The High Commissioner

by Jon Cleary

  “I hope you will excuse me for interrupting—”

  “Darling, this is Mr. Malone. From Canberra.” Malone looked at Quentin, but the latter had moved forward to take the woman’s hand. “This is my wife, Mr. Malone.”

  Malone put out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Quentin.”

  Sheila Quentin gave him her hand and smiled again. “And I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Malone. Are you here to stay in London or just visiting?”

  “Just visiting,” said Malone, and glanced at Quentin.

  “He’s here till the end of the conference.” Quentin was relaxed, almost casual; Malone could have been a minor government official who had called to pay his respects. “He’s been sent with some new advice.”

  “Oh? Are you an expert on Viet Nam, Mr. Malone?”

  “Not exactly.” Malone wondered what Quentin’s game was, but he decided to play along for the time being. It was a question he would not have dared to offer advice on: when you were arrested for murder, how and when did you tell your wife? “You might say I’m a legal expert. I know how far you can go in the prevention of certain things.”

  Quentin’s lips twitched, but he didn’t smile. “We’ll be another ten minutes, darling, no more.”

  “Good night, Mr. Malone. Perhaps we’ll meet again before you leave London.” She went out, her long green gown rustling like dead leaves in the quiet room.

  The silence lasted for almost a minute after the door closed. Malone had become accustomed to silences; it was remarkable the number of men who remained dumb when you arrested them for a serious crime. But Quentin was not dumb because of his arrest: he was staring at the closed door, obviously wondering what effect his arrest would have on his wife, whether she would be struck dumb or would collapse in loud hysterics. Somehow Malone did not think there would be any hysterics from Mrs. Quentin: there would be something more terrible, a cold rage at himself for what he represented, for what he had done to her husband. He had seen the look that had passed between the Quentins: they were deeply in love with each other. And he knew from experience that a woman in love never saw the merits of justice.

  At last Quentin said, “You’re wondering why I didn’t tell her who you really are? I’ve been rehearsing the words on and off for years. Darling, this is the policeman who’s come to arrest me for the murder of my first wife, the one you know nothing about. I’m a politician and a diplomat, Sergeant, supposedly skilled in all the uses of words. How do you deliver such a message to the wife you love dearly?”

  Malone shook his head. He had had many awkward and distressing messages to deliver, but never to someone he loved: he dealt in tragedy, but remained outside it: he was like the heroin dealer who lived the good clean life. “I don’t want to have to tell her myself—”

  “You won’t have to. When the times comes, I’ll tell her. I’m not a coward.” Then he bit his lip and turned away. “Or maybe I am. Always have been.”

  “Do you still want me to phone the Commissioner? I mean, I don’t want to take you away from this conference if you feel—”

  Quentin looked at his watch. “It’ll be almost five o’clock in the morning out there. Do you want to phone him at his home?”

  “How soon could I get through?”

  “I can get you priority.” He smiled wryly; from now on all jokes would be against himself. “I may not have that privilege much longer.”

  Malone checked Leeds’s home phone number from his note-book and gave it to Quentin. The latter picked up the phone and dialled. “This is the Australian High Commissioner at—” He gave his own number. “I want a top priority person-to-person call to Mr. John Leeds at—” He read from the note-book Malone held out to him. “Will you ring me back, confirming and telling me how long it will be?”

  He hung up the phone and Malone said, “If the Commissioner okays this, you know I can’t let you out of my sight for those four or five days. Technically you’re already under arrest.”

  “I wonder if I could get the P.M. to put up bail for me?” Again he smiled wryly; then he said, “You won’t trust me?”

  “Don’t put it like that, Mr. Quentin.”

  “I’m sorry.” He looked curiously at Malone. “I have the feeling you’re not enjoying this assignment. Am I right?”

  “There’s a lot of police work I don’t enjoy. We’re not all bastards, you know.” Malone held back. He was coming to like this man more than he should. Flannery had been right: He’s not a bad bloke at all.

  “I suppose it’s like politics.”

  “And diplomacy, too?”

