by Alan Judd
Next came a library of old documents and beyond it a corridor reached through a pair of heavy doors. The end of the corridor was obscured by billowing clouds of dust, from which came the sound of a pneumatic drill, shockingly loud. The first door on the right bore the letters LAD, beneath which were written the names of those who worked within. He guessed that this would be what in nearly all departments was called the Third Room, housing the three desk officers. The next two doors would house the head of the department and his secretary. They were more obscured by dust but on one he could make out the name of Mr E.J.W.P. Formerly, Head of LAD. When the pneumatic drill stopped the sound of sledgehammers hitting brickwork came from within.
While Patrick hesitated the door was thrown open by a bespectacled middle-aged woman who rushed out and slammed it behind her. She struggled with an armful of files covered in brickdust and drew back with a hostile glance as he stepped forward to help. He introduced himself.
‘You’ve come at the worst possible time,’ she snapped. ‘The Home Office has broken through the wall and the Third Room has been dispersed. Mr Formerly had to abandon office the moment he arrived. If you want him you’ll have to go back the way you’ve come, up the second stairs, through the hole in the wall on the next floor and then keep turning right until you can’t any more. Now, if you’ll excuse me I must get on. We’ve got to save the files.’
Mr Formerly’s retreat was in the roof. A small square window set deep in the wall looked down into yet another neglected courtyard. The room was furnished with an old wooden desk and two plastic chairs. Near the middle of the floor was a telephone which was prevented by its flex from reaching the desk. On the desk was an open copy of The Times.
Mr Formerly looked up reluctantly from his reading. He had a pale cadaverous face and large dark eyes. His expression was sensitive and listless. They shook hands gently.
‘Mozambique?’
‘Lower Africa.’
‘Of course, yes.’ He indicated that Patrick should sit and slowly folded the paper, lingering for a moment over the Test match report. ‘Dreadful business.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t seen a paper this morning.’
‘What?’
Patrick leant forward in the uncomfortable chair. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure whether you meant Lower Africa or what’s in the paper.’
It seemed for a few moments that the question had robbed Mr Formerly of power of speech. ‘I mean the Home Office coming through on us like that. They started yesterday afternoon before anyone knew what they were up to. Lot of banging and drilling and whatever but nothing untoward. I got in this morning and I’d just got my coffee when a drill came through the wall behind me. Then another came through from the back of a filing cabinet. Made an awful mess of the Angolan aid policy files. Next thing was chaps started knocking the wall down. I lodged an immediate protest but they didn’t even pause. Then another chap came along and said it was all a mistake. Wrong wall. Load-bearing or something.’
Mr Formerly stopped speaking. It was not clear what response was required. ‘Must’ve been pretty alarming,’ Patrick said eventually.
Mr Formerly continued as if he had neither expected nor heard the response. ‘Of course, we knew there were alterations in progress but not that we were to lose anything. In fact, I thought we were to take over some of them. I’m sure we should be. It’s always been an anomaly having bits of the Home Office in that wing. Not that we had relations, but there you are, it never works.’ He paused again and looked at the backs of his hands. ‘So the Third Room are God-knows-where – having an early lunch if they’ve any sense – and all the safes and cabinets and furniture and files have got to be carted up here. No idea where we’ll put them. Not even room for my secretary.’ He looked moodily at the telephone. ‘And that thing won’t reach the desk.’
They both looked at the telephone. ‘I suppose you could move the desk,’ said Patrick.
Mr Formerly shook his head slowly. ‘No, I like it here. I can see out. Anyway, the phone has no number. It’ll be days before they get one.’ He spoke in a quiet monotone, without bitterness, and gazed placidly out of the window. Both the sill and the brickwork of the outer wall still bore the pock-marks of wartime shrapnel.
‘When do I leave?’ asked Patrick.
Mr Formerly’s gaze tacked slowly back. ‘Personnel seem to want you there right away. All to do with Whelk, I suppose. They explained all that, did they?’
