or the nurse. Well, Master Ramsey, I'm here to tell you it's pay-day, and I've come to collect.' 'I'll need some help,' he warned her.
'You just lie still. Don't do a thing. Nurse's orders. We'll take care of the details.' -She drew back the bed-sheets and reached down under them, and her voice was a languorous coo. 'We'll take care of things, he and I. You keep out of it.' She straddled him gently, taking care not to touch his bandaged chest. As she sank down on top of him, she saw her own deep need reflected in the green mirror of his eyes, and felt all her doubts evaporate. He belonged to her and to her alone.
Afterwards she lay at his good side, close and secure and happy, and they talked drowsily, hovering on the edge of sleep in the darkness. When he mentioned Michael again, she felt a twinge of remorse at her earlier doubts. She was so relaxed, so much off-guard, and she trusted Ramsey as she did herself She wanted to explain and share it with him.
'Poor Mickey, I never suspected the agony he has had to endure all these years. I am closer to him than any person in the world, and yet even I did not know about it. A few days ago, I found out, quite by accident, that he is a practising homosexual.
The words were out before she could stop them, and suddenly she was appalled by what she had done. Mickey had trusted her, and she shivered, waiting for some reaction from Ramsey. However, it was not what she had expected.
'Yes,' he agreed calmly. 'I knew that. There are some indications which are unmistakable. I knew it within the first half-hour.' She felt a rush of relief. Ramsey had known, so there was no betrayal on her part.
'You are not repelled by it?' 'No, not at all,' Ramsey answered. 'Many of them are creative and intelligent and productive people.' 'Yes, Mickey is like that,' she agreed eagerly. 'I was shocked at first, but now it means little to me. He is still my darling brother. However, I do worry about him being caught up in a criminal prosecution.' 'I don't think there is much chance of that. Society has accepted-'
'You don't understand, Ramsey. Michael likes black boys and he lives in South Africa.' 'Yes,' Rarnen agreed thoughtfully. 'That could present some problems.'
Michael phoned the flat from a pay-booth in Fleet Street a little before noon, and Ramsey answered on the second ring.
'The news is good,' Ramsey assured him. 'Raleigh Tabaka is in London and he knows of you. Did you write a series of newspaper articles back in nineteen sixty under the title 'Rage'?' 'Yes, a series of six for the Mail; it got the paper banned by the security police.' 'Tabaka read them and liked them. He has agreed to meet you.' 'My God, Ramsey. I can't tell you how grateful I am. This is the most marvelous break-' Ramsey cut short his thanks. 'He'll meet you this evening, but he has laid down some conditions.' 'Anything,' Michael agreed quickly.
'You are to come to the meeting alone. No weapons, of course, and no tape-recorder or camera. He does not want his voice or appearance on record. There is a pub in Shepherd's Bush.' He gave Michael the address.
'Be there at seven this evening. Carry a bunch of flowers - carnations.
Someone will meet and take you to the rendezvous.' 'Right, I've got that.' 'One other condition. Tabaka wants to read all your copy on the interview before you print it.' Michael was silent for a slow count of five. The request contravened all his journalistic principles. It amounted to a form of censorship and cast a slur on his professional ethics. However, the price was an interview with one of the most wanted men in Africa.
'All right,' he agreed heavily. 'I'll give him first read.'
And then his tone brightened. 'I owe you a favour, Ramsey. I'll come around and tell you all about it tomorrow evening.' 'Don't forget the bottle of wine.' Michael rushed back to Cadogan Square. As soon as he reached the telephone he cancelled all the rest of the day's appointments, and then settled down to plan his strategy for the interview. His questions had to be searching, but not so barbed as to cool Tabaka's co-operative mood. He had to be sincere and sympathetic, and yet at the same time, severe, for he was dealing with a man who had deliberately chosen the path of violence and bloodshed. To achieve credibility his questions must be balanced and neutral, and at the same time designed to draw the out. In particular he did not want a mere recital of all the radical slogans and revolutionary jargon.
'The term 'terrorist' is generally applied to a person who for reasons of political coercion commits an act of violence on a target of a non-military nature during which there is a high probability of injury or death being inflicted on innocent bystanders. Do you accept that definition and, if so, does the label 'terrorist' apply to Umkhonto we Sizwe?
