The High Commissioner. Jon Cleary
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to leave it. It has its drawbacks, but I enjoy it.”
Malone began to protest. “Look, I don’t want to crowd you, sir – I’ll wait outside—”
“I feel I owe you something, Sergeant—” He gestured at the phone. “If I’m to keep you here in London longer than you expected, I’ll see you get more out of it than waiting around in doorways.”
“What will your wife say? I mean about lending me your clothes? Won’t she ask some awkward questions?”
“My wife trusts me, Sergeant. She never asks too many questions. A diplomat’s wife learns not to.” Then he sighed. “There’ll be enough questions after I’ve told her who you really are.”
“He has discovered the elixir of adolescence,” said the donnish-looking Labour M.P. “Any day now I’m expecting him to call the House dining-room the tuck shop.”
“He is the sort of African who wears his colour on his sleeve,” said the light-skinned Indian.
“Her intelligence, my dear, is second to anyone’s you care to name,” said the wife of the junior Foreign Office man.
“Australia, I’m told, is the world’s largest suburb,” said the man from Commonwealth Relations.
Malone almost popped the stud of his collar as he heard the last remark. He was about to move forward to break up Commonwealth Relations when a restraining hand caught his arm.
“Ignore them, Mr. Malone. Diplomatic receptions are very much like women’s tea parties, only a little more elegant and epigrammatic.” Lisa Pretorious stood beside him, her tanned shoulders and arms offset by the pale pink of her gown. A South American second secretary went by, all teeth and wink, and she gave him a cool smile that was both an acknowledgment and a rebuff. “Don’t you go to them in Canberra?”
Malone shook his head. “I’m known back home for my undiplomatic behaviour, so I’m never invited.”
“They should invite you. You look quite decorative in tails.” She looked him up and down. “I’m quite proud to have you as my escort. When Mr. Quentin suggested it—”
“You thought I’d be wearing my own suit?” She nodded, and now it was his turn to look her up and down. “Don’t you diplomatic types ever blush? You’ve just insulted me—”
“I’m not a diplomatic type, I’m just a private secretary. But one learns the tricks. Any diplomat who blushed would be out of a job at once.”
“You could be a little more diplomatic in telling me I’ve got no taste.”
“Mr. Malone, I was born in Holland and I’ve spent seven years in Australia – my formative years, if you like to call them that. What sort of training is that for subtlety?” Suddenly he laughed and she smiled in return. “That grey suit of yours is pretty awful, you know. You looked like an unsuccessful racecourse tipster. I think you should understand why I was so suspicious of you, why I didn’t want you to see the High Commissioner.”
“What’s he like to work for?” Malone asked the question idly, just to keep the conversation going: he was enjoying the company of this good-looking, frank girl. Then he regretted the question: he was already becoming too interested in Quentin.
“The best boss I’ve ever had. I’ve been a doctor’s receptionist, secretary to an advertising man, a guide on a conducted tour of Europe, oh, and several other things. I’d never done anything like this till I came to work for Mr. Quentin.” She looked about the crowded room that moved like a wind-ruffled pool under the crystal sun of the huge chandelier. Conversation floated like a swarm of butterflies: words were coloured, had a polish and exoticism about them that Malone had never heard before. “I don’t think I want to do anything else now. I hope Mr. Quentin remains High Commissioner for years.”
Across the room Malone saw Quentin and his wife moving slowly from group to group, from Africa to Asia to the Americas: everywhere they were greeted with genuine smiles of welcome. “Is he popular?”
She nodded. “He’s considered to be the best man Australia’s ever had in London. But I don’t think they really appreciate that back home.”
“No,” he said, and tried not to load his voice. He looked at her, changing the subject quickly: “You’re Dutch, but you think of Australia as home, do you?”
“My parents are settled there, in Melbourne. They’ll never come back to Europe. So I look on Australia as home. One needs roots somewhere.”
“I guess so,” said Malone, and wondered where Quentin thought of his roots as being planted. Tumbarumba, Sydney, Perth, Canberra, London: the man had been on the run all his life.
Then a thin elderly woman, throttled by pearls, was squeezed out of the crowd like a magician’s trick. She greeted Lisa with a hoarse whinny.
“Lady Porthleven, may I present Mr. Malone?”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Malone.
“Oh, really?” Lady Porthleven looked surprised: no one had ever actually told her he was pleased to meet her. Then she drew Lisa back into the crowd with her, leaving Malone well aware of the fact that he was on the outside.
He looked about the room. Jewels glittered like angry eyes; decorations were bleeding wounds on breasts. A Pakistani and a Bolivian went by, continents arm in arm; Italy flirted with Iran, and an international bed was already beginning to bounce. A string quartet was playing somewhere in an alcove, working its laboured way through a medley: even the requests at the Grand at Brighton had never been as demanding as this. The colours of the women’s gowns, Western, Eastern, African, both pleased and pained the eye: Malone felt the effects of visual gluttony. He stood irresolute for a moment, suddenly tired, wanting to shout at the crowd to go to hell: no wonder Australians disliked bloody foreigners. Then he grinned and shook his head. He was an outsider here. He was discovering for the first time what it was like to be a foreigner.
“Don’t get too involved over there,” Leeds had said on the phone when the call had come through. “I’ll see what Flannery says about the extra time Quentin has asked for. I’ll try and talk him into it. But don’t forget, Scobie – you’re a policeman on duty for all those extra days.”
“I know, sir. Polite but impersonal.”
“That’s the ticket. I’ll call you back in four hours’ time, let you know the score. Where will you be staying?” Malone had put his hand over the phone and repeated the question to Quentin. Then he had said, “Mr. Quentin says I can stay here at his house. They have several guest rooms.”
“Don’t be a guest, Scobie. Or anyway, don’t act like one. But I guess you’ll have to stay there to keep an eye on him. I’ll ring you. This is getting to be a bigger bastard of a situation all the time.”
Then Malone had followed Quentin upstairs, where Joseph the butler had taken him over. “This is your room, sir. Some very distinguished gentlemen have stayed here.”
Malone had glanced about the room: even here he was in the midst of discreet elegance. It was a room designed for a male guest: antique pistols hung on one wall, the chair and the dressing-table accessories were leather-backed, even the air smelled as if it had been sprayed with some masculine air freshener. Only the carpet had a feminine luxury about it: Malone felt bogged down in its deep soft pile. An overnight room for the rich and the distinguished: Malone remembered some of the closets with bed in which he had slept when sent to country towns on a case.
“The tone will be lowered tonight,” Malone had said, but Joseph had said nothing: one didn’t joke about a self-evident truth.
When he was dressed Malone had looked at himself in the long mirror and been impressed by what he saw. The coat was a little tight under the arms, but otherwise