Майкл Ридпат - Fatal Error

Tony rose from a chair to meet us. The wrinkles around his eyes had deepened and his sandy hair was fading to grey at the edges, but he still looked slim and active. At least he wasn’t openly hostile. He smiled politely and introduced me to the dark-haired woman who was sitting with him. She stood up, and towered over him by at least three inches. A beautiful woman, I was not surprised to see, but in a more subtle way than Dominique.

‘Sabina, this is David Lane, an old school friend of Guy’s.’

‘Hello,’ she said, with a friendly smile. She held out her hand for me to shake, and then kissed Guy on both cheeks. A baby started crying inside. The noise shocked me, it seemed so out of place in these surroundings.

‘I must go and check on Andreas,’ said Sabina in a Germanic accent. ‘Make sure you see your brother before you go, Guy.’

‘I will.’

We sat down. I looked around. Up at the house and Dominique’s bedroom, which was presumably Tony and Sabina’s bedroom now, the place where I had lost my virginity and she had lost her life. At the guest cottage where I had skulked during the French police’s inquisition, at the old Roman watchtower where Tony had seduced Mel and where his son had declared his hatred of me.

Tony was watching. ‘I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again,’ he said. But he said it without hostility, as though he wanted to note our past enmity for the record, before putting it to one side.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘And I’m sorry. But this isn’t a social call.’

‘Of course not. You want some more money, don’t you, Guy?’

‘Yes,’ said Guy.

‘And why should I give it to you?’

‘I don’t know why you should,’ he answered. ‘Which is why I haven’t asked you before. In fact, I didn’t want to ask you even now, but David insisted.’

‘Oh, yes?’ said Tony, glancing inquiringly at me.

‘Guy didn’t want to ask you for money because he didn’t want to rely on you to bail him out of a hole yet again,’ I said. ‘But I’m not asking you to bail Guy out. I’m asking you to invest in something because you can make a good profit out of it.’

‘Hm.’ Tony lifted up the newspaper on the table to reveal the business plan we had couriered to him the day before. He picked it up and began leafing through it. ‘Did you write this?’ he asked me.

‘Some of it. Guy wrote most of it, though.’ Tony glanced at his son. It was a good document, and Tony knew it.

Then he started asking questions. They came thick and fast. Henry Broughton-Jones had asked some pretty good general questions, but they were nothing like this inquisition. Although Tony had only had the plan a day, he had virtually memorized it. He asked me to justify the assumptions behind the financial projections, an uncomfortable process. He had looked at several other soccer sites already on the web, and he wanted to know what we thought of them. He asked us about Champion Starsat, the big satellite TV company, and what their strategy for the web would be.

After an hour and a half, Miguel brought lunch and the questions continued. We did well. Guy in particular held his own. He knew his stuff, Tony couldn’t deny it.

‘So, Dad,’ said Guy eventually. ‘What do you think?’

Tony looked from Guy to me and back again to his son. He grinned. ‘It’s a good idea. I’ll do it.’

Guy could hardly believe it. His jaw dropped open.

‘I need to make some real money again,’ said Tony. ‘All this has to be maintained.’ He gestured to the house and gardens around him, seeming to take in his wife and son indoors. ‘The life went out of the property market years ago. The Internet is the place to be. The challenge will be good for me. But,’ he said, glancing at me, ‘David is right. I’m going to do this on a purely commercial basis. Which means I’m going to want a stake for my two million quid. A big stake.’

Guy and I exchanged glances. ‘Fair enough.’

Tony held out his hand for his son to shake.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ Guy said.

‘Good. I’ll come to England next week and we can finalize things with your lawyers.’ Guy winced. Tony noticed it. ‘You do have lawyers, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Guy. ‘We have a very good lawyer.’

‘Well, I look forward to negotiating with him.’

I wasn’t quite sure how much Mel would look forward to negotiating with Tony. Neither was Guy, judging by his expression.

We ordered a taxi to take us back to the airport, and after a quick look at Guy’s six-month-old half-brother, we left. Neither of us wanted to stay in that house a moment longer than we had to.

Guy shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe it.’

‘I told you it was worth a try,’ I said. ‘Cheer up. We’ve just saved the company yet again and you’re looking worried.’

‘It doesn’t feel right,’ said Guy.

‘Oh, come on. What do you want to do? Turn down his money?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then? This can only be good news.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Guy. ‘I don’t trust him.’

June 1992, The City, London

The long hot afternoon was beginning, and I was going to spend the whole of it in Nostro Reconciliations, reconciling nostros. The very thought of it made my limbs feel heavy and my brain tired, so tired. Computer printