The Accidental Spy

by Jacqueline George

  “I understand this also. The Church is reactionary. Maybe I will not go.”

  “It’s not so easy to write the Church off like that. Parts of it are reactionary for sure. Then in other parts, say in Latin America, it’s much more progressive. This Pope isn’t helping much, and he was brought up under communism. And anyway, the Church isn’t all there is to Christianity. There are lots of Christians whose churches are completely different.”

  “Then I think I will go for the experience. How is it for sport in Sabah? There are clubs for sports?”

  “There might be, but only for Tabrizis. Foreigners aren’t allowed to have clubs of their own, and it’s difficult to mix with the locals. It only leads to trouble in the end.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “Well, first they invite you to their houses for tea, and then they want to come to yours for alcohol. After the first time you’ve invited them they feel free to come anytime, and if you’ve offered them alcohol once, they’ll be back every day until you throw them out, and then you’ve lost a friend.

  “Then there’s Security. If Tabrizis keep going to a foreigner’s house, eventually Security get interested and the next thing you know you’re being raided. They’re not allowed to do it in theory, but they just force their way in and take all your flash. And they keep doing it every week or so until they realise that you’re not keeping alcohol any more. Then it’s not worth their coming round, so they leave you alone. But it’s a real pain while it lasts. The best thing to do is to keep away from the locals after work. It’s safer.”

  “Then they are like the KGB. My uncle was working here for a school. He was from the KGB and he was teaching the Tabrizi officers. The KGB was very strong. It is still strong, but now the best officers are in business together with some bad people. Is it the same here?”

  “The Security people? God knows. I’ve never had anything to do with them and I don’t want to start now. Do you see them?”

  “I don’t know. Here it is difficult to know who is from the Army and who is from Security. They do not dress correctly. They do not like to wear uniform.”

  There was a crash beside The Virgin as Janusz fell off the bench. He lay on his back, still cradling an empty glass. He was sleeping with his curly blonde hair spread on the floor. He looked child-like. His friends crowded round laughing, and carried him bodily from the room. No one showed surprise or concern, and the party went on without a break. Boris showed signs of wanting to talk again so The Virgin made for the dance floor. He hijacked Danka and let her lead him through some of the stand-up dances that Poles love.

  Midnight found him standing outside in the cold, shaking his head and trying to decide whether to drive home or not. Inside the party was still roaring. Danka showed no sign of wanting to stop dancing, and The Virgin had absorbed as much flash as he could hold without falling over. His stomach heaved as the fresh air reached him, and he crashed into the bushes looking for support. Leaning over a branch he threw up gratefully. Definitely, he would not drive home tonight.

  The morning light woke him in the back of his car, wrapped in a sandy blanket he kept for picnics on the beach. He felt cold and wretched. He went looking for a washroom and a coffee. Cold water woke him up but did not improve his fragile condition. He looked into the mess hall; it was empty and squalid. If he wanted a coffee he would have to drive home. He had to do that anyway. If he was going to the office, he needed to shave and get a shower. After all, it was Christmas Day and he could not let Abdul down by arriving at the office looking uncivilised.

  It was not until the day after Boxing Day that he received any indication that his plea for a meeting had been heard. A fax from Karelia curled off the machine. Mr Thorpe, Sales Manager Africa, would appreciate an appointment. He would be in Sabah from the 3rd of January and could Mr Cartwright recommend a hotel? Please reply by fax as he will be out of the office.

  Things had begun to move. The Virgin left a note on Abdul’s desk to make a hotel reservation and faxed a welcoming reply.

  - 16 -

  In the cold of the year, The Virgin had started to feel paranoid. He took to locking his inner office door at night, leaving a key with Abdul just to show that there was nothing personal in it. As he walked the town in the evening he found himself looking for faces. Driving the streets, he was checking plates on the cars behind. He rationed his visits to Danka and made a point of taking Wanda on shopping trips as well. That should confuse Captain Zella.

