Black As He’s Painted

‘Did we say that at Davidson’s?’

‘Of course. You must remember. Constantly.’

‘So be it.’

‘It was a favourite expression of your own. Yes,’ shouted The Boomer as Alleyn seemed inclined to demur, ‘always. We all picked it up from you.’

‘To return, if we may, to the matter in hand.’

‘All of us,’ The Boomer continued nostalgically. ‘You set the tone (at Davidson’s),’ and noticing perhaps a fleeting expression of horror on Alleyn’s face, he leant forward and patted his knees. ‘But I digress,’ he said accurately, ‘Shall we return to our muttons?’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn agreed with heartfelt relief. ‘Yes. Let’s.’

‘Your turn,’ The Boomer generously conceded. ‘You were saying?’

‘Have you thought – but of course you have – what would follow if you were knocked off?’

‘As you say: of course I have. To quote your favourite dramatist (you see, I remember), “the filthy clouds of heady murder, spoil and villainy” would follow,’ said The Boomer with relish. ‘To say the least of it,’ he added.

‘Yes. Well now: the threat doesn’t lie, as the Martinique show must have told you, solely within the boundaries of Ng’ombwana. In the Special Branch they know, and I mean they really do know, that there are lunatic fringes in London ready to go to all lengths. Some of them are composed of hangovers from certain disreputable backwaters of colonialism, others have a devouring hatred of your colour. Occasionally they are people with a real and bitter grievance that has grown monstrous in stagnation. You name it. But they’re there, in considerable numbers, organized and ready to go.’

‘I am not alarmed,’ said The Boomer with maddening complacency. ‘No, but I mean it. In all truth I do not experience the least sensation of physical fear.’

‘I don’t share your sense of immunity,’ Alleyn said. ‘In your boots I’d be in a muck sweat.’ It occurred to him that he had indeed abandoned the slightest nod in the direction of protocol. ‘But, all right. Accepting your fearlessness, may we return to the disastrous effect your death would have upon your country? “The filthy clouds of heady murder” bit. Doesn’t that thought at all predispose you to precaution?’

‘But, my dear fellow, you don’t understand. I shall not be killed. I know it. Within myself, I know it. Assassination is not my destiny: it is as simple as that.’

Alleyn opened his mouth and shut it again.

‘As simple as that,’ The Boomer repeated. He opened his arms. ‘You see!’ he cried triumphantly.

‘Do you mean,’ Alleyn said very carefully, ‘that the bullet in Martinique and the spear in a remote village in Ng’ombwana and the one or two other pot-shots that have been loosed off at you from time to time were all predestined to miss?’

‘Not only do I believe it but my people – my people – know it in their souls. It is one of the reasons why I am reelected unanimously to lead my country.’

Alleyn did not ask if it was also one of his reasons why nobody, so far, had had the temerity to oppose him.

The Boomer reached out his great shapely hand and laid it on Alleyn’s knee. ‘You were and you are my good friend,’ he said. ‘We were close at Davidson’s. We remained close while I read my law and ate my dinners at the Temple. And we are close still. But this thing we discuss now belongs to my colour and my race. My blackness. Please, do not try to understand: try only, my dear Rory, to accept.’

To this large demand Alleyn could only reply: ‘It’s not as simple as that.’

‘No? But why?’

‘If I talk about my personal anxiety for you I’ll be saying in effect that I don’t understand and can’t accept, which is precisely what you do not want me to say. So I must fall back on my argument as an unwilling policeman with a difficult job. I’m not a member of the Special Branch but my colleagues in that Department have asked me to do what I can, which looks a bit like damn-all. I do put it to you that their job, a highly specialized and immensely difficult one, is going to be a hundred per cent more tricky if you decline to co-operate. If, for instance, on an impulse you change your route to some reception or walk out of your embassy without telling anybody and take a constitutional in Kensington Gardens all by yourself. To put it badly and brutally, if you are killed somebody in the Special Branch is going to be axed, the Department’s going to fall into general disrepute at the highest and lowest levels, and a centuries-old reputation of immunity from political assassination in England is gone for good. You see, I’m speaking not only for the police.’

‘The police, as servants of the people,’ The Boomer began and then, Alleyn thought, very probably blushed.

‘Were you going to say we ought to be kept in our place?’ he mildly asked.

The Boomer began to walk about the room. Alleyn stood up.

‘You have a talent,’ The Boomer suddenly complained, ‘for putting one in the wrong. I remember it of old at Davidson’s.’

‘What an insufferable boy I must have been,’ Alleyn remarked. He was getting very bored with Davidson’s and really there seemed to be nothing more to say. ‘I have taken up too much of your Excellency’s time,’ he said. ‘Forgive me,’ and waited to be dismissed.

The Boomer looked mournfully upon him. ‘But you are lunching,’ he said. ‘We have agreed. It is arranged that you shall lunch.’

‘That’s very kind, your Excellency, but it’s only eleven o’clock. Should I make myself scarce in the meantime?’

To his intense dismay he saw that the bloodshot eyes had filled with tears. The Boomer said, with immense dignity: ‘You have distressed me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I was overjoyed at your coming. And now it is all spoilt and you call me Excellency.’

Alleyn felt the corners of his mouth twitch and at the same time was moved by a contradictory sense of compassion. This emotion, he realized, was entirely inappropriate. He reminded himself that the President of Ng’ombwana was far from being a sort of inspired innocent. He was an astute, devoted and at times ruthless dictator with, it had to be added, a warm capacity for friendship. He was also extremely observant. ‘And funny,’ Alleyn thought, controlling himself. ‘It’s quite maddening of him to be funny as well.’

‘Ah!’ the President suddenly roared out, ‘you are laughing! My dear Rory, you are laughing,’ and himself broke into that Homeric gale of mirth. ‘No, it is too much! Admit! It is too ridiculous! What is it all about? Nothing! Listen, I will be a good boy. I will behave. Tell your solemn friends in your Special Branch that I will not run away when they hide themselves behind inadequate floral decorations and dress themselves up as nonentities with enormous boots. There now! You are pleased? Yes?’

‘I’m enchanted,’ Alleyn said, ‘if you really mean it.’

‘But I do. I do. You shall see. I will be decorum itself. Within,’ he added, ‘the field of their naive responsibilities. Within the UK in fact. OK? Yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘And no more Excellencies. No? Not,’ The Boomer added without turning a hair, ‘when we are tête-à-tête. As at present.’

‘As at present,’ Alleyn agreed and was instantly re-involved in an exuberance of hand-shaking.

It was arranged that he would be driven round the city for an hour before joining the President for luncheon. The elegant ADC reappeared. When they walked back along the corridor, Alleyn looked through its french windows into the acid-green garden. It was daubed superbly with flamboyants and veiled by a concourse of fountains. Through the iridescent rise and fall of water there could be perceived, at intervals, motionless figures in uniform.

Alleyn paused. ‘What a lovely garden,’ he said.

‘Oh yes?’ said the ADC, smiling. Reflected colour and reflected lights from the garden glanced across his polished charcoal jaw and cheekbones. ‘You like it? The President likes it very much.’

He made as if to move. ‘Shall we?’ he suggested.

A file of soldiers, armed, and splendidly uniformed, crossed the garden left, right, left, right, on the far side of the fountains. Distorted by prismatic cascades, they could dimly be seen to perform a correct routine with the men they had come to replace.

‘The changing of the guard,’ Alleyn said lightly.

‘Exactly. They are purely ceremonial troops.’

‘Yes?’

‘As at your Buckingham Palace,’ explained the ADC.

‘Quite,’ said Alleyn.