Devil’s Harvest (39 page)

He had been in transit at Nairobi for several hours, the delay giving him time to collect his thoughts. By the time he had arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5, surrounded by asylum seekers and refugees from every Third World outpost imaginable, Gabriel had found an angry strength that straightened his back and focused his strategies.

It was as well, for officialdom was waiting for him. But by then he had formulated his approach and conditions.

Gabriel turned away from his screen saver and eased backwards in his chair. He opened the
Bristol Evening Post
on his desk. The outcome of his negotiation at the MI6 offices had been easier than he had expected, but not all had gone as he’d anticipated. A short article informed him that one Khalid Hussein of Saudi Arabia had been found at the London Intercontinental, deceased as a result of an overdose apparently administered while in the company of no fewer than three prostitutes. There were no photographs. Gabriel still had no idea who Hussein was, or whether his own disclosures and demands had, in any manner, contributed to the man’s demise. But he had no doubt that it was well deserved.

He noted also that Air Marshal Bartholomew had announced his retirement on grounds of ill health – he’d been diagnosed with an unnamed bowel condition. A concise but glowing tribute was provided by the minister of defence, particularly for his pioneering work in ‘making the combat zone safe for the British soldier’. Gabriel read the sentence twice.

Hargreaves interrupted his media perusal, slapping a fleshy hand on the door frame as he entered. He beamed at Gabriel and lumbered around the desk like an overaffectionate bear.

‘They’ve recommended full professorship, Gabriel. You’ve made a fat old queer very proud. For everything,’ Hargreaves said, bending over to give Gabriel a sloppy embrace.

Gabriel gave him an awkward squeeze across his fleshy back in return. Hargreaves parted and heaved himself back into a chair. Gabriel folded the newspaper away and smiled at his colleague.

‘Do you know, Brian, that’s the first time you … we have acknowledged your homosexuality?’

Hargreaves gave a dismissive wave with his arm. ‘God, that word – it sounds so dreadfully serious. Like “carcinoma” or “vaginitis”.’ He giggled in an unscholarly way.

‘I’m sorry, and I apologise, my friend. For all the times that you must’ve endured jokes and crass comments, where I didn’t intervene. I don’t even know if you have a partner. It’s actually outrageous.
Do
you have a partner?’

Hargreaves was genuinely moved, his eyes suddenly tearful. ‘It’s the English way, Gabriel. I’m as much to blame for not living my life more openly. And without … fear. And yes, his name is Rajwasanga – “Raji” for short. He’s Sri Lankan. We’ve been together for nearly fifteen years, God bless his beautiful soul.’

‘Well, I would like to have you both over for supper,’ Gabriel said. ‘When I have sorted out my new apartment.’

‘We’d like that very much.’

The English way, Gabriel mused. Civility as an excuse for dishonesty, the hiding place of soulless ghouls. Time was too short, life too brutal, for such pretences. He’d mistaken it for rudeness in Alek. He missed her so desperately.

* * *

Two days later, the incursion of Sudanese militia into South Sudan was formally raised at the UN Security Council. The photographs of the mass grave at Malual Kon made dramatic viewing on all the major networks for twenty-four hours, until a massive car bomb rocked Cairo and attention was diverted once more. The Sudanese representative was summoned to the Council to explain his government’s position, but Khartoum denied that it had ordered any such incursion into its neighbour’s territory. The evidence that members of Abu Tira, Sudan’s police force, had been present in the village was met with stony silence. South Sudan moved a motion to impose oil sanctions on its northern aggressor. Britain abstained. The United States vetoed the motion, citing vague concerns about using pressure in the oil trade to achieve political ends.

But Sudan was to remain on America’s terror list as a result of its cross-border activities. A covert attempt to sell arms to the government of Sudan was blocked at diplomatic levels. Gabriel had hoped for more, but in his heart he knew that it would be naïve to expect it. The oil and arms industries were too powerful and no doubt many more innocents would suffer in their name in time to come. His name had been kept out of the revelations and, for the world, the brief chapter that was the assassination of Matthew Deng and the massacre of Malual Kon village, a moment’s glance at the outrage that was Sudan, was closed. Only his public address remained, though for Gabriel the book had perhaps only just been opened.

