Gilded Edge, The

by Miller, Danny

  ‘You think much about murder Mr Goldsachs?’

  ‘One uses the language of violence so frequently in business – make a killing, liquidate, bury the opposition, blood on the carpet – that you do wonder if you’ve actually got the guts to perform the act itself.’

  ‘Killing’s quite a preoccupation with your friend Mr Asprey. Theoretically, of course, and on a grander scale. He proposes earthquakes, H bombs and homicidal despots to alleviate the problems of overpopulation.’

  The magnate shook his head, more in a gesture of good-hearted patronage than in disagreement. ‘Yes, what’s it up to currently? Two hundred and fifty million?’

  ‘Minus one, right now.’

  Goldsachs made with the eyes again and delivered the dissecting stare.

  ‘Save me your looks, Mr Goldsachs. This isn’t the boardroom. Hitler had the same ideas, and your good friend Asprey is clearly a fan. Just wondering how that squares with you?’

  ‘Divide et impera. Do you know what—’

  ‘Divide and rule. Boccalini’s defining principle for politics, warfare and economics.’

  The industrialist, sitting so comfortably on his sofa, now looked uncomfortably wrong-footed. He weighed Vince up with fresh eyes.

  ‘I read law at university,’ said Vince.

  ‘I knew there was something about you.’

  Vince felt a tangible shift in the room. Not seismic, but enough to dislodge the look of distaste that Goldsachs had on his face for the young detective. He was now eyeing him up like a potential acquisition. He had assimilated and dismissed Vince too quickly, and he knew it. It was a mistake, and Goldsachs didn’t like making mistakes.

  ‘I wasn’t a good student,’ he confided. ‘I left Eton at sixteen, had a couple of years in the army, then went straight into business. My plan was to make enough money that if I needed to know something, I’d pay some don to come and read to me in private.’

  ‘Standing on one leg, I’d imagine. Money buys you everything.’

  ‘But not friends. I’m loyal to my friends. And your little attempt to divide me and Aspers won’t work. Ours is a cloudless friendship, a love that is forever May. You always make enemies in business, Mr Treadwell. If you’re doing it well, that’s par for the course; it’s the free-market competitive nature of it. And me and my friends do it better than most. As for one of us being somehow responsible for Johnny’s death – which, let’s face it, is what you’re sniffing around for – well, you just don’t get it. Johnny was one of us. And there aren’t many of us around. It’s a tribal thing, Treadwell. We gambled together, fought and argued together, and occasionally shared women. But we were always the best of friends, who had each other’s well-being very much at heart. And if I knew who killed him, well, I might satisfy that lingering curiosity of mine – by killing them myself.’ Goldsachs gave three slow and solemn nods at the memory of his dead friend and continued, with some warmth in his voice, ‘I shall miss him, the Johnny of old. He was damn fine company, and very, very funny when the mood was on him, which it was most of the time. That’s why Aspers loved having him at the club, a supreme raconteur.’

  ‘Johnny the Joker, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, always the joker,’ Goldsachs murmured wistfully. The tycoon then slapped his thigh as if to break himself out of this melancholy, abruptly stood up, and said forcefully, ‘Let me show you something! You know, I had a favourite uncle called Vincent . . . your name is Vincent, isn’t it?’

  Vince said it was. He’d noticed how Goldsachs had slowly eroded the ‘Detective’ title over the course of their conversation.

  ‘Yes, Vincent, I think you will appreciate this!’

  He followed Goldsachs up some steps to the mezzanine tier of the study. Standing in the centre of the room was an oblong plinth-type affair, about the same size and dimensions as a professional snooker table and made out of a blond wood.

  ‘You admired the dome on the house. Whilst its aesthetic value is priceless, it has a practical purpose too. Solar panels fitted to it provide energy, meaning, in laymen’s terms, that it heats the boiler! It’s new technology. The chief reason for making money, Vincent, is to make a difference. And that’s why I make more than most, because I believe I can do more than most!

  ‘The ecology fascinates me, not only as a member of the human race but as a free-market businessman. It is, quite literally, the future, representing a whole new global marketplace. Since the rise of the industrial age, we’ve been voraciously eating up our resources. The road to progress has ironically become an irrefutable march towards our own demise. Overpopulation, food shortages, energy crises – yet the earth is a precious and limited resource. Believe me, I’ve spoken to scientists the world over who are convinced that in thirty to forty years’ time – if both sides can refrain from dropping the bomb on each other and we don’t blow ourselves up – the energy crisis and the pollution of the very air we breathe will become the world’s biggest issue! Are you with me, Vincent?’

