by Ted Denton
‘Okay,’ she replied, hugging the corner of the medicinal storage cabinet and in the process exposing a long, sun kissed and perfectly toned leg. ‘Will I see you later?’
He gambled.
‘Well if you aren’t busy we could maybe meet for dinner tonight? If you’re free that is?’
Matilda hesitated, smiling. ‘Sure, why not?’
‘Great. Come to my room in the hotel, 503, for about seven-thirty?’
And with that Daniel was gone, spirit restored, grinning from ear to ear and trotting back down the steps of the truck towards the hotel, firmly resolved to sort the grief he was in and get his new life back on track.
Chapter 12
ENGLAND. LONDON. ST JAMES’S SQUARE GARDENS. 18.23 HRS.
Derek Hemmings sat alone in the secluded gardens of St. James’s Square in the gathering gloom. Across all corners of the Square, people were heading home from their day jobs, rushing to get back to their families. These days, Derek had only his wife Alice to go home to, his two children, Robin and Samantha, both having flown the nest many years ago now. Their visits were becoming less and less frequent and he felt he barely recognised them as the bright inquisitive little people he had helped bring into the world, raised with his own impeccable values and manners. No, these days as they navigated themselves through the onset of middle age, their own bustling social lives, demanding partners, and burgeoning careers took unrivalled precedence above their aging and unfashionable parents.
Derek cast his mind back to when he himself had been a vigorous young man. He might be weary of all the political games now but when he’d first joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as a sharp, intelligent and dedicated twenty-one year old Cambridge graduate, he’d been intent on changing the world. Selected by MI6 as potential Intelligence Unit material and fast-tracked through the training set up, Derek had thought of himself as very much in the mould of Ian Fleming’s James Bond in the secret service. Equipped with sharp suits, boundless confidence and high aspirations, everything had seemed possible. So he put himself about, volunteered for assignments and cut a dash with army commanders and politicians alike. His patriotism and unstinting sense of honour made him determined to make a difference to that which he cherished most, his beloved Great Britain. For Queen and Country: Do the right thing. The mantra by which he had lived all these years.
And as quickly as it had begun, it was over. He’d met Alice, a secretary in the typing pool at Whitehall, introduced by his sister Mary with whom she was friends. They shared cocktails and theatre visits on the Strand and romantic walks through Covent Garden entwined arm in arm. Within two months, Alice was pregnant with Robin and Derek couldn’t bring himself to take the posting to Cairo. He’d done the honourable thing, followed his immutable moral compass. With a young family to raise and a burdensome mortgage to pay, his fanciful ambitions of secret spying missions and glamorous foreign travel would simply have to wait. And wait they did, as his work and the family settled into a comfortable routine all together. As the wee baby grew into a toddler, Derek was handed greater responsibility within the department. Alice fell pregnant again with Samantha and Derek’s ambitions were pushed further into oblivion, curtailed by the administrative quicksand of a civil service position, albeit with a slow-moving rise toward seniority and respectability. Too slow moving for Alice, perhaps, but by appointment of The Queen no less. The eventual nominal promotion was in reality on paper only but it still caused Alice to weep tears of pride and fetch out the best china for an extended family celebration. Derek was nonplussed. He had known it was dead-man’s shoes right from the very beginning.
And here he was, forty-odd years later, sitting outside in a cold St. James’s Square, contemplating the course of his life, decisions taken and choices made. And too stubborn to go home yet again and drink tea and finish the crossword and listen to the pick pick pick of Alice’s knitting needles.
His mobile phone rang. The jaunty whistling theme tune to The Great Escape. Robin had changed it for a joke when ‘the old man’ was out of the room on one occasion, presumably to poke fun at his old fashioned sense of patriotism. Derek had never changed it back. It was a standing joke around the office that Derek was too out of date and inept to understand how these gadgets worked. The truth was that Derek liked the tune and what it stood for. It flared up some of the old bulldog spirit somewhere still inside him. The ring tone remained unchanged.
