Peter Hamilton - The Mandel Files

“Philip. Wonderful party,” the man said, his accent faintly continental. “Thanks so much for the invite.”

Philip returned the smile, although Greg knew him well enough by now to see how laboured it was without resorting to his espersense.

“Kendric, glad you could come,” he said. “I’d like you to meet my new secretary. Greg, this is Kendric di Girolamo, my good friend and business colleague.”

Kendric smiled with reptilian snobbery. “Ah, the English. Always so eager to do down the foreign devil. Actually, Greg, I am Philip’s financial partner. Without me Event Horizon would be a fifth-rate clothing sweat-shop on some squalid North Sea trawler.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Evans said in a tight flat voice. “I can find twenty money men bobbing about any time I look into a sewer.”

“You see,” Kendric appealed to Greg, “a socialist at heart. He has the true Red’s loathing of bankers.”

The knuckles on Julia’s hand were blanched as she gripped her grandfather’s shoulder, holding back the tiger.

The sight of someone as ill as Evans being deliberately provoked was infuriating. Greg allowed the neurohormones to flood out from the gland and focused his mind on ice-hard, sharp, helium cold. A slim blade of this, needle-sharp tip resting lightly on Kendric’s brow, directly above his nose. “Don’t let’s spoil the party atmosphere,” he said gently.

Kendric appeared momentarily annoyed by a mere pawn interrupting his grand game.

Greg thrust his eidolon knife forwards. Penetration, root pattern of frost blossoming, congealing the brain to a blue-black rock of iron.

It felt so right, so easy. The power was there, fuelled by that kilowatt pulse of anger.

Kendric blinked in alarmed confusion, swaying as if caught by a sudden squall. The hauteur which had been swirling triumphantly across his thoughts flash-evaporated. His knees nearly buckled, he took an unsteady step backwards before he regained his balance.

Greg’s own unexpected flame withered, sucked back to whatever secret recess it originated from. Its departure left a copper taste filming his suddenly arid throat. He turned to the woman. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

“My wife, Hermione,” Kendric said warily; and she held her gloved hand out, the jewels of her rings sparkling brightly.

Her eyes swept Greg up and down with adulterous interest. She seemed mildly disappointed when all he did was shake her long-fingered hand.

He found himself comparing her to Eleanor, Only a few years separated them, and put in a dress like that Eleanor would be equally awesome. Except Eleanor would laugh herself silly at the notion of haute couture, and she’d never be able to mix at this kind of party-Ashamed, he jammed that progression of thoughts to a rapid halt.

“Married, Mr Mandel?” Hermione enquired. Her voice was the audio equivalent of Katerina’s dress, husky and full of forbidden promise. Now why did he keep associating those two?

“No.”

“Pity. Married men are so much more fun.”

Temptation had never beckoned so strongly before. She was one hell of a woman, but there was something bloody creepy scratching away behind that beautiful façade.

“We will talk later,” Kendric said to Philip in a toneless voice. “Scotland needs to be finalized. Yes?”

“Yes,” Philip conceded.

Satisfied with this minor victory he moved on to give Julia a light kiss. Hermione followed suit, then wafted away with a final airy, “Ciao.” But not before she winked at Greg.

Julia stood rigidly still for the embrace. Greg’s espersense informed him she was squirming inside. She had good reason, there was a burst of unclean excitement in Hermione’s mind as their cheeks touched.

“Who the hell are they?” Greg asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

Julia was kneeling anxiously by her grandfather’s powerchair. The old man had sagged physically. His mind was grey.

She looked up at Greg with shrewdly questioning eyes. “Thank you for making Kendric back off,” she said.

He detected her thoughts flying at lightspeed, never losing coherence. Odd. Unique, in fact.

“You have a gland,” she said after a few seconds.

Philip’s low chuckle was malicious. “Too late, Juliet, you’ve had your three.”

“Oh, you,” she poked him with a finger in mock-exasperation. But there was an underlying current of annoyance.

“Di Girolamo is moneyed European aristocracy,” he explained. “And he’s right about us having financial ties; although being my partner is a complete load of balls. Did you ever buy any of my gear when the PSP was in power?”

“Yeah. A flatscreen, and a microwave too, I think. Who didn’t?”

“And how did you pay for ‘em?”

“Fish mainly, some vegetables.”

“OK. The point is this: at the local level it was all done by barter. There was no hard cash involved. I would fly the gear in, and my spivs would distribute it, sometimes through the black market, sometimes through the Party Allocation Bureau. So far a normal company production/delivery set up, right? But none of your fruit and veg is any use to me, I can’t pay the bankers with ten tonnes of oranges. So that’s where Kendric and his team of spivs comes in; he makes sure I get paid in hard currency. His spivs take the barter goods and exchange them for gold or silver or diamonds, some sort of precious commodity acceptable internationally-New Sterling was no good, it was a restricted currency under the PSP. They lift them out of the country, and Kendric converts them into Eurofrancs for me. It was a huge operation at the end, nearly two hundred thousand people; which is partly why the PSP never shut us down, you’d need a hundred new prisons to cope. Since the Second Restoration I’ve been busy turning my spivs into a legitimate commercial retail network-they’re entitled to it, the loyalty they showed me. But now New Sterling has been opened, there’s no need for Kendric’s people any more, not in this country.”

“Kendric also used to make himself a tidy profit while he was arranging the exchange,” Julia put in coldly.

“I would’ve thought you could have arranged the exchange by yourself without any trouble,” Greg said.

“Nothing is ever simple, Greg,” Philip replied. “Kendric’s management of the exchange was part of my original arrangement with my backing consortium. I needed a hell of a lot of cash to fund Listoel, and I didn’t have the necessary contacts with the broker cartels back in those days, not for something that dodgy. Kendric did. His family finance house is old and respectable, well established in the money market. And he offered me the lowest rates, a point below the usual interest charges in fact. We got on quite well back then, despite his faults he is an excellent money man. The trouble is, he’s been getting a mite uppity of late, thinks he should have a say in running Event Horizon. Involve the consortium with the managerial decision process. Bollocks. I’m not having a hundred vice-presidents sticking their bloody oars in.”

“So why are you still tied in with him? You’re legitimate now.”

“Scotland,” Julia said bitterly.

“Fraid so,” Philip confirmed. “The PSP is still in power north of the border so my arrangement with Kendric is still operating up there. Our respective spivs are virtually one group now, they’ve worked together for so long. It’d be very difficult to disentangle the two, not worth the effort and expense, especially as the Scottish card carriers aren’t going to last another twenty months.

“And of course the di Girolamo house has an eight per cent stake in Event Horizon’s backing consortium. And guess who their representative on the board is.”