‘Oh.’
‘And even though he’s retired, he’s still quite an influential figure in Fleet Street—or whatever you call the English newspaper world these days.’
‘Seems strange, doesn’t it?’ said Suzanne, although her heart was sinking and she was beginning to wonder how long she could keep this up.
‘Yes, it does. And do you know what’s even stranger? He’s never heard of a freelance journalist by the name of Suzanne Jones either.’
‘Well no, Nigel, that’s hardly surprising; I’m not that well-known—’
‘—Oh come off it, Suzanne. You can stop pretending!’
‘I don’t know what you mean!’
‘My dear girl, how difficult do you think it was to find you? I did a little searching on the internet and made a couple of phone calls to friends back in London. Bertie’s never heard of a freelancer called Suzanne Jones, because there is no freelancer called Suzanne Jones—at least not in the newspaper industry.’ He was talking more quietly now, as though he had reined in his temper. Somehow, that seemed all the more chilling to Suzanne. She just knew what was coming next
‘But of course, there is a Suzanne Jones in the consulting world, isn’t there? Owner of Jones Technical Partnership, a pharmaceutical consultancy company. And I must say, you’re very highly thought of in that world. Apparently you were the star in some operation to bring down a counterfeiting gang in Africa a couple of years back.’
Suzanne’s legs were suddenly incapable of supporting her any longer and she collapsed into the chair unbidden.
‘So, the question I’m asking myself, Ms Jones,’ he went on, the sudden formality even more chilling, ‘is just what is a pharmaceutical consultant doing visiting my company under false pretences?’
‘I was asked to take a look at your new supplement, Super Fit,’ Suzanne said, suddenly relieved that all the lying was over for better or for worse.
‘Asked? By whom?’
‘Oh, I can’t tell you that. It would be breaking client confidentiality.’
‘So it’s okay to lie your way in here and waste my time on the pretext of an interview that would never get published, but your conscience forbids you from telling me who you are working for?’
She stared at him, unable to think of anything to say, but mentally cursing Damien and Charlie for talking her into this ludicrous situation against her better judgement. Atkinson carried on.
‘Look, I told you yesterday, this is a food supplement, nothing more. It’s not covered by any pharmaceutical regulations, it’s not controlled by the health authorities and there’s nothing to investigate.’ Suddenly, his temper was back and he jumped up. ‘I’ve had enough of this. I want you out of my office now!’ He strode to the door, yanked it open and pointed outside.
Suzanne picked up her bag and what was left of her dignity and headed out of the door. She couldn’t wait to get out of there. But as she walked across the hallway to the elevator under the eyes of the three secretaries who were not even pretending to do anything but watch her exit, Atkinson called after her.
‘Ms Jones, you’re lucky I’m not calling the police. But if I so much as hear your name again, or see you anywhere near here, I will do just that.’ And he slammed his door closed; the echo of the bang reverberated through her head all the way down to the ground floor and out onto the street.
Suzanne looked at her watch. Although it had seemed like a very long time, she’d been in the building for barely twenty minutes. But in that short time the sunshine had been replaced by lowering clouds. As she stood on the pavement taking deep breaths and trying to recover her equanimity, large warm drops of rain started falling all around her. She quickly stuck out a hand and stopped a passing taxi. She needed to get away from here, back to the hotel, and to talk to Damien and Charlie. Was the job over? Should they just give up and head home? Two days ago, she would have thought so, but having seen the locked room, the furtive behaviour of the elderly man, and the shifty way in which Atkinson had avoided her questions, she just wasn’t so sure.
CHAPTER 16 (Cape Town, October 1960)
As my education programme progressed, I was able to earn some extra money working with Amelia. She’d set up an unofficial school within the township and I taught some of the classes, especially the older children who wanted to learn more about their numbers. And although we were working in the township, not everyone we came across was hard up. It’s a common misconception that all the blacks were poor, when in fact, many of the families had quite a bit of money. They just couldn’t spend it in the same places as the whites. And although the blacks were barred from the white establishments, the reverse wasn’t true. White faces were rare, but not unheard of in the black areas.
And of course there were the coloureds and the Asians. Neither one thing nor the other, they lived between the two halves of society, often running shops and factories. So they too had money; money they were happy to spend on the education of their children.
As I did well in my studies, I also had the opportunity to help with some of the basic classes in the college too. I particularly enjoyed working with the adults: seeing their looks of amazement and joy when they finally managed to decipher the headline on a newspaper or a leaflet they’d picked up at church was reward in itself.
I carried on working as a porter at the railway station as well. Not every day, and not all day long. I was more of an overseer, really, keeping an eye on the gang of kids. The faces changed on a regular basis but in other ways everything remained the same. I’d introduced a system where each kid paid me a small retainer once a week to rent their space on the platform. It meant I got my money even if it was a quiet week; but as they got to keep all the tips themselves, they were mostly happy with the arrangement.
Every so often, I would do a shift myself, just to keep my hand in, as it were. And it was during one of those shifts, some five years after I’d first arrived in Cape Town, that my life took another drastic turn.
The Durban train had just pulled in and its passengers were spilling out onto the platform. I’d positioned myself opposite the door to the first class carriage nearest the ticket barrier when my eye was drawn to a man who appeared in the doorway. Dressed in a scruffy tie dyed caftan and wearing a large panama hat with a leopard skin print around the crown, he stood out from the crowd, not only because he towered head and shoulders above most of the other passengers, but because he had a very loud voice and an even louder laugh. As he came down the steps, he glanced back over his shoulder at someone who spoke to him, laughed at what was said, missed his footing and came suddenly down onto the platform, grabbing for the rail to break his fall. His hat flew off his head and the bag in his hand, a battered old thing that looked a bit like a tool box, fell from his grasp and ended up sliding across the platform to stop at my feet. The man let out an oath and jumped to his feet, dusting himself off and looking around for his belongings. One of the other kids, who had been shadowing me to pick up some tips, grabbed the hat, hit it on his leg to expel any dust and handed it back with a little bow.
I bent down to pick up the box. But in the fall, the catch had become unlatched and as I pulled on the handle, the lid came open, scattering the contents, which looked like small pieces of bone, across the platform under the feet of the advancing passengers.
‘My samples!’ the man yelled, jumping forward and holding his arms wide. ‘Stop walking, now! You will damage my samples.’ People all around us stopped dead, compelled by the urgency and authority in the man’s voice. He looked across at me. ‘Don’t just stand there, imbecile,’ he yelled, ‘pick them up—but carefully. Some of them are very rare.’
Well, I wasn’t at all sure about being called an imbecile, but there was something about his voice that just couldn’t be denied and before I could stop myself, I was down on the ground scrabbling in the dust to pick up the little pieces of bone, which I pushed back into the box.
‘Gently, gently, man,�
� he cried at me, ‘those are delicate samples. Some of them are thousands of years old.’
Yeah, right, I thought, but I slowed down anyway and laid each piece carefully on top of the previous one. There’d better be a good tip in all of this.
By the time I’d finished picking up the spillage, the other kid had helped the man carry his luggage off the train and had piled it up on a trolley. Five bags! This was a guy who didn’t believe in travelling light. I went to put the box on top of the pile, but he stopped me with an outstretched arm.
‘No, you carry that one to the car for me,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to risk it falling off and spilling out again.’
We must have looked a strange procession: the young black kid pushing a trolley and peering around the luggage piled way above his head; me behind him, carrying the prissy little box; and the big guy in the caftan chivvying us along, like an over-sized sheep dog.
When we got to the taxi rank, our customer marched straight to the front of the queue and commandeered the first vehicle in line. People watched open-mouthed as he ordered the driver around, made sure his cases were properly stowed and then settled himself on the back seat. He reached out and took the box from me, pushing a folded note into my hand in return.
