Quintin Jardine - Deadly Business

‘Did you ever put this to Susie?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but not straight away. She had just gone to America for her first round of chemotherapy. Incidentally, Primavera, she told me at the very start of her illness that she was a long shot to make it, and that while she fought this thing she’d have to delegate much more than usual to me. So I signed up to the formation of Babylon Links PLC, and I only told her about it when the deal was done. She didn’t question it at all.’

‘Did you ever meet Fabricant?’

‘That’s the damnable thing; I didn’t. Duncan was the intermediary all the way through. It was him who came to me and said that the planners had asked Fabricant to show a bank deposit of twenty million as a condition of their consent. I baulked at that, but Duncan told me not to worry, that Fabricant would agree to return most of it as soon as we’d been given the planning green light. Bastard stalled me on it, but I had, still have, hopes that he’d come through soon.’

‘You can forget that, Phil.’ I dropped the bombshell, that our partner was calling in the other thirty million. ‘I’ll resist it, but we’re on a loser in court.’

‘Couldn’t we show that it’s a conspiracy?’ he suggested.

‘They’re not doing anything wrong; all they’re doing is implementing a binding agreement which we signed.’

‘That I signed,’ he corrected me.

‘In good faith, as I now acknowledge,’ I added for him. ‘Whatever, my advice is that under Jersey law we’ll never prove that Natalie Morgan is the beneficial owner of Monsoon Holdings. Sure, I could leak that image to the tabloids and embarrass her and Duncan, the grieving widower … not … but if I did, she’d probably get court bans on publication within hours. My worry is, Duncan’s involvement might damage the Gantry Group even further, given the power he can now exercise using the children’s shares.’

Phil nodded. ‘I apologise for my rudeness this morning, Primavera, and for my threat. Of course I’ll withdraw my request for an EGM.’

‘I’m sure it would be followed by a new one … if it’s even necessary.’

‘What do you mean?’ he murmured, cautiously.

‘You know what I mean,’ I said. ‘You know what’ll happen next.’

He sighed. ‘I fear I do. And there’s no way of stopping it?’

‘Not that I can see.’

‘Then good luck. Primavera, I’m going to resign. I’ll announce it formally first thing in the morning and throw my full support behind you as executive chair. That might help.’

‘It won’t, but thanks for the gesture. Anyway, I don’t want to be executive chair. I want to take my kid back home, as soon as I can.’

I left him in his big empty house and headed back to the hotel. The Rock ’n’ Roll suite was empty too, when I stepped inside. That took my mind back to Phil Culshaw, and what I’d said to him; I really did want to be back home as soon as possible, for Tom’s sake, for my sake, and for the sake of my new relationship. But I had other responsibilities, to Janet and wee Jonathan, and to the company, and if I was wrong about the outcome I envisaged, I couldn’t walk away from them. Yes, Phil would carry on as managing director if asked, but honestly I wasn’t sure that was the right move. He was beyond for what most people would be retirement age, and the ease with which he’d been suckered by his arsehole of a nephew cast doubt on whether he still had what it takes to run a hundred million pound company.

Of course, I was kidding myself there. It wasn’t worth a hundred million any more, or anything like it. I switched the laptop back on to check the share price and shuddered when I saw it. The latest leak had done us in; my earlier bounce-back had been swept aside and it had gone back into free fall, down to forty per cent of where it had been at close on the previous Friday.

I was absorbing the news when the door opened and Liam came in, wearing one of the hotel’s white dressing gowns that we had found in the wardrobe. He was slicked with sweat, and his face was flushed.

‘I didn’t realise till just now, but I am out of shape,’ he announced. ‘Tom and I ran on treadmills, side by side, same speed, same programme. He’d still be going if I hadn’t called it quits.’

I smiled at him. ‘Are you going to blame me for that? “Women weaken legs.” Wasn’t that what Rocky’s trainer said in the movie?’

‘No, I was just busted. I got him to show me his stuff, though. He’s good, way in advance of his age, and very, very fast with his hands and feet.’

‘Did you get the anger out of him?’ I asked, still anxious about the way he had been.

‘I tried to show him that his outrage was over Culshaw’s behaviour,’ he replied, ‘and that his feelings had no place within the discipline he’s studying. What I told him was that he should feel pity, not anger, for somebody as morally bankrupt as that, and that he needs to have patience, for sure as hell our sins and our guilt catch up with all of us eventually.’

‘I can’t think of Tom as having sins,’ I confessed, ‘or guilt.’

‘He has pretty low counts in both, I’ll grant you,’ Liam chuckled, ‘but we all have sins. I’ve told you my great sin. I took it upon myself to condemn my old man to death. Although he may have deserved it, the decision wasn’t mine to make, and I’ll do penance for it every day of my life. As for guilt, you never know when that’s going to find you. For example, I feel slightly and irrationally guilty over sleeping with you.’

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Is your nose hurting?’

He felt it. ‘No, not a bit. I know how Oz felt about you, that’s all.’

‘The late Oz,’ I pointed out.

‘Sure. I told you, it’s irrational. Don’t you feel some of it?’

‘Maybe the first time we did it,’ I admitted, ‘there was a pang. Then I remembered how he felt about you, and since then I’ve been able to believe that if he’d had to choose someone for me to get together with, it would have been you.’

‘But do you really? Deep down? Believe it?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘But what about you? Suppose I’d never met Oz and we’d never met before and there were no associations with the past? Would you have chosen me?’

I took hold of the lapels of his robe, pulled him close, and kissed him. ‘When I saw you last Friday,’ I told him, ‘then when we met on the beach, when I had no idea who you were, the truth is, I chose you then. It took me a day or so to realise it, that’s all.’

‘When we get back,’ he whispered, ‘back to Spain, can I stay for a while?’

‘Honey,’ I replied, ‘you can stay for as long as you like. I know you didn’t set off on your travels looking for a ready-made family, and if you decide it’s not for you, I’ll understand that, but I’ll help you find out, for as long as it takes.’

The bomb was dropped next morning, as I’d known it would be. Cress rang me in the office at five to ten, but I knew all about it by then, for I’d been monitoring the Stock Exchange website on the computer in what had been Susie’s office and was now, however reluctantly on my part, mine, and had read the announcement at the moment it was made.

A takeover bid had been lodged by Torrent PLC for the Gantry Group PLC. It valued the company at thirty-five million pounds, a couple of million above its quoted valuation based in the morning’s share price, but around a third of its real worth. Fifteen million of the offer price came from Torrent’s own cash pile; the other twenty mil would be funded by a new share issue, already underwritten by a consortium headed by, you guessed it, Mr Diego Fabricant.

‘The bastards!’ I shouted, as I took Cress’s call. ‘They’re going to use our own money to buy us. You can bet that the twenty million will be diverted from the Babylon Links account.’