Do Not Disturb

by Tilly Bagshawe

  “Jealous?” She took the bait. The door flew open. “You think I’m jealous? Of you?”

  Pushing past him, she grabbed her torn underwear from the bed and yanked it back on. Then, picking up the robe from the floor, she pulled it tightly around her tiny frame. Fuck the shower. She’d have one in her own room.

  “Not in this lifetime, sweetheart,” she snarled. “Global business indeed! You have two hotels, Lucas. Two. And neither one of them can hold a candle to mine.”

  Lucas snorted derisively. “Rather an unfortunate turn of phrase, don’t you think? Seeing as someone did hold a candle to yours?”

  Honor walked to the door. “Last night was a mistake.”

  “At last,” said Lucas. “Something we agree on.”

  Down at reception, the desk clerk was very understanding about Honor’s lost key, producing a new one in seconds and insisting on sending a bellboy up with her to make sure it worked properly. At last, alone in her room, she sat down on the bed and tried to banish the barrage of negative thoughts bombarding her brain.

  It was odd. She’d done everything in her power this morning to push Lucas away. And yet part of her was crushed when he’d agreed so readily that their sleeping together was a mistake.

  Down the hall, lying on his bed, Lucas wondered how it was possible to want to strangle someone and make love to them at the same time.

  But neither of them put their thoughts into words. Instead, true to form, they got ready for their respective days ahead and pretended that they didn’t care.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SIAN WALKED ALONG the Strand, clapping her gloved hands together against the bitter, late-January cold.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked herself out loud, her breath shooting out in little warm clouds with each word. “You’ve lost your mind, girl. You’ve totally lost your mind.”

  Anyone watching her mumble as she weaved through the choking traffic would probably have agreed with this assessment of her mental health, although perhaps for different reasons. Sian’s concern stemmed not from the fact that she was talking to herself, but from the fact that she was on her way to Ben’s office. And that she was going there to ask for money.

  He didn’t know she was coming, which sort of made it both better and worse. Better, because it had spared her the impossible task of trying to explain everything on the phone beforehand (tricky, when every time she started dialing his number she had to rush to the bathroom to throw up with nerves). But worse, because it opened up the shameful possibility of him being too busy to see her.

  She tried to encourage herself that he was the one who’d suggested she look into Anton Tisch in the first place. At least, she thought it was his suggestion—she’d drunk so much at that excruciating triple-date dinner she could barely remember her own name the next morning, so she couldn’t be sure—and she hadn’t seen or heard from Ben since.

  But what if it was just a throwaway remark about Tisch? Something he’d said to be polite and show an interest in what she did for a living? Sian still tended to think of him as the tall, awkward, British beach bum who had fallen through Palmers’ fence to ask her out—they used to joke that he’d literally fallen at her feet. But in reality, he had never been that guy. He was a seriously rich, successful businessman. An important man. Naturally he had better things to do than run around the globe helping his summer romances follow up leads for some dumb story they were working on.

  Except, she told herself, tilting her head down as the wind changed direction and began slicing into her cheeks like a razor, it wasn’t a dumb story. It had the makings of a great story. The kind of story that really could make her a big name in investigative journalism, if she wasn’t forced to let the trail go cold now through lack of funds and support.

  She did have other options. She could go to one of the papers with what she had so far. But that would mean handing over control—and credit—to some megalomaniac news desk editor, and she’d rather stick pins in her eyes than do that. Besides, she thought, clutching the worryingly thin manila envelope that represented her “evidence” more tightly, she really didn’t have that much on paper—yet.

  Anton Tisch, she was rapidly discovering, was a master at subterfuge. No matter which avenue of inquiry she tried to pursue: his love life, business life, even his childhood, she was met with roadblock after roadblock. And all along the way were littered the dead careers of reporters who’d trodden the path before her, whose editors had been either bribed or threatened into squashing their stories.

