Open Arms
Page 27
‘He’s fine. Tough as old boots.’
‘He isn’t fine. He’s a crook.’
‘Oh Kate, really. Not that again. I do hope you haven’t been encouraging the Overheads to tell tales out of school.’
‘Nothing to do with the civil servants.’ She put down her folder on Jim’s desk. ‘This file is made up of documentation from inside the company. If you want to look at the sections I have highlighted, it points to the fact that he has been involved in illegal arms smuggling, corrupt payments to officials in overseas governments, tax evasion, sanctions busting and unhealthily close links with a Russian associate whose enemies have a habit of disappearing. Liam and the permanent secretary will confirm what I am telling you.’
The Secretary of State maintained his composure remarkably well. ‘That’s quite a charge sheet. If you leave the file with me, I will consider what can be done.’
‘I should say, Jim, that there are several copies. I think you should ask the Red Admiral to clear his desk immediately and pass the papers to the police. Otherwise I may not be able to restrain the people who gave me this material from going straight to the press.’
For the first time since she had known him he was totally lost for words. Eventually he recovered enough to speak. ‘Well, Kate, I take my hat off to you. You have learnt how to survive in the political jungle, and more. I can see that I shall have to ditch my old friend the Admiral. Pity. Basically a good man fallen into bad company.’
‘That isn’t quite all, Jim. There is one very large payment that looks as if it could only be to one person. You. You should check if the bank details correspond to your own. If they don’t, I apologise for jumping to conclusions.’
She was taking a risk. In fact, she had no proof, merely a suspicion. If he called her bluff, she would be in difficulty.
He looked at her for a long time, calculating the odds, she thought. ‘Actually, you are right. It is me. But the money went to the party. I didn’t keep a penny.’
‘I suppose you think that makes it OK. Sorry, Jim. No go.’
With that she left the room.
The Sloane Square flat felt bigger and emptier than he could ever remember. He looked again at that photo with his men, taken before they set off for the Falklands. The open, trusting, confident smiles. That picture often produced tears. But tonight the tears were of self-pity.
The two policemen had been quietly and respectfully spoken: almost gentle in their questioning. But it was painfully clear where they were leading: the lucrative, undeclared, conflicts of interest; the secret accounts; the national secrets passed on for a financial consideration. When it was clear that he could not save himself he tried not to implicate others like the Secretary of State but the officers knew too much already and he finished up dragging his friends down with him under the waves.
When it was all over he picked up the phone to speak to the only people he had left. But Louisiana didn’t want to take the call. The acting Chairman, Colonel Schwarz, was busy. An underling, a new voice, told him that an exit payment was being arranged to his Caymans account. The acting Chairman had decided that, in view of terrorism risk, lax security, embarrassing publicity and the police interest, Britain was no longer a good place to do business. There were big opportunities opening up elsewhere. European operations would be handled in future out of Paris by retired General de Massigny, formerly of the French Defence Ministry and Dassault.
He tried St Petersburg but it was very late, even for an old friend in distress. Orlov yawned: ‘Sorry, Comrade.’
He remembered that he had kept his service revolver locked in the desk drawer.
Acknowledgements
I am exceptionally indebted to my wife Rachel who typed up several drafts and acted as editor and literary critic at various stages of the book, including thinking up the title; to my PA Joan Bennett who also did a prodigious amount of typing; to friends who read drafts and gave constructive criticism and encouragement when I needed it – Matthew, Pippa and Luke Oakeshott, and Pippa Morgan; to my literary agent, Georgina Capel, who has been a source of constant support and good advice; and to the editorial team at Atlantic – Susannah Hamilton, Sara O’Keeffe, Margaret Stead and Tamsin Shelton, who worked hard to get a rough product into publishable form.
Vince Cable was MP for Twickenham from 1997–2015. He was the Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Chancellor in opposition and Deputy Leader, having previously served as Chief Economist for Shell. He was Business Secretary under the Coalition Government from 2010–2015. Cable has published three non-fiction books with Atlantic to critical acclaim: Free Radical, The Storm and After the Storm. Open Arms is his debut novel.
First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2017 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.
Copyright © Vince Cable, 2017
The moral right of Vince Cable to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Hardback ISBN: 978 178 649 1718
E-book ISBN: 978 178 649 1725
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