The Buddha of Brewer Street

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘And the other in St Petersburg.’

  Kunga smiled grimly. ‘Do you believe in coincidence?’

  ‘No. Not in coincidence.’

  ‘Then the pursuit of eternal peace has become a surprisingly dangerous occupation, my friend,’ the monk offered.

  ‘You are the last one?’

  ‘I am the last of the Tibetan Searchers. And if I die, our mission is at an end, our country will be destroyed and our great faith will be wiped from the earth. The end of everything.’

  The walls of the darkened restaurant suddenly seemed to draw in on them, and Goodfellowe felt a shiver of concern creep down the nape of his neck.

  ‘I’m sorry about Gompo. Somehow I feel responsible.’

  ‘It was not your fault. Our enemies are all around us, nowhere is safe. Which is why I have a small confession.’

  ‘You’ve sinned?’

  ‘In a manner. I have entered your country secretly. Illegally. That makes me a fugitive, not only from my enemies, but now also from your own Government. As I said, the search for the child is full of perils.’

  Goodfellowe cleared his throat uneasily. ‘That’s one of my many problems. About the child. I’m not sure I believe in all this talk of reincarnation.’

  ‘But why is it so very difficult?’ The old monk smiled. ‘Even in your Christian faith there exists the concept of a life after death. We are only discussing the nature of that life.’

  ‘But how can you hope to identify the right child?’

  ‘Because we know His Holiness so well. His characteristics. His mannerisms. And have known him through many lives. We set the child tests to ensure that we have not made a mistake.’

  ‘But surely you might make mistakes.’

  ‘Tummo Godfella, for more than a thousand years your country has followed the principle of hereditary monarchy, based on the belief that the queen on that particular night slept with the king and not some courtier. Are you suggesting that in a thousand years there has never been a … an opportunity for confusion on that matter? We apply stringent tests in the process of identification. You simply take the word of the mother.’

  Goodfellowe could sense Beefeaters rushing up the stairs, ready to drag them off to the Tower for sedition.

  ‘And some might suggest that basing a religion on the notion of a Virgin Birth is scarcely scientific. Although,’ Kunga hastened to add, ‘we regard your Jesus as one of the great enlightened teachers.’

  Trouble was, that was also a problem for Goodfellowe. He was pretty doubtful about the Jesus thing, too, and about concepts such as turning wine into blood and arriving at a heaven filled with fountains and laden vines, but this was hardly the time for a tussle with philosophical principles. ‘OK, let’s start from the premise that he has been reborn. What makes you think he’s somewhere in Britain?’

  ‘Signs, portents. And what His Holiness told us. He said his rebirth would be dedicated to reconciliation, peace on earth, in part between East and West. It makes sense that he should be reborn in the West.’

  Goodfellowe wrinkled his nose sceptically. ‘What other clues?’

  ‘As he died he turned to face the West. And he had laid out some stones in front of him in the form of a letter I. The name for your countrymen in Tibetan is Inji.’

  The nose puckered once more. These were merely debating points, of little substance. Thin gruel.

  ‘And also this.’ Kunga held up his palm with the vivid red scar.

  Goodfellowe recognized it immediately. An extraordinarily accurate outline map of England. He could even place Marshwood. And there was a dark purple mark in the precise position of London. ‘Remarkable,’ he conceded. ‘But surely nothing more than …’

  ‘Coincidence?’

  The monk had a point. ‘I was going to say, nothing more than a scar.’

  ‘One might say nothing more than the marks of the cross I have to bear,’ Kunga offered provocatively. But what he did not tell Goodfellowe was that, for the first time since the death of the Dalai Lama, the scar had ceased to burn. At the very moment the Eurostar shuttle on which he travelled had emerged from the Channel Tunnel. One minute the hand that held his false passport was on fire. The next minute the pain was gone. It was as though his wound had come home.

  Goodfellowe was unimpressed – at least, he wanted to be unimpressed. His experience as a politician led him to be dubious of not only coincidence but also excessive conviction, and he didn’t swallow this monk’s diet of omens and oracles. Yet he warmed to him, wanted to trust this strange elf-like figure with the pointed ears whose hands told of a lifetime of suffering, whose eyes spoke of little but hope. And he couldn’t forget there were two corpses to account for.

