Quintin Jardine - Deadly Business

I signed for both of us. The lad tore slips from each form and fitted them into plastic cases, then handed them to us. ‘We like you to wear these all the time you’re in the building. Health and Safety, you understand.’ I didn’t, but I nodded anyway. He handed me a key card. ‘You’ll find the lifts behind the desk. Take the one on the left, it goes all the way up. Put the card in the slot you’ll find there, then press the button.’

I wondered why they both didn’t go all the way up, but found out pretty soon. Natalie Morgan’s office suite was on the roof of the building, out of sight of the car park, built around the glass ceiling of the atrium. Another young man met us as the lift opened. ‘Mrs Blackstone.’ He frowned. ‘Miss Morgan is only expecting one visitor.’

I smiled, sweetly. ‘And my driver is expecting to wait in an anteroom. It’s what drivers do, isn’t it?’

‘Of course.’ He chuckled. ‘If you’ll follow me, please.’

We did, along a corridor with a door at the end, facing us, and a low sofa outside. ‘If you’ll just take a wee seat there, sir,’ our escort said, as he opened the heavy wooden door for me. It seemed to be the only upright surface that wasn’t made of glass. (I must explain that it’s a Scottish peculiarity, that in my home nation you are never simply offered a seat. It’s always ‘a wee seat’. It doesn’t matter how small you are, or how large, or on the dimensions of the furniture in question; it’s always ‘a wee seat’.)

Natalie didn’t stand as I entered. She leaned back in her very big seat and smiled at me, a look of triumph as naked as she had been last time I’d looked at her. And yet there was something else there too, a question that she couldn’t quite pin down.

‘Come to hand over the keys to the kingdom?’ she asked.

I didn’t wait to be offered a chair, I sat down facing her. ‘I thought we should meet,’ I replied. ‘Imagine my surprise when I found that we had already.’

‘Indeed. Maybe you think I should apologise for my small deception in Diego’s office. If so, tough; apology is not my style.’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t give a toss,’ I said. ‘I would like a drink, though. It’s going on lunchtime.’ I glanced at a wine fridge in the corner. ‘White wine, slightly dry, that would be nice.’

Natalie gazed down her nose at me. ‘If you wish. I might even join you.’

She rose, walked across to the cooler and took out a bottle; Fransola, by Torres, I saw from the damp label. It had been opened but it was kept fresh by a pressure cap. She poured two glasses, and handed me one. The bitch had legs to die for, and clearly she was committed to figure-hugging clothes.

She eased herself back into her swivelling seat. ‘You must be pretty close to setting a record,’ she murmured, ‘for the shortest period of office of a company chair.’

‘I’ll be there until my successor is appointed,’ I pointed out. ‘That can’t happen overnight. You still have minority shareholders to buy out.’

‘I take it the Gantry board will recommend against acceptance.’

‘We’ve still to reach a consensus on that. I’m against, of course, and so is Audrey Kent, but my colleagues are still considering their position. Have you had any other acceptances yet?’

‘It’s a little early for that.’ She frowned, very briefly, but it was her first sign of anything short of total confidence.

‘You’re still working on it, aren’t you?’ I said.

‘Working? On what?’

‘On how I knew before I walked in here that Kim Coates was actually you, given that you seem to be very camera-shy. Your face doesn’t appear in any of Torrent’s corporate brochures, and when I trawled the internet I couldn’t find a single photograph.’ I reached into my bag, took out a print of Liam’s image and tossed it across to her. ‘That’s how.’

She picked up the image, and as she realised what it was, her eyes widened then she frowned again, full force, for real. ‘What the hell is this?’ she hissed.

‘What does it bloody look like? What I don’t understand, Natalie, is … why the hell didn’t the idiot bother to close the curtains? Do you like it in the daylight, is that it? Can you fake it either way?’

‘You cow! I could go to the police with this.’

‘What makes you think I haven’t?’ I shot back. ‘You and Culshaw, with the aid of his ageing and gullible uncle, have conspired to cheat the majority shareholders of the Gantry Group into accepting an offer for the business that undervalues it ridiculously. And he’s gone further; the people he’s cheated are my son’s sister and brother, by committing their controlling interest to you at that price.’

‘Oh really,’ she blustered. ‘Don’t be so fanciful.’

‘Don’t give me that!’ I shouted at her. ‘I bloody know, okay! And what makes me even angrier is that I also know I’ll never be able to prove it! I’m angry because I’ve spent some time as a guest of Her Majesty, and I would so enjoy sending you to do the same. So think on that, madam chairin-waiting, as you’re running the merged company with not much more than the percentage you have already. My guys and I haven’t reached a recommendation to minority shareholders, because that’s pretty much us now. My partner has an investment, Phil Culshaw and Gerry Meek have private holdings, Buddy Beaujean, my Texan support, he has a sizeable chunk. When you add them to my son’s twenty-six per cent … and he has said, Natalie, without my coercion that he’d rather stick hot needles in my eyes than sell to you … we will have a block that’s big enough to be a fucking spear in your side, never mind a thorn.’

‘And I don’t care,’ she yelled back, ‘because I’ve got it. Susie Gantry’s business, bloody Oz Blackstone’s business is under my control; my only regret is that they’re not here to see it! I’d have loved that even more. I don’t care about the company; all I want to do is wipe it off the face of the earth. I hated Oz for what he did to me, when I was with Ewan Capperauld! But for him, nobody would ever have known about it, but he spilled the beans and caused the chaos that followed. Then when I tried to get even with my first takeover bid, he got in the way of that too.’

She had so lost it that I thought for a second she was going to spit at me. ‘As for Susie,’ she hissed, ‘little miss perfect? Businesswoman of the Year three times? Sure, thanks to her sucking every dick in Glasgow to get the votes! Well, let them fucking rot, the pair of them, because finally I’ve had a day of my own against them!’

She was out of her seat, leaning across the desk, glaring at me, eyes like organ stops.

‘Sit down, Natalie,’ I told her quietly. ‘You’ve made your points; some of them might even be the truth. Now just tell me, how long have you been using Duncan to hatch these plots of yours? Because they weren’t his alone, that’s for sure. He’s not the sharpest tack in the box. The exposé book about Oz for example; I’ll bet that was your idea all along.’

‘Okay, I’ll give you that one,’ she conceded. ‘You want to know? Is your mobile switched off?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to fall for that one the way he did.’ I took it out of my bag, showed it to her, then laid it on her desk. ‘Good,’ she said, ‘then I’ll tell you, for it isn’t going to do you any good. Duncan and I have been a couple for a few years, but we kept it quiet.’

‘How did you get together?’ I asked.

‘He did some writing for me. I fancied him, and it went on from there. He is a bit of a stud, I must tell you; his sword is mightier than his pen, and no mistake. We didn’t make a noise about it, though, because I didn’t want old Phil to know. The last time I tried to take over the Gantry Group, when Oz got in the way, Phil helped him stop me.’