Chapter 22

BRISTOL UNIVERSITY, SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND

Professor Gabriel Cockburn stood at the lectern, surveying the crowd. He spotted a number of familiar faces, some of whom he could name with ease, many he could not, although he recognised them from the passages of the department, regular travellers on the same routes. In addition to Symington and Hargreaves, he noted Jane, primly seated in the front row. Towards the back the rat-faced undersecretary sat alongside Todd, both looking hopelessly out of place. One of the female students was clearly tittering at Todd’s hairstyle, the coiffed precision entirely at odds with the grungy, carefree style of the average science faculty attendee. The MI6 agent had chosen a particularly finely cut charcoal suit and bright-green tie for the occasion, making him even more conspicuous. He had sent Gabriel a terse email earlier that morning informing him that Air Marshal Bartholomew was too ill to attend and had sent apologies.

‘It is assumed that this unforeseen absence will not cause any conditions to remain unfulfilled,’ the message concluded.

Gabriel had responded equally crisply that the conditions would be satisfied nonetheless. He extended no well wishes to the ailing airman.

He noted, to his surprise, his secretary, Mrs Thebes, making a late entry, glaring at a young male student on an aisle seat until the poor boy relented and offered her his place. She seized upon it without thanks and peered at Gabriel over the top of her glasses, as if studying his tie for signs of grease stains from breakfast. Gabriel waited a moment longer until the last murmurs had dwindled and the auditorium was still. And then, without hesitation, he began.

‘This year we mourn the genocide perpetrated in Rwanda twenty years ago. A genocide perpetrated while we stood still and did not even bother to watch. This year we mourn the devastation of Darfur a decade ago, while we stood by debating how to define the massacres. This year we are all witnesses to ethnic cleansing in South Kordofan. Are we to wait another ten years before we mourn our collective failures? Of what shall we speak then? What more are we still to mourn?’

He pressed the button on his laptop and the screen behind him filled with the photograph of Alek standing on the edge of the gulley, a tall, willowy figure looking down at the audience, her face both beautiful and anguished, her dress clinging to her legs in the sticky heat. Only he knew the circumstances in which the photograph had been taken, but the audience sensed immediately that this was more than a passing snapshot. Perhaps in their subconscious, the formation of the rocks, the colour of the slope at her feet, echoed the terrible visions they’d seen on the news. There was a rustle of discomfort among many present. He knew that he couldn’t look at the photograph himself. In private, he had spent hours staring at her silhouette, but to look at her in public would break him. Even now, just knowing that her body loomed behind him on the screen, he felt the tears well behind his eyes.

‘I lost a friend at Malual Kon in South Sudan.’

This perhaps confirmed what some had guessed and he heard a few gasps splutter out across the auditorium.

‘As so often seems to happen, I really only came to understand her – and my loss – once she was gone. Her death revealed some extraordinary truths to me.’

It was an unorthodox start to an academic speech, and Symington screwed up his face in puzzlement. But Gabriel could see that he had captured the attention of his audience with his intimate confession. Mrs Thebes had formed her mouth into what might be taken as a half-smile of approval. Or a sneer of derision. Only time would tell.

‘She lost her life seeking the truth of her father’s death.’

Gabriel looked up directly at Todd and the rat-faced man from the ministry of defence. They both tensed and Todd glared at him, fiddling with his cellphone in front of him. No doubt he was taping the address. Some of the students turned and followed Gabriel’s gaze. Another whisper of disquiet was released from some.

‘Matthew Deng was assassinated by those who would have him silenced, those who would have his ideals of peace and justice for his countrymen swept aside in the interests of capital gain and access to oil. His daughter – Alek Deng here – sought to uncover the true masters behind that travesty. She pursued that goal with tenacity and courage. We could all learn much from that, I think.

