The Touch of Innocents

  The ambassadorial eyebrow sank to form a frown.

  ‘You scarcely need to be Director of the CIA to know we’re not in the greatest shape,’ Devereux continued. ‘The reshuffle was not only desirable but absolutely necessary. The PM had been let down badly by some of his colleagues,’ he added, sensing that the moment was right to bind rather than expose his leader’s wounds. ‘The Government needed a new start, a freshened image. That’s as important as the financial considerations.’

  The Prime Minister’s pink eyes betrayed a wrinkle of uncertainty, unsure where he was being led, but the Ambassador harboured no such doubts. He poured more whisky – Devereux declined, holding his hand firmly over his glass – before picking up the thread which Devereux was dangling.

  ‘What did you have in mind, Paul?’

  ‘If we join in developing a new generation of fighter aircraft …’ – the Ambassador noted, as was intended, the conditional – ‘it will be in response to our view about Britain’s role in the world – Britain’s significant, some would say leading, role.’

  ‘Sure,’ the Ambassador nodded.

  ‘But not certain,’ Devereux continued, his tone cool, precise, in total control of his argument. ‘And without that leading role the Duster’s nothing but an expensive irrelevance.’

  The American pushed his glass to one side. He had started this game, knew he would need a clear head to finish it.

  Devereux leaned forward in his chair, head erect, the body language emphasizing that this was no mere post-prandial provocation.

  ‘There is a view being spawned within your State Department that Japan and Germany should be invited to become new members of the UN Security Council. That means someone else making way. A sacrificial lamb. Britain.’

  There was a long silence. The Ambassador would offer no denial. It is commonly held that diplomats are sent abroad to lie for their country, but on this occasion the transparent lie could serve no purpose.

  ‘The lion is not yet toothless, Ambassador. There’s not a hope in hell of the British Government accepting that. We’d be torn apart by our own supporters, and rightly so. The President can’t have both the Duster and our Security Council seat.’

  ‘You’re making direct linkage between the two issues?’

  ‘Political logic demands it. There’s little point in Britain being a supersonic whipping boy.’

  ‘I’m not aware the President has come to any conclusion on the Security Council. It’s just a kite being flown by some of his advisers.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Devereux said, smiling thinly. ‘We’re not even asking him to change his mind.’

  ‘Fair point,’ the American conceded. ‘I’ll pass on the strength of your feelings. I can’t promise anything, you know. But my suspicion is the President is likely to find your argument … persuasive.’

  ‘We’re very proud of our world role,’ the Prime Minister contributed, a touch pathetically.

  ‘Which is why we must insist on American backing in our dispute with Cyprus.’ Devereux was at it again. ‘We must hold on to the facilities at our base in Akrotiri. Without it we can’t maintain any strategic position in the Middle East. Couldn’t help you sort out the fuzzy-wuzzies.’

  ‘You are remorseless,’ the Ambassador exclaimed in jocular protest. ‘You know we can’t get involved in that. We’re neutral, Paul.’

  ‘Bollocks, Mr Ambassador.’

  The Prime Minister started at Devereux’s belligerence, spilt his drink and began pouring himself another. He still did not speak, had no inkling of what to say, precious little idea of what was being said. His colleague’s assault continued.

  ‘When you start being neutral between your allies and some upstart little nationalist who has fiddled his way to power and is intent on abrogating all his treaty obligations, then it makes one wonder what value America places on alliance and friendship.’

  ‘You know we can’t get involved.’

  ‘You are involved, whether you like it or not, because we are involved. And behind closed doors your Under-Secretary of State is involved in it up to his tatty little hairpiece. That’s what comes from letting a damned second-generation Greek loose inside the State Department.’

  ‘Steady on …’

  ‘He’s been spreading poison every chance he has.’

  ‘How do you know …?’

  ‘His words of incitement and support are plastered across the windows of every kebab house in the country. They’re even being played out on Greek-Cypriot community radio across the whole of North London.’

