Moroccan Traffic: Send a Fax to the Kasbah Read online

  I looked at my mother. Everyone did. She was staring at Johnson: black brows, black eyes, the smoke from the Gauloise screwing her eyes and drifting into the thornbush of her hair. I knew she’d done it. I knew how she’d done it. The shopping bag with the sock in it had been in Oppenheim’s room all the time he was speaking to Mo and me. She had recorded all that happened, including all Sir Robert said, bursting in with the photographs. She had recorded Oppenheim’s surrender, and Morgan’s bitter statement of intent.

  Johnson said, ‘She told you she’d done this?’

  ‘I wonder why she didn’t tell you?’ Morgan said. ‘Yes, she told me before we left Auld’s house. She also gave me the cassette. I still have it.’

  Johnson’s eyes stayed on him. Then they moved to my mother.

  He said, ‘So Pymm’s men wanted you anyway? They wanted the tape?’

  ‘And have I not given it to Mr. Pymm as he wished?’ said my mother. ‘With the warm Texas handshake? Not realising in my state of elderly faff I have handed him the wrong one? There’s always tapes in my shopper; I keep them for Wendy. They’ll be turning my bag over now, and your toe, Mo, I’m sorry. I know the very cassette I gave Mr. Pymm. Overcoming the Anxiety of Change, it was called. He must have played it pretty damn quick.’

  ‘Doris?’ Johnson said. I still couldn’t see his expression under the green. ‘I love you to die. So the real recording is here?’

  ‘But what’s the point? You haven’t a player,’ said Morgan.

  ‘For that, I have,’ Johnson said.

  Morgan smiled. It wasn’t a smile I’d seen before, and I didn’t like it. He said, ‘Well, now. Why don’t you bring it out and we can all hear it?’

  There was a pause, but it didn’t last long. Johnson said, ‘I would gather you’ve played it. All right. So be it. It’s open-kimono time, folks. Rita? There’s a machine somewhere about?’

  Oliver said, ‘There are nine people here.’

  ‘Three more to make a jury,’ Morgan said.

  ‘Six more to make a rugby side. Don’t be a berk,’ Johnson said. ‘A pig-ignorant twit, but not a berk.’

  Morgan’s angry smile only widened. ‘Oh, look. We’ve sobered you,’ he said. ‘What a pity.’

  ‘Adds to the thrills,’ Johnson said. ‘Lenny? I need fifteen minutes.’

  Fifteen minutes proved to be the same amount of whisky with as much water again. Then the tape machine was brought in, and the tape from Auld’s party was played.

  Only Oppenheim, Morgan and I knew the conversation it began with, and the same three people and Sir Robert knew how that interview ended. The photographs were produced; Sir Robert strode out, and Morgan and I spoke, and then left the room also. The tape ran silent, and Johnson touched it off. He said, ‘Wendy. Did you see the pictures of Muriel?’

  I said, ‘We saw the sunbathing ones on your yacht.’

  ‘But the others?’ he said. ‘The ones that shook Oppenheim so badly?’ He looked directly at me and not at Morgan, whose face had produced one of his small split-pea smiles.

  I said, ‘No. Were you in them?’

  ‘No, as it happens,’ Johnson said. ‘Not even Muriel was in them, I rather fancy. I don’t especially want to explain, but I rather suspect that I’ll have to. Yes, Mo?’

  The split-pea smile widened. ‘You haven’t finished the tape,’ Morgan said.

  ‘I was sure you would remind me,’ said Johnson. He looked down at the tape. Something about him reminded me of Rita in the car coming from Asni, and her hesitation before she switched on. He looked at Lady Kingsley, and at me and my mother. He said, ‘After Wendy left, Oppenheim had another visitor. The meeting was secret, and of course no one was aware it was being recorded. I don’t suppose even Mrs. Helmann knew, when she took out the tape, that she had two meetings on it, not one. The mercy is that she gave the tape to Morgan and not as she promised to Pymm, or the attacks we all suffered tonight would have had a different ending. I’ll play it for you. Then you will have to make up your own minds what to do about it.’

