Unofficial and Deniable

by John Gordon Davis

  Valentine said grimly, ‘You are doubtless aware that Josephine inherits a great deal of money on her marriage or on her thirty-fifth birthday, whichever happens soonest. From a trust set up for her by her grandfather.’

  Doubtless? Harker looked him in the eye. ‘Josie has mentioned it. But I don’t know the details.’ That was a lie.

  ‘No? Well, she will inherit at least two million dollars. Meanwhile, until her marriage or thirty-fifth birthday I, as trustee, have a discretion as to whether or not to pay her an annual allowance of fifty thousand dollars. Since Josephine’s come back to America and begun writing this book I’ve been paying her that amount.’

  Harker knew this too. ‘Lucky Josephine.’

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  Harker lied. ‘As I said, I didn’t know the details.’

  Valentine smiled thinly. ‘Strange. Josephine told me on the phone last night that she had told you all about it.’

  Harker looked the man in the eye. ‘Really? So it appears I have forgotten. But what is definite is that I resent your insinuations that I am after Josephine’s money.’ He smiled. ‘Denys,’ he added.

  Denys Valentine looked at him grimly. ‘Be that as it may, as the sole trustee, I have the authority to withhold Josephine’s annual income and let it accumulate if for any reason I feel it is in her best interest. For example, if Josephine were wasting the money.’

  Harker smiled. ‘On unworthy lovers who are only after her loot. Quite right too, Denys – Josie’s grandfather was a wise man to protect his granddaughter from rogues. But I am hurt, and angered, that you evidently thus categorize me. And I am taken aback, to say the least, that a supposedly responsible lawyer like you will use your trustee’s powers to penalize your own daughter on so little evidence that I am a rogue.’

  Denys Valentine’s grey eyes were steady. ‘I have said no such thing, Jack,’ he said smoothly. ‘I have only confided in you, been upfront, as the saying goes. And my mention of my powers of trusteeship was intended to elucidate, not intimidate.’ He smiled. ‘And so I’ll pass over your unfounded anxieties and proceed to the next question any conscientious father would ask. Namely, if you do marry my daughter are you able to support her in the manner to which she is accustomed?’

  Harker wanted to retort, ‘Please remember that Josephine is over twenty-one, Denys, and it is not within your legal power to prohibit her doing a fucking thing.’ But he said quietly: ‘Unfortunately, I am not, Denys. Few men my age would be unless they had wealthy parents.’ He added, ‘Or grandparents.’

  ‘Then do you mind indicating what your financial situation is?’

  Harker looked at him. ‘Yes, I do mind. However, I will tell you.’ He took an extravagant breath. ‘I have a military pension of about three thousand pounds a year which, at today’s rate of exchange, is only about five thousand dollars. Still it pays for my booze. As managing director of Harvest, I give myself a salary of twenty-four thousand dollars a year – that’s not a great sum but Harvest is a new house.’ He paused, then proceeded to gild the lily: ‘In addition I own fifty-one per cent of the shares in Harvest House. And my small apartment in Gramercy Park.’ That was only technically true: although he was the registered shareholder of fifty-one per cent of Harvest’s shares, they were held by him on behalf of Westminster NV, the CCB’s parent company in the Netherlands Antilles. The apartment was leased. He smiled at Denys Valentine. ‘That about puts you in the picture. Except for that middle-aged Mercedes parked out there.’

  ‘And do you mind telling me who owns the other forty-nine per cent of Harvest House?’

  Yes, Harker certainly did mind – no way did he want to discuss who was behind Westminster NV. He said, ‘It’s all recorded at the Registrar of Companies, or whatever he’s called.’

  ‘I know, I’ve seen those records. The other forty-nine per cent is owned by a company called Westminster NV. I mean, who owns the shares of Westminster?’

  Harker’s pulse tripped. Christ, he’d searched the records.

  ‘I don’t know. Westminster is a trust company set up by another trust company in England called Westminster International. All to do with tax laws which I don’t try to understand. And Westminster International owns, in whole or part, the publishing house in London called Five Seasons, which one way or another set up Harvest House in New York.’ He added, ‘Harvest House existed only on paper when I was sent here to take it over.’

