Crocodile Tears

has seen more than one working-class boy rise to riches and success. And for a time, it looked as if the same might happen to me. I was known as a rising star. I trained in a gym in Limehouse and I threw myself into it. Sometimes I would go there for ten hours a day. This was in many respects the happiest time of my life. I loved the feel of my fist smashing into an opponent’s face. I loved the sight of blood. And the feeling of victory!
    Once I knocked a man out. I thought for a moment I had killed him. It was a truly delicious sensation.

    “ But, as I have explained to you, my dream came to an end. My manager dropped me. The press, which had once fawned over me, forgot me. I returned to London with no money and no job. I had to move back in with my foster parents, but they didn’t really want me. I was no longer a cute little boy that they could feel good about helping. I was a man. There was no room for me in their life.
    “ My foster father managed to get me a job with a real estate developer, and that was how I found myself in the lucrative world of property. It was an area in which I had almost immediate success. At that time, it was easy to make a fast profit and I began to do well. People noticed me. You could not be a successful black person in Britain without standing out, and as I moved up the ladder, more and more businessmen wanted to be seen with me, to pretend that they were my friends. People liked inviting me to dinner parties. They thought of me as a bit of a character—particularly after my brief fame in the boxing ring.
    “ I made a large donation to the Conservative party, and as a result I was asked if I would like to become a prospective member of Parliament. I accepted and I was duly voted in, even though the seat had been Labour for as long as anyone could remember. Success followed success, Alex. I became a junior minister in the department of sport. I would often find myself on the terrace outside the House of Commons, sipping champagne with the prime minister. The entire cabinet came to my Christmas parties, which became famous for their fine vintage wine and chicken pies. I gave talks all over the country. And, thanks to my property empire, I was getting richer than ever. I still remember buying my first Rolls-Royce. At the time, I couldn’t even drive—but what did I care? The next day I went out and hired a chauffeur. By the time I was thirty, I had a dozen people working for me.”
    He spread his hands. “And then it all went wrong again.”
    “ You were sent to prison for fraud.” Alex remembered what Sabina’s father had said.

    “ Yes. Isn’t it amazing how quickly people desert you? Without a moment’s hesitation, my so-called friends turned their backs on me. I was thrown out of Parliament. All my wealth was taken from me.
    Journalists in the main newspapers jeered and mocked me in a way that was every bit as bad as the boys I had once known at school. In prison, I was beaten up so often that the hospital reserved a bed for me. Other men would have chosen to end it all, Alex—and there were times when even I considered dashing my head against a concrete wall. But I didn’t—because already I was planning my comeback. I knew that I could use my disgrace as just one more step on the journey I had been born to make.”
    “ You didn’t convert to Christianity,” Alex said. “You just pretended.”
    McCain laughed. “Of course! I read the Bible. I spent hours talking to the prison chaplain, a pompous fool who couldn’t see farther than the end of his own dog collar. I took a course on the Internet and got myself ordained. The Reverend Desmond McCain! It was all lies … but it was necessary. Because I had worked out what I was going to do next. I was going to be rich again. Fifty times richer than I had ever been before.”
    Alex had left most of his food. One of the guards came over and took the plates away, removing McCain’s unfinished food. Another brought over a basket of fruit. In the brief silence, Alex listened to the sounds of the night: the soft murmur of the river as it flowed past, the endless whisper of the undergrowth, the occasional cry of some animal far away. He was sitting in the open air, in Africa! And yet he couldn’t enjoy his surroundings. He was sitting at a table with a madman. He knew it all too well. McCain might have suffered hardships in his life, but what had happened to him had nothing to do with his background or his color;