A Delicate Truth A Novel

anorak’s inside pocket, his super-encrypted cellphone. He could feel its weight on his left nipple – which didn’t prevent his fingers from making their own furtive exploration.
    A shiny Toyota four-by-four had joined the queue of arriving cars, and yes it was blue and yes there was a red sign saying CONFERENCE on the passenger side of the windscreen. Two white faces up front, the driver male, bespectacled and young. The girl compact and efficient, leaping out like a yachtswoman, hauling back the side door.
    ‘You’re Arthur, right?’ she yelled in best Australian.
    ‘No, I’m Paul, actually.’
    ‘Oh right, you’re Paul! Sorry about that. Arthur’s next stop. I’m Kirsty. Great to meet you, Paul. Hop right in!’
    Agreed safety formula. Typical over-production, but never mind. He hopped, and was alone on the rear seat. The side door slammed shut and the four-by-four nosed its way between the white gateposts, on to the cobbled road.
    ‘And this here’s Hansi,’ Kirsty said over the back of her seat. ‘Hansi’s part of the team. “Ever watchful” – right, Hansi? That’s his motto. Want to say hullo to the gentleman, Hansi?’
    ‘Welcome aboard, Paul,’ said Ever-Watchful Hansi, withoutturning his head. Could be an American voice, could be German. War’s gone corporate.
    They were driving between high stone walls and he was drinking in every sight and sound at once: the blare of jazz from a passing bar, the obese English couples quaffing tax-free booze at their outdoor tables, the tattoo parlour with its embroidered torso in low-slung jeans, the barber’s shop with sixties hairstyles, the bowed old man in a yarmulke wheeling a baby’s pram, and the curio shop selling statuettes of greyhounds, flamenco dancers, and Jesus and his disciples.
    Kirsty had turned to examine him by the passing lights. Her bony face, freckled from the outback. Short, dark hair tucked into the bush hat. No make-up, and nothing behind the eyes: or nothing for him. The jaw crammed into the crook of her forearm while she gave him the once-over. The body indecipherable under the bulk of a quilted bush jacket.
    ‘Left everything in your room, Paul? Like we told you?’
    ‘All packed up, as you said.’
    ‘Including the bird book?’
    ‘Including it.’
    Into a dark side street, washing slung across it. Decrepit shutters, crumbling plaster, graffiti demanding BRITS GO HOME ! Back into the blaze of city lights.
    ‘And you didn’t check out of your room? By mistake or something?’
    ‘The lobby was chock-a-block. I couldn’t have checked out if I’d tried.’
    ‘How about the room key?’
    In my bloody pocket. Feeling an idiot, he dropped it into her waiting hand and watched her pass it to Hansi.
    ‘We’re doing the tour, right? Elliot says to show you the facts on the ground, so’s you have the visual image.’
    ‘Fine.’
    ‘We’re heading for Upper Rock, so we’re taking in the Queensway Marina on the way. That’s the Rosemaria out there now. She arrived an hour ago. See it?’
    ‘See it.’
    ‘That’s where Aladdin always anchors, and those are his personal steps to the dockside. Nobody’s allowed to use them except him: he has property interests in the colony. He’s still aboard, and his guests are running late, still powdering their noses before they go ashore for their slap-up dinner at the Chinese. Everybody eyeballs the Rosemaria , so you can, too. Just keep it relaxed. There’s no law says you can’t take a relaxed look at a thirty-million-dollar super-yacht.’
    Was it the excitement of the chase? Or just the relief of being got out of prison? Or was it the simple prospect of serving his country in a way he’d never dreamed of? Whatever it was, a wave of patriotic fervour swept over him as centuries of British imperial conquest received him. The statues to great admirals and generals, the cannons, redoubts, bastions, the bruised air-raid precaution signs directing our stoical defenders to their nearest shelter, the Gurkha-style warriors standing guard with fixed bayonets outside the Governor’s residence, the bobbies in their baggy British uniforms: he was heir to all of it. Even the dismal rows of fish-and-chip shops built into elegant Spanish façades were like a homecoming.
    A flash-glimpse of cannons, then of war memorials, one British, one American. Welcome to Ocean Village, hellish canyon of apartment blocks with balconies of blue glass for ocean waves. Enter a private road with