  Quentin looked at him, then nodded. “Everything is compromise. Only the saints escape, and they never go into politics or diplomacy.”

  “Or police work,” said Malone, and after a slight hesitation both men smiled at each other.

  The phone rang and Quentin picked it up. After a few words he looked at Malone. “The call will be through in twenty minutes.”

  “I hope for your sake he’s in a good humour at five o’clock in the morning.”

  “Not for my sake,” said Quentin, hanging up the phone. “That’s not why I’m asking for the extra time.”

  “Sorry,” said Malone, and began to wonder what sort of man Quentin had been twenty-three years ago when he had murdered his wife.

  “I have to get dressed now. There’s a reception at one of the African embassies. Do you want to come with me to that?”

  “Am I dressed for it?”

  Quentin looked at the very pale grey suit, the blue nylon shirt and the green-figured tie that looked like an aunt’s present. “At the risk of offending you, Sergeant, I don’t think you’re dressed for anything in London. Where do you buy your clothes back home?”

  Malone grinned: he had been criticised many times before for his lack of interest in clothes. “The first shop I come to. I’ve never been much of a dresser.”

  “I admire your modesty, but you certainly speak the truth. Have you ever worn tails?” Malone shook his head. “You’re going to to-night. We’re about the same size, you can wear my spare set. What size shoes do you take?”

  “Eight and a half. I haven’t got policeman’s feet.”

  “The same size as mine. You can step into my shoes to-night, Sergeant, have a look at my world. You might understand why I’m going to be reluctant to leave it. It has its drawbacks, but I enjoy it.”

  Malone began to protest. “Look, I don’t want to crowd you, sir – I’ll wait outside—”

  “I feel I owe you something, Sergeant—” He gestured at the phone. “If I’m to keep you here in London longer than you expected, I’ll see you get more out of it than waiting around in doorways.”

  “What will your wife say? I mean about lending me your clothes? Won’t she ask some awkward questions?”

  “My wife trusts me, Sergeant. She never asks too many questions. A diplomat’s wife learns not to.” Then he sighed. “There’ll be enough questions after I’ve told her who you really are.”

  Chapter Three

  “He has discovered the elixir of adolescence,” said the donnish-looking Labour M.P. “Any day now I’m expecting him to call the House dining-room the tuck shop.”

  “He is the sort of African who wears his colour on his sleeve,” said the light-skinned Indian.

  “Her intelligence, my dear, is second to anyone’s you care to name,” said the wife of the junior Foreign Office man.

  “Australia, I’m told, is the world’s largest suburb,” said the man from Commonwealth Relations.

  Malone almost popped the stud of his collar as he heard the last remark. He was about to move forward to break up Commonwealth Relations when a restraining hand caught his arm.

  “Ignore them, Mr. Malone. Diplomatic receptions are very much like women’s tea parties, only a little more elegant and epigrammatic.” Lisa Pretorious stood beside him, her tanned shoulders and arms offset by the pale pink of her gown. A South American second secretary went by, all teeth and w
ink, and she gave him a cool smile that was both an acknowledgment and a rebuff. “Don’t you go to them in Canberra?”

  Malone shook his head. “I’m known back home for my undiplomatic behaviour, so I’m never invited.”

  “They should invite you. You look quite decorative in tails.” She looked him up and down. “I’m quite proud to have you as my escort. When Mr. Quentin suggested it—”

  “You thought I’d be wearing my own suit?” She nodded, and now it was his turn to look her up and down. “Don’t you diplomatic types ever blush? You’ve just insulted me—”

  “I’m not a diplomatic type, I’m just a private secretary. But one learns the tricks. Any diplomat who blushed would be out of a job at once.”

  “You could be a little more diplomatic in telling me I’ve got no taste.”

  “Mr. Malone, I was born in Holland and I’ve spent seven years in Australia – my formative years, if you like to call them that. What sort of training is that for subtlety?” Suddenly he laughed and she smiled in return. “That grey suit of yours is pretty awful, you know. You looked like an unsuccessful racecourse tipster. I think you should understand why I was so suspicious of you, why I didn’t want you to see the High Commissioner.”