  Vince wasn’t with him; he thought the man was sounding like a nut job. He’d never heard anything like it, but he nodded along. And Goldsachs, enthused and full of energy, just full of it, continued.

  ‘Oil, that most precious of commodities, has its prices going through the roof, and its major source is an increasingly unstable region. Coal is unsustainable, since the filth it produces is gradually choking the world. So, we will need to find new energy sources – and there is only one place to look. It’s the greatest untapped source of energy of all time: the one right at the centre of our solar system!’

  With his fiercely beaming eyes, Goldsachs looked at Vince expectantly for the answer.

  Vince took a wild guess: ‘The sun?’

  ‘That’s what I’m looking into, Vincent. The sun.’

  ‘It’s recommended you don’t, as it’ll blind you.’

  Goldsachs wasn’t listening. Apart from heavily prompted answers to endorse his points, he really hadn’t factored Vince into this one-way conversation.

  ‘The sun indeed. That is where I intend to invest next – in technology and materials that can capture that ultimate energy. This house is just a prototype, a doll’s house if you will, compared to the version I plan on building. It’s here we’ll gather together the finest brains in the field, in order to capture the power of the sun!’

  ‘Didn’t Icarus try the same thing? But without your budget, obviously.’

  Again no reaction from the tycoon. Clearly his own vision wasn’t just blinding him; it was deafening him too. His thousand-watt eyes were lit up brighter than the fiery star he was determined to win control of. He picked up a device that looked like a radio receiver and was about the size of a house brick. He aimed the long aerial protruding from it at the large boxy table nearby. On the press of a red button, the table top began to electronically slide open. A scaled-down model of what looked a coastal area slowly began to rise up until it rested flush with the table top. What became immediately recognizable was the type of house Vince was standing in. But the model on the table portrayed a larger version of it, a much larger version with not just one rotunda but six. An enormous dome rose in the middle, with five smaller ones orbiting it on the various wings of the house. There were other domes, too: three huge skeletal glasshouse structures, like circus big tops, that contained what seemed to be model trees and plants and foliage. Another area contained a zoo, even bigger than London zoo – more like a game reserve where the animals (plastic model figures) came in two by two. And a lake with a giant aviary sitting on an island in the middle. The whole place was a verdant paradise covered in lush foliage, tall trees with Tarzanesque hanging vines, and even a rocky waterfall. It looked like a Hollywood version of a jungle, or a tourist trip up the Amazon. Or just a lot of fun if you were ten years old and liked toys. But this was no toy.

  ‘My new home. Offshore the country is oil rich, excellent for the short term. It’s got good soil, mineral rich for sustainable farming and vegetation. And it�
��s a perfect environment for the breeding of rare animals, and lots of . . . Shit! . . . Shit! Shit! Shit!’

  That wasn’t exactly how it sounded, for Goldsachs wasn’t planning on breeding lots of shit. He was merely swearing at the table. Because the mechanism had obviously broken. Technology was letting the great man down. The model of Goldsachs’ Xanadu was yo-yoing up and down.

  Vince stood back and concentrated on scratching a fictitious itch on his nose, in an attempt to hide the grin that was spreading across his face, as Goldsachs began to frantically stab a stately finger at the red button. Nothing. It got worse, in fact. The table top began to open and close at a comical speed. Goldsachs’ legendary temper then began to emerge. His golden tan became lavishly luminous, he was burning up, going through the entire-colour spectrum of rage, before settling somewhere between puce and blue. His head seemed to hunker down into the broad bulk of his shoulders.

  ‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’ was followed by worse, worse, much worse.

  It was then, obviously hearing the commotion and the swearing, that a very attractive, petite Frenchwoman with short black hair and big Betty Boop eyes, bustled into the room and ushered Vince out of it. She was obviously the visionary’s wife, or mistress, or secretary, or at least two out of those three, and had herself the foresight to see that it would be best if Vince left now. As she guided him by the arm, she explained in breathy broken English (which didn’t need fixing, because it sounded completely charming and very sexy) that there was no use trying to talk to Goldsachs now; once he was in this kind of mood, it was damage limitation.

