Luxmore was about to respond with a generous description of his Scottish provenance when he remembered that his false passport had Mellors born in Clapham. His embarrassment deepened when she held the door back for him while he fought the pouches for floorspace to manoeuvre. Returning to his place he scanned the rows for potential hijackers and saw nobody he trusted.
The plane started its descent. My God, imagine! thought Luxmore as awe at his mission and a hatred of flying alternated with the nightmare of discovery – she crashes into the sea – the pouches with her. Rescue ships from the United States, Cuba, Russia and Britain race to the spot! Who was the mysterious Mellors? Why did his pouches plummet to the bottom of the ocean? Why were no papers found floating on the surface? Why will no one come forward to claim him? No widow, child, relative? The pouches are raised. Will Her Majesty’s government kindly explain their extraordinary contents to a breathless world?
‘Miami’s your lot for this time then, is it?’ the airhostess asked, watching him saddle up to disembark. ‘I’ll bet you’ll be glad of a nice hot bath when you’re shot of that lot.’
Luxmore kept his voice low in case Arabs overheard him. She was a good Scottish lass, and deserved the truth.
‘Panama,’ he murmured.
But she had already left him. She was too busy asking passengers to make sure their seats were in the upright position and their belts securely fastened.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘They charge green fees according to one’s rank,’ Maltby explained, selecting a middle iron for his approach shot. The flag stood eighty yards away, for Maltby a day’s journey. ‘Private soldiers pay next to nothing. Achievers pay more as they go up the scale. They say the General can’t afford to play at all.’ He pulled a snaggy grin. ‘I did a deal,’ he confided proudly. ‘I’m a sergeant.’
He lashed at the ball. Startled, it scurried sixty yards through sopping grass to safety, and hid. He loped after it. Stormont followed. An old Indian caddie in a straw hat was carrying a collation of ancient clubs in a mildewed bag.
The well-tended links of Amador are a bad golfer’s dream and Maltby was a bad golfer. They lie in well-groomed strips between a pristine US Army base built in the vintage ’20s, and the shore that runs beside the entrance to the Canal. There is a guard hut. There is a straight empty road protected by a bored GI and a bored Panamanian policeman. No one goes there much except the Army and its wives. On one horizon lies El Chorrillo and beyond it the Satanic towers of Punta Paitilla, this morning softened by tiers of rolling cloud. Out to sea lie the islands and the causeway and the obligatory line of motionless ships waiting for their turn to pass under the Bridge of the Americas.
But for the bad golfer the most seductive feature of the place is the straight grass trenches that are sunk thirty feet below sea level and, having once been a part of the Canal works, serve as ducts for the imperfectly struck ball. The bad golfer may hook, he may slice. The trenches, for as long as he remains within their care, forgive him everything. All that is asked is that he connect and stay low.
‘And Paddy’s well and everything,’ Maltby suggested, discreetly improving the lie of the ball with the toe of his cracked golf shoe. ‘Her cough’s better?’
‘Not really,’ said Stormont.
‘Oh dear. What do they say?’
‘Not much.’
Maltby played again. The ball sped across the green and once more vanished. Maltby hurled himself after it. Rain fell. It was falling at ten-minute intervals but Maltby seemed unaware of it. The ball lay pertly at the centre of an island of sodden sand. The old caddie handed Maltby an appropriate club.
‘You should get her away somewhere,’ he advised Stormont airily. ‘Switzerland or wherever one goes these days. Panama’s so insanitary. You never know which side the germs are coming from. Fuck.’
Like some primeval insect his ball scuttled into a clump of rich green pampas. Through sheets of rain Stormont watched his Ambassador hack at it in huge arcs until it crept sullenly onto the green. Tension while Maltby performed a long putt. A peal of triumph as he holed out. He’s snapped, thought Stormont. Mad. High time. A word, Nigel, if you’d be so good, Maltby had said on the telephone at one o’clock this morning, just as Paddy was getting off to sleep. Thought we might have it on the hoof, Nigel, if that’s all right by you. Whatever you say, Ambassador.