  ‘How did you land that job?’

  Jesus, did the man suspect the CCB existed? Or something like it?

  ‘When I was invalided out of the army, friends got me a job as a trainee executive in Five Seasons in London. After six months they offered me the Harvest job in New York – and the shares.’

  Valentine smiled thinly. ‘You must have impressed them. You must be good.’

  Harker looked at him. What the hell did that mean? Before he could muster a response Valentine said: ‘I must confess that when Josie first mentioned you to me, I had you investigated.’

  Harker’s pulse tripped again. Investigated? He controlled the fluster in his breast. ‘Indeed? Where?’

  ‘I engaged a reputable firm of private investigators in New York to look into your background.’

  Harker stared at him, trying to look unperturbed. Oh Jesus. ‘Well?’

  Valentine continued: ‘And through lawyers I have contact with in South Africa, I arranged for private investigators to look into your history there.’

  Harker felt himself go white. ‘In South Africa, indeed? And?’

  Denys Valentine smiled thinly. He said, ‘And in fairness I must tell you that I have heard nothing adverse. Neither from the publishing industry nor from the military.’

  Harker wanted to close his eyes in relief. Instead he glared.

  ‘I’m so glad. So?’

  ‘So the ball’s in your court. You know my views – and my wishes. And now I think we should go and get ready for dinner, don’t you?’

  Harker put his glass down on the mantelpiece. ‘No,’ he said. He was going to say ‘Like hell’. ‘No, I’ll go and find Josephine and send her in here so you can put your ultimatum to her – your draconian ultimatum, if you don’t mind my saying so. And the ball is no longer in my court, Denys, because I’ve made my decision. I’m sure you’ll understand when I say I won’t be staying for dinner, whatever Josie decides, much less for the night.’ He smiled coldly. ‘So it only remains for me to say goodbye, Denys. And to add that I very much hope you change your mind and accept your daughter’s decision if it is the same as mine.’

  Harker was going to say if she tells you to stick your ultimatum up your ass, but restrained himself. He turned and walked down the rows of bookshelves, out of the library.

  He found Josephine alone in the living room. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Your father wants to see you in the library,’ he said. ‘Immediately.’

  She frowned. ‘You’ve got a face like thunder. What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’ll be waiting for you in the car.’ He turned and walked out of the living room.

  He went upstairs to his bedroom, retrieved his overnight bag. He descended the sweeping staircase, went outside and got into his car.

  Ten minutes later Josephine emerged through the big front door. She was carrying her overnight bag too. She strode to the car, flung open the door, slung her bag on the back seat and got in. Her eyes were red, she had been crying. She looked at Harker.

  ‘He says you don’t love me. That you’re a soldier of fortune. He says you’re only after my money.’

  Harker snorted. ‘So?’

  ‘I told him to go to hell.’

  Harker sighed and shook his head. ‘So he’s going to cut off your allowance under the trust? Fifty thousand dollars a year.’ He looked at her. ‘Are you sure our relationship is worth that?’

  She looked at him angrily. ‘Don’t you start! Those were exactly his words. Yes, I am quite sure, goddammit! But that’s on
ly half the point. The other half is I goddam refuse to be bought, to prostitute myself. I’ll love and live with who I goddam choose, not who he or anybody else dictates!’ She jerked her head. ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘Lot of money, Josie.’

  Josephine glared at him. ‘Exactly what he said – word for fucking word!’ She snorted and looked away. ‘Yes, a lot of money. But in terms of my grandfather’s will any undistributed income gets ploughed back into the trust so I get it all in the end anyway. Besides, I think Dad will come round, change his mind. I think he’s just waving a big stick now. He so detests apartheid. And he’s such a strict Catholic – when I was a kid I wanted to be a nun, thanks to him and my poor mother.’ She turned and glared through the windscreen. ‘You’re not a soldier of fortune, are you?’

  Harker closed his eyes.

  ‘No, Josie.’

