Vogler stares darkly at him. He goes on staring as I say, ‘I’m authorized to offer a very generous package to compensate you for the loss of Joe’s services, Mr Vogler.’
Vogler’s head swivels towards me. ‘Pretty fucking difficult when you don’t know the value of those services, I’d say.’
‘You tell me. You put a figure on what you’d expect.’
At last, Vogler pauses for thought. Joe chips in with, ‘Venstrom’s resources are pretty close to infinite, Con.’
Vogler goes on thinking. Eventually, he says, ‘You’re set on this, are you, Joe?’
Joe nods. ‘I’d like to see what there is for me in the tech industry, yeah.’
‘A fucking fortune, I should imagine.’ Vogler sounds almost philosophical now. He turns to me. ‘You’re seriously inviting me to name my price, Ms Nevinson?’
‘As a starting point, yes.’
He relaxes back in his chair. ‘All right. I get the picture. Joe’s outgrown me. I need to let him move on. And I need to let you cut me a fat cheque.’
‘You could put it like that, yes.’
‘Tell you what. I think you and I need to discuss this in private, Nicole.’ First it was Nicole. Then it was Ms Nevinson. Now, a few seconds later, it’s Nicole again. It’s hard to know where you are with this guy. ‘Let’s go into the study. You OK for half an hour or so, Joe?’
‘Sure. I can … run through a few things on the computer.’
‘For a little longer, anyway, hey?’ Vogler smiles ruefully. ‘OK. You get busy with that while Nicole and I talk turkey.’
‘Cool.’ Joe stands up and heads out of the room, bound for wherever the computer he uses is located.
Once he’s gone, Vogler smiles affably at me. ‘This way,’ he says. We stand up and head off to the study, which is out of the lounge and down a short passage.
It’s smaller than the lounge, but still large for a study. Nor does it look as if Vogler actually does much studying in it. There’s no computer, no papers, no files, no nothing really apart from a big, gleamingly lacquered desk, a buttoned-leather swivel-chair behind it, another, smaller chair, a strikingly orderly bookcase and some framed nautical charts on the walls.
Vogler closes the door behind us as we enter and heads for the big chair behind the desk. He passes one of the windows, which looks on to the drive, glancing out as he does so. He pulls up.
‘That your car out front, Nicole?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Looks like you’ve got a problem with one of your tyres.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. Take a look.’ He points through the window and I step past him to see what he’s talking about.
Suddenly, he grabs me. I’m shoved up against the wall next to the window with my left arm bent up painfully behind me. But I can’t cry out because his other hand is over my mouth, clamping it shut. The pain in my shoulder increases as he levers my wrist further and further beyond the vertical. I feel his breath on my neck and smell the whisky he’s been drinking. The weight of his body is pressing me into the wall, making it difficult for me to breathe. He’s far too strong for me. He knows it. I know it. I’m frightened. More frightened than I’ve been in a very long time.
‘Listen to me, Ms Nevinson,’ he hisses in my ear. ‘If you want to leave here with your shoulder still in its socket, you’ll nod in agreement when I tell you how this is going to go down. Joe isn’t leaving my employment. Venstrom aren’t taking him on. You’re going to go back to London and explain to your bosses that it was all one big fucking misunderstanding. Joe’s not the real thing. He’s no use to them. Sell it any way you fucking like. But sell it. Otherwise Joe will suffer and his mother will suffer and, when I track you down, you’ll suffer too. Along with your mother. And any siblings you turn out to have. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t mean any of this. I mean every fucking word. And I have the means to do it. You got me?’
I nod helplessly. There’s nothing else I can do.
‘So, I’m going to take my hand away from your mouth and you’re not going to cry out. You’re not going to say a single fucking thing. Is that clear?’
I nod. All I want is to be out of his grip and out of his house.
He withdraws his hand. I say nothing. My heart’s pounding. My breathing is fast and shallow. If I did speak, I’m not sure it would sound like me.
‘We’re going to tell Joe we have the basis for an agreement and then you’re going to tell him tomorrow it’s all off following consultation with Head Office. Are we clear?’
