The Green Flash

by Winston Graham

  Was I tiring of her? It hadn’t occurred to me before. Perhaps I should take the thirty grand and run.

  She said: ‘Did you come to see me about anything, David? Anything special, I mean?’

  ‘Nothing that won’t wait,’ I said. ‘You’ll be fine by Monday.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll be fine by Monday.’

  II

  She was not fine by Monday but she was about. And still I didn’t take the pin out. And neither it seemed did John. I wondered if he was bluffing. He hadn’t exactly got a full house. Maybe he thought I was still considering his bribe. And why did I put it off? I’d never been one to care about a row.

  Shona didn’t go fencing on Tuesday so I went on my own, interested to see if Mr Crosnier’s books had done me any good. With Shona absent Erica was more impudent with me than ever, and I could see she was all ready for the come-on. I think she just fancied a bit of fun and thought I’d do – it wasn’t more sultry or lustful than that. I didn’t take her up on the glances, but we enjoyed the evening and there was more laughter and joking all round than there were parries or feints. Yet she’d only just come back from a big tournament in Paris, and there was an international bout due in London in two weeks’ time, when Miss Lease was fencing for England.

  On Thursday we had our board meeting at Stevenage, and Shona seemed herself again, thrusting like the natural fencer she was at the weak points of an argument; giving everyone a chance to have their say, then suddenly, annoyingly, making up her own mind, and that was that. I’d done a report about Bristol which everybody had had, generally trying to be impartial but summing up by recommending that two of their men should come to Stevenage to bring samples and to get down to development and terms. There was a bit of general talk, and the meeting seemed to think that what I said was OK.

  At this stage Shona turned to John and said: ‘You have not put in any report of your own, John. Can we take it you agree with David’s?’

  John, who had not looked at me throughout the meeting, said: ‘Not at all. I totally disagree with it.’

  ‘D’you mean you don’t think TBM Ltd have a proposition worth offering us?’

  ‘Just that. I thought their product was no good at all.’

  There was a longish silence. Then everybody began to talk at once.

  Shona, looking from one to the other of us, finally said: ‘Clearly we need a third opinion. Certainly samples should be sent here before we take any more positive steps.’

  ‘I should welcome that,’ I said, seeing she had really come down on my side.

  She was looking grim today, and when the meeting ended and she asked me to stay behind I thought, well, this is it, and he’s got his oar in first. But instead she took an Evening Standard off the table and said: ‘Have you seen this, David?’

  I hadn’t. The item was headed: ‘Fatal accident on M6. Heir to baronetcy dies in early morning crash.’

  My eyes went down the page.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘I heard it on the one o’clock news.’

  I read:

  Victim of an accident on the M6 near Sedbergh was Dr Malcolm Kilclair Abden, aged 39, son and heir of Sir Charles Abden, baronet, of Lochfiern, Ross and Cromarty. According to an eye witness, who had just been overtaken, the car, driven by Dr Abden, a white sports car, which was travelling at high speed, appeared to have a blowout in a front tyre, and the driver lost control and turned over, ploughing through to the northbound carriageway. At the time, 6.30 a.m., the motorway was quiet and no other cars were involved. Dr Abden, who was an ex-Member of Parliament for North Banff, will be well remembered for his appearances on radio and television, where his forthright views always attracted attention. He leaves a widow and four children.

  ‘Good grief,’ I said. ‘That’s tough.’

  She said: ‘It must be in the family.’

  ‘What must?’

  ‘Driving crazy. Your father was never happier than when he was on a racetrack or doing sixty in a built-up area.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘I’d forgotten.’ I stared at the paper. ‘Well, well. Too bad … At least he died in his bed. My father, I mean. Or as near his bed as made no matter.’

  ‘Perhaps if you have a mania for speed it is more dignified to have a blow-out on a motorway.’

  I looked at her. If you have a mania for drink it’s undignified to fall down in your own kitchen. ‘It’s a pity about Malcolm, but I’m not going to waste any tears.’

