by Limey Lady
‘We’re prepared for anything,’ the youngster said hotly.
But clearly they weren’t. The older QS silenced him with a glare. ‘I take it you are prepared?’ he said to Geoff.
‘Henry's files are excellent,’ Geoff replied. ‘I can make them into our case over the weekend, without needing any claim consultants. And Henry's already paid for, of course.’
‘How much will it cost?’
‘Do you mean to settle once and for all?’
‘Yes, I mean to settle here and now.’
‘Two hundred thousand,’ Geoff said without hesitation.
‘It's too much. You admitted yourself there are obvious deductions.’
‘Offset by variations and late payment interest,’ Geoff countered. ‘We are rejecting the fifty grand. Are you able to make a better offer?’
‘Can we borrow this office for five minutes?’
Out in the corridor Geoff unobtrusively stretched his legs while Henry spoke with their client. The old legs didn't seem too bad today; maybe not as strong as they used to be, but lots better than they'd been yesterday. And that alarming loss of balance seemed to have gone altogether. If it hadn't been for that strange, tingling sensation in his toes he would have told Penny not to bother the doctor.
‘A hundred and thirty-five thousand would save me,’ the Client said to a suddenly worried-looking Henry. ‘That will cover everything I still have to pay, including your latest invoices. It’ll keep the bank manager happy too. A hundred and fifty is the actual break-even point. Not counting my own wages, because I haven't taken any off this job yet.’
Back in the office the younger QS was sulky and cowed while the elderly solicitor didn't seem to have moved an inch since he'd first sat down.
‘A hundred and twenty thousand,’ the older QS said. ‘Take it or leave it.’
‘Leave it,’ Geoff said immediately. ‘I only wish you were playing with your own pound notes, like our client is.’ Ignoring Henry’s alarm he got up, squeezed the Client's shoulder and headed for the door. He was halfway there, starting to think he'd blown it, when the older QS called him back.
‘I’ll go to one-fifty. And that really is final.’
‘Not as final as my hundred and ninety.’
The older QS glanced at his colleague, who seemed close to tears, and laughed. ‘What sweetener do I need to add to get you to fuck off at a hundred and seventy?’
‘Pay it by CHAPS this afternoon.’
And that had been it. Everyone was happy except the young QS . . . and he was probably the idiot who had mismanaged the site in the first place.
*****
Rick Rodgers had stopped intently listening a while ago. If there had been a window in the “office” he’d have been staring out of it. Because there wasn’t, he was keeping himself awake by watching his three fellow team members, ready to jump in if anyone got too sarky. That was a real possibility, the way things were going.
They were on the fourth floor of a seemingly deserted tower block, somewhere in Camden, obviously a government building; one currently undergoing a major refurb, although not right at that minute. All the workmen must have declared POETS day particularly early.
Fridays in the pub, Rick thought. Go on, what was it made me decide to be a soldier?
The two civilians were straight out of Central Casting, Spooks Department. They were young, clean-shaven and anonymous in their expensively-tailored suits. One of them (Grouchy Spook) was giving his guests a detailed tour through the Official Secrets Act. As if they needed it.
‘Okay,’ the other (Cheerful Spook) said at last, ‘my turn.’
He’d hooked his laptop up to a ceiling-mounted projector which, in the absence of a screen, he aimed at a recently-painted wall. When he clicked it into life it threw up a surprisingly well-defined image.
‘This is our man,’ he said. ‘Anybody recognize him?’
The man was mid-to-late fifties. He was wearing a business suit and was just as anonymous as the spooks.
‘Don’t know him,’ said Beefy. ‘But he’s standing in Regent Street.’
‘Correct,’ said Cheerful. ‘He has a base there.’
‘Very nice,’ Beefy approved. ‘Bet he gets his suits just round the corner.’
‘He can afford Savile Row. He’s what the newspapers call an “oligarch”.’
‘What’s he doing in town? Please tell me he’s buying Crystal Palace.’
‘I’m afraid not. He’s been based here two years now; no hint of him buying any football clubs. He’s not that sort of a guy.’
Cheerful clicked through a sequence of snaps showing the oligarch in various London settings, all of them very upmarket. He always had three or four bodyguards in tow; big, hard guys who looked as if they knew what they were doing.
‘It isn’t a surprise you don’t recognize him,’ Grouchy put in. ‘He’s a very private individual. Even by oligarch standards. Never allows contact with the public. He moves from A to B by blacked-out limo, via the shortest route. You’ll soon get the general.’
‘His name is Grigori Ivanovich,’ Cheerful added. ‘That’s the shortened version, of course. Although, for the purpose of this exercise, we’ll shorten it a bit more and call him “Ivan”.’
Rick exchanged glances with Judd. A sense of humour! Usually these types couldn’t come up with names beyond Player One.
‘Ivan’s doing pretty well for himself,’ the second spook continued. ‘We put him somewhere in the five-to-seven billion range. He’s forty-nine . . .’
