Panic Room

by Robert Goddard

  ‘Let me get this straight.’ Clarice frowns. ‘You’re saying Luscinia was close to Harkness in some way you don’t properly understand. And probably still is.’

  ‘If she’s operating the Nightingale account using Harkness money,’ says Don, ‘I guess she must be.’

  ‘So why the disappearance? Why the secrecy?’

  ‘Perhaps she knew her parents wouldn’t approve of her going off with an older man.’

  ‘Leaving them to spend the rest of their lives wondering what had happened to her is kind of an extreme solution, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Then maybe she didn’t just disappear,’ I suggest. It’ll be the first time I’ve voiced this idea. But it’s got to be said. ‘Maybe Harkness is paying Holly to ease his conscience.’

  ‘His conscience about what?’

  ‘About whatever he did to her friend in 1996.’

  Clarice turns to Perkins. ‘Do we know of any forty-three-year-old native English speakers in Harkness’s orbit who this woman could be, Keith?’

  Perkins thinks for a moment. ‘Harkness Pharmaceuticals employs thousands of people. We don’t have biographical data on more than a handful. There are no obvious candidates popping into my head. But between the London, New York and Tokyo offices on top of HQ, the production hub and research satellite in Switzerland, there must be any number of forty-something English-speaking women on their books.’

  ‘Harkness is on the hook for fraud,’ Clarice reasons. ‘You’re hinting at something violent in his past, honey, have I got that right?’ She looks at me, inviting a response.

  ‘I was just floating a possibility,’ I say.

  ‘One hell of a possibility. Sounds like you may know more about Harkness’s past than we do.’

  ‘How much attention have you given the Cornish angle?’ Don asks.

  ‘Not a lot,’ admits Perkins. ‘It doesn’t figure on the financial radar.’

  ‘Are you planning to suggest Harkness may have murdered this girl?’ Clarice faces me with the question.

  I shrug. ‘It’d explain why no one’s seen her for the past twenty-two years.’

  ‘Anything you know of in his past that could suggest he’s the murderous type?’

  I glance at Don, who warns me off the subject of the Frys with the faintest shake of the head. I don’t know whether Clarice or Perkins has spotted it. I decide to bring down the shutter. ‘Maybe we’ve said enough.’

  ‘Just tell us how you’ve both got involved in this,’ says Perkins. He looks across the dimly lit room at me. ‘Without smart-arsing about.’

  ‘I met Blake when I went down to Cornwall to value Harkness’s house near Mullion for a quick sale,’ Don responds. ‘Technically, it belongs to Mona Harkness, so its disposal is part of their divorce settlement.’

  ‘And you, young lady?’ Perkins is still looking at me.

  ‘I know the family. Her mother died without knowing what happened to her daughter. I don’t want her father to die without knowing either.’

  ‘That’s big of you.’

  I shrug. ‘Not everybody has to be paid to do something.’

  ‘So, neither of you stand to make a penny out of this?’

  ‘Not unless you force us to do a deal with French instead,’ says Don.

  ‘Massively unwise,’ says Clarice. ‘He has a bad reputation. And his Russian sidekick, Zlenko, has an even worse one. Have you met him?’

  ‘Yes,’ Don replies. ‘I didn’t take to either of them.’

  Perkins frowns at him. ‘But you don’t rule out getting into bed with them.’

  ‘We’ll push this forward any way we can,’ I say, making sure I sound clear and uncompromising. ‘If you want to know who Luscinia is, now’s the time to give us what you have on Harkness.’

  ‘Straightforward answers to straightforward questions is what I proposed,’ says Clarice. ‘And, as I recall, you accepted.’ I can’t deny that. And I don’t try. ‘So …’ She smiles. ‘Shoot.’

  ‘We seem to know more than you do about Harkness’s early life in Cornwall,’ said Don, measuring his words carefully. ‘But you clearly know more than us about everything else, especially his business career. Why don’t you start talking us through that?’

  Perkins breathed out noisily through his mouth. ‘I’ll let Clarice fill you in. She’s the expert on dates and details.’

