Robert Young - Gatecrasher

Slater’s face didn’t shift. He shrugged.

‘What got me though wasn’t all that. I suppose you wanted to tidy up after yourselves after what happened but it was that other lot. The ones that dragged him off the other night…’

Slater stared back at him for long moments. Drennan was fishing. After a while, Slater dropped his gaze to the table and picked up his pint, taking a long, deep drink.

‘You got what I want?’ he said as he set down the glass.

Drennan stayed silent, trying to play Slater at his own game, but failed. Giving up quickly he said ‘No flirting Keith?’

Slater went back to staring through Drennan.

‘Please yourself big man. I have it. You?’

Slater reached into the pocket of his jacket and slipped a small, plain memory stick across the table. Drennan looked at it and picked it up.

‘It has been such a pleasure,’ Drennan said with a smug wink and then he stood up, placed a hand on Slater’s shoulder as he passed, and walked away.

Slater had been sorely tempted to grab the hand on his shoulder, to twist it round and up Drennan’s back but he sat still, his eyes fixed on the spot where Drennan’s face had been as Slater had pictured smashing the beer bottle into it a few times.

Distracted by a young girl asking if the other seat was free Slater looked at her, nodded and then finished his beer. Then he reached under the table for the small backpack that had been left there and, swinging it onto his shoulder, he made for the door, smiling at the doorman on the way out.

Thursday. 7pm.

As Campbell approached his front door he noticed that Warren’s car had gone. Without even bothering to feign nonchalance he looked up and down the road and he kept walking, right past the flat and to the end of the street. At the corner he looked along the roads branching left and right and then he turned and walked back to his front door again. Nope. Definitely gone.

Smiling, he twisted his key in the lock and moved inside. It looked different in his flat, cleaner and fresher than it had looked in weeks. He could feel the approaching return to normality — not that he was out of the woods yet. Campbell was pessimistic enough after what he had been through to realise that everything could still come totally unstitched, could yet come smashing down again.

Not out of the woods yet then, but the trees were thinning now.

There remained only one more thing for him to do to set himself back on track, to be rid of all that had happened. Everything else was in place. Gresham and Slater had followed his instructions to the letter, grumbling at the last minute adjustment he had made but then silenced when he told them how much better it would actually work out for them all.

He too had ensured that in addition to the insurance he had put in place to ensure his own safety that there would be compensation as well. His own reward was less lucrative than the others could expect but it was untainted and that felt more important than anything else.

‘Ten per cent?’ Gresham had said to him down the phone, his tone too surprised and disbelieving to be angry. ‘You really are pushing it now sunshine.’

‘Look George, if you do everything I’ve told you you’ll all be even better off than I when I explained it to you the other day.’

‘Then do the same as us with your own cash. That’s my money.’

‘No. I was nearly killed because of that stick George and I deserve a share. Ten per cent. That’s all. You’ll have the ninety left.’

Gresham had been stubborn at first but eventually relented and agreed. Campbell had stopped short of telling him what he really thought. The idea that he could put his savings into buying shares that he knew would rocket in price had never really crossed his mind as a realistic prospect. When he thought about it he couldn’t get past the fact the that not only was it illegal, that he would be knowingly breaking the law to make money, but worse; that it would make him the same as Horner.

Horner’s whole plan had been to make a bundle of cash by manipulating the market and the share price. How could Campbell do the same? How could he even think about doing anything remotely similar in nature to Horner? As much as he might have told himself that he could get away with it, make a lot of money and leave no trace, he could not escape the fact that his conscience would never allow it. He simply couldn’t bring himself to do it.

At the end of the day he knew that all he really wanted was his life back.

Of course a nice holiday wouldn’t hurt. Perhaps a new car. And though he couldn’t face the idea of becoming like Horner in some tiny way by just hijacking his scam, he had no such qualms about taking a little of the man’s money. He was owed something at least.

So Gresham had finally surrendered to Campbell’s insistence though he loudly protested that he did not understand it. Campbell didn’t think that the man could understand.

The doorbell rang. The end was coming.

Thursday. 9.30pm.

None of it had seemed to fit together at the time. Even now it didn’t seem real.

The meeting with Griffin had been odd given that the other man had set it up, or his secretary at least. But when he’d got there Griffin had seemed more inclined to let Horner take the lead. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps once he’d got going and made his offer he had knocked Griffin off his stride. The man was so full of self-righteous indignation at the time it would be no surprise to imagine that he’d abandoned whatever it was he had come to say. But now it seemed obvious that it had all been set up, perhaps to keep Horner busy and distracted whilst Campbell got to Asquith.

The data too had confounded him at first after Drennan had dropped it off earlier in the evening. Not what he had expected to see; no data on his west African venture but instead a detailed spreadsheet giving the various transactions that his three investment companies had made, or some of them at least. It wasn’t subtle particularly but it told him that Campbell knew what he was trying to do. Too late of course had he realised this.

Now finally, with the news announcement echoing in his head it fell into place. He had been outmanoeuvred. Beaten. Asquith had of course called his bluff, and ignored the threat, convinced no doubt by Campbell that Horner would never dare be so foolish as to actually expose the both of them. Spiteful and vengeful though he felt now, even he knew that he would never inflict such damage on himself.

Horner was sitting in the living room of his home. A broad, sumptuous leather sofa sat squarely in the centre of the room facing a large wide-screen plasma TV. Beneath it a number of electronic units flickered with LED displays. The lights were dimmed soft and the heavy drapes were drawn across the large picture window that looked out over landscaped gardens. The sound of the television, filtered through five separate speaker channels by a home-cinema amplifier, filled the room. Horner heard nothing.

His thoughts wandered. He wondered at what point he had let it get out of his control. Should he have taken greater charge over things rather than let Drennan do so much legwork? How on earth had this Daniel Campbell, this random stranger, inflicted such terminal damage to his best conceived plans?

None of it meant anything now of course. Campbell, through his scheming and his desperate gamble, had backed him right into a corner. It wasn’t the financial damage, the losses he would make on the stock investments. Their already low price would probably fall further in the wake of the announcement.

What he also knew, though Horner could not imagine how, was that the decision would affect not only Horner’s investments. Others too would suffer the consequences, others who had made investments based on Horner’s own confident and self-conscious bragging. Here’s a tip. Trust me, can’t fail.