Richard carefully poured himself some more Chardonnay. “I don't follow.”
“Look, what we're talking about here is credibility, right? I want financial credibility, and that's what I'll pay you for. You take a half share in Firedrake. It's not worth anything, there are only two shares, and they're valued at a pound each. I told you, it's a virtual company. Memory space on a mainframe, that's all. But if you combine its turnover with your company's involvement, we've got a valid application for an expansion loan. And you get another commercial unit built on the precinct, out of which you make a tidy profit. Nor will you be liable for Firedrake if—God forbid—it goes down the tube. The distribution operation will be a subsidiary which I own. There's no risk in it for you.”
Richard hesitated. The idea almost made sense, and some of the arrangements he'd made on other deals were a lot less orthodox. “If I take a share in Firedrake, the banks will see what you're doing. That would help your credibility, and it would ruin mine.”
“Yes. But if you'd taken that half share two years ago they'd be impressed. It would show that you'd been a part of a promising business for a decent period, and were now confident enough in it to expand.”
“Hmm.” Richard sat back and looked into that impassive face. O'Hagen was earnest, but certainly not pleading. “You mentioned payment. What kind of incentive would I have received to loan you my good name for the past two years?”
“I have a painting. It's a McCarthy, worth quite a bit. Not enough to trade in as collateral for a warehouse unit, you understand. But I could loan you that until Firedrake was earning enough to pay you back.”
“How much is a bit?”
“Find the right collector, you should be able to get 20,000 for it.”
Richard weighed it up. Twenty thousand for using his name and reputation to lever a loan from a bank for a deal in which he would profit. And costing one tiny blemish in record-keeping, a one-pound share and two years. To massage that kind of data you didn't even need to be an accountant…let alone a creative one. “I'd want to see Firedrake's accounts before I go any further,” he said cautiously.
For the first time, there was a display of emotion on Alan O'Hagen's face as his lips moved into a small smile. “Come to my office tomorrow. My accountant will go over them with you.”
Thistlemore Wood was a district on Peterborough's western sprawl, part of the industrial expansion which had turned the city into a commercial powerhouse in the post-Warning years. To south was an old park, now hosting an estate of hemispherical apartment blocks, silvery crescents rising up out of the grassland. The road Richard eased the Merc along was lined by closely planted maeosopis trees, their long branches curving into an arboreal arch above him. He had to slow on the edge of Thistlemore because a converter crew was at work on the road. Smoke was venting out of their big remoulder vehicle as it chewed up the cinder flecks the track was made from. An endless sheet of smooth thermo-hardened cellulose was extruded from its rear, a dark protective coating which sealed the raw earth away from pounding tires and searing sunlight. The crew diverted Richard around the vehicle, keeping him off the freshly laid surface. A couple of rickshaws came the other way, their riders clamping cloths over their noses as the smoke gushed around them.
The block where O'Hagen rented office space for Firedrake was eight stories high, its exterior white marble and copper glass. Satellite uplink antennae squatted on the roof inside their weather domes; an indicator of just how much data traffic the building handled. Richard pulled up in the visitors' car park, then took the lift to the sixth floor.
Firedrake had one employee. Apparently she did everything in the office: personal assistant, receptionist, site maintenance, made tea and coffee, handled communications. Like O'Hagen, she wasn't what Richard was expecting, but for very different reasons. She was small, though he quickly redefined that as compact. He didn't think she'd take very kindly to people who called her small. Every look was menacing, as if she were eyeing him up for a fight…a physical one. Her dress had short sleeves, showing arms scuffed with what looked like knife scars, and a tattoo: closed fist gripping a thorn cross, blood dripping.
After he'd given his name she reluctantly pressed her intercom button. “Mr. Townsend to see you,” she growled.
“Thank you, Suzi,” O'Hagen answered. “Send him in, please.”
Her thumb jabbed at a door. “In there.”
Richard went past her and found himself in Alan O'Hagen's office. “That's some secretary you've got there.”
