The Constant Gardener

"Tessa believed that the irresponsible quest for corporate profit is destroying the globe, and the emerging world in particular. Under the guise of investment, Western capital ruins the native environment and favors the rise of kleptocracies. So ran her argument. It is scarcely a radical one these days. I have heard it widely canvassed in the corridors of the international community. Even in my own committee."

He pauses again while he recalls the unlovely sight of the vastly overweight Kenny K driving off from the first tee of the Muthaiga Club in the company of Tim Donohue, our overaged head spy.

"By the same argument, aid to the Third World is exploitation under another name," he resumes. "The beneficiaries are the countries that supply the money on interest, local African politicians and officials who pocket huge bribes, and the Western contractors and arms suppliers who walk away with huge profits. The victims are the man in the street, the uprooted, the poor and the very poor. And the children who will have no future," he ends, quoting Tessa and remembering Garth.

"Do you believe that?" Lesley asks.

"It's a little late for me to believe anything," Justin replies meekly, and there is a moment's quiet before he adds — less meekly — "Tessa was that rarest thing: a lawyer who believes in justice."

"Why were they heading for Leakey's place?" Lesley demands when she has silently acknowledged this statement.

"Perhaps Arnold had business up there for his NGO. Leakey is not one to disregard the welfare of native Africans."

"Perhaps," Lesley agrees, writing thoughtfully in a green-backed notebook. "Had she met him?"

"I do not believe so."

"Had Arnold?"

"I have no idea. Perhaps you should put the question to Leakey."

"Mr. Leakey never heard of either one of them till he turned on his television set last week," Lesley replies, in a tone of gloom. "Mr. Leakey spends most of his time in Nairobi these days, trying to be Moi's Mr. Clean and having a hard time getting his message over."

Rob glances at Lesley for her approval and receives a veiled nod. He cranes himself forward and gives the tape recorder an aggressive shove in Justin's direction: speak into this thing.

"So what's the white plague then, when it's at home?" he demands, implying by his hectoring tone that Justin is personally responsible for its spread. "The white plague," he repeats, when Justin hesitates. "What is it? Come on."

A stoical immobility has once more settled over Justin's face. His voice retreats into its official shell. Paths of connection are again opening before him, but they are Tessa's and he will walk them alone.

"The white plague was once a popular term for tuberculosis," he pronounces. "Tessa's grandfather died of the disease. As a child she witnessed his death. Tessa possessed a book of the same title." But he didn't add that the book had been lying at her bedside until he had transferred it to the Gladstone bag.

Now it is Lesley's turn to be cautious. "Did she take a special interest in TB for that reason?"

"Special I don't know. As you have just said, her work in the slums gave her an interest in a range of medical matters. Tuberculosis was one of them."

"But if her grandfather died of it, Justin — "

"Tessa particularly disliked the sentimentalism that attaches to the disease in literature," Justin goes on severely, talking across her. "Keats, Stevenson, Coleridge, Thomas Mann — she used to say that people who found TB romantic should have tried sitting at her grandfather's bedside."

Rob again consults Lesley with his eyes, and again receives her silent nod. "So would it surprise you to hear that in the course of an unauthorized search of Arnold Bluhm's apartment we found a copy of an old letter he had sent to the head of ThreeBees' marketing operation, warning him of the side effects of a new shortcourse, antituberculosis drug that ThreeBees are peddling?"

Justin does not hesitate for a second. The perilous line of questioning has reactivated his diplomatic skills. "Why should it surprise me? Bluhm's NGO takes a close professional interest in Third World drugs. Drugs are the scandal of Africa. If any one thing denotes the Western indifference to African suffering, it's the miserable shortage of the right drugs, and the disgracefully high prices that the pharmaceutical firms have been exacting over the last thirty years" — quoting Tessa but without attribution. "I'm sure Arnold has written dozens of such letters."

"This one was hidden away by itself," says Rob. "Rolled up with a lot of technical data that's beyond us."

"Well, let's hope you can ask Arnold to decipher it for you when he comes back," says Justin primly, not bothering to conceal his distaste at the notion that they had been foraging through Bluhm's possessions and reading his correspondence without his knowledge.

Lesley takes over again. "Tessa had a laptop, right?"

"Indeed she did."

"What make?"