‘Eager as sin, she was,’ Halloran went on. A most receptive student, was Amanda P-W. The only thing she knew was la-di-da. Never had a bit of rough, let alone a bit of Irish rough. So when Halloran admired the view as the light poured through the hotel window, and through her skirt, and suggested that simplicity was the thing – perhaps the necklace off, then the stockings, she agreed she looked better and better the less she wore. ‘Until there she was, naked, and willing.’ Halloran finished. ‘My knees and elbows were raw by three in the morning.’
He smiled and took a swig of beer.
‘I don’t know how Daddy found out,’ Halloran continued after a pause. ‘Turned out he was a colonel on a visit for the MoD to see about some arms for the Omanis. You know, the famous Irish sheikhs – the O’Mahoneys?’
Ridger acknowledged the joke with a nod and a lugubrious smile.
‘So Daddy had me out of there. The SAS didn’t want me back, and I’d had enough of regular service. Used up half my salary to buy myself out. So it was back to pulling pints. Until the Brits approached me, unofficial like. Could I help discredit the Provos? Five hundred a month, in cash, for three months to see how it went. That was when my mind turned to banks. It was easy – home ground, see, because we used to plan raids with the regiment. Just plan mind. Now it was for real. I got a taste for it. Next I know, the Garda’s got me on file, and asks my controller in Belfast to have me arrested. He explains it nicely. They couldn’t exactly come clean. So they do the decent thing: put out a warrant for me, but warn me first. Decent! You help your fucking country, and they fuck you.’
‘You could tell.’
‘I wouldn’t survive to tell, Frank. As the bastard captain said, I’m OK if I lie low. In a year, two years, when the heat’s off, I can live again.’
‘I have the afternoon shift,’ said Frank, avoiding his gaze, and standing up. ‘I’ll be back about nine.’
‘We’ll have a few drinks.’
As the door closed, Halloran reached for another can of Guinness. He had no intention of waiting even a week, let alone a year, to live again.
Yufru was clearly at ease in the cold opulence of Sir Charles Cromer’s office. He was slim, with the aquiline good looks of many Ethiopians. He carried a grey cashmere overcoat, which he handed to Miss Yates, and wore a matching grey suit, tailored light-blue shirt and plain dark-blue tie.
Though Cromer never knew his background, Yufru had been living in exile since 1960. At that time he had been a major, a product of the elitist military academy at Harar. He had been one of a group of four officers who had determined to break the monolithic, self-seeking power of the monarchy and attempted to seize power while the Emperor was on a state visit to Brazil. The attempt was a disaster: the rebel officers, themselves arrogant and remote, never established how much support they would have, either within the army or outside it.
In the event, they had none. They took the entire cabinet hostage, shot most of them in an attempt to force the army into co-operation, and when they saw failure staring them in the face, scattered. Two killed themselves. Their corpses were strung up on a gallows in the centre of Addis. A third was captured and hanged. The fourth was Yufru. He drove over the border into Kenya, where he had been wise enough to bank his income, and surfaced a year later in London. Now, after a decade in business, mainly handling African art and supervising the investment of his profits, he had volunteered his services to the revolutionary government, seeking some revenge on the Imperial family and rightly guessing that his experience of the capitalist system might be of use.
He stood and looked round with admiration. Then, as Cromer invited him with a gesture to sit, he began to speak in suave tones that were the consequence of service with the British in 1941–5.
As Cromer knew, Ethiopia was a poor country. He, Yufru, had been lucky, of course, but the time had come for all of them to pull together. They faced the consequences of a terrible famine. The figures quoted in the West were not inaccurate – perhaps half a million would eventually die of starvation. Much, of course, was due to the inhumanity of the Emperor. He was remote, cut off in his palaces. The revolutionary government had attempted to reverse these disasters, but there was a limit imposed by a lack of funds and internal opposition.
‘These are difficult times politically,’ Yufru sighed. He was the ideal apologist for his thuggish masters. Cromer had met the type before – intelligent, educated, smooth, serving themselves by serving the hand that paid them. ‘We have enemies within who will soon be persuaded to see the necessity of change. We have foolish rebels in Eritrea who may seek to dismember our country. Somalia wishes to tear from us the Ogaden, an integral part of our country.
‘All this demands a number of extremely expensive operations. As you are no doubt aware, the Somalis are well equipped with Soviet arms. My government has not as yet found favour with the Soviets. If we are to be secure – and I suggest that it is in the interests of the West that the Horn of Africa remains stable – we need good, modern arms. The only possible source at present is the West. We do not wish to be a debtor nation. We would like to buy.
‘For that, to put matters bluntly, we need hard cash.’
Cromer nodded. He had guessed correctly.
‘The money for such purposes exists. It was stolen by Haile Selassie from our people and removed from the country, as you have good cause to know. I am sure you will respect the fact that the Emperor’s fortune is officially government property and that the people of Ethiopia, the originators of that wealth, should be considered the true heirs of the Emperor. They should receive the benefits of their labours.’
‘Administered, of course, by your government,’ Cromer put in.
‘Of course,’ Yufru replied easily, untouched by the banker’s irony. ‘They are the representatives of the people.’
Cromer was in his element. He knew his ground and he knew it to be rock-solid. He could afford to be magnanimous.
‘Mr Yufru,’ he began after a pause, ‘morally your arguments are impeccable. I understand the fervour with which your government is determined to right historic wrongs…’ – both of them were aware of what the fervour entailed: hundreds of corpses, ‘enemies of the revolution’, stinking on the streets of Addis – ‘and we would naturally be willing to help in any way. But insofar as the Emperor’s personal funds are concerned, there is really nothing we can do. Our instructions are clear and binding…’
‘I too know the instructions,’ Yufru broke in icily. ‘My father was with the Emperor in ’24. That is, in part, why I am here. You must have written instructions, signed by the Emperor, and sealed with the Imperial seal, on notepaper prepared by your bank, itself watermarked, again with the Imperial seal.’
Cromer acknowledged Yufru’s assertion with a slow nod.
‘Indeed, and those arrangements still stand. I have to tell you that the last such communication received by this bank was dated July 1974. Neither I nor my associates have received any further communication. We cannot take any action unilaterally. And, as the world knows, the Emperor is now dead, and it seems that the deposits must be frozen…’ – the banker spread his hands in a gesture of resigned sympathy – ‘in perpetuity.’
There was a long pause. Yufru clearly had something else to say. Cromer waited, still confident.
‘Sir Charles,’ Yufru said, more carefully now, ‘we have
