Diplomatic Immunity by Grant Sutherland Page B

month. Once Patrick had given the news to the SG, Lady Nicola would have been his next port of call.
    “Patrick’s told you?”
    “Yes.”
    I look at her. I am not quite sure what she expects me to add.
    “It’s rather about Mr. O’Conner that I wanted a word,” she says, and with the slightest of touches she guides me away from the door.
    Lady Nicola has been a fixture at Turtle Bay for most of my career. When I was working as a rapporteur on the Sixth Committee, Legal Affairs, she was the committee chairman. My job was to compile and paraphrase the debate that took place among the committee members: what to put up to the General Assembly for a vote, what to hold back and redraft, and what to discard as totally ridiculous. And though in those days I was just one of many lowly gofers from the Secretariat, Lady Nicola went out of her way to make me feel that my work was appreciated. She astonished the entire Sixth Committee by asking for a round of applause for me at their final sitting that year. Since then she has become her country’s ambassador. The British ambassador, a big UN name.
    “What can you tell me? Suicide?”
    “We don’t know that.”
    “I see.”
    “We don’t know anything,” I add quickly. “Suicide’s possible.”
    “‘Possible’ wasn’t quite the word Mr. O’Conner used,” she remarks dryly. “From memory, the word Mr. O’Conner used was ‘likely.’”
    I shrug the distinction aside. “Toshio’s dead. And I don’t mean to be rude, Lady Nicola, but me standing here with you, talking about it, isn’t helping us figure out how he died.”
    “You’re aware Toshio opposed a permanent Japanese seat on the Council.”
    “I’m aware that some people thought so.” I cast a glance toward the door. I really do not want to be having this conversation.
    “I’ve spoken briefly with each of the other perm five ambassadors,” she says. “They all share my concerns as to the impact this might have on the vote.”
    “The vote?” I cannot help myself from blurting it out. “Toshio’s dead, you’re worried about the vote?”
    “Please, Samuel,” she says, lifting a hand.
    But I don’t apologize. I am pretty sure now that I am not going to like what is coming, the reason for this private word in my ear. The politics have begun. And to her credit, Lady Nicola broaches it directly now.
    “I suggested to my perm five colleagues that I might approach you with a view to establishing an informal channel of communication about the investigation. Mr. O’Conner tells me you’re leading it.” When I don’t say anything, she goes on. “It’s an impossible situation. This vote—”
    “Informal?” I break in.
    She inclines her head.
    “So what’s wrong with the formal channel? I report to Patrick, you ask him what’s going on.”
    “We prefer our information unfiltered.”
    Unfiltered. Meaning, I take it, that they do not believe they can get that from Patrick. And knowing Patrick as I do, I would have to say that the Big Five’s fears are very well founded; but I can’t admit that, of course, certainly not to Lady Nicola. She has obviously persuaded her ambassadorial colleagues that I can be trusted, that I am someone who will understand the awkward position they find themselves in. And I do understand; in some subtle way I am even flattered by this approach. But that just isn’t enough, because in the end I am what I am, a Secretariat staffer, an international civil servant pledged to hold myself above the political fray.
    “I can’t do that,” I decide out loud.
    Lady Nicola presses her lips together, her disappointment plain. “You couldn’t be persuaded?”
    “No.” My tone is firm and unequivocal. I want to cut this dead. “If that’s all,” I say, glancing doorward.
    She studies me a moment, then seems to decide that it would be futile at the moment to press me further. “Of course,” she says. Not an admission of defeat, more a tactical retreat. Her pale