“How do you mean?”
“Well, that tape … presumably the police have it now. Your involvement with Stone will come out. I wasn’t planning on that.”
He beamed at me. “You mean the tape of my daughter at her riding school nine years ago?”
I stared at him. “That wasn’t the right tape?”
“Give me a bit of credit here, I’m not that stupid.”
“But what if he’d checked what was on it?”
“How? There’s no VHS player at the parcel hub. How many people have one at all these days?”
I shook my head in wonder. “But he would have found out eventually. He would have come after you again.”
He shrugged. “You have to take a risk sometimes. I probably would have thought of something else. He might have calmed down by then.”
I said, “Did you tell the police who he was?”
“No way. They may find out on their own, but that’s not my affair.”
“So how did you account for him driving you here at gunpoint?”
“I just said he’d flipped. He knew I had a compromising tape with him on it, and suddenly he wanted it.” He gave me an ironic smile. “I’m not out of the woods yet, I know that, but my solicitor will know what to do.”
I shook my head in wonder. Would I ever have this kind of presence of mind in such a crisis?
I said, “If he’s put on trial, he might bring you into the frame, just out of spite.”
“But what does he have to gain? He’d have to admit he’s gay. Nothing wrong with that, but I can’t see him wanting it to come out like that. No, I think he’ll keep quiet.”
“And you’re not going to give up the real tape?”
“You must be joking. First chance I get, it’s going in the furnace.”
“But what if there’s no other evidence, and he gets off?”
He shrugged. “So be it.”
* * *
As we prepared to leave I asked, “What happened about the re-financing?”
“I don’t know. I’ve missed a meeting in Brum with some possible backers, but I didn’t have high hopes for it, to be honest.” We stood up. “I’ve got to talk to the other directors again. I still have a couple of irons in the fire. While there’s life there’s hope, eh?”
On a sudden whim I asked, “What about Janni Noble? Have you talked to him?”
“Noble? Christ, no. He wants my guts for garters. I owe him more than half a year’s contract hire fees. Why would he want to do me any favours?”
“He’s ambitious and well connected. I’d have thought he’s just the kind of person who could put his hands on the capital you need. For a start, he might turn some of that debt into equity.”
Rick was looking deeply sceptical, so I added, “Best of all, he’s an honourable man. He would never have swallowed the debt so long otherwise.”
“How come you know so much about him?”
“Long story.”
He looked at me a moment, assessing, then said, “I’ll give it some thought.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to go.”
On an impulse I asked, “Can Vantage really get through this, or is it fucked?”
Without any hesitation he said, “Of course it can survive. It’s basically a sound business. Why should I have to watch the receivers move in and let someone else reap the benefits?”
2012
Finding Sarah Trent proved much easier than I expected. She was a nurse in Brisbane, Australia, and had a Facebook page, just like the normal person she was making herself out to be. The beguiling face that I’d seen at St Pancras shone out at me from my screen, defying me not to believe she was the girl I’d known back in Polperro.
There was no single source of information about her life, but from snippets on various web sites I discovered that she’d married someone called Trent, but he had since died. She seemed to have been working in Brisbane for at least ten years, and now appeared to live alone in an apartment in the city.
I decided not to make direct contact yet. If she really was connected to that robbery, hearing from someone in her former life would presumably alarm her – and might even send her off into hiding. I had no wish to cause that to happen.
Yet the desire to meet her was overwhelming. After all this effort, I couldn’t imagine abandoning the chase at the last hurdle – especially if the hurdle was purely one of my own making.
I decided the only reliable way to make contact with her was in person. That way she couldn’t avoid me … and she would see that I meant her no harm.
I started researching the prices of flights to Brisbane.
Chapter 58
Should I phone Janni Noble? I stared at my phone on Monday morning. If Rick contacted him and actually managed to persuade him to invest, it would be at least partly my doing. Surely I owed it to Noble to give him some sense of what Rick was capable of? Or should I just consider him an adult who could form his own judgements?
Remarkably, before I’d had the chance to resolve this in my mind, Noble rang me. It was only ten past nine. Once again his secretary asked me to hold the line, then his voice boomed out from the phone.
“Mr Stanhope. I wish to speak in confidence. Is this clearly understood?”
“Yes, fine.”
“So. Yesterday I received a call from our mutual friend Mr Richard Ashton. He seems to think I should invest in his parcel company. My people are looking into this.”
“I see.”
He seemed to reflect for a moment. “I ask him for his financial credentials, his credit references, his bona fides, all those things that I would need to give to my investors, my lawyers, my accountants. He gives me all this … and then he tells me I should speak to you.”
“Oh. So what do you want me to say?”
He laughed humourlessly. “I thought you would be telling me this.”
