Requiem

by Clare Francis

  A pause. ‘It’s a big step,’ he said uncertainly, as if debating the matter with himself.

  ‘Of course it is,’ she said, trying to urge him gently forward without actually feeding facts to the invisible ear under her hand. ‘But I can guarantee you all the support you need.’

  He said suddenly: ‘Look, if I went ahead I’d need some sort of financial security for me and my family, at least until the worst is over. Maybe other kinds of security as well. Could you guarantee that?’

  ‘I guarantee everything. Whatever you need!’

  ‘And it’s safe. You’re sure?’

  God, forgive me this. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘And if I were to make a statement – go public – could you arrange the right outlets – you know, newspapers? TV?’

  ‘Absolutely. I have contacts, good contacts.’

  ‘But here in the US?’

  She’d have to work on that, speak to Simon, but this wasn’t the time to show anything less than complete confidence. ‘Definitely. You just say the word. Just give me the when and how.’

  ‘The when?’ He sounded alarmed. ‘But now. I mean, I don’t think it’s safe for me here any more, I don’t think it’s safe for my family. And I thought you’d have the how. I kind of assumed you’d know.’ He was ready to be disappointed in her, she realized, ready to back off at any moment.

  ‘Give me a couple of days,’ she said rapidly. ‘I’ll fix everything. Money, security, media coverage.’ Sensing he still wasn’t convinced, she insisted: ‘You call back in two days and if you’re not happy with the way I’ve arranged things, we’ll think again. Fair enough?’

  ‘Okay.’ There was still an edge of doubt in his voice. ‘Okay. Tuesday.’

  ‘Tuesday. Same time.’

  When he rang off, she sat for a long time, waiting for her heartbeat to slow down.

  Tuesday. Just two days. God.

  And the black box: what would Maynard and his friends guess from all this? Had she already put Alan Breck in danger? Christ.

  She slept less than four hours more, and started her day well before dawn.

  Chapter 32

  SCHENKER, IN RARE good humour after a sporting weekend in the Scottish Highlands, hummed the melody from Top Hat as he unpacked in his apartment high above Bryanston Square.

  On Friday he had been the subject of a feature in the Financial Times and he reflected happily on the thought that it would have been read by everyone of importance in the City.

  A copy lay in his case and he glanced at it now. The photograph was excellent: it had caught the fire of intelligence in his eyes, made a virtue of his rather thin mouth, given him an aura of tension and energy. The interviewer had also been kind: effortless high-flyer; talented trouble-shooter; tipped for greater things. And he had used Schenker’s grittiest quotes: I consider my learning curve hasn’t reached its peak. The day you stop learning is the day you stop justifying your salary. Confidence comes from judgement, but growth comes from a certain degree of humility, from constant re-evaluation.

  Good stuff.

  As he picked a suit for the morning, the telephone rang. Unhurriedly, he slid the trousers into the overnight press and laid the jacket over the integral hanger before strolling across to the bedside phone. It was, he noticed, almost one a.m.

  ‘I need a word,’ said Cramm.

  ‘We’ll have half an hour before the divisional meeting.’

  ‘It can’t wait.’

  Schenker, who rarely slept more than five hours a night at the best of times, offered: ‘Seven then. For breakfast.’

  ‘But I’m here. In a box, down in the square. It’ll take fifteen minutes at the most.’

  As he waited, Schenker wondered if his purple silk dressing gown with quilted lapels wasn’t a little too flamboyant for Cramm’s eyes and, deciding that no risk, however small, was worth taking when it came to office gossip, he changed it for a black kimono.

  Cramm appeared wearing holed jeans, an American-football jacket and a day’s growth of beard.

  ‘You look as though you’ve been sleeping rough,’ said Schenker in a tone not totally devoid of criticism.

  ‘I thought I’d better come straight over,’ Cramm said in a tone that had Schenker bristling slightly as he waved him forward into the living room. Unexcitability had always been one of Cramm’s greatest qualities, and it did not please Schenker to see that it seemed to have deserted him.

  Offered a drink, Cramm took a Scotch and drank deeply.