  ‘OK,’ said Clarice brightly. ‘John William Harkness, known as Jack. Born February twenty-ninth 1956. A Leap Day baby. Educated Truro School and St John’s College, Cambridge. Scholarships to both. Bright boy. First-class degree in Archaeology and Anthropology. What are you going to do with that? Teach? Excavate Roman ruins? Not Harkness. He travels. We’re not sure where or how widely, but between 1978 and 1981 he’s basically off the grid. Then he pops up in Switzerland as personal assistant to Lenore Furgler, who’s recently inherited from her father control of Furgler Gesellschaft, a medium-sized pharmaceuticals company based in Basel. Somehow, in the course of the eighties, he gets himself a seat on the Furgler board with responsibility for company strategy. Lenore obviously trusts him, though the rest of the family doesn’t. Lenore’s widowed with three sons, all just waiting for the day they take the reins and send Harkness packing.

  ‘That day never comes. Harkness marries Mona Jackson, daughter of Fred Jackson the multi-millionaire builder, who’s retired by then to Monte Carlo. There are no children, though in a later magazine interview Mona talks about the tragedy of miscarriage. They divide their time between Basel, London and Monte. And Cornwall too, I guess. By 1995, with Lenore ailing, you’d think Harkness must be wondering what the future holds. Well, the answer’s not long in coming. Suddenly, Lenore sells the company. To Harkness. The price isn’t exactly premium, but isn’t a total joke either. As to where Harkness got the money, no one knows for sure. There are rumours he’s borrowed it from a Russian oligarch, Vladimir Drishkov, supremo of a corruptly acquired mining corporation. Drishkov gets himself shot dead by unidentified assassins a few months later, so who knows? The result’s clear even if nothing else is. Harkness is in charge. Of what’s now called Harkness Pharmaceuticals.

  ‘The new company grows fast. Harkness opens a dedicated research lab in Locarno, where a pharmacological wunderkind called Filippo Crosetti starts developing a succession of beauty treatment products that turns Harkness into a player on the world stage. This culminates in Elixtris, the revolutionary anti-ageing cream. Its release in 2009 means the downturn doesn’t really touch him. He sets up a partnership with Quintagler Industries, the US conglomerate, to fund buy-outs that see off a clutch of middle-ranking competitors in North America, Europe and Asia. He’s one of the big boys now. Thanks principally to Elixtris, Harkness Pharmaceuticals is a money-making monster. It hardly seems possible that anything can go wrong.’

  She paused, as if for effect, and Don said, ‘But it does.’

  ‘Oh yeah. This past year, the problems have just piled up for Harkness. Quintagler have basically accused him of stealing vast sums of money from their joint venture operations. Meanwhile, the US authorities are pursuing him over allegations that there’s been widespread bribery of doctors to prescribe Harkness’s medical products. It looks like there’s a serious case to answer. He could be facing decades behind bars – and quite a few years just awaiting trial.’

  ‘If the company’s what you called it – a money-making monster,’ put in Blake, ‘why would he need to steal from his partners or resort to bribery?’

  ‘Good question, young lady,’ said Perkins. ‘He’s rich as Croesus. Why put himself the wrong side of the law to make himself richer still?’

  ‘Is the young lady going to get an answer to her good question?’ Blake asked acidly.

  ‘I’ll do my best.’ Perkins was clearly immune to sarcasm. ‘There are basically three possibilities. One, he’s pathologically greedy. He just can’t help himself. I don’t buy that. He’s too subtle, too calculating. Always has been. It wasn’t chance that took him into Sw
iss pharmaceuticals. Swiss in particular, I mean. That choice guaranteed he’d be able to keep much more of what he took out of the company than if he’d gone into business in the UK, or elsewhere in Europe. Around the time Elixtris was released, he transferred the company’s HQ from Basel, where production’s still centred, to Zug, by far the lowest-taxed canton in Switzerland. And most of his personal salary gets channelled through Liechtenstein, an easy day trip by fast car from Zug. So, he’s made himself pretty much tax-proof, despite owning a big house here in London, an apartment in New York overlooking Central Park and a mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. The guy’s got it all sewn up.

