Very trying, this will-they-won't-they standoff, if he was honest. Probably what's getting her down. There's the High Commissioner's residence a hundred yards up the road, staffed and ready to go, Daimler in the garage, but no flag flying. There's Porter Coleridge, our absentee High Commissioner. And there's little me here doing Coleridge's job for him, rather better than Coleridge has been doing it, waiting night and day to hear whether, having stepped into his shoes, I can wear them not as his stand-in but as his official, formal, fully accredited successor, with trappings to match — to wit, the residence, the Daimler, the private office, Mildren, another thirty-five thousand pounds' worth of allowances and several notches nearer to a knighthood.
But there was a major snag. The Office was traditionally reluctant to promote a man en poste. They preferred to bring him home, pack him off somewhere new. There'd been exceptions, of course, but not many…
His thoughts drifted back to Gloria. Lady Woodrow: that'll sort her out. Restless, that's what she is. Not to say idle. I should have given her a couple more kids to keep her busy. Well, she won't be idle if she's installed in the residence, that's for sure. One free night a week, if she's lucky. Quarrelsome too. Flaming row with Juma last week about some totally trivial thing like tarting up the lower ground. And on Monday, though he never dreamed he'd live to see the day, she'd engineered some kind of bust-up with the Archbitch Elena, casus belli unknown.
"Isn't it about time we had the Els to dinner, darling?" he'd suggested chivalrously. "We haven't pushed the boat out for the Els for months."
"If you want them, ask them," Gloria had advised icily, so he hadn't.
But he felt the loss. Gloria without a woman friend was an engine without cogs. The fact — the extraordinary fact — that she'd formed some kind of armed truce with doe-eyed Ghita Pearson consoled him not at all. Only a couple of months ago Gloria was dismissing Ghita as neither one thing nor the other. "I can't be doing with English-educated Brahmins' daughters who talk like us and dress like dervishes," she'd told Elena in Woodrow's hearing. "And that Quayle girl is exerting a bad influence on her." Well, now the Quayle girl was dead and Elena had been sent to Coventry. And Ghita who dressed like a dervish had been signed up to take Gloria on a conducted tour of Kibera slum with the advertised intention of finding her voluntary work with one of the aid agencies. And this, moreover, at the very time when Ghita's own behavior was causing Woodrow serious concern.
First there had been her display at the funeral. Well, there was no rule book on how to behave at funerals, it was true. Nevertheless, Woodrow considered her performance self-indulgent. Then there was what he would call a period of aggressive mourning, during which she wandered round Chancery like a zombie, refusing point-blank to make eye contact with him, whereas in the past he had regarded her as — well, a candidate, let's say. Then last Friday, without giving the smallest explanation, she'd asked for the day off, although, as a brand-new member of Chancery — and the most junior — she had not yet technically earned her entitlement. Yet out of the goodness of his heart he had said, "Well, fine, Ghita, all right, I suppose so, but don't wear him out" — nothing abusive, just an innocent joke between an older married man and a pretty young girl. But if looks could kill, he'd have been dead at her feet.
And what had she done with the time he'd given her — without so much as a by-your-leave? Flown up to Lake bloody Turkana in a chartered plane with a dozen other female members of the self-constituted Tessa Quayle supporters' club, and laid a wreath, and banged drums and sung hymns, at the spot where Tessa and Noah had been murdered! The first that Woodrow knew of this was breakfast on the Monday when he opened his Nairobi Standard and saw her photograph, posed center stage between two enormous African women he vaguely remembered from the funeral.
"Well, Ghita Pearson, get you, I must say," he had snorted, shoving the paper across the table at Gloria. "I mean, for God's sake, it's time to bury the dead, not dig them up every ten minutes. I always thought she was carrying a torch for Justin."
"If we hadn't had the Italian Ambassador I'd have flown up there with them," Gloria replied, in a voice dripping with reproach.
The bedroom light was out. Gloria was pretending to be asleep.
* * *
"So shall we all sit down, please, ladies and gents?"
A power drill was whining from the floor above. Woodrow dispatched Mildren to silence it while he ostentatiously busied himself with papers on his desk. The whining stopped. Taking his time, Woodrow looked up again to find everybody gathered before him, including a breathless Mildren. Exceptionally, Tim Donohue and his assistant Sheila had been asked to put in an appearance. With no High Commissioner's meetings to rally the full complement of diplomatic staff, Woodrow was insisting on a full turnout. Hence also the Defense and Service Attaches and Barney Long from Commercial Section. And poor Sally Aitken, complete with stammer and blushes, on secondment from the Min of Ag and Fish. Ghita, he noticed, was in her usual corner where, since Tessa's death, she had done her best to make herself invisible. To his irritation she still sported the black silk scarf round her neck that recalled the soiled bandage around Tessa's. were her oblique glances flirtatious or disdainful? With Eurasian beauties, how did you tell?
"Bit of a sad story, I'm afraid, guys," he began breezily. "Barney, would you mind getting the door, as we say in America? Don't bring it to me, just locking it will do."
Laughter — but of the apprehensive sort.
He went straight into it, exactly as he had planned. Bull-by-the-horns stuff — we're all professionals — necessary surgery. But also something tacitly courageous in your acting High Commissioner's bearing as he first scans his notes, then taps the blunt end of his pencil on them and braces his shoulders before addressing the parade.
"There are two things I have to tell you this morning. The first is embargoed till you hear it on the news, British or Kenyan, whoever breaks it first. At twelve hundred hours today the Kenyan police will issue a warrant for the arrest of Dr. Arnold Bluhm for the willful murder of Tessa Quayle and the driver Noah. The Kenyans have been in touch with the Belgian government and Bluhm's employers will be informed in advance. We're ahead of the game because of the involvement of Scotland Yard, who will be passing their file to Interpol."
Scarcely a chair creaks after the explosion. No protest, no gasp of astonishment. Just Ghita's enigmatic eyes fixed on him at last, admiring or hating him.
"I know this'll be a hell of a shock to you all, particularly those of you who knew Arnold and liked him. If you want to tip off your partners, you have my permission to do so at your discretion." Quick flash of Gloria, who until Tessa's death had dismissed Bluhm as a jumped-up gigolo but was now mysteriously concerned for his well-being. "I can't pretend I'm delighted myself," Woodrow confessed, becoming the tight-lipped master of understatement. "There'll be the usual facile press explanations of motive, of course. The Tessa-Bluhm relationship will be raked over ad infinitum. And if they ever catch him, there'll be a noisy trial. So from the point of view of this Mission the news could hardly be worse. I've no information at this stage regarding the strength of the evidence. I'm told it's cast iron, but they would say that, wouldn't they?" The same hint of grit inside the humor. "Questions?"