  “What’s he like to work for?” Malone asked the question idly, just to keep the conversation going: he was enjoying the company of this good-looking, frank girl. Then he regretted the question: he was already becoming too interested in Quentin.

  “The best boss I’ve ever had. I’ve been a doctor’s receptionist, secretary to an advertising man, a guide on a conducted tour of Europe, oh, and several other things. I’d never done anything like this till I came to work for Mr. Quentin.” She looked about the crowded room that moved like a wind-ruffled pool under the crystal sun of the huge chandelier. Conversation floated like a swarm of butterflies: words were coloured, had a polish and exoticism about them that Malone had never heard before. “I don’t think I want to do anything else now. I hope Mr. Quentin remains High Commissioner for years.”

  Across the room Malone saw Quentin and his wife moving slowly from group to group, from Africa to Asia to the Americas: everywhere they were greeted with genuine smiles of welcome. “Is he popular?”

  She nodded. “He’s considered to be the best man Australia’s ever had in London. But I don’t think they really appreciate that back home.”

  “No,” he said, and tried not to load his voice. He looked at her, changing the subject quickly: “You’re Dutch, but you think of Australia as home, do you?”

  “My parents are settled there, in Melbourne. They’ll never come back to Europe. So I look on Australia as home. One needs roots somewhere.”

  “I guess so,” said Malone, and wondered where Quentin thought of his roots as being planted. Tumbarumba, Sydney, Perth, Canberra, London: the man had been on the run all his life.

  Then a thin elderly woman, throttled by pearls, was squeezed out of the crowd like a magician’s trick. She greeted Lisa with a hoarse whinny.

  “Lady Porthleven, may I present Mr. Malone?”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Malone.

  “Oh, really?” Lady Porthleven looked surprised: no one had ever actually told her he was pleased to meet her. Then she drew Lisa back into the crowd with her, leaving Malone well aware of the fact that he was on the outside.

  He looked about the room. Jewels glittered like angry eyes; decorations were bleeding wounds on breasts. A Pakistani and a Bolivian went by, continents arm in arm; Italy flirted with Iran, and an international bed was already beginning to bounce. A string quartet was playing somewhere in an alcove, working its laboured way through a medley: even the requests at the Grand at Brighton had never been as demanding as this. The colours of the women’s gowns, Western, Eastern, African, both pleased and pained the eye: Malone felt the effects of visual gluttony. He stood irresolute for a moment, suddenly tired, wanting to shout at the crowd to go to hell: no wonder Australians disliked bloody foreigners. Then he grinned and shook his head. He was an outsider here. He was discovering for the first time what it was like to be a foreigner.

  “Don’t get too involved over there,” Leeds had said on the phone when the call had come through. “I’ll see what Flannery says about the extra time Quentin has asked for. I’ll try and talk him into it. But don’t forget, Scobie – you’re a policeman on duty for all those extra days.”

  “I know, sir. Polite but impersonal.”

  “That’s the ticket. I’ll call you back in four hours’ time, let you know the score. Where will you be staying?” Malone had put his hand over the phone and repeated the question to Quentin. Then he had said, “Mr. Quentin says I can stay here at his house. They have several guest rooms.”

  “Don’t be a guest, Scobie. Or anyway, don’t act like one. But I guess you’ll have to stay there to keep an eye on him. I’ll ring you. This is getting to be a bigger bastard of a situation all the time.”

  Then Malone had followed Quentin upstairs, where Joseph the butler had taken him over. “This is your room, sir. Some very distinguished gentlemen have stayed here.”

  Malone had glanced about the room: even here he was in the midst of discreet elegance. It was a room designed for a male guest: antique pistols hung on one wall, the chair and the dressing-table accessories were leather-backed, even the air smelled as if it had been sprayed with some masculine air freshener. Only the carpet had a feminine luxury about it: Malone felt bogged down in its deep soft pile. An overnight room for the rich and the distinguished: Malone remembered some of the closets with bed in which he had slept when sent to country towns on a case.

