The Constant Gardener

"Why are you doing this to me? I've a right to know! I'm Sir fucking Kenneth Curtiss! I have subscribed — last year alone — half a fucking million quid to party funds. I have provided you — British fucking Intelligence — with nuggets of pure gold. I have performed, voluntarily, certain services for you of a very, very tricky sort — I have — "

"Kenny," Donohue interrupted quietly. "Shut up. Not in front of the servants, OK? Now listen to me. Why should we have the slightest interest in encouraging Justin Quayle to shaft you? Why should my Service — stretched to its limits and under heavy fire in Whitehall as usual — why should we want to shoot ourselves in the foot by sabotaging a valuable asset like Kenny K?"

"Because you've sabotaged every other fucking thing in my life, that's why! Because you've had the City banks call me in! Ten thousand British jobs are at risk, but who gives a fuck when we're putting the boot into Kenny K? Because you've warned your political friends to wash their hands of me before I go down the tube. Haven't you? Haven't you? I said haven't you?"

Donohue was busily separating the information from the question. The City banks have called him in? Does London know? And if they do, why in God's name didn't Roger warn me?

"I'm sorry to hear that, Kenny. When did the banks do that?"

"What the fuck does it matter when? Today. This afternoon. By phone and fax. The phone to tell me, the fax in case I forgot, hard copy to follow in case I didn't read the fucking fax."

Then London does know, thought Donohue. But if they know, why did they leave me dangling? Resolve later. "Did the banks offer any reason for their decision, Kenny?" he asked solicitously.

"Their grave ethical concern about certain trade practices is uppermost in their minds. What fucking practices? What fucking ethics? Their idea of ethics is a small county east of London. Loss of market confidence is also said to be a worry. Who the fuck caused that then? They did! Unsettling rumors is another. Screw them. I've been there before."

"And your political friends — who are washing their hands of you — the ones we didn't warn?"

"Phone call from a flunky at Number Ten with a potato up his arse. Speaking on behalf of, et cetera. They're eternally grateful et cetera, but in the present climate of having to be holier than the Pope they're sending back my very generous contributions to party funds, and where should they send them, please, because the sooner my money is off their fucking books the happier they'll be and can we all pretend it never happened? Know where he is now? Where he was two nights ago, getting his end off?"

It took Donohue a blink and a shake to realize that Curtiss was talking not about the incumbent of 10 Downing Street anymore, but Justin Quayle.

"Canada. Fucking Saskatchewan," Curtiss snorted, in reply to his own question.

"Freezing his arse off, I hope."

"Doing what?" Donohue asked, mystified not so much by the notion of Justin in Canada as by the ease with which Curtiss was able to follow him there.

"Some university. There's a woman there. A fucking scientist. She's taken it into her head to go round telling everybody the drug's a killer in violation of her contract. Quayle shacked up with her. A month after his wife's death." His voice rose, threatening another storm-force gale. "He's got a phony passport, for fuck's sake! Who gave it to him? You did. He pays cash. Who sends it to him? You buggers do. He slips through their net like a fucking eel every time. Who taught him to do that? You lot!"

"No, Kenny. We didn't. None of it." Their net, he thought. Not yours.

Curtiss was pumping himself up for another scream. Now it came. "Then what, if you'd be so kind as to inform me, is Mr. Porter fucking Coleridge doing, lodging inaccurate and defamatory information with the Cabinet Office regarding my company and my drug, what the fuck is he doing threatening to go to fucking Fleet Street if he isn't promised a full impartial inquiry by our lords and masters in the Brussels loony bin? And why the fuck do the wankers in your shop let him do it — or more like it, encourage the bastard?"

And how did you get to know about that? Donohue was marveling silently. How in heaven's name did even a man as resourceful and duplicitous as Curtiss manage to get his hairy paws on a piece of top-secret encrypted information just eight hours after it had been sent personally to Donohue over the Service link? And having asked himself this question Donohue, craftsman of his trade, set about obtaining the answer to it. He smiled his jolly smile, but a really pleased one this time, reflecting his honest pleasure that a few things in this world are still decently done among friends.