2009 - Ordinary Thunderstorms

by William Boyd

  Somehow Jonjo was steered towards the door. Major Tim shook his hand again and patted him on the back.

  “There are a lot of security organisations out there, Jonjo. Not as exciting as Risk Averse, but you can make a decent living. We can give you any recommendation you like, glowing reference, etcetera.”

  Jonjo thought it was worth one more try. He lowered his voice.

  “I’m on to Kindred, sir…I’ve almost got him.”

  Major Tim smiled vaguely. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, old chap.”

  “Kindred—I’ve got a new lead. A licence plate. It’s only a matter of time before I catch him.”

  “You’ve lost me, Jonjo. Communications gone down.” He stepped back into his office, a hand raised. “We’ll stay in touch. Good luck.”

  Jonjo walked slowly along the curving corridor towards the leafy glade of the lobby, thinking hard. Something smelt, something ponged horribly, something else was going on here, he thought—such as Jonjo Case taking it right up the arse. He had said the name ‘Kindred’ twice. If Major Tim hadn’t recognised the name wouldn’t he have repeated it? “Kindred? Kindred who?” That’s what people did when they were confronted by an unfamiliar name. That was the natural expression of ignorance—repeat the name. “Never heard of this Kindred person, Jonjo.” No, there was none of that: blank stare, blank denial. Jonjo thought on, a flutter of anxiety in his chest—no, he knew who I was talking about so what was the real agenda? Why had he been called in for this meeting? He didn’t buy it—no fucking sale, Major Tim. He’d been there well over an hour now, what with the journey in, and ail-Outside the building he called Darren. He could feel a form of excitement building in him, the anxiety gone. He was experiencing the same adrenalin-creep as when you waited to go into combat.

  “Darren—it’s Jonjo.”

  “Jonjo, mate. How’re you—”

  “What’s going on? What the fuck’s happening?”

  “Happening? Nothing…I don’t know—”

  “For Terry’s sake, then. Tell me. I saved Terry’s life half a dozen times. Tel would never let me down. Never.”

  There was a silence.

  “You’ve got two hours, I reckon,” Darren said. “They’ll look like cops, most likely.”

  “Two hours to what?”

  “Two hours to cut and run. Fuck off out of it. They got you, mate.”

  Jonjo clicked his phone shut.

  Jonjo sat and watched his house for thirty minutes, just to confirm that it wasn’t occupied, before he strolled to the front door, unlocked it and went inside.

  The Dog was pleased to see him and then was clearly puzzled to be ignored as Jonjo moved carefully through every room. They had been good but not that good. Chairs were in almost their original positions, a door that had been open was closed. What were they looking for?

  Then down in the garage he saw that his weapons were gone, all of them—the Tomcat, the 1911, his .870 Express Security—and the ammo. He searched for a chisel and with it worked free the semi-cemented brick in the garage rear wall. In the cavity behind it he kept, wrapped in thick plastic, a Clock pmm, £10,000 in cash and an unused mobile phone and charger. It was all he needed. Cut and run, Darren had said. So he would.

  57

  INGRAM FELT A LITTLE OVERWHELMED. A NURSE HAD COME INTO his room and said he had a visitor. She was swiftly followed by two young men who did a quick search and politely escorted her out. Then Alfredo Rilke entered with a bunch of flowers—full-bloomed, near-wilting roses, Ingram saw, a sure sign of last thoughts—and had drawn up a chair to his bed as the two men stationed themselves at the door.

  Then he had removed from his pocket something the size of a slim old–fashioned transistor radio and had switched it on. Ingram cocked an ear: silence.

  “Ultrasonic,” Rilke said. “Ambient interference—no one can hear us.”

  “Alfredo,” Ingram said, reproachfully, “this is one of the most eminent and expensive private hospitals in London, not to say the world. This room is not bugged—I swear on my life.” He suddenly wished he hadn’t said that, given his current state of health.

  Rilke ignored him.

  “So, how are you doing, Ingram?”

  “I feel perfectly well—apart from the odd strange symptom now and then—but apparently I’ve got a growth in my brain.” He paused. “My doctor suggested I had a brain scan and that’s what they found.”

