The Constant Gardener

Of Porter Coleridge's abrupt disappearance into the catacombs of official Whitehall, little was said but much implied. Woodrow's predecessor had been "out of touch with modern Kenya." He had "antagonized hardworking ministers with his sermons on corruption." There was even a suggestion, cleverly not enlarged upon, that he might have fallen foul of the vice he so condemned.

Rumors that Coleridge had been "hauled before a Whitehall disciplinary committee" and invited to explain "certain embarrassing matters that had arisen during his stewardship" were dismissed as idle speculation but not denied by the High Commission spokesman who had initiated them. "Porter was a fine scholar and a man of the highest principle. It would be unjust to deny his many virtues," Mildren informed reliable journalists in an off-the-record obituary, and they duly read between the lines.

"FO Africa Tsar Sir Bernard Pellegrin," an uninterested public learned, had "sought early retirement in order to take up a senior managerial post with the multinational pharmaceutical giant Karel Vita Hudson of Basel, Vancouver, Seattle and now of London" where, thanks to Pellegrin's "fabled skills at networking," he would be at his most effective. A farewell banquet in the Pellegrins' honor was attended by a glittering assembly of Africa's High Commissioners to the Court of St. James and their wives. A witty speech by the South African delegate observed that Sir Bernard and his Lady might not have won Wimbledon, but they had surely won the hearts of many Africans.

A spectacular rise from the ashes by "that latter-day Houdini of the City" Sir Kenneth Curtiss was welcomed by friend and foe alike. Only a minority of Cassandras insisted that Kenny's rise was purely optical and the breakup of House of ThreeBees nothing less than an act of daylight sandbagging. These carping voices did not impede the great populist's elevation to the House of Lords where he insisted upon the title of Lord Curtiss of Nairobi and Spennymoor, the latter being his humble place of birth. Even his many critics in Fleet Street had to concede, if wryly, that ermine became the old devil.

The Evening Standard's "Londoner's Diary" made amusing weather of the long-awaited retirement of that incorruptible old crime stopper Superintendent Frank Gridley of Scotland Yard, "known affectionately to the London underworld as Old Gridiron." In reality, retirement was the last thing that lay in store for him. One of Britain's leading security companies was poised to snap him up just as soon as he had taken his wife on a long-promised holiday on the island of Majorca.

The departure of Rob and Lesley from the police service received by contrast no publicity at all, though insiders noted that one of Gridley's last acts before leaving the Yard had been to press for the removal of what he termed "a new breed of unscrupulous careerists" who were giving the force a bad name.

Ghita Pearson, another would-be careerist, was not successful in her application for acceptance as an established British foreign servant. Although her examination results were good to excellent, confidential reports from the Nairobi High Commission gave cause for concern. Ruling that she was "too easily swayed by her personal feelings," Personnel Department advised her to wait a couple of years and reapply. Her mixed race, it was emphasized, was not a factor.

No question mark at all, however, hung over the unhappy passing of Justin Quayle. Deranged by despair and grief, he had taken his own life at the very spot where his wife Tessa had been murdered only weeks before. His swift loss of mental balance had been an open secret among those entrusted with his welfare. His employers in London had gone to every length short of locking him up in an effort to save him from himself. The news that his trusted friend Arnold Bluhm was also his wife's murderer had dealt the final blow. Traces of systematic beating around his abdomen and lower body told their own sad story to the tightly knit group of insiders who were privy to the secret: in the days leading up to his death, Quayle had resorted to self-flagellation. How he had come by the fatal weapon — an assassin's short-barreled.38 pistol in excellent condition with five soft-nosed bullets remaining in the chamber — was a mystery unlikely to be resolved. A rich and desperate man bent upon his own destruction is sure to find a way. His final resting place in Langata cemetery, the press noted with approval, had reunited him with his wife and child.