A Conspiracy of Friends: A Corduroy Mansions Novel

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “And what does that mean?”

  “It means that money has to work, or it’s not doing its job. And being used to buy things—including companies—is part of that work.”

  Barbara did not approve. “And one just ignores the human consequences?”

  Tom sighed again. “One does not ignore them. One can lament them, but ultimately money has its own logic. Ultimately, it finds the most fruitful place to be and it flows in that direction. It’s the way of the world, Barbara.”

  Barbara stared into her coffee. “I thought that the whole point about civilised capitalism was that you brought money under control—you stopped it behaving ruthlessly. Can’t we do that?”

  Tom smiled. “People try. You may recall that unions which have attempted to resist the force of economics have a tendency to find themselves without an industry to control. Remember coal? And that was before full-scale globalisation. Now …” He made a gesture of helplessness. “If unions put up their costs too much, economic activity simply migrates. And there’s always somebody to do things more cheaply than we can. China. You know what it’s like.”

  She nodded. “Yes, but listen, I didn’t plan to meet you to talk about economics. I wanted to give you something. Some information.” She glanced about her, to check whether anybody might overhear.

  “You look very sweet when you clutch your cloak and dagger,” said Tom, smiling.

  “Don’t patronise me,” she muttered.

  “Sorry. So what is it? Remember that I’m really a columnist these days. I’m no Bob Woodward.”

  “Oedipus Snark,” said Barbara simply.

  Tom frowned, as if trying to remember something. “Snark? The junior minister for …”

  Barbara named the ministry, and Tom nodded. “Ridiculous-sounding name. Not my favourite member of the House of Commons, if the truth be told.”

  “That’s what I want,” said Barbara. “I want the truth to be told.”

  Tom broke into a wry smile. “Don’t we all?” He looked at her quizzically. “Do you know something about our friend Mr. Snark? You know him?” He paused. “Hold on, weren’t you … close friends for a while?”

  “Yes.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “If this is some sort of exercise in revenge, Barbara … That’s not what newspapers are for, you know.”

  “I thought that was exactly what they did,” replied Barbara.

  “Some of them, maybe. But not ours.”

  “Ah, I see! Too high-minded?”

  “Something like that,” said Tom.

  For a few moments they looked at one another in silence. Then Barbara said, “I won’t say that I bear Oedipus Snark no ill will. I do. I bear him a great deal of ill will.”

  “Hell hath no fury—” Tom began.

  She cut him off. “I asked you not to patronise, Tom. You have no idea what transpired between Oedipus and me. You really haven’t.”

  “All right. It wasn’t good. So?”

  “I want to stop him,” she said. “Not because of what he did to me, but because of what he might do in power. I just can’t bear the thought of Oedipus being anywhere near power.”

  Tom took out a small notebook. “You do realise what you’re doing, Barbara?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not so sure. People think that they’re safe in this country, that nobody could ever have them … harmed. Well, I’ve seen that this is not true at all. There are plenty of people who come to a sticky end because they’ve taken on people in power—or people who have money. Same thing, really. Money and power occupy the same bed.”

  Barbara looked down at the floor. She asked herself what she felt about Oedipus. Did she hate him? The word “hate” could be used lightly—as in “I hate vanilla ice cream”—but it had a very different feel when used in its strong sense. Should we not feel ashamed of feelings of hate? Should we not forgive those whom we find ourselves tempted to hate?

  And if you hated somebody, did that mean that you wanted the object of your hatred to suffer? There was no doubt in her mind but that she would feel pleasure if Oedipus were to encounter some sort of setback. That is exactly how one felt in the pantomime when a villain—the unpleasant ugly sister or the sinister Captain Hook—was dealt a blow. But she was not sure about being the person who delivered that blow. Even the wicked suffer, she thought, and their pain is no different from the pain felt by the innocent, other, of course, than in its aetiology.

  And yet, Oedipus had to be stopped. So she reached into her bag, took out the copy of the letter and handed it to Tom. He read it and looked up at her.

  “Is this genuine?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked down at the piece of paper. Then he lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “Lovely,” he said.

  37. Barbara Ragg Speaks to Hugh

  IT WAS DONE. Tom had taken the copy of the letter, tucked it into an inside pocket and winked at his informant.

  Barbara looked at him anxiously. “He won’t find out where you got it, will he?”

  Tom touched her arm. “Heavens no! We don’t reveal our sources. I’d go to prison before doing that.”

  That was reassuring. “Good.”

  “But don’t talk to anybody about this,” Tom went on. “Often it’s the sources who reveal themselves. You’d be surprised.”

  They finished their coffee and said goodbye, Tom going off to his interview at the Dorchester and Barbara making her way back to the flat. She was meeting Hugh for dinner, as he was travelling down to London that day. She felt slightly dirtied by handing over the letter, and seeing Hugh was just what she needed to take her mind off what had happened.

  He was early, and she was still getting ready when he rang the doorbell.

  “I know I said seven,” he said, looking at his watch. “But I really couldn’t wait until seven to see you.”

  They embraced on the doorstep. “I’m glad you’re early,” she said. “It gives us more time together.”

