‘Jesus H. Christ,’ he said quietly. ‘You really want this?’
‘Yes.’
He gave me a hard look.
‘Chief, are you sure this is best for World News? Not just forgetting Paul Sellinger?’
‘Yes, I’m quite sure. It’ll have to happen in the end. I may as well use it as a tactic.’
Cox glanced down the list again.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I guess you’re right. It is going to come to that in the end.’
Next, I walked down the corridor to see Jopling. He was in his office having breakfast, and his personal bone china tea service was set out fastidiously on a little side table beside the electronic calculator which was his favorite office toy. He too had shaved and changed and I could see he was making an effort to hide his disappointment.
‘John, I’m sorry,’ he said, when I walked in. ‘That call yesterday must have pretty well shattered you.’
‘For a while. It passed. I suppose I always knew it couldn’t be that easy.’ I handed him the second envelope.
‘Nick, I’m sorry to scramble your brains with jet lag, but I need you back over the Atlantic. I want you in Toronto by tonight. Earlier if you can. Take the morning Concorde to New York, then the Air Canada shuttle. You know whom you’ll be seeing.’
Nick stood up. ‘Yes, I thought it might come to that. I wondered if you’d have the courage. I should have known you would. You know what this might mean for you.’
‘Yes. It’s all covered in the envelope. It’s all set out. If it all goes wrong, it’s my head.’
‘I won’t have an answer before tomorrow.’
‘I know that. That’s why I’m going to stall the Family. I won’t see them before tomorrow morning. Oh, and Nick,’ I said, ‘those notes you made on Paul’s share dealings—the Chad business and buying into the Black Eagle consortium. I’ve copied them out in my own handwriting. I want to show them to Neville Farmer.’
Nick looked surprised.
‘He won’t help. It’s pointless.’
‘Yes, I think he will,’ I said. ‘I’m going to have to make him. I’m afraid I’m going to play it the way Paul would.’
Jopling sighed. ‘God, it’s become a dirty business.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But do your best in Toronto and it may just come out clean in the end.’
I sent a message asking Neville Farmer to come to see me urgently, and as I sat in my office waiting, I thought how much I hated operating like a Sellinger. I’d been very glib with Bob and with Nick about playing by Sellinger rules, but I’d spent a working lifetime fighting against that way of running an organization. I was about to deal with Neville Farmer exactly as Paul would have, by pressure and threat, mixed in with tempting promises or at least hints of career rewards.
Farmer didn’t deserve it. He was a Sellinger man, but it wasn’t his fault. He fully deserved his position as head of Economic Services, the third most senior pest in World News; no one could have filled it better, yet without Paul he might never have come anywhere near to that level. Ten years before, he had been a thirty-year-old American commercial reporter, kicking his heels around Brussels, covering the European Community’s wrangling over farm prices which none of the papers in the United States cared about anyway, and playing a lot of tennis to cover his boredom.
Paul Sellinger had met him accidentally and seen his potential immediately. After only one meeting, Paul had spotted Farmer’s commercial shrewdness and realized that he was languishing because he was in the wrong field: he should have been a salesman, not a reporter.
Paul had hired him for Global and taken him back to the States and set him up as marketing manager of a then almost nonexistent department of computer-based information services for banks, corporations, and stockbrokers. Five years later, Farmer was a vice-president of Global and head of the biggest revenue-earning segment of the agency, and after the merger I’d been grateful to have him as head of the two agencies’ combined commercial operations. But our relations had never been easy. Partly, I think, he associated me with his days as a nonentity, which he wanted to forget, and perhaps too he blamed me for not recognizing his talent as Paul had. Also, I knew he had decided that, eventually, I was going to lose the ‘war’ and his future—perhaps as the head of World News-rested in the gift of the Sellingers. He was—and he could hardly be blamed for it—totally a creature of the Sellingers, and because Paul believed he had him bought and paid for, he confided in him more than anyone else in World News. Neville knew more about Sellinger’s financial situation and the interlocking ties which bound WN to the Sellinger Corporation than anyone else, outside the Family, and that was the knowledge I needed now.
