather, the inevitable result of living under the tropical sun with little more than that pair of shorts and tee shirt as clothing and the flip flops or nothing on his feet. The reflection, he decided, looked underfed and older than sixty-six years.
The mumbling to himself, lips visibly moving, was something else he no longer liked about himself, and it had been getting noticeably worse. "Reflecting on a reflection," he muttered. "Must remember not to do that too often. Could at least buy yourself some decent flip flops."
Still pondering the disturbing image of himself, he wandered into Lek's "internet cafe" feeling downhearted and desperate for some good news. He greeted Lek with a grunt, went to his usual far corner table, opened the old duffel bag and pulled out his dusty laptop. There was no need for him to order, for Lek brought him his usual refreshment—a bottle of Singha beer and a glass of nam manow—fresh lime juice with ice, sugar and just a pinch of salt.
As a rundown construction of wood and concrete with a part straw, part rusty corrugated roof, Lek's enterprise in the small town in rural Thailand had once only catered for the dry throats of locals and stray dogs looking for shade. But after Jim's visionary suggestion that Lek might also like to add an internet facility it had become a more profitable business for Lek and, more importantly, the center of Jim's links with the outside world. It was his communications center, his source of all information whether good, bad or merely interesting. And the information as he logged onto his email that morning was further confirmation that undying patience coupled with long-term strategy was, at long last, paying off.
He leaned back in the hard, plastic chair, stroked his beard, leaned forward again, adjusted his glasses and re-read the email message. With one finger, he typed a simple reply: "Hello Jan: As suspected, but that Italian link is new. Go very carefully now. I assume you've told Jonathan but we need to meet up again. Email me some dates." Then he pressed send, logged off, closed the laptop and sat back in the hard chair to finish his drinks. Lek would not have seen it, but a smile was growing behind the beard.
Jim Smith's obstinacy and determination to continue where he left off was alive and well.
Chapter Four
MILAN, NORTHERN ITALY.
Inside a mezzanine office hidden inside an anonymous warehouse behind metal racking and an assortment of cardboard boxes, sat a short, round man in an open-necked white shirt that clung to him with sweat.
"Yah, of course it's me, Guido," he snapped impatiently in Italian into a mobile
phone largely hidden in the fold between his chin and shoulder. The voice was high-pitched, like a boy whose voice had not yet broken.
"Yah, I've read it. It's written in the language of the professional bureaucrat. It is English but not like the English we learn at school or the English we speak. That, Toni, my flower, is why you don't understand it. But Guido does. Guido does not sleep all day or sit with his eyes shut listening to opera music playing in his ears. No, no, no. Guido sits reading shit like this—long words with many different meanings."
The squat figure was seated behind a gray metal desk, his head overwhelmed by the oversized, high-backed swivel chair, his short legs swinging, barely touching the floor. It was mid July and an electric fan wafted air, but it was not enough to stop beads of sweat running from his forehead. Awkwardly, he extracted a white handkerchief from his trouser pocket, brushed back the greasy strands of black hair that had fallen over his forehead, slid the laptop computer that sat in front of him to one side and, swivelling slowly from side to side in the chair, picked up a small bundle of papers. The phone was still tucked in the damp fold of his chin.
"Check the second page, Toni. Where it says: 'to improve the delivery of aid through complimentary activities aimed at increasing effectiveness, quality, timeliness and visibility.' Yah, this is so beautiful. I love the English language. It is, Toni, like the Picasso painting. You ignore what Picasso said it was and you dream what it is to you. You let it say what you want it to say. So it is very good that it is written like this. It is useful for the business."