In studying Mr Firman’s book, I have tried from the start to remain objective, and to remind myself at regular intervals that all statements in it must be presumed false until there is evidence to the contrary. When I say, then, that the Firman description of Mat Williamson fits Mathew Tuakana like a glove, I mean that the description is not only visually correct — there may be two names but there is only one man — but that it also gives an impression I found recognizable, that of a man somewhat too well aware of his ability to deal with subordinates.
The way in which he introduced himself, however, had little of the charm Firman’s account had led me to expect.
‘I am the Tuakana whose baptismal name is Mathew Williamson,’ he said. ‘I am not the Williamson in this man Firman’s book, any more than you, I imagine, consider yourself to be the Professor Krom he caricatures. As long as that is clearly understood, I see no reason why we shouldn’t talk fairly freely and frankly.’ He rang a small glass bell standing on the table beside him. ‘What would you like to drink? Schnapps?’
‘No, thank you, Minister.’
When the servant appeared he ordered iced water. I should record that his voice was quite unlike that on the cassette. I can usually tell the difference between American and British spoken English. His sounded more American, but I really don’t know. Firman’s assertion that the man is a clever mimic was obviously uncheckable.
After ascertaining that the rest-house had made us comfortable, he went on: ‘Professor, tell me something. You and your wife went for a drive this morning. You saw mainly the port and the old phosphate-company workings. What did you think of the little you were able to see of us?’
‘Somewhere in our friend’s book this place is described as like a lunar landscape. That seemed a fair description of the mining area. Though I also saw what looked like efforts being made to improve things. Are they yours?’
His fleeting smile of satisfaction suggested that what I had seen had been a show put on for my benefit, and that our driver had been briefed. ‘Not mine alone, Professor, As helpers I have a number of those persons of whom you so steadfastly disapprove.’ He poured me a glass of water from the jug that had been brought. ‘I mean the ones you call tax-dodgers.’
I was willfully dense. ‘The men operating the earth-moving equipment looked like Islanders to me.’
‘They were. But do you know the procedures for registering a corporation or creating a trust on Placid?’
‘I could recite the exempt company and trust laws of half a dozen of your competitors in the field, Minister. I would be surprised if yours were much different.’
‘Not much different, no, but a little. Part of our corporation and trust registration fees must be paid in kind.’
‘A nice gimmick. Plant and machinery?’
‘Topsoil. Most of Placid’s was stripped away and lost by the mining company. A delivery of five thousand metric tons of good, black topsoil ensures the best of everything here for a newly arrived corporation. In subsequent years we’ll take a thousand tons annually as long as the quality remains good. I’ll take no sub-soil fill. The only clock we mean to put back here is the ecological one. And I think we have just enough time in which to do it.’
‘You have a deadline, Minister?’
I received a cool look. ‘People who think as you do are our deadline, Professor. There is writing on the wall. Tax authorities everywhere, especially in the high-tax jurisdictions, are getting tougher every day. And the writing is not only on walls. In the European Common Market Official Journal, the sin we are committing, the crime you so deplore has been given a name of its own — Incitement to Anti-Social Tax-Avoidance! Doesn’t that sound wicked? Ten years from now we’ll have been legislated out of our economic existence if a career of crime is the only one we’re trained to follow. We have no illusions, I can assure you. If the western powers prefer to have us as neo-colonial Third World pensioners rather than as self-respecting exporters of fiscal services, we must look elsewhere for salvation. But where? Yes, we could sell our port facilities to the highest bidder and become somebody’s nuclear naval base. Or we could lease ourselves as sites for missile-tracking or microwave stations. Fates worse than death, I’m afraid. No! With sufficient topsoil and a well-researched development programme, surely we can use our sinful tax-avoidance years to purchase a better future. What do you think, Professor?’
‘There’s a lot in what you say, Minister.’
The arrogance of his answering smile was insufferable. I made a decision. If he could test Firman’s verdict on me by making impertinent offerings of schnapps, I could test Firman’s gossip about him by asking impertinent questions.
‘How active is the Boy Scout movement here on Placid, Minister?’
Not an eyelid flickered. ‘There is no Boy Scout movement here as yet. The Legislative Assembly has been asked to authorize the establishment of the movement here. The new Protestant chaplain is interested, I’m told, but we have more important things to do with our time at present.’
Over lunch — canned ham, salad, instant coffee — he told me about the public-works programmes he had scheduled and the problems of getting low-interest loans.
I asked if Mr Yamatoku advised him at all on such matters.
He looked mystified. ‘Mr Yamatoku is with our mission at the UN in New York.’
‘Minister, I shall be returning home via New York. Would it be possible for me to meet Mr Yamatoku?’
‘If you were to call his secretary, I dare say he would try to make time to see you. He is a busy man of course.’
My patience ran out there. I made detailed notes on the conversation that follows as soon as I returned to the rest-house.
‘But not as busy as you, Minister, I’m sure. Where and when did you first meet Mr Firman?’
He stared over my right shoulder for a moment in a way that nearly had me turning to see who might be there. Such well-worn interviewing tricks sit oddly on so pretentious a man. When he saw that I wasn’t going to respond, he played at folding his napkin carefully as he answered.
‘The place of meeting was the one he gives,’ he said. ‘Port Vila in the New Hebrides. He was calling himself Perry Smythson. Almost everything else he says is, either wholly or in part, a pack of lies. If it were not we wouldn’t be talking. I’m quite sure you don’t believe that we are sitting here privately like this because I am eager to hear your views on the methodology of international tax planning.’
‘No, Minister, but you might be curious about my intentions where Firman’s book is concerned. I am naturally curious about yours. I’m hoping that they may help me to make up my mind. For a man in your position, public controversy of the kind that libel actions can generate is a thing to be avoided I imagine.’
‘Avoided like the plague, Professor. The same goes for book-banning by injunction, or censorship through legal blackmail. My intention is to do nothing, and I will tell you why. After reading the Firman script, I sent off at once both for your book and the New Sociologist essay. The German of the book was a little beyond my understanding, but the essay fascinated me. Yes, fascinated! It confirmed something that I had long suspected.’
‘Essays that do that are always fascinating.’
I earned only a fleeting smile. ‘Tell me something, Professor. Firman quotes a definition of the able criminal which he says is yours. Is it?’
‘It’s the simplified, lecture-platform definition I normally give.’
‘Then I’m afraid it can’t be applied to Smythson-Oberholzer.’
‘Shall we just call him Firman, Minister?’
‘By all means. He’s had too many aliases, I agree. But, whatever name you use, you can’t call him the well-adjusted emotionally stable man of your definition. That, Firman certainly is not. It was one of the first things I came to understand about him.’