When he arrived, he looked slightly ruffled. I didn’t usually summon people as senior as him at short notice; that was more a trick of Paul’s and he did not like it from me.
‘Neville,’ I said, when he was seated, ‘I’d better get straight to the point. The ‘war’ is coming to a climax.’ I gave him a faint smile. ‘I don’t need to tell you which war I’m talking about. Paul and I are about to lock horns—probably for the last time.’
‘John, I really think it’s best if I don’t get involved,’ Farmer said, eyeing me cautiously, aware that I wasn’t usually this blunt about my relations with the Sellingers.
‘It probably is better,’ I said firmly, ‘but I’m afraid it’s not possible. We’re choosing sides. There’s no middle ground.’ I gave him another faint smile. ‘I’m afraid the middle ground has suffered a scorched-earth policy.’
I could see Farmer thought I was bluffing. If Paul had said it, he would have taken it seriously immediately, but he regarded me as the softer—and therefore the safer—of the two to cross. As I looked at him, I decided that was really why I could never warm to Farmer, even though I respected his talent. It’s very hard to empathize with someone who has you tagged as a loser, and Farmer was convinced that was what I was.
It was time to change his mind.
I opened a folder on my desk and passed across the desk the notes that Jopling had prepared on Sellinger’s financial juggling with the Black Eagle consortium, which I’d recopied in my own handwriting.
‘Neville, I’d like to read you this,’ I said. ‘It’s something I want your help with.’
Farmer took the pages and started to read. Halfway down the first one, he looked up, startled. ‘Is this serious?’
‘Read it all first,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll talk.’ When he’d finished, he said, ‘Are you saying this has happened? Frankly, I don’t believe it’s possible.’ Even as he said it, I could feel his doubts and decided to press home quickly.
‘Neville, you and I have never got along all that well,’ I said. ‘I know you don’t think of it as a personality thing. You think I’m a general newsman who doesn’t really understand your problems as well as I should. I would deny that, of course, but that isn’t the issue here. Answer me one question. From your experience of me, would you say I’d be likely to invent something like this, to score over Paul Sellinger?’
Farmer hesitated. ‘No, I wouldn’t have said that.’
‘Then let me ask you a second question. If what was on that paper were true, do you think it’s likely Paul Sellinger would be allowed to survive—in World News, or elsewhere, for that matter?’
‘No, I wouldn’t say so. But can you prove this?’
‘Not entirely, no.’
Farmer started to get up. ‘Then it is better if I don’t get involved,’ he said. ‘I don’t know whether it’s true and frankly, I don’t want to know.’
‘Sit down, please, Neville,’ I said firmly. ‘I don’t think you have the position clear. Paul Sellinger is about to go down the tubes. His men will go with him.’
‘I’m not just his man,’ Farmer snapped. ‘I built Econ. I sweated for five bloody years. I’ve earned my position.’
‘I hope the board sees it that way after the Sellinger shambles is over. I’ll do my best to reassure
them. It could be difficult. You’re known to be very close to the Family.’
‘Are you so sure you’re going to survive? You could both be out, you know.’
‘Perhaps. I admit that backing me isn’t a racing certainty, but frankly, backing Paul is an absurdity if you even half-believe what’s on that paper.’
‘And if you win?’
‘There’ll be many changes in the company. New opportunities. In the restructuring, Economic Services may gain in prestige. I’d like to think you’d be around to enjoy the fruits, after all your years of work.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Very little,’ I said. ‘I just want you to speculate for me. If Paul Sellinger had done exactly what is on that paper, whom would he have used?’
Farmer looked at the notes. ‘You’ve practically got them already. Whoever did this knew what he was talking about. I presume it was Jopling.’
‘Practically isn’t good enough,’ I said. ‘I want names. I want three or four people Paul would rely on to do the wheeling and dealing for him. That’s all I want, Neville. A bit of speculation. Three or four names.’ I looked at him squarely. ‘Names you’re willing to bet your career on.’
