She laughed at him, her clear laugh making the room ring like a bell. ‘No interest at all, right?’ She bent over the presentation, skirts rustling as she moved. She flipped the colour pages through to the end. ‘They’re valuing the company at four hundred million pounds?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Six hundred million bucks?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Jeez.’ Cameron was visibly astonished. For the first time, despite Bryn’s long years of evangelism, she had understood something about the market economics of medicine. ‘That’s six hundred million bucks supporting our technology? Fighting off Corinth and everyone else in the marketplace? Not just in Britain, not just in the States, but everywhere, right? Our patents work everywhere?’
Bryn smiled at her amazement and flipped to a page of the presentation that Cameron hadn’t properly studied. ‘See there,’ he said. ‘A few hundred million is only the beginning.’
Cameron looked at the page, absorbing its message. ‘They’re saying there’s a problem because we haven’t yet conducted our full human trials on Immune Reprogramming? Hey, that’s not right. We’ve done the preliminaries. The full trials will only confirm what we already know.’
‘Not exactly. They’re not saying it’s a problem, they’re just saying the marketability of the company’s shares will improve drastically once the results are out. Assuming they’re positive, of course.’
‘Oh, they’ll be positive. These days we can do humans better than I ever managed with rats …’ Cameron’s voice tailed off as she examined the numbers in the banker’s presentation more carefully. ‘Three billion pounds? That’s what they estimate the company will be worth if we succeed? Three billion pounds?’
Bryn nodded. ‘Thirty per cent of that is yours. A billion pounds, near enough.’
‘I’m speechless.’
‘No need to join a research institute, Cameron. You can buy one.’ She lapsed into shocked, astonished silence. At that moment, the moon emerged from behind a cloud, and the glass-walled room suddenly whitened as the moonlight picked out every object in silver and black.
‘So then there’ll be three billion pounds supporting our technology,’ she whispered. ‘And you. I mean, the company has always relied on you. Three billion pounds and Bryn Hughes. Jesus. Nothing will stand in the way of Reprogram – ming now.’
Bryn shook his head.
She was silent again, seeing a vision – the vision that had been born in Bryn a year and more ago, one snowy night in Boston. The vision was of her technology sweeping brilliantly across the globe, supported not merely by that unreliable ogre, Truth, but by that immense and unstoppable giant, Money.
When she looked up again, tears sparkled like diamonds in her eyes. ‘My God,’ she said. ‘I’m so grateful. I couldn’t have picked a better … You couldn’t have been … I’m sorry I didn’t always appreciate you. You always told me and I never understood.’
‘Don’t be silly. You’ve been absolutely fantastic yourself. Working with you has been – it’s been …’ Bryn was too choked to speak. He didn’t just want to work alongside this woman, he wanted to marry her – wanted to marry her a thousand times over. The light revealed that Bryn’s eyes were blurry too. He dashed his tears away with the back of his hand, determined that if he had to say goodbye to Cameron, he would at least do so with dignity.
‘You must be pleased,’ she said.
‘Pleased?’ For a moment, Bryn could think of nothing at all to be pleased about.
‘You’ll be a billionaire. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?’
‘I suppose so.’
They were standing opposite each other now, able to look each other up and down. Cameron studied her bear-like counterpart. He appeared so strong, so invincible – and yet as so often recently there seemed to be so much feeling, sadness even, in his face. She steeled herself. ‘You know I said I’d come by tomorrow?’
Bryn nodded.
‘I hate partings. Maybe … Would it be alright if we said goodbye now?’
Bryn nodded. Tears were welling up in his eyes again, and he leaned to knock the lamp away from his face, to prevent Cameron from seeing. But big emotions made him move clumsily, and he knocked the blue-and-gold presentation from her hand. Quicker than him, she bent to retrieve it, and as she did so noticed a sheet of paper which was tucked inside and had only come unstuck in the fall. Bryn hurriedly bent to snatch it from her grasp, but she twirled it away from him.
‘What’s this?’
‘It’s nothing. Give it here and I’ll put –’
‘If it was nothing, you wouldn’t mind me seeing it.’
‘It’s not really –’
‘It’s my company, right? As much as it is yours?’
Bryn nodded.
‘OK then.’ Bending over the golden lamplight lying like a pool amongst the moon’s silver, Cameron began to read the sheet of paper. It was a letter to Bryn sent by a senior director of Berger Scholes. The date on the paper was two weeks after the date on the presentation. She read it once standing up, then took it to her desk, where she read it again sitting down. Her voice hardened as she said, ‘Can you explain this?’
