The Constant Gardener

"Pellegrin, who d'you think? "Burn it, Sandy. Burn all copies." Order from the throne. I'd only kept one. So I burned it. Didn't take long." He sniffed, resisting the urge to weep again. "Good boy, you see. Security conscious. Didn't trust the janitors. Took it down to the boiler room with my own fair hands. Bunged it in the furnace. Well trained. Go to the top of the class."

"Did Porter know you'd done that?"

"Sort of. Half. Didn't like it. Doesn't care for Bernard. Open warfare between them. Open by Office standards, anyway. Porter has a running joke about it. Pellegrin and bear it. Seemed funny enough at the time."

It seemed funny enough now, apparently, for he attempted a harsh laugh, which only ended in more tears.

"Did Pellegrin say why you had to suppress it — burn it? Burn all copies?"

"Christ," Woodrow whispered.

Long silence in which Woodrow appeared to hypnotize himself with the candle.

"What's the matter?" Justin asked.

"Your voice, old boy, that's all. It's grown up." Woodrow passed his hand across his mouth, then studied his fingertips for traces. "You were supposed to have reached your ceiling."

Justin asked the question again, rephrasing it as one might for a foreigner or child. "Did you think to ask Pellegrin why the document had to be destroyed?"

"Two-pronged, according to Bernard. British interests at stake, for openers. Got to protect our own."

"Did you believe him?" Justin asked, and again had to wait while Woodrow stemmed another wave of tears.

"I believed about ThreeBees. 'Course I did. Spearhead of British enterprise in Africa. Jewel in the crown. Curtiss the darling of African leaders, doling out bribes left, right and center, chap's a major national asset. Plus he's in bed with half the British Cabinet, which doesn't do him any harm."

"What was the other prong?"

"KVH. The boys in Basel had been putting out mating signals about opening some vast chemical plant in South Wales. Second one in Cornwall in three years' time. A third in Northern Ireland. Bringing wealth and prosperity to our depressed areas. But if we jumped the gun on Dypraxa, they wouldn't."

"Jumped the gun?"

"The drug was still at the trial stage. Still is, theoretically. If it poisons a few people who were going to die anyway, what's the big deal? Drug wasn't licensed in the U.K. so it wasn't an issue, was it?" His truculence had returned. He was appealing to a fellow professional. "I mean, Christ, Justin. Drugs have got to be tried on somebody, haven't they? I mean, who do you choose, for Christ's sake? Harvard Business School?" Puzzled not to have Justin's endorsement of his neat debating point, he ventured another. "I mean, Jesus. Foreign Office isn't in the business of passing judgment on the safety of nonindigenous drugs, is it? Supposed to be greasing the wheels of British industry, not going round telling everybody that a British company in Africa is poisoning its customers. You know the game. We're not paid to be bleeding hearts. We're not killing people who wouldn't otherwise die. I mean, Christ, look at the death rate in this place. Not that anybody's counting."

Justin took a moment to dwell on these fine arguments. "But you were a bleeding heart, Sandy," he objected finally. "You loved her. Remember? How could you chuck her report into the furnace when you loved her?" His voice seemed unable to prevent itself from gathering power. "How could you lie to her when she trusted you?"

"Bernard said she had to be stopped," Woodrow muttered, after another sliding glance into the shadows to confirm that Justin was still safely at his post before the door.

"Oh, she was stopped all right!"

"For Christ's sake, Quayle," Woodrow whispered. "Not like that. Different people entirely. Not my world. Not yours."

Justin must have alarmed himself with his outburst, for when he spoke again it was in the civilized tone of a disappointed colleague.

"How could you stop her, as you call it, when you adored her so, Sandy? The way you wrote to her, she was your salvation from all this — " He must have forgotten where he was for a moment, for the widespread gesture of his arms embraced not the dismal trappings of Woodrow's imprisonment, but herd upon herd of carved animals, dressed by the right in the darkness of their glass shelves. "She was your escape from everything, your path to happiness and freedom, or so you told her. Why didn't you support her cause?"

"I'm sorry," Woodrow whispered, and lowered his eyes as Justin chose a different question.

"So what were you burning, exactly? Why was the document such a threat to you and Bernard Pellegrin?"

"It was an ultimatum."

"Who to?"

"The British government."

"Tessa was presenting an ultimatum to the British government? Our government?"