‘White!’ snapped Robin now. ‘It’s most specific! That’s why I had the laundry press it, starch it and lay it out for you.’
‘Bloody hell!’ said Richard glumly, stepping into his underwear. ‘It’s just as well you brought the monkey suit with the rest of the clobber in the jet.’
‘Stop complaining and get a move on,’ called Robin. ‘You’re already well behind schedule, what with your hare-brained airport adventure! From the sound of things it’s a providence that Colonel Kebila rescued you and got you here so fast. We certainly don’t want to be late, even if we do only have to take the lift down to the ballroom. And don’t you dare call it a monkey suit outside these four walls.’
‘Penguin suit then,’ allowed Richard. ‘Penguins shouldn’t offend any sensibilities. But still and all,’ he added, sotto voce, ‘white tie!’ He sighed, picking up the starched icy white cotton of his evening shirt and reaching for his white pearl studs. ‘And as it turns out, the scheme at the airport was not hare-brained,’ he called more loudly as he crossed to the mirror and started wrestling his wing collar into place. ‘I learned a hell of a lot that will stand us in good stead when push comes to shove. And I suspect that it was by no means providential that Kebila showed up. I just can’t work out what his game is, that’s all. Nor what Julius Chaka’s game is come to that! White tie and tails! I’ll look like Fred Astaire! What is our beloved president up to?’
By the time Robin swept out in her basque and suspenders, her golden curls coiffed, her grey eyes exquisitely mascaraed, the rest of her gamin face most carefully made up, slim neck and fingers bejewelled, curvaceous body perfumed and ready to assume the exclusive creation in turquoise silk and sequins that had played Ginger Rogers to Richard’s Fred Astaire outfit on the bed. He had his white braces adjusted, his turn-ups sitting squarely on his patent dancing shoes, his white tie hanging round his wing collar and his white waistcoat ready to be buttoned.
‘“I just got an invitation through the mails”’ he sang as he helped Robin step into the dress and then began to settle it into place. ‘“Your presence requested this evening, it’s formal, a top hat, a white tie and tails.”’
‘Very funny,’ she said as he pulled ribbons into place between her broad shoulders and her slim waist. ‘I’d like to know what you’re up to, sailor. I never quite trust you when you start singing apropos of nothing. No, don’t tighten those too much, or I’ll burst out of the top like a couple of balloons.’
‘Hmm,’ he answered. ‘Maybe we’ll try that later. You know what the sight of you in all those white frilly underthings does to me.’
‘Do I ever!’ she answered throatily. ‘Down boy! For the moment at least. And zip me up at the side here!’
Richard obliged, then crossed to the mirror, picking up his tailcoat, and sang the next section of the song in a baritone more reminiscent of Frank Sinatra than Fred Astaire as he did what it said in the words: tying up his white tie, duding up his shirt front, putting in his shirt studs and brushing off his tails. But his eyes were narrow, and Robin, looking at his reflection, knew that the song was a cover for some very rapid thinking indeed.
Richard and Robin stepped out of the Nelson Mandela Suite at exactly the moment that Max Asov and his current partner stepped out of their suite and the couple from the IMF stepped out of theirs. ‘Madame Lagrande,’ said Richard, at his most suave, greeting the chic, petite economist with the suggestion of a bow — and a quick smile to her gangly, bespectacled husband. ‘A pleasure to meet you again. Professor Lagrande. You remember Madame Mariner, of course. Have you met Monsieur Asov, Managing Director of Bashnev Power and the Sevmash Shipping Consortium, and his partner Mademoiselle Irina Lavrov?’ Max looked very much the intellectual, with a whisper of the young Trotsky and more than a suggestion of Che Guevara. Everyone was likely to know Irina — to some extent at least. Her kick-ass blockbuster films routinely topped the box office listings if not the Oscar nominations.
Richard was relieved to see that both Max and Professor Lagrande were also in white tie. Max, surprisingly, looking urbane and at ease; almost as much the intellectual as the pair of topflight economists beside him. Every inch the well-dressed, sophisticated man about town, he even sported a gold watch-chain; an affectation which put to shame Richard’s insistence on staying with his battered but beloved steel-cased Rolex Oyster Perpetual.
‘Of course, Captain Mariner,’ answered Claudette Lagrande smoothly in her impeccable Oxford English. ‘It is very pleasant to see you again. Shall we?’ She gestured towards the lift and the doors opened as though at her command.
They made easy small-talk in the capacious elevator. Professor Lagrande was a fan of Irina’s and he managed to flatter her without being overpowering. Max struck back by turning on the charm and engaging Madame Lagrande in a techno-financial conversation that made Fermat’s last theorem seem positively elementary. ‘So,’ said Robin. ‘The airport. What did you learn?’
‘I don’t think the president has managed to pull things round as well as he seems to think…’ Richard began to explain.
‘But Colonel Kebila pulled your chestnuts out of the fire in the end…’ she repeated as he reached the end of his brief explanation.
‘And gave us a ride to the front door,’ he confirmed. ‘Full military escort.’
‘Hmmm. We?’
‘Ah. Didn’t I mention Dr Holliday of the World Bank?’
‘I see. A doctor. An elderly masculine doctor of economics, I assume? Very much in the mould of Professor Lagrande here?’
‘One out of three isn’t bad…’ he began, a little sheepishly.
The doors hissed open and the six of them stepped out into the cavernous magnificence of the Granville Royal Lodge’s newly completed Gala Ballroom. The ballroom seemed to take up one entire level of the hotel. Richard gazed up genuinely impressed by the scale of the architectural vision and the simple efficiency of the civil engineering. Chandeliers hung in widening circles, the gleams from their lustres glimmering white, yellow and blue, as though they were diamonds of the first water. And the light from candle bulbs reflected equally brightly in glassware and silverware on the tables that encircled the huge, waxed, interior-sprung dance floor that matched a gargantuan porthole in the centre of the ceiling, whose massively toughened glass allowed those in the ballroom to look up into the cool blue water of the illuminated swimming pool which lay, miraculously, immediately above them.
Andre Wanago, the hotel’s urbane manager, greeted the six of them as they stepped out of the lift and escorted them at once to President Chaka who was standing nearby, waiting to greet his guests, flanked by the senior members of his government. Richard scanned the faces of the exclusive group of men, recognizing all of them. The flight down here had not been wasted. The two most important, Minister of State for the Inner Delta and the Minister of State for the Outer Delta, stood at Chaka’s right shoulder. And Colonel Laurent Kebila stood at his left, bringing the reception line to an unexpected end.