by John Burke
‘You’re sure that’s not another unauthorised leak?’
‘I’m sorry, but Mr Cowan’s in Los Angeles, and Miss Vaughan-Smith’ — she hammered it home — ‘is not in.’
‘Perhaps you’d be kind enough to ring her home number and tell her we’re in town. And that it’s urgent we should see her.’
In the corner behind Janetta a thin blonde girl sat at a telephone panel. She half turned, with a quite helpful and friendly smile. ‘We did ring her this morning. Left a message on her answering machine.’
‘And she hasn’t rung back?’
‘No. Probably sleeping it off.’
‘Sleeping what off? Some sort of publisher’s launch party?’
‘On a Sunday?’ said Janetta witheringly. ‘No, you know her.’
‘Not all that well.’ Greg had an improbable vision of the scrawny Miss Vaughan-Smith getting plastered or maybe sleeping with some author desperate for her approval during a wild weekend whoop-up. It was a whole new concept which he would have found difficult to introduce plausibly into a book.
‘She sometimes gets a bad migraine,’ the girl at the switchboard contributed. ‘She’ll probably be in touch later in the day.’
Janetta fidgeted in her chair, anxious to put an end to this outflow of information. Kate sounded sympathetic. ‘Poor Penelope. Look, if you could just give us her home address —’
‘I’m afraid it’s not company policy to divulge the home addresses of our staff.’ Janetta took charge again.
The girl’s blank, powdery mask was beginning to irritate Greg. The only way to deal with such people, said an inner voice, was to overawe them. He had always fancied ghosting the autobiography of some leading barrister, and in private had once or twice acted out the bigger scenes in order to achieve just the right tone of voice. Now he drew himself up, the fingers of his right hand curling under his lapel.
‘I am in partnership with Lady Crombie of Baldonald House on the preparation of her memoirs. She is at the moment preparing legal action against this firm and against Miss Vaughan-Smith for breach of commercial confidentiality in connection with business dealings which form an integral part of the book.’
‘I don’t know anything about —’
‘Having collaborated on a number of Clement and Cowan projects over the years’ — Greg lowered his voice a throbbing half-octave but increased the volume of the bass — ‘I have established a good working relationship with Mr Cowan. In this instance I have come all the way down from Scotland in the hope of intervening in time to save him embarrassment — and considerable financial loss. If I cannot talk to him or Miss Vaughan-Smith before things go too far, I cannot be held responsible for the legal consequences.’
A light began to wink on the switchboard. The girl pressed a button, said, ‘I’ll put you through to Accounts,’ and returned eagerly to the discussion.
Kate said: ‘I think it would save a lot of trouble if you would simply give Mr Dacre Miss Vaughan-Smith’s address.’
‘I don’t know.’ There seemed to be a lot of things Janetta didn’t know.
Greg cleared his throat, going a further major third lower.
The telephonist was scribbling on a piece of paper. She folded it and lobbed it expertly past Janetta.
‘Emma, you’ve no right … there could be no end of trouble over you handing out —’
‘There would assuredly be no end of trouble,’ said Greg, ‘if this hadn’t been handed over.’
As they left, Kate took Greg’s arm and looked wonderingly up at him. ‘You can be really masterful when you try.’
‘Serious situations call for drastic action. Many an expensive legal battle could have been averted if both parties involved could have been persuaded to effect a compromise at the appropriate —’
‘All right, all right. You can drop the act now. You impressed her, and you’ve impressed me. Now come back up from Paul Robeson level, before you do your vocal chords an injury.’
‘Paul Robeson? I saw myself as —’
‘All right. Scene ended. Cut. You can be yourself again.’
Taxis cruised regularly up and down this street around lunchtime, waiting for publishers and television producers to emerge and demand to be taken to the Groucho or the Garrick. In mid-morning, it was five minutes before one dawdled round the corner and set off with them to Brook Green. It stopped in the middle of the street, so that they had to squeeze between two of the parked cars which lined the full length of the kerb.