‘Mount Nelson,’ I heard him say as the car drove away. I stared after him as his car disappeared into the distance. Mount Nelson! That was one of the best hotels in town—and certainly the most expensive. Our customer might be scruffy and unshaven, he might have the manners of a pig, but he certainly wasn’t short of a bob or two. And then I looked down at the paper clutched in my hand. They say the richest people are the meanest—and here was something to prove it. The piece of paper staring up at me was not, as I’d hoped, a pound note, but a tattered flyer, advertising the services of Mr Stefano Nicovic Mladov, archaeologist, fossil hunter and lecturer. Almost against my will, I began to laugh.
‘There you are, sonny, there’s a lesson for you,’ I said, clapping my young shadow on his shoulder. ‘Not all the likely tips come to pass.’ I showed him my empty hands. ‘Nothing doing this time, I’m afraid. But there will be plenty of other opportunities.’ I sent him over to my favourite spot, outside the first class lounge, and told him to wait for the next kindly old lady to come out. Then I strolled back to the platform to see how the others were getting on.
As I approached the place where I’d first seen Mladov, a white glint caught my eye under a trolley at the back of the platform. Bending down, I spied one of the pieces of bone—or should I say fossil—which had got missed in the crush earlier on. I wondered if he would miss it. Then I wondered if it was worth anything. I stared at it speculatively, before pushing it into my pocket and carrying on with my stroll around my ‘territory’.
By about four o’clock, I’d had enough and decided to knock off for the day. The kids had paid their weekly dues and I had a pocket full of change, but it was a nice evening and I wanted to stretch my legs and get some fresh air after the fumes of the station. So I decided to walk south, away from the sea, towards the Table Mountain—and almost without realising it, I found myself standing on Orange Street gazing at the drive leading up to the Mount Nelson Hotel. I’d never been inside, and doubted whether I would ever be able to stay there, but the fact my mysterious customer was a guest seemed to work as a magnet.
I didn’t think I would have much luck getting through the door, even though I was wearing my working suit: the best one I could afford. I’d found the smarter I looked, the larger the tips that came my way. But one of my old porters, a young boy called Sammie, had recently got a job there as bell boy, so I knew a little about the place.
There was a pathway running around the side of the hotel, into the palm tree filled gardens. I waited to make sure no-one was watching me, and then slipped down there and into the shrubbery. I’m not sure what I thought I could achieve by trespassing in this way; it was an impulse move, really.
And in the strange way that thinking about something can sometimes cause it to appear, I turned a corner and there was the subject of my thoughts, sitting on a bench, staring across the gardens. I stopped dead under a tree, unwilling to disturb him, and not at all sure how he would take to my following him there.
‘I can hear you breathing,’ he said in a low voice, turning towards me and fixing his hawk-like eyes on me, ‘you might as well show yourself.’ So I walked forward, reluctantly, but drawn by a strange compulsion. He looked me up and down, apparently puzzled for a moment and then his face cleared and he laughed. ‘Of course, you’re the boy from the station. Although you’re not really a boy, at all, are you? How old are you?’
‘I’m twenty, sir,’ I muttered.
‘Yes, I thought you were a bit old to be part of the station crew. What are you, their minder?’ then he paused and closed one eye knowingly, ‘or maybe their pimp?’ He barked out another laugh. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You’re running the racket down there.’
I didn’t reply, just stared at him, feeling myself go red. But he moved across to make room on the bench.
‘It’s alright, son, I’m not criticising you. I’m a great admirer of enterprise.’ He patted the place next to him. ‘Come on, sit down and tell me about yourself; and why you’re skulking around in the garden of the most exclusive hotel in Cape Town.’
I came to, as though from a trance, shook myself and sat down on the bench. Putting my hand into my pocket, I pulled out the fossil I’d found under the trolley on the platform. I cleared my throat.
‘I found this after you left. I thought it might be valuable...’ My voice died away as he reached out and took the thing out of my hand and turned it over and over.
