Dislocated to Success (16 page)

I informed them that the consequence of this would be that there would be a request for all members of the embassy to be withdrawn; whilst we would uphold their Vienna rights - as we had done for a few other problems with legations over the last year, including a duel - we could not allow them to stay in the United Kingdom. Unless a perpetrator was named, then all would have to go, quite simple. They seemed quite horrified by this, and protested that they had only been here six weeks and weren't completely au fait with our ways. I told him to go and think about it overnight.

A little later, whilst I was reading a response to a small problemette with the Swedes, Willie popped back in. The corpse had been identified; he was Fadi Morad, a former Iraq Kurd, believed to have originally been an illegal immigrant who indeed had some form for breaking and entering and had been on one of Willie's little Short, Sharp Shocks. The sort of chap we would probably have deported before the Dislocation, and whom we were struggling with post-Dislocation. This meant that the Ambassador’s account had a ring of truth to it; given his form, it was perfectly possible that Morad had been disturbed removing silverware. However, my expertise may be in Europe, but the fact that an Iraqi Kurd had been caught and killed in the Persian Embassy did get me to ask Willie for a full background check on the unfortunate Morad.

I had a short conversation with the PM. She agreed - either they coughed up or they all went; if they coughed up the culprit or the supposed culprit then just that person would be PNGed. The media pack was still fairly frenzied, the Mail in particular demanding that we seized the embassy and dragged out the culprits. I particularly liked the Standard's photos of the old Iranian embassy as the site of the atrocity; as with many of the trans-embassies, the old cis site had been too large and too expensive. However, Willie was quite keen on not releasing too much information to the media until he'd tracked down Morad's friends and acquaintances. He'd sent for one of his best men from Manchester for this purpose; sadly it came to naught, the trail was cold.

One of the new jobs that had developed since the Dislocation was that of “Research Historian”; just about every department of Government had to have people whose main job was to burrow in the archives on all sorts of strange subjects and then try and evaluate that data against what had occurred since the Dislocation. One of the things that we particularly had to look at in the Foreign Office were signs of events occurring or changing. One of the odder events of 1731 had been what was known as the Salzburg Explusions; we did wonder if the change of situation caused by the Dislocation might mitigate the Salzburg Explusions away. Sadly it seemed that it advanced them slightly; we understood after the event that the Prince-Bishop of Salzburg was concerned that we might interfere.

Of course, we did interfere; there was the usual strongly-worded letter. However, there was very little interest in the matter in the United Kingdom, only a round-robin from the Church Commissioners and a question in the Other Place from William van Straubenzee
[51]
. However, looking at history, there was a horrible catastrophe going to happen. The Prussians had indicated that they were willing to resettle, although the other parties to the historical resettling were the Dutch, who we were pretty much still on “no-speaks” with. It was decided that we would attempt to try and get these people out at the moment of expulsion and transport them swiftly to East Prussia. I was quite interested in how co-operative people were on this; the Army was fully behind the venture, which rather surprised me, but it turned out they were quite keen to see how they could operate with supplying fairly large numbers of people a long way from our usual logistical bases. Michael got behind it as well; many of the expellees were skilled men with families and he hoped to poach many for BNA and BSEA.

The other local powers were also fairly helpful. The Prince-Abbot of Berchtesgarten, who had been complicit in the original expulsions, couldn’t have been more helpful. As he put it, it was morally wrong; as my advisor put it, he had seen the massive damage to his revenues it had caused. The Bavarians were reasonable about it, and the Nürnbergers were happy to offer some sanctuary as well. It wasn’t the easiest thing to plan, but the FO worked very hard with the Army and the various powers to make sure the expulsion was as humane as possible. In the original, over 15,000 people died; with our intervention less than 200 died.

One of the key problems we had towards the end of 1981 was trying to find somewhere to grow rubber; whilst rubber was grown in Brazil, we were constantly advised by Kew that there were potential pest problems that could cause damage to the crop if it was too heavily placed in plantation. This, and the amount we needed, made having a sole source rather dangerous. Whilst later on we started getting rubber from other plants from Panama and Lower California, at this time those situation weren’t known.

So we had spent a good deal of time trying to find somewhere, and we had decided on South East Asia; the problem was that it all came with strings. The VOC were perfectly willing to allow us to grow rubber in Ceylon, as long as we helped them suppress the Kingdom of Kandy which was politically and morally impossible. The various Malay sultanates were generally asking too much, especially if we wanted a lease on what used to be Singapore or Georgetown. There was a kingdom in the North of Sumatra which was a lot more helpful, and indeed we have since done some business with them on different terms, but what they wanted was politically difficult - they would only grant the access we needed if we were willing to defend them from the VOC, and reading between the lines that meant taking a certain amount of land back from the VOC. As it happened, the VOC retreated from most of those areas of their own accord in 1983, concentrating themselves on the Palembang area.

This left the Thais, or rather Ayutthaya, which was in the midst of a succession crisis which was potentially about to erupt into a civil war. Both sides were willing to deal, the question was which one would win. It was fairly clear that whoever we backed was likely to win, even if we didn’t commit any military force - which was an absolute no-no. Eventually, it was decided that we would back Prince Porn, who was the Front Palace, effectively the Prime Minister; in return for this we got a very, very long lease on the island of Phuket for a fair annual tribute and a few other baubles. At the time it was quite risky, but looking at from a decade onwards it has been a fairly good deal; we have also encouraged the Ayutthayans to grow rubber and with some assistance they have become a further good source of rice for us.