  ‘At Erica’s dinner party I liked him.’

  ‘Well, it’s a hard thing to say of a cousin, but in fact I didn’t actually dislike him.’

  ‘You might waste thought on his fate, if not tears. John said you drove most recklessly when you took him to Bristol last week.’

  ‘So he’s told you about our visit – before today, I mean.’

  ‘Oh yes. But I wanted it aired at the meeting. Anyway I would take your opinion in preference to his. It is agreed by everyone that we need a new line, to be ready in a couple of years.’

  I said: ‘ I wonder what the hell he was doing.’

  ‘Who? Oh … It is simple. He was driving too fast.’

  ‘The one thing I would have reckoned on from the few conversations I had with him was that he was a good driver.’

  ‘You cannot take every precaution against a blow-out, as they call it.’

  ‘Hm. Good drivers don’t neglect their tyres.’

  III

  So I ducked another opportunity, and it was a couple of days more before the ice cracked. I was in my office dictating a reply to a high-class Manchester store who had invited us to take a stand at a ‘Year of Beauty’ exhibition they were getting up for the early months of the following year. They said they had assessed our contribution to the exhibition at £3000 and informed us that Rubinstein and Arden and Revlon had already agreed their larger contributions. I had got to know most of my opposite numbers in the other firms, so I rang Edward Tolston at Rubinstein and found, as I expected, that he hadn’t agreed anything yet, and I guessed none of the other firms had either. As an ex-conman I’m always quick to recognize a con when I see it. The outcome of my reply to the store would be likely to end business between us for a year or two while they got over the affront, but there were other good outlets.

  Shona came in and I nodded to my secretary and she left. Madame had certainly quite recovered her health and her austere, pallid good looks. Presumably she was off out to lunch somewhere, because the Gucci slacks and the ponytail had been put aside for a short black velvet frock with a crimson satin slash, and her hair was up and all a-glint with a recent brushing.

  ‘David,’ she said quietly, ‘ I gather you have been cheating us.’

  I put down the biro I had been gnawing. Biros are hard things to chew and unsatisfactory, you can’t get splinters off them.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, you must explain to me.’

  ‘I suppose John has been telling you about this company I have floated.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was low-key so far. ‘Kilclair Ltd.’

  ‘Who are the directors?’

  ‘Myself, Van Morris, and that chap Derek Jones.’

  ‘With Roger Manpole in the background?’

  ‘No. You ought to know better than that.’

  ‘So it is really you and two figureheads.’

  ‘If you like to look at it that way.’

  ‘A company created to buy our surplus products cheap and re-sell them at a profit.’

  ‘Resell them where they can do no harm. In the north-country factory shops.’

  ‘They do every sort of harm. I had already had complaints from the big shops up there, but thought it was just a few isolated parcels which had slipped through somehow.’

  I went to the window and looked out. ‘Shona, d’you recall when we were doing the first reorganization, when we were shifting from Isl
eworth to Stevenage, we had a lot of surplus stock. At least it was a lot for those days. I saw it being loaded into three lorries and I asked Parker what was going to happen to it. He just said that one word: ‘‘Pulped.’’ I couldn’t believe it. Honestly. High-grade packaged lipsticks, soaps, toilet water, perfumes, the lot, all in top nick. I asked him again, hardly able to take it in. Then, just to be sure, I jumped in my car and followed the lorries. They carried them to a dump six miles away near Harlington and tipped them; then a bulldozer came along and crushed them till they literally were pulp. It actually happened, just like that!’

  She said: ‘We all do it. All the most exclusive firms do it. You must know that. It is part of the Limited Distribution System.’

  ‘To keep prices outrageously high.’

  ‘To keep them at their proper level! We have research and development costs to meet! We have to build up support capital against the possible failure of new lines! As you must know, it is the exclusive perfumers who do most of the expensive pioneer work, which the big firms often exploit once a breakthrough has been achieved. That is why what you have done is so unforgivable.’