They rang twice and had a long wait before a broad-shouldered man in a midnight blue Armani suit opened the door.
‘Is Miss Vaughan-Smith at home?’ asked Kate in her most genial tone.
The answer was less genial. ‘Why would you be wishing to see her?’
Greg prickled. The disdain suggested that the man would waste little time before brushing them both off the doorstep like a double-glazing sales team. ‘And who might you be?’ he demanded.
‘A friend. Any objections?’
‘If you could just tell her that Gregory Dacre needs to see her. Urgently.’
‘Gregory Dacre?’ a voice drawled from the end of the narrow hall. ‘Well, now, this could be interesting. Do come in.’
Kate said: ‘Greg, just a tick, I don’t think we —’
It was too late. There were two men now, out on the shallow doorstep, urging Greg and Kate indoors.
For a melodramatic moment Greg half expected to find Penelope Vaughan-Smith tied to a chair and gagged. In which case he would have to fall back on his experiences as the master spy’s ghost, and do a James Bond in order to free her. Or would it be more appropriate to play a tough private eve, world-weary and fearless?
Actually Miss Vaughan-Smith was sitting comfortably enough in her own armchair, looking sulky but unharmed.
There were three men in the room. Two of them wore expensive suits, the other was heavier and had opted for black leather in which he didn’t look at home.
Greg studied the weighty one. ‘You must be Blake.’
‘How the hell do you —’
‘Shut up,’ said the taller of his colleagues. He had a disillusioned drawl but hard blue eyes.
‘I just want to know how he can —’
‘Lady Crombie described you just the way you are,’ said Greg. He heard Kate’s alarmed intake of breath, but went on: ‘Quite unmistakeable.’
‘And just what would ye mean by that?’ There was the aggressiveness of a Glasgow Saturday night on Blake’s tongue.
Greg leaned against the end of the couch. He ought to have been wearing a crumpled fedora, and there ought to have been a cigarette dangling from his lip. But the only headgear he ever wore was a waterproof cap, and he had never been a smoker, so that was out.
He did his best to inject a world-weary drawl into his accusations.
For all their expensive self-confidence, the other men in the room were just like himself, playing a part. Everybody in the world had a favourite façade. Sheltering behind that was often a permanent adolescent trying to persuade himself that he was really grown up, really in the big time now.
‘You’re a long way from home.’ Greg concentrated on Blake. ‘Flown down here in a panic?’
‘I don’t have to listen to this.’
Greg studied the fingernails of his right hand. The hand crept back up to his lapel; but then he recollected that this was a different character he was playing, and he let himself slump even further against the couch.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong’ — he drew each word out for as long as it could be made to last — ‘but didn’t you start out as a bluff, tough newspaperman? Drinks in the Royal Mile, confidences to be used or misused, and then that business with the procurator fiscal? Eased your way on to a quango, then started your own placement agency to manoeuvre your pawns where they could be most useful. And not just the pawns, huh? Rose to higher things without losing your laddishness. And just what are you hoping to bluster your way out of today, sun
shine?’
‘I’ll no’ be standing for this.’
‘Shut up,’ said the tall man again.
Greg turned to him. ‘And you are Matthew Hill. You slept with Brigid and thought you were using her to get a leg up as well as a leg over. Instead of which she was the one who did very well out of grooming you as bag-carrier to Veitch. Right now you’re here as Veitch’s mouthpiece, I suppose?’
Kate plucked at his sleeve and tried to hiss a plea.
Hill kept his cool. ‘We came to interview Miss Vaughan-Smith about the chapters of Miss Weir’s book so far written. It appears that in spite of what she told the Press, she has no chapters in her possession as yet.’
‘Quite right. She hasn’t. You really have dashed into things a bit prematurely, haven’t you?’
‘Since you’ve shown up, we’re not doing so badly after all,’ growled the third man.
‘Mr Musgrave, I presume?’
‘You can cut that clever-clever stuff out. It’ll get you nowhere. We want to see whatever you’ve written. Before things have gone too far.’