  Wherever a device has been planted, I suppose there is a tape, and a group of people somewhere, hearing it for the first time as we were; with lively curiosity, with a raw excitement quite outside the formal processes of boardrooms. We listened, all nine of us; and I watched Roland Reed watch Johnson, and Oliver look at Rita, and Lenny scowl at them all. Whether or not they had heard the tape, they had an idea what was on it. And we, Charity, Morgan, my mother and I were to be the jury of four.

  Johnson switched on, and we heard the door close behind Morgan and me, and then a long silence filled with the sounds a man makes at his desk, moving papers and writing and opening and shutting drawers. Then there came a tap at the door, and Oppenheim’s voice said, ‘Oh.’ It sounded dull. Then he said, ‘Yes. Well, come in.’

  The door shut. ‘What is it?’ said someone. ‘What happened? There isn’t much time.’

  The voice was Johnson’s own.

  Oppenheim said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you what happened.

  Well, I’ve blown it, if you want the quick news. I had Morgan ready to fall, and Kingsley somehow got news of our meeting. He’s just been here. He said if I didn’t let Morgan alone, he would publish some pictures. I’ve told him I’ll let Morgan alone. End of mission. End of bloody mission.’

  ‘What were the pictures?’ said Johnson. After a while he said, ‘Danny? What were they? I’m accountable. I’ll have to explain this.’

  And Oppenheim said, ‘What do you think? What’s the only thing that would force me into letting everyone down? They were of Muriel. Muriel. My wife. With . . . more than one man.’

  There was a little silence. Then the tape said, ‘Show me,’ in Johnson’s voice. It was very quiet.

  Oppenheim said, ‘What do you take me for?’

  ‘They may not be genuine,’ Johnson said. ‘That’s all I meant.’

  Oppenheim seemed to swallow. Then he said, ‘I know my wife’s body. And I know the men. Be glad you were spared this with Judith.’

  There was another pause. Johnson’s voice said, ‘Of course. I’m sorry. Look, I’m helluva sorry, but think. Are you saying what I think you are saying? If so, do you really want to pay such a price to protect her? Is she worth human lives?’

  Oppenheim said, ‘She’s my wife.’

  ‘Now? Still?’ said Johnson’s voice. ‘You’ll show her these, or not show her these, and continue as if nothing happened?’

  Oppenheim’s voice sounded distracted. He said, ‘That’s my affair. Hers and mine.’

  ‘It isn’t your affair,’ Johnson said. ‘If you don’t act, Morgan will stay at Kingsley’s and we shall be very unwelcome in many joyful places. And I like my job.’

  ‘Do you?’ Oppenheim said. ‘Maybe you liked your job once;

  maybe you needed it. But that was a long time ago. Why don’t you take it easy? Why don’t you stick to painting and cruising? I’ll report back and say that I’ve blown it. Who cares what the little shit does?’

  ‘A large number of villains: that’s the trouble. Oh, come on, Danny,’ said Johnson’s voice. ‘Either the pictures are fake, or Muriel isn’t worth lawyer’s fees. Morgan is ready to walk: the great Cong is an idiot nobody. I can nurse him, but it needs financial credibility. I can’t suddenly drown him in junk bonds.’

  Oppenheim said, ‘You really mean he doesn’t know what he’s doing?’

  ‘I think,’ Johnson said, ‘that he thinks he’s working on washing machines.’

  ‘Christ!’ said Oppenheim’s voice. ‘Then pretend you’re into consumer durables, and just set about levering him out. You don’t need me.’

  ‘Dammit!’ said Johnson’s voice.

  ‘You don’t,’ insisted Oppenheim. Then, after a pause, ‘She’s my wife.’

  No one spoke. Then Johnson’s voice said, ‘She’s Jimmy Auld’s daughter. That is all you ever need to know about Muriel. Do what you like.’ His voice was the way it was now, level and metallic and
bitter. A moment later we heard footsteps cross the room, and the door slammed. A moment later, there came the sound of my mother’s voice, enquiring after her knitting.

  Johnson shut the tape off, and looked at Morgan. He said, ‘Ask.’

  Morgan said, ‘Who do you work for?’

  ‘A British department,’ Johnson said.

  ‘You and Oppenheim were told to get me out of Kingsley’s?’

  ‘Obviously,’ Johnson said.

  ‘Because I make brilliant washing machines?’

  ‘You know what you make, and what it can be used for,’ Johnson said.

  ‘What does he make?’ said Charity Kingsley.