I nod again.
Then his free hand closes around my bottom. He squeezes. ‘Good girl,’ he says sneeringly.
You bastard, I think. But I don’t say anything. I don’t say anything at all.
‘Shall we go and wait for Joe in the lounge, Nicole? I’ll ask Marianne to join us and we can chat about property values in St Mawes and Silicon Valley architecture. You can finish your wine. Maybe have another glass. We’ll all play nicey-nicey for now. Best all round, I reckon. You with me on that?’
I swallow hard and turn slowly round to face him. His face is hard, like baked clay. His eyes are cold, like iced water.
‘You can speak now,’ he says quietly. ‘You can say you agree to our deal. You know that’s the only way this can go that equates to a result for you. The alternative? You don’t want to go there. You seriously don’t.’ He stares at me for a silent moment. Then he says, ‘Well?’
‘I agree,’ I say hoarsely.
He nods. Then he smiles. ‘Thought you would. Shall we go?’
The next half hour or so is a blur. Marianne did join us. There was a conversation of sorts. Vogler told her he’d explain what we’d agreed after Joe and I left. Joe came back into the room. Vogler smiled a lot and assured Joe there’d be no problem. I went to the loo at some point and stared at myself in the mirror, wondering how Joe and Marianne could fail to notice how different I was from the confident, lucid woman who’d first walked into the house. But fail to notice they did. Maybe I was putting on a better act than I knew. Maybe they just weren’t paying attention. I don’t know.
As we drive away from the house, my grip on the steering-wheel disguises the tremor in my hands. Joe’s relaxed and contented, talking about how much better the encounter with Vogler went than he expected.
‘He was really mature about it, don’t you think?’ he asks.
‘He, ah, drove a hard bargain,’ I reply, which I realize as I say it is actually me giving myself room to back out of the situation.
But that’s not apparent to Joe. How can it be? ‘I’d expect him to,’ he says. ‘He’s that kind of guy.’
‘I’ll, er, have to run the figures past my boss tomorrow morning.’
‘What did he ask for?’ Joe’s grinning. He’s actually enjoying himself. Vogler doing a deal. Joe using that as the starting point for a deal of his own. It’s become a game to him. A cheap rush compared with Go. But a rush even so. He has no idea, of course, unlike me, what kind of a man his employer really is. We’re both way out of our depth. But I know it and he doesn’t.
‘I can’t get into that, Joe.’
‘No? That’s kind of disappointing.’
‘Sorry. But …’
‘Are you OK, Nicole?’ At last, he has noticed something. ‘You look … stressed.’
‘It’s been a long day.’
‘Has it?’
‘Feels like it, anyway.’
‘Once you get the OK for your deal with Con, I’ll put Mum in the picture.’
‘How will she … react?’
‘She won’t want me to leave Falmouth. But she’s always going on about me needing to better myself, so I guess she’ll be pleased once she’s thought it through.’
‘Good.’ I take the next bend too fast, fail to hold my line and have to pull in sharply to avoid a car coming in the opposite direction. There’s a moment when I actually think we’re going to clip wings. But we don’t. T
he other driver blares his horn.
‘Are you sure you’re OK, Nicole?’ asks Joe. ‘That was close.’
‘Sorry.’ I blink and try to force myself to hold everything together. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. Just … tired.’
Somehow, we make it back to Falmouth. I drop Joe on the main road skirting the edge of town. He says he’ll walk from there to Karen’s flat. I drive down to the back of Tideways and park awkwardly, way out from the kerb, behind Mr Forrester’s School of Motoring car. I don’t go straight into the house, though. I cross over to the Greenbank Hotel on the water’s edge and drink several G&Ts at the bar. The alcohol hits my system. The stress ebbs. My hand steadies. My pulse stops racing. Anger starts to surface. Who the fucking hell does Vogler think he is? But that takes me nowhere. What am I actually going to do about him? Why’s he so desperate to retain Joe’s services? What sort of business is he in? How do I get out of this mess? And what do I say – to Joe, to Carl, to Billy in the end? They’re the key questions.
And tomorrow I’m going to have to find some answers.