  Most of all, he visited Evelina. If Captain Zella was asking questions, Evelina would be the first to know. She was welcoming but distant, and The Virgin often found himself happier with some of the other nurses around. He would sit in their crowded bed-sits, drinking coffee and listening to the cassette player. They seemed to like having him around. Always friendly and smiling, when they did not call him ‘Mr Greg’ they would call him ‘Uncle’. Still, he was an outsider and there was something about them that he could not quite penetrate. As he sat musing with the Tagalog chatter going around and over him, he wished they were all out of Tabriz and back in the Philippines. He would sit quite happily with them under the palm trees and watch the sun set over the South China Sea. When the time came for him to leave the warmth of their apartments, they wished him goodbye in the same friendly calm with which they had welcomed him.

  The New Year began with a disaster. The gaffir in the office building was waiting for him when he arrived. He led him upstairs to his office where the door was open. Someone had used a heavy lever to force an entry. Inside, his office door had suffered the same treatment. The sight made The Virgin’s hangover worse. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. The office safe was still behind the door and the papers scattered on his desk were no more disorganised than normal. He called Eyetie Joe for a carpenter to repair the mess, and toyed with his work until Abdul came. Leaving the gaffir sitting officiously on a chair at the door, they walked together downtown to make a police report.

  The police investigation department was in an old stuccoed Greek building. It must have been impressive in its day. A solid four storey edifice with a u-shaped plan, so that the colonial police could parade in the courtyard. Today the stucco was flaking off and rainwater dripped from blocked downspouts. The courtyard held dead cars whose owners were helping the police with their enquiries. A heap of builder’s debris in one corner made it look as if some maintenance had been attempted, but the weeds growing through it showed that nothing had moved recently.

  Abdul led him to a small doorway halfway down one side of the building. It led through bare offices to a large room with a desk, two small chairs and an iron bedstead. A faded poster of the Great Man hung behind the desk. The Virgin sat and waited while Abdul went looking for someone to report to. He came back with a smartly uniformed young officer who shook hands and went to sit behind the desk. He said something in a low voice to Abdul.

  “He says he is sorry this has happened. It is the Egyptians or Palestinians who come here to work.” The policeman continued and Abdul translated. “Now we must make a report and they will investigate, but first I must buy some carbon paper so they can make the report.”

  The Virgin and the policeman sat looking at each other until Abdul came back with a box of carbon paper under his arm. The policeman accepted it gratefully and pulled a school exercise book from his desk. Working carefully he removed two double pages from the centre and sandwiched a sheet of carbon between them. He started to write and ask Abdul questions. The Virgin sat and drifted.

  It took about half an hour for the policeman to write the details of the crime and the people reporting it. He wrote precisely, making a tidy letter in Arabic. Then he passed it over to The Virgin. “You must sign here,” said Abdul. “It’s OK. It just says we found the office had been broken open but nothing was taken.” The Virgin signed.

  The policeman stood up and shook hands with them both. “He says he is sorry and now they will investigate.”

  “Ask him wh
en he will be coming to look at the office.”

  Abdul had a short conversation with the policeman. “He is asking if it is necessary to come to the office.”

  The Virgin opened his mouth to insist, then gave up. Why bother? It would not make any difference. “No - tell him to do just what he normally would.”

  Once they were outside on the street, he could say what he thought. “Jesus, Abdul! Why did we bother coming here in the first place? They’re not going to do anything.”

  “We must make the report,” Abdul insisted, “Otherwise people will think that we did it.”

  “Did what? Nothing’s been touched. And how did anyone break open the door without the gaffir knowing?”

  “Perhaps the gaffir does know, but he does not want to make trouble.”

  “But that’s his job! He’s meant to make trouble if anyone comes into the building at night.”

  “Maybe the people who did this were his friends. Or perhaps the police. Then he could not stop them.”

  “The police? What do they want in our office?”

  “Money, maybe. Or alcohol. They must know that we do not keep gold in our office.”