‘From her I learnt that nothing we do is without consequence. That even scientific endeavour is inherently political. Science would like to wash its hands of human suffering, as if we have no part to play, no responsibility to act. The facts we choose to investigate dictate the lives of people far removed from us. Objectivity is a myth. I travelled to South Sudan to discover a plant. But once there I discovered far more: unspeakable suffering, a genocide being perpetrated as we speak, the clever euphemisms that we use to justify our inaction and this government’s complicity. My friend was my guide to discovery: through her I learnt the feeling of fear, the will to survive, the bonds of family and of love. And I learnt what it is to feel shame.’

Gabriel felt his voice quiver and he paused, deliberately reaching for a glass of water to break the tension that had gripped his tongue. A number of students appeared to be gaping in disbelief at the emotional unbundling of their new professor. And the challenge that he was laying down. There were more glances cast in the direction of Todd and his associate. Hargreaves had crumpled a tissue in his hand.

‘In a moment I’ll bore you with a summary of the scientific conclusions reached in our research. And you will applaud politely, as is required, and leave, not to give it another moment of thought. But before we slide into this routine paraphrasing of facts and accomplishments, let me ask you to indulge me a little further.

‘Firstly, with Professor Symington’s blessing, I’d like to announce the establishment of a new unit within the faculty. It will be devoted to the investigation of crop diseases, particularly in the developing world, with a view to evolving sustainable combative practices. In addition to research, the unit will provide a mandatory module in the second year of the biological sciences undergraduate programme, and a postgraduate diploma in crop sciences. It will, I believe, rightfully situate the study of botany in the public domain.

‘Secondly, then, may I ask the following people please to stand.’

Gabriel proceeded to read out the names of his research assistants, his associates, Brian Hargreaves, Professor Symington, the laboratory technicians. At the end he also named Mrs Thebes, who seemed flustered for the first time in her life, giving a little deprecating ‘ooh’ and rising to her feet with a clatter of falling glasses.

‘While these persons are on their feet, I would also like to mention the following persons, who are not here today. Professor Abdurahman Ismail, University of Khartoum, Sudan. Professor Chong Wei Jin from the University of Zhejiang, China. In collaboration with the Universities of Bristol, Khartoum and Zhejiang, and with the assistance of the ministry of science and technology of the Republic of South Sudan, I can announce the culmination of our cooperative research project. And, with mixed feelings of pride and sadness, I can share with you the taxonomic name of the new species of
Arabidopsis
identified in Northern Bahr al Ghazal and Unity State in South Sudan. As you’ll hear shortly, the plant represents a significant
in loco
example of biological adaptation to warming conditions and associated soil alterations. This plant forms the subject matter of our collaborative research paper focusing on its implications for agriculture both in north-east Africa and the globe, given the challenges of the changing global environment.’

Gabriel clicked on the first slide of the PowerPoint presentation and the photograph of Alek was replaced with the photograph of a flowering
Arabidopsis
that had been his screen saver. At the top of the photograph appeared the plant’s new taxonomic name.

Arabidopsis alek
.

It took a moment for the significance to sink in, and some in the audience remained baffled. But a hushed undertone rose, as those who understood pointed out the name to others around them. The noise faltered, the audience unsure of how to react. Then a loud snort emanated from Hargreaves as he plunged his reddened nose into a tissue. It was the outburst the tension needed to break, the crowd mistaking it for an ill-repressed shout of approval. They started clapping, initially a polite slapping of hands, but soon enthusiasm overtook them and the students started drumming on the desktops, hooting and shouting while the staff applauded effusively.

Those not applauding were notable: Todd and the ministry man remained stony-faced; Jane appeared to be crying; Mrs Thebes was cleaning her glasses. The noise from the auditorium rose further.

Were they honouring a woman they had never met, Gabriel wondered, battling to hold back his tears. And a woman they may not have liked very much at that? Yet the applause grew still louder and the students managed to shout above the din of hands smacking together. It became more ferocious, an expelling of complicit shame, of loss and inexplicable sadness.

They are clapping for themselves, Alek would have told him. It’s foolishness to call a plant after a person. It’s just words that help no one. He smiled at the thought of her haughty response, walking away, sternly unapproving of the frivolity. But he also imagined a lighter step to her long stride as she went. And she was wrong. They weren’t clapping for themselves, or even for her. Nor for him. But rather for a frail instance of shared humanity. And the hope that, for a moment, the world might be more bearable for it.