  He stroked her hair. “My lovely fiancée …”

  They kissed. He does not smell of London, she thought; he smells of the Highlands. And then she thought: What an odd idea to entertain, that people should smell of the place they came from. But they did; each of us smells of our particular prison.

  They went into the flat, and while Barbara finished getting ready Hugh poured them each a glass from the chilled bottle of white wine he had brought with him. She joined him in the kitchen, and they toasted one another.

  “You,” he said, lifting his glass.

  “And you,” she responded.

  “Your day?” he asked. “Busy?”

  She nodded. “I had a few meetings. Lots of telephone calls.”

  “Meetings with whom?”

  She took a sip of her wine. Hugh liked white Burgundy, and that was what he had brought. “Well, I saw a journalist. We talked about …”

  She stopped. She had been on the point of telling him what she and Tom had discussed, but then she realised that it would mean she had to reveal her affair with Oedipus Snark.

  “About what?” Hugh prompted.

  “About a politician.” It was a stalling answer.

  “Which one?”

  Barbara walked over to the window. She was uncertain what to do. She did not want to keep anything from him—there should be no secrets in an engagement—but did one have to reveal everything about former affairs? Should a veil of tact not be drawn over at least some parts of one’s history?

  “Oedipus Snark.” She had no alternative but to admit that, at least.

  Hugh raised an eyebrow. “Snark? The one you sometimes see on the telly … That one …?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “But surely you don’t actually know him,” said Hugh. “How would you know somebody like that?”

  She avoided meeting his eyes. This had rapidly become far worse than she had imagined. If she told him that she and Oedipus had been lovers, then surely she would go down in his estimation;
and yet, if she did not tell him and he were subsequently to find out—as was perfectly possible—he would be hurt by the fact that she had effectively lied to him. No, she would have to make a clean breast of it.

  She turned to face him. “Hugh, I didn’t want to talk about this, but … Well, you have to know that Oedipus Snark and I were together.” She immediately realised the archness of her expression. “By which I mean we were lovers.”

  His face was impassive. “You?”

  “Yes. We were together for four years. It was pretty one-sided, I’m afraid.”

  He looked relieved. “Oh, so he was keen on you, and you drifted into it. Oh, well—”

  She stopped him. “No. Not at all. It was the other way round. I was keen on him, and he took me for granted. He didn’t love me. I don’t think he knew what the word meant. Eventually I left him, but way, way too late.”

  She drew in her breath. “And there’s another thing I need to tell you,” she said. “I’ve just found out something about myself—something I had no idea about.”

  He put down his glass. “I don’t know …”

  “Let me tell you,” she said. “I’m a gypsy. Actually, part gypsy. My grandfather was a gypsy, you see, and I didn’t know about it.”

  He was staring at her. “Is there anything else I should know?” And then, almost immediately, his face cracked into a wide smile. “These are little things, Barbara. They’re … they’re nothing at all. So what if you fell for Oedipus Snark? Nice women fall for dreadful men all the time. And the fact that you have gypsy blood in you is completely irrelevant to anything. All blood looks the same under the microscope, you know.”

  “It’s red,” she said.

  “Precisely,” said Hugh.

  “I must say I’m relieved. I was worried that you would think differently about me.” She reached out to take his hand. “I know it’s stupid of me, but I did think that. I’m sorry.”

  “No, you don’t need to apologise. There’s nothing to be sorry about.” He hesitated. “And it makes me realise that there’s something I need to tell you. You’ve told me things about yourself. Now it’s my turn.”

  She did not want this, and told him so. “I don’t need to know everything about you, Hugh. I don’t care if you did something awful. I really don’t care.”

  “But I have to,” he said. “I want to share my life with you—really share it—and that means there’s something you need to know.”

  She sat down. “Well, if you must.”

  “I must.”

  “Go on, then.”

  He reached for the wine bottle and filled his glass; Barbara did not want a top-up.

  “You remember how I told you about my trip to South America after I left school? Remember?”

  She did. “You took a job as an English teacher. Colombia, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. And then I went to spend some time as tutor to one of the boys from the school. The family was very wealthy and had that place in the country.”

  “With the swimming pool carved out of the rock?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t tell you about what happened to me there, did I?”

  “No, I don’t think you did. You said there was something you didn’t want to talk about.”

  “Well, I want to talk about it now.”

  38. In the Cupboard

  “I KNEW THAT things in that house weren’t quite right,” said Hugh. “It was difficult to put one’s finger on it—atmospheres are like that, aren’t they? One picks up on them, one senses them, but it’s often rather hard, if not impossible, to put them into words.”

  Barbara nodded. She had no idea what Hugh’s disclosure would be and, while she was steeling herself for the worst, she was uncertain what she would do if he were to confess that he had committed some terrible crime. But she thought it highly improbable: Hugh simply did not have it in him to do anything cruel or thoughtless—she was sure of that. An act of cowardice, then, a failure to do something that he should perhaps have done—that was far more likely.

