Iain Pears - Stone's Fall

'I am so glad we can reach agreement on this matter,' I said once I had sat down and accepted the offer of a glass of cold wine.

'As am I,' he replied with a warm smile. 'Although, as I said in my letter, it was not easy to accomplish. But I felt that really we did not want to get involved in the business of setting up factories. However excellent Mr Macintyre's machine, any profits that might accrue become greatly postponed. And we Venetians no longer do this sort of thing; we prefer to leave it to the more enterprising English, and pursue lesser, short-term profits ourselves. It is no doubt why England has an empire and Venice has lost hers.'

'That may be so. Certainly I think you do not have a ready supply of the necessary engineers, managers and skilled workers that would allow you to set up such an establishment here. Such people can be found more easily in England.'

'You will manufacture there?'

'I think so. The most obvious customer is the Royal Navy. If it will buy, every other navy in the world will have to follow suit. And it is a patriotic organisation. They will not buy foreign wares if they can avoid it.'

'In that case, I will watch your progress with the greatest interest,' he said. 'Now, perhaps we might get the business dealt with? Then I would be very happy to invite you to dinner.'

'That is kind,' I replied. 'But I feel I should go and find Mr Macintyre, and tell him the news. I was just about to go and see him this afternoon, in fact, when your letter arrived.'

Ambrosian ordered a sheaf of papers on his desk, turned them round and proffered them to me. 'Then you will no doubt have a great deal to discuss when you see him. Perhaps you wish to read this? I am assuming you can read Italian? If not, I will gladly call someone in to translate.'

I said I could manage, and spent twenty minutes sipping my wine, and struggling through to make sure there was nothing untoward. The language was legal, but essentially clear, and why should there be any hidden catches? It was a deed of sale drawn up in a hurry, and the object was to get rid of a useless property as quickly and cleanly and as absolutely as possible.

'Yes,' I said eventually. 'Now, about the price . . .'

'I would have thought . . .' he began with a slight frown.

'I am evidently to buy £500 of debt. Now we have to agree at what price I shall acquire it.'

Ambrosian positively beamed at me, and reached for the bottle of wine, pouring two more glasses before settling back in his seat. This, of course, was exactly what he wanted; nothing is more suspicious than someone prepared to pay a full price. Besides, where was the enjoyment in such a miserable, straightforward transaction?

'In view of the long-term risks, and the inevitable requirement to raise a large amount of additional capital, without which this machine is no use at all, to you or anyone else, I thought a small discount might be in order. To reflect the savings to your bank of divesting itself of this loan.'

'But you yourself have said how much potential it has.'

'And so it has. But at the moment it is without value. You do not wish to go further with it, and I suspect there is no one else in the world who would be prepared to buy it at any price. It is a question of discovering a fair rate for relieving your bank of an unwelcome burden . . .'

And off we went, for an hour of pure entertainment, which both of us appreciated and which I in particular needed. Here deception was open and understood, emotion under control. It was an antidote to my troubles and concerns. I suggested that a 50 per cent discount would be the very least I could possibly accept. He expressed surprise that I did not consider a price over and above the nominal sum, to reflect the risks that the bank had already absorbed. I countered that those risks were more than covered by interest payments already received . . .

But, all the way through, I knew he was thinking that the moment I talked to Macintyre, the value of his loan would go down to nothing immediately. Either he reached agreement with me soon, or he lost his entire investment. I gave him an extra £33 and we settled. For £283, I bought the sole and complete rights to the most important new weapon seen for a century.

It was a simpler world then: a gentleman's word – especially an English gentleman's word – was as good as gold, quite literally. For payment, I wrote out a brief note to my bankers in London, asking that £283 be paid into credit of the Banco di Santo Spirito's correspondent in the City. And that was payment made, for even if I turned out to be a charlatan, with not enough money in the bank to cover the amount, Coutts would have felt obliged to pay, and Ambrosian knew this quite well – although I had no doubt that he had already made enquiries about me. He placed all the documents into a large, thick folder, sealed it with a massive seal using prodigious quantities of wax, and handed it over to me, shaking my hand.

'My congratulations, dear sir,' he said with a smile. 'And may I say how greatly I admire your trust in your fellow countryman? I would not so readily take such a risk on something without knowing whether it would fulfil its inventor's promises.'

'Oh, goodness, I've done that,' I said as I paused at the door. 'It worked splendidly last week. I gather it didn't perform so well today, but that is a matter easily fixed. No, I have no doubt the torpedo has a great future before it.'

I bowed graciously, restrained myself from smiling in triumph, and left. To his credit, his face showed no anger at all; indeed, I think I even saw just a little twitch of appreciation.

I thought it was time to put Macintyre out of his misery, and tell him that his future was assured, or as assured as I could make it. I had refined my calculations over the past few days, and what I planned was well within my financial capabilities, although I had no doubt I would have to call on friends such as Mr Cardano for some support at various stages. I was excited; more excited than I had ever been, and it was a welcome distraction from Louise. The more I thought of torpedoes, of banks and factories, the less I thought about her.

My vision was becoming clearer by the minute. It was all very well passing my time as I had done in the past few years, but the buying and selling of shares and bonds is a second-hand operation, removed from the real source of wealth generation. And the prospect of organising an enterprise fascinated me. I did not, I should make it clear, intend to become the manager myself; I knew my limitations and the day-to-day operation of a factory would quickly have wearied me. But setting up the way the managers worked within an elegant, balanced, efficient structure of my own devising – this suffused me with pleasurable anticipation, made me look forward, not back. My eyes turned to England and stopped being dazzled by Adriatic light.

I was in a hurry now. This beautiful, ridiculous old relic was not where things got done, was not where money was made. It was a distraction only, a pause, a place where time was wasted, lives ruined. I needed to inform Macintyre, get the workshop packed up into crates, and the whole lot transported back to England. Somewhere on the south coast, I thought, near to water, which was obviously necessary for testing, not too far away from the great naval bases, close enough to a supply of skilled labour. And where land was cheap enough so that a large enough site could be acquired with ease.

So I was in a confident mood, although that did not last long; when I arrived once more at Macintyre's workshop it was dark and abandoned; I called out, rapped on the doors, listened for any sound but there was nothing at all. Nor was he to be found in the little rooms that he and his daughter called home, a scruffy, decrepit building a few hundred yards away. Only the girl was there, all alone.