I decided frankness was the only way to respond. I said, “Rick is in trouble, but he says his firm is sound. For some reason his bail-out options have fallen through. I suggested he might consider speaking to you.”
“You suggested this?”
“It was just a passing thought.”
“And Richard Ashton is prepared to listen to you?”
“Apparently.”
“So do you believe him when he says his company is sound?”
That was an interesting one. I had virtually no real knowledge of the company’s financial status, only anecdotal information from Rick himself. How far could I trust him? Clearly he was willing to play a devious game when it suited his interests, yet beyond that I still felt there was a fundamental honesty about him.
I said, “I’m no expert, so you can’t take my word for it, but speaking personally, I think yes.”
There was a silence, then he said, “I feel there is something more that you wish to say.”
Marvelling at his astuteness, I said, “I just think … Rick Ashton is a very driven man. He would probably go a lot further that most people to keep his company afloat. You know what he’s like yourself.”
“Go on.”
“Well, I just think if I were investing with him, I would want to keep him on a very short leash. That’s all.”
“Very well. That is all I wished to know. Thank you, Mr Stanhope.” And he was gone.
* * *
As I thought through all this, I suddenly found myself wondering what impact these developments might have on my supposed book deal with Hunt Topham. In theory Rick Ashton no longer needed to buy my press silence over his debt crisis. Either the company would go bust today or it would be rescued. There was little I could write in the press now to influence the outcome.
On the other hand, now that I knew so much more about Rick’s affairs – public and private – arguably his obligation to me was even greater. If his company survived, perhaps his instinct would be to thrust me into the arms of Hunt Topham for all he was worth. But if he did, would it be a favour I could live with?
Th
ere was a knock at the front door. Dave Matthews stood there with his usual ironic grin.
“You certainly lead an exciting life, Mr Stanhope.”
I ushered him in and he filled me in on Saturday’s events from his end. He’d been playing squash when I phoned him, but had picked up my voicemail at the end of the game. He’d understood everything I’d said in it, and had persuaded the local force in the midlands to deploy the armed response unit.
“The biggest chance I took was that you were right about the location. If your friends had gone off to Beaconsfield or somewhere else, I would have been up to my neck in the proverbial.”
“I’m glad you did.”
He asked me what I knew about the gunman. I thought I’d better show ignorance, but he said, “What I’m getting from the local force is that he might be Liam Stone, the man who was implicated in your robbery, but never caught.” He beamed at me with a look of triumph on his face. “What kind of coincidence is that?”
Adopting what I hoped was a look of amazement, I said, “You have to be joking!”
He wasn’t a policeman for nothing. I could tell he was wondering what I already knew. However, he simply said, “Well, to be honest they’re not sure. If it’s him, he’s covered his tracks pretty well.” He paused. “But my god, Mike, you certainly know how to live an interesting life.”
“You can say that again. You realise that’s the man I was supposed to give up when I was kidnapped the week before last?”
“That fact hadn’t escaped me, yes.”
“Well, if the police could go public now with the fact that he’s been arrested, that would get these people off my back, wouldn’t it? They would realise they couldn’t get at him any longer. Or at any rate, they wouldn’t need any help from me.”
“I can see where you’re coming from, but we can’t jump the gun on this. It might not be him, and if it is him, it might suit our interests to keep quiet about it for a while.”
“And meanwhile I’m at risk of having three kinds of shit beaten out of me by his former friends!”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen. They know we’ll be on the lookout for them now. If they have any sense they’ll be keeping their heads down from now on.”
“I hope you’re right.” A thought struck me. “Were you able to follow up that name I gave you? Harry Slater – the guy from my reading group? He might be the link to these people.”
“Nothing yet. We’re still looking into it.”
* * *
In mid-afternoon an email from Rick pinged into my inbox. I opened it quickly to find a single paragraph in front of me. “Sorted! See attached. This is going out on the wire services in an hour. If you want to run it as an exclusive, you’d better get your skates on.” There was also a PS: “Thanks.”
I opened the attachment and found a curt press release drafted by Rick’s PR firm.
Vantage Express secures new funding
Parcel company Vantage Express has announced new funding that has secured its future.
An undisclosed multi-million pound sum has been committed to the company by a consortium of investors in the North West. The deal has still to be ratified, but following successful completion, it will leave the consortium in overall control. The previous majority shareholder, Hunt Leinster Holdings, will retain a substantial minority shareholding.
Under the deal, maverick CEO Rick Ashton will retain his current position, and his team will be reinforced by the appointment of several new board members.
Hastily I copied the text into my word processor and started rewriting it and embellishing the fairly stark details. Then I made a couple of brief phone calls to corroborate a couple of points. Thirty minutes later I made a phone call.
“Jason, I’ve got a news story you might want to run with.”
Chapter 59
The next morning Ashley rang me. We hadn’t been in touch since the previous week.