‘Valuable, no; it’s a fairly common piece. But its return is important to me, nevertheless.’ He smiled and popped the fossil into his pocket. ‘And you certainly deserve a reward for bringing it back to me.’ He glanced at his wrist, where he wore a pink plastic child’s watch with a picture of Mickey Mouse on the face. ‘It’s getting close to supper time. How about you come and eat with me this evening and I’ll tell you its story.’ He paused, and then went on: ‘that’s if you’ve not got anything else planned for this evening.’
As it happened, I was scheduled to go with Amelia to the school, to tutor a class in mathematics. But although my head told me I should decline his offer and leave, my heart was pounding and telling me I should not turn away this opportunity. So I just shrugged.
‘No, nothing planned. Supper sounds great.’
My companion, who insisted I call him Stefano, suggested we eat in the terrace café. That way, he didn’t need to get changed before the meal, and I wouldn’t feel out of place in my daily work clothes. In 1960, we were in a transition period; many people still dressed for dinner, although dress suits were far less common. But there was a growing number who preferred an alternative lifestyle and a less formal approach to everyday living. And Stefano Mladov seemed to be one such person.
As we ate, Stefano told me about his fossil hunting trips on behalf of a university back in the Soviet Union, where he came from. The one I had found was a particularly fine example of Astropecten pontoporseus he’d found in Simon’s Bay, on the Cape of Good Hope. He’d just returned from a short visit to Durban, but before that he’d been in the Cape Town area for several weeks. At that news, I looked around at the hotel and pursed my lips, but he laughed and shook his head.
‘No, I couldn’t afford this place for a long trip like that. Not on the fee the university’s paying me. But that project’s coming to an end. I’ve got the last lot of samples to parcel up and send off to Kiev and that’s finished.
‘And now I’ve got a totally different project starting up, and for that one I needed to put on a good show.’ He pulled out a pipe, made a great point of packing it carefully with tobacco and lit it, inhaling deeply and then blowing out a string of perfect smoke rings. Then he pointed the pipe at me and smiled again. ‘You know, I like you, young Michael. And I
could do with some help on this new project. We may have only just met, but I’m a pretty good judge of character. You could be exactly the person I’m looking for.’
CHAPTER 17
Suzanne was sitting on the terrace finishing her late lunch when Damien and Charlie strolled out into the sunshine. She’d stopped shaking and the food had restored some of her calm, but she was still shocked by the power of Atkinson’s anger. She took a deep breath, staring at her plate rather than meeting their eyes.
‘I didn’t expect to see you here,’ said Damien. ‘We thought you’d still be interviewing friend Nigel.’
‘Or still stuffing your face at the fancy restaurant he promised to take you to, more like,’ chimed in Charlie with a grin. But her smile faded as Suzanne looked up at her. ‘Suzanne, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’ She dropped into the chair and took Suzanne’s hand.
‘He knows,’ Suzanne said in a voice with a break in it, then clearing her throat, she tried again. ‘Nigel Atkinson knows who I am. He’s got a friend in the press and he made some calls...’
‘What did he do? He didn’t hurt you, did he?’ asked Damien. Suzanne was quick to reassure them.
‘No, nothing like that; it’s not his style. But he was very angry. He yelled at me and then threw me out of his office. It was so bloody embarrassing!’
There was a long pause, as the three conspirators stared across the gardens and pondered their next move. Finally, Damien gave a sigh.
‘Well, I guess that’s it.’ He stood and walked backwards and forwards in front of them. ‘I’m so sorry I put you in this position, Suzanne. I don’t know what I was thinking of; but I was so convinced Lulana was being harmed by that damn supplement, I just wanted to get some justice for her.’ His shoulders slumped and he sat down again. ‘I guess now, we’ll never know.’
But Suzanne wasn’t prepared to give in that easily. Her run-in with Atkinson had made her more determined, rather than less, to find out the true story of the strange goings on in the world of running.
Deception! Page 9