  Josephine turned and clutched his knee. ‘Oh, I’m sorry that Daddy upset you, I really do believe you, I know he’s talking nonsense but that’s what happens when one has family rows and your heavy-duty father says something momentous like your lover doesn’t love you.’

  ‘Poisons the mind.’

  She gripped his knee. ‘My mind’s not poisoned. And Dad didn’t mean it to be poisoned – he really means everything he said for the best, in my best interests as he perceives it – it’s just that he’s so …’ She waved her hand. ‘So powerful. He’s such a big wheel in Boston, the earth trembles when he arrives, he’s so accustomed to getting his own way. He fully expected both me and you to knuckle under in there today, to accept his terms of six months apart.’ She looked at him and squeezed his knee again. ‘You do love me, don’t you?’

  Harker closed his eyes. ‘Jesus. This is what happens when parents interfere.’ He turned to her: ‘Yes, I love you, Josephine. More to the point, are you sure you love me?’

  She looked at him. Then she jerked her thumb at the big house. ‘I’ve just knocked back fifty thousand bucks a year. That says I love you, doesn’t it?’

  Harker smiled. ‘So why don’t we just get married? Tomorrow. And silence our goddam critics.’

  Josephine looked at him. ‘Tomorrow? You can’t get married that fast in this state, can you?’ She shook her head. ‘This isn’t Nevada.’

  ‘Then let’s go to Las Vegas.’

  Josephine frowned. ‘But I’m Catholic, Jack. A Las Vegas marriage would not be recognized by the Church.’ She added: ‘Or by my father.’

  ‘So we can have another religious ceremony six weeks later or however long it takes to satisfy the requirements of the Catholic Church. But we’ll have satisfied the terms of your grandfather’s trust.’

  Josephine said slowly: ‘I’ll have satisfied the terms of the Valentine Trust. And I can collect the two million plus dollars.’

  ‘Exactly. It’s your goddam money, you’re an adult – how could your father deprive you of it?’

  ‘He’s not depriving me of it – he’s only postponing my receipt of it.’

  ‘But meanwhile he’s putting you to hardship until you come up to his exquisite expectations of marrying a nice Catholic stockbroker who’s a fund-raiser for the Democratic Party – meanwhile you’re desperately trying to finish your book, scrimping and wishing you’d never disobeyed Big Daddy. Until finally you’ll go limping back, say you’re very sorry and that you’ve cut me out of your life. That’s his strategy.’

  Josephine looked through the windscreen. ‘He said you would now ask me to marry you. So that we could access the trust money.’

  Harker glared. Then: ‘Jesus.’ He reached and twisted the ignition angrily. The engine started. ‘Well, consider my offer of matrimony withdrawn.’

  ‘Darling!’ Josephine leant out and switched off the engine. She looked at him pleadingly. ‘Please – I’m only telling you what he said in there, not what I think. I do not think you’re after the money.’

  Harker glared through the windscreen. ‘Okay, so let’s get married.’

  Josephine sighed, and put her hand back on his knee. ‘Yes, I do want to marry you. One day. I know I do. But not yet. Not because I’m worried we don’t know each other well enough, and not because I’m not sure whether I love you enough. But because of me. I feel there’s still things I want to do, I need to do, places I’ve got to see, and research and … feelings I’ve got to feel, for my soul, for my worldliness – for my wisdom. Before I nail myself down to the responsibilities of marriage.’

  ‘You can still do those things when you’re married. I won’t stop you going off and researching subjects. You’re a writer, for Christ’s sake, I don’t expect to change that.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of that,’ she said. ‘It’s me. I just don’t feel ready for being responsible for your happiness. I just don’t feel … mature enough. For a while I want to just coast along and enjoy our affair, I don’t want it spoilt by any deadlines, I want it to be an entirely voluntary association of two lovers without legal constraints.’ She looked at him and squeezed his hand. ‘If I have to go away to research something or photograph some dramatic event I will be faithful to you because I want to be, not because the laws of marriage require it of me. Am I making sense?’