  ‘But now the stitches have started to come loose. Which brings us to possibility number two. The rumours about Drishkov are true. Harkness borrowed his Furgler stake money from the Russians. But he can’t simply repay the money to whoever took over Drishkov’s empire. The new man in charge realized it was more lucrative to blackmail Harkness for ongoing hush money. And the bill’s just kept on going up and up as Harkness has prospered, to the extent that he’s had to steal from Quintagler to cover it.’

  ‘Got any evidence for that?’ asked Don.

  ‘Not really. But then Russian gangsters don’t exactly file regular tax returns. The only real pointer in that direction is your friend Zlenko. He’s generally believed to have been employed by Drishkov as a bodyguard, but somehow he survived when his boss was gunned down, perhaps because he’d sold him out. If that’s true, French may be acting for Harkness’s Russian blackmailer – dodgy company to keep, even by French’s standards.’

  Don gave Blake a worried look, but she ignored him, simply asking, ‘What’s the third possibility?’

  ‘Ah. The billion-dollar question.’ Perkins smirked, as if quietly pleased by his expositional technique. ‘Well, let’s get into the mechanics of what he’s been accused of doing for a moment. Clarice?’

  ‘Quintagler allege Harkness diverted the funds over a period of several years to subsidiaries of shell companies ultimately owned by Harkness himself. Those companies are also the alleged source of the bribes allegedly paid to doctors. That’s a lot of allegedlies, I know, but it’s what the case against Harkness amounts to. Anyhow, the bribes are only a fraction of what was supposedly taken. So, where’s the rest? What has Harkness done with it? We just don’t know. The shell companies are all based in tax havens with limited accounting and disclosure requirements. They won’t be in a hurry to volunteer any details. The Nightingale account’s a one-off. It was opened in London and it’s basically only peanuts anyway. For the rest, we’re in the dark.’

  ‘I keep asking myself,’ said Perkins, ‘what’s he done with the money? We’re talking billions according to Quintagler. If Harkness really has taken it, what’s he bought with it? What’s he used it for?’

  ‘Is that possibility number three?’ asked Blake. ‘That he’s funded something big, something huge, that no one knows about?’

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Perkins. ‘But you wouldn’t have thought whatever that might be was easy to miss. Yet there’s no sign of Harkness being involved in anything on the side, big or small, and this’d have to be enormous. It’s like the money’s … disappeared.’

  ‘It can’t have.’

  ‘Obviously not.’

  ‘But you’re saying it has?’ put in Don.

  ‘As far as we can establish.’

  ‘So, you can’t tell us what he’s up to?’

  ‘’Fraid not.’ Perkins smiled. ‘If we could, we’d have told our clients already.’

  ‘You said you planned to push this forward any way you could.’ Clarice was looking at Blake again as she spoke. ‘Did you mean that?’

  Blake nodded. ‘Yeah. Absolutely.’

  ‘Anything you learn, honey, you should bring to us. We’ll broker it for you fairly.’

  ‘We certainly will,’ said Perkins. ‘Meanwhile … I think it’s time you gave us Luscinia’s real name, don’t you?’

  While Don answered Perkins’ question, Fran sat in Robin Pawley’s office in Helston, doing her best to explain why Don was no longer playing any part in the sale of Wortalleth West. ‘I had cause to question his commitment, Robin, so, to ensure my client’s best interests are protected, I’ve had to dispense with his services.’

  It was already clear from Pawley’s keen, obliging expression that he was willing, if not eager, to take Don’s place. ‘Perhaps what you need,’ he suggested, ‘is a local agent with an established reputation both for regional and wider promotion of high-end properties who can devote the necessary resources to manage the whole procedure as closely as its … more sensitive aspects … require.’

  Cutting through Pawley’s self-serving verbiage, this sounded to Fran like exactly what she needed. But she needed one other element which she hoped he could supply: speed. ‘This has to be handled diligently but also expeditiously, Robin. My client wishes to proceed as quickly as possible. I need hardly add that your fee would reflect the tightness of the schedule.’

  ‘Completely understood, Fran,’ said Pawley. ‘You can be assured I’d give this project my personal and concentrated attention.’

  ‘Excellent. So, assuming we can agree terms, how soon could you put the property on the market?’

  ‘If I survey and photograph the house today, I could, er …’ Pawley considered the point while Fran eyed him interrogatively. ‘Well, if I pull out all the stops …’

  ‘I rather hope you will, Robin, given the level of the fee I can offer.’