  It all had a twisted logic behind it. If you assumed that property rights for foreigners were just a Western conceit, then why should you expect a night watchman to protect you? Of course the gaffir knew what had happened. Just as The Virgin had to make a police report, so the gaffir had to let any friends or policemen do whatever they liked with the offices under his care. It was all part of the system.

  When they got back to the office Eyetie Joe’s carpenter, a taciturn Slav of some description, was already splicing a new section into the door jamb. The Virgin made him a coffee and sat at his desk. He thought of telephoning Major Jamal, but what could he do about it all? Instead he called Elena at home. She was out - away for the holiday he guessed. He recorded a message on her machine and left for TAMCO. The 9-5/8” casing job on RomDril-1 was getting nearer and he needed to push Tayfun into getting some planning done.

  When he went home for lunch he found his villa had been broken into. Nancy was there, cleaning as usual. She had come in about ten o’clock and found the garden door ajar and the front door forced open. Nothing had been touched. Even the bottle of flash in the refrigerator was still there and the Tabrizi burglar who would have left that had not yet been born. He ate a thoughtful lunch.

  He did call Major Jamal in the afternoon. One break-in could be dismissed; two on the same day would upset an honest man. The Major was sympathetic and played his part. There was nothing he could do, of course, but he did offer a trustworthy Sudanese gaffir for the villa and strongly recommended that The Virgin should take him. The Virgin spent the afternoon searching the office for bugs. It was a difficult thing to do while maintaining the normal office sounds and he found nothing. Not that he had any idea what a bug would look like.

  Mr Thorpe from Karelia arrived two mornings later. He called The Virgin from the People’s Hotel sounding a little dazed, and The Virgin went straight round to meet him in the coffee shop. The glass and marble lobby was full of life. Foreigners and influential Tabrizis met quietly below the enigmatic and badly translated green signs extolling the Revolution. The Virgin was scanning the coffee shop for a fair-skinned Englishman when his heart skipped. Mostyn sat there looking at him. Jesus Christ, he thought, they’ve sent Mostyn. Of all people. Why didn’t they warn me?

  “Er, excuse me, are you Mr Thorpe?” They shook hands as strangers. The Virgin’s brain was turning somersaults. Someone must be watching. For sure the Tabrizis knew he was meeting someone from Karelia. The question was, were they listening as well as watching? Was Mostyn smart enough to keep his mouth shut?

  “Shall we order coffee? The cappuccino tastes like mud here, but that’s what I’m having. And you? Now tell me, how do you like Tabriz? Have you been to Almadi yet?”

  Mostyn looked lost. “It’s - er - different. They really don’t try to help, do they? I got lost at the airport because I couldn’t read any of the signs. And they took all my spare money and changed it into dinars.”

  “All of it? Changed it officially? Jesus, I hope you’ve got an understanding boss back in England. How much did they change?”

  “All my cash, which was £240 and two one hundred dollar traveller’s cheques. You don’t get many dinars, do you? And the taxi down here was really expensive.”

  “Welcome to Tabriz. You’d need to be Paul Getty to spend money at the official rate. And you won’t be able to change it back if you have any left when you go. Never mind, there’s not much to spend it on anyway. What are you doing here?”

  “Well, I’m not sure really. My boss wants to look at the market here. After all, there must be a lot of money around and everyone needs laboratories. I was hoping you could help me.”

  “Jesus! He’s really thrown you in at the deep end. I don’t know how you’ll go here. We don’t get any salesmen cold calling at all. It’s not worth it. Any foreign company is going to buy what it needs outside, and I don’t know what Government departments do. They never seem to have any money to buy things, or maintain them. I suppose you could try the Ministry of Health. They must buy their laboratory supplies somewhere. We’ll try and get you a couple of introductions. They didn’t give you any names at all?” The Virgin found the incompetence of his cover story hard to swallow.