‘They said you would.’
‘Ah.’ There was another pause. ‘Well, there’s nothing much to say, really. He just didn’t turn up for work one day. After a few days people began to think it was a bit odd and so at the end of the week someone telephoned his house. His maid said she hadn’t seen him all week and thought p’raps he’d gone on holiday. He does that sort of thing now and then. Odd chap. There was nothing missing except his car and no sign of a struggle but the police keep saying he might have been kidnapped. They don’t think it was accidental, anyway, probably because they don’t like to admit that diplomats can simply go missing in their country without good reason, as it were. But there’s been no ransom demand. Not that any would be paid, of course. It’s not policy. In fact, it’s the ambassador who’s the keenest on the kidnap theory. The police aren’t doing much but the ambassador wants to move heaven and earth.’ Mr Formerly looked at the backs of his hands again. ‘The ambassador suspects you-know-who.’
Patrick had to ask.
‘LASS,’ said Mr Formerly quietly.
‘LASS?’ asked Patrick, also quietly.
Before Mr Formerly could reply, four men, apparently foreign, struggled through the door with a large metal filing cupboard. They manoeuvred it into the middle of the room, knocking the telephone on to its side, and departed in a multilingual clamour.
Afterwards Mr Formerly raised his dark eyes to Patrick’s. ‘Lower African Security Service. The ambassador is convinced that they kidnapped Whelk.’
‘Why would they want to kidnap him?’
‘To learn our secrets.’
‘Our secrets?’
Mr Formerly looked again towards the window, nodding very slightly. ‘I know it does seem rather bizarre but I suppose LASS have secrets of their own and that leads them to think that everyone else must have them too. The ambassador thinks this explains why the police don’t seem to be doing very much about Whelk. He’s rather got the bit between his teeth, I’m afraid, and so it’s at his insistence that we’re calling in L and F. They’re a sort of insurance outfit that advises people on how to negotiate with kidnappers. Lots of chaps travelling round the world advising grieving relatives and anxious companies on how to get the ransom down a bit. Call themselves Lost and Found. Rather quaint, isn’t it? Most irregular for HMG to get involved with such business, of course. Unfortunately the junior minister got a whiff of it at an early stage and became frightfully keen. He supports the ambassador. It’s all terribly hush-hush. We mustn’t let the Lower Africans know we’re doing it.’
The pause allowed Patrick time to think. ‘Why not? If it is them we won’t have lost anything because we won’t be able to find him anyway, and if it’s not they might be able to help.’
Mr Formerly shook his head as though he had been asked whether it were true that someone long dead had recently returned to life. ‘Possible embarrassment.’
‘Embarrassment’, Patrick soon learned, was what the Foreign Office feared most. Questions as to who would be embarrassed in whose eyes and how much, or whether they should be or whether it mattered if they were, were rarely asked. Save on those occasions when ministerial or prime ministerial will was directly imposed, like the personal interventions of Yahweh in the Old Testament, it was better that Britain should do badly in negotiations than that she should be seen to be obdurate and judged responsible for their breakdown. The worst case of all was to be ‘out on a limb’, ‘out of step’ or ‘odd man out’. It was better to lose the argument than risk being thought ill-mannered by per
sisting.
It was acceptable, however, to try to win by deceit provided one could do so without being caught. Mr Formerly explained the case of Whelk in these terms. To inform the Lower Africans of the involvement of L and F would imply that HMG did not trust the Lower African authorities. This was in fact the case, but it was important to pretend otherwise. If, on the other hand, the Lower Africans discovered that L and F were trying to make contact with the hypothetical kidnappers then HMG could plausibly claim that they must have been hired by the family. Actually Whelk had no family but that was neither here nor there.
‘But might he not simply have fallen off a cliff?’ asked Patrick. ‘Or thrown himself?’