Kate was summoning up her courage. ‘My client has nothing to say. Commercial confidentiality —’
‘Don’t waste our time,’ said Musgrave. ‘There’s no way we’re going to let a lot of lies and libels get into print. After what we read yesterday’ — he jerked a contemptuous nod at Miss Vaughan-Smith — ‘we want action. Immediately. Those chapters have to be handed over.’
‘They’ll be handed over in due course,’ said Greg, ‘to the publisher.’
Blake lumbered across the room and grabbed Greg’s arm, squeezing it and forcing him lower and lower over the back of the couch.
‘Stop that!’ said Hill.
‘It’s the only language he’ll understand.’
‘We’re not in any crude strong-arm business. All the same, Mr Dacre …’ Hill lowered himself on to the couch and looked sideways at Greg’s face, thrust down towards him. ‘Let’s not be silly. Do you have any of those chapters with you at the moment?’
‘No, I don’t.’ Greg wrenched himself free.
‘But you can lay your hands on copies for us. By tomorrow.’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘I want to be reasonable, Mr Dacre.’
‘I think it’s time we left.’ Kate walked towards the door. Blake left Greg and planted himself across the doorway.
Hill said: ‘Look, let’s not go O.T.T. Let’s just talk sense. We were disappointed to find that Miss Vaughan-Smith had been lying to the Press. And now we’re disappointed that you don’t happen to have brought any pages with you. But if we have to, I assure you we can get at them.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Between us we have all the expertise to hack into any databases or documents which interest us. If you don’t want to come clean, we can find our own way in.’
‘Not me,’ said Greg. ‘I haven’t got a modem, any link to the web or net or e-mail or anything else.’
‘A real old-fashioned hack writer,’ said Hill smoothly. ‘How touching. But somewhere you have the files.’
‘Somewhere. And an awful lot of it,’ Greg taunted, ‘still in my head. And Lady Crombie’s head.’
‘Not a terribly safe place to be.’
‘Look, if you’re starting to threaten —’
‘Threaten? What a crude concept.’ Hill sprawled back, the essence of civilised benevolence. ‘Look, dear boy, we realise now that this lady editor here has spoken out of turn. I also gather that this is not uncommon in the profession. But frankly I don’t give a damn for these’ — he waited a good ten seconds before launching the ultimate insult — ‘amateurs. You at least are not stupid, Mr Dacre. Let’s start from square one. Miss Weir — or Lady Crombie, or whatever Brigid prefers to call herself nowadays — is out to be difficult. Rather than have a public confrontation which will do none of us any good, we’re prepared to do a deal. For our mutual benefit.’
‘For your benefit,’ said Greg.
‘Will you convey to Miss Weir that if she wishes to come back into the business world where she shone so compellingly, we know of a consortium which would be prepared to welcome her back. And forget her rather petty vendetta.’
‘She’ll be delighted to hear this. But not for the reasons you think. Take it from me, she won’t wear it.’
‘Not even if she got the Crombie treasures back?’
‘Are you telling me that you and your pals —’
‘I’m not telling you anything. I’m simply asking you.’
‘You stole that stuff?’ Greg tried to hide his amazement under a grand inquisitorial expression and hoped they would look abashed. They didn’t; but at least Hill looked wary and was obviously struggling to shape up other approaches. ‘Even before you knew about the book we’re writing? You can afford to employ a seer who told you what was in store and how best to cope with it? And this is the best you can do?’
‘We did not steal any of the Baldonald House contents,’ said Hill. ‘Good God, man, do you think that in the circles we move in we’d lower ourselves to that sort of thing? But … we do have our contacts. Two of my closest acquaintances are in the auction and investment business. There are bound to be whispers. They’ll hear about things being shifted, and know how to stop them being shifted … if the price is right.’
Musgrave straightened his tie, which had not even gone crooked. ‘Look, I don’t think that’s the sort of deal we should be offering.’
‘It’s a very generous offer,’ said Hill.
