Tab asked his father about the business side of his trip. ‘All the important meetings will take place here in the capital,’ Malik said. ‘The men who run this country are all here – I don’t suppose I need to tell you that. But I will have to fly to Doba and look at oil wells.’ He turned to his wife to explain. ‘The oil fields are all in the far south-west of the country.’
Tab said: ‘But what will you actually do, in Doba and N’Djamena?’
‘Business is very personal in Africa,’ Malik said. ‘Being on friendly terms with people can be more important than giving them generous terms in a contract. The most effective thing I do here is find out whether people are discontented – and take the action necessary to keep them on our side.’
By the end of lunch Tamara had a vivid picture of this couple. Both were smart business people, knowledgeable and decisive. But Malik was amiable and laid-back, whereas Anne was lovely but cold, like her champagne. In a lucky roll of the genetic dice, Tab had inherited his father’s easy-going personality and his mother’s good looks.
Afterwards Tamara and Tab left together. ‘They’re a remarkable couple,’ she said to him in the lobby.
‘I thought the occasion was terribly stiff.’
He was not wrong, but, tactfully, she did not voice her agreement. Instead, she proposed a solution. ‘Tomorrow night, let’s take them to al-Quds,’ she said. It was Tamara’s and Tab’s favourite restaurant, a quiet Arab place where Westerners never went. ‘There we can relax more.’
‘Nice idea.’ Tab frowned. ‘They don’t serve wine.’
‘Will your folks mind?’
‘Maman won’t. Papa might want a drink. We could have champagne at my apartment before going to the restaurant.’
‘And tell your parents to wear really casual clothes.’
‘I’ll try!’
‘So,’ she said, grinning, ‘did you really work in a restaurant kitchen in California?’
‘Yes.’
‘I imagined that your parents would have bankrolled you.’
‘They gave me a generous allowance, but I was young and foolish, and one semester I overspent. I was too embarrassed to ask them for more, so I got a job. I didn’t really mind, it was a new experience. I’d never had a job before.’
Young, but not so foolish, Tamara thought. He had had the strength of character to solve the problem for himself, rather than run back to Papa and Maman for help. She liked that. ‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘Let’s shake hands. If anyone’s watching us we’ll look like colleagues, not lovers.’
They left. In the back of her car, Tamara could stop pretending. The lunch had been awful. Everyone had felt uncomfortable. Malik might have been all right on his own; he probably would have flirted with Tamara. But Anne had the correct kind of manners that put everyone on their best behaviour.
Tamara’s relationship with Tab did not depend on his mother’s approval, she was sure of that. Anne was a strong character, but not that strong. However, if she took against Tamara it could be an irritant, something that could cause occasional friction between a couple for many years. Tamara was determined not to let that happen.
And there had to be a real woman somewhere inside Anne. She was an aristocrat who had broken out of her social circle and married the Arab son of a shopkeeper: to do that she must have been led by her heart rather than her head. Somehow Tamara would connect with the girl who had fallen head over heels in love with Malik.
She returned to the US embassy and sought out Dexter, who was back at his desk with a large bruise on his forehead and one arm in a sling. He had not thanked her for rescuing him at the refugee camp. ‘I spoke to Karim about the missing drone,’ she said.
‘Missing drone?’ Dexter looked annoyed. ‘Who told you about the missing drone?’
She was taken aback. ‘Was I not supposed to know?’
‘Who told you?’ he repeated.
She hesitated; but Susan would not care what Dexter knew or thought. ‘Colonel Marcus.’
‘The women’s grapevine,’ he said scornfully.
‘We are all on the same side, aren’t we?’ Tamara said, letting her annoyance show. The drone story was not top secret. It was just that Dexter liked to control the flow of information. Everything had to pass through him, incoming and outgoing. It was tiresome. ‘If you don’t want to hear what Karim said . . .’
‘All right, all right, go on, then.’