‘Must have had a hard life then,’ Judd observed.
‘He has.’ Cheerful favoured his audience with a knowing look. ‘He’s the product of a rather dog-eat-dog environment. He made his early money on the black market, importing jeans; very much in demand in the late 1980s, early 1990s. When Boris Yeltsin wanted entrepreneurs to run his privatised businesses, he went straight for guys like Ivan.’
Rick was still trying not to be jealous about “five-to-seven billion” when the spook clicked up a picture of a stunning blonde in a skin-tight dress.
‘This is Ivana,’ Cheerful said. ‘She’s Ivan’s wife, resident in Moscow. Devotes her time to running the various properties they own there. By all reports she’s world class at spending vast sums of dosh. That’s probably why he keeps her away from London.’
‘What does he do?’ Beefy asked, not taking his eyes off the blonde.
‘He’s in the enviable position where his money simply generates more money; has been for a while now. Or so he would have us believe.’
‘Yeltsin gave him a few oil wells,’ said Grouchy. ‘He got into armaments all on his own.’
‘Armaments,’ Judd echoed,
‘He’s a broker.’ The first spook looked grouchier than ever.
‘What are we talking, AKs into Africa?’
‘No,’ said Cheerful. ‘He’s got beyond basic hardware. Nowadays it’s technology.’
Another keyboard click changed the picture to an equally stunning woman, this one in an even tighter dress and with short, chestnut hair.
‘Meet Anna,’ the second spook said. ‘She’s not married but, to all extents and purposes, she’s Ivan’s London wife. Being here, she’ll see a lot more of him than Ivana does. Although we’re led to believe there are a couple of mistresses to help spread the load.’
Rick reckoned he’d been quiet long enough. ‘Is this all going somewhere?’
‘It’s going to Park Lane.’ Cheerful called up yet another picture, this time of a large, dazzlingly white mansion. ‘Or rather, you are.’
*****
Geoff decided to reward himself with an early lunch and, after a quick passing flirt with the bubbly new receptionist, went out of the main door into The Headrow and turned uphill.
Almost immediately he knew something was wrong; badly wrong. His feet seemed weighed down with lead and his legs had no co-ordination at all. And had he thought he'd cured that loss of balance? Well he hadn't; it was
back, and twice as alarming.
He stopped about twenty yards away from the office, glad to be on the mostly pedestrianized area not least because, as well as staggering uphill, he’d somehow crabbed out to the right. Much further and he’d have been in the bus lane.
Whoa, he thought, suddenly terrified by the two inch drop off the kerb.
As he clumsily turned he realized he was just as far away from the nearest shop front as he was from work. And going downhill seemed worse than impossible. The gentle downslope looked like the side of a mountain.
No, it looked like the side of a very sheer mountain indeed.
What's happening to me? Panic flapped inside him. What the hell is happening?
He had his arms out to keep steady as he stood there like a drunk on stilts. Passers-by were giving him a wide berth, assuming he was paralytic or drugged up . . . or maybe both.
Never mind them, make it to that waste bin. Then rest and find something else to hang on to.
The bin was only four paces away. Geoff took a deep breath and concentrated on keeping upright as he shuffled his feet towards it, one after the other. He was drifting again, to the left this time, as if the bit of slope was pulling him off course. He made the tiniest of corrections but even that was too much for his fragile equilibrium. Suddenly his legs weren’t following orders and he was keeling as he went with them.
Oh no, he thought desperately.
The bin seemed to rush at him. Geoff was already tumbling when it smashed into his thighs and sent him crashing to the ground. He took the worst of the impact on his palms but couldn't stop himself rolling a couple of times in the general muck and grime.
Geoff’s first instinct was to get up and walk on as though nothing had happened. But he couldn't get up; couldn't even get onto his knees. He floundered on the paved surface, trying desperately not to cry out loud. Crawling seemed to be beyond him. He couldn't even make it to the bin where he might (just might) have been able to pull himself up. And the passers-by really were giving him a wide berth now; the empty circle around him had to be ten yards across.
There was one Good Samaritan at large that late Friday morning: a young lady who could not have been much older than his daughter, Sandy. Kneeling beside him, she quickly satisfied herself he was ill rather than drunk then used the force of her personality to make a teenage lad go get help from the office. While they waited she held his hand and told him she was a nurse at St Jimmy’s. She also told him that, if his GP didn’t get him admitted to hospital on Monday, he had to get on to A&E immediately.
‘Do you hear me?’ she said with the mock severity of a born nurse. ‘If your doctor won’t do it, then do it yourself. Airedale A&E will know how to help you, if he doesn’t.’
‘Do you mean Airedale the other side of Keighley? I’m from Bingley.’
‘I know. You told me. And Airedale covers you as well as BRI. That’s where I am telling you to go. I happen to know they will be your best bet.’