  Whatever his secret—or secrets—Anton Tisch had gone to inordinate lengths to hide them. Which of course only piqued Sian’s interest all the more.

  Passing John Adam Street, she could see the top two floors of the impressive Adelphi building, where Tisch had his offices, jutting proudly into the skyline. She wondered if he was inside right now. The thought made her shiver even more violently than the cold, with the same mixture of excitement and fear that had propelled her through the last few weeks of late nights and dead ends on nothing but adrenaline and caffeine.

  Ben’s offices were another mile’s walk at least, along the river toward the City, London’s ancient financial district. Looking around in vain for a taxi with its light on, Sian stepped up her pace and began to jog. The sooner she got there, the sooner she’d get it over with. And at least the exercise would warm her up.

  Up in his third-floor office on King William Street, Ben flipped through the pink pages of the FT without much interest. The FTSE and Nasdaq were both up. But the dollar was having its third bad month in a row against the Euro, which would certainly mean more redemptions from Stellar investors.

  Bollocks to the lot of them.

  Outside the sky was a dull silver, and the few trees in the City’s green spaces looked spartan and spindly, waving their leafless limbs in the biting winter wind, as though sending a distress signal. Everyone’s spirits seemed to fall on a day like today, and Ben was no exception. Christmas and New Year’s were over. All that stretched ahead were endless dreary weeks of work and cold, dark, miserable afternoons. Oh, and wedding planning. Even bloody worse.

  “For God’s sake, cheer up. You could curdle milk with that face.” Tammy, who’d returned from a winter break in Barbados with a bright-orange tan and her blonde hair streaked platinum, brought him his mail. “You’ve only been engaged five minutes,” she added helpfully. “Aren’t you supposed to still be in your honeymoon phase?”

  “I am,” said Ben, moodily. “Can’t you tell?”

  Tammy frowned but said nothing.

  “I know you women think weddings are the answer to everything. But just ’cause I’m getting married doesn’t mean I have to like the sodding weather. Or the fact the dollar’s going down the shitter.”

  He’d finally given in to the inevitable and proposed to Bianca on Christmas Day, having run out of reasons not to. For a couple of days, he actually felt quite good about it. She was so happy when the ring fell out of her brightly wrapped Christmas cracker—a favorite tradition of Ben’s—at lunch, she burst into tears on the spot and didn’t stop crying until dinner. It made him realize how much she really did love him, and he thought what an idiot he’d been to have prevaricated for so long.

  But soon his doubts came creeping back, invading his peace of mind like a guilty lover stealing back into the marriage bed after dark. Bianca was already going on about having a glitzy engagement bash and getting Tatler to cover the wedding. It so wasn’t his thing. But when he’d tried to explain that to her it all came out pear-shaped and she got furious with him, accusing him of having second thoughts.

  It didn’t help that his mum and sisters were totally on Bianca’s side about everything. Within days of the engagement, they’d filled the Canvey Island house with wedding magazines and started banging on endlessly about dresses and flowers and Chantilly fucking lace. Bianca was in seventh heaven. But the happier everyone else got, the more Ben felt the pressure piling onto his sh
oulders. He wished he could feel like they did, all giddy and excited. But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

  Tam left him leafing through his mail. Half an hour later he was deep in the legal language of an offering memorandum when she barged into his office again, looking even more orange and furious than before. “You need to come to reception,” she announced.

  “Not now, Tam, all right?” he said. “I’m busy. Can’t you deal with it?”

  “If I could deal with it,” said Tammy, in a martyred, God-give-me-strength voice, “I wouldn’t be standing here, would I?”

  Wearily, Ben put the memo down. “What’s the matter then?”

  “A mad cow has chained herself to the settee in the lobby,” said Tammy.

  “I’m sorry. A what?”

  “A girl. A very rude girl turned up without an appointment demanding to see you,” Tam explained. “She wouldn’t tell me what it was about, so I told her to sling her hook. She then padlocked herself to the settee.”

  “Are you serious?” Ben laughed.