  Harker sighed grimly, still angry with her father. Yes, what she was saying made some kind of sense, emotionally. In fact, he felt the same way. It was a relief, emotionally, that she was putting his proposal on hold for the time being. Emotionally, but not financially. ‘No,’ he said, and twisted the ignition. The car started again.

  ‘Jack …’ Josephine clutched his arm. ‘Please believe that I love you. The rest will come!’

  He grinned at her humourlessly. ‘What’s the rest? And please don’t echo your father and say “the money”!’ He released the handbrake and let out the clutch with a crunch of gravel.

  Josephine slumped back in her seat. ‘Oh boy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harker said as he drove down the avenue of oaks. ‘Oh boy.’

  ‘This is what happens when parents interfere.’ Josephine turned to him. ‘Jack, when I said the rest will follow I was not, repeat not, referring to the fucking money!’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Then why are you angry?’

  Harker swung the old Mercedes out of the big gates and rammed the gears.

  ‘Oh Christ …’ Josephine groaned. She slumped back.

  13

  Although he was supposed to be her guru, Josephine seldom let Harker read her book: she was possessive about it, nervous about his judgement. ‘No, I want to put my best foot forward …’ That was fine with Harker – the less he knew of her book, the less he could be somehow forced to tell Dupont, the less she could hope he might publish it. But, for the purposes of her book, she often discussed South African politics, and that situation was bad.

  The vast industrial areas and sprawling black townships around Johannesburg and Pretoria were in chaos as the ANC’s youth strove to make the country ungovernable with strikes and boycotts and running battles with the police, as the ANC fought for political turf with the Inkatha Party’s Zulus. Down in the lush lowlands of KwaZulu Natal open warfare raged between ANC Zulus and Inkatha Zulus, the rolling green hills resounding with the clatter of AK47 gunfire and the clash of spears and axes. Thousands were killed; sixty thousand people rendered homeless, fleeing into the white towns, gangs of starving children roaming the forests robbing travellers, raiding farms.

  ‘The South African government is promoting this black-on-black violence,’ Josephine insisted, ‘in order to create the impression that blacks are incapable of behaving democratically. And in order to divide and rule – that has always been the Afrikaners’ strategy: let the Inkatha Party smash the ANC, let Inkatha do our dirty work for us.’

  Harker didn’t agree: he insisted the warfare was simply typical African politics at work. ‘Josie, Africans don’t really understand our Western democracy – they can’t accept the principle of a loyal opposition who wants to try to take over the government at the next election. In thei
r culture such opposition is a threat that must be crushed. Might is right in African politics, whoever gains power clings to it by the sword – opposition is not tolerated. That’s why so many of these African countries are one-party states.’

  ‘Then why isn’t the South African government sending in the army and police to stamp out the violence?’

  ‘When they stamp it out in one place it breaks out in another.’

  ‘Bullshit, Jack, the government has been sitting on the lid of the boiling apartheid pot for decades by brute force, they could saturate the countryside with troops and police if they wanted to. But they don’t want to, they want the ANC and Inkatha to exsanguinate each other so they can divide and rule …’

  And there were angry allegations in the South African press of a ‘Third Force’ which was instigating and orchestrating the violence, the ANC furiously declaring that this was government-sponsored in order to make the black political parties destroy each other. The government loudly denied it but many believed it, including the Anti-Apartheid League and Josephine Valentine. Harker denied it although he thought it quite possible: there was the CCB, so why shouldn’t there be a Third Force? If the army had operatives like him all over the world getting rid of the odd enemy of the state, why shouldn’t the government organize a Third Force to knock the shit out of the state’s enemies inside South Africa? Indeed perhaps the Third Force was the CCB, or part of it. And oh God the thought sickened him. Was he part of an organization that instigated such violence as was raging in Zululand, civil war? Or was it some other branch of government, like the police? Please God it was the police, not the army. Or was this Third Force just the work of a rogue cabal of right-wing officers? That was a distinct possibility.

  ‘But, my dear fellow, there is no such thing as a Third Force,’ Dupont said. ‘That’s an invention of the ANC. They’re terribly embarrassed that their blacks are so patently incapable of democratic behaviour so they try to put the blame on the government …’