He answered the phone and listened as Andy Bartholomew oozed his rich, unctuous Celtic tones down the line. This was the particular tone reserved only for when he either needed something very important indeed or on returning from a lavish booze-fuelled lunch spent entertaining an enthusiastic and comely young researcher looking to climb the greasy pole. With junior female researchers of this type it was an open secret that in order to properly progress their careers it would need to be Andy’s own greasy pole that they would be climbing first.
‘So Derek my fine sir, how did it all go today?’
‘How did what go Andy?’ Derek sighed.
‘That would be your little tête-à-tête with our new friend Mr Golich, Derek,’ came the smarmy reply.
Derek Hemmings considered the state of play. Something didn’t sit well with him. He was being rushed and he didn’t like it. For Queen and Country: Do the right thing. He was tired of being pushed around by Bartholomew... by Golich… by Alice….
‘Ah yes, Andy. Everything went very well with our little friend thank you. He just wants to move some cash around before he signs and we need further clarification on one or two things. There’s no problem. But he says it should be about a week or so. Leave it all with me and we’ll have everything wrapped up pronto.’
‘Sounds fine and dandy, Hemmings. Just keep me informed and be sure bring me a signed copy of the agreement personally.’
Andy hung up.
‘He’s bought it,’ said Derek aloud to himself in disbelief, standing to his feet. Then a little louder: ‘I’ve just lied to a senior government official and he’s only gone and bloody bought it.’
The Great Escape.
Chapter 13
SPAIN. EUROPEAN TOUR. DAY TWO. 16.00 HRS.
The soft bed linen billowed as he flopped back onto the mattress, letting the cool of the air-conditioned hotel room wash over him. Not much by way of exertion had taken place, but he still felt drained from his short time under the baking heat of the demanding Spanish sun. He grabbed an ice cold can of lemonade from the mini bar, soaking wet from precipitation as if it could have been perspiring from its own exersions in the heat. He pressed the metal hard against his neck.
Daniel dialled down to reception and asked for the number to International Direct Enquiries. In an efficient sequence of activity, punctuated by slugs of the refreshing drink, he spoke first with his mobile provider, requesting an alternative SIM to be couriered to the hotel, and then to his bank to put a stop on the cash card and check the account balance. Just as he’d feared, the damage had already been done. The fuckers had drained his account to its maximum overdraft limit taking him two thousand pounds into the red. Worse than this he was still missing his grandfather’s gold watch. Come home without that after chasing some ‘Flash-Harry dream’ with a bunch of foreigners and it would not go down well. Not one little bit. He stared listlessly out of the window, despondent. In blissful contrast to his sombre mood, two colourful rotund little birds danced and hopped outside on the terrace.
Sitting up on the edge of the bed, now, trying to breathe steadier, Daniel spied a slim tan file lying upon the coffee table at the side of the room. He didn’t recall seeing it before. Couldn’t be his. Something from housekeeping perhaps?
He hauled himself off the bed, head spinning, and steadied himself before unenthusiastically dragging himself over to the table to examine it. The outside of the folder was blank. He opened it to find several neatly bound pages of stiff crisp document inside. The first page was adorned solely with the large imposing logo of the
Rublex Oil & Gas Corporation. When did this arrive in my room? he wondered. He scanned the following twelve pages quickly, unable to absorb too much detail or comprehend the legalese which framed the salient content. Daniel gathered it was a private and confidential proposal outlining some type of financial option scheme. Rublex Corporation was offering to make a series of significant upfront payments to Aaron Crower, care of Crown Sports, in exchange for a percentage of his winnings throughout the year. Accompanying pages outlined a schedule of bonuses, some of which appeared markedly discretionary on meeting ‘required expectations’ and payable to him on achieving specific positions in a number of listed events. Daniel gawped at the figures, counting out the zeros with his fingers twice to be certain. There were enormous sums of money involved. They dwarfed the sums that the major equipment manufacturers paid the higher profile players on Tour to represent their clubs, shoes, clothing and balls. There was no reference to Aaron overtly representing the brand or wearing logoed apparel. This was usually the heart of any standard player agreement, branding and player appearances at corporate golf days, in the media or at certain specified events. Instead it was written as if Aaron was a company and Rublex would become a silent investor, calling the shots behind the scenes. Secondly, he couldn’t make sense of the bonus schedule. The ones that Silvio had emailed him by way of example all grew in denomination as the player achieved a higher position in the tournament, with an emphasis on the Majors. That’s why they were called ‘win bonuses’, the better you did in an event, the more time on TV the sponsors got and the more exposure could be derived in media value and brand awareness from association with that player. The difference with this agreement was that these bonuses seemed to reward failure in certain events above victory itself.