  Rilke winced in sympathy. He said something under his breath in Spanish that Ingram didn’t quite catch. It sounded like ‘Madre de Dios’. It was very rare to hear Alfredo speak Spanish.

  “Ingram, Ingram, Ingram…”

  “Alfredo…”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “It pains me—what I am about to say to you.”

  “Well, I’m about to have brain surgery, Alfredo. My priorities are very clear cut. My resilience is supercharged. Please don’t worry.”

  Rilke lowered his eyes and picked at the sheet edge around Ingram’s chest, then he looked up and made full eye contact.

  “I am not buying your company.”

  Despite his supercharged resilience this surprised Ingram, jolted him somewhat. He thought about his impending brain surgery—they were going to ‘debulk’ his brain they said—and he regained some perspective and composure.

  “These crazy allegations about the dead children—is that what it’s all about?”

  “No, no, no.” Rilke brushed invisible flies aside with both hands. “This we can deal with. You are already suing three newspapers and two magazines. There is a court injunction preventing future press speculation—”

  “Me? I’m suing?”

  “Calenture-Deutz is suing. Burton has had the lawyers in and they’ve gone to work very effectively. It’s a scandal.” Rilke uttered the word in a very unscandalised way, as if he’d said ‘It’s a snowdrop’ or ‘It’s a sausage’ or something equally unremarkable, Ingram thought.

  “Malicious, nasty lies,” Ingram said. “It’s the real downside of our business.”

  “Lies we can deal with, easy. We would have ‘ridden this out’, no problem.” Rilke pronounced the phrase as if he’d only just learnt it. His expression changed—Ingram could only interpret it as sad. “Yes, we have these accusations—every week—about our products. We deal with them, we make them go away. But this time, I’m sorry to say, there is a complication.”

  “A complication?”

  “Your brother-in-law, Lord Redcastle.”

  “Ivo…”

  “He sold 400,000 shares two days before your announcement of our buy-out of Calenture-Deutz.”

  “I know.”

  Rilke moved his jamming device closer.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

  “Ivo’s a fool, a complete idiot.”

  “An idiot who looks like he knew something was going to happen. That there was something rotten in the apple barrel.” Rilke explained how it appeared from his angle, his point of view: Ivo sells all his shares. Then comes the announcement of the buyout. Then the allegations about the children’s deaths. “Did you see the fall in Calenture-Deutz’s share price?”

  “I’ve been in the hands of doctors for two days. Tests, tests and more tests. I’m going to have brain surgery.”

  “Your company’s lost 82 per cent of its value.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  Rilke shrugged. “The market doesn’t like what it sees. A board member dumping shares. It seems to everyone he knew something bad was going to happen. That there was some kind of cover-up going on in the Zembla-4 trials.”

  “But there’s no cover-up, is there?” Ingram thought immediately about Philip Wang. It was like condensation slowly beginning to clear from a fogged-up windscreen. What had Philip Wang discovered?

  “Of course there’s no cover-up,” Rilke said with iron assurance. “But the company is going to be turned over, now, picked
apart because of your brother-in-law’s actions. Rilke Pharma cannot be associated under these circumstances. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Ivo is a man with no money. He’s lost a fortune on stupid, hare-brained schemes. He was broke: he needed cash.”

  “I hope you can make a good case to the investigation.”

  “What investigation?”

  “The Financial Services Authority. The Serious Fraud Office—who knows?” He reacted to Ingram’s genuine incredulity. “Someone really should have told you, Ingram: Calenture-Deutz shares have been suspended, the company is under investigation by the FSA.”

  Ingram tried to feel rage against Ivo but, to his vague consternation, he could muster none. He felt an ironic laugh building in his chest. He coughed it away.

  Rilke spread his hands. “You see our position: Rilke Pharma has to withdraw its offer. Burton will stay on as acting CEO—see what we can salvage.”

  “Salvage?”

  “We spent a lot of money on Zembla-4, Ingram. We have to find a way of recouping our investment. We can buy PRO-Vyril, the hay-fever inhaler, some of your other lines perhaps. Not all will be lost.” He reached over and squeezed Ingram’s hand. “It’s over, Ingram. We nearly did it, nearly. And it would have been magnificent.” He called for his two men and stood up, switching off and pocketing his jamming device.