  I sighed patiently. ‘Look, so far I’ve sold three consignments to Kilclair Ltd. One for two thousand pounds, one for five thousand pounds, one for fifteen thousand. Shona and Co. are therefore twenty-two thousand better off than they would be if the stuff had been sent to be pulped.’

  ‘And by how much is Kilclair Ltd better off?’

  ‘We sold the consignments to a private firm in the north of England who specialize in supplying the factory shops. It’s an ex-perfumery chap who runs it so he understands how to deal with it discreetly.’

  ‘For how much?’

  ‘How much for each package? Five thousand, eight thousand and twenty-five thousand.’

  ‘So Kilclair Ltd is better off – you and your lot – are better off by some … let me see … fifteen thousand pounds. Is that correct?’

  ‘Probably about twelve after deducting expenses.’

  ‘And for that you will throw away your position here and undermine the value of our perfumery products.’

  I said: ‘It can’t affect your general price structure simply to have a few factory workers able to buy your stuff at half-price.’

  ‘It does. And we all agree.’ There was the old femmine whipcord look about her now. ‘Let me tell you a story. Five years ago a consignment of Rubinstein products was sold at about forty per cent of the wholesale price for resale in Indonesia, where Rubinstein have no outlet. But there was a double-cross somewhere and the consignment found its way on to the Swiss market. When Rubinstein heard this they immediately despatched agents to hire people to stand in queues to buy back all their products in the Geneva and Zurich supermarkets where they were going at a reduced price. Not until the last was bought up did the queues cease.’

  ‘It would cost ’ em a fortune,’ I said nastily, considering the mark-up.’

  ‘Maybe. But I will do the same for my products: I understand this last consignment – the large one – has only just gone through.’

  ‘About a month ago.’

  ‘Before you leave you must tell us the name of the firm you sold to and its likely outlets.’

  I said: ‘Before I leave?’

  ‘Before you leave. Then I will have the stuff bought back.’

  ‘There’d be more petulance in that than common sense.’

  ‘That shows your total misunderstanding of the principle involved!’ She paused. ‘Or does it? I wonder. To someone on the outside of the trade this might seem a trivial issue.’ She thumped her hand on the desk. ‘ But you must have known this was unforgivable behaviour. You were not born yesterday! You have been in the business for years, first with Langtons, then with Yardley’s, and now a long time with me. It cannot possibly be that you have behaved this way out of ignorance. Why did you not tell me what you were doing?’

  ‘Because I knew you wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘It was a deliberately underhand manoeuvre by which you arranged to feather your own nest at my expense!’

  ‘I feathered your nest,’ I said, ‘ slightly more than I did my own. You’ve just done your sums. Didn’t you notice? Grow up, woman! Be your age! We’re not living in the nineteenth century.’

  Her pale face flushed; I hadn’t seen it do that before. I suppose I’d used the one unacceptable word. ‘ There are certain standards of business behaviour which are common to most generations, except of course to the conman and the jailbird, who naturally lives only by the ethics of Pentonville. It is really all my own fault I should have known that once a crook always a crook …’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Of course, you have been careful not to overstep the legal mark. Perhaps by your Own twisted reasoning you even really thought you were conferring a favour on me as well as on yourself. The fact that by so doing you undermined the whole fabric of that business confidence by which we all live –’

  ‘Business confidence!’ I spat out. ‘Business con-trick! All retail price maintenance is a con-trick. My Christ, this really is a case of the pot calling the kettle black! When do you want me to leave?’

  ‘As soon as you can clear your desk.’

  ‘That I’ll do with the greatest speed – and pleasure.’

  ‘You think you’re being hard done to,’ she snarled. ‘But just see for yourself! If this gets out, then –’

  ‘As I’m sure you’ll see that it does!’

  ‘If this gets out you’ll not find another high-class cosmetic firm that will look at you, I can assure you of that! Why don’t you go and work for Roger Manpole. That is much more your style.’

  ‘Thanks, but I think I’ll try some more manly occupation.’

