2007 - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Read online

London

  6 July

  Dear Dr Jones,

  Thank you for the project proposal, which was received here on 2.9 June. Our client, who is at present in the UK, has now had an opportunity to consider the document and wishes to discuss the matter with you in person. I may say that he was extremely positive about the professional and constructive manner in which you have addressed the brief.

  Please would you be kind enough to sign the attached confidentiality agreement, to allow us to disclose further information to you regarding our client and the project. Once

  I have received the signed copy I will then be in touch with you regarding a further meeting.

  Yours sincerely,

  (Ms) Harriet Chetwode-Talbot

  Email

  From:

  [email protected]

  Date:

  7 July

  To:

  [email protected]

  Subject:

  Yemen⁄salmon

  I thought you would like to know that relations between myself and David Sugden are once again amicable. I have submitted an outline feasibility proposal on the Yemen salmon project to Fitzharris & Price. I have received a very warm and, frankly, enthusiastic response. I met David Sugden by the coffee machine today (by accident? he sort of turned up while I was dialling in a cappuccino, so he had one too and we chatted for a bit). He said, as far as I can remember, ‘We were all pretty impressed by that paper you put up to Fitzharris & Price. Visionary stuff. This could be a very high-profile project in due course.’

  I mumbled something, you know I can’t stand flattery, and asked if it was OK to sign the confidentiality agreement before we go any further. He said yes, and actually patted me on the shoulder. He’s not a very tactile person and that was really quite demonstrative for him.

  The thing is, if I’d just rolled over for David when he first asked me to get involved in the project, he would just have taken my work for granted and not considered it anything special. Because I made a bit of a fuss—in order to test his own commitment to such an unusual project—he now thinks he has won a great battle and is one hell of a good manager. The reality is that if one knows how to handle these apparatchiks you can get them to eat out of your hand. Hope all is going well in Geneva, and that you will be home soon. Missing you.

  Alfred XXXXX

  Email

  From:

  [email protected]

  Date:

  7 July

  To:

  [email protected]

  Subject:

  Dry-cleaning

  Alfred,

  Could you go to the dry-cleaners in the High Street and pick up a load of stuff I didn’t have time to collect before I got on the plane. Perhaps you could get it sent out here by Fedex or DHL as I am a bit short of things to wear and they haven’t yet found anyone to replace the guy whose job I am doing? Thanks in advance.

  Things are fine here, rather hard work, but I think I am being appreciated. I’m not quite sure when I will be back in the

  UK yet.

  Love,

  Mary

  PS: Please make sure you collect the dry-cleaning tonight and send it latest tomorrow a.m.

  PPS: Glad to hear you are sorting out your problems with DS.

  Email

  From:

  [email protected]

  Date:

  7 July

  To:

  [email protected]

  Subject:

  Yemen⁄Salmon

  I thought you’d like to know that the (previously reluctant) scientist I wanted to work on this project is now eating out of my hand. I fed him some ideas on how to approach the work and he has come up with quite a reasonable first stab at the proposal, which has been welcomed by the client. I’ll keep you posted. Feel free to pass this on up the line if you think you should.

  Yrs ever

  David

  Memo

  From:

  Peter

  To:

  PM

  Subject:

  Yemen⁄salmon

  Date:

  8 July

  PM

  I thought it best to update you on the Yemen project (if you don’t recall, it was to do with salmon). We’ve taken a step forward and it is ready to kick off. I don’t think we’ll talk to the media about it yet, though. I want to see whether it is really going to happen before we risk any exposure on what is, after all, a rather unusual story. On the other hand, we all know that most civil servants leak like sieves and no doubt fisheries scientists are no better or worse than the rest of them. We want to make sure that when this gets out, we tell it in our own words and make it clear whose initiative it is (yours).

  I’ll update you as soon as I hear anything.

  Peter

  PS: I never asked. Do you know how to fish?

