A Dead Liberty by Catherine Aird

Mgongwala contract had been very comprehensive. “That means his word is law.” The full significance of the phrase struck Ronald Bolsover for the first time.
    â€œWhat he says goes, then?” said his wife, summing up the Divine Right of Kings in a single phrase.
    â€œThabile Rules O.K.,” assented Bolsover, relaxing suddenly. “Actually I understand from Bill that what Hamish Mgambo … that’s the Chancellor …”
    â€œHamish?” She lifted a well-groomed eyebrow.
    â€œThey had missionaries.”
    â€œThere, too?”
    â€œScots ones.” He nodded and went on, “It’s what this Mgambo fellow suggests to the King that is really what goes.” Reality and political theory seldom went hand-in-hand without complications.
    â€œAnd you think that that is why Lucy’s spinning all this out?” asked Phyllis.
    â€œLord knows, she understands how important the building of Mgongwala is to the firm. After all, she’s a substantial shareholder in her own right because of what her mother left.” He frowned. “I know it’s not a Canberra or a Brasília but as far as the fortunes of William Durmast of Calleford are concerned it’s the setting seal.” Ronald Bolsover had never done other than identify with the company: he was as proud of it as its owner. “The Mgongwala contract couldn’t have come at a better time after finishing the Palshaw Tunnel either. You know that.”
    Phyllis Bolsover sniffed. “Well, I’m sure if I were Lucy just at this particular time I’d want someone around taking a proper interest.”
    â€œShe wouldn’t see old Puckle, the solicitor, she wouldn’t see Cecelia Allsworthy, who’s her best friend, and she wouldn’t see me,” he said again for the hundredth time. “And when she was asked if there was anyone else she did want to see she wouldn’t answer. You can make what you like of that.”
    â€œShe knows what she’s doing,” said Mrs. Bolsover consideringly. “I’m quite sure about that.”
    â€œYes,” agreed Bolsover. “And that’s what I’m counting on, because one thing is quite certain and that is that one of the Durmasts— père ou fille —is going to hold me wrong. As I see it, I’m on a hiding to nothing for not cabling Bill and worse from Lucy if I do.”
    â€œYou’d have thought the newspapers …”
    Her husband snorted gently. “A runner with a cleft stick would have his work cut out to get to Mgongwala.”
    â€œDlasa’s got an airport—all right, all right—a landing strip, then.”
    â€œI daresay that the British envoy there gets the English Top Newspaper by air in due course but Lucy’s case hasn’t hit the headlines yet, has it? Besides …” he hesitated.
    â€œBesides?”
    â€œOur envoy wants Mgongwala finished as quickly as possible, too.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œThere were a couple of Iron Curtain country tenders for building it. Bill only got the contract for Britain by the skin of his teeth.”
    Phyllis Bolsover came back to Lucy Durmast. “She’s of age,” she said, again not for the first time. “I suppose that means she can do as she wants.”
    â€œWhat you really mean, my dear,” he said drily, “is that she’s an Englishwoman born in wedlock with her feet on dry land and therefore has nothing to fear.”
    It was no accident that Bill Durmast was representing the firm in Dlasa. Ronald Bolsover would never have been able to establish a rapport with King Thabile’s Chancellor as Bill Durmast had done, let alone with King Thabile. His wasn’t that sort of a personality. He was the firm’s technical expert.
    â€œAnd this isn’t Africa.” His wife was incurably European. The epitome of English civilisation to Phyllis Bolsover was a fine piece of porcelain