He worked that out as his first question, and lit another Camel as he studied it.
'Good.' That was what you called jumping straight in with both feet, but perhaps it needed a little honing and polishing. He worked on steadily, and by five-thirty he had prepared twenty questions that satisfied him. He made himself a smoked-salmon sandwich and drank a bottle of Guinness while he reviewed and rehearsed his script.
Then he shrugged on his overcoat, armed himself with the bunch of carnations which he had bought at the comer stall. It was drizzling rain.
He flagged down a taxi in Sloane Street.
The pub was steamy with body heat. The condensation ran down the stained-glass windows in rainbow rivulets. Michael displayed the carnations ostentatiously and peered through the soft blue mist of tobacco smoke.
Almost immediately a neatly dressed Indian in a three-piece blue wool suit left the bar- counter and made his way down the crowded room.
'Mr. Courtney, my name is Govan.' 'From Natal.' Michael recognized the accent.
'From Stanger.' The man smiled. 'But that was six years ago.' He glanced at the shoulders of Michael's coat. 'Has it stopped raining? Good, we can walk. It's not far.' His guide struck out down the main thoroughfare. Within a hundred yards he turned abruptly into a. narrow alleyway and increased his pace. Michael had to trot to match him. He was wheezing when they reached the exit to the alley.
'Damned fags - I must cut down.' Govan turned out of the alley, and stopped abruptly round the corner.
Michael was about to speak, but Govan gripped his arm to silence him. They waited for five minutes. Only when it was certain that they. were not being followed did he relax his grip.
'You don't trust me,' Michael smiled, and dumped the carnations in the rubbish-bin that bore a warning of the penalties for littering.
'We do not trust anybody.' Govan led him away. 'Especially not the Boers.
They are learning new kinds of nastiness each day.' Ten minutes later they stopped again outside a modem block of flats, in a broad well-lit street. There was a rank of Mercedes and jaguars parked at the kerb. The lawn and small garden in front of the apartment-block was carefully groomed. It was clearly an expensive residential enclave. 'I will leave you here,' said Govan. 'Go in. There is a porter in the lobby. Tell him that you are a guest of Mr. Kendrick, Flat 505.' The lobby was in keeping with the facade of the building, Italian marble floor, wood-panelled walls and gilded doors to the lift. The uniformed porter saluted him. 'Yes, Mr. Courtney, Mr. Kendrick is expecting you. Please go up to the fifth floor.'
. When the lift doors opened, there were two unsmiling young coloured men waiting for him.
'Come this way, Mr. Courtney.' They led him down the carpeted passage to number 505 and let him into the flat.
As the door closed, they stepped in on each side of him and swiftly but thoroughly patted him down. Michael lifted his arms and spread his legs co-operatively. As they searched him, he looked around him with the journalist's eye. The flat had been decorated with flair and taste, and money.
His escorts stepped back satisfied, and one of them opened the double doors ahead of him.
'Please,' he said, and Michael went through into a spacious and beautifully decorated room. The sofas and easy chairs were covered with cream-coloured Connolly leather. The thick pile of the wall-to-wall carpet was a soft cocoa. The tables and the cocktail-bar were in crystal and chrome. On the walls hung four large Hockney paintings, from his swimming-pool series.
Fifty thousand quid each, Michael estimated, and then his eyes flicked to the figure who stood in the centre of the room.
There had been no recent photograph of this man, but Michael recognized him instantly from a blurred press picture in the Mairs archives which dated back years to the Sharpeville era and the subsequent enquiries.
'Mr. Tabaka,'he said. He was as tall as Michael, probably six foot one, but broader in the shoulder and narrower in the waist.
'Mr. Courtney.' Raleigh Tabaka came forward to offer his hand. He moved like a boxer, fluidly in balance, poised and aggressive.
'You live in style?' Michael put a question in his voice, and Raleigh Tabaka frowned slightly.
'This is the apartment of a sympathizer. I have no call for such frippery.' His voice was firm and deep, melodious with the unmistakable echoes of Africa. Despite the denial, his suit was of pure new wool and draped elegantly over his warrior's frame.
There were the tiny stirrups of the Gucci motif on his silk tie. He was an impressive man.
'I am grateful for this opportunity to meet you,' Michael