‘It’s nothing,’ said Bryn. ‘It’s just a strategy I wanted to explore.’
‘That’s a lie. This letter states that your decision is irrevocable. You’ve actually given up the right to exploit the company’s patents.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Bryn. ‘We can exploit them. It’s just –’ He took a deep breath. The truth was this. Most of the company’s value lay in its patents of all the peptides Cameron had discovered. Owning patents meant you had a monopoly. It’s patents which explain how the market value of a drug can be as much as fifty times what it costs the company to produce it. But from the patients’ perspective, patents are a mixed blessing. They push up the price of drugs, and they mean that only one company gets to sell them in a competitive market. Knowing all this, Bryn had taken the decision to let anyone in the whole world have free access to the clinic’s peptides. The clinic would exploit them, for sure, but anyone else could too. Bryn explained all this, stumbling awkwardly over his words.
Cameron listened to him intently, deep grey eyes drilling for the truth. She turned back to the letter. ‘It says here, that, following your decision to give the patents away, the maximum market value of the company is likely to be just a few hundred million. They say that’s a generous estimate.’
‘It’s still a lot of money.’
‘You’ve given away millions of pounds here. No. You’ve voluntarily given away hundreds of millions – billions.’
‘I’ll have enough. I assumed you wouldn’t mind. I’m sorry. Maybe I should have asked you first.’
‘You’ve given away …’ Cameron calculated. ‘You’ve given away about two and a half billion pounds,’ she said. ‘Your share of that is around seven hundred and fifty million.’
Bryn nodded.
‘Well? Don’t you mind? I thought you only cared about money. Obviously not. What do you care about?’
‘Cameron, I –’
‘You do honestly care about the patients, don’t you? My God, seven hundred and fifty million. That’s a crazy amount! Even I feel kind of queasy, when I think …’
‘Of course I care about the patients. You’ve done a wonderful thing, Cameron. It’s only fair we let as many people share it as possible. As many as possible, as quickly as possible.’
Bryn moved towards Cameron, meaning to hug her, but she flamed away from his grasp, a fiery intensity in her gaze.
‘When I asked you what you cared about, you looked really upset. Something’s really upsetting you, isn’t it?’
‘It’s nothing, it’s late, I’m upset about you going. I –’
‘You’re lying to me. Don’t ever lie to me.’ All of a sudden, Cameron froze, her face burning like a pale flame above the deep-blue silk of her dress. ‘My God! Bryn, you … you …’
He no
dded. ‘I’m crazy, I know, but, yes, I love you. Head over heels. I’m sorry for letting you know like this. It would have been better if …’ His voice sounded jangled and abrupt.
‘How long?’
‘God, how long have I …?’ Bryn shrugged. ‘I only knew about it that night we came back from Altmeyer’s boat in Cannes. If I hadn’t been a lumphead, I’d probably have figured things out sooner. I only wish …’ Bryn opened his hands and dropped them again, at the uselessness of his wishes. ‘Nothing. I only wish nothing.’
Cameron stood open-mouthed in shock, so still you could have mistaken her for a statue. She had one hand to her mouth, the other hand by her side, holding the fateful letter. A moment passed. The letter dropped uselessly to the floor, joining all the rest of Cameron’s clutter, lying like silver treasure in the moonlight.
‘You should never lie to me.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want –’
‘I don’t care what you wanted. You should never ever lie to me.’
‘OK.’
‘Jesus.’
Bryn found his tongue again, seeking dignity in defeat. ‘I didn’t want to spring this on you. I wanted to keep quiet about it. I hope you’re happy in LA.’
Slowly to start with, then more quickly, she shook her head. Her mouth was open, and her breaths came in short hard pants.
‘Screw LA,’ she said.
‘Screw …?’
He never completed his question. In a single leap she was across the room, in his arms, kissing him with a passion, their two bodies melting together in the embrace. On the roof of the world, shooting stars burned their hearts out and, just outside, the River Thames ran softly to the sea.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SWEET TALKING MONEY
Harry Bingham was born in England in 1967. After graduating from Oxford University, he worked for ten years as a London-based investment banker. He spent time in major American, Japanese and European banks where he gained first-hand knowledge of the world of billion-dollar deals, hostile takeovers, and company bankruptcy. In 1997, he left banking to care for his disabled wife and to write his first book, The Money Makers. He lives in Oxford with his wife and an increasing number of dogs. He now writes full time.
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
THE MONEY MAKERS
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