It made no sense, Daniel thought to himself, tossing the folder back onto the table in front of him. It was the first agreement of its kind that he had read and with a combination of his fuzzy head and bleary eyes, he was convinced that the document was littered with mistakes and missing pages. I’ll run it past Silvio and see what he thinks, he thought. Perhaps I can make it sound like I’ve delivered a serious coup in my first week, prove that I’m worth my salt after all. That will overshadow all these teething problems when they hear about the money I’ve brought in, as long as we can iron out the errors in there regarding the performance bonus. Silvio will know what to do.
It didn’t stop the uneasy feeling in his stomach that was beginning to pervade.
He flicked on the TV to check the player scores of the tournament which, ironically, was playing out on a golf course only metres away from him. Aaron had finished his round on three under par after a difficult back nine. François, whom he’d also met briefly in London at a Crown Sports summit but hadn’t caught up with so far this week, was fairing much worse. A later tee-time had left him combating the worst of a blustery afternoon wind and he was two over par after three holes. Daniel hoped he would be able to keep his head out there and battle round in a decent score to make it to the weekend. He’d been warned that François had a fiery temper and a tendency to get disconsolate if his game wasn’t producing the results he felt his talent was capable of delivering. Missing the cut wouldn’t help at all. Jeppe Ossgren was leader in the club house at six under par. Daniel smiled to himself. Well, that’s worked out just like I said it would! After all, he was swinging it just lovely on the range.
He leaned back in his chair, hoping his luck was truly starting to change. Daniel felt his head loll to one side as he willingly succumbed to sleep’s seductive summoning.
He awoke at six that evening, refreshed and invigorated. Next he showered and shaved, liberally applied aftershave and cleaned his teeth with newfound zeal. He dressed in a red and white checked short-sleeved shirt and faded blue jeans, going for the casual look. Someone had once told him: where women are concerned don’t make it look like you’re trying too hard.
But fighting the desire to try and impress was, of course, impossible. He could already feel the butterflies whirling in his stomach. Although these could also be attributable to the remnants of the malingering hangover, manfully navigated thus far. There was no denying he was excited by the prospect of dinner with this sexy worldly woman, a woman who was displaying genuine interest in him. And in this testosterone-rich environment with so much wealth, talent, and the very essence of competition on display, she would certainly have her fair share of suitors. She’d practically alluded to as much herself. The thought lingered and annoyed Daniel, unsettling him more than he quite expected. Yes, he wanted her for himself. There was something else about her that intrigued him too. She was confident, certainly aware of her own self-worth and possibly the devastating mind-numbing affect that she had on men. That was if his own reaction were anything to go by. Yet she remained vulnerable. She was grounded and down to earth and seemed to shield a secret hurt. But she enjoyed teasing him and could establish her superiority with just a look. Above all else, Daniel loved a challenge.
He was, however, getting ahead of himself. He’d overslept and hadn’t made dinner reservations. With no access to money, except for the Rublex corporate credit card which Mr Krostanov had so kindly extended to him, impressing Matilda was going to be a tough job. And he could hardly ask her to pay. He toyed with the idea that Sergei would consider that buying dinner for the Tour physiotherapist was a fit and proper use of his generosity when the time came for expense reconciliation. It was, after all, a favoured activity of his own apparently. Thinking on his feet, Daniel figured that at least he might be able to arrange for his hotel bill to be covered by Crown Sports HQ at the end of the week, buying him some time. He grabbed the room phone quickly and dialled to order room service.