  4

  Extracts from the diary of Dr Jones: his meeting with Sheikh Muhammad

  12 July

  A very strange day.

  I had arranged a meeting with Harriet (Chetwode-Talbot) at Fitzharris & Price in St James’s Street first thing this morning. I must admit I was quite looking forward to finding out more about the project, and the client. I can even say I was quite looking forward to meeting Harriet again, as she has impressed me by the intelligent and professional way she has conducted herself thus far. Her people skills are in a different league to those of David Sugden, who by the way is now my new best friend. He and I had a drink in the pub on Friday night after work.

  Anyway, I went round to St James’s Street and announced myself at the reception desk. I was somewhat surprised to see Harriet come out of her office, carrying her briefcase and with a raincoat over her arm.

  ‘Are we going somewhere?’ I asked.

  She greeted me good morning and suggested I follow her downstairs. I must note here she is really quite attractive-looking when she smiles, her face being a trifle severe in repose. We went out into the street, where a large black car was waiting. The driver jumped out and opened doors for us. Once in, Harriet turned to me and said, ‘We are going to meet the client.’ I asked her if she could tell me anything about him, but she simply replied, ‘I think I’ll let him speak for himself, if you don’t mind.’

  The car purred into Piccadilly and turned right. Harriet dug into her briefcase for some papers. Then she put on spectacles and said, ‘You don’t mind, do you? I need to go over some papers on some other business we are acting on for our client.’

  She sat and read. Meanwhile the car was driving across Vauxhall Bridge. I was a little surprised; I had expected we would drive round to somewhere like Belgrave Square or Eaton Place. I sat back in the comfortable, new-smelling white leather seat and enjoyed the unaccustomed luxury. I do not own a car, myself. It’s pointless with these congestion charges. We drove through south London. I began to wonder where on earth we were going. Surely the sheikh did not live in Brixton?

  I said, ‘Excuse me, Harriet, but are we going much further?’

  She took her spectacles off, raised her head from looking at her papers, and gave me another smile. ‘That’s the first time you have used my Christian name.’

  Not knowing how to respond to this I said something like, ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Yes, really. And no, we are not going much further. Just as far as Biggin Hill.’

  ‘Are we meeting your client at Biggin Hill?’

  ‘No. His plane is meeting us.’

  ‘We’re not going to the Yemen?’ I asked in alarm. ‘I haven’t got my passport. Or anything.’

  ‘We’re going to pay the sheikh a brief visit at his place near Inverness. He liked your proposal but he wants to speak about it with you face to face.’

  ‘It is very kind of him to say he likes it,’ I said.

  ‘He is very kind, but he liked it because it gave him hope.’ Then she said no more, and would not be drawn into further conversation until we arrived at the airport.


  On any other occasion I would have found the experience of flying in a private jet overwhelming in itself; it’s not that often I fly in any sort of plane. But really it was just a flight to somewhere. What was memorable was what happened after we arrived.

  When we landed at Inverness airport another black car was there to meet us outside the terminal. This time it was a Range Rover. We drove onto the A9 and headed south for twenty minutes or so and then turned off down a single-track road and over a cattle grid. A sign read, ‘Glen Tulloch Estate. Private’. We drove along the track towards some distant hills, down into a wooded valley and across an enchanting river full of appealing dark pools where fish might lie. We followed the river for another ten minutes until, surrounded by immaculate and damp-looking green lawns, a large red-granite lodge came into sight. There were turrets at each end of the front, and a central portico with pillars surrounding the massive front door, with steps leading down to the gravel.

  As the Range Rover pulled up in front of the house, a man in a suit and tie came down the steps. For a moment I wondered if he might be the client, but as we got out of the car I heard him say, ‘Welcome back to Glen Tulloch, Miss Harriet.’

  Harriet said, ‘How are you, Malcolm?’

