‘Take a pew. Hawn, isn’t it? Didn’t we meet at Freddy Frobisher’s — Lord Danebury’s son? Awfully nice boy — but a bloody bad backgammon player! Won three thou’ off him last week, and he didn’t bat an eyelid.’ He signed some papers, shuffled them as though about to deal a hand, then signed some more. He looked up. ‘Your message said it was something urgent?’
‘It was a tip-off I got this afternoon. There may be nothing in it.’
‘Get yourself a drink. I won’t join you — I’m off the bloody stuff.’ His voice was surprisingly soft, and although abrupt, there was a pervasive hint of intimacy about it that made Hawn faintly uneasy.
He gave himself a Scotch and sat down. On the TV screen the compere was presenting a hideous cocktail cabinet to a giggling woman in a purple dress. Hawn said, ‘It’s rather a delicate matter. I’m not sure how to begin.’
‘I should try the beginning,’ Shanklin said, and scribbled something in a margin.
‘Mr Shanklin, everything I’m about to ask you is in the strictest confidence. I’m doing some research into the oil business during the last war. I gather that after you were wounded, you spent some time in the Caribbean?’
One of the telephones began to bleep by Shanklin’s elbow. He grabbed it. ‘Yes? Yes, yes I know who you are. Well, what’s happened?’ As he listened, his jaw muscles swelled and his face grew pink. His voice, still soft, had taken on an indefinable note of menace: ‘I don’t give a monkey’s what’s happened to him. For all I care they can hang him up and beat his feet till he never walks again. And shut up when I’m talking. You can go whimpering to the FO if you want to, and a lot of bloody good that’ll do you. He’s not their pigeon, and he’s not mine. If Assad can spring him, the best of Jewish luck to him! Otherwise, you’ll have to count him as a write-off. Now I’m busy.’ He put the phone down and grinned evilly at Hawn.
‘Some little sod trying to do a double-act. Takes money from us, then gets picked up by the Iraqis with his pockets stuffed with dollars and an Israeli code that was broken weeks ago. God, these bloody Zionists! They’re everywhere, like lice. Or are you another Israeli-lover? Most journalists seem to be, like politicians. Israel’s a gangster state, and they’ve got everyone on the payroll.’
Hawn now remembered other things about Shanklin. His greatest asset to ABCO had been his phenomenally close relations with the Arab leaders: he had been in Iran at the time of Mosaddeq, helping to smooth the way for the Shah’s return; had predicted Nuri’s fall in Baghdad a month before it happened; had wheeled and dealed throughout the Middle East in the calamitous aftermath of the Yom Kippur War. Toby Shanklin was one of those vintage gentlemen-Arabists: his mentors would be Burton and Thesiger and St John Philby. To him Lawrence was a minor adventurer.
He peered at Hawn from under his pale eyebrows. ‘I’m listening. Something about the Caribbean?’
‘It could have been more than the Caribbean. The North Atlantic, Mediterranean, Middle East. I’m thinking of writing a book about how the big oil companies — particularly ABCO — operated during the war. Because of the U-boat blockade of America after 1941, most of the big convoys sailed from the Gulf of Mexico, didn’t they?’
‘Some of them.’
‘And the Middle East oil came through the Canal?’
Shanklin nodded.
‘Would you agree that the volume of oil, and the number of ships — even given that the average tanker was no more than 25,000 tons — would have been enormous?’
Shanklin pulled down his lower lip and revealed teeth like splinters of oyster shell. ‘I believe you’ve been chatting to the late Prince Marino-Petri Grotti Savoia? — the gentleman who snuffed it recently in one of the noble canals of Venice.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Of course I’m sure of it. Don’t be impertinent, old son. I invited you up here, remember. I’m doing you a favour.’
‘Who told you about Grotti Savoia?’
‘Little bird told me.’
‘Ham Logan told you.’
Shanklin shifted his knees and cupped his hairy hands round his chin. ‘Let’s not bother too much about who told me. For the record — as you boys say — you’re supposed to have got the idea off the top of your head. But let’s get to the point. I’ve a pretty good idea what you’re on to. And you want my help. All right — let’s see how far we can both get. You ask the questions — I’ll answer them, if I can. But don’t try to be clever. No funny ones. You start being devious, playing the sharp lawyer with me, and I’ll toss you out on your neck. Fire away.’
‘Very well. Would it have been possible, in your opinion, that in the confusion of war, a certain amount of our oil might have found its way to the enemy?’
‘In my opinion, quite possible. But you’re not talking just about the big Western oil companies — you’re talking about ABCO.’
‘Only that ABCO was the largest.’
‘Fair enough.’ He shunted his knees again. ‘Only I gather that in your judgement it isn’t just a question of a bit of ABCO oil going astray during the war. You’ve been saying that the Consortium made a deal with the Germans, then sold them oil. Now that’s serious, that’s naughty.’
‘I didn’t say that. I may have suggested there was a prima facie case for some sort of deal to have taken place, but I certainly never suggested it was proved.’
‘Thank the
