Moroccan Traffic: Send a Fax to the Kasbah

  I understood her.

  I said, ‘No,’ and got down on my knees by her chair. I said, ‘I think it’s all right. Not for the waiter. But Johnson was further away.’

  She looked at me. I said, ‘Oliver is bringing him here. No one knows it’s all right except us. If it is. It is, I think.’ I put up my hand and touched the swelling. It was shiny and hard. I said, ‘You should have sent for the bloody course first. How to nick murderers.’ Then I burst out crying into her lap, and she hugged me as far as her arms would go round, until she needed to get a hand free for her Gauloises. We didn’t actually get talking even then, but I sat on the floor, hiccoughing occasionally, while she trembled smoke from the side of her mouth and patted me with a hand like a small boxing mitt. It was sort of comforting.

  We went downstairs ten minutes later, because Rita tapped to ask if we’d like a wee cup of tea, and my mother, flinging open the door, prodded her shoulder and said Rita was to leave all the food and tea-making to her, and go off and do what needed doing. Wendy would help, she announced, once she’d got all the muck off.

  They had known each other for about five minutes. Up to that night, my mother had regarded Miss Marguerite Geddes, Managing Director and business illiterate as a personal threat to the stability of the yen. On the other hand, up to that moment, she thought she had caused the death of Rita’s friend Johnson. When I washed and went down, in an expendable top and pants from the Wardrobe, my mother was away in the kitchen and Rita and Lenny were making up beds, while Roland Reed was answering the telephone, which rang all the time.

  Since the police knew we were here, everyone did. Everyone knew that the wife and secretary of Sir Robert Kingsley of Kingsley Conglomerates had escaped serious injury as a result of an explosion in the Medina of Marrakesh. And that, tragically, the gifted English Academician Johnson Johnson was one of those known to be missing. To everyone, Reed said the same thing. Apprehension shared by all Mr. Johnson’s colleagues and friends. Gallantry of the two ladies, who wished to stay as long as some hope might remain.

  The London news agencies had been in touch. The Mamounia phoned to communicate its genuine concern. A secretary rang from the Palace, expressing deep shock, and asking to be kept informed. The bell in the gate began to ring, and a heavy from the film crew was found, to stand inside and send off reporters. Jimmy Auld phoned, and Mo Morgan objected, at last, when Reed put down the phone without changing his story.

  He said, ‘If the man’s alive, why can’t you say so to his friends? Look at the distress you’ll be causing. It’ll be all over the papers tomorrow. And what if he requires burn treatment or surgery?’

  ‘If he does, he’ll get whatever he needs,’ Roland Reed said. ‘I don’t know why he’s asked for this any more than you do, but you may be sure that he has. Oliver wouldn’t stage this alone. We all have to be patient.’

  You could tell, now, that Rita’s financial director was not a young man, despite all his elegance; and on the side of his face, his skin showed blue and red like my mother’s. He had been working the film van transmitter when he had been surprised and attacked. There had been a brief, highly skilled attempt to enter the house, foiled by the sophistication of the Ritas’ defences. Morgan, joining them on a hunch, had not even been needed. They didn’t know whose hirelings had been used. Only Sullivan, insolent and secure, had identified himself over the radio to me and to Lady Kingsley and to Johnson. He had no fear of reprisals. He had only to wait, and others would shoulder the blame.

  The phone rang, and was answered, as I realised it had to be, in case the call was from Oliver. My mother came in with a tray bearing strong tea and plates of sweet things she had mixed and taken out of the oven and defied us to refuse. Rita returned, and so did Charity Kingsley, her face raw, her bandaged arm and shoulders invisible inside a man’s tailored dressing-gown. My mother brought her a cup and a table and two cushions to keep her back off the chair, and then returned to wedge herself beside my former employer’s rich country wife and embark on a merciless inquisition about horses.

  My mother knew nothing about horses. There wasn’t a course, although she might want to create one. Three Sure-Fire Ways To Get A Horse Killed. How to Strategically Analyse Your Opportunity Environment and Learn to Split More Than Infinitives. I saw Lady Kingsley relax, and answer, and deliver a smile that seemed surprisingly genuine. In the middle Roland Reed, who had gone to take some further calls returned to say, ‘Lady Kingsley? That’s Sir Robert on the line. He wants to speak to you.’

  They looked at one another. Reed didn’t repeat what he had said to Mo Morgan, but his expression said it all for him. Johnson is missing. Not dead. Not alive. But missing. His expression came as near to an appeal as I’d seen it.