  “But what about Zembla-4? The licences? The PDA? Surely—”

  “The PDA rescinded its approval this morning. The MHRA has put everything on hold in the face of this scandal. There will be no Zembla-4, Ingram. We will not cure asthma.”

  Rilke leant forward and kissed Ingram’s cheek.

  “I like you, Ingram. I was looking forward to our triumph. And now I’m sorry for your ill health. I wish you buena suerte.”

  He walked out of the room and one of his henchmen closed the door behind him.

  58

  AARON LALANDUSSE FROWNED, THEN shrugged resignedly. “There’s nothing I can do. They won’t run any of my pieces about Zembla-4 and Calenture-Deutz. I can’t even mention their names. There are armies of lawyers out there, just waiting to pounce.”

  “But that’s outrageous,” Adam said.

  “Of course it is,” Lalandusse said. “But everything, so far, is pretty circumstantial, you have to admit. We have no smoking gun. What we need is a grieving family. An inter-office memo. Sure, it’s all on the Web…But so are ten thousand other conspiracy theories. I think you’re bang on to something sordid. And the legal might arrayed against us would seem to indicate that you were, but—from the journalism side, we’re stymied.”

  Adam sat, thinking.

  “I’d relax if I were you,” Lalandusse said. “Calenture-Deutz has had its shares suspended. Rilke Pharma has abandoned the buyout, it seems. No drug authority in the world is going to dare to license Zembla-4, what with all these rumours about the trials and the dead children swirling around.” He smiled. “If I were you I’d be feeling pretty chuffed.”

  “Fourteen children died during the clinical testing of Zembla-4,” Adam said. “Those are the simple facts. And they covered it up in order to get a licence that would allow them to make billions and billions of dollars selling a potentially fatal drug.” He would have liked to have added that they covered it up to such an extent that they had had their head of research and development murdered when he’d discovered what was going on; that they had tried to kill me, Adam Kindred, because I was some kind of witness with a key piece of evidence; and that, in trying to kill me, they killed a young woman called Mhouse and orphaned her son. He felt his powerlessness and he felt his smallness. What could he do? So all he said was, “Somebody should be called to account. People should be prosecuted. Fryzer should be in jail, charged with manslaughter.”

  “A noble cause, Primo,” Lalandusse said. “Are you going to take on Calenture-Deutz’s phalanx of lawyers? My editor has thrown in the towel. As has the rest of the British press, it seems.” He. drained his bottle of beer. “Don’t get me wrong: there is a story to tell, but it may take a while to come out…Do you mind if we step outside? I need a ciggy.”

  Adam and Lalandusse stood outside the pub under an awning, watching a persistent drizzle fall, while Lalandusse laboriously lit up. He puffed away like a schoolgirl, producing vast disproportionate clouds of smoke, as if he’d only just learnt what to do with a cigarette.

  “What do you think will happen?” Adam asked.

  “I suspect they’ll break up Calenture—a fire sale—sell off its profitable lines. They’ve got a new CEO—they sacked the old one. He’s ‘ill’ so they say.”

  “Fryzer?” Adam waited for Aaron to stop coughing.

  “Yeah…Sorry…‘Sick leave’—the handiest euphemism around when you’ve destroyed your company.”

  “What happened to Redcastle?”

  “Kicked off the board, pronto. Fled the country before the Fraud Squad got to him. He’s in Spain, so I hear. He’ll be ducking and diving for the rest of his life.”

  Adam allowed himself to feel a momentary relaxation. Maybe this wholesale collapse meant he was finally safe—those people, whoever they were, would stop looking for him now, stop trying to kill him. Why bother with an Adam Kindred when there was no Zembla-4 to protect any longer? Surely the hunt would be called off…And he did feel good about that, for all the unanswered questions buzzing around in his mind and for all the guilt he felt about Mhouse…And what had happened to Ly-on?…Had he been taken into care? Fostered?…Thinking about them was the strangest experience: to recall his life with Mhouse and Ly-on in The Shaft—it was like another person’s biography. Still, Ly-on must be out there somewhere, and now things seemed to be calming down he should try and find out what had happened to him.