  Vince saw what she meant. He left with the sight of Goldsachs grabbing an expensive piece of modern-design furniture, meant for sitting on and talking about, and hoisting it up into the air and then sending it crashing down on to the model. The one blow destroyed his Shangri-la, smashing his golden domes, and sent Dinky Toy-sized figures of men and women and beasts of the field flying into the air. Goldsachs’ cold war nightmare (and everyone else’s for that matter) had come true. It was too late for the scientists and their new technologies to save his brave new world.

  Goldsachs had dropped the bomb.

  CHAPTER 19

  Another part of the city, away from the outer zone of picturesque Richmond, and right into the heart of the matter. The epicentre. Smack bang in the middle of everything. One of the most talked-about thoroughfares in London town. The place where the British Invasion came to arm and swathe itself. Carnaby Street, or just off. In Beak Street, to be precise, and the photographic studios of the Honourable Nicholas Raphael Evelyn DeVane. Of course, the name on his business card had slimmed him down to plain old proletariat Nicky DeVane.

  It was four p.m. as Vince walked down Carnaby Street, and this rich little vein of central London was doing cracking business. Mods were still the order of the day, but the hair was well and truly creeping over the collars now, and the gear was getting a little louder, a little more lairy. There were braided military tunics, candy-striped boating jackets, Paisley-print shirts, and lots of things with Union Jacks on them. In fact Union Jacks seemed to be everywhere. England may no longer be a great power on the world stage, but it was finding new ways to assert itself and fly the flag, in music, culture and clothes.

  Vince climbed the stairs to the Beak Street studio, and had one of those surreal little moments that capture time and place perfectly. Brian Jones, with his unmistakable mop of blond hair, and a girl (equally blonde) were making their way down the stairs. They both wore wraparound shades and were giggling as if they didn’t have a care in the world, and to Vince’s mind they probably didn’t. Vince stood aside as they wafted downwards arm in arm, with broad smiles on their pretty little faces. Vince couldn’t tell if they were smiling at him or just the planetary arrangements that had momentarily placed them right at the centre of everything. He watched as their stardust disappeared out through the door to the waiting car. It was exotic air Vince had breathed for that brief moment – they were both smoking joints. He imagined the pinch, and he wondered sometimes if he was cut out for this work, because most coppers would have been all over that little opportunity, and the publicity that came with it. But nicking potheads held absolutely no interest for Vince, no matter who they were. Two more long-limbed girls came down the stairs next, with bright-eyed and bushy-tailed enthusiasm. He assumed they were models; they had that sense of otherness about them that other girls just don’t have.

  Vince climbed to the third floor and knocked on the industrial-looking door. An unsmiling girl dressed in black, with black shades and a lopsided bob haircut, answered it with all the welcoming enthusiasm of a mortician. Vince introduced himself and stated his business, without flashing his badge, and was let in. Still she didn’t smile, but she did ask if he wanted a cup of coffee. He said that he did, and she strode purposefully off to make it. And was never to be seen again, with or without coffee.

  The studio was just as Vince had imagined it would be. Painted matt white with high ceilings and long windows. Lots of lighting equipment rigged up on the ceiling like a theatre, and tall freestanding arc lamps that stood around looking impressive, expensive and technical, with white and silver foiled umbrellas mushrooming off them, presumably for reflective purposes, not decorative, but they looked good anyway. There were painted backdrops and props, and racks of clothes and the occasional cigarette butt crushed out on the floor. Vince went over to where a very pleasing noise emanated, that of girls giggling.

  Nicky DeVane was showing a card trick to two models dressed in identical long sequinned body-hugging gowns. They stood towering over him, drinking champagne from Styrofoam cups and sharing a long oily hash joint. Vince waited for DeVane to finish his card trick, which he did to gasps of wonderment and whoops and kisses and hugs from his gorgeously gangly and giggling audience. It was a neat performance.

  ‘Mr DeVane, I’m Detective Vince Treadwell,’ he said, stepping out from behind a rack of clothes and showing the now turned faces his badge. They froze like a freshly snapped photograph, and said nothing, but their mouths all formed perfectly shaped Os. Vince, by way of defusing their fear of being busted on a dope charge, stated his intention. ‘I’ve come to talk to you about Mr Beresford, that’s all.’