  “The tone will be lowered to-night,” Malone had said, but Joseph had said nothing: one didn’t joke about a self-evident truth.

  When he was dressed Malone had looked at himself in the long mirror and been impressed by what he saw. The coat was a little tight under the arms, but otherwise everything might have been tailored for him. Even the shoes had fitted, but he had felt a momentary doubt when pulling them on: was this how you felt when stepping into a dead man’s shoes?

  He had gone downstairs and Quentin, his wife and Lisa Pretorious had been waiting in the hall for him.

  “You look most distinguished, Mr. Malone,” Sheila Quentin had said, and Malone had felt a youthful glow of pleasure: he had never expected in all his life to be called distinguished.

  He looked at Joseph, standing nearby, and winked; but the butler had not moved a muscle. I should arrest that bastard, Malone thought, for insulting a police officer. Then he had glanced at Quentin and the humour in him had been doused. The High Commissioner, handsome and distinguished though he was, looked exhausted, a man who had all at once begun to age. Looking at the tall grey-haired man in the beautifully cut dress suit, Malone felt he was looking at a corpse dressed for a wedding instead of a funeral: someone had got the dates wrong.

  “Would you be kind enough to escort Miss Pretorious?” Sheila Quentin had said; and Malone had offered his arm to the cool lovely blonde who was looking at him with new, almost unbelieving, interest.

  “If you’ll have me,” he said, as the Quentins had gone ahead of them out the front door to the waiting car.

  “I wonder that Tumbarumba ever let you go,” Lisa had said. He looked quickly in front to see if the Quentins had heard the remark, but if they had neither of them showed any reaction. “I wouldn’t have recognised you as the man I let in a while ago.”

  Her smile had taken the ice out of her remark. But she knows I’m an outsider, Malone had thought.

  Now here at the reception he felt even more of an outsider. Then through an open arch he saw a waiter go past bearing a tray of food; his stomach reminded him he had not eaten for almost nine hours. He followed the waiter, easing his way through the groups of people with more politeness than he felt. He knew it was stupid to feel resentful because people didn’t turn and welcome him with open arms. But he had been spoiled back in Sydney: there, even the crims
had been friendly to him. Except when he came to arrest them.

  The supper room was almost deserted but for a few disguised journalists pecking at the perks of the diplomatic social round, and two Negro men in evening dress.

  “Enjoying yourself?” The older of the two men, tall and portly and cheerful, had a voice as rich as that of Quentin’s butler; but he had none of the servant’s snobbery, he was a man born to be friendly.

  “Not much,” said Malone with undiplomatic truthfulness; hunger always sharpened one’s candour. Then he remembered that he was in an African embassy, that the men beside him were coloured. “Do you belong here?”

  “I’m the ambassador. I’m not enjoying it, either.” He laughed, a deep gurgle of merriment that made jelly of his jowls. The younger Negro, lighter skinned and thinner, smiled with more controlled humour. The ambassador was piling a plate with food; he held a bouquet of crab, salad, tomato, celery. “But the food is good. Help yourself. Where are you from?”

  “Australia,” said Malone, and saw the younger Negro look at him with sudden interest.

  “With Quentin? A splendid chap. I can even forgive him your White Australia policy. He’ll be the one to make a success of this conference.” He added a ribbon of mayonnaise to the bouquet in his hand. “If it’s going to be a success.”

  “You don’t think it will be?” Malone followed him round the table, using the ambassador’s plate as his own example: if a diplomat could be a hog, why not a plain policeman?

  “Champagne? The wages of sin and diplomacy, Bollinger ’55. Back in my country I’m expected to drink a concoction made out of tropical fruits. We call it Château-neuf-du-Papaya. Terrible stuff.”

  “Jungle juice,” said the younger Negro in a soft American accent. “The Aussies used to make it and sell it to our guys in New Guinea.”

  “Really? I’m surprised you won the war. Well, now I have to find somewhere quiet to eat this.” The ambassador looked at the heaped plate, then winked a piebald eye at them both. “My father thed of gluttony, a surfeit of underdone missionary. What a pity he didn’t live to appreciate the fruits of independence.”