“She's cheap,” O'Hagen replied with a grin. “She's also surprisingly efficient. And I don't get too many unwanted visitors barging in.”
“I can imagine,” Richard muttered.
O'Hagen indicated a woman who was standing at the side of his desk. “My accountant, Mrs. Jane Adams.”
She gave Richard a curt nod. Her appearance was comfortable after the girl outside; she was in her late forties, dressed in a business suit, with white hair tidied in a neat short style.
“I understand you intend to invest in Firedrake,” she said.
“That's what I'm here to decide.”
“Very well.” She gave O'Hagen a disapproving look. “I'm not sure I should be endorsing this kind of action.”
“Jane, neither of us is getting any younger. If Firedrake works out the way we expect we'll have a decent nest-egg to sell to some kombinate or media prince. Hell, even Richard here might buy me out.”
“Let's take it one step at a time, shall we,” Richard said. “If I could see the accounts.”
With one last reluctant look at O'Hagen, Mrs. Adams handed Richard a pair of memox crystals. “They're completely up to date,” she said.
He put the first crystal into the slot on his cybofax and began scrolling down the columns of figures. O'Hagen had been optimistic rather than honest when he said the company's turnover was 70,000. This year was barely over sixty, and the year before scraped in at fifty. But it was an upward trend.
“I've already identified several new software products I'd like Firedrake to promote,” O'Hagen was saying. “I should be able to sign exclusivity rights for the English market on the back of this expansion project.”
“May I see the painting, please?” Richard asked.
“Sure.” O'Hagen picked up a slim kelpboard-wrapped package from behind his desk. Richard had been expecting something larger. This was barely forty centimeters high, thirty wide. He slipped the thin kelpboard from the front. “What is it?” he asked. The painting was mostly sky sliced by a line of white cloud, with the mound of a hill rising out of the lower right corner. Hanging in the air like some bizarre obsidian dagger was an alien spaceship, or possibly an airborne neolithic monument.
“View of a Hill and Clouds,” O'Hagen said contentedly. “Remarkable, isn't it? It's from McCarthy's earlier phase, before he moved from oils to refractive sculpting.”
“I see.” Richard pulled the kelpboard wrapping back on. “I'd like to get it valued.”
“Of course.” O'Hagen smiled.
Richard took the painting to the Sotheby's office in Stamford on his way back from Thistlemore Wood. The assistant was appreciative when Richard told her he wanted it valued for his house-insurance policy. She took her time, checking its authenticity before giving him an estimate. Eighteen thousand New Sterling. Once again Mr. Alan O'Hagen was being financially optimistic. But all things considered, it wasn't a bad price for endorsing the Zone 35 development.
“I think we have an agreement,” he told O'Hagen over the phone the next day.
There was a chuckle from the earpiece. “I thought you'd be able to appreciate a good deal. I'll get the paperwork over to you right away.”
“Very well. I'll notify the precinct's banking consortium that I have another client.”
Suzi turned up mid-afternoon carrying a small leather satchel. She opened it to produce a thin folder. There were two partnership agreement contracts to sign, both dated two years previously; eve
n his signature counter-witness was filled in and dated. Mrs. Adams, he noted.
“It says here my partner in Firedrake is Newton Holdings,” Richard said.
“Yeah. So?”
“I thought it was held by Mr. O'Hagen.”
“Newton belongs to him; it does his imports. You want to call him?”
He couldn't meet her impatient antagonistic stare. “No.” He signed the partnership contracts.
“Mr. O'Hagen said to say you can owe him the pound for the share,” Suzi said. She gathered up one copy of the contract and handed him a share certificate with his name on it: again dated two years ago.
“Tell him that's very generous of him.”
She scowled and marched out of the office. Richard glanced over the certificate again, then locked it and the partnership agreement in the wall safe.