  “Do I look like I’m joking?” asked Tammy, who didn’t. “I’ve called security, but every time one of them comes near her she starts screaming the bloody place down, saying she’ll only talk to you. She’s a complete nutcase. She’ll be singing ‘We Shall Overcome’ in a minute I ’spect. It can’t be good for business.”

  “I see,” said Ben, still smiling. And here he’d been thinking today was going to be dull as ditchwater. “Well I’d better come and have a look then, hadn’t I?”

  Coming down the grand, sweeping staircase into reception, he could see a small crowd of staff and visitors, who effectively obscured his view of the girl.

  Stellar’s back offices were dull and functional, but the public areas were lavish, designed to scream wealth and permanence to potential investors. With this in mind, the lobby boasted a polished marble floor, overhung by a glittering antique chandelier, and the artfully placed furnishings were all of the ornate, eighteenth-century French variety. One of these, a walnut sofa with intricately coiled arms, was the focus of the current drama.

  “Excuse me.” Ben cut a swath through his gawking staff and walked up to the girl. She was bent double, apparently securing the chain, so all he could see was the top of her dark head and a pair of white fluffy snow boots.

  “I’m Ben Slater,” he said. “Can I help you?”

  Sian looked up and smiled at him ruefully. “Yeah,” she said, blushing. “You can help me undo this padlock. The key just snapped in half.”

  Twenty minutes later, once Jimmy the handyman had arrived with a hacksaw and a mutinously grumbling Tammy had been dispatched to make some tea, the two of them were alone in Ben’s office.

  “I’m sorry for the dramatic entrance,” said Sian, gnawing nervously at her fingernails.

  “Yeeeees,” said Ben. “I did wonder what that was all about.”

  “The chain was a last resort. But that bizarrely colored woman wasn’t going to let me see you.”

  “You carry a chain around with you?”

  “Only for emergencies,” said Sian, as if that explained everything.

  “What is that woman anyway? Half human, half citrus fruit?”

  “Tammy’s all right,” he said. “She was trying to protect me. I think she thought you were nuts.”

  Sian blushed. “I guess I can see why.”

  She started to peel off layer after layer of coats and scarves and sweaters, dumping them all unceremoniously on the floor at her feet. When she finally got down to her pink skinny-rib sweater and jeans, her cheeks were flushed from heat and embarrassment, and her hair made her look as if she’d just been electrocuted. But to him she looked absolutely perfect.

  “So, what’s this all about?” he asked, genuinely curious. “I’m assuming it’s something pretty important for you to go all suffragette on me. Rather than try something more traditional. Like, ooh, I don’t know, picking up the phone.”

  “It is,” said Sian. “Important, I mean. And maybe I should have called you first. But it’s kind of hard to explain. I wanted to do it in person.”

  Handing him her manila folder, she waited for him to leaf through its contents.

  “I don’t understand,” he said eventually, pulling out one of many similar photographs of seminaked teenage girls. “Who are these kids?”

  “They’re hookers,” said Sian. “But you’re right, they are kids. Every one of these girls is underage. And look what else they have in common.”

  She pointed out a piece of paper with a bunch of names on it, six of which had been highlighted in bright-green pen. The letterhead at the top of the page said Children of Hope Care Home, Southwark.

  “They were all in care?” said Ben, shrugging. “Is that really so surprising? Most British prostitutes started out that way, I imagine.”

  “Yes, but they’re all from the same home. And they’ve all posted their pictures on the same website, www.hothookups.com.” She handed him a second piece of paper. “Guess who’s on the board of Children of Hope? And guess who also holds a majority stake in Delta Media, the company that owns Hot Hookups?”

  “Who?” Ben looked blank.

  “Look!” Reaching over, Sian pointed to one of the names in the small print at the bottom of both documents. “Anton Tisch, that’s who. And that’s just the beginning.”