‘He might.’ Mr Formerly’s gaze returned to the window, where it was most at rest. The window was spattered by raindrops. ‘I doubt it, though. I know Arthur Whelk of old, you see. Not the sort of chap who drives over cliffs. Most likely he’s simply gone off and got himself another job without telling anyone. In the Middle East he was working for a sultan the whole time he was there. Procuring something or other, it was never clear what. Actually had a desk in the palace. Used to drop into the embassy in the mornings for his mail and then disappear. Bit of a fuss when the ambassador found out but the sultan sent a message to London saying he’d rather have Arthur in his country than the whole of the rest of the embassy and so that was that. Very embarrassing if we’d all been declared persona non grata – png’d. Arthur served out his time.’ He turned wearily back to Patrick. ‘Point is, the ambassador wants you to liaise with the police about this but also with the L and F chap when he gets there in secret. Keep him in the picture and so on without letting the police know. Sounds a recipe for disaster to me. Arthur will turn up when it suits him, I’m sure.’
A sudden commotion announced the return of the four men, this time with a security cupboard which had a combination lock. They dragged the second cupboard across the floor and banged it heavily against the first. Its one door came open and a file fell out. The men left.
Mr Formerly gazed at the file which was marked ‘CONFIDENTIAL’. ‘Not that I imagine you’ll be in a hurry to find Arthur. At least not while you’re living in his magnificent house. You’d otherwise be in a flat for a Grade Nine in a noisy part of Battenburg. I should get on with your personal admin if I were you. Awful lot to do and all very boring. Make sure you claim your full allowances.’ He reopened The Times. ‘Anything I can do, don’t hesitate.’
Patrick stepped carefully over the file. The rain beat steadily against the small window.
Mr Formerly looked up. ‘Couldn’t switch on the light on your way out, could you?’
Patrick flicked the switch. Nothing happened, but Mr Formerly was already reading.
Not all Foreign Office briefings were like Mr Formerly’s. Some were lengthy and thorough, even energetic. The longest and worst was the two-day Going Abroad course for those on their first postings.
They were issued with a booklet describing diplomatic life overseas. From this Patrick learnt that he should always, whether walking or in a car, keep to the left of his Head of Mission; that he should acquire a stock of superficial topics and gambits for use in diplomatic conversation; that he should prime himself before going to a party with useful and effective small-talk; that if he had to speak a foreign language in which he was not fluent he should, before attending a function, learn a dozen or so new phrases and try to bring them into the conversation; that he should pay attention to placement at table and be prepared to take advice on dress. The handbook’s stated purpose was to make social intercourse easier.
Most of the fifty or sixty people on the course were clerks, guards, telex-operators and wives. The other dozen or so were of diplomatic rank, like Patrick. They were given a lecture on security and another from a doctor who warned against the dangers to health of unhealthy climates. A titled lady, wife of a former ambassador who was now a very senior man in London, spoke of how spouses could contribute to their husbands’ careers and advised strongly against complaining. By the end of the course the audience was bored, bemused and mutinous. Patrick fell asleep during the second afternoon and awoke only when the two books on his lap slipped to the floor with a double bang.
What Mr Formerly had called personal admin was indeed very tiresome. There were medical and insurance formalities, clothes to be bought, allowances to be claimed and spent, even a will to be made. The allowances seemed very generous and it was soon clear that they were for many people the crucial aspect of any posting. Accommodation was furnished at public expense but each person was given money for the tax-free purchase of washing machines, fridges, cutlery, crockery and any other necessary or unnecessary household goods. This applied only to the first posting but shipping costs were paid for all postings. There was an allowance for moving, an allowance for being abroad and an entertainment allowance to be claimed once there. Petrol would be tax free. Patrick’s bank account swelled overnight to undreamt-of proportions.