  Malcolm bowed his head in answer to this enquiry, made a respectful murmur of welcome in my direction, and then asked us to follow him inside. We entered the house and came into a large square hall panelled in dark wood. A round library table with a bowl of roses occupied the centre. A few dark pictures of stags were hung on the walls, and intimidating and massive casts of salmon mounted on wooden plaques, bearing the weight and date caught, occupied the spaces between the pictures.

  ‘His Excellency is at prayer,’ said Malcolm to me, ‘and then he will be occupied for an hour or two. Miss Harriet, would you be kind enough to go to his office and he will join you there shortly.’

  ‘Have fun,’ Harriet said to me. ‘See you later.’

  ‘If you will follow me, Dr Jones,’ said Malcolm, ‘I will show you to your room.’

  I was surprised to find I had a room. I thought I was coming for a brief meeting and back to the airport. I had imagined I would spend half an hour, perhaps an hour with the sheikh, and then he would have learned all I could tell him and I would be dismissed. Malcolm took me upstairs to a bedroom on the first floor. It was an enormous but comfortable room with a four-poster bed and a dressing table, and a large bathroom adjoining it. Through tall sash windows I could see heathery moors running up into the mountains. On the bed were laid out a check shirt, a pair of khaki-coloured trousers, thick socks and a pair of chest waders.

  Malcolm surprised and delighted me by saying, ‘His Excellency thought you might like to fish for an hour or two before you meet him, to relax for a while after your journey. He hopes these clothes will be comfortable. We had to guess your size.’ He pointed to a bell push beside the bed and told me that, if I rang for him when I was ready, he would take me to meet the gillie, Colin McPherson.

  Half an hour later I was walking along the bank of the river we had driven up with Colin beside me. Colin was short, sandy-haired, square-faced and taciturn. He looked gloomily at me when I was introduced to him, wearing the brand new Snowbee waders which had been left out for me and feeling rather foolish.

  ‘You’ll not have been after a fish before, sir?’ he asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ I told him. His face brightened fleetingly, then relapsed into its scowl.

  ‘Most of the gentlemen that comes to see the laird haven’t had a rod in their hand before in their life.’

  I said I would do my best, and we walked down to the river, Colin carrying a fifteen-foot rod and a landing net. He told me a little about the river, and about the fishing, as we walked along the bank. The river was about thirty yards wide and there was a good flow of water. ‘We had some rain the night, and a few fish have maybe come up. But I doubt you’ll see a fish today.’

  At last we came to a dank pool fifty yards long or so, running out into white water over gravel shoals. Rowan trees and alders overhung the far bank, and I could see a few threads of cast hanging from the branches where over-ambitious fishermen had snagged their lines. ‘You’re no worse off fishing here than anywhere,’ suggested Colin. He looked as if he doubted very much whether I would ever see let alone catch a fish. He handed me the rod he had put up for me. I tried it a few times to get the feel of it. It was beautifully balanced, stiff and powerful. I waded into the water a few feet, as Colin had suggested, and started to put line out.

  ‘Put some line out, take a step, then put a bit more out and take a step,’ Colin instructed me from the bank.

  When I had got a bit of line out I tried a double Spey cast and saw with pleasure how the line shot out like silk, the fly landing on the water as gently as thistledown.

  ‘I’ve seen worse casts than that,’ said Colin, in a friendlier tone than he had used up until then. Then he sat down on the bank, took out a pipe and started to fiddle around with it. I forgot about him and concentrated on the fishing. A step, cast the line out, watch the fly come round gently on the dark water, strip the line, a step, and cast the line. Mesmerised by the flowing water and the silent beauty of the pool, I fished it down slowly and carefully. Once I saw a swirl and some bubbles just beyond my line, right beneath the opposite bank in the slow water, which I thought might have been a fish moving. But I did not dare lengthen my cast for fear of tangling my line in the overhanging branches. Once there was a flash of blue and bronze and I heard Colin, now some yards upstream, say, ‘Kingfisher.’

