Питер Джеймс - Billionaire

Amanda, standing above Rocq, carefully unscrewed the top of the can of Mazola corn oil, then tipped the tin upside down. The cooking oil gushed out all over him. She poured it over his chest, down his body, down each leg, then back up again; the oil gushed over his body and onto the polythene sheet on which he lay, and which stretched out not only across the bed, but across several feet of the thick pile carpet all around the bed.

‘Enough — I’m drowning!’

She dropped a small studded leather ring, about one inch in diameter, onto his stomach; ‘Put that on,’ she said.

‘What the hell is that supposed to be? A lifejacket?’

‘No silly, it’s the very latest thing.’

‘Latest what? If it’s meant to be a condom, it’s not much use — it’s got a bloody great hole in it.’

‘It’s from the States — a girlfriend of mine just sent it to me. Haven’t you seen one before?’

‘What is it?’ Rocq inspected the object carefully: it looked like a miniature dog collar. ‘A Hoopla for mice?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s an extra special small size for you.’

‘Small size what?’

‘You’re really thick at times, aren’t you. Where the hell do you think it goes?’

‘I’m meant to put that on?’ he said, astounded.

‘Sure you are.’

‘What does it do?’

‘It’s meant to keep a certain part of you interested in me — regardless of how the rest of you feels.’

‘Is that meant to be a hint? I didn’t know I was such a crummy lover I needed propping up.’

She kissed him deeply. ‘You’re a wonderful lover.’ She rubbed some oil slowly across him. ‘Simply wonderful. I thought it might be fun to try one of these out, that’s all.’

Reluctantly, Rocq tried it out. Two hours later, when he was finally allowed to remove it, he collapsed into a coma.

The alarm went off at 6.30 and Rocq snapped out of the dream he was having that he was drowning in a butter dish. He lay back and began to focus his mind; it was his normal practice, before he got out of bed, to recall the events of the day before, and plan the day ahead. It was something he’d done ever since he was a child.

He remembered the row he and Amanda had had the night before last. After the taxi had dropped him outside the Mayor Gallery in Cork Street, and in full view of 120 guests at the Andy Warhol preview, he had fallen flat on his face, and proceeded to be sick onto the pavement. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad, he reflected, if he hadn’t then proceeded to enter the gallery, collar Warhol, spend five minutes explaining to him in a slurred voice, while Warhol helped to prop him up, why, in his view, the pile of vomit on the paving stones was a more important personal statement than Warhol’s life work. For a further half hour, he had staggered about among the guests, avidly lecturing anyone he could collar on the poetic beauty of tomato skins and diced carrots, before eventually falling asleep for half an hour in the ladies’ lavatory.

Sometime around midnight that night he had finally shaken off the worst effects of Elleck’s Chivas Regal, and by dawn he was beginning to feel sober. Before leaving for work, he had made a number of telephone calls, first to Milan and then to Tunquit, in Umm Al Amnah, then to Toronto, then Lagos, then Kuwait. When he had arrived in the office, shortly before 9.00, yawning and with a splitting headache, the first thing he had done was check the gold price. The London Exchange hadn’t yet opened, but gold, which had closed on the London Exchange the previous night at $494 an ounce had risen during the night, and had closed on the Hong Kong exchange at $521, which would be the opening price in London. Rocq had smiled to himself. By the close of the London exchange on Wednesday afternoon, gold had risen again, another $8, closing at $529.

He stretched a hand out of the bed, found his handkerchief, wiped off as much of the Mazola as he could, picked up the telephone receiver, and dialled Globalex’s closing prices. The recorded voice informed him that gold was currently at $538. Rocq slid out of the bed and waded his way over the polythene, and through the broadloom, to the shower.

The traffic was thicker than usual as he pulled his new Porsche into his parking bay, in the multi-storey NCP car park behind Lower Thames Street, at five past nine, twenty-minutes later than usual. He switched off the engine, and sat back for a few moments, savouring the smell of the new car: the fresh leather and hot oil. He climbed out; the door shut with the neat clunk that he liked; he reflected that there was no other car he knew of where one could get pleasure out of merely shutting a door.

He crossed Lower Thames Street, and walked up towards Mincing Lane. His feeling of well-being suddenly disappeared and was replaced with one of disquiet; up ahead was a cluster of police cars, with blue lights flashing, as well as an ambulance. Part of the pavement appeared to be cordoned off. As he got closer, he saw that the area around the entrance to Globalex was cordoned off with white tape.

He walked straight up to a police constable who was standing behind the tape.

‘What’s happened, officer?’

The policeman looked at him, suspicious of anyone that tried to suck up to him by calling him ‘officer’ when it was clear as a bell to anyone that had a pair of eyes, or even one, come to that, that he was not an officer, but a plain constable.

‘Do you work in here?’

‘Yes.’

The constable lifted the tape and jerked his thumb towards the doorway. ‘Okay.’

Rocq ducked under the tape. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Someone’s been murdered.’

‘Murdered?’ He dashed inside the entrance. He had heard of the expression ‘crawling with policemen,’ but he’d never actually seen a place that fitted the description — until now. They were everywhere, dusting, scraping, examining, interviewing. As he waited by the lift, the manager of the metals section, Tony Zuckerman, came down the stairs with a man he presumed to be a detective. ‘What’s happened, Tony?’ said Rocq.

‘Sergeant-Major Bantry’s been murdered. Burglars — whole place been turned upside down during the night — he must have heard them and gone to have a go — poor sod.’

‘What — how?’

‘Bust his neck,’ said the detective. ‘Professionals, whoever did that; vicious bastards.’

Rocq got out of the elevator on the fourth floor; the receptionist, Miss Heyman, was looking ashen faced. ‘Good morning,’ said Rocq.

‘Good morning, Alex.’

‘Nice start to the day,’ he said.

She burst into tears. ‘Poor old man — why did they have to kill him? Surely they could have just tied him up and gagged him?’

Rocq nodded silently. ‘Sickening, isn’t it. What did they take? Ten quid petty cash and Sarge’s wallet?’

‘I should think that’s about all there was of any value in this place.’

‘What the hell do these bastard burglars think?’ exploded Rocq, angrily. ‘That we’ve got bloody gold bars lying all over the place?’

‘Probably,’ she said.

He shook his head exasperatedly, and walked through to his office. He recoiled when he saw it: the drawers of all the filing cabinets were pulled out, and papers were strewn everywhere. Slivitz, Mozer, Prest, Boadicea and the rest of his colleagues had already begun the clearing-up. For a change, nobody got at anyone, and nobody felt like cracking any gags.

At eleven o’clock, Elleck called Rocq up to his office. As he walked down the corridor, he saw Elleck’s secretary checking through a filing cabinet. She stood up and announced him to Elleck.

‘Good morning, Sir Monty,’ said Rocq.