I head straight up to my room at Tideways. I don’t see the note that’s been slipped under the door until I come back out of the bathroom. I sit down on the bed and unfold it.
Ms Nevinson: Roger Lam came by earlier hoping to speak to you. Asked if you could ring him on 07285588766. Liz
Roger? What does Roger want? A date? I’m certainly in demand. Just a pity I don’t really want to be.
In the end, though, a friendly voice may be just what I need to hear. I call him.
And he’s just as friendly – just as normal – as I hoped. ‘Oh, hi, Nicole. Glad you called. Look, I don’t know what your schedule’s like, but I have a free day tomorrow and … well, the thing is my work at the university means I have the use of a boat when no one else on the marine biology team needs it, which tomorrow they don’t. The weather forecast’s good, so I was planning to take a little pleasure cruise up the estuary. It won’t be much fun on my own. Would you like to join me?’
‘I’m not sure—’
‘Carrick Roads is a fascinating ecosystem. And there’s a decent pub halfway up where we can have lunch. You’d enjoy it, I promise.’
The way I feel at the moment he has to be right. I wasn’t expecting him to get in touch, though. It sounds like I might have made more of an impression on him than I thought. Which wouldn’t necessarily be such a bad thing. But I’ve really no idea what tomorrow holds. I have to say no.
But I don’t. ‘It sounds great, Roger. It’s just … I may not be able to make it.’
‘That’d be a shame.’
‘Maybe … I could phone you in the morning.’
‘OK. Or just show up at Pendennis Marina at ten. We’ve got a berth close to the Maritime Museum.’
‘Well …’
‘Say you’ll try, anyway.’
‘OK. I’ll try.’
‘Great. Hope to see you tomorrow. And wrap up well. Fine or not, it can be chilly out on the water.’
He rings off. A day out, away from all this, is more appealing than Roger can possibly imagine. Maybe I will go. Maybe I just will.
I stare at my phone, knowing I should call Carl now and brief him on the problem we’ve run into. But I can’t bring myself to. I feel tired, drained by how badly wrong the visit to Vogler went.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the rose moulding above the lamp in the middle of the ceiling.
A couple of hours later, I jolt awake and realize I’m still lying there, fully dressed. The gin’s worn off and I feel miserable. I pull off my clothes, turn off the light and climb into bed.
Wednesday October 9
I wake early. Roger’s right about the weather. The dawn’s pearly grey and pink, with mist lifting from the estuary. I lower the window and breathe in pure, clean air.
I decide to phone Carl straight away. I catch him jogging on the Embankment, which doesn’t put him in the best of moods. And his mood only gets worse when I tell him we’ve struck a major snag with Conrad Vogler. I don’t want to admit Vogler threatened me. Carl might think I’m exaggerating, covering up for not being able to talk him round. But he has to know there’s a problem.
‘What d’you mean he doesn’t care about the money?’ I sense Carl is having a lot of trouble not shouting. And the only reason he’s holding back is he doesn’t want to be overheard by other joggers.
‘Joe’s been advising him on stocks and shares. He doesn’t think he can afford to lose his expertise.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Nicole, Joe’s a free agent. We don’t actually owe Mr Vogler a single fucking penny if his employee prefers to become our employee. Did you tell him that?’
‘It wouldn’t have helped, Carl, believe me.’
‘But you made it clear we were willing to be generous – generous to a fault?’
‘Yes. I made it clear.’
‘Then what’s wrong with him?’
‘I don’t know. He’s just not willing to play ball.’
‘I thought you could handle this, Nicole, I truly did.’ The reproach was never going to be long in coming. Carl always needs to blame someone for failures – including his own.
‘He’s not a man you can negotiate with, Carl. You haven’t met him. He’s … threatening.’
‘Threatening?’
‘He said if we didn’t drop this, Joe and his mother might … suffer.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘He is.’
‘Bullshit. I know his type. He’s all bluff and bluster. He’s watched too many gangster movies. You can’t believe everything a guy like that says.’
‘I believed him.’
