7 July
To:
Subject:
Yemen?Salmon
I thought you’d like to know that the (previously reluctant) scientist I wanted to work on this project is now eating out of my hand. I fed him some ideas on how to approach the work and he has come up with quite a reasonable first stab at the proposal, which has been welcomed by the client. I’ll keep you posted. Feel free to pass this on up the line if you think you should.
Yrs ever
David
Memo
From:
To:
PM
Subject:
Date:
PM
I thought it best to update you on the Yemen project (if you don’t recall, it was to do with salmon). We’ve taken a step forward and it is ready to kick off. I don’t think we’ll talk to the media about it yet, though. I want to see whether it is really going to happen before we risk any exposure on what is, after all, a rather unusual story. On the other hand, we all know that most civil servants leak like sieves and no doubt fisheries scientists are no better or worse than the rest of them. We want to make sure that when this gets out, we tell it in our own words and make it clear whose initiative it is (yours).
I’ll update you as soon as I hear anything.
Peter
PS: I never asked. Do you know how to fish?
4
12 July
A very strange day.
I had arranged a meeting with Harriet (Chetwode-Talbot) at Fitzharris & Price in St James’s Street first thing this morning. I must admit I was quite looking forward to finding out more about the project, and the client. I can even say I was quite looking forward to meeting Harriet again, as she has impressed me by the intelligent and professional way she has conducted herself thus far. Her people skills are in a different league to those of David Sugden, who by the way is now my new best friend. He and I had a drink in the pub on Friday night after work.
Anyway, I went round to St James’s Street and announced myself at the reception desk. I was somewhat surprised to see Harriet come out of her office, carrying her briefcase and with a raincoat over her arm.
‘Are we going somewhere?’ I asked.
She greeted me good morning and suggested I follow her downstairs. I must note here she is really quite attractive-looking when she smiles, her face being a trifle severe in repose. We went out into the street, where a large black car was waiting. The driver jumped out and opened doors for us. Once in, Harriet turned to me and said, ‘We are going to meet the client.’ I asked her if she could tell me anything about him, but she simply replied, ‘I think I’ll let him speak for himself, if you don’t mind.’
The car purred into Piccadilly and turned right. Harriet dug into her briefcase for some papers. Then she put on spectacles and said, ‘You don’t mind, do you? I need to go over some papers on some other business we are acting on for our client.’
She sat and read. Meanwhile the car was driving across Vauxhall Bridge. I was a little surprised; I had expected we would drive round to somewhere like Belgrave Square or Eaton Place. I sat back in the comfortable, new-smelling white leather seat and enjoyed the unaccustomed luxury. I do not own a car, myself. It’s pointless with these congestion charges. We drove through south London. I began to wonder where on earth we were going. Surely the sheikh did not live in Brixton?
I said, ‘Excuse me, Harriet, but are we going much further?’
She took her spectacles off, raised her head from looking at her papers, and gave me another smile. ‘That’s the first time you have used my Christian name.’
Not knowing how to respond to this I said something like, ‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes, really. And no, we are not going much further. Just as far as Biggin Hill.’
‘Are we meeting your client at Biggin Hill?’
‘No. His plane is meeting us.’
‘We’re not going to the Yemen?’ I asked in alarm. ‘I haven’t got my passport. Or anything.’
‘We’re going to pay the sheikh a brief visit at his place near Inverness. He liked your proposal but he wants to speak about it with you face to face.’
‘It is very kind of him to say he likes it,’ I said.
‘He is very kind, but he liked it because it gave him hope.’ Then she said no more, and would not be drawn into further conversation until we arrived at the airport.
On any other occasion I would have found the experience of flying in a private jet overwhelming in itself; it’s not that often I fly in any sort of plane. But really it was just a flight to somewhere. What was memorable was what happened after we arrived.
When we landed at Inverness airport another black car was there to meet us outside the terminal. This time it was a Range Rover. We drove onto the A9 and headed south for twenty minutes or so and then turned off down a single-track road and over a cattle grid. A sign read, ‘Glen Tulloch Estate. Private’. We drove along the track towards some distant hills, down into a wooded valley and across an enchanting river full of appealing dark pools where fish might lie. We followed the river for another ten minutes until, surrounded by immaculate and damp-looking green lawns, a large red-granite lodge came into sight. There were turrets at each end of the front, and a central portico with pillars surrounding the massive front door, with steps leading down to the gravel.
As the Range Rover pulled up in front of the house, a man in a suit and tie came down the steps. For a moment I wondered if he might be the client, but as we got out of the car I heard him say, ‘Welcome back to Glen Tulloch, Miss Harriet.’
Harriet said, ‘How are you, Malcolm?’
Malcolm bowed his head in answer to this enquiry, made a respectful murmur of welcome in my direction, and then asked us to follow him inside. We entered the house and came into a large square hall panelled in dark wood. A round library table with a bowl of roses occupied the centre. A few dark pictures of stags were hung on the walls, and intimidating and massive casts of salmon mounted on wooden plaques, bearing the weight and date caught, occupied the spaces between the pictures.
‘His Excellency is at prayer,’ said Malcolm to me, ‘and then he will be occupied for an hour or two. Miss Harriet, would you be kind enough to go to his office and he will join you there shortly.’
‘Have fun,’ Harriet said to me. ‘See you later.’
‘If you will follow me, Dr Jones,’ said Malcolm, ‘I will show you to your room.’
I was surprised to find I had a room. I thought I was coming for a brief meeting and back to the airport. I had imagined I would spend half an hour, perhaps an hour with the sheikh, and then he would have learned all I could tell him and I would be dismissed. Malcolm took me upstairs to a bedroom on the first floor. It was an enormous but comfortable room with a four-poster bed and a dressing table, and a large bathroom adjoining it. Through tall sash windows I could see heathery moors running up into the mountains. On the bed were laid out a check shirt, a pair of khaki-coloured trousers, thick socks and a pair of chest waders.
Malcolm surprised and delighted me by saying, ‘His Excellency thought you might like to fish for an hour or two before you meet him, to relax for a while after your journey. He hopes these clothes will be comfortable. We had to guess your size.’ He pointed to a bell push beside the bed and told me that, if I rang for him when I was ready, he would take me to meet the gillie, Colin McPherson.
Half an hour later I was walking along the bank of the river we had driven up with Colin beside me. Colin was short, sandy-haired, square-faced and taciturn. He looked gloomily at me when I was introduced to him, wearing the brand new Snowbee waders which had been left out for me and feeling rather foolish.
‘You’ll not have been after a fish before, sir?’ he asked.
‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ I told him. His face brightened fleetingly, then relapsed into its scowl.
‘Most of the gentlemen that comes to see the laird haven’t had a rod in their hand before in their life.’
I said I would do my best, and we walked down to the river, Colin carrying a fifteen-foot rod and a landing net. He told me a little about the river, and about the fishing, as we walked along the bank. The river was about thirty yards wide and there was a good flow of water. ‘We had some rain the night, and a few fish have maybe come up. But I doubt you’ll see a fish today.’
At last we came to a dank pool fifty yards long or so, running out into white water over gravel shoals. Rowan trees and alders overhung the far bank, and I could see a few threads of cast hanging from the branches where over-ambitious fishermen had snagged their lines. ‘You’re no worse off fishing here than anywhere,’ suggested Colin. He looked as if he doubted very much whether I would ever see let alone catch a fish. He handed me the rod he had put up for me. I tried it a few times to get the feel of it. It was beautifully balanced, stiff and powerful. I waded into the water a few feet,