Richard was having breakfast the next morning when the police arrived, hammering so hard on the door he thought they were trying to smash it down. He opened the door wearing just his dressing gown, blinking…partly from confusion at the team of eight armed uniformed officers standing on his front lawn, and partly at the bright morning sunlight.
The person knocking aggressively on his paintwork identified herself as Detective Amanda Patterson, holding her police card out for him to verify.
He didn't bother to show it to his cybofax. “I don't doubt who you are,” he murmured. Three cars were parked on the street outside, their blue lights flashing insistently. Neighbors were pressed up against windows watching the drama. A Globecast camera crew lurked at the end of the drive, pointing their fat black lenses at him.
“Richard Townsend?” the detective demanded.
He put on a smile as polite as circumstances would allow. “Guilty of that, at least.”
“Would you please accompany me to the station, sir. I have some questions for you.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I will arrest you.”
“For what, exactly?”
“Your suspected involvement in the murder of Byrne Tyler.”
Richard stared at her in astonishment, then managed to gather some dignity. “I hate to ask you this in such a public arena.” He indicated the camera crew. “But are you quite sure you have the right house?”
“Oh yes, sir. I have the right house. It's yours.”
“Very well. May I at least get dressed first?”
“Yes, sir. One of my male colleagues will accompany you.”
He gave a grunt of surprise as he realized just how serious she was. “I think I'd like my one phone call now as well.”
“That's America's Miranda rights, sir. But you're certainly free to call a solicitor if you think you require one.”
“I don't require one to establish my innocence,” Richard snapped. “I simply wish to sue you into your grave. You have no idea how much trouble this mistake will bring down on your head.”
Richard suspected the layout of the interview room at Oakham police station was deliberately designed to depress its occupants. Straight psychological assault on the subconscious. Drab light-brown walls shimmered harshly under the glare from the two biolum panels in the ceiling. The gray-steel desk in front of him vibrated softly, a cranky harmonic instigated by the buzzing air-conditioning grille.
He'd been in there for twenty minutes alone, dourly contemplating this ludicrous situation, before the door opened and Jodie Dobson came in.
“About time,” he barked at her. “Can I go now?”
She gave him a sober look. “No, Richard. This isn't some case of mistaken identity. I've been talking to Detective Patterson, and they really do think you had something to do with Byrne Tyler's murder.”
“That's insane! I've never even met him.”
“I know, and I'm sure we can clear it up with a simple interview.”
“I want that Patterson cow sued for doing this to me. They tipped off the news team. I'll have my face plastered all over the media. Do you know what kind of damage that'll do to me? Business is about trust, credibility. I can't believe this! She's ruined five years' hard work in five minutes. It was deliberate and malicious.”
“It's not that bad. Listen, the quicker you're out and cleared, the quicker we can instigate damage limitation.”
“I want her to make a public apology, starting with that news crew that was outside my bloody house.”
“We can probably get that. But you'll need to cooperate. Fully.”
“Fine, bring them on!” He caught the tone in her voice. “What do you mean?”
“They've brought in some kind of specialist they want to sit in on your interview. Greg Mandel, he's a gland psychic.”
Richard hoped his flinch wasn't too visible. There were stories about gland psychics. Nothing a rational adult need concern themselves about, of course. Human psi ability was a strictly scientific field these days, quantified and researched. A bioware endocrine gland implanted in the brain released specific neurohormones to stimulate the ability. But…“Why do they want him to interview me?”
“Help interview you,” Jodie stressed. “Apparently his speciality is sensing emotional states. In other words he'll know if you're lying.”
“So if I just say that I didn't kill this Byrne Tyler, Mandel will know I'm being truthful?”
“That's the way it works.”
“Okay. But I still want Patterson nailed afterward.”
Richard gave Mandel a close look when he entered the interview room. Approaching middle age, but obviously in shape. The man's movements were very…precise moving the chair just so to sit on rather than casually pulling it out from the desk as most people would Richard supposed it was like a measure of confidence and Mandel seemed very self-assured. It was an attitude very similar to Alan O'Hagen's.