  ‘Well?’ Schenker demanded.

  ‘There was a fire – you may have read about it – at a research laboratory run by a company called Octek.’

  ‘I hardly had time to read the papers. I was stalking at Lord Crowborough’s. Why?’

  ‘It was the laboratory I told you about, the one set up by the Catch woman.’

  Schenker, pouring himself a ginger ale, lowered the bottle soundlessly to the bar top. ‘You said it wasn’t going to get off the ground.’

  ‘There was a time when it looked like that. But in the end it couldn’t be stopped.’

  ‘You surprise me.’ The sarcasm had been unintentional but he let it stand. If there were difficulties, then Cramm should have told him about them straight away.

  Taking his drink, he sat on the sofa opposite Cramm and studied his assistant. In the past few months he had been leaving a lot to this young man. With a spark of unease it occurred to him that Cramm’s eagerness to serve, his dogged pragmatism and his precocious grasp of office politics may not have been matched by a corresponding level of judgement.

  ‘Tell me about the fire,’ he said.

  ‘It was an animal rights raid. Octek were using rodents. The activists broke in, liberated the animals and set fire to the place – ’

  Schenker interrupted with an upheld finger. ‘These activists, why did they choose Octek?’

  Cramm hesitated, uncertain as to the purpose of the interrogation.

  ‘Why not choose a more obvious target?’ Schenker persisted. ‘One of our own places, for example?’

  Cramm got the idea; they were playing detective. ‘The place was unguarded,’ he said. ‘An easy target.’

  ‘And how would they know that?’

  An instant followed, a taut silence in which Cramm’s gaze hardened. ‘They must have been tipped off.’

  Schenker felt his mood descend another notch. ‘But it was definitely animal rights campaigners, was it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cramm nodded emphatically, his eyes challenging Schenker to disagree, and in that moment Schenker’s heart completed its descent. He was no longer in any doubt that Cramm had got carried away, that the situation, if unravelled, would prove ugly. Absorbing this, he felt a flash of anger, barbed with sudden fears and anxieties. Then just as rapidly, he pushed these feelings aside. Anger served no purpose, not until he could see his way clear.

  He put his glass to his lips and sipped his drink. ‘Go on.’

  ‘They’re going to try to pin it on us.’

  ‘Who are?’

  ‘Daisy Field and her group. They’re threatening to go to the press.’

  ‘On what evidence?’

  ‘Apparently the police are saying the job was too professional for animal rights people.’

  ‘That cuts both ways, surely. If it was too professional for one group, then why not for another?’ Without waiting for a reply he pressed on: ‘Is that all?’

  Cramm shifted in his seat and studied his glass. ‘No … There’s something else apparently, some other evidence.’

  ‘That could link us to the fire?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what is it?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘We don’t know,’ repeated Schenker heavily. ‘Well, what could it be?’

  Cramm retorted defensively: ‘I’ve no idea! There’s nothing for them to know.’

  Schenker regarded him carefully. This, he decided, was probably the truth. ‘So what’s the problem?’
/>   Cramm looked surprised that he should miss the obvious. ‘Well, the press could make it look very bad for us.’

  ‘But how? No paper will print a story without some facts to back it up. What facts could they have?’

  ‘I don’t know, but the Field woman’s boyfriend is a Sunday Times journalist.’

  ‘So? He’s a professional then, isn’t he, with a tough editor. No stories without solid substantiation.’

  ‘But she’s got something, so she says.’

  ‘Well, she’s bound to say that, isn’t she? It’s called rattling the opposition. Come on, Cramm, if there are no facts, there are no facts!’

  Cramm nodded uncertainly.

  Schenker said crisply: ‘I suggest you draft a suitably dismissive statement for the press, in case they try to run something.’ He moved to the edge of the seat, ready to get up and show Cramm out, but the younger man obviously hadn’t finished.

  ‘They’re planning to carry on,’ he said doggedly, ‘to start another lab and continue the work. They say none of this is going to put them off.’