  And Lady Kingsley said, ‘Perhaps you would like to tell him about Johnson yourself. Then I should like to have a word.’

  They both spoke on the phone to Sir Robert. Rolly Reed’s talk was brief. By the time Lady Kingsley returned to the parlour we had all finished tea, and my mother had got a pack of cards from somewhere and Mo Morgan and she were playing gin rummy for matches, as she’d left her purse and his toe in the café. Everyone candidly looked up as Sir Robert’s wife walked back in and sat down. She looked rather hot. It was Rita who said, ‘Is he keen for you to go on back to the Mamounia?’

  And Lady Kingsley said, ‘We discussed it. But he would prefer, really, that I got a flight and went home.’

  ‘Is he going home?’ Morgan said, snapping cards at my mother. He had just won a game from her, which meant he was cheating. He didn’t look like a man who would bother with ballcocks, or even a man who would give a damn for Daniel Oppenheim’s marriage. He was, I remembered painfully, my latest employer.

  Lady Kingsley said, ‘London? Robert’s not going there, or not yet. He has a meeting tomorrow, he says, longish journey. He had planned to leave after the portrait, but now he thinks he may set off first thing.’

  ‘Where?’ said Roland Reed.

  She didn’t seem to notice the brusqueness. ‘South of Marrakesh, he didn’t say where. The vintage cars are going to cross the High Atlas tomorrow, and he could ride along with them, he says.’

  Everyone in the room became silent. Then, ‘Really?’ Mo Morgan said. ‘With Gerry and Sullivan? Who’s he going to meet?’

  ‘He didn’t say,’ said Lady Kingsley. ‘But I suppose, whoever it is, they must be quite important.’

  It was then that we heard the sound of a car carefully entering the yard, and of someone getting out and locking the gates, and of quick, furtive footsteps returning. And Rita rose, and Lenny, and Reed, and when they walked to the door no one stopped them; for, in whatever condition, the last of our circle had come.

  Chapter 17

  There followed an interval I didn’t enjoy. My mother put down the cards, and Morgan got up. So did I. Lady Kingsley stayed where she was, her eyes on the door. The window was darkened, but beyond it I could hear Oliver’s voice, and then Rita’s, suddenly halted. Through the silence that followed you could hear a dog barking, and Arab music from a distant radio, and a girl and a man, or maybe several men, laughing somewhere together. Then the same cautious footsteps resumed their advance, and were joined by others, presumably belonging to Reed and Lenny. The escort party transferred itself indoors and could be heard heavily climbing the staircase. Then the door opened.

  Large and well-developed and dirty, Oliver Thornton stood on the threshold and gazed in turn at Lady Kingsley, and my mother, and me, and gave us each a flicker of recognition and sympathy. To Mo Morgan he said, ‘I have something really important to ask you. Laugh quietly.’ And he moved to one side.

  Behind him, leaning on the doorpost, his hands in his pockets, was Johnson. He had no spectacles on, and the shirt and trousers he was wearing weren’t his. Inside them, from his hair to his shoes, he was green.

  My mother’s chins descended a rung. Lady Kingsley’s lips parted. Mo Morgan’s pigtailed head raised itself, and his
teaspoon mouth turned up and his Adam’s apple blipped so that he coughed. He sat down. His eyes were full of water. ‘The dye yard?’ he said. ‘The pigeon pellets? The turkey droppings? The camel pats and tubs and tubs and tubs of nice, wet, coloured liquid? Oh, you superior bastard, what have you done?’

  ‘Le Maroc en Fête,’ said Johnson, surveying himself in a profoundly leisurely way. ‘La Blague du Jour. Service Après Vente Assuré, plus La Taxe Sur La Valeur Ajoutée.’

  ‘Today’s joke, all right,’ said Roland Reed, appearing behind, and taking an arm of the apparition. ‘There was a dye-yard at the back of the fence. He dived in and escaped most of the blast. Come on, Jay. No one can understand you. He always talks French when he’s pissed.’

  There were two vacant chairs beside Morgan. The accountant pushed Johnson carefully into the middle one, and sat down beside him. Lenny hovered. Lady Kingsley perched herself again by the bulk of my mother. Rita, failing to seize Oliver’s attention, blew her nose, buffeted it, and went and sat with a thud beside Rolly. She said, ‘OK, but why is he pissed?’

  ‘Half,’ said Oliver. ‘Only half. Wants to talk to us.’

  ‘If I get a chance,’ Johnson said. He had given up French.

  ‘We went to the doc on the way. He says it’s all right. The green’ll fade.’