  She walked him through more pictures, and testimonials from past lovers who’d accused him of everything from indecent assault to rape, until they were paid—or threatened—into retracting their claims.

  “This is all very well,” said Ben, trying not to sound too discouraging, as he could see the passion and expectation written across Sian’s face. “I can see he doesn’t exactly come across as Santa Claus. But then, don’t people know that already? That he’s, you know, a bit dodgy with women?”

  “A bit dodgy?” Sian looked at him, incredulous. “He’s pushing vulnerable children into prostitution! Children he has a legal duty to protect. He’s probably fucking them himself, for Christ’s sake.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Ben reasonably. “None of what you’ve shown me here proves it.”

  “Sorry to interrupt.” Tammy appeared at the door and gave Sian a look of purest contempt. “But your fiancée’s on line two.” She gave the word as much emphasis as possible. “She wants to know if you’ve remembered you’re interviewing the wedding planner at lunch.”

  “Oh,” Ben looked awkward. “Yeah. I forgot, but that’s cool. Tell her I’ll see her at home at one.”

  “You don’t want to tell her yourself?” Tam held the portable phone out to him.

  “No,” said Ben, getting irritated. “I don’t. And please don’t put any more calls through to me, all right? I’m busy.”

  He turned back to Sian, who had a fixed smile glued to her face, not unlike a corpse in the early stages of rigor mortis.

  “You’re engaged?” she said, still smiling. “I didn’t know. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” said Ben, wishing he didn’t feel so empty when he said it.

  “Bianca’s incredibly beautiful,” said Sian. She had no idea why she said it. The words just seemed to fall out of her mouth, like lines in a play.

  “Er, yes,” said Ben absently. “Yes, I suppose she is. Thank you.”

  A horrible, awkward silence fell between them. They looked at each other, each willing the other to say something. In the end, Ben spoke first.

  “You and Paddy must come to the wedding.”

  “Of course!” said Sian. Right after I’ve finished pulling the shreds of my heart out of the blender. “We’d love to. We’ll probably be next down the aisle ourselves. You can give us some pointers.”

  More silence.

  Oh God. What had possessed her to say that? If she’d happened to have a cyanide tablet on hand, she’d happily have swallowed it in that moment. She was no more planning to marry Paddy than fly to the moon.

  “Good,” said Ben, his tone brusque and bu
sinesslike all of a sudden. “Fine. Now look, about this Anton business.”

  “I know what I’ve got so far is shaky,” said Sian, grateful that he’d changed the subject. “I do know that. But I really feel like I’m on to something here, Ben. First there are all the stories already in the public domain, about that lap dancer and him not paying child support. Then, according to you, he set up that whole Tina Palmer thing.”

  “So Lucas tells me.”

  “And that tape, by the way, also first came out on the web via another Delta Media site—what a coincidence.” She was barely pausing to draw breath now, so convinced was she of her own argument. “And now these girls from his care home mysteriously find their way onto his website…come on. You don’t find any of this even the least bit suspicious?”

  Ben was silent for a moment. He found it all highly suspicious. But suspicion and proof were very different things. His dislike of Anton might be prejudicing his judgment.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked. “From me, I mean?”

  Sian started mumbling incoherently. She hadn’t got as far as thinking up a specific figure and didn’t want to be the first to suggest one.

  “I assume you need money to fund your research?”

  Sian nodded, blushing as red as a double-decker bus.

  “Is a hundred grand enough?” said Ben.

  Her jaw dropped. “A hundred…oh, no, goodness, that’s way too much. I couldn’t possibly ask for that much.”

  “You didn’t ask for it,” said Ben. “I’m offering. Look.” Reaching forward, he took her hand in his. “I have to be very careful. I don’t want to be seen to be supporting some kind of witch hunt against my biggest business rival.”

  “Of course not,” said Sian, horrified. “And it isn’t a witch hunt. I’m only interested in the truth.”

  “Nevertheless, my name has to stay out of it,” said Ben firmly. “Understood?”