  ‘Did you imagine it would? These people have to martyr themselves,’ Schenker scoffed with a wave of the hand. ‘Let them! Silveron’s okay. Nothing they can do is going to show otherwise. They’re just going to waste a hell of a lot of money.’ He slapped his knees and stood up. ‘That’s it?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Cramm replied. ‘They say they’ve got evidence that the Silveron trials were fixed. They say someone in a key position is prepared to talk. They’re threatening to go public.’

  Schenker had the sudden sensation of having been in this job too long, of seeing events come round for the second or third time, like the rerun of a tired old film. ‘It’s not that madman again, is it? That toxicologist in Chicago – the one with the name?’

  Cramm nodded. ‘Dublensky.’

  He laughed derisively. ‘He’s just a nutcase!’

  ‘But there’s a chance, a risk – he might have documentation.’

  ‘What do you mean, documentation?’

  ‘He might have copied some data,’ Cramm said eventually, picking his way cautiously through the words. ‘Data that shows that some of the Silveron test results were lifted from another product.’

  ‘Lifted?’

  ‘Identical data, duplicate results.’

  ‘And what’s meant to be the significance of this – data? What’s it meant to show?’

  ‘That the Silveron trials were not carried out properly.’

  Schenker let out a harsh guffaw that rang loudly in the quiet of the flat. ‘You’re not suggesting it’s genuine?’

  ‘Well …’ Cramm spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘It looks genuine, and that’s the same thing.’

  Schenker felt a shiver of anger. He slapped his palm down on the table. ‘I want that document on my desk first thing this morning.’

  ‘I’ll try – ’

  ‘By ten. At the latest.’

  Cramm looked unhappy but did not say it was impossible.

  ‘So what’s the bottom line here?’ Schenker snapped. ‘A press bonanza? A media massacre?’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  Schenker got to his feet, fighting for air, and strode to the window. What a cock-up! Christ, and he had trusted Cramm to keep a finger on the pulse! With a swoop of resignation, he saw that he was going to have to take personal charge of this, that nothing would get sorted out unless he did.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, turning briskly. ‘Let’s go through it from the top.’ He returned to his seat, leaning close over the coffee table, tapping the surface with a forefinger. ‘I want a list of damage containment ideas by the morning. I want to know how this Dubinsky – ’

  ‘Dublensky.’

  ‘ – how this Dublensky can be effectively discredited the moment the first journalist gets on the line. I want to know how he can be neutralized.’

  And, he thought to himself, I want to know how to guard my rear, to cover myself in the unpleasant eventuality that this thing blows up in my face. He thought of the cola magnate, and the discussions on Long Island, and wondered how close he was to being offered a new job.

  ‘You might think of how to clip Miss Field’s wings too,’ he went on. ‘Have another go at finding out where she gets all this money from – ’

  ‘You didn’t hear then? I thought you’d have heard. It was all over the tabloids. It’s Nick Mackenzie, the rock star. He was financing everything, the Field woman’s salary, the laboratory.’

  ‘How deep?’

  ‘Must have been well over a million. Now he’s going to finance Dublensky.’

  ‘Finance him?’

  ‘Bring him over, dish him up to the press.’

  ‘Oh he is, is he! Jesus, who does he think he is? What the hell does he think he’s playing at?’

  ‘Saving the world?’ sighed Cramm.

  ‘Christ, these people!’ Schenker exploded. ‘Think they’re a cut above the common herd! Think they’ve the God-given right to tell everyone how to behave!’

  Cramm threw him a shrewd look. ‘When it comes to behaviour, Mackenzie’s got nothing to boast about.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s been seeing Mrs Driscoll. Every day.’ He paused significantly. ‘And some nights.’

  Schenker stared unseeing at Cramm, then looked down at the table, gripped by a sudden pang, the nature of which he couldn’t identify but which left him off-balance, almost breathless.

  ‘Mrs Driscoll? Mrs Driscoll?’ He glanced back at Cramm and, seeing that it was true, murmured: ‘Well …’ Then, aware of Cramm’s gaze, added: ‘What a very stupid woman she is.’