  On this, and realizing it wasn’t a stunt, they got all three-dimensional again and sprang back to life. The joint was quickly deposited in a Styrofoam cup, and long slim hands pointlessly fluttered the air in front of them, as if to disperse the illicit smoke. Vince smiled.

  Five minutes later, he was standing in Nicky DeVane’s private office, which was a partitioned-off section of the studio with a couple of folding metal chairs, a filing cabinet, and a long trestle table cluttered with papers, magazines and lots of photos of lots of gorgeous women in lots of different outfits.

  ‘You don’t look like a policeman,’ said Nicky DeVane, who stood leaning against the trestle table. ‘Which can be rather, uh, disorientating. I thought you were with one of the girls at first. You’ve got good bones. You’d take a good photo.’

  ‘And you, if I may say, look every inch the photographer.’

  Size-wise, Nicky DeVane was the runt of the Montcler litter. Depending on the extravagancies of his footwear, he was around five foot six, slender, sprightly-looking, but with a round cherubic face and large brown eyes. Shiny brown curls were gathered under a peaked corduroy cap. The rest of his ensemble consisted of a Paisley button-down collar shirt, a pair of tight blue cords matching the cap that he was wearing, and black Cuban-heeled chisel-toed boots with nifty side zips. This was all out of sorts with the rest of the Montcler set, with their sombre business suits, or those dinner-jacketed figures assembled in the photo. But this was Carnaby Street, and he was a photographer, so his fashionably flamboyant garb could be viewed as merely the overalls of his profession.

  Nicky DeVane took off his cap and chucked it on the table. He then ruffled his curly hair and said, ‘Well, yes, just keeping up appearances,’ then almost apologetically, �
�You have to look the part.’

  ‘Speaking of which, was that who I thought it was on the stairs?’

  Knowing immediately who Vince meant, DeVane said, ‘Brian just dropped by. He’s a chum. There’s always a lot of people dropping in and hanging out here.’ He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘It’s the location, of course. I’m thinking of moving actually, so I can get more work done.’

  Nicky DeVane then took on a look of real concern to replace the seemingly frivolous one he had previously and asked, ‘Isabel, how is she?’

  ‘She’s doing better now than she was. Mainly because she’s beginning to believe she’s innocent.’As Vince said this, he searched DeVane’s face for a reaction, signs of either relief or of concern. But nothing came. ‘She told me a little about you – and of course I saw your flowers at the hospital. A dozen red roses.’

  Nicky DeVane caught the snag in Vince’s voice. ‘You think that strange, Detective? It’s no secret that I love Isabel. Always have.’

  Vince, equally matter-of-factly, ‘Enough to kill Johnny Beresford over?’

  ‘Let’s just say this, if anyone tried to hurt Isabel, then yes, I would. Anyone. I’ve known her all my life. When you’ve known someone as a little girl, that never leaves you. They, and you, remain innocent, somehow, through it all.’

  ‘She speaks very highly of you, too.’

  ‘Do you know about her mother, Detective?’

  ‘Only what I read in the papers.’

  ‘Then let me fill you in on Isabel’s mother Jessica. Jessica Dallowmain, to give her maiden name, was an American, of the famous Dallowmains of Boston. A frightfully rich brood, with a lineage going back, oh, about as long as the work desk I have in my study. But believe me, Detective, those Bostonians know a thing or two about being snobs – they can out-snob a Brit at a hundred paces! Anyway, Jessica left Isabel’s father when Isabel was just eight or nine. She ran off with an Argentinian polo player. That was no surprise, because there were other men before that, lots of them. Spanish bullfighters, Ecuadorian racing drivers, Tunisian tennis players . . . She suffered from tuberculosis and, apparently, one of the side effects is that it makes you incredibly promiscuous. Whether that’s true or not, I’m no doctor, but Jessica was recklessly randy, uncontrollable, and frankly mad. Lord Saxmore-Blaine had to go to extreme measures to cover it all up – because of scandal, blackmail, she was open to the lot. It was a full-time job keeping her misdemeanours under wraps. Poor old sod, there must have been a sense of relief when she did eventually end it all. She’d tried before, you see: various aborted hangings, a failed wrist slashing, and some underwhelming overdoses.