  Johnson turned to her. He said, ‘He creates microchip programs. He makes fault-tolerant prototype systems for domestic machinery. He does research. He devises experimental machines using advanced alternative architecture. Before he fell out with the blue-collar berks attached to the officially recognised labs, he was blowing their minds with new procedures in molecular electronics. Unfortunately, what’s good for the kitchen can be equally good in the war zone. Adapted, extended, all his stuff has high-performance military potential. He knows this. He has fooled himself that he can handle it. He has been lolling back, enjoying the dogfight.’

  ‘We all have our hobbies,’ said Morgan. His face was press- creased down the middle.

  ‘As a bone?’ Johnson said.

  ‘I refer you,’ Morgan said, ‘to your very own quota-quickie. If they want me, they’re not going to hurt me. Anyway, if I was into the big stuff, why didn’t I keep my own company?’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ said Johnson. ‘You quarrelled with the authorities. You told the science and engineering boys to go home and stuff it. You were mesmerised by your own precious research; you demanded carte blanche to do it; you didn’t care where it was leading; you couldn’t get any more loans for the equipment you needed.’

  ‘I could have gone to the States,’ Morgan said. ‘Or to Japan. Or to Germany.’

  ‘Bully for you,’ Johnson said. ‘So you did know what you were making. Did Sir Robert, when he came to acquire you?’

  ‘No!’ said Lady Kingsley.

  Johnson looked at her. He said, ‘How do you know?’

  She didn’t mean to glance at me, I think, but she did. She said, ‘I know him rather well. He’s proud of his country.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting otherwise, Charity,’ Johnson said.

  She pursued it. ‘You may not even be right. About what Mr. Morgan was making.’

  ‘Washing-machine parts,’ said Mo Morgan softly.

  ‘When and if,’ Johnson said, ‘you and I, Mo, ever get back to England, I shall take you to a large factory, and I shall show you an exact replica of your washing-machine parts, together with a number of other parts which you will recognise as designed in your workshop. Put together, they don’t make a washing machine. They make the launching system for a nuclear missile.’

  ‘But they cancelled the project,’ said Morgan. ‘OK, I know what can be done with these things. So what? Everything’s potentially lethal. You could make a bomb out of Lego.’

  ‘And that’s your damned answer?’ Johnson said. ‘Because of you, two men are dead, and several others and a woman were in serious danger. And that’s not including what I owe you, thank you very much. You think Sir Robert is a charming, extrovert capitalist of only moderate intelligence? Oppenheim a dangerous and ambitious opportunist? Pymm a silly, vicious man who has seen too many private-eye movies? So do I. But the big Daddy in this scene is Morgan, an intellectual slob with the boredom threshold of a brain-damaged hen.’ He had forgotten Charity’s presence. Or perhaps he hadn’t.

  ‘Dear, dear,’ said Morgan easily. He had turned a deep red. ‘This from a man who runs a whole upper-class lifestyle on the proceeds of back-to-back spying, painting and secret investments? Who the hell do you think you are to criticise me?’

  ‘The man who wrote the handbook on slagging,’ Johnson said. ‘Listen to me. You’re killing people.’

  ‘I’m a designer!’ said Morgan.

  ‘Hard luck,’ Johnson said. And a long silence fell.

  It was my mother who broke it. She said, ‘You know what I’d do? I’d tell those hicks at the laboratories to apologise.’

  Johnson looked at her. He said, ‘Doris? Were you listening? What the hell do you think I’ve been doing?’

  I gazed at them both. When I looked at Morgan he was staring too, but in a different way. I didn’t know why I was sorry for him and not for Johnson, who had saved my mother, and whose self-righteous story had two whopping holes in it. I said, ‘You told Mr. Oppenheim that Mr. Morgan didn’t know what he was making. And you as good as told him to go public and declare his wife is a tart.’

  Johnson’s eyes left those of Morgan with what seemed to be reluctance. Then he said, ‘Of course I told him. I knew he couldn’t. Muriel worships her husband, and would never, ever, in a million years do anything that would harm him.’

  ‘But the photographs?’ my mother said after a while. Her voice, for her, was moderate.

  ‘They didn’t exist,’ Johnson said. He didn’t say it immediately. It was as if two dialogues were taking place, one audible and one not.

  Lady Kingsley spoke without moving. She said, ‘My husband saw them.’

