The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [259]
And thus Gerald Haskins made his second visit to Multavia, this time accompanied by a site manager, three draftsmen, and eleven engineers. Gerald had a private audience with the king and assured him the job would be completed on time and for the price specified. He also told the king how much he was enjoying his second visit to his country. However, when he returned to England he assured his wife that there was still little in Multavia that could be described as entertainment before or after the hour of seven.
A few years later, and after some considerable haggling over the increase in the cost of materials, Teske ended up with one of the finest sewage systems in Central Europe. The king was delighted—although he continued to grumble about how Haskins & Co had overrun the original contract price. The words “contingency payment” had to be explained to the monarch several times, who realized that the extra £240,000 would in turn have to be explained to the East and “borrowed” from the West. After many veiled threats and “without prejudice” solicitors’ letters, Haskins & Co received the final payment, but not until the King had been given a further grant from the British government, a payment which involved the Midland Bank, Sloane Street, transferring a sum of money to the Midland Bank, High Street, Hull, without Multavia ever getting its hands on it. This was after all, Gerald explained to his wife, how most overseas aid was distributed.
Thus the story of Gerald Haskins and the drainage problems of Teske might have ended, had not the British foreign secretary decided to pay a visit to the kingdom of Multavia.
The original purpose of the foreign secretary’s European trip was to take in Warsaw and Prague, in order to see how glasnost and perestroika were working in those countries. But when the Foreign Office discovered how much aid had been allocated to Multavia, and after they explained to their minister its role as a buffer state, the foreign secretary decided to accept King Alfons’s long-standing invitation to visit the tiny kingdom. Such excursions to smaller countries by British foreign secretaries usually take place in airport lounges, a habit the British picked up from Henry Kissinger and, later, Comrade Gorbachev; but not on this occasion. It was felt that Multavia warranted a full day.
As the hotels had improved only slightly since the time of Gerald’s honeymoon, the foreign secretary was invited to lodge at the palace. He was asked by the king to undertake only two official engagements during his brief stay: the opening of the capital’s new sewage system, and a formal banquet.
Once the foreign secretary had agreed to these requests the king invited Gerald and his wife to be present at the opening ceremony—at their own expense. When the day of the opening came the Foreign Secretary delivered the appropriate speech for the occasion. He first praised Gerald Haskins for a remarkable piece of work in the great tradition of British engineering, then commended Multavia for her shrewd common sense in awarding the contract to a British company in the first place. The foreign secretary omitted to mention the fact that the British government had ended up underwriting the entire project. Gerald, however, was touched by the minister’s words, and said as much to the foreign secretary after the latter had pulled the lever that opened the first sluice gate.
That evening in the palace there was a banquet for over three hundred guests, including the ambassadorial corps and several leading British