  ‘Hooker’s Green,’ said Mo Morgan ecstatically. ‘Green Peace. Green Fingers. Green Giant. The Pillock of Hercules. What is there to talk about? We’ve been knifed, hammered, shot at, and told to tell lies to our buddies. Nothing we need to know, is there?’ He had been angry all evening, and now he was furious. He added, ‘What’s the French for Hooker’s Green? You don’t even know that, you bastard.’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Johnson said drowsily, and treated him to a short, clear translation. Charity honked, but Morgan’s odd face had pain in it.

  ‘If you ask me,’ said my mother’s loud, firm, foreign voice, ‘Mr. Johnson’s quite right. Time for a TAM. Team Action Management, Wendy. Action plans, budget, long-range corporate plans, strategy, purpose and objectives. Nine coffees. Right?’

  Johnson’s eyes were half-shut. ‘Eight coffees and a very large whisky,’ he said. ‘Doris, I love you more than Morgan does. Charity, you’ll have to forgive us.’

  His eyes had opened. My mother, pursued by Lenny, made a Dalek-type exit and began clanking cups, leaving Lady Kingsley beside me. She didn’t take the hint. She said, ‘No. Either you trust me, or you don’t.’

  There was a silence. Then Johnson said, ‘Rita?’

  ‘Men!’ said the dyslectic head of the MCG company. ‘Of course we bloody trust her, but she’s married, isn’t she? To Sir Robert, isn’t she? What right have you to meddle with that? Lady Kingsley, he’s going to speak about Sir Robert. Do you want to hear?’

  Charity Kingsley was pale. She sat, her hands on the arms of her chair and said, ‘I’d be a damned poor wife if I didn’t. Don’t think, because I mend Robert’s fences, that I won’t add my shout on his side. And if, in the end, you want to keep me here, I shan’t make it difficult.’

  ‘They may have to,’ said Rita. ‘This is serious.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Morgan. ‘May I say I’m bloody glad to hear it?’

  ‘You may,’ said Johnson. ‘You may also take this meeting if you want to. In fact, I wish you would. Doris, I said whisky and I meant it. I’m sorry.’

  She had brought nine cups on a tray that looked like a roll-on ramp held up by hawsers. She stood, her jaw swerved to one side, her eyes on Oliver. Then without a word she set about dishing out coffees while Lenny went and poured whisky into a tumbler. He was a small, soft-footed man with muscles like wire. He put no water in the whisky at all. Johnson took it in a green hand, drank, and set the glass down on the card table with a crack. Because of the green you couldn’t tell how drunk he was. He said, ‘Well, Mo?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Mo Morgan. He had picked up the pack of cards and was doing long, elaborate flips with them. ‘The Chair is yours. I’m sure you know what to do with it. Item, Minutes of the last meeting – but we didn’t have one, did we? You’ve been poncing about entirely on your little own. Item, Apologies. Oh dear, Mr. Oppenheim couldn’t be here.’ He was angry, all right.

  Johnson said, ‘Simmer down. Let’s get started. Two of you know exactly what’s happening, two have a good idea and the rest of you have to be told, for your own safety and, indeed for ours.’

  ‘Ours?’ said Lady Kingsley.

  Johnson glanced at her. He said, ‘Accept for the moment that the yacht is my base, and Lenny and Oliver help me on her. Accept, too, perhaps that Rita and Rolly are old friends. When I need help with radio transmitters, like today, then I get it.’

  ‘Accept, too, that today you were armed?’ said Lady Kingsley.

  ‘Are you sorry?’ said Johnson.

  I thought of the explosion, the flames, and blackened cinders where the man with the rifle had been. Lady Kingsley said, ‘We should be grateful, perhaps. But I should like, yes, to know more. Business espionage seems a more violent affair than I imagined.’

  She didn’t know, then, why the London bomb was set off. No one told her. Roland Reed intervened. He had a split lip. ‘There’s a lot of it about, Lady Kingsley. Bugs are fixed; people are wired; electronic mail tapped; couriers intercepted. Key technicians are bribed or blackmailed or discredited. Everyone’s caught out some time.’

  ‘Rolly’s C3 defence speech, slow handclap Rolly,’ said Johnson. ‘She knows, we all bloody know it isn’t common for gangs of bully boys to be found trampling all over the pavements hammering chosen representatives of Upper Management as well as each other. For one thing, it gets into the papers. So obviously we’re not in your ordinary rat race, although business strategy has something to do with it. Why did we come here?’ He looked like a good course instructor, except that they don’t come in green.

  ‘Because of us,’ Rita said, participating dutifully. The streaks had come off round her nose. ‘Kingsley Conglomerates proposed to take us over.’

