Rentboy

the evening; I’m sorry to disturb
    you.”
    “That’s perfectly all right. I apologize for keeping you waiting, but I was down at Oxford for a
    reunion.”
    That alone brought out Godfrey’s smile. “Oh, lovely. I took my Masters of Divinity at Oxford.”
    “A grand institution.” When the man smiled, his pale blue eyes transformed his face, giving the
    impression that he was trustworthy and kind. “Wasn’t there a young man with you, Afton Baillie?”
    “Yes. I’m afraid he left. He was worried about his friend, and quite frankly so am I. He went
    looking for him.”
    “Come with me. We’ll talk about it when we are sitting down. My name is Stephen Conran, by
    the way.”
    They walked through the metal detector. The guard nodded politely at Conran. Godfrey felt like
    scowling at her but out of habit smiled instead. Feeling like Alice down the rabbit hole, he followed
    the man through a maze of corridors and down stairs until he was led into a conference room with
    concrete walls. A long oak table surrounded by chairs filled the center of the room. On one wall a
    series of clocks, all with different times on them, caught Godfrey’s attention. A closer look told him
    the clocks showed the current hour in different countries. For some reason he glanced at Uganda and
    saw that it was ten past midnight there.
    “Please sit down, vicar.”
    He almost said, Call me Godfrey , then decided not to. They’d made him wait two and a half
    hours. The least they could do now was treat him with respect.
    “Would you like some tea?”
    “Yes, I’d love some. A few biscuits would be nice too. I’m starving.”
    “Certainly.”
    Mr. Conran got on the phone, and a few minutes later the tea arrived along with several people,
    all of whom were introduced and whose names Godfrey promptly forgot. They gathered around the
    conference table while Godfrey poured his tea from a very pretty china pot and at the same time
    stuffed a couple of Custard Creams into his mouth. He had taken a long drink of his tea and downed a
    couple more biscuits before he looked up to find the assemblage watching him.
    “You know Mr. Maputwa from Uganda?” Mr. Conran asked.
    Self-conscious at stuffing himself so openly, Godfrey felt his cheeks warm. Perhaps they thought
    he was a nutcase who was only on the scrounge for free tea and biscuits. “No, I’ve never met him.
    Young Fox, Afton Baillie, told me a most fantastic tale, which, to be honest, I tend to believe. He
    looks rather unusual—Fox, that is—but he is a kind and decent young man, and he’s very worried
    about the man he loves.”
    “He’s gay?” Stephen Conran said the words rather nervously, or so Godfrey thought. What was
    he hiding? “What’s the other man’s name?”
    “Dr. Edward Atherton. He’s a scientist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
    Medicine.”
    Conran nodded at one of the men, who left the room. “How did you meet them, and what’s their
    connection to Maputwa?”
    Managing to eat and drink at the same time, Godfrey told the silent group about the morning he
    met Fox and the young man’s confession that he disliked his father. Best not mention that he was going
    to kill him. “Apparently the father is a rather brutal ex-army man who now works as a soldier of
    fortune. A Captain William Baillie.”
    Conran glanced at one of his colleagues. “Do we know him?”
    The woman nodded. “He’s not one of ours.”
    Briefly Godfrey went into the surprise meeting at the café and the offer to counsel Fox and Dr.
    Atherton. “I arrived at the address on Great Russell Street.” One of the men had been making notes on
    a laptop all along and asked him to repeat the address, which he did. “A black car drew up, and three
    very dark-skinned men attempted to abduct Dr. Atherton as he stood on the front step talking to Fox.
    But Dr. Atherton appeared to be rather good at martial arts and managed to escape back into the
    house. The men left in the car, and that was that. Fox told me later that he needed to speak to his
    father, but when he went home, Captain Baillie wasn’t there. Fox came to the rectory a couple of
    hours ago and told me all about the Lintrane.”
    “Lintrane?” Conran asked.
    As best he could remember Godfrey related the story of the lethal compound and how Dr.
    Atherton had made it safe, refusing to tell anyone how to make the dangerous version. “It seems this
    Ugandan man and a Dr. Howard are both in on it, along with