Kate perked up again. ‘Which you can fulfil?’
‘All I’m saying is that we have the contacts. And if we had Miss Weir’s assurance —’
‘She’d as sure as hell want your assurance first,’ said Greg.
Their faces told him that he had been right. They knew her of old, and they were simply skirmishing in the dark.
‘We want this whole thing settled amicably.’ Hill’s voice was far from amicable.
‘You mean Sir Michael Veitch wants it settled amicably, so there aren’t any hideous revelations before he gets his peerage.’
‘What revelations? Look, all we want is an amicable write-off.’
‘Tell Lord Veitch not to buy the ermine yet.’
‘You’ll regret this.’
‘I think there’s going to be a fair old share-out of regrets.’
‘If we put our minds to it,’ said Hill, ‘we can help Lady Crombie. Or otherwise.’
‘In other words,’ said Kate in a thin but courageous whisper, ‘collaborate or be clobbered.’
‘I would never have dared to put it into words quite that way.’
But that was what he meant. The throb of menace filled the room. Yet two of the three men were respectable, rather drab businessmen. And Blake, in spite of his improbably with-it attire, had worked his way into the clan. All of them members of the right clubs, especially the most fashionable night-clubs.
In that rather tatty little room it was clear to Greg that he was dealing with people who exercised power somewhere else. And a lot of it would be deployed in roundabout ways, concealed ways, deviously organised ways. Almost everywhere else.
In spite of the suave hints, maybe they could kill. Musgrave was capable of saying it out loud, but had been quietened by his two colleagues. Of course none of them would personally be capable of stabbing or shooting or strangling or running over an obstacle in their way. But they would have, as Hill had said, their contacts.
Rubbish. Greg wasn’t going to believe it, not in this ordinary room with these predictable, everyday wheeler-dealers.
Maybe he ought to start believing it.
‘Unless,’ he challenged, ‘you’re going to hold us to ransom and wait for a task force to set up a siege, or Brigid to come down clutching reams of copier paper.’
Kate moved into the fray. ‘There are three witnesses here. Unless you’re going to kill all of us …’
Miss Vaughan-Smith squeaked piteously.
Blake tried to bluster. ‘What we want you to tell Brigid —’
‘Put it in writing.’ Greg was beginning to feel absurdly euphoric. He had acted them off the stage, hadn’t he? ‘But I still don’t think she’ll be interested.’
‘She’d better be. Pretty soon now.’
‘I think it’s time we left. I recommend you do the same.’
Greg had said it very firmly, and Kate took her cue by walking towards the door.
Blake said, ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ and grabbed the strap of her shoulder bag, wrenching her towards him.
Greg launched himself across the floor, swinging a punch into Blake’s flabby paunch. Blake doubled up, retched for a moment, then steadied himself. He took two paces towards his attacker.
‘Any more of that, and things could get ugly.’
‘You’re ugly already,’ said Greg in a delirium of recklessness. ‘Your gut’s too big, yet you haven’t got any real guts.’
Blake took a wild swing at him. Greg punched again. This time Blake let out a little wheeze like a punctured balloon, and went down on Miss Vaughan-Smith’s threadbare Indian carpet.
His two colleagues stared; Hill took a step forward, then looked at Musgrave for support. Moral or physical support, thought Greg rapturously: neither would be forthcoming. They couldn’t possibly keep him or Kate here, or mount a permanent guard on Penelope Vaughan-Smith in her own home. They hadn’t decided even among themselves what their tough strategy ought to be. They had come round here in the belief that three of them could frighten the daylights out of a woman and be given the papers she had boasted of having. It had all fizzled out.
Soft Marzipan Layer, he thought.
‘Very well,’ said Hill, trying to sound menacing. ‘We’ll leave. I suggest you and Miss Vaughan-Smith here come to a sensible decision, and relay it to Miss Weir.’
Blake was clawing his way upright with the aid of a chair arm. ‘Oh, no, we’re not just going to creep out of here.’