“Mike, I wasn’t very friendly when I rang you the other day.”
She sounded upbeat. Cautiously I said, “I don’t blame you. I have a habit of putting my foot in it.”
“It was a big thing for me. I’m still getting my head round it.”
“I realise that.”
She laughed. “Will you stop being so bloody understanding, please?”
“Right.”
She laughed again, then fell silent for a moment. “Well listen … what if we were to meet up?”
“Definitely!”
“OK, well this is what I was thinking. Jack has to go into hospital in a couple of days’ time, to get his fracture re-set or something. It sounds horrible, poor guy, and I should really be there to support him.”
“But?”
“But what if I came to London for the day? And stayed over, I mean. I can take a day’s leave, but I would have to come back again the next day …”
“Yes!”
She laughed. “Well I do like a positive reaction.”
I was doing some fast thinking. Absurdly, I said, “My house is a dump. You’ll hate it. You’ll wonder who on earth would want to live in it. I wonder that, most days. You’ll realise the kind of person I really am.”
“I see.”
“Maybe you could keep your eyes closed?”
“Do you want me to come or not?”
“Yes!”
“All right then.”
We agreed that I would meet her at Paddington station. This was unnecessary, but in the back of my mind I felt I wanted to see her on neutral ground first, then introduce her gradually to my living environment. I felt somehow that it would be less of a shock that way.
I disconnected with a sense of awe. Having left our relationship dangling in mid-air, she had brought it back down to earth with emphasis. “Staying over” meant spending the night with me – there was no other way to read it. My pulse was going into overdrive at the very thought of it.
Many of my male acquaintances seemed able to fall into bed with women at the drop of a hat. I never knew how true their claims were, but I suspected there had to be a fair amount of substance in them. I could never identify with this. Even after I’d overcome my adolescent shyness, every instance still seemed a significant event in my life, and never more so than now. I’d been dreaming about sleeping with Ashley for months. Now, in the space of one short phone call, she’d implied that it was about to happen.
* * *
If that phone call was a jolt to the system, the next was an even bigger one. An hour later I lifted the handset to hear an unfamiliar woman’s voice asking, “Is that Michael Stanhope?”
“Mike, yes.”
“My name is Christina Marsden.” She hesitated. “You would know me as Catrina Markham. Trina.”
What on earth was I to make of this? After all that had been happening to me lately, my search for Trina had slipped down my list of priorities. I now had to ask myself if the real Trina would really ring me up like this.
“Seriously?”
She gave what seemed a sad little laugh. “Seriously. And I do remember you, vaguely. Not what you looked like, I have to say, but your presence. I remember wondering why it took you so long to speak to me.”
I stood there in silence for a moment. I could almost hear the blood pounding in my ears. A little wildly I said, “I was shy.”
“I thought as much.” Another of those little laughs. “Well here I am now.”
I said, “It really is you, isn’t it?”
“Yes it really is.”
Her voice was slightly low, unaccented, and infused with a downbeat sense of humour. I realised that any doubt about her identity had vanished in the first few seconds.
“I don’t know what to say. Thank you for ringing.”
“My pleasure. I read your email. I could see that we weren’t going to get anywhere with the written word. We needed to speak.”
“You’re not T Powell, though?”
“No, that’s Tish. She fields these things for me if they
ever come up. There’s no direct connection between us, so it’s like a sandbox – a layer of protection.”
“But you’re ringing me now.”
“Yes I am.”
She was being deliberately cryptic, but perhaps it was her coping mechanism. I said, “So what do we talk about?”
“Well, you’ve been going to a lot of trouble to find me.”
“I know. I hope you’re not offended.”
She took a second to consider this. “Not really. I should probably be flattered.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“Under the circumstances it might not have been the best thing to happen, but … well, circumstances can alter.”
“I don’t really follow.”
“No, I realise that.” She seemed to be thinking again. “Look, I’m assuming you would you like to meet up. Am I right?”
“Of course! That would be brilliant.”
“I’m not sure about brilliant.” Another pause. “How about this Friday, in Chesterfield? Would you mind making the trip – if you’re free, that is?”
It was an unlikely curved ball. Chesterfield was a market town about a hundred and fifty miles north of London: several hours’ drive from my house. Being asked to make such a long trip at such short notice was completely outside my experience. And on Friday morning I was hoping Ashley would still be with me after her overnight visit.
Cautiously I said, “Is this a once-only offer? It’s just that I’m not sure how quickly I could get there.”
“Late lunch? About 2pm?”
“OK, fine, let’s do it. Where exactly?”
“There’s a market square with a telephone box on one corner. Anyone will tell you how to find it.”
I scribbled down the details, then said, “This seems a bit like something from a spy movie.”
“Yes it does.”
“How will we know each other?”
Alternative outcome Page 26