“Rita’s asked me for supper,” Adam said.
♦
Rita had made a lasagne with a big bowl of salad to go with it and cheese and grapes to follow. The initial concern that she had shown over her father’s injury had been almost immediately dispelled by his obvious euphoria. Adam met her brother, Ernesto, for the first time, when he arrived ten minutes after he and Jeff had boarded the Bellerophon.
“What have you done to him?” Rita asked Adam. “I’ve never seen him so happy.”
“Re-birthing, I think it’s called,” Adam said. “The old sixties radical is living again. He was great, by the way. He might even be in the papers tomorrow.”
They were talking in the Bellerophon’s galley — she was checking on the lasagne — and he reached for her and they kissed.
“What’s this really about, Primo?” she said. “Why are you asking my dad to attack a drug company?”
“Not attack — just raise an awkward question…It was something I discovered — at the hospital,” he said, trying not to lie too much. “Something’s wrong. And I thought: why should they get away with it?…But don’t worry, Jeffs done his bit, his moment of glory come and gone. Now it’s in the public domain.”
“Why didn’t you ask the question?”
Good question, Adam thought. “Because of my job,” he said, improvising, “I don’t want to lose it. Conflict of interests. Calenture-Deutz have pumped a lot of money into St Bot’s.”
“Yeah?…” She looked sceptically at him. “I never quite saw you as a dedicated do-gooder.”
“We should all be dedicated do-gooders, shouldn’t we?” he said, a little defensively. “In fact, isn’t that your job description?”
“Touche,” she said. She shooed Adam out of the galley.
In the sitting room he spoke to Ernesto about his forthcoming trip to Dubai.
“Forty per cent of the world’s tower cranes are in Dubai at the moment,” Ernesto said. “It’s a tower-crane Klondike. I’d be a fool to miss out — I can quadruple my salary.”
Jeff came down the steep stairs from the deck bringing with him the exotic whiff of weed. He had a can of Speyhawk lager in his hand.
“Prirno,” he said, swaying slightly, though the boat was perfectly still. “Do you know why I called this ship the Bellerophon.”
“No idea.”
“Because Bellerophon slew the monster Chimera. A fire-breathing monster, half lion, half goat — if my classical mythology serves me well.” He took a swig from his can.
“Good name.”
“And today we slew the modern Chimera.”
“Slew might be a bit strong. Inflicted wounds with a bit of luck. Thanks to you.”
Jeff brandished a clenched fist above his head. “ Vinceremos!” he shouted at the top of his voice.
“Hello?” Rita appeared with the steaming tray of lasagne in her hands. “Dinner is served, you guys.”
♦
Adam ate the lasagne and salad and drank too much red wine — to such an extent that he experienced a form of benign sensory deprivation. As Jeff and Ernesto argued about the moral consequences of, and the moral opprobrium attendant on, accepting work in a dynastic dictatorship such as Dubai — and Rita tried vaguely to keep the peace — their voices seemed to dim and muffle and Adam contented himself with watching Rita pouring wine and serving second helpings as if she were in some kind of aural bubble that only he was privileged to access. He looked entranced at her strong features and the way she peremptorily hooked falling locks of hair behind her ears, took in her lissom grace and ease as she hefted plates and bowls about the table — silencing her father with a palm across his mouth as he became too abusive — and he felt that familiar bowel-melting sensation in his innards, that abrogation of intellect in favour of emotion.
But his mildly inebriated, self-indulgent love-fest was spoilt by a small, insistent, keening voice at the back of his mind, like the buzzing of a fly or the thin siren-whine of a mosquito. Everything might have gone well today but there was still another problem: what was he going to do about Vincent Turpin?
56
THE LEAVES ON THE PLANTS SEEMED SO GREEN AND SHINY THAT THEY looked as if they’d been cut from very fine tin or PVC, Jonjo thought, and then re-touched with glossy enamel paint. He gazed around the Risk Averse Group’s lobby — there seemed to be even more plants in pots than the last time he’d been here. They must have someone come in and dust and wash the leaves, they were so healthy and lush they looked artificial, he thought, which rather defeated the point of having them growing in the place, absorbing the lobby’s CO2 and exuding oxygen, or whatever it was that plants did — photo-something…
Jonjo’s mind was wandering in this way because he was bored, tired of waiting. He looked at his watch — close to forty minutes now. This wasn’t on, out of order — they’d asked him to come in for this meeting with Major Tim Delaporte himself, for god’s sweet sake. He stood up and approached the blonde girl at the reception desk.
“Major Delaporte will be five minutes,” she said before he could utter a word. “He’s on a conference call — he apologises.”
“Oh, right — no worries.”
“Can I get you anything? Water? Soda? Cappuccino?”
“Cup of tea, please,”Jonjo said. “Milk and two sugars, thanks.” In fact it turned out that Major Tim was closer to twenty minutes finishing his conference call. The tea had been consumed as had the chocolate biscuit provided with it. Jonjo was about to say he couldn’t wait any longer when he was summoned by a secretary and led down a long curved corridor to Major Tim’s office.
He was still on the phone and he waved Jonjo to a seat. Jonjo examined his ten fingernails in close detail as Major Tim finished his call — it sounded as though he was talking to his wife about who was coming round for supper. Bloody hell, Jonjo thought.
“Jonjo,” Major Tim reached across the desk to shake hands. “Sorry to keep you — crazy morning. How’re things?”
Jonjo said things were fine and he was glad of this opportunity to talk directly with Major Tim as he’d changed his mind about Iraq and Afghanistan, and indeed all other Arab countries, come to that. He was ready to go, more than happy to—
The Major held up his hand and Jonjo stopped talking.
“People like you made the Risk Averse Group what it is,” Major Tim said, solemnly, with feeling. “We couldn’t have built up to the size we are today, couldn’t have such a presence worldwide, such a reputation, without men of your calibre and quality.”
“You’re the best officer I’ve ever served under, sir. No two ways about it.” They always liked hearing that, the officers did.
“Which makes it all the harder for me to have to tell you that we’re letting you go.”
“Sorry?”
“You’re off operations, Jonjo. We’re overwhelmed with young soldiers in their twenties — god knows who’s out there fighting for us — so here at RAG we’re reconfiguring our personnel. You know the army way, Jonjo: first in, first out, I’m afraid.”
He stood up. Jonjo noticed the darkness of his suit, a navy-blue so intense it might have been black, the cinched tightness of the waist of the jacket, the white shirt setting off the apricot blush of his silk tie.
“I wanted to let you know personally, man to man, not in some ghastly formal letter. I wanted to thank you as a fellow soldier. You’ve done us proud, Jonjo, and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s been mutually beneficial.”