The Constant Gardener

"On what the title says," said Woodrow patiently, making allowances for the boy's manners. "It fosters efficacy, or effectiveness, in the aid field. In aid work, effectiveness is pretty much the gold standard. Compassion's a given," he added with a disarming smile that said we were all compassionate people. "EADEC addresses the thorny question of how much of each dollar from each donor nation actually reaches its target, and how much wasteful overlap and unhelpful competition exists between agencies on the ground. It grapples, as we all do, alas, with the aid world's three R's: Reduplication, Rivalry, Rationalization. It balances overheads against productivity and — " the smile of one bestowing wisdom — "makes the odd tentative recommendation, given that — unlike you chaps — it has no executive powers and no powers of enforcement." A gracious tilting of the head announced the little confidence. "I'm not sure it was the greatest idea on earth, between ourselves. But it was the brainchild of our very own dear Foreign Secretary, it sat well with calls for greater transparency and an ethical foreign policy and other questionable nostrums of the day, so we pushed it for all it was worth. There are those who say the U.N. should do the job. Others say the U.N. already does it. Others again say the U.N. is part of the disease. Take your pick." A deprecating shrug invited them to do just that.

"What disease?" said Rob.

"EADEC is not empowered to investigate at field level. Nevertheless, corruption is a major factor that has to be costed in as soon as you start to relate what is spent to what is achieved. Not to be confused with natural wastage and incompetence, but akin to them." He reached for a common man's analogy. "Take our dear old British water grid, built 1890 or thereabouts. Water leaves the reservoir. Some of it, if you're lucky, comes out of your tap. But there are some very leaky pipes along the way. Now when that water is donated out of the goodness of the general public's heart, you can't just let it seep away into nowhere, can you? Certainly not if you're dependent on the fickle voter for your job."

"Who does this committee job bring Justin into contact with?" Rob asked.

"Ranking diplomats. Drawn from the international community here in Nairobi. Mostly counselor and above. The odd First Secretary, but not many." He seemed to think this required some explanation. "EADEC had to be exalted, in my judgment. Head in the clouds. Once it allowed itself to be dragged down to field level, it would end up as some kind of super nongovernmental organization — NGO to you, Rob — and be tarred with its own brush. I argued that strongly. All right: EADEC must be here in Nairobi, on the ground, locally aware. Obviously. But it's still a think tank. It must preserve the dispassionate overview. Absolutely vital that it remains — if you'll allow me to quote myself — an emotion-free zone. And Justin is the committee secretary. Nothing he's earned: it's our turn. He takes the minutes, collates the research and drafts the fortnightlies."

"Tessa wasn't an emotion-free zone," Rob objected after a moment's thought. "Tessa was emotion all the way, from what we hear."

"I'm afraid you've been reading too many newspapers, Rob."

"No, I haven't. I've been looking at her field reports. She was right in there with her sleeves rolled up. Shit up to her elbows, day and night."

"And very necessary, no doubt. Very laudable. But hardly conducive to objectivity, which is the committee's first responsibility as an international consultative body," said Woodrow graciously, ignoring this descent into gutter language, as — at a different level entirely — he ignored it in his High Commissioner.

"So they went their different ways," Rob concluded, sitting back and tapping his teeth with his pencil. "He was objective, she was emotional. He played the safe center, she worked the dangerous edges. I get it now. As a matter of fact, I think I knew that already. So where does Bluhm fit in?"

"In what sense?"

"Bluhm. Arnold Bluhm. Doctor. Where does he fit into the scheme of things in Tessa's life and yours?"

Woodrow gave a little smile, forgiving this quirkish formulation. My life? What did her life have to do with mine? "We have a great variety of donor-financed organizations here, as I'm sure you know. All supported by different countries and funded by all sorts of charitable and other outfits. Our gallant President Moi detests them en bloc."

"Why?"

"Because they do what his government would do if it was doing its job. They also bypass his systems of corruption. Bluhm's organization is modest, it's Belgian, it's privately funded and medical. That's all I can tell you about it, I'm afraid," he added, with a candor that invited them to share his ignorance of these things.

But they were not so easily won.