Deadly Business

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘It’s funny you should say that,’ Cress exclaimed. ‘I’ve just been tipped off that there’s a press briefing tomorrow morning, nine thirty, in Greentree Stanley’s office in Canary Wharf. I have a contact there and he told me I should keep an eye on it.’

  ‘No,’ I contradicted her. ‘It’s not funny at all. It’s the beginning of the end.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Your client, Cressida; your client.’

  Wylie was standing beside my chair as I ended the call. ‘My IT lady has some Torrent corporate brochures,’ he said. ‘I’ve asked her to send them here.’

  ‘Fine,’ I acknowledged. ‘Don’t wait for them, though. You’ve done a lot for me today. Get yourself home.’ The reports wouldn’t add anything to my knowledge base, but he was pleased with himself, so I didn’t tell him that.

  After he’d gone, and after I’d attached Liam’s candid camera shot to an email to Cress, I called Audrey. ‘What news?’ I asked.

  ‘The French police have released Susie’s body,’ she told me. ‘The cause of death was a massive cerebral haemorrhage. The pathologist agreed with you, and with the consultant in Arizona. She should never have flown that far.’

  ‘What about the funeral?’

  ‘I don’t know, Primavera.’ She sighed. ‘Like him or not, Duncan’s her husband. I can’t do anything until he gets back, and that won’t be until tomorrow afternoon. He called Conrad to tell him that, and to say that he’s got about a week to find a new job. He didn’t say where he was though.’

  ‘He’s in Scotland,’ I told her. ‘He got in quick to check on Susie’s will.’

  ‘Where does it put him?’

  ‘In the driving seat, from the looks of things. I’m going to try to set up the children’s trust that Susie wanted, but even if I can, it’ll probably be too late.’

  ‘You sound really down, Primavera,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t; however this turns out, nobody could have done more than you.’

  ‘Oz would have,’ I sighed. ‘He’d have killed that fucker Duncan by now.’ It slipped out. I looked around for Tom, but he wasn’t there. He must have gone back to his own room while I was on the phone to Cress. ‘Don’t tell Conrad I said that, please.’

  ‘The mood he’s in, I wouldn’t dare.’

  I decided to keep to myself the titbit about Culshaw shagging Natalie Morgan. That might have tipped both Kents over the edge. And then I realised … Tom had seen the image.

  I jumped up, ran down the corridor to his room and knocked on the door, hard. He didn’t answer at first, not till I thumped it a second time. When he did, his expression was grimmer than I’d thought I would ever see it. His young face was set hard, full of rage.

  ‘How could he do that, Mum?’ he growled, as he stepped aside to let me in. ‘He was Susie Mum’s husband, she’s only just died, and he was with another woman. You know what? When I see him, I hope he tries to hit me again. If he does, he won’t get up this time.’

  ‘Tom!’ I exclaimed. I was genuinely frightened by him. I’d been half joking with Audrey about Oz and Conrad, yet here was my son making the same lethal threat, and serious, deadly serious, even if he was probably still too small to make good on it. I held him, but he was stiff in my arms. ‘Please, love,’ I begged him. ‘Don’t ever think like that. Remember what Liam said about anger being your enemy.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ he snapped. ‘I’m that man’s enemy.’

  ‘Cool it, boy,’ I said. ‘Cool it. Do you think your father would have wanted to see you like this?’

  ‘Maybe he would. Maybe he’d have been proud of me if I did something to Culshaw.’

  ‘No, my love,’ I replied, ‘he wouldn’t. I promise you that, on my life. Why do you think I’ve brought you up to be good, kind and gentle? It wasn’t his fault, but he wasn’t always like that, he knew it, and he would never have wanted me to raise you in that image. That would have been his worst nightmare.’

  I stayed with him until he was something like his normal self again, then I went back to the suite. I was still shaken; Liam realised that straight away, so I told him what had happened. ‘I’ll take care of him,’ he promised. ‘I’ll talk him down, clear his mind.’

