Питер Джеймс - Billionaire

Although there was little breeze, the air that buffeted in through his window was just cool enough to lift the edge off the heat. Rocq felt good; he felt free and relaxed, momentarily unshackled from the chains of London and, although he was extremely fond of Amanda, it felt good to be completely on his own, even though it was just for a few hours.

He checked his speedometer: he was doing 120 kilometres per hour. Some way back, there was a beige Range Rover; he had noticed it in his wing mirror for several kilometres. It almost seemed to be pacing him. He thought it might be a police car, but doubted the Swiss Police would use Range Rovers; then it seemed to be dropping back and he forgot about it. He passed Lausanne, then Montreux, where the road cut through the mountains, then the motorway descended down into the Rhone valley and became a three lane road. At Martigny, he turned right, and began the climb up towards Verbier.

The air ticket and the car were on the Globalex account at Thomas Cook, although it wasn’t purely for Globalex that Rocq was making this journey. He was, indeed, going on behalf of Elleck’s syndicate, to open an account at the Verbier branch of the Credit Suisse bank and to sign the papers authorizing the formation of a Swiss Company by the name of Three Bears Ag. Among the nominee directors of this company would be a lawyer friend of Theo Barbiero-Ruche, who had very kindly agreed to relinquish a part of his precious weekend in order to see Rocq. But Rocq’s private reason for the trip was to sign the papers for the formation of another company, Rocksolid Investments Ag, which would also be banking at the Credit Suisse.

He drove into the centre of Verbier, thinking how strange the famous ski resort looked in the middle of summer, with no snow except for the Montfort Glacier and the peak of Mont Gelé. The town was very busy, with a stream of cars and hordes of people, many carrying rucksacks, and wearing stout walking shoes and long socks. To Rocq, it lacked the elegance of the winter months, when the snow came down and brought the rich people with it. The town gave the appearance of tolerating these hordes, but all the while waiting patiently for the winter, the first blanket of snow, and a pace and calibre of life to which it was altogether more accustomed.

M. Jean-Luis Vençeon, avocat , lived in a chalet just below the Savoleyeres lift, according to Rocq’s instructions. The signpost to the Savoleyeres pointed up to the left, and he drove the car around the tiny traffic island and up the hill, past a short parade of smart shops on the right, then a modern Catholic church on the left, with a spire that looked like a sawn-off boomerang. He read the names on the chalets and then saw the one he was looking for, Rossignol.

Rocq’s image of a Swiss lawyer had not been a six-foot-three-inch-tall man in a pink Lacoste tee-shirt, white running shorts and Adidas tennis shoes. Jean-Luis Vençeon was polite, precise and formal. He spent one minute on introductions, five minutes explaining the documents, seven minutes pointing out to Rocq the places where he needed his signature, one minute explaining where and how Rocq should get in touch with him if he needed to, and a further thirty seconds gathering up his tennis racquet and balls and saying goodbye to Rocq. No drink, no food; no small talk.

As Rocq walked down the steps towards his car, the Swiss avocat , jogging at full tilt, was already halfway to the village. Where else, reflected Rocq, could one form two companies, open two bank accounts and be finished inside fourteen minutes? It seemed a hell of a long way to have had to come for so little, but then, he knew, the Swiss didn’t hang about when it came to business.

He stepped out into the road, walked around, and opened the door of his car. A roaring made him look up, and he saw a beige Range Rover bearing down on him, coming straight at the door. Instinct made him leap clear, and a fraction of a second later, the door was torn off its hinges. Rocq stood looking, in shock. ‘Fucking maniac!’ he shouted, as it screeched to a halt. Oddly, he thought, instead of reversing, the Range Rover began to turn around; there were two men in it. Rocq stood by the Golf and waited. The driver put the Range Rover into first gear, and began to drive back up the hill. Rocq continued to stand by the Golf. Suddenly, to his horror, it dawned on him that the Range Rover was accelerating fiercely and had no intention of stopping. He did not know how he managed to do so but he vaulted up onto the bonnet of the Golf, just at the moment the Range Rover hit it with full force.

Rocq was catapulted backwards into the long grass at the side of the road. Fear ripped through the shock: one of the men was getting out of the Range Rover. Rocq scrambled to his feet and began to sprint back down the hill, for all he was worth. He looked over his shoulder; the man had stopped after a few yards and the Range Rover was turning again, to come after him. Rocq saw a grey Renault 30 pull up outside a supermarket. The driver, leaving the engine running, dashed into the supermarket. The Range Rover had stopped to pick up the second man. Rocq jumped into the driver’s seat of the Renault, slammed the automatic gear into drive, and floored the accelerator. The bonnet rose up and snaked about for a moment, the tyres fired off gravel from the road in all directions, then the wheels gripped, and the Renault accelerated fiercely up the road. The driver of the Range Rover swung his steering wheel, slewing the car over to try and block Rocq’s path, but Rocq swung over onto the grass verge and just passed the nose of the Range Rover. In his mirror, he saw the reversing lights come on and the vehicle began, once more, to turn around.

After a quarter of a mile, he came to a junction. To the left, which Rocq guessed led back down into the town centre, the road was blocked by a massive road surfacing machine and a large yellow diversion sign pointing traffic back down the road he had just come up. Right, he guessed, would lead further up the mountain-side. He tried desperately to think what the men in the Range Rover were up to, who they were, and whether they had mistaken him for someone else. He remembered, suddenly, having noticed the Range Rover behind him on the road out of Geneva, and on the way to Montreux; but surely that one, he thought, had dropped way back? He realized now that they must have followed him all the way from the airport. But who knew he was going to Geneva? He racked his brains. Elleck and Theo were the only ones. He was convinced Theo was straight. It had to be Elleck. Elleck wanted him to get the account opened and the company formed, then he was going to get him out of the way. But Rocq hadn’t done any of the buying yet. Surely, he reasoned, if Elleck had been planning to kill him so that he could not talk, he would have waited until Rocq had finished the job? In the mirror he could see the menacing nose of the Range Rover coming up the hill.

He accelerated hard again, turning right, and drove past a cafe with a sunny terrace, full of men and women with their shirts off, the men with bare chests, the women in their bras and occasional bikini tops, sitting out, roasting in their sun tan lotions, as they sucked up the early afternoon sun. Rocq came to another intersection, with a choice of straight on, which appeared to go into woods, or a sharp left. Either way, the metalled road ended and it was cart-track. He didn’t want to get trapped in the woods, so he turned hard left, the tyres spraying out dust and pebbles.

The road was only fractionally wider than the car, and climbed steeply up above the cafe, before hairpinning round sharply to the right and traversing the side of the mountain. He slammed the gear shift into low and the car surged upwards, the rev counter racing around towards the red mark, the nose occasionally snaking as the ground beneath the tyres gave out, the engine howling. He took his eyes off the narrow road for a fraction of a second to look at the fuel gauge, and noticed with horror that it was on the empty mark. In his mirror he could see the Range Rover starting to turn up past the cafe. He wasn’t at all happy about this terrain; he had no idea where the track went nor when it might become unpassable in this car. Right now, the Range Rover had every conceivable advantage over him, including, he had no doubt, a full tank of petrol.