‘Well, Nicole …’ Carl considers his next remark for a good long while. Then he says, ‘You’ve done a good job with the boy, but this sounds like something I need to deal with. Man to man. You get me?’
I get him. ‘I don’t think that’ll work with Vogler, Carl.’
‘We’ll see. You got a number for him?’
I have. Vogler pressed a Conmari Ltd card into my hand at Admiral’s Reach while we were, in his terminology, playing nicey-nicey in Joe’s presence. I read out the number.
Carl logs it on his phone.
‘But—’
Too late for any more objections. Carl’s gone. Along with most of the kudos I was hoping to get out of this mission.
Shit.
I shower and go down to breakfast. Ursula’s there again, chatty as before, but, mercifully, pressed for time. ‘Got a meeting first thing,’ she says as she bustles off, leaving me to drink coffee, check emails and wonder how Carl’s conversation with Vogler is going. There’s no way he can win Vogler round, of course. I know that. It was only to preserve what’s left of my reputation that I didn’t tell Carl how I knew that for a certainty.
Then Carl calls back. The ring tone of the phone actually makes me jump. As I listen to what he has to say, I start to feel sick.
‘Vogler’s a bit of a dinosaur, Nicole. Totally unreconstructed. I can see how you’d have trouble with him. Maybe it was my fault for sending you. I think he reckoned having a woman pitch the deal to him was some kind of affront. Anyhow, we traded a few insults, then he started to take things seriously. Bottom line is he’s going to mull the situation over and let me have his terms within twenty-four hours.’
‘His terms?’
‘His compensation figure for letting Joe go. It’ll be inflated, of course. We’ll knock him down a bit just to look respectable. But we’ll do a deal. That’s the point. Whatever we have to bung Vogler’s way is worth it to get Joe, right?’
‘Right,’ I say numbly. I’m not sure for the moment I can actually believe what I’m hearing.
‘All you have to do is keep Joe sweet until Vogler’s happy. Then we can ship Joe up here and the seriously exciting part of this project can kick off.’
‘Right,’ I say again.
‘Think you can manage that?’ The sarcasm in the question’s imposs
ible to miss.
‘I can manage that, Carl, yes,’ I say slowly and deliberately.
‘Great. More when I have some, then.’
He’s gone. I turn the phone off. Not to sleep mode. Just off. Completely. I’ve had enough. And for the moment I can’t take any more.
I meet Liz in the hall as I head for my room.
‘Enjoying your stay?’ she asks brightly.
‘Yes thanks,’ I reply, trying to match her brightness.
‘Looks like it’s going to be a nice day. Better make the most of it.’
I can’t think of anything to say to that. I just smile and nod and start up the stairs.
I’m fed up with every way this has gone wrong. Vogler’s easy recourse to violence; Carl’s equally easy assumption that he can succeed where I’ve failed; worst of all, the fact that he seems to be right.
I should care more, but just for the moment all I can think is, Stuff them. I need a break from circling round all this in my head.
I walk down through the town to the National Maritime Museum. There’s a marina on the harbour side of the building. I wander out on to the pontoon, wondering if I’ll spot Roger before he spots me.
Then, there he is, waving at me from one of the cross-pontoons. He looks smart, almost athletic, in jeans and a guernsey. He signals to the gate into the section of the marina where he’s moored and strides along to meet me there.
‘It’s great you could make it, Nicole,’ he says, opening the gate.
I smile. ‘It sounded too good to pass on.’
‘Well, it’s not often the tide, the weather and my timetable cooperate to this degree.’ He gestures at the calm sea and the blue sky, in which the clouds are just benign puffs of cottonwool. ‘Come and see the Egret.’
He leads me back to the berth where the university’s boat is waiting. It’s a classy motor-launch, with a forward cabin and nice wood detailing. He hops aboard and gives me a hand as I join him.
‘Not bad, eh?’
‘Lovely.’
‘So, game for a trip up river?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘There’s coffee in the thermos. Help yourself.’
I do, and the coffee tastes good, as Roger backs away from the pontoon and heads out into the estuary. I watch the town recede behind us and feel just some of my anger recede with it.
One False Move Page 5