The Constant Gardener

Justin took a step away from the door, checked himself and resumed his self-imposed distance. "There was clinical evidence too, presumably."

"There was what?"

"I am asking you about the clinical evidence contained in the memorandum written by Arnold Bluhm and Tessa Quayle and destroyed at Bernard Pellegrin's request by YOU! A copy of which was nonetheless submitted by Bernard Pellegrin to KVH who trashed it over lunch!"

The echo of this blast resounded in the glass shelves. Woodrow waited for it to subside.

"The clinical evidence was Bluhm's department. It was in the annex. She'd put it in a separate annex. Took a leaf from your book. You're an annex man. were once. So was she."

"Clinical evidence saying what?"

"Case histories. Thirty-seven of them. Chapter and verse. Names, addresses, treatment, place and date of burial. Same symptoms every time. Sleepiness, blindness, bleeding, liver collapse, bingo."

"Bingo meaning death?"

"In a way. Put like that. I suppose so. Yes."

"And KVH disputed this evidence?"

"Unscientific, inductive, biased, tendentious… emotionalized. That was one I hadn't heard before. Emotionalized. Means you care too much to be trusted, I suppose. I'm the other way round. De-emotionalized. Un-emotionalized. Emotioned out. Less you feel, louder you yell. Bigger the vacuum you've got to fill. Not you. Me."

"Who's Lorbeer?"

"Her bete noire."

"Why?"

"Driving force behind the drug. Its champion. Talked KVH into developing it, took the gospel to ThreeBees. Megashit, in her book."

"Does she say Lorbeer betrayed her?"

"Why should she? We all betrayed her." He was weeping uncontrollably. "How about you, sitting on your arse and growing flowers while she was out there being a saint?"

"Where's Lorbeer now?"

"Not the faintest. Nobody has. Saw which way the wind was blowing and did a duck dive. ThreeBees looked for him for a while, then got bored. Tessa and Bluhm took up the hunt. Get Lorbeer for chief witness. Find Lorbeer."

"Emrich?"

"One of the drug's inventors. She came out here once. Tried to blow the whistle on KVH. They headed her off at the pass."

"Kovacs?"

"Third member of the gang. Wholly owned asset of KVH. Tart, apparently. Never met her. I saw Lorbeer once, I think. Big fat Boer. Bubbly eyed. Red hair."

He leaped round in terror. Justin was standing at his shoulder. He had laid a piece of paper on the blotter and was offering Woodrow a ballpoint pen, the cap toward him, the way polite people pass things to each other.

"It's a travel authorization," Justin explained. "One of yours." He read the text aloud for Woodrow's benefit. ""Traveler is a British subject acting under the auspices of the U.K. High Commission Nairobi." Sign it."

Woodrow squinted at it, holding it to the candle. "Peter Paul Atkinson. Who the hell's he?"

"What the form says. A British journalist. Writes for the Telegraph. If anyone calls the High Commission to check on him, he's a bona fide journalist in good standing. Will you remember that?"

"What the hell's he want to go to Loki for? Arsehole of the world. Ghita went up there. Supposed to have a photo on it, isn't it?"

"It will have." Woodrow signed it, Justin folded it, put it in his pocket and returned stiffly to the door. A row of Taiwanese cuckoo clocks announced that it was one o'clock in the morning.

* * *

Mustafa was waiting at the curbside with his torch as Justin drew up in Ghita's little car. He must have been listening for its engine. Woodrow, unaware that he had been returned to his own house, sat staring through the windscreen with his hands clasped on his lap while Justin leaned across him and spoke to Mustafa through the open passenger window. He spoke English, laced with the few words of kitchen kiSwahili that he knew.

"Mr. Woodrow is not well, Mustafa. You brought him into the fresh air to be sick. He should go to his bedroom, please, and lie down until Mrs. Woodrow can look after him. Kindly tell Miss Ghita that I'm about to leave."

Woodrow started to climb out, then turned to Justin. "You won't be bubbling this stuff to Gloria, old boy, will you? Nothing to be gained, now you've heard it all. She hasn't got our sophistication, you see. Old colleagues and so on. Will you?"