  I called the office; Cathy Black was still there. I told her that I expected the next day to be a busy one and that I’d be in by nine, at the latest. That was a long time away. I was restless; I still had some energy to burn, and an idea came to me, of how to use some of it up. I called Cathy again, and asked her for the suspended managing director’s home address. He didn’t live too far away, in Bearsden, an upmarket suburb on the western outskirts of Glasgow.

  ‘I’m going out,’ I told Liam. ‘I’m going to see Phil Culshaw.’

  ‘Want me to come?’

  ‘Thanks for the offer, but no. I won’t need a minder. Anyway, I’d rather you stayed with Tom.’

  He nodded. ‘Sure. How about I take him to the gym, let him show me his stuff, let him kick the crap out of me, if that’s what he needs?’

  I kissed him in the middle of the forehead. ‘You’re a doll, you really are. You do that, but listen, don’t let him wear you out too much. You’re forty-something, after all, and you’re going to need some strength later on.’

  I put my laptop in my bag and headed down to the lobby. The staff recovered my car from the park and I entered Culshaw’s address into the satnav. It took me out of the city along Maryhill Road. I remembered that as being busy, but the worst of the evening traffic was over, so it was quiet. I hadn’t been driving for much more than twenty minutes before my guide told me that I’d arrived at my destination.

  I could have called ahead but I didn’t want to give any advance warning. I realised there was a good chance he’d slam the door in my face, assuming he was in, but I was prepared to risk that.

  His house was a big stone villa; there was a Range Rover parked in the driveway, almost hiding the Mini behind it from sight. I rang the bell, and heard an old-fashioned clanging from inside.

  Phil was in. His eyebrows rose when he saw me standing there, and I reckon he did consider the slamming option, before deciding against it.

  ‘Mrs Blackstone,’ he exclaimed, then peered theatrically at my hands. ‘Sorry,’ he chuckled, ‘I thought you might have been carrying an olive branch, but no such luck. I take it you want to talk, though?’

  I nodded. ‘I do.’

  ‘Then you’d better come in.’ He stood aside and ushered me into a dark hallway, then through to the back of the house. The place had a lonely feel to it. I looked around for any clues suggesting the presence of another person, but there were none, no lady’s coat on the stand in the hall, only a well-worn Barbour jacket and a flat cap.

  ‘You live alone?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘Beth passed away four years ago. I know, you’ll be thinking this place is far too big for an old guy on his own, but I can’t be bothered to do anything about it. I haven’t even sold her car.’

  ‘No,’ I replied, ‘I wasn’t thinking that, honestly. My house is as big as this and there’s only my son and me to rattle about in it.’ The guy was lonely, I realised. By unseating him, I’d probably taken the best part of his life away from him.

  He led me through to the inevitable conservatory; in Britain every home should have one, it seems. It took up a good chunk of the back garden. We took seats facing each other across a low table. He offered me coffee, ‘or something stronger’, but I declined either. ‘In that case, Mrs Blackstone,’ he continued, ‘what have you come for?’

  ‘Let’s cut the formalities, please. I want to show you something, Phil. It could go public and it involves a member of your family. That’s one reason why I want to give you advance warning, but it’s not the only one.’

  I took my computer from my shoulder bag, and pushed the start button. I’d left it in sleep mode, so when it woke up, the image that had been there sprang instantly to life. It was Liam’s candid camera shot, taken in Barnton
through the bedroom window. I put it on the table and turned it around so he could see it.

  He looked at it, frowned, then put on a pair of reading specs and looked closer. As he did, I heard a soft gasp.

  ‘You know who she is?’ I asked.

  ‘Do I ever. That’s Natalie Morgan.’

  ‘So I’m told, although she called herself something else when we met in Diego Fabricant’s office this afternoon.’

  ‘Fabricant’s office,’ he repeated. ‘What the hell was she doing there? Unless …’ A sockful of pennies dropped, with the force of a thump round the ear. He stared at me. ‘She’s Monsoon Holdings? She owns the bloody land?’

  ‘The way it’s set up, we’ll never prove that she’s the beneficial owner, but that’s the way I’d bet. Monsoon owns her house as well.’

  He buried his face in his hands for a second or two then ran his fingers through his grey thatch. ‘God damn it,’ he sighed. ‘And him too! Sleeping with the bloody enemy. Bugger it, bugger it, bugger it! I am sorry, Primavera; I had no idea.’