  ‘I’ve not heard it,’ the American objected.

  ‘You don’t speak Greek.’

  The Ambassador did not know what to say, so said nothing.

  ‘Look, we don’t want a declaration of war from you. What we require – insist upon – is a clear statement in support of international law and the honouring of treaty obligations; that the problem must be solved by negotiation between the two parties, not by unilateral initiatives and the beating up of off-duty British troops on the streets of Limassol. You can leave the rest to us. That bloody little pipsqueak president of theirs can’t last long, he’ll be gathered in before the next olive crop; we’ll just bide our time. Oh, except for one thing. You can sit on that bloody Kostas of yours. Hard.’

  ‘Michalides,’ the Ambassador corrected sullenly. He stretched for his drink, cursing himself for his folly in starting this conversation.

  ‘Finally …’

  The Ambassador choked.

  ‘… I feel sure the President would want to ensure that the Prime Minister receives a truly adulatory reception in Washington on his next visit. Probably late next summer. And you will find us the best of friends and firmest of allies.’

  ‘Late next summer?’

  ‘I can’t pre-empt the Prime Minister,’ Devereux nodded in his master’s direction without diverting his eyes from his target, ‘but next autumn might provide an ideal window for an election. With your help, the Prime Minister will be projected as a major figure on the international scene …’

  Alongside flying pigs, the Ambassador mused.

  ‘… his loyal and re-enthused parliamentary troops behind him, his international opponents put to flight. Throw in a little luck and the beginnings of an economic recovery. A fascinating and richly rewarding scenario, wouldn’t you say?’

  The American turned towards the Prime Minister in question, who had been nothing more than a pale spectator at this match. Devereux, with whom the American was relatively unfamiliar, was playing an extraordinary game, upstaging his leader, showing himself to be more adept at both tactics and strategy. And there could only be one master in any camp. But the Ambassador was no fool, either. He knew his Prime Minister, who, by morning, would remember only what had been achieved, not who had achieved it, and Devereux would be guaranteed full favour as the talisman, the lucky general. Commanders crave lucky generals. And Devereux would prosper, by Prime Ministerial preference and by his own craft. He was a man to watch.

  The American felt emasculated, drained of strength and further resistance. Summoning up the last of his energy and the dregs of a smile, he raised his glass.

  ‘Gentlemen, a toast. To the Duster.’

  In the morning she had called Katti. She did not know what else to do, she had no idea where else to turn. Yet still Katti was not available.

  ‘Her line is busy. Will you hold?’

  Yes, she would hold, and she held, and held some more. And when Katti’s line at last became free it was answered by someone else, who was new and who hadn’t ‘got no idea at all, love’ where Katti was or even who she was, and could do nothing other than take a message and ask Katti to call.

  Depression. It crowded around her like a fog bank rolling in from the Channel until she could see nothing. She felt as if she were slowly melting inside, her resistance, her energy, her hope, all but gone. They had told her she might feel depressed after the accident, a potential clinical consequence of bra
in damage. God, were the doctors right? About everything?

  The phone rang. She sprang. ‘Katti?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid it’s not,’ the voice responded. She recognized it immediately. The clear diction of an extensive education melted into the soft tones of the Irish countryside, a voice that massaged, a voice confident and direct that held clarity both of meaning and of purpose, a voice that captured the rhythms of a bubbling stream slipping across pebbles rather than the prostrate nasal tones of the Mid-West prairie she had been born to.

  The voice she had heard yesterday in the editor’s office.

  ‘My name is Daniel Blackheart.’

  ‘Black-who?’

  ‘Blackheart. Several centuries ago one of my ancestors owned a stretch of coastline along Blackheart Bay. West coast of Ireland. For some unfathomable reason the name hasn’t died out yet.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Quite serious, I’m afraid. It’s not a name you carry around lightly.’

  Laughter bubbled through the stream; he was mocking himself. The Irish did that, could be so understated, indirect, so very un-American.