  ‘Let’s just suppose, for the sake of discussion, that there is something in what you say. What do you want from me?’

  ‘You do not know?’ The monk smiled mischievously, like a politician about to announce a tax cut.

  ‘How can I?’

  ‘You are the only Englishman I can trust. Who can help me in the search. I am a stranger in your land, but you will know where to go, what to do. You are a member of your Parliament, a former senior Minister, who knows what questions to ask and where to ask them. You must help me find the child. Without your help the task becomes impossible. The boy will be lost. And with him, Tibet.’

  ‘You want to make me part of your Search Group?’

  ‘You are already part of the Search Group, Tummo Godfella.’

  ‘Goodfellowe,’ he emphasized in correction, a little irritated. ‘Come off it. You said you were the last one.’

  ‘I said I was the last of the three Tibetan Searchers. But before he died His Holiness told me, and me alone, that there was a fourth member of our group.’ The candle between them guttered and spat. ‘An English Searcher. You.’

  ‘Me?’ Goodfellowe sat incredulous.

  ‘He felt he had a special connection with you.’

  ‘This is ridiculous, I only met the man once.’

  ‘In this life, yes.’

  ‘In any life,’ Goodfellowe responded defiantly. ‘You say he was so very wise and was able to foresee so many things. So how did the other two Searchers wind up so very dead?’

  ‘Some things are meant to be. And was there any other way you might be convinced?’

  That took his breath away. It was an accusation so immense and cruel. And yet so accurate. He didn’t want to get involved, his diary was far too crowded. Wasn’t he already fully occupied with saving mankind, well, at least Marshwood? He couldn’t fit in the time needed to debate the meaning of life with these strange people. And yet … There was blood on the floor, and whether he liked it or not some of it had spilled onto him.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ he repeated, a touch aggressively.

  ‘Help us find the boy, Tummo Godfella. Before the Chinese do. They will kill him. Save the boy and save my country. You are the only one who can.’

  ‘But isn’t that your job? You’re on the Dalai Lama’s wretched committee.’

  Kunga ignored the sarcasm. ‘I have no idea where to start. I am a stranger in this land and I trust no one. Except for my old friend Wangyal here. And you.’

  ‘Aren’t there other Tibetans you can trust?’

  ‘Two have already died. Already we have trusted too much.’

  ‘So how do you expect me to find the boy? Without any name or description, without any team to help? It’s like looking for a snowflake on a mountainside.’

  The monk smiled mischievously. ‘His Holiness said you would be difficult. Would need some considerable convincing.’

  ‘He was right about that bit.’

  ‘But he said you would find a way. And you will help.’ It was not put as a question, merely a statement of simple faith.

  Exasperating, stubborn, opinionated bloody people, Goodfellowe thought, just like … well, just like himself. The unexpected comparison started to make him splutter.

  Kunga raised his
cup of butter tea. ‘A La La Ho,’ he offered in toast.

  ‘A La La Ho,’ Goodfellowe responded, drinking deeply.

  ‘And you will help.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ was all Goodfellowe could find to say. He had been certain he was going to say no.

  The monk started to chuckle as though he was gurgling water and the atmosphere was broken. At which point Goodfellowe returned to reality and remembered Elizabeth. Grief! She’d been sitting through all this, not only silent but completely forgotten. Now she was looking at him curiously, serious-eyed, as though trying to carve from within him what he was truly feeling. About danger, about death. And about her, too. Goodfellowe cursed. He knew the moment had gone. The sexual chemistry had fragmented under the weight of all this death-and-damnation stuff and he knew it wouldn’t be put back together that evening. It left him grappling morosely with his thoughts. Would he help? Would he be risking his life? And would he get in at least one more great knee-shaking shag before he died?

  Minutes later, as they left The Himalaya, Goodfellowe glanced ruefully up at the smiling face of the Dalai Lama. He could have sworn it winked.