Farmer took the paper and was about to start to write. Then he changed his mind. ‘You’d better write them,’ he said. ‘The main one has to be Billy Slade. Has to be. This has Billy’s name written all over it. Karl Rathburg. Joe Kaminski. Ray Weldon.’
I made him give me the names of the firms and the addresses, then I read them back to him to make sure there were no mistakes.
‘Neville, there’s just one more thing,’ I said, as he got up to leave. ‘I won’t reveal this conversation to anyone. You have my word. If it comes out from your side, I’ll have to assume that you were in collusion with Paul in the dealing. If that were believed on Wall Street, we couldn’t just be worried about your future in World News. For both our sakes, don’t let it come to that.’
Next, I decided to see if Nancy and Jennifer were making any progress with the list. I dialed the flat, but it was Pike who came on the line.
‘Best not interrupt for the moment,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a bit of luck. Nancy’s here. Ryder’s people brought her. And there’s another woman. Beth Campbell.’
‘She was on the guest list,’ I said. ‘What’s happening?’ I heard Pike chuckle softly. ‘Right now, your two ladies are in the process of putting the screws on Miss Campbell. Christ, they’d be a credit to the squad. Talk about a tough interrogation. That Nancy, she’s a real so-and-so. They’ve got a Mutt and Jeff routine going. Jennifer’s all sugar and spice and ‘Please won’t you help us, oh please, Beth.’ Then Nancy gives it to her in the ribs and threatens to tell her husband all kinds of shit about the party. Beautiful stuff.’
‘Shall I come over?’
‘Not yet. Leave it to the lasses. I’ll call you when we’re ready.’
I waited almost an hour and when I did finally go to the flat, I immediately recognized Beth Campbell. I’d never actually met her, but I had glimpsed her, at about three o’clock in the morning on the night of the party. I had left Jennifer in the sleeping bag in the attic and gone quietly down to the kitchen to look for some food. Beth Campbell had been on the same mission but while I had dressed to come down, she had wandered in wearing only a towel. She’d been clutching it around her body but she’d been too high to realize that it had slipped around to the side, and I’d had in my mind ever since the party the haunting image of a luxuriant pubic bush in a V-shaped frame formed by the two edges of the towel.
When Pike let me in, I saw the woman sitting with Seagull but before I could go in, Nancy came into the hall.
‘Be very careful,’ she whispered. ‘Be nice to her. Take Jennifer’s side. I’m being the heavy. Use all your charm. I think she’s about ready.’
When I went in, she showed no sign of recognizing me. Seagull explained who I was and that I was in the same position they were, and I really needed her help.
‘Beth, tell us again about the sleeping-bag game,’ she said. ‘What happened with Louise.’
‘Louise was high. She agreed to play and she wound up with Rex Stainton. They stayed together for a while, but Louise didn’t want to carry on… she…’ Beth broke off. ‘I really don’t think I can go on with this.’
‘Beth, for Christ’s sake, stop being so coy,’ Nancy broke in sharply. ‘Tell John what you told us. That Rex is a lousy fuck and Louise got bored and threw him out of the bag. Then what?’
Beth hesitated for a long moment, then she said nervously, ‘I was bored too. I went off with Louise.’
‘Off where?’ Nancy snapped.
‘To my place. We went home together.’
‘Then what happened finally?’ Seagull said soothingly. ‘Just tell us the last bit. About the supermarket.’
‘We didn’t have anything for breakfast. Louise was hungry, so we went down to the Asian supermarket to get some food. Louise was still a bit hung over. She wasn’t really awake properly and she just stepped under a bus. She was killed instantly.’
‘Just as the police report said.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why in God’s name didn’t you say so?’ Nancy said. ‘You’ve never told the police that.’
‘I ran away. I didn’t want to admit I was at the party. My husband didn’t know…’
‘But he does now.’
‘Yes.’
‘So why didn’t you tell them when they came back to you?’