  “You may remember,” Hugh continued, “my telling you about that boy’s mother. She was typical of those rich South American women one sees from time to time—very elegantly dressed, expensively slim; large emeralds in strategic places. I suppose the emeralds are to be expected, given that Colombia produces them, but I hadn’t imagined that people would wear jewels like that at breakfast.

  “She was always criticising her son. He wasn’t too bad, as those pampered rich kids go, and there were times when I itched to intervene on his behalf. I wanted to say to her, ‘Look, why do you always run him down? Say something nice to him for a change—a word of praise, maybe.’ But I didn’t, of course. I felt insecure: I was far from home, I was their guest and, frankly, there was a whiff of danger about the whole set-up. Where did the money come from, I wondered? And why did the father spend so much time in Miami?

  “She was a great socialite. Because her husband was away so much, I think she was bored. She held dinner parties every other night, her guests coming from the other large houses in the district. They drove over in those big four-wheel drives they liked so much. Tinted windows, armed drivers, that sort of thing.

  “I was on duty for these dinner parties. I was put on show, so to speak; a trophy guest. I think she talked me up with these people, telling them that I was the son of a Scottish earl or something of the sort. One of them actually came up to me and said, ‘I hear that you’re a descendant of Macbeth. I’d like you to know I really enjoyed that play.’

  “I did my best. A lot of the conversation passed me by. They loved dissecting friends who weren’t there, and some of the stories were pretty uncharitable. Bored, rich people can be like that, you know—extremely malicious. I sat and listened to their exchanges and thought of how much I wanted to be home again.

  “It was at one of these dinner parties that I found myself seated next to an extremely attractive woman who was distantly related, I had been told, to my hostess. Her husband, a sinister-looking man in a white dinner jacket, said little but listened very attentively whenever his wife spoke, nodding his agreement.

  “She seemed very interested in what I was doing and what my plans were. She quizzed me about my interests and wanted to know whether I could dance. I told her that I had gone to ballroom-dancing lessons when I was at school, and this seemed to please her. She looked across at her husband and repeated what I had said about dancing lessons. He flashed a smile at me and nodded to his wife.

  “After dinner we all went out onto the terrace, where coffee was served. My hostess drew me aside and whispered that I had been a great success with her cousin. ‘She likes you,’ she said. ‘They are very influential people.’

  “ ‘She seems very interesting,’ I replied.

  “ ‘Yes. And they wish to offer you a job for a couple of months. They own several cruise liners. It would be a job on one of the liners.’

  “I told her that I was happy enough with what I was doing. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to work at sea.

  “She did not take this well. ‘I wouldn’t refuse, if I were you,’ she said. ‘When I said they are influential, what I meant is that they are very influential, if you get my drift. I don’t think it would be wise to decline.’

  “I found myself resenting this. Again it struck home as typical of rich people that they should feel they could tell others what to do. I said that, as far as I was concerned, there was simply no prospect of my working on one of the cruise liners. That was that, and there was no point in discussing it further.

  “She gave me a very strange look and shrugged. Then she went off to talk to her cousin and the cousin’s husband. They looked in my direction as she spoke, and I did not like the expression on the man’s face. I put down my coffee cup and left the terrace to go back up to my room.

  “The boy was there, hanging about outside my door. He put a finger to his lips to signal that we should not talk, and then he led me down the corridor to a large linen cupbo
ard. He gestured that I should follow him into the cupboard and I did so. If somebody asks you to go into a cupboard, there is usually a good reason for it.

  “There was no light inside and I found myself in pitch darkness. ‘Be very careful,’ he whispered. ‘My mother is a very dangerous woman. And that cousin of hers is even more deadly. You must run away. You must not stay here any longer. You should go tonight—immediately. I can get one of the servants to take you to a place where there is a bus just after dawn. That will take you into Bogotá. Once you reach there, get out of the country. Don’t wait—just get out.’

  “I told him that I couldn’t leave that night. I would think about it and decide what to do the following morning.

  “He told me that this was a very bad decision. ‘I know those people,’ he said. ‘They will stop at nothing.’

  “ ‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you know what I decide to do.’

  “He accepted this, but only reluctantly. ‘Careful,’ he whispered. ‘And lock your door.’ ”

  39. Burundanga

  “THE PROBLEM, HOWEVER,” Hugh continued, “was that my door did not have a lock. There was a keyhole, but when I inspected it closely I saw it was full of cobwebs. I’d noticed there were numerous spiders about the house, and I felt I had discovered their headquarters. It was clear that no key had been inserted in the lock for a very long time, and if I wanted to secure my room, I would have to move furniture up against the door.

  “I felt vaguely ridiculous shifting the chest of drawers across the floor and positioning it against the door. It was comic, really, rather like hiding under the bedclothes as a child: if anybody wanted to get in, he would simply have to push hard against the door and the chest would yield. It would be a noisy business, though, and it would give me time to raise the alarm.

  “Feeling slightly more secure, I went to bed and turned out the light. My mind was now made up: the following day I would speak to my hostess and tell her that I had decided to get back to Barranquilla. I could invent a reason for this, or could just tell her that it was what I wanted to do. After all, I was not beholden to this woman. I had not asked to be invited, and surely the whole point about being a guest was that one could go home when one wanted.