  Lalandusse was lighting a second cigarette—it took him three matches and another coughing fit before he had it going to his satisfaction. Practice makes perfect, Adam thought.

  “I’d better go,” Adam said. “I’ve got an appointment.” He shook Lalandusse’s hand. “Thank you, Aaron,” he said, “you’ve been a fantastic help.”

  “No, thank you,” Lalandusse said. “It looks very like you’ve stopped a killer drug in its tracks—doesn’t happen every day. I’ll get in touch when I write it all up—there may be a book in it—once the dust’s settled.”

  “Yeah, let’s see if we can nail that evil bastard Ingram Fryzer.”

  “You bet.”

  Adam said goodbye and walked off towards the Tube station.

  He sat on the bench by Chelsea Bridge waiting for Turpin—who was late. It was well after 11.00 now and the traffic was quiet on the Embankment. He had stood on the bridge for a while when he had arrived, looking back at the triangle, remembering. The tide was turning and was flowing strongly back down to the estuary and the sea. While he was waiting there had been a heavy shower that had driven him under the trees by the triangle to take shelter—a few people hurried by, heads down under umbrellas, but the streets were surprisingly empty. Adam took a woollen beanie cap out of his pocket and pulled it over his wet hair, down to his eyebrows. The night was cool, he shivered.

  He had called Rita and told her he was working late and that he hoped to be home around midnight. She had her own keys, now, to the flat in Oystergate Buildings and she asked him if he’d like something to eat when he came in. He said, no, don’t bother, don’t wait up—I’ll just slip into bed. The thought of slipping into bed with Rita excited him, of reaching out under the sheets for her warm body—he stood and paced up and down—how he wanted to be back there with her now, not waiting to meet his blackmailer, Vincent Turpin, this figure from his past, still haunting him, making demands. This was his third payment to Turpin, another £200, and he was running out of funds, borrowing money from Rita to make ends meet. He decided it would be his last—now he had spoken to Lalandusse and discovered what was happening at Calenture-Deutz: they had more than enough corporate chaos in their lives to be worrying about me, he thought. The dogs mu
st have been called off.

  He saw Turpin lurching down Chelsea Bridge Road, weaving across the pedestrian lights opposite the Lister Hospital, holding up one hand to stop non-existent traffic. He slowed down as he saw Adam, tried to straighten himself. Adam saw he was wearing a shiny new leather jacket, too long in the sleeve. So that’s where his money was going.

  “Got a smoke, John?” Turpin said, breathing beer fumes over him.

  “I don’t smoke,” Adam said, handing over the money and watching as Turpin laboriously counted it.

  “You’re short. I said £300.”

  “You said two. Like the last time.”

  “It always goes up a bit, John. Bad boy. Vince is not well pleased.”

  “You said two. It’s not my fault.”

  “Tell you what, sunshine. You must have a credit card now you’ve got so successful. Let’s go to a cash-point—see how much we can get—I’m in need of funds, as they say.”

  “No, this is it. It’s finished.”

  Turpin sighed histrionically. “You’re making it very easy for me to earn two grand, John. I’ll just call Ugly Bugger. Give him your scooter number. Where is it, by the way, you sold it?” Turpin prattled on, drunkenly verbose, and Adam was thinking: of course, of course, of course—he’s already told him. He’s got his two grand already. Why would Turpin do the honourable thing? Not in Turpin’s life, not his way of dealing with the world. He tuned back in to hear Turpin saying, “…and I can get the money from you or I can get it from him. I got his phone number. Call him up, give him the licence plate. Bingo. Two thousand pounds to Mr Turpin, thank you very much. Makes no odds to me.”

  Adam thought fast: he wanted to get away from here, away from the triangle. Was it worth the risk of alienating Turpin for another £100? He should keep him sweet: it would give him more time, more time to figure out how to erase the Primo Belem trail once and for all—one final bit of security. But maybe he was safe—this man hunting him, whoever he was, wouldn’t work for nothing. And if Calenture-Deutz had gone to the wall—