Chapter 15

After the limited festivities of a Rationing Christmas, there was the start of a long slog through a very cold and somewhat snowy new year of 1982. It was a time where a lot of trans-Diplomatic activity ground to a halt, as many roads became impassable and many trans-Diplomats didn’t return to their embassies for some time after going back home for Christmas and New Year. The nearest thing to entertainment was the trek up to Scotland for the Glasgow Hillhead by-election - which, mercifully, we safely held. However, with the advent of February, things changed.

There had, over the summer and autumn of 1981, been a number of disappearances of young people from around 12 to 20 years of age in the North West, primarily in the Liverpool area. As the numbers grew into double figures this attracted some police attention; there was some consideration that there was another Yorkshire Ripper amongst us. This had also attracted the regional press at least to comment, especially on the slowness of the police progress on the issue - however, no bodies had been found and the majority of the missing teenagers had been reported to us as from being from undesirable backgrounds. There were believed to be some links to the underworld, mainly of association with the now-vanished drug scene.

This had gained national prominence when a team from Scotland Yard had been applied to the case; through solid work, they had identified that what looked like a set of disappearances was actually a slavery ring run by some former drug dealers. It also appeared that the numbers were about double what had been reported. I was surprised at this until I was told what young slaves in good condition were fetching up in the markets; the prices had quadrupled over the last two years due to scarcity.  Arrests were made, and a small group of Irish teenagers were actually found imprisoned, but the dealers had very good lawyers and the chances of getting convictions on all but minor charges against the most serious culprits were weak. However, in the February of 1982 there was a critical breakthrough - and it came from France.

Of course, we had some foreknowledge that there was a major row occurring in France; our sources at Versailles had informed us that there was a lengthy and frank meeting between the King and Fleury on Tuesday evening, and another one with several members of the Council of State on the Wednesday. We did not know what exactly it was about, but enquiries revealed that the Duke of Chatillon had been arrested.

Our next gleanings were that the Cardinal requested that myself and the Prime Minister attended the French Embassy at 4pm on the Thursday. He also suggested that the Attorney-General be present; an unusual mix. Our next clue was that the party arriving at Dover was Fleury, Chauvelin, the Duke of Biron, two ladies in waiting and a
"half-caste girl, whose passport was for Lauren, mademoiselle de Bootle"
- none of us had the wit to make the obvious connection.

On arrival, Fleury quickly explained the situation as he saw it; Chauvelin sat silently and pale-faced, whilst the Duke of Biron seemed on the verge of exploding. He had not yet spoken to the Duke of Chatillon, as he had not yet arrived in Paris, but he considered the return of the girl to be of paramount importance. The Cardinal felt, that there was a strong chance that others - or, as he darkly put it, what remained of others - would be found on Haiti. They had not yet contacted Cap-Français, and had decided not to until after they had consulted with us. The bombshell was that the girl knew two of her abductors and had other useful information which would help solve this mystery. There was also a personal note from the King to the PM, the contents of which no-one has ever been made privy to.

The Prime Minister was surprisingly calm; I had expected one of those outbreaks of incandescent fury which have occasionally enlivened Cabinet. She accepted that this was clearly a rogue action and nothing to do with the policy of France. She asked to meet with the girl in private, who was in an adjacent room, and was in there for some time; the PM can be quite good with young people albeit in a somewhat Margaret Rutherford way at times.

During that period, Biron made a complete ass of himself - he was clearly there from the nobles camp - how it was clear that the Duke had taken pity on her and rescued her from the wicked slavers, and that she should be grateful that she had been rescued. Michael Havers shut him up fairly quickly; first by asking if he had spoken to Chatillon, and on receiving a negative answer asking him if he had prior knowledge of this matter.

The PM emerged with the girl after about 20 minutes; the young lady seemed very much overcome by all this, and so the PM said that she would return in an hour or so. We all played diplomatic footsie in the meantime, discussing such delights as extraterritoriality and extradition - both subjects which Biron, when he worked them out, was somewhat horrified with. The honour of France came out with a frequency that even de Gaulle wouldn't have managed. Of course, the honour of France wasn't in question, although I dreaded to think what the redtops would come out with when the story broke. The French had acted very well, but there were clearly issues; Chatillion was a magnate - although not a big influence at court - but we knew there was a court party who resented Fleury, and a reactionary court party which disliked us intensely. Whilst we appreciated the Cardinal's firm resolve and pragmatism, others in France did not and a political storm awaited him on his return.

When the PM returned, she said that the girl was now in good hands and we now had to discuss other matters about her abduction. We withdrew into a private room to discuss a few things; we could hear Biron arguing loudly with the others through the door. Michael Havers was quite clear: at this moment it time there was no obvious crime with which Chatillon could be charged in the UK and, of course, we had no extradition treaty anyway. Such things had been too difficult to arrange given the disparity in the legal systems. Margaret wasn't very pleased with that, but Michael being Michael, he ponderously explained that there were potential crimes - but there would have to be an investigation first. We considered our position; this was obviously tricky for the French, but it was potentially a nightmare for us. It was a clear need for Action This Day and a clear statement to the press as soon as possible.

We then had quite a long series of talks; we all had to cancel appointments and make excuses, and we did wonder how long it would be before the reptile pack worked out that something was up. The French drew a very firm line in the sand; Chatillon would not come to the UK, Chatillon would not be extradited to the UK - they would however allow him to be questioned in Paris. It was fairly clear that only Chauvelin was uncomfortable with this; both Fleury and Biron were agreed that if action was to be taken against Chatillon it would be in French courts according to French legal processes. Two additional things were revealed during this argument; that the King was very displeased with the actions of Chatillon and that he would never find favour in the court again, and that if the evidence could be found he could be charged under French law. Biron went off on one about that as well - how dare a noble be charged for actions against a common slut. The PM was appalled and let him have it with both barrels - luckily the translators toned it down, but I did see Chauvelin suppressing a sly grin at the references; he had the best command of English of any of them.