  ‘Always concerned with your manliness, aren’t you.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

  ‘Only that people sometimes protest too much. Perhaps a life of crime is what really suits you.’

  ‘It will suit me,’ I said, ‘just for a change, not to be a lapdog to an ageing woman. That will be a happy outcome of –’

  ‘Get out!’ she said. If I had imagined beauty in her face, it wasn’t there now.

  ‘I began to pull open one or two drawers, fish out a few personal possessions. The telephone rang and I snatched it up, shouted, ‘ Not now!’ and banged it down. ‘Perhaps you would have liked to answer it?’ I queried to her taut back.

  ‘Go to the devil!’

  I said: ‘I wonder how you’ll go along without me. Neither Marks nor Leo have the enterprise or drive to take over, and Alice Huntington will be as useful as a filleted plaice.’

  ‘I shall get my own man. There are plenty about. Plenty who will jump at the job!’

  ‘I could draft the advertisement for you,’ I said. ‘But the papers wouldn’t print it.’

  ‘It’s strange,’ she said, ‘ that John was right about you all along. He said you were a weakling who would let me down.’

  I went up to her. She wouldn’t face me, but I faced her. ‘Have a care,’ I said gently. ‘Or I might try to disprove that. But it would be a pity to spoil your looks even more than the jaundice has.’

  ‘Get out!’ she said between her teeth. ‘Get out, get out and get out.’

  Chapter Eleven

  I

  I knew that was the final whistle but, for a day or so after, I hung about in my flat, not quite sure what to do next. You can’t suddenly lose both a top job and a top mistress without feeling the jolt. My teeth ached, but I knew it was no dental problem, just a psychological uppercut.

  Of course I’d done the thing eyes open, knowing she might blow a fuse if she ever got to know. It had been part of the fun, so I could live with myself in this insipid profession, which at heart was based on grossly upped prices, and profits, at the expense of a gullible public. As she no doubt saw, it was cocking a snook at her personally too, and this had been what she couldn’t swallow. I hadn’t quite expect
ed the sort of Hiroshima fallout that had actually occurred, but if that was the way she felt, that was the way; I wasn’t going to argue any more. What I did regret, and what really got under my skin, was the thought that John had got the better of me after all. That rankled. That really rankled.

  After a while, and partly to divert my thoughts, I devoted some little time and consideration to the matter of Malcolm Abden’s death. This too seemed to mean a little more to me than I would have expected. The inquest had been on the Friday, and the report was headed ‘The Killer Tyres’. A Home Office forensic scientist had been called in, and had told the coroner that the tyres on the sports limousine ‘had not been manufactured to an adequate standard’. He had found a jagged nine-inch split in the tread which he was sure could not have been made by the accident. The tyres had done barely five thousand miles. I looked up the type of tyre in a book on new cars, and saw it was one of the new British low-profile jobs with an advanced steel-braced radial design; and it was fitted to four makes of popular luxury car. Somebody in that big tyre firm would be having kittens now.

  I went to see a tyre man I knew. He said: ‘Of course they’ll try to hush it up, pretend the Home Office chap and coroner are alarmists; in a week or two the motoring papers will come up with soothing syrup, you mark my words. They’ll say the tyre was not properly fitted or under-inflated or something, so that the public will soon forget. But I’d like to bet there’s ninety or a hundred thousand of those sets of tyres running around England at the moment, and the firm’ll either have to call ’em all in or have them examined by experts, so as to avoid anything further, A second accident would put ’em out of business – where no doubt they deserve to be, if the truth be told.’

  ‘It won’t bring Malcolm Abden to life again,’ I said. ‘ There should be some way of suing them.’

  ‘Maybe his wife will. Or you?’

  ‘Me?’ I said. ‘No. He’s nothing to me. I scarcely knew him.’

  ‘It’d be a hell of a difficult case, because it boils down to proof, and that’s so hard to come by if heavy damages are pending. However, if you see the widow, tell her to have a chat with her lawyers. The tyre firm might cough up a small fortune to settle out of court and duck the publicity.’