  Johnson looked at her; and I remembered that he had wanted her to leave, and began to guess perhaps why. He said, ‘He pretended to see them.’

  She said slowly, ‘Pretended? Why should he pretend?’

  He had lifted his glass, and found it empty. Replacing it, he left it sealed with his palm. He said, ‘Because the whole scene was a pretence. Oppenheim knew he was coming. You didn’t tell Sir Robert about Morgan’s meeting. I trusted you not to, and you didn’t. No one could have told him but Oppenheim. And as I’ve said, the pictures couldn’t have been real. Couldn’t. Not with Muriel. So the entire quarrel was staged, so that Morgan would report it. Staged by partners who wanted to appear to be enemies. Oppenheim never really intended that Morgan should leave Kingsley Conglomerates. Quite the opposite.’

  He removed his palm and interlaced his green fingers. Lenny watched him. Johnson said, ‘My guess is that Oppenheim has found a buyer for Kingsley Conglomerates, and provided Morgan will stay, and provided another predator doesn’t step in before him, both he and Sir Robert are about to become very rich men.’

  Everyone was looking at him. It was my mother who said, ‘Oppenheim? Daniel Oppenheim is alive?’

  Johnson looked as if he might have shrugged, but didn’t want to. ‘He was wearing the same kind of proofed vest that I was. I didn’t know until Oliver told me. That’s why I am officially missing.’

  It was Morgan, of course, who pursued it. ‘Wait a minute. Oppenheim was your partner and double-crossed you? For Sir Robert?’

  ‘For someone rather bigger than Sir Robert,’ Johnson said. Between sentences, the pauses were longer. ‘In fact, I don’t fancy Sir Robert will last very long after the takeover. Your very particular skills are about to transfer themselves to an unknown if wealthy consortium. It’s my job to find out its identity. I’ll find it easier if Oppenheim thinks I’m dead. I’d also find it easier if you felt like cooperating. But of course, you haven’t, up till now.’

  His own people, now, had fallen silent. Rita and Rolly were mute, and Oliver waited uneasily. My mother sat watching them all. Lady Kingsley said, ‘I think you underestimate Robert. Perhaps he thinks the firm needs new capital, and Oppenheim is the best person to help him. Perhaps he sees Mr. Morgan simply as a maker of brilliant components for domestic machinery. Is anyone interested in what else he can do? Surely, most governments are reducing their arms?’

  My mother got up and began collecting coffee cups. ‘A lot of people don’t recognise governments,’ she said. ‘The man who pays Mr. Pymm, who is he? He wants to control Kingsley’s, and I do not think it is because of their washing machines. And who, behind the screen of smoke, are Mr. Oppenhei
m’s bosses likely to be? I suspect arms manufacturers or dealers, or those who buy from them. Sir Robert may know nothing of this. You are a good wife, and you think so. I say he wants to know nothing, which is to say he has a very good suspicion but will not admit it. He is a young man at heart. A nice boyfriend, your Sir Robert would be.’

  She had stopped beside Morgan. She said, ‘You listen to what they are telling you. You make a good microchip, the world will beat a path to your door with live mines in it. I say no more. You are mad, but not stupid.’

  ‘A minority opinion,’ said Mo Morgan. From red, he had turned a paler colour. He said, ‘So what is teacher going to do? Make a team of the trusties and lock up the rest?’

  Johnson was looking at Charity. He said, ‘If it would make it easier.’

  She seemed to know what he meant. She said, ‘I’m sorry. But of course, I couldn’t agree not to tell Robert. I’ve done as much as I can.’

  ‘I know,’ Johnson said. ‘I know what you’ve been doing. I wish I deserved it. If you’ll let us, we’ll send you somewhere safe for a day or two. Sir Robert will be told you’re with friends.’ He turned his head a little more. Mo?’

  ‘What are you asking? Can you trust me? No, you can’t,’ Morgan said. ‘How bloody condescending can you get?’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Johnson said. ‘Now you’ve heard what is happening, will you let me organise you out of King Cong?’

  ‘No,’ said Morgan.

  ‘No. All right,’ said Johnson. ‘If I bring you proof that King Cong is about to be taken over, and by someone who will twist your bloody pigtail out of your skull, will you let me organise you out of King Cong?’