  ‘And how may I help you, Mr …’ She hesitated, her lips puckering.

  ‘Daniel. Just call me Daniel. And I think it’s me who might be helping you.’ His voice lifted a corner of the blanket of cynicism and depression in which she was cloaked.

  ‘We’ve met.’

  ‘But not been introduced. I heard a little of what you had to say to my editor, about your missing child. I’d like to help, and perhaps I can.’

  The transparency of the editor’s expressions of concern still stung and she expected nothing genuine from that direction. ‘How do I know you’re not setting me up?’

  ‘The only person I may be setting up, Miss Dean, is me. I had to rifle the editor’s notebook for your details. If he finds out, I’ll be swimming around the old family bay with rocks in my boots.’

  ‘I don’t understand …’

  ‘May we meet?’

  ‘Do you do lunch?’

  He laughed, a lilting scale which soothed her mind. ‘I’ve done, as you put it, practically everything else. Lunch would be fine.’

  And so they arranged to meet, outside the museum at Weschester, beneath its seventeenth-century gables with their wooden eaves where the deserted nests of last spring’s house martins sagged and decayed, much as they had done at the time of the American Revolution. Life in this part of the world resisted rapid change; she found herself unable to decide whether she approved or not.

  She was early, a free moment, an opportunity to phone Katti yet again. She had a growing sense of unease, wondering whether the social services worker was being deliberately elusive, another brick in the wall which this place seemed to be raising around her. The old reporter’s maxim: if in doubt, harass. Yet it was as though Katti had vanished from the face of the planet, with successive voices on the telephone covering her trail in a sandstorm of professed ignorance and impenetrable excuses until it seemed she’d run out of voices to interrogate. She left another message, this time not asking but insisting that her call be returned, and threw the phone impatiently back into its cradle.

  And he was there. She turned from the booth to find him staring at her, in a manner that suggested he had been staring for some while. He’d been early, too.

  Daniel Blackheart gave the immediate impression of a buccaneer, a youthful buccaneer, slim with an unruly tide of thick black hair which flowed and ebbed across his brow and all but covered one eye, like an eyepatch. He had an earring and a slight limp that gave him the rolling gait of a seafarer, a lopsided grin and flashing mahogany eyes of exceptional darkness which, as she turned to face him, couldn’t resist offering her an appreciative brush of inspection.

  She resisted her impulse to respond; he was perhaps ten years younger than she and, anyway, this was business. But the image of a swashbuckler stuck, a wandering soul who left heartache and merriment in his wake. And none the worse for that.

  ‘Daniel Blackheart. At your service.’ He gave a brief nod and extended a hand which she half-expected would prove to be a hook or at very least callused by rope and salt water. Instead it was smooth and warm. She was surprised at the softness; she had become accustomed to the toughened palms of older men or the liquid skin of children, there was a gap between childhood and middle age in her recent experience and this fellow fitted right in between.

  ‘I rather expected to discover a knight on horseback. Full suit of armour, at very least,’ she commented wryly, examining his faded denims while trying, none too successfully, to ignore the sinewy elegance of the body within.

  His face grew instantly serious. ‘Vizors make a terrible mess of the Big Macs.’

  Her cheeks ached. She had all but forgotten what it was like to smile; he had brought help, lifted her depression, even before they had finished shaking hands. Yet as he had come close and she had looked into those sparkling eyes of his, she had noticed more than she’d expected. He was too young for anything but the most thinly pencilled of creases when he smiled, but the eyes themselves had unnatural depth, a soul exposed, something burned away within. A sailor he may be, taking his chances with the winds of life, but there was also a sense that he had been blown about by them and badly bruised in the process. Damaged goods.

  They were members of the same club.

  ‘Izzy. The name’s Izzy. And this young handful is called Benjy.’