  ‘Well, then, I could probably have it listed online with a full illustrated description tomorrow. A printed brochure would take a few more days, but—’

  ‘I’ll require the widest possible coverage.’

  ‘There’s a London agent I work with who has a large international as well as metropolitan clientele. I can get them on board more or less straight away. As to the survey …’ Pawley cast an eye over the diary lying open on the desk before him, then flipped it shut. ‘Why don’t we drive down there now?’

  Perkins greeted the naming of Jane Glasson as if it was rather less than he had expected in return for all he and Clarice had disclosed. He made it clear he thought it highly unlikely Harkness had anything to do with Jane’s disappearance and even unlikelier she was playing any part in his present existence.

  Clarice too was sceptical, though less obviously dismissive. ‘I don’t see there’s anything we can do to chase down a link like that. Jane would have to be a Harkness Pharmaceuticals insider to channel Nightingale account money to Holly Walsh, and to check that notion we’d need much fuller access to the company’s personnel records than we’ve any way of getting. Sorry to say, this could well be a non-starter.’

  ‘Haven’t you got any moles inside the company?’ Blake asked.

  ‘You talk as if we’re resourced like MI5,’ said Perkins with a toss of the head. ‘Jane Glasson could be Luscinia. Harkness could be paying Holly Walsh conscience money because he was responsible for Jane’s disappearance. It’s all supposition and it’s basically ancient history anyway.’

  ‘I guess we were hoping her name would ring a bell with us,’ said Clarice.

  Don looked at her. ‘And it doesn’t?’

  ‘Not a tinkle.’

  ‘We’ll bear it in mind, of course,’ said Perkins, smiling tightly. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘What’ll you do now?’ asked Clarice. She turned to Blake. ‘Any other ideas?’

  Blake shook her head. ‘I’m all out of them.’ She stood up abruptly. ‘Let’s go, Don.’

  The assurances Don exchanged with Perkins before leaving that each would be in touch with the other if they learnt anything new about Jane Glasson lacked conviction. Don had the distinct impression as he and Blake descended the stairs that there would be no return visit.

  Blake’s view of the matter was uncharacteristically terse. She sounded simmeringly angry as she objected to going back into the Tube station after they had crossed the road. ‘I need to w
alk,’ she said. ‘Which way is the river?’

  Whether she was angry with him or Perkins, or Harkness, or the situation in general, Don could not tell. ‘That way,’ he said, pointing up South Lambeth Road. And she was off at a fast stride.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he panted as he caught up with her.

  ‘As soon as they got Jane’s name they were finished with us, weren’t they?’ she snapped.

  ‘You heard Clarice. They were hoping her name would mean something to them. And it didn’t.’

  ‘Didn’t it? How do we know that?’

  ‘Well, they …’

  ‘Said so? Right? They said so.’

  ‘You don’t believe them?’

  ‘Do you?’

  Don was having difficulty keeping up with Blake now, short of breaking into a jog. Pedestrians coming in the opposite direction were moving out of her way. ‘They also gave us a lot of information, Blake. Let’s not forget that.’

  ‘You could probably have got most of it off Wikipedia. I’ve read that stuff about Harkness outsmarting Lenore Furgler’s sons in the Financial fucking Times.’

  ‘You can’t look Zlenko up on Wikipedia.’

  ‘That was to frighten us off. Don’t you get it, Don? They don’t take us seriously. They throw us a bone. Then they kick us out.’

  ‘You marched us out, Blake, actually.’

  ‘Yeah. Just before you told Clarice what our other ideas are.’

  ‘And what are they?’

  ‘Dunno. Haven’t thought of any yet. Have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There you are then. It’s better to leave them thinking we may still know something.’

  ‘But we don’t, do we? You’ve got to face it, Blake. If Jane Glasson’s still alive, there’s nothing more we can do to find her. And it looks like there’s nothing Perkins can do either.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  ‘OK, but—’

  ‘Just leave it for now, Don, will you?’ Blake made a warding-off gesture with her hand as she pounded along the pavement.

  Don fell silent and let her keep several paces ahead. It was clear she did not react well to being told there was nothing to be done.