Beth sat very still, looking down at her knees.
‘I didn’t want my husband to know Louise had been with me. He knows … he knows I get fed up with men sometimes.’
Nancy flashed me a quick glance and I knew it was time to pick up the cue.
‘Beth,’ I said gently, ‘I really don’t think that’s the issue here. You and Louise were two friends who met at the party and went home to rest afterwards. There’s nothing very wrong about that. Whatever happened in your flat is strictly your business. All that matters is that you saw Louise knocked down by the bus. Would you be willing to testify to that much?’
‘Testify where?’ ‘
‘Just an affidavit,’ Pike said quickly. ‘It would never need to come to court.’
Beth looked nervously at Nancy.
‘I suppose I must.’
‘Yes,’ Nancy said firmly. ‘You’re damn right you must.’
I left them to prepare it and Pike took me back into the hall.
‘I’ll get it to Kent Allenby,’ he said. ‘And a copy for you.’
‘Thanks. It could be a winner.’
Pike grinned. ‘Don’t thank me. Thank your womenfolk. Christ, I hope they never get together and gang up on me. Or you, for that matter.’
Pike opened the door.
‘Well, mister, are you ready for them?’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ I said, ‘but I’m as ready as I’m going to be.’
24
As I watched Jacob Sellinger’s limousine coming down Samman’s Lane, I thought: ‘Christ, in the old days, the potholes would have broken both his legs.’ Anyone who had ever done business with the Family knew that the back of the huge Cadillac was padded with thick foam rubber to prevent Jacob from injuring himself. No one knew exactly what disease the old man suffered from, but it had caused wasting of the bones until his frame was as fragile as an anorexic’s.
He also suffered bouts of faintness and sometimes, while out driving, he would simply keel over and disappear onto the floor of the car. Out of pride, he refused to travel with a nurse in attendance, but after one particularly serious fall, the Family had forced him to accept a compromise. Now—in a bizarre twist on the usual recruitment of security personnel—the Sellingers had hired a driver who looked rugged enough to be a bodyguard but was in fact a male nurse.
I watched the car come down the lane from the east wing of Samman’s, where I had been installed with Cox for the past hour waiting for negotiations to beg
in. A fire had destroyed the center of the old farm sometime in the eighteenth century and it had been rebuilt almost in two separate parts, the east and west wings. They were joined by a long corridor, which swelled in the middle into a large drawing room with views over both sides of the estate.
Now we were arranged like knights before a tournament, each with one wing as his tent, preparing to lunge down the corridor to clash in the central drawing room. But thus far there had been no combat. I had refused an invitation to Samman’s on the previous evening, then after much stalling and arguing, had agreed to come at nine o’clock that morning. I had brought no staff, other than Cox and one of Ryder’s men who had swept our section of the house for bugs. The electronic expert had left and I was ready for the first meeting when Cox had spotted the patriarch’s limousine leaving the main drive of the house.
We might have thought he was going away from the talks, had Ryder’s surveillance team not briefed us about the comings and goings of the previous day. The limousine, I knew already, was the patriarch’s sanctuary. In New York, it was his preferred place for doing business and he also used it to drive around Manhattan, thinking or working on his files. Ever since his illness, he had come to hate offices. He could no longer walk and he felt his wheelchair humiliated him, so the limousine had become his symbol of freedom. At ninety, he always gave the appearance of spending his last day on earth, but it was said—as a grim joke within the Family—that he was planning to park the limousine at the graveside for the funerals of Paul and Robert.
At Samman’s he had taken to going out with each of the brothers in turn. According to the surveillance team, the three had never been out together. It was always Jacob and Paul, then Jacob and Robert, separate and in strict succession.
‘I know Jacob’s problem,’ I said to Cox. ‘I used to have two dogs like Robert and Paul. They were too much trouble to be walked together because they fought all the time, but if you exercised one for a yard longer than the other, the jealousy was incredible and they’d sulk and bite each other, and me as well, if I didn’t watch out.’
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