He had also to buy a car. For this there was an interest-free loan based on grade and repayable over two years. There was also diplomatic discount, no tax and no VAT. Shipping was free provided the car was British. Patrick had never owned one and had never seriously thought about which kind he would like. He determined to avoid Fords because of the implication in Clifford Steggles’s letter that he ought to have one. He tried Vauxhall but the model he wanted was not available in time; Talbot had something he liked but although theoretically British it had in fact been made in Europe and was therefore ineligible for the loan; the Leyland man was still at lunch at half-past three and so, one wet afternoon, he slunk into the Ford export office and signed for one, still unsure what it looked like.
During the last few weeks in London Patrick went to as many plays and films as possible on the mistaken principle that experience was entirely quantitative, to be stored and drawn on later, like nuts. Since his father’s death his mother had lived in Chislehurst, a suburb of London flush with estate agents, riding schools and new Jaguars. He did not stay with her, though, because at home his impending departure felt like an intimation of mortality. She was sad and anxious and he was tense; neither could enjoy the last few days because of the knowledge that they were the last. He stayed instead with a friend in Southwark who worked for an American bank and spent half his time in New York.
On the last but one night he had dinner in Clapham with two other friends from Reading, Rachel and Maurice. He knew them through his former girlfriend, Susan. The acquaintance survived his break-up with her probably for no better reason than habit. Rachel was on a BBC trainee producer scheme which, she said, took men and women in equal numbers no matter how many or what quality of each applied. Maurice was training to be a solicitor. He hoped to specialise in trade union law and intended to stand as a local councillor at the next election. Rachel said that they would start a family in due course but they were determined not to marry.
They sat on the bare floorboards of the large main room. The furniture was sparse and plain. Maurice was proud of a sofa with a broken arm which he had taken from a rubbish skip in the street. He said he liked it because the colour of the stuffing matched his beard. A friend of Rachel’s had painted an abstract mural on one wall – angular shapes of black and white with a red sun or football in one corner – which was reflected in a large Victorian mirror hanging above the bricked-up fireplace. Rachel explained that this came from her parents’ Cotswold home.
They ate rice with meat of some sort, tired lettuce and wrinkled tomatoes. They drank a large bottle of sweet white wine. The claret that Patrick had brought was left unopened.
Rachel balanced her plate on crossed legs and dug in with a fork, her brown hair falling forward over her face so that the fork had to be manoeuvred towards her mouth as if through curtains. ‘To be honest, Patrick, I don’t know how you can do it,’ she said, with energy but no annoyance. ‘I mean, you must be really determined or thick-skinned or something. Perhaps you’re a racist un
der the skin. Perhaps that’s what it is.’
Patrick paused in his eating. ‘Under the skin?’
‘Yes. Daddy is. Above the skin too now because he’s been corrupted by all those dreadful Lower Africans until he’s come to agree with them. He says it’s the best thing for everyone. We had a blistering row about it over Christmas lunch and I left before the pudding and came back to London he was so awful. Mummy was in tears.’
‘I’ll have to see for myself.’
‘But the trouble is you’ve already put yourself on the side of the status quo by joining the Foreign Office. You’ve sold out just as much as if you’d gone into business or something. You’re committed to a point of view, like it or not.’ She negotiated a piled forkful through her hair. ‘I don’t mean it personally, you know. It’s just the position you’re in. Really I don’t think we should even recognise them diplomatically.’
Patrick was still uncertain as to what exactly he had committed himself to in joining the Foreign Office. He hesitated. ‘Well, diplomatic recognition doesn’t signify approval or disapproval. It’s simply the way of dealing with the acknowledged power in a country.’ It sounded like one of his briefings. He wondered how long it would be before he ceased to notice such changes in himself.
‘They’re bound to get at you in one way or another,’ said Maurice. ‘I mean, look at LASS. They’re as bad as the KGB.’
‘Worse,’ said Rachel. They’re really really bad. They’ll probably get you in bed with a black woman then photograph you and then you’ll be tortured.’
‘Why should they do that?’
‘Or they’ll corrupt you with their point of view, which is more likely,’ continued Maurice.