Adrian Magson - No Kiss For The Devil

The envelope contained a cheque in four figures, made out in her name.

Varley smiled. ‘That’s an indication of how serious we are.’

Riley didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t aware of any publishers who would come calling with cheques this size up-front — at least, not in the field she normally covered. Nor would their approaches be quite so open-ended. On the other hand, she knew a little about most other publishers, if not by reputation, then by product. And of this one she knew nothing.

‘Do you have a particular assignment in mind?’ She slid the cheque back inside the envelope, waiting for the inevitable catch.

He smiled. ‘As a matter of fact, we do.’ He reached into the briefcase again and produced an opaque plastic folder an inch thick, bound by tape. He passed it across to her. It was heavy.

‘The name of the person we’d like you to profile is in there,’ he told her, ‘along with a great deal of background information culled from various reliable sources.’ He waved a hand. ‘Of course, you’ll want to check the details yourself, although I can tell you, it’s absolutely accurate. There’s a detailed brief inside the folder and the deadline is three weeks from today.’ He lifted his shoulders in apology. ‘I’m sorry to hit you with such a tight one from the get-go, but I’m sure you’ll do a good job. We got let down on another piece and decided to bring this one forward.’ He shrugged. ‘It happens. But I guess you’d know that.’

‘Of course. When do you need my decision?’

A flicker of a shadow crossed his face, then was gone almost immediately. ‘Well, I was hoping you’d be able to give me that pretty much right away, Miss Gavin. May I call you Riley?’ He raised a hand without waiting for an answer. ‘But, hey — maybe I’m rushing you a bit. And you’ve probably got things to finish off. Could you get back to me inside a day or so?’ He dipped his fingers into a pocket and pulled out a business card. ‘Maybe you could ring me on that number? I’m in London for about a week, then I have to travel on business.’

Riley looked at the card. It held his name and a telephone number. No business address. She waved the envelope containing the cheque. ‘And if I decide not to take your offer?’

He shrugged affably. ‘That’s your decision — and your cheque to keep.’ He lifted his eyebrows and looked suddenly boyish. ‘Uh… in the meantime, maybe we could do dinner.’

Riley tried to gauge whether he was serious or simply trying it on. He was undoubtedly an interesting man, and seemed to have an abundant supply of self-confidence. But she’d only just met him. Was dinner all he was after, or did he want to extend their putative business relationship beyond trading on the written word?

Before she could reply, his eyes slid past her shoulder and his face became serious. Riley turned her head. The balding man who had met her at reception was standing in the entrance to the lounge. He gave them both a brief smile, then turned and walked away without a word.

‘Riley,’ said Richard Varley, getting to his feet and picking up his briefcase. ‘I’m afraid I have to be going. My associate needs me to deal with something.’ He thrust out his hand and held hers for a long moment, towering over her. Then he let it go and stepped past her.

Ten minutes later, Riley was in the back corner of a coffee shop, holding a large latte and scanning the contents of the heavy folder Varley had given her.

Her initial reaction back at the hotel, given Varley’s wandering eyes and the fact that she’d never heard of the magazine, had been to ignore the lure of the unusual signing-on fee and give the job a miss. Now she saw who the profile target was, she was beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t go straight back and dump the papers — and the cheque — in Varley’s lap.

She had no first-hand reason to think that billionaire retail giant, industrialist and party benefactor, Muammar ‘Kim’ Al-Bashir, was anything other than above-board. There were whispers of heavy-handed reactions whenever journalists delved too deeply into the Egyptian-born businessman’s background, aided by a private army of no-nonsense security guards to discourage further probing. Added to that were friends in very high places and a ruthless thirst for revenge on those who dared cross him.

But a quick glance at this file showed that it contained material which wasn’t exclusively business gossip — although there was plenty of that. Included were pages of detail and much anecdotal reportage about the man. Her initial impression was that it had been compiled by someone with a very organised approach to gaining the maximum effect from every word — yet in a very readable style.

Another journalist?

Riley pondered on this for a while, uneasy at the idea that someone else had already worked on this project. If they had ducked out of the assignment before her, as Donald Brask had so pithily suggested, maybe she should ask who… and why. Then she noticed something even more interesting.

In addition to the commercial information in the file, which must have been difficult enough to collate — knowing what little she did of the subject and his ways — there was information of a purely personal kind: the kind which delved into the biggest no-go area of Al-Bashir’s life.

His wife, Asiyah.

Riley wondered whether this wasn’t simply courting disaster for the sake of it. Taking on a known litigant of biblical proportions, a man with his own security force and the confidence to use it, was not likely to go unnoticed. Nor would it do her reputation much good if the detail contained in the file turned out to be erroneous, misguided or even downright malicious.

She picked up the copy of East European Trade and took out her mobile. She had promised to let Donald have details of the publisher involved. She didn’t want to get into a discussion with him about this just now, so she took the easy option and texted him the details instead.

As for Al-Bashir, she toyed for all of five seconds with the idea of tossing the assignment aside. Even if she was going to tell Varley to get lost, maybe a more detailed look at the file first wouldn’t do any harm.

Palmer sat at his desk and picked up the large brown envelope. It was bulky but light. He soon saw why. Ripping it open, he tipped out a miscellaneous collection of sheets from spiral notepads, sales receipts from various shops, discarded sheets of A4 plain paper, a holiday postcard showing a slice of blue sea and a rocky coastline, and even a couple of envelopes addressed to Helen at her London home. Mrs Demelzer hadn’t been kidding when she said she’d put in everything she could find.

Among the papers were two or three stands of blonde hair. Palmer placed them gently back in the envelope. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he thought he detected a faint hint of Helen’s perfume, too. He breathed deeply, forcing himself to relax and concentrate on the papers.

Most of it was, as Mrs Demelzer had said, jottings and doodles, random notes, some scribbled through and illegible, others circled or underlined. Exclamation marks and stars appeared regularly, but their placing had more to do, he guessed, with points Helen might have been reacting to in conversations rather than relating to any specific words on the paper.

There were several phone numbers. He made a list of them for checking later. He did the same with names, although they were sufficiently vague or common to make identifying the owners all but impossible without Helen’s address book, Blackberry or computer records.

His doorbell rang, followed by footsteps on the stairs. He continued reading, surprised to see his own name written along one edge of a page torn from a spiral notebook. It was followed by the words ‘send photo’ underlined twice in a heavy hand and the word 4th. There was no indication as to when the note had been written, nor to whom the photo was to be sent, although he had a good idea. Was it a photo taken of either of them while they were together? If so, he couldn’t recall one, or why she should have chosen to send it now, after all this time.