Iain Banks: The Business

Poudenhaut tore his gaze away from the Ferrari again (he'd insisted on a table with a view of the car park). 'Yes, why did you want to see me?'

Nettle-grasping time again. 'I wanted to ask you what you were doing at the Silex plant the other day.'

His big, puffy face stared at me over our gently steaming coffee. He blinked a few times. I wondered which way he'd jump. 'Silex?' he said. He frowned and concentrated on stirring some sugar into his espresso.

'You know, the chip plant in Scotland. What took you up there, Adrian?'

I watched him decide. He wasn't going for total denial. Something closer to the truth. 'I was looking into something.'

'What was that?'

'Well, I can't say.'

'Was this for Mr Hazleton?'

He stirred his coffee slowly, then brought the little cup to his lips. 'Mm-hmm,' he said, and sipped.

'I see,' I said. 'I take it he had his suspicions too, then.'

'Suspicions?'

'About what was going on in there.'

He put on a serious face. 'Hmm.' His gaze flickered all over me.

'Come to any conclusions?'

He shrugged. 'How about you?'

I sat closer, leaning into the fragrant vapours rising from my coffee. 'There was something hidden in there.'

'In the plant?'

'Yes. Ideal place, when you think about it. Chip factories have brilliant security anyway. You know how much chips are worth: more than their weight in gold. So the places are really well guarded. Then there's the whole prophylactic rigmarole you have to go through to get into the production facilities; all that changing and delay. Impossible to just charge in. Giving people inside time to hide stuff, if you know somebody who might ask awkward questions is coming in. Plus there are all those deeply noxious chemicals they use, the etching fluids, the solvents and washes; really nasty chemical-warfare stuff any rational person would keep well away from. So as well as all the usual security paraphernalia, the guards and walls and cameras and so on, and the sheer difficulty of accessing the place quickly, you've got a serious health disincentive to go there in the first place. It's perfect, the ideal place to hide whatever. I took a look round three or four weeks ago, but I couldn't find anything.'

Poudenhaut was nodding thoughtfully. 'Yes, well, that's what occurred to us, too. So, what do you think it was? Or is?'

'Oh, it's gone now, but I think they had another assembly line going in there.'

He blinked. 'Chips?'

'What else would you build in a chip plant?'

'Hmm,' he said, smiling briefly. 'I see.' He pursed his lips and nodded, staring at the table where the bill had just appeared.

'I'll get this,' I said, picking up the check.

He reached out too late. 'No, please. This is mine.'

'That's okay, I got it.' I reached down for my handbag.

He snatched the bill out of my fingers. 'Male prerogative,' he said, grinning. I hid behind my best chilly smile and thought, Suddenly you're far too full of beans, my lad. He fished his company card out of his wallet. 'So, who do you think was cheating on us, who was behind it? The management at the plant? Ligence? They're our partners there, right?'

'That's right. Obviously the upper management must have known: you couldn't do it without them. But I think it was somebody in the Business.'

He looked alarmed. 'Really? Oh dear. That's bad. Any ideas? What level?'

'Your level, Adrian.'

He paused, blinking again, his card poised half-way to the plate the check had arrived on. 'My level?'

'Level Two,' I said reasonably, spreading my hands.

'Oh, yes.' The plate was taken away again.

'So, did you find out anything? Does Mr Hazleton have any ideas?'

He made a clicking noise with his mouth. 'We have our suspicions, but it would be wrong to say anything at this point in time, Kathryn.'

I waited until he was signing the card slip before I said, 'Of course, it could be a Level One conspiracy. Somebody at Mr Hazleton's level.'

His Mont Blanc hesitated over the tip line. He added a round number that was a little on the mean side and signed. 'Mr Hazleton has considered that possibility,' he said smoothly. He nodded at the maître d' and stood. 'Shall we?'

'Grips like nothing else. Just listen to that engine. Isn't that wonderful? I think you hear it better in a cabriolet, even with the top up.'

'Mm-hmm,' I said. I'd been reading the handbook; I put it back in the glove-box with the spare set of keys and the purchase paperwork.

Poudenhaut was a poor driver; even allowing for the fact that he was trying to be kind to the engine, he changed up too early and still didn't seem entirely to have the hang of the car's open gate. His cornering was awful, too, and the fact the car was right-hand-drive was no excuse either: he seemed to think hitting the apex meant driving into the depths of the bend then jerking the wheel round in roughly the correct direction, seeing where he was heading now, then making any necessary corrections (repeat as required until the road straightens). We zoomed and dived along some wonderfully winding, empty mountain roads in one of the best sports cars in the world, but I was getting heartily sick of the experience. He wouldn't even put the top down because clouds had moved in from the west and there had been a few flakes of snow.

'I'd love a shot,' I said between corners. 'Would you let me drive? Just for a bit.'

'Well, I don't know. There's the insurance…' It was the most worried he'd sounded so far. 'I'd love to let you, Kathryn, but —'

'I'm insured.'

'But, Kathryn, this is a Ferrari.'

'I've driven Ferraris. Uncle Freddy used to lend me the Daytona when I was staying at Blysecrag sometimes.'

'Oh? Well, yes, but that's front-engined, you see, quite different handling characteristics. The 355 is mid-engined. Much trickier on the limit.'

'He let me loose in the F40, too. And, of course, I wouldn't be going anywhere near the limit.'

He glanced at me. 'He let you drive the F40?'

'A couple of times.'

'I never drove the F40.' He sounded like a disappointed schoolboy. 'What's it like?'

'Brutal.'

'Brutal?'

'Brutal.'

We stopped at a semi-circular gravel terrace on a wide corner near the summit of a pass, just above the tree-line.

He pulled the car up and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, then turned to me with a grin and let his gaze fall to my knees. I was wearing a skirt and jacket, silk blouse; just business-like, nothing provocative. 'If I let you have a shot of the car, what do I get in return?' He reached out and put his hand on my knee. It was warm and slightly damp.

I think I made my mind up then. I lifted his hand off and put it back on his own thigh, smiled and said, 'We'll see.'

He smiled. 'She's all yours.' He got out; he held the driver's door open for me. I slipped in. The engine was still running, idling quietly. The door closed with a thunk. I felt in my bag, pulled out my phone and checked the display. We had signal. I clicked the central locking while Poudenhaut was moving round the front of the car.

He hesitated when he heard the locks click, then tried the passenger's door. He bent down, knocking at the window glass with one crooked finger. 'Hello? May I come in?' He was still. smiling.

I fastened my seat-belt. 'I think you've been lying to me, Adrian,' I told him. I tested the accelerator, blipping the engine up towards the four thousand revs mark and letting it fall back again.

'Kathryn?' he said, as though he hadn't heard me properly.

'I said, I think you've been lying to me, Adrian. I'm not convinced you don't know more about this Silex thing than you're letting on.'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'I think you know exactly what I'm talking about, Adrian. And I'd like to ask you a few more questions about what was really in there.' I reached into my bag and waved a piece of plastic and metal at him. 'And needed lots of heavy-duty phone connectors like this.'