He asked her what she thought was wrong with him. She just smiled and said she was sure it wasn’t anything that couldn't be cured.
As assistance arrived she stood and told him to be a good boy while he was in hospital. Henry was fussing around, asking what on earth had happened. Waving him off, Geoff called after the departing nurse, asking her name.
She paused and turned back, the sun at the top of the street behind her, framing her, so his very last impression was of a black silhouette of a woman.
‘Didn't I say?’ she said. ‘I'm Samantha. Take care of yourself, sweetheart.’
Then she was gone.
*****
The first thing Sean noticed was the slinky arse leaning over his red pool table as its owner stretched to take a shot. In spite of his killing headache he did a double take. He prided himself as a connoisseur of women's slinky arses and didn't recognize that as a Kings Head regular. It was definitely not one of the usual Friday lunchtime backsides.
Then the woman completed her shot and straightened up and he saw it was DeeDee. Gutted or what! What right had she got having an arse like that? Older sisters shouldn’t be allowed out looking as slinky as she did.
Not when they were in their early forties.
He nodded to Andy, who was hovering behind the bar. ‘Hello, Party Pooper. Give me my Underberg fix.’
‘How big a fix would you like?’
‘Four. No, make it the full six.’
Andy produced a green box from under the bar and tipped out six small bottles wrapped in brown-paper. As he opened and poured them one after another into a massively outsized wine glass he grinned. ‘Couldn't make it,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Staff let me down and that. Did it go okay?’
Sean's hands were shaking. He was watching the glass filling up, trying to be patient.
‘Excellent,’ he said, ‘except I got too many girls. Most of them spent yesterday swigging down all my champagne and not getting fucked, which wasn't quite what I had in mind.’
‘Didn't Moggs get his ration in?’
Sean laughed shortly. Moggs' still showed the damage inflicted to him years ago by Harry (the cunt) Williamson's cronies, and not just on his face. He didn't let his disfigurement stop him chasing skirt, but he wasn't nearly as successful as he’d been before. He’d grown a reputation for using hired girls to catch up.
‘Yeah,’ Sean said. ‘He must have had all of them at least twice.’
He took the almost brimming wine glass, scowled at the cough medicine-like smell then, psyching up like a weightlifter, threw it down in one. The result was immediate. Every last trace of hangover vanished. He didn't even feel tired anymore which, after two nights without a wink, was little short of miraculous. He jerked his thumb towards the pool table where DeeDee had just won a game and Pat was rewarding her with a kiss.
‘How long have love's young dreamers been in?’
‘They’ve been here a while, ever since opening. They're waiting for you; something to do with some keys.’
‘Oh yeah, I forgot about the keys.’ Sean patted his pockets until he got a jingle. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘I'll try a Tetley’s. And for fuck's sake, don't let me start on the whisky again.’
He joined the pool players as Pat broke for a new game. ‘Hello Debra, you're looking good. I'm glad to see you're giving Party Pooper Number Two a sound thrashing.’
DeeDee eyed him critically. ‘I'd say you were looking good, if it wasn't for the eyes. Piss holes in the snow, I’m afraid.’
‘You should see them from this side,’ Sean said automatically. Then, raising a weak smile: ‘I hear you have come for these.’
DeeDee said thanks as he handed the keys over. ‘How do I find out when Mum will be released? For the funeral, I mean.’
‘I'll make a call. Let you know later this afternoon.’
They stood there awkwardly. For something to say as much as anything else, Sean asked: ‘Is Pat looking after you okay?’
‘He certainly is.’
DeeDee’s brow creased and Sean knew she didn't expect him to like what was coming next. Dear old Sis always had been see-through. He’d rarely needed to use his talent for character assessment to know what she was thinking.
‘Let’s be clear about this, Sean. Pat's more than looking after me. You could say we are together, so it is time to get used to the idea.’
‘That's cool by me,’ he said, impressed with his silky smoothness. ‘Anything else I need to know?’
‘Not much. I'm going to need your help with the names for the invites. And we will have to get together when I have a handle on Mum's finances. I hope you're not expecting millions, by the way.’
‘I'm not expecting anything. In fact I’m ready to chip in for the funeral director.’
‘Don’t worry. I know she had insurance for that.’
‘That sounds about right.’
Another awkward pause ensued.
‘Okay then. If that's it, can I have a quick word with Pat?’ Seeing the old, fierce l
ight in her sexy blue eyes Sean smiled disarmingly. ‘A couple of small business matters, that's all.’
Chapter Nine
(Friday 4th April 2008)
Penny got the call from Henry only minutes before he arrived. Not giving much away, he said Geoff had been taken ill but seemed to be recovering. He was bringing him home anyway, just in case. Be there soon.
Of course she knew without question what had happened, even without the particulars. She was waiting outside as Geoff's BMW pulled up, not in the least consoled to see Henry behind the wheel and Henry's Jaguar following behind, driven by a young woman she didn't recognize.