  They were walking through Leicester Square when Elizabeth put her arm around his shoulder and brought him to a halt. ‘Do you believe in all this?’ she asked.

  He bit his lip. ‘All of it? Do I believe in any of it? Me, the Dalai Lama, Tibet, visas, maps on palms. Corpses everywhere.’

  ‘One hell of a – what’s the word? Coincidence?’

  He had no response. At least, nothing that made any sense to him. So he said nothing.

  ‘And what did that mean? That toast of yours in the restaurant. A La La Ho?’

  ‘It’s a sort of toast in Tibetan. You know, good health,’ Goodfellowe muttered, still distracted. Later, he wondered how on earth he had known that.

  That night in his lonely bed, biblical images dredged from his childhood kept crossing his dreams. Of three wise men travelling the world in search of an infant king. Of a child born to be a Messiah, a great Saviour. And of Herod sending out orders that the child should be found, and killed. It was almost like the Christmas story. Except that in Goodfellowe’s dream, Herod was dressed in a Mao tunic.

  It wasn’t an earth-shattering election, so far as these things were concerned, nothing more than the opportunity to choose the leader of the party’s backbenchers. One of life’s little consolation prizes. But it was an election nevertheless, and fought with the usual weapons of any parliamentary terrorist group, namely, alcohol and innuendo. The terrace of the House of Commons was crowded with partisans and those who, like Goodfellowe, were there largely for the drink and the drollery. His mind wasn’t truly engaged in the conflict; indeed, since his resignation as a Minister he had found himself growing increasingly aloof from the game. It wasn’t a sulk but merely that he preferred to be a player, not a substitute or a spectator. Yet in this contest, at least, and in contrast to most votes taken at Westminster, his voice might count.

  He’d spent an engaging half-hour discussing the merits of the leading candidates, for none of whom he had any high regard. ‘We can’t have Bert,’ he had told a group of colleagues, irrespective of the fact that they were drinking his wine.

  ‘Could do worse,’ one had countered. ‘Elder statesman and all that.’

  Goodfellowe examined his colleague, Windell, a young man but already a time-server, known as ‘Windy’ not simply for obvious reasons but also for his habit of blowing with the prevailing wind and his aptitude for allowing others to sit on and extinguish his opinions. The sort of apparatchik Goodfellowe would gladly have tipped over the terrace wall and into the Thames.

  ‘Precisely,’ he agreed. ‘An elder statesman. Too bloody old. Going deaf, you know. How’s he going to find out what’s really going on? Who’s going to gossip with him when you have to shout so loud that half the room can hear?’

  Wicked, of course, and only partly true. But the party needed new blood, not old duffers, even though this particular duffer was barely ten years older than Goodfellowe. Anyway, since his resignation Bert Travers had barely found two words to exchange with Goodfellowe, until he’d decided to run for this election.

  ‘So it’s Duggie?’ Windy had enquired.

  Goodfellowe rolled his eyes in despair. ‘A man of such limited imagination. Always spends the first five minutes before dinner praising the quality of the house wine.’

  ‘So who’s it to be, Tom?’

  Goodfellowe examined his glass as though the answer might be found in the fragrances of the Napa Valley. ‘I’m thinking about Charlie,’ he offered, entirely mischievously. The bugger had no chance. ‘A bloody little Bonaparte, I know, but young and enthusiastic. New energy. I don’t much like him personally and he seems to have no time for anyone over thirty, but heavens, he speaks well. And the press like him.’

  Windy began nodding his approval. ‘Yes. Good public image.’

  ‘Although apparently in private our little Napoleon prefers to dress up more on the lines of Josephine. But I don’t think that matters nowadays, do you, Windy?’

  Windell’s head had been nodding in a languid fashion as though rolling with the breeze, but the current appeared to have picked up a few knots for his head was now rotating in a stiff and awkward fashion, as though trying to see all round Goodfellowe’s question and desperate not to give any clear sign of commitment.

  ‘D’you know, Windy, in a couple of years’ time I reckon you could be up for this job,’ Goodfellowe had added.

  ‘You serious?’

  ‘As serious as anything I’ve said.’