  It was the same Rolls that had picked her up on the evening she had first met Schenker, Susan realized. Leather seats, walnut trim, glass partition screening the grey-uniformed driver and, best of all, something she hadn’t noticed before, an old-fashioned voice tube with a brass spout.

  ‘Does this thing actually work?’ she cried delightedly, pulling the tube from its bracket and whisking off the cap.

  Schenker glanced briefly across. ‘Certainly.’ But his look didn’t encourage her to try it, and she replaced the tube with a shrug.

  The car was heading up the Brompton Road towards Knightsbridge. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked brightly.

  ‘I thought we’d drive round the park. Would you like to be dropped back at Harrods?’

  ‘Round the park? How mysterious! I thought you were going to take me somewhere exciting. To the Dorchester at least.’ She added teasingly: ‘Rather clandestine, isn’t it, a drive round the park? People will think we’re meeting secretly.’ She watched for Schenker’s discomfiture, and was rewarded with the sight of his tongue flicking nervously over his lips. What a character he was! She was almost fond of him in a repugnant sort of way. So desperate to succeed, so childish in his anxiety to get things right, applying himself to London society with the same humourless intensity he applied to his business life.

  He answered: ‘I thought it would be better to talk here.’ He was looking ahead, watching the traffic.

  ‘Ooh dear,’ she said, making a face. ‘This sounds ominous.’

  She kept her tone light. Whatever this was about, she wasn’t going to be robbed of her mood, which was euphoric.

  Schenker didn’t respond immediately. It wasn’t until they had passed under the Bowater building and were driving along the South Carriage Drive that he began to speak in a flat monotone. ‘The Kershaw woman. She’s been asking for money again. Additional expenses, was how she put it.’

  Susan regarded the sky which until an instant ago had looked unblemished, and, despite her intentions, felt her euphoria deflating. She looked accusingly at Schenker but his profile was unreadable. ‘And so? Will you give it to her?’

  ‘We already have.’

  She felt a flutter of relief. Of course he had. Schenker knew which side his bread was buttered on.

  ‘Unfortunately it’s unlikely to finish ther
e,’ said Schenker. ‘She’ll come back for more.’

  What was Schenker trying to do to her? She shot him a furious look. ‘Oh?’ she replied stiffly. ‘And why do you think that?’

  He was examining the traffic with concentration. ‘Well, it’s rather an attractive proposition, isn’t it? A limitless supply of cash.’

  ‘She can’t be that stupid, surely. I mean, she can’t think it’ll go on for ever.’

  ‘She’s already making noises again,’ he interrupted smoothly.

  A tremor of annoyance passed through Susan. Schenker was playing games with her, trying to undermine her happiness.

  ‘But she can be stopped, can’t she?’ said Susan, unable to suppress a hint of desperation in her voice. ‘I mean, it’s ridiculous. The woman’s behaving like a criminal.’

  ‘And how would you suggest she be stopped?’ He threw her a questioning glance, and she caught a glint of something unfamiliar in his eye, a coolness, a spark of hostility. It was another side of Schenker, one she had never seen before.

  ‘There must be a way,’ she argued. ‘I don’t know … I mean, can’t she be threatened with legal action or something?’ This, she well knew, was not a realistic proposition, but then she could hardly be expected to provide serious answers. Problem-solving was Schenker’s province, and she was surprised, not to say annoyed, that he should want to consult her about it. He had seen to all the arrangements, had struck the deal, whatever it was, and now he would have to see the matter through.

  Schenker said: ‘Sadly, I really don’t think there’s much more I can do.’

  Susan looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

  Schenker turned his head towards her, his black button eyes unblinking. ‘Simply that I have done all I can and if this woman comes back … Well …’ He lifted his shoulders slightly.

  ‘What are you saying?’ She almost prodded him on the arm, she was so irritated with him.

  ‘That there’ll be no more money.’

  Susan stared at him, trying hard to interpret this. Did he simply mean he was going to get tough with the woman, keep her quiet in some other way? Or did he mean what she feared he meant, something so unpleasant she could hardly bring herself to think about it?