As a lad growing up, Daniel had been told that he displayed an easy manner, a relaxed charm. Perhaps it was the natural antidote to being the only child of a neurotic mother and uptight father who calculated and affixed risk to each of life’s everyday decisions. To say that they had been shocked and concerned when he’d taken the job with an American company at such short notice, without the usual period of intense and expected due diligence was an understatement. This was compounded when they learned that he would be travelling abroad for his job, a different country week on week, living out of hotels. His father was naturally suspicious of the type of money that a man of twenty-one would be earning in these endeavours. Was Daniel quite sure what would be expected of him by these foreigners? His mother repeatedly warned of impending doom with so many flights to be taken during the year across the busy international golf schedule. Above all, they didn’t consider sport to be a serious, sustainable career, nor the best use of a university education. A bunch of show-offs, dressed up like clowns, trying to hit a little white ball into a hole was, to them, a frivolous affair.
Daniel gently persuaded the friendly, female voice on the end of the phone to open up the full restaurant menu to him for room service, rather than the limited listing on offer in the room. He ordered with gusto, the classic trap for anyone who has chosen food whilst gripped in the pangs of hunger. Hoping Matilda would be pleased with his choices, he added a couple of bottles of champagne and hung up the receiver. It was 19.15.
He briefly considered phoning François to touch base and offer some words of encouragement. On balance it was probably safer to let him stew in his own juices on the range, beating out his frustrations on dozens of innocent inanimate objects instead. He opted to leave a simple, upbeat message of support for him to be collected at reception. Boxes ticked, he sprang off the bed and sauntered out onto the balcony, gazing below at bronzed couples in light evening dresses and linen shirts, smoking cigarettes and sharing pre-dinner drinks by the pool. He hadn’t really comprehended it when Silvio explained that he would be staying in five star hotels on his trips with the players, all paid for by his new employer. When he had queried it, Silvio had explained that the beautiful golf courses on which the tournaments were played often had hotels affixed to them or situated
close by. Staying at these made total access to the players, your own stable or perhaps even those of another agent if you were seeking to build an illicit relationship, much easier. The caddies take care of themselves, sharing in whatever cheap flea pit they can find between them during the week to keep costs down. But it simply wouldn’t do for a player manager not to be close at hand for his stars.
Daniel was woken from his thoughts by a rap on the door. He scampered across the room, opening it to allow two smartly dressed waiters to bluster inside wheeling long metal trollies adorned with white table cloths, ice buckets and several large silver salvers stacked up together. They looked with concern first at the room’s small coffee table, and then in turn at the writing desk and patio furniture calculating the lack of surface space versus the plethora of dishes steaming patiently on the trolleys. The waiters enquired politely in heavily accented English where ‘sir’ would like dinner to be presented. Daniel considered the balcony for a moment but then pulling one of the folded white table cloths from a trolley, shook it free and laid it on the floor at the foot of the bed. ‘I think it’s going to have to be picnic time,’ he grinned.
At 20.03, the door knocked twice, softly. The minutes had ticked by. He checked himself in the mirror one last time before taking a deep breath. He peeked through the tiny fish-eye security peephole out into the corridor. Matilda was standing before him holding a single flower in both hands, a large drooping yellow and white daisy. He sprang the door open.
‘For you,’ she said coyly, offering Daniel the flower, kissing him on the cheek and stepping into the room in one single motion. He turned to see a vision standing before him, her shoulders swaying slightly, hands clasped in front across her lap. Matilda’s long, straight cut, platinum blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders. Her dress was made of white embroidered lace, cut an inch before the knee to reveal two long shapely, tanned legs in a pair of strappy black heels. Her look was natural with make-up used simply and sparingly, perfectly highlighting strong Nordic cheek bones and those big blue eyes. Full, lightly glossed lips glistened at him, soft and inviting. Daniel hadn’t realised quite how hungry he actually was.