  The Irishman leaned closer to make a face at the child held in her arms and she smelt it, the clean, sweet smell of baby powder. The man was wearing baby powder! Perhaps that was why Benjy, startlingly, did not draw back in suspicion at the arrival of yet another strange man in his disordered and overcrowded life but gave a chuckle and offered a sticky hand, which was promptly accepted.

  ‘We owe you lunch. But you’ll have to be patient. First we need to make a small detour to the local bank to pick up a replacement credit card.’

  ‘Then it is you who’ll need the patience,’ he suggested. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll wait outside.’

  She saw what he meant as soon as she entered the bank, a lavishly panelled edifice of classic Victorian style crowded with lunchtime traffic.

  ‘Waiting in line,’ she muttered with impatience, ‘the weapon of last resort which the English use against Americans.’

  And she had waited, and waited, engaged in a struggle with her increasingly impatient child.

  ‘Look at that little boy,’ she encouraged, indicating a docile infant in the next queue clinging to the arm of his mother. ‘See how good he is.’

  Benjy took one look, decided he didn’t care for the comparison, and let forth a piercing yelp that would have done credit to a raiding party of Navajo.

  The old and graceful bank building proved to be a remarkable acoustic vehicle. The child’s cry bounced off the marble floor and seemed to echo undiminished around the ornate plaster columns, rattling the ugly and invasive glass partitions that separated banker from banked, until it died somewhere amongst the bloated cherubs floating high above the tellers’ heads. The assembly turned as one to examine. And to offer a collective sniff of disapproval.

  At last she was greeted by the glass-smeared appearance and mechanically amplified voice of a young teller. Around the window trailed a selection of last year’s recycled Christmas decorations.

  ‘My name is Isadora Dean. I’ve come to collect a replacement credit card.’

  The young girl rifled through a small plastic box of index cards, extracted one, read it, looked again at Isadora and without a word vanished into one of the farther reaches of the banking hall. She returned a few moments later with a man, older, bespectacled, moist and fleshy lips, whose narrow frame was lost within the shapeless folds of his off-the-peg suit. In his hand he held a sheaf of papers and a bright new credit card.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he greeted, a puckered smile lurking beneath a tired moustache. ‘The lady with the delightful young child. Mrs …??
??

  ‘Dean. Isadora Dean.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ he repeated, scanning the papers. Then a frown. ‘I beg your pardon, there appears to have been some confusion. My instructions are for a Miss Isadora Dean.’

  ‘That’s me. I use my unmarried name.’

  ‘I see.’ The banker’s lips pursed slightly, disapproving. ‘Well, everything appears to be here, Miss Dean. I need you to fill out a few details, obtain a signature from you. And, of course, some proof of identity.’

  She pushed Pomfritt’s eagle-crested letter beneath the glass, which he took and studied intently.

  ‘Do you have a passport, Miss Dean? A driving licence, perhaps?’

  She explained the circumstances.

  ‘I see.’ The lips were pursing again, as though he were kissing a mirror. Then it was his turn to disappear. She could hear the sighs of impatience grew in the line of customers behind her; the English unable to take their own medicine, she reflected.

  After some appreciable delay the banker returned, accompanied by another man. Older still, fuller bodied, lips like a crack in china glaze, another off-the-peg suit but better fitting and in pinstripe with the additional embellishment of a waistcoat.

  ‘What appears to be the problem, Miss Dean?’ the Big Banker enquired.

  ‘No problem. I’m here to pick up my new credit card.’

  ‘But as I understand it from our Mr Wheelright, you haven’t brought any means of identification.’

  ‘I have a letter from the American Embassy.’

  ‘But no proof of identity.’

  ‘The letter asks that you should telephone the Embassy if there are any queries. Mr Pomfritt.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, madam, but we aren’t allowed to accept telephone verification of identity.’

  ‘It’s the American Embassy, for goodness sake.’

  ‘Particularly in the case of foreign identity.’

  He made it sound like a disease; the shuffling behind was growing more intense.

  ‘What’s your problem? The credit card company seems sufficiently satisfied to have sent you a new card for me.’