  They walked to the office. It was not too far, and at least they could talk. Then The Virgin’s new paranoia got the better of him and he refused to open his mouth near Thorpe’s briefcase. In his office he passed a note ‘assume everything is bugged’ which limited them to talking about the weather and the incoming shipment. He would have to get Thorpe somewhere safe, but where? In the meantime he called Eyetie Joe again, looking for somewhere to send Thorpe where he might sell some laboratory supplies. It pleased him when even Joe was stuck for an answer, but eventually he came up with a name from the Ministry of Agriculture.

  “Sure,” he said, “They will not buy nothing here. Your friend must go to Almadi, but at least he can find out where in Almadi he should be going. He must say that he is coming from me, and in Sabah they will help him. If my friend is there, of course. You know, they don’t work too much in Agriculture.” The Virgin thanked him and got Abdul to volunteer to act as a guide.

  As Thorpe was led away, he called after him. “Do you jog?”

  “Jog? Yes, sometimes. Why?”

  “Good. You can come running on the Hash on Saturday. Got your trainers with you? Abdul, would you mind taking Mr Thorpe to buy a sports suit and some running shoes?” Thorpe was looking confused. “It’s worth it, believe me. Most of the foreigners go, and someone might have ideas about who else you can visit. Just buy something cheap. There’s not much choice here and none of it’s very good, so I hope you’re not particular. I’ll pick you up from the hotel at four o’clock.” Poor Thorpe. He would be spending tomorrow and most of Saturday alone in his hotel room. The Virgin hoped he had brought a good book.

  Danka was off-duty and The Virgin picked her up on the way to the hotel. Thorpe was waiting in the lobby dressed in a shiny tracksuit and multi-coloured trainers, the best that Egypt could provide. He left Thorpe to talk to Danka while he negotiated his way through the traffic. He was watching for company. It did not take long to pick them out. A dented green Mercedes with three men in it, keeping always two or three cars behind. The Virgin ignored it and drove on. The Hash was not far away this week. As they passed out of the edge of town the Mercedes became even more obvious. The Virgin wondered if they would try to follow the Hash on foot, but the Mercedes swept past as he slowed down to stop.

  This week the run was at The Pinnacle, a rocky outcrop near the town limits. The Virgin parked in the rubble and rubbish dumped beside the blacktop and waited in the car until the others arrived. They came in a rush. Soon everyone was milling around exchanging news and greetings, waiting for the off. Noddy came up with the Hash Horn in hand. “New blood, Virgin? O
ne of yours?”

  “Hi, Noddy. This is - what’s your first name again?”

  “Geoffrey - Geoffrey Thorpe,” said Mostyn, offering his hand to Noddy.

  “Pleased to meet you Geoffrey. First time out? Or have you hashed anywhere else?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”

  Noddy laughed in delight. “I like that! Doesn’t know if he’s hashed before. Believe me, you’d remember if you had. Call me Noddy.”

  “Noddy?”

  “Yes - Hash name. Everybody’s got to have a Hash name. If you’re a good boy, we’ll give you one too.”

  Hash Horn was winding his bugle and the mass of people straggled up to the top of the outcrop - the traditional start of runs from this venue. On top the paint of many old trails was dotted on the rocks. Noddy climbed onto a boulder and shouted at them. “Good evening, Hashers all. Welcome to yet another exciting Pinnacle run. There’s so much damn paint around we’ll have to find another location soon. The Hares this evening have used a colour they persist in calling puce. I think that’s because they don’t want to admit its real name is lavender, and only poofs would lay a trail in lavender. Soooo; Sabah Hash House Harriers, running on lavender, ON-ON!”

  They jogged carefully through the rocks to a dirt track that led away from the blacktop and into the deserted buildings of the old chicken project. One of the small blessings of the Revolution was the amount of derelict State land around town. Sabah’s equivalent of parkland. The dots of lavender paint led out through the buildings to the fields beyond. The Virgin took the chance to slow Thorpe down and get some talking done. They walked as other Hashers ran past them.

  “You’re very nervous about bugging, aren’t you? Do you think they’re on to you?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said The Virgin, “But they’re certainly interested in you. They broke into my office and house as soon as they heard you were coming. There must be some bugs somewhere, but I couldn’t find them.”