Amanda Patterson seated herself beside Mandel, and slotted a couple of matte-black memox crystals into the twin AV recording deck.
“Interview with Richard Townsend,” Patterson said briskly. “Conducted by myself, Detective Patterson, with the assistance of CID advisory specialist Greg Mandel. Mr. Townsend has elected to have his solicitor present.”
“I did not kill Byrne Tyler,” Richard said. He stared at Mandel. “Is that true?”
“In as far as it goes,” Mandel said.
“Thank you!” he sat back and fixed Patterson with a belligerent expression.
“However, I think we need to examine the subject in a little more detail before giving you a completely clean slate,” Mandel said.
“If you must.”
Mandel gave Patterson a small nod. She opened her cybofax and studied the display screen. “Are you are a partner in the Firedrake company, Mr. Townsend?” she asked.
“What?”
“A company called Firedrake, do you own half of the shares?”
“Well, yes. One share, fifty percent. But that's nothing to do with Byrne Tyler. It's a venture with a…a business colleague.”
“Who is that?” Mandel asked.
“Not that it's anything to do with you or this murder enquiry, but his name is Alan O'Hagen.”
“Interesting,” Detective Patterson said. “The other listed shareholder in Fire-drake is Newton Holdings.”
“Well, yes, that's O'Hagen's company.”
“No, Mr. Townsend. According to the companies register, Newton Holdings is owned by Byrne Tyler.”
Richard gave Jodie a desperate look. She frowned.
Detective Patterson consulted her cybofax again. “You've been partners for two years, is that right?”
“I…I've been a partner with Mr. O'Hagen for two years, yes.” He couldn't help the way his eyes glanced at Mandel. The psychic was watching him impassively. “Not Byrne Tyler. I've never met him. Never.”
“Really?” Patterson's tone was highly skeptical. “Have you ever visited the Sotheby's office in Stamford?”
Richard hooked a finger around his shirt collar; the air-conditioning wasn't making any impression on the heat suddenly evapo
rating off his skin. O'Hagen! O'Hagen had scammed him. But how? He wasn't a fool, he hadn't paid O'Hagen any money, quite the opposite. The painting…Which the police obviously knew about. “Yes, I've been there.”
“Recently?”
“Earlier this week actually. I think you know that, though, don't you? I was having an item of mine valued for insurance purposes.”
“Was that item a painting?” Mandel asked.
“Yes.”
“And didn't you also confirm its authenticity while you were there?”
“I suppose so, the assistant had to make sure it was genuine before she valued it. That's standard.”
“And the painting definitely belongs to you?”
“It does.”
Mandel turned to Patterson. “Well, that's true.”
“Of course it is, I was given it some time ago by Mr. O'Hagen,” Richard said. “It was a gift. He will confirm that.”
“I shall be very interested in talking to this Mr. O'Hagen,” Patterson said. “That's if you can ever produce him for us.” She turned her cybofax around so Richard could see the screen, it held the image of View of a Hill and Clouds. “Is this the painting, Mr. Townsend?”
“Yes it is.”
“For the record, View of a Hill and Clouds by Sean McCarthy belongs to Byrne Tyler. The artist was a friend of the deceased. It was stolen from his apartment, presumably at the same time that he was murdered.”
“No,” Richard hissed. “Look, okay, listen. I'd never even heard of Firedrake until this week. Taking me on as a partner was a way of proving its viability to the banks. O'Hagen wanted a loan from them, that was the only way he could get it. We fixed it to look like I'd been a partner for two years.”
“Richard,” Jodie warned.
“I'm being set up,” he yelled at her. “Can't you see?”
“Set up for what?” Patterson asked; she sounded intrigued.
“Byrne Tyler's murder—that's what I'm in here for, isn't it? For Christ's sake. O'Hagen's rigged this so it looks like I was involved.”
“Why would Mr. O'Hagen want to do that to you?”
The Suspect Genome (greg mandel) Page 2