Robert Young - Gatecrasher

A further spreadsheet of data on the stick gave detailed accounts and established otherwise murky links between Horner, his business interests with individuals, groups and companies with numerous well known and acknowledged associations with organised crime. Some of these connections were tenuous. But Campbell had put them together nonetheless, spotting the patterns, perhaps recognising names. He had been nothing if not thorough.

Without saying it he knew what Campbell was telling him. That Horner had his own problems now, too big and too immediate for him to be able to spare any time coming after Campbell. He would be a marked man, deeply out of favour with those powerful and dangerous men with whom he had nurtured relationships down the years. They would not take kindly to being made fools of. The loss of face that went with the loss of money would be the worst thing for them. He would have to pay for that and dearly.

He walked slowly through his home toward his bedroom, clutching a cordless telephone. He wasn’t sure which call to make first, where to start. But he had to begin making plans now. Had to stay a step or two ahead. Campbell had given him a head start through his thinly-veiled warning. It was up to him now how he used it.

Placing a suitcase on his bed he unzipped it, throwing back the lid. He pulled open the large doors of his wardrobe and stared at the contents. There were rows of suits and shirts, tidy stacks of folded sweaters and a neatly arranged line of shoes at the bottom. It would be some time before his life would again have this sort of order. If ever.

He was vaguely aware of the calm resignation with which he had greeted his defeat. There was no panic or alarm with the dawning realisation of the predicament he was now in. He wondered idly where he would go next, what he would do. He thought about what life would bring next for him, the people he would meet, reflecting bitterly that he would probably need some of the guile and resolve that Campbell had demonstrated since Horner had burst so violently into his life.

One thing he knew for certain, he would not forget Daniel Campbell.

Thursday. 9.30pm.

At first she had seemed oblivious to it, asking excitedly about what he had said in his meeting with Asquith, what the future held. But Campbell had not been able to maintain the charade convincingly and he could see that the doubt had crept into her eyes.

No matter now though. The short slot on the News had finished and she had not turned her head from the screen yet though minutes had passed.

Asquith had contacted him earlier in the day to tell him what time to switch on his television and to inform him, almost apologetically Campbell had thought, that with the pulling of a few strings, the item had been tucked quietly away in the middle of the programme.

‘In what has been described as a significant policy-shift, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development today announced that they had awarded three major engineering and construction contracts to local Malaysian firms for a controversial Dam Project in that country. The contracts, worth in the region of?75 million, had been expected to go to a number of more well-established British based firms tendering and who had undertaken such projects in the past. The Minister for the Department of International Development Geoffrey Asquith said earlier this evening, that this decision will allow the full benefits of the project to be felt at every level of the community.’

After another minute had passed and Sarah’s eyes remain fixed ahead of her, Campbell jabbed the remote toward the TV set and silenced it.

‘How long would you have kept it up?’ he asked quietly. ‘What was the plan?’

Sarah turned and looked at him. Her smile was uncertain and her eyes did little to mask what was going on behind them. ‘I–I can’t believe you pulled it off!’ she said and then swallowed. ‘Change-‘

Campbell waited for her to go on but she seemed to have choked on the words.

‘Change of plan? Tack? Direction?’ he suggested for her. ‘Little bit yeah. I had a real bolt of inspiration at the last minute.’

Sarah nodded at him, her eyes still wide, smile still fixed in place.

‘How long then?’

‘Daniel, what-,’ but he cut her off dead in mid-sentence with a look of cold, naked contempt.

‘How long Sarah? Couple of weeks? Months? What? I figured you’d maybe play along for a bit, all hugs and eyelashes and then maybe play the you-remind-me-too-much-of-what-happened-card. Something like that? Too traumatised by what we went through to be able to keep seeing me.’

The smile was gone now and her mouth hung open. Campbell had to break his gaze off then and he stood and stalked across to the other side of the room.

‘It was an accident you know. How I found out. A fluke. I’d heard the name before of course. I mean, he’s a bit of a name these days in the industry and, well you know, it’s my job. I think I missed it the first time, just skimmed straight past. But it was the stuff that George and Slater got for me that did it. I needed something to convince Asquith that I wasn’t mad — stop me if this is familiar — so the job I asked them to do, the documents that those boys stole were exactly what I needed. But his name was all over them too. I mean, not just his of course. But Ben Wishart just stood out.’ Campbell paused and looked at her but her eyes were not on him but fixed somewhere in the middle distance.

‘God bless search engines eh? I ran him through a couple and found all the usual stuff — the professional profile on the company website, couple of people with the same name keeping on-line diaries about Christ knows what. And then a picture of him. It was in the trade press so it was tucked away but I recognised it properly then. Special Commendation in Global Equity Funds sector wasn’t it? Not bad going really. Tough competition. And the photo was of him at the awards function in his black tie and his girlfriend — sorry — fiance, on his arm.’

She looked at him then finally but her expression told him nothing. It was empty.

‘Red really is your colour.’

Campbell could see the muscles around here eyes begin to twitch before the first tear spilled out onto her cheek. He looked away, determined to be resolute.

‘I mean really Sarah, you’re a looker anyway. Don’t think that was lost on me. In fact you know that it wasn’t don’t you? But you really scrubbed up well that night. Really. Wow! … And you know what? I knew then. The absolute fucking nanosecond that I saw the picture that I didn’t need to check the date. Not because I remembered the article or when the awards were. I just knew right then. I did check of course. Checked and checked and checked again because — fuck you Sarah — because I really wanted to be wrong.’

‘When? When did you figure it out?’ she said finally but her voice sounded small in the room.

‘Just in time. In time to fix everything. Make a few alterations to the plan. See at first I thought maybe you had just let me think there was no boyfriend. Maybe to make it easier on me, to make me feel better when I was so fucking scared and confused and vulnerable. I told myself that maybe you’d just let the lie get out of hand. Seriously. Believe that shit? I really told myself that. I even tried to convince myself that you didn’t know that he was in on it. Jesus!’

She was staring at her hands clasped in her lap and saying nothing. When she lifted her head Campbell was holding a box of tissues out to her and she took the box, thanking him quietly.

‘So Horner and your other half Ben meet through work and Horner recognises in Ben the qualities he so fruitfully puts to use himself. They cook up this plot, plant you inside Griffin to be the person on the ground, keep an eye on everything, set it all up and all that and then they start getting the money invested. When everything is ready to go, you give the instructions on what to look for and where to find it so that Gresham’s boys can do the break in without a hitch — oops! — make it look like an outside job and then sit back and let Horner take care of blackmailing Asquith. I turn up sniffing around and you decide to keep an eye on me to make sure I don’t wreck everything… But what went wrong in Cornwall? I can only presume that Ben didn’t tell Horner in time to call that guy off. Unless Ben is really as big a shitbag as Horner and was happy to let him bump his own fiance off for the sake of a few quid. But what I can’t really work out is why you were ready to let me ruin it all — or at least ruin Horner. I imagine that you two had cash in this — Ben got his first million pound bonus two years ago right? I read about that. So then he just rearranges the investment of your own money accordingly and then you stand back and let me set up Horner’s downfall. Why?’