“No, Ingram,” Keegan said, tiredly. “We’re not fired. I suggest you call Alfredo Rilke.”
“Alfredo will have your heads served up on silver platters.”
“This is Alfredo’s idea, Ingram. It’s his doing, not ours. We’re just following his instructions.”
Mrs Prendergast came in with Ingram’s coffee and biscuits. Ingram smiled warmly at her: “Thank you, Mrs P.” She gave him a terrified, nervous glance and then hurried out, not looking once at Keegan or de Freitas.
“You can call Alfredo now,” Keegan said.
Ingram looked at his watch. “It’s five o’clock in the morning in the Caribbean.”
“Alfredo’s in Auckland, New Zealand. He’ll take your call — the usual number.”
“Kindly leave the room, gentlemen.”
After they had gone, Ingram sat there for a moment, still, taking stock, trying to come to terms with the whirling multitude of implications from this last conversation. It was as if a hundred invisible bats, or doves, were flying crazily round his room, his ears filled with rushing wing-beats signifying something bad, something doom-laden. He felt like the democratically elected president of a small republic that had just been the victim of a military coup. He had his office, his nice house, the limousine with the liveried chauffeur — but that was all.
“Alfredo?…Ingram.”
“Ingram. I was hoping to hear from you. It’s all very exciting, isn’t it.”
“It’s all a bit sudden, that’s for sure.”
“This is how it works, Ingram. Believe me. I think — if you’ll permit — that I can say I’ve had more experience in this field than you.”
“Indubitably.” It was at moments like these that Ingram wished he had not abandoned property development for the baffling world of pharmaceuticals. It was all so simple, then — you borrowed money, bought a building, sold it for a profit. But Rilke was speaking.
“—Surprise is your best weapon. You build momentum, unstoppable momentum. You only get one chance. Zembla-4 is out there. We have to go now. Now, now, now. Go, go, go.”
“I just feel—”
“We estimate five to eight billion dollars in the first year of full licence. Ten to twelve billion per annum is very realisable, thereafter. This is another Lipitor, a Seroquel, a Viagra, a Xenak-2. We have our blockbuster drug, Ingram. A twenty-year patent. Global. We will die enormously, vastly, disgustingly wealthy men.”
“Yes, good…Well…” Ingram didn’t know how to respond. He felt cowed; he felt that small-boy feeling again, out of his depth, not understanding. “Onwards and upwards,” he managed to say.
“God bless,” Alfredo Rilke said, his voice crackling through the ether. “And congratulations.”
“Good night,” Ingram said, reaching for one of Mrs P.’s custard cremes.
“Just one thing, Ingram,” Rilke said, “before I sign off.”
“Yes?”
“We have to find this Adam Kindred.”
26
TO STEAL FROM A blind man was almost as low as you could go. To steal a blind man’s white stick surely condemned you to the most nether and excruciating regions of hell — assuming hell existed, Adam said to himself, which of course it didn’t. This rock-solid secular rationality, however, didn’t remove the feelings of guilt he experienced each time he took the stick out with him. But needs must, necessity the mother of invention, and so on, he told himself: there was no doubt that the acquisition of the white stick — the white-stick Damascene moment — and the introduction of the white-stick routine had transformed his begging life and his fortunes. On two particular days he had made over £100, most days he begged £60 to £70 with ease. He was going to clear £1,000 long before the end of the month.
He had seen the blind man — the partially sighted man — in a coffee-shop and had observed the almost visible currents of concern that emanated towards him from other people around him. It was as if he were a kind of care-magnet — chairs were discreetly moved out of his way, couples parted to let him by, a steering hand — was laid gently on his elbow to direct him to the front of the queue. Adam sat, watching him order his cappuccino and muffin (a member of staff came out from behind the counter to place them on a table nearby), and the blind man haltingly came over and sat down. People’s conversations quietened deferentially as he passed. He folded up his stick (it had a little plastic ball on the end) and slipped it into the canvas bag he carried and that he placed on the floor by his seat. Then he ate his muffin and drank his coffee and while he was doing so Adam had his revelation — his begging revelation — he saw, at once, his begging future.
He was scraping by perfectly well on his ‘brown coins only’ appeal—£5 to £6 a day — a smart idea in itself, but it was a small smart idea. He needed to take begging to new heights, he required a quantum leap in his begging imagination, and he saw in this blind man and his white stick the road he had to follow.
So Adam stole this blind man’s white stick. He walked by his table, dropped his newspaper, bent down to retrieve it, picked the stick out of the bag and slid it up his jacket sleeve before strolling out of the coffee-shop.
The next day, Adam went to Paddington Station, wearing a shirt and a tie, his pin-stripe suit and a pair of cheap sunglasses bought from a thrift shop near The Shaft. With the stick unfolded, its white plastic ball-end grazing a zig-zag in front of him over the stone floor of the station concourse, he approached the big, elevated electronic display of departing trains. He chose an elderly woman to ask his question to.
“Excuse me,” Adam said in his politest, middle — class voice, “but am I at Waterloo Station?”
“No. Oh, no, no. You’re at Paddington.”
“Paddington? Oh my god, no. Thank you, thank you. Oh god. Sorry to bother you. Thank you.” He turned away.
“Can I help? Is there anything wrong?”
“I’ve been brought to the wrong station. I’ve spent all my money.”
The woman gave him £10 and paid for his Underground ticket back to Waterloo.
At Waterloo, Adam asked a young couple if he was at Liverpool Street Station. They gave him £5 for his Tube fare. Waiting half an hour, Adam then approached a middle-aged man, also in a pinstriped suit, and asked him if the trains to Scotland left from here.
“Bugger off,” the man said and turned his back on him.
But that was rare. In Adam’s experience, for every ‘bugger off, walk-away or blank ignoring stare he received four offers of financial aid. People thrust money on him, some were absurdly generous, offering to accompany him, buy him food, telling him to ‘take care’, pressing further notes into his hand.
On his first day begging as a blind man he made £53.
On his second day he made £79.
A routine soon established itself: he undertook a daily circuit of London’s railway termini and larger Underground stations — King’s Cross, Paddington, Waterloo, Victoria, London Bridge, Piccadilly, Liverpool Street, Earls Court, Angel, Notting Hill Gate, Bank, Oxford Circus. He also went to Oxford Street and shopping malls, farmers’ markets and museums — anywhere that people gathered and where he would be inconspicuous. Wherever he was he simply asked if he was somewhere else. People were kind and attentive, people were helpful and understanding — his faith in the essential good nature of his fellow human beings was hugely reinforced. He never begged more than once a day at any one location and steadily the wad of notes in his pocket grew. He paid Mhouse’s rent a week in advance; he went to the supermarket and came home with plastic bags full of food and wine for himself and Mhouse and treats for Ly-on. He bought a de-luxe Easy-Reading kit and began to teach Ly-on to read and write (it helped diminish the guilt, a little). In his second week of blind-man begging he purchased a new dark suit, three white shirts, a pseudo-club tie and a pair of black loafers in a sale.