Майкл Ридпат - Fatal Error

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean.’ She was looking at me closely.

I thought through Ingrid’s suggestion. It was indeed fortunate that the gardener had disappeared. I remembered hearing Hoyle repeat his name to Guy. I remembered the mysterious footprint from Guy’s shoe. And Owen’s reaction when he heard that his brother had been arrested, almost as if he knew something.

Then I stopped thinking.

‘You know what?’ I said. ‘I don’t care. I’m just glad to be out of here.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Mel, her voice stronger than it had been for the last four days.

Tony hadn’t come through with his earlier promise of the fare home and my meagre funds wouldn’t stretch to a one-way plane ticket, but Ingrid lent me two hundred francs which gave me enough for a bus fare. The taxi dropped me off at the bus station and I was sorry to say goodbye to her and Mel, but very pleased to get on the coach for the long trip back to England.

As the bus powered up the autoroute towards the lowering cloud of northern France, I pondered the one lesson I had learned from the previous week. I had finally glimpsed what the glamorous lives of people such as Guy were really like and I had discovered something.

They weren’t nearly as desirable as they seemed.

May 1999, Clerkenwell, London

It was Monday morning and we had the keys to the new office. The whole team showed up: Guy, myself, Owen, Gaz, Neil, Sanjay, Amy and Michelle. For most of them it was their first day in the job. Everyone was wearing jeans and ready for hard physical labour.

Britton Street was picturesque in its way, a narrow lane of modest Georgian houses and converted metalworking shops like ours, with the white spire and golden weathervane of St James’s Church, Clerkenwell, peeking out above the rooftops. There were signs of the dot-com invasion everywhere: young thin men in fleeces with wispy facial hair, flashier men and women in black on mobile phones, convenience shops full of convenience snacks, ‘Offices To Let’ signs where old jewellers’ or watchmakers’ premises were being refurbished. But our own office was nothing special: one side of the fourth floor of a brick building with white walls, blue-painted pipework, a light grey carpet and no furniture.

Workmen brought up second-hand desks, chairs, partitions and computer equipment, which everyone shifted around enthusiastically. We had thought of most things in advance, like the photocopier and the computer network, but we needed a coffee machine, a water cooler and a fridge. Michelle was despatched to find them. Gaz had arrived with his uncle’s van, in the back of which was a table-football table and a pinball machine. He said it was pointless keeping them at home if he was going to be at the office all the time. He and Neil played a couple of games of table football; they were both astoundingly good.

Owen had planned the phone system and the computer network meticulously, but it was Sanjay, rather than he, who directed the engineers who came to install things. The characters of the new members soon became clear. Amy was an adept organizer with leanings towards bossiness, who spent most of the day wandering round with a cloth and a bucket of hot water wiping things. Neil was willing but useless, but Gaz turned out to be surprisingly practical, especially with wires. Owen could lift anything. Miraculously, by four o’clock, the office was functional.

Guy disappeared for ten minutes and came back with three bottles of champagne and some glasses.

‘To ninetyminutes.com,’ he said.

We all raised our glasses and drank. I looked around at the odd assortment of twentysomethings, dirty, sweaty but smiling, and thought how much happier I was to be there rather than surrounded by the humourless bankers of Gurney Kroheim.

We were aiming to launch in August in time for the coming football season, only three months away. This meant that we needed to finish the site by mid-July to give us time to test it and to iron out any bugs. It was a tight deadline, but we were confident we could meet it. Owen had finalized the architecture of the system, and we had signed contracts with the firm that would house and maintain our server. Mandrill’s design was coming on well and Gaz was putting together some excellent content.

But I was becoming increasingly worried about Torsten and the venture capitalists. Suddenly cash was flying out of the door. Unsurprisingly, none of our suppliers was willing to advance credit to an internet start-up; it was all cash up front. It was fortunate we had my father’s funds, otherwise we would have been caught short. Alarmed by the dwindling balance of the company account, I checked my cash forecasts. We would run out in ten days unless we received Torsten’s two million pounds.

Three of the venture capitalists had turned us down cold. Henry Broughton-Jones at Orchestra Ventures had agreed to see us, but not for another week. And we were still waiting for replies from the two others. Even if Orchestra or one of the others did show interest, it was extremely unlikely that they would be willing to invest within our ten-day deadline.

We needed Torsten.

I pestered Guy. He called Torsten repeatedly at the office with no response, or rather a string of implausible excuses from his assistant. I could see Guy’s confidence in his friend evaporating before my eyes. I suggested we wait until eight o’clock, nine o’clock his time, and call him on his mobile. Torsten might hide at work but, knowing him, he would want to make himself available during his leisure hours for his friends. He wouldn’t risk any parties taking place without him.

Guy dialled Torsten’s mobile number and I leaned forward to try to catch what was going on. We had arranged our desks so that they faced each other, and I could see the tension on Guy’s face as he waited for an answer. It was five to eight, but everyone was still in the office working, even Michelle, whose hours officially ended at five-thirty.

‘Ja?’ I could just hear through the receiver in Guy’s hand.

‘Torsten? It’s Guy.’

I could only hear one side of the conversation. But from Guy’s face I could tell it was bad news. Very bad news. It was quick, too. Torsten couldn’t wait to get rid of his friend.

Guy slammed down the phone. ‘Shit!’

I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds, then opened them. ‘Did he say why?’

‘Not exactly, but I can guess.’

‘What?’

‘Daddy. Herr Schollenberger doesn’t want his little blue-eyed boy investing money in me.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I know Torsten. He tried to make out it was his decision, but it wasn’t. Torsten knows where his bread and butter come from. His father says “jump”, he jumps. His father says “no” and...’ Guy held up his hands in a gesture of hopelessness.

‘Any chance of him changing his mind?’

‘None. Absolutely none.’

I exhaled. Suddenly I became aware of all those people beavering away around us. People who had given up well-paid, promising careers to join us. And within a couple of weeks we were going to tell them, sorry, it had all been a big mistake. You know that two million quid we said we were getting in soon? Well, that was just a joke. Game over.

And what about my father? I had known all along he might lose his money, but never had I assumed he could lose it in less than a month. What kind of idiot would he take me for? And my mother? He had kept the investment from her. At some point he would have to tell her that he had given it to sonny-boy David, who had pissed it away in three weeks. Boy, would she be angry. And with some justification.

I looked across the desk at Guy. ‘What are we going to do?’