A Delicate Truth A Novel

thought of to jump out of the woodwork and embrace me as a long-lost chum and I’m – well, scuppered. And what do I know about statistics, come to that? Bugger all. Don’t mean to question your expertise, Elliot. And of course I’ll do whatever it takes. Just asking.’
    ‘Is that the complete sum of your anxieties, Paul?’ Elliot enquires solicitously.
    ‘Of course. Absolutely. Just making the point.’ And wishing he hadn’t, but how the hell d’you throw logic out of the window?
    Elliot moistens his lips, frowns, and in carefully fractured English replies as follows:
    ‘It is a fact , Paul, that nobody in Gibraltar will give a five-dollar fuck who you are for as long as you flash your British passport at them and keep your head below the horizon at all times. However: it’s your balls that will be in the direct line of fire, should we strike worst-case scenario, which it is my bounden duty to consider. Let us take the hypothetical case of the operation aborting in a manner not foreseen by its expert planners of whom I pride myself as being one. Was there aninside man? they may ask. And who is this scholarly wanker Anderson who skulked in his hotel room reading books all day and all night? – they will start to wonder. Where is this Anderson to be found, in a colony no bigger than a fucking golf course? If that situation were to arise, I suspect you’d be grateful indeed not to have been the person you are in reality. Happy now, Paul?’
    Happy as a sandboy, Elliot. Couldn’t be happier. Totally out of my element, whole thing like a dream, but with you all the way. But then, noticing that Elliot looks a bit put out, and fearing that the detailed briefing he is about to receive will kick off on a bad note, he goes for a bit of bonding:
    ‘So where does a highly qualified chap like you fit into the scheme of things, if I may ask without being intrusive, Elliot?’
    Elliot’s voice acquires the sanctimoniousness of the pulpit:
    ‘I sincerely thank you for that question, Paul. I am a man of arms; it is my life. I have fought wars large and small, mostly on the continent of Africa. During these exploits I was fortunate enough to encounter a man whose sources of intelligence are legendary, not to say uncanny. His worldwide contacts speak to him as to no other in the safe knowledge that he will use their information in the furtherance of democratic principles and liberty. Operation Wildlife , the details of which I shall now unveil to you, is his personal brainchild.’
    And it is Elliot’s proud statement that elicits the obvious, if sycophantic, question:
    ‘And may one ask, Elliot, whether this great man has a name?’
    ‘Paul, you are now and for evermore family. I will therefore tell you without restraint that the founder and driving force of Ethical Outcomes is a gentleman whose name, in strictest confidence, is Mr Jay Crispin.’
     
    *
     
    Return to Harrow by black cab.
    Elliot says, From now on, keep all receipts . Pay off cabbie, keep receipt.
    Google Jay Crispin.
    Jay is nineteen and lives in Paignton, Devon. She is a waitress.
    J. Crispin, Veneer Makers, began life in Shoreditch in 1900.
    Jay Crispin auditions for models, actors, musicians and dancers.
    But of Jay Crispin, the driving force of Ethical Outcomes and mastermind of Operation Wildlife , not a glimpse.
     
    *
     
    Stuck once more at the overlarge window of his hotel prison, the man who must call himself Paul emitted a weary string of mindless obscenities, more in the modern way than his own. Fuck – then double fuck . Then more fucks , loosed off in a bored patter of gunfire aimed at the cellphone on the bed and ending with an appeal – Ring, you little bugger, ring – only to discover that somewhere inside or outside his head the same cellphone, no longer mute, was chirruping back at him with its infuriating diddly-ah, diddly-ah, diddly-ah dee-dah-doh.
    He remained at the window, frozen in disbelief. It’s next-door’s fat Greek with a beard, singing in the shower. It’s those horny lovers upstairs: he’s grunting, she’s howling, I’m hallucinating.
    Then all he wanted in the world was to go to sleep and wake up when it was over. But by then he was at the bed, clutching the encrypted cellphone to his ear but, out of some aberrant sense of security, not speaking.
    ‘Paul? Are you there, Paul? It’s me. Kirsty , remember?’
    Kirsty the part-time minder he’d never set eyes on. Her voice the only thing he knew about