The Constant Gardener

"It's a watchdog outfit," Rob informed him shortly. "Its physicians tour the other NGO'S, visit clinics, check out diagnoses and correct them. Like, "Maybe this isn't malaria, doctor, maybe it's liver cancer." Then they check out the treatment. They also deal in epidemiology. What about Leakey?"

"What about him?"

"Bluhm and Tessa were on their way to his site — correct?"

"Purportedly."

"Who is he exactly? Leakey? What's his bag?"

"He's by way of being a white African legend. An anthropologist and archaeologist who worked alongside his parents on the eastern shores of Turkana exploring the origins of mankind. When they died he continued their work. He directed the National Museum here in Nairobi and later took over wildlife and conservation."

"But resigned."

"Or was pushed. The story is complex."

"Plus he's a thorn in Moi's breeches, right?"

"He opposed Moi politically and was badly beaten up for his pains. He is now undergoing some kind of resurrection as the scourge of Kenyan corruption. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are effectively demanding his presence in the government." As Rob sat back and Lesley took her turn, it was clear that the distinction Rob had applied to the Quayles also defined the police officers' separate styles. Rob spoke in jerks, with the thickness of a man fighting to hold back his emotions. Lesley was the model of dispassion.

"So what sort of man is this Justin?" she mused, observing him as a distant character in history. "Away from his place of work and this committee of his? What are his interests, appetites, what's his lifestyle, who is he?"

"Oh my God, who are any of us?" Woodrow declaimed, perhaps a little too theatrically, at which Rob again rattled his pencil against his teeth and Lesley smiled patiently; and Woodrow, with charming reluctance, recited a checklist of Justin's meager attributes: a keen gardener — though, come to think of it, not so keen since Tessa lost her baby-loves nothing better than toiling in the flower beds on a Saturday afternoon — a gentleman, whatever that means — the right sort of Etonian-courteous to a fault in his dealings with locally employed staff, of course — kind of chap who can be relied on to dance with the wallflowers at the High Commissioner's annual bash — bit of an old bachelor in ways Woodrow couldn't immediately call to mind — not a golfer or a tennis player to his knowledge, not a shooter or a fisher, not an outdoor man at all, apart from his gardening. And of course, a first-rate, meat-and-potatoes professional diplomat — bags of field experience, two or three languages, safe pair of hands, totally loyal to London guidance. And — here's the cruel bit, Rob-by no fault of his own, caught in the promotion bulge.

"And he doesn't keep low company or anything?" Lesley asked, consulting her notebook. "You wouldn't see him whooping it up in the shady nightclubs while Tessa was out on her field trips?" The question was already a bit of a joke. "That wouldn't be his thing, I take it?"

"Nightclubs? Justin? What a wonderful thought! Annabel's maybe, twenty-five years ago. Whatever gave you that idea?" Woodrow exclaimed with a heartier laugh than he had had for days.

Rob was happy to enlighten him. "Our Super, actually. Mr. Gridley, he did a spell in Nairobi on liaison. He says the nightclubs are where you'd hire a hit man if you had a mind to. There's one on River Road, a block away from the New Stanley, which is handy if you're staying there. Five hundred U.S. and they'll whack out anyone you want. Half down, half afterward. Less in some clubs, according to him, but then you don't get the quality."

"Did Justin love Tessa?" Lesley asked, while Woodrow was still smiling.

In the relaxed spirit that was growing up between them, Woodrow threw up his arms and offered a muted cry to heaven. "Oh my God! Who loves whom in this world and why?" And when Lesley did not immediately relieve him of the question: "She was beautiful. Witty. Young. He was forty-something when he met her. Menopausal, heading for injury time, lonely, infatuated, wanting to settle down. Love? That's your call, not mine."

But if this was an invitation to Lesley to chime in with her own opinions, she ignored it. She appeared, like Rob beside her, more interested in the subtle transfiguration of Woodrow's features; in the tightening of the skin lines in the upper cheeks, the faint blotches of color that had appeared at the neck; in the tiny, involuntary puckerings of the lower jaw.

"And Justin wasn't angry with her — like about her aid work for instance?" Rob suggested.

"Why should he be?"

"It didn't get up his nose when she banged on about how certain Western companies, British included, were ripping off the Africans-overcharging them for technical services, dumping overpriced out-of-date medicines on them? Using Africans as human guinea pigs to try out new drugs, which is sometimes implied if seldom proved, so to speak?"