  ‘No, Tom, I can’t agree,’ Windy offered, suddenly decisive. ‘I think I’d need at least another four years before I’m ready. But thanks anyway.’ And overwhelmed by his own modesty, he took himself off in search of further praise.

  The colleagues watched him depart. ‘A man destined for the hospitality tent of life, never for its playing field, I fear,’ Goodfellowe remarked quietly.

  ‘You’re on form this evening, you old bastard.’

  In fact, Goodfellowe was feeling sour about his lost night with Elizabeth and disturbed by what the monk had told him. He had little precise idea of what they wanted him to do, still less about how he would achieve it. When at that moment Baader strolled onto the terrace it seemed like – well, to borrow from the monk, almost an omen.

  ‘Paddy,’ he waved, ‘save me from this nest of vipers. But not before we’ve liberated one more drink.’

  They took their glasses to the river wall and peered into the silt-stained waters. The tide was running.

  ‘Life’s a bit like the river, don’t you think, Paddy? Sweeping you on. Then shoving you straight back again.’

  ‘Are you preparing to jump or simply trying to make the rest of us feel bloody miserable?’

  ‘You know you said if I needed your help …?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ve got another one.’

  ‘Another what?’

  ‘Another Gompo. Another monk.’ He sighed. ‘Another bit of madness.’

  ‘Another monk? You want another visa?’

  ‘No. He’s in the country already. Illegally. Won’t trust the system after what happened to the others.’

  ‘Who can blame him?’ Baader mused, before stiffening. ‘But he will be blamed, if he’s an illegal. And you with him if you’re protecting him.’

  ‘That’s what I want your advice about. I can’t tell him to give himself up, not just like that. Not after everything that’s gone on.’

  ‘You’re talking heartstrings and humanity. But I’m a Minister. I’ve got to talk about the law.’

  ‘Is there any way we can bring him within the law, Paddy? I dunno … give him political asylum or something?’

  ‘Can we prove he’s being persecuted?’

  ‘Can Gompo prove he’s dead?’

  Baader turned to face Goodfellowe, his body language designed to emphasize his words. ‘You’re taking
a huge risk getting involved in something like this, Tom.’

  ‘You can’t think I’m going to end up like Gompo.’

  ‘If you’re knowingly harbouring an illegal immigrant there’ll be a small army of select committee members and press editors who’ll insist on it and who’ll be lining up to do the job.’

  ‘Safer in St Petersburg, you reckon?’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘Well, I’m not harbouring him. I’ve simply met him. But I’d like to help him.’

  ‘What’s he here for?’

  ‘Meeting up with old colleagues,’ he offered vaguely. ‘But mostly simply trying to stay alive, I think.’

  ‘Why are you getting yourself mixed up in all this, Tom? There’s no votes in it, and damn all satisfaction. And no national interest, not when you consider how little Tibet matters compared with what we’ve got in China.’

  ‘Lost causes, I guess. I seem to collect them.’

  ‘Drop it, old son.’

  ‘Can’t.’ For the first time Goodfellowe realized he’d made the commitment.

  ‘You want to take great care you don’t become a lost cause yourself, Tom.’

  ‘At times I think I already am. But enough of me. Will you help the monk?’

  Baader shook his head in exasperation. ‘I shouldn’t. I’m a Minister, for God’s sake, I’ve got codes of conduct shoved up every orifice. And yet … hell, but I did promise you. Guess I’ll have to. I’ll make some enquiries with the Home Office about asylum and any other alternatives, just in principle. In the meantime maybe we ought to arrange some form of protection. Name?’

  ‘Kunga Tashi.’

  ‘Where’s he hiding?’

  Goodfellowe took a deep breath. Then he thought of Gompo.

  ‘Come on, Tom. I can’t help him without knowing where he is,’ Baader pressed.

  Goodfellowe shook his head. ‘Not yet. If he comes out into the open now they’ll have no choice but to lock him up. You have a chat with the Home Office first. Find out about asylum or some other status. Then we’ll see if he wants to play ball. Until then I think he wants to be a bit like Greta Garbo. On his own.’