  At last I reached the end of the run, and the water was too slow to fish down any further, so I waded back to the bank. By that time I had almost forgotten where I was, I was so absorbed by what I was doing, so tranquillised by the absolute silence apart from the music of the water over the gravel as it ran out to the next pool below. Then Colin appeared at my elbow.

  ‘I’ll change the fly for something with a wee bit more colour. Maybe an Ally Shrimp. There’s a fish showing beneath those alder trees.’

  ‘I think I moved it,’ I told him.

  We walked back up the bank, and while Colin tied on a new fly I looked behind me. The road to the house ran past and beyond was the moor. I heard the shrill shouting of a pair of oystercatchers and, further away, the unmistakable cackle of a grouse. Colin handed me the rod, and I stepped into the head of the pool again. I fished down again as before, and just as I was coming to the place where I thought I had seen something move, I felt that prickling in the back of the neck we sometimes get when someone is watching us. I put the line out, and turned my head to look. About thirty yards behind me and a little bit above me, on the road, stood a small man in a white headdress and white robes. He looked absolutely out of place on that road, with the heather moor behind him. He stood very upright and quite still. He was watching me intently.

  A tug on my line made me snap my attention back to the river. There was a swirl, then splashing, and suddenly line started screaming off the reel at a prodigious rate as the fish took the fly and ran. My heart beating, I lifted the rod tip and started to play my fish. It did not take long: after ten minutes I had brought a medium-sized silver sea trout to the water’s edge, which Colin deftly landed in his net.

  ‘Five pound,’ he said. ‘No bad.’ He seemed pleased.

  ‘We’ll put it back,’ I said. Colin did not approve of this idea, but he did as I asked and then we set out back towards the house.

  §

  Later

  In the end it was not until this evening that I met the client. When I returned to the house I was handed over to Malcolm, who turned out to be the butler. I always imagined butlers wore black coats and striped trousers, looked like Sir John Gielgud and went everywhere with a glass of sherry balanced on a silver tray. Malcolm wore a dark suit, a white shirt and a dark tie. He looked sombre and discreet and moved noiselessly about the house. He showed me back to my room, where I changed
back into the clothes I had flown up in. Then I was given tea in the library, with cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off and the day’s papers to read—all of them, from TheTimes through to the Sun.

  From time to time Malcolm would put his head round the door and apologise for keeping me waiting. His Excellency was engaged in a conference call that was taking longer than expected. His Excellency was at prayer again. His Excellency was in a meeting but would be free at any moment. Finally I asked, ‘What time is our flight back to London?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning, sir, after breakfast.’

  ‘But I didn’t pack anything—I didn’t know we were expected to stay.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir; you’ll find everything is ready in your room.’

  Malcolm’s pager went off and he excused himself and left. A little while later he came back and said, ‘I’ve taken the liberty of running your bath, sir. If you care to go upstairs and have a bath and change, His Excellency will meet you here in the library for drinks at seven o’clock.’ I shook my head in disbelief and followed Malcolm upstairs again. He showed me to my room. By then I was beginning to know my way. I went in and had my bath, stretched out full length in steaming water infused with something that smelt of pine, wondering at the strangeness of the day.

  As I lay gazing at the ceiling of the bathroom I felt a profound sense of peace steal over me. It was as if I was on holiday. I was away from the office, away from home, and I had had the wholly unexpected pleasure of catching a fish, something that happened to me about once every other year (Mary is not keen on fishing holidays; she says they are barbaric, a waste of money, boring for non-participants and therefore a self-indulgence on my part). I stepped out of the bath and dried myself with a huge white towel, and wandered back into the bedroom. Although it was high summer, a fire had been lit and table lamps switched on. The bedroom was warm and softly lit, encouraging me to lie on the bed for twenty minutes’ sleep. But I thought I might not wake up in time for dinner so I sat and wrote down a few words in my diary about the journey here, and the sea trout I caught.