  ‘And wanted to begin with a little private wooing,’ Johnson said. ‘I do remember. I got Sir Robert all annoyed and set the whole game up in Marrakesh, sorry Wendy. When Rita refused to be taken, the going got rough and then extremely rough: courtesy Gerry, who went the whole hog; and courtesy pretty pictures of extremely pretty Wendy of which I want copies. The obvious reason for the takeover attempt was that Kingsley’s couldn’t afford Morgan short term without Rita’s outlets. The other reason was that Sir Robert was planning to sell someone Kingsley Conglomerates, and the someone wouldn’t take them without Rita.’

  He was looking straight at Charity. And Charity said, ‘That is news to me.’

  Rita said, ‘We’re fairly sure of it. We gave Sir Robert a test question at Asni. Of course we refused his takeover. We don’t want unknown masters.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said my mother. ‘Bolt-on Goodies, this is what we are talking of. Rita—’ She broke off. ‘What makes you call yourself Rita? Marguerite, that is a nice name. And you like your hair that way?’

  ‘You don’t bother,’ said Rita. She just looked interested.

  ‘I am a smallest-room girl,’ said my mother.

  ‘Back-room,’ I said. ‘What about Rita?’

  My mother put down her cup, a movement of an inch and a half. ‘She is a nice girl, and has a nice company, and is important. But A Company’s Competitive Edge Depends Upon People. Whoever takes over Kingsley Conglomerates, they will need Mr. Morgan much more than they will need the MCG.’

  ‘Doris,’ said Johnson. It sounded wistful.

  ‘Yes?’ said my mother. ‘You want a pipe? You’ve had too much whisky. Rita agrees.’

  ‘Doris,’ said Johnson again. ‘Belt up, will you? Having said that, you’re right. Business Deal Number One, Kingsley’s want to take over Rita. Business Deal Number Two, person or persons unknown want to take over Kingsley’s. Business Deal Number Three, Morgan is being privately courted to buy himself o
ut of Kingsley’s at the cost of astronomical debt which may or may not commit him to another master altogether. A series of moves with which the City is perfectly competent to deal in the normal way, and which in the normal way would be a matter for careful and mannerly negotiation. But.’

  He stopped. I thought he had run out of steam, or he had heard something we hadn’t. I looked round. Charity’s face, except for her eyes, was artificial as plastic. Rita was biting her nails. Roland Reed was doing something to his split lip with a clean handkerchief. Morgan had stopped flipping the cards and was sitting outstaring Johnson, his ferrety chin on his chest. I could see his underlids and the whites of his eyes, and the cherry still on top of his head.

  My mother stabbed a Gauloise into her mouth, lit it, and drew on it so fiercely it nearly came down her nose. She said, ‘You’re not one for responsibility, no?’ She was speaking to Morgan.

  He turned his head. His dark skin looked a shade hectic. He said, ‘Sod it, why pick on me? It’s not my fault if Sullivan’s into rape, mass murder and mutilation; I didn’t appoint him. I’d no part in the muck-raking. I don’t want to spend my working life de-programming hitmen. I’d have considered Oppenheim’s offer, if he hadn’t been forced to withdraw it. Is that irresponsible? Or more so than your family painter here, who’s been two-timing us from the beginning?’

  ‘As a secret backer of Rita?’ said Lady Kingsley. No one answered her.

  Johnson drew an irregular breath and compressed it, looking at Morgan. He said, ‘If you know that, you also know why.’ The compression burst. He said, ‘Until quite recently, I thought you really didn’t know what the stakes were. But, you stupid sodding prima donna, you did.’

  He had insulted Morgan before, and been given back as good as he gave. This time, it wasn’t like that. It was savage.

  Morgan said, ‘Do you have a cassette player?’

  ‘For the Asni tape? No, I don’t,’ Johnson said.

  ‘Not the Asni tape,’ Morgan said. ‘Oh no, not at all. That only rubbished Sir Robert and Wendy. No. You remember – of course you do – that Wendy’s mother spent the whole of today with Ellwood Pymm at your suggestion? You twigged that Pymm needed insider facts for his bosses. So you let her string him along, feeding him figures and hinting that he might find Wendy helpful. Sir Robert’s tactics, in fact. And Mrs. Helmann, because she is a nice, intelligent woman, performed like a hero. And because she wasn’t born yesterday, she listened to Pymm when he asked her, as a favour, to get into the room where Oppenheim was going to talk to Mo Morgan, and plant a tape-recorder there. And afterwards, to retrieve it and give him the tape.’