  ‘I believe you, Phil. But tell me, please: how was the deal brought to you?’

  He stood up, abruptly. ‘Yes, I will tell you,’ he began, walking over to a cabinet that stood against the wall. ‘But first, I need something to help me absorb this.’ He took out a heavy-based glass, a bottle of Isle of Jura malt and poured himself a sizeable slug. He waved it in my direction. ‘Sure you won’t?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  I waited, while he came back to his seat. He swallowed about a third of the whisky, then took another look at the image. ‘I’ll send you a copy,’ I offered.

  He shot me a sour grin. ‘Better not. Bad for my blood pressure. The deal,’ he continued. ‘It was Duncan, of course, but you know that. He approached me last year. He said that he had an associate who owned a piece of land that was ripe for development as a posh golf course, aimed at a high-roller international membership. He explained that his colleague had done some research and had the vision, that all he needed was a funding partner to make it fly. I asked him how much, he said the whole thing could probably be built for under ten million, but it should appear that the developer company, which would be a fifty-fifty joint venture, had access to much more than that. This, he said, was because we’d be looking to recruit billionaires as members, Russian oligarchs, American hedge fund managers, German industrialists, et cetera, and that they would be more likely to be attracted by something that could demonstrate substantial resources. The proposition was that Gantry would agree to underwrite development costs of up to fifty million, with a verbal agreement that we’d only ever contribute less than twenty per cent of that.’

  ‘Did you ever put this to Susie?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, but not straight away. She had just gone to America for her first round of chemotherapy. Incidentally, Primavera, she told me at the very start of her illness that she was a long shot to make it, and that while she fought this thing she’d have to delegate much more than usual to me. So I signed up to the formation of Babylon Links PLC, and I only told her about it when the deal was done. She didn’t question it at all.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Fabricant?’

  ‘That’s the damnable thing; I didn’t. Duncan was the intermediary all the way through. It was him who came to me and said that the planners had asked Fabricant to show a bank deposit of twenty million as a condition of their consent. I baulked at that, but Duncan told me not to worry, that Fabricant would agree to return most of it as soon as we’d been given the planning green light. Bastard stalled me on it, but I had, still have, hopes that he’d come through soon.’

  ‘You can forget that, Phil.’ I dropped the bombshell, that our partner was calling in the other thirty million. ‘I’ll resist it, but we’re on a loser in court.’

  ‘Couldn’t we show that it’s a conspiracy?’ he suggested.

  ‘They’re not doing anything wrong; all they’re doing is implementing a binding agreement which we signed.’

  ‘That I signed,’ he corrected me.

  ‘In good faith, as I now acknowledge,’ I added for him. ‘Whatever, my advice is that under Jersey law we’ll never prove that Natalie Morgan is the beneficial owner of Monsoon Holdings. Sure, I could leak that image to the tabloids and embarrass her and Duncan, the grieving widower … not … but if I did, she’d probably get court bans on publication within hours. My worry is, Duncan’s involvement might damage the Gantry Group even further, given the power he can now exercise using the children’s shares.’

  Phil nodded. ‘I apologise for my rudeness this morning, Primavera, and for my threat. Of course I’ll withdraw my request for an EGM.’

  ‘I’m sure it would be followed by a new one … if it’s even necessary.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he murmured, cautiously.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ I said. ‘You know what’ll happen next.’

  He sighed. ‘I fear I do. And there’s no way of stopping it?’

  ‘Not that I can see.’

  ‘Then good luck. Primavera, I’m going to resign. I’ll announce it formally first thing in the morning and throw my full support behind you as executive chair. That might help.’

  ‘It won’t, but thanks for the gesture. Anyway, I don’t want to be executive chair. I want to take my kid back home, as soon as I can.’

  I left him in his big empty house and headed back to the hotel. The Rock ’n’ Roll suite was empty too, when I stepped inside. That took my mind back to Phil Culshaw, and what I’d said to him; I really did want to be back home as soon as possible, for Tom’s sake, for my sake, and for the sake of my new relationship. But I had other responsibilities, to Janet and wee Jonathan, and to the company, and if I was wrong about the outcome I envisaged, I couldn’t walk away from them. Yes, Phil would carry on as managing director if asked, but honestly I wasn’t sure that was the right move. He was beyond for what most people would be retirement age, and the ease with which he’d been suckered by his arsehole of a nephew cast doubt on whether he still had what it takes to run a hundred million pound company.

  Of course, I was kidding myself there. It wasn’t worth a hundred million any more, or anything like it. I switched the laptop back on to check the share price and shuddered when I saw it. The latest leak had done us in; my earlier bounce-back had been swept aside and it had gone back into free fall, down to forty per cent of where it had been at close on the previous Friday.

  I was absorbing the news when the door opened and Liam came in, wearing one of the hotel’s white dressing gowns that we had found in the wardrobe. He was slicked with sweat, and his face was flushed.

  ‘I didn’t realise till just now, but I am out of shape,’ he announced. ‘Tom and I ran on treadmills, side by side, same speed, same programme. He’d still be going if I hadn’t called it quits.’

  I smiled at him. ‘Are you going to blame me for that? “Women weaken legs.” Wasn’t that what Rocky’s trainer said in the movie?’

  ‘No, I was just busted. I got him to show me his stuff, though. He’s good, way in advance of his age, and very, very fast with his hands and feet.’

  ‘Did you get the anger out of him?’ I asked, still anxious about the way he had been.

  ‘I tried to show him that his outrage was over Culshaw’s behaviour,’ he replied, ‘and that his feelings had no place within the discipline he’s studying. What I told him was that he should feel pity, not anger, for somebody as morally bankrupt as that, and that he needs to have patience, for sure as hell our sins and our guilt catch up with all of us eventually.’

  ‘I can’t think of Tom as having sins,’ I confessed, ‘or guilt.’

  ‘He has pretty low counts in both, I’ll grant you,’ Liam chuckled, ‘but we all have sins. I’ve told you my great sin. I took it upon myself to condemn my old man to death. Although he may have deserved it, the decision wasn’t mine to make, and I’ll do penance for it every day of my life. As for guilt, you never know when that’s
going to find you. For example, I feel slightly and irrationally guilty over sleeping with you.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Is your nose hurting?’

  He felt it. ‘No, not a bit. I know how Oz felt about you, that’s all.’

  ‘The late Oz,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Sure. I told you, it’s irrational. Don’t you feel some of it?’

  ‘Maybe the first time we did it,’ I admitted, ‘there was a pang. Then I remembered how he felt about you, and since then I’ve been able to believe that if he’d had to choose someone for me to get together with, it would have been you.’

  ‘But do you really? Deep down? Believe it?’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘But what about you? Suppose I’d never met Oz and we’d never met before and there were no associations with the past? Would you have chosen me?’

  I took hold of the lapels of his robe, pulled him close, and kissed him. ‘When I saw you last Friday,’ I told him, ‘then when we met on the beach, when I had no idea who you were, the truth is, I chose you then. It took me a day or so to realise it, that’s all.’

  ‘When we get back,’ he whispered, ‘back to Spain, can I stay for a while?’

  ‘Honey,’ I replied, ‘you can stay for as long as you like. I know you didn’t set off on your travels looking for a ready-made family, and if you decide it’s not for you, I’ll understand that, but I’ll help you find out, for as long as it takes.’

  Fifteen

  The bomb was dropped next morning, as I’d known it would be. Cress rang me in the office at five to ten, but I knew all about it by then, for I’d been monitoring the Stock Exchange website on the computer in what had been Susie’s office and was now, however reluctantly on my part, mine, and had read the announcement at the moment it was made.

  A takeover bid had been lodged by Torrent PLC for the Gantry Group PLC. It valued the company at thirty-five million pounds, a couple of million above its quoted valuation based in the morning’s share price, but around a third of its real worth. Fifteen million of the offer price came from Torrent’s own cash pile; the other twenty mil would be funded by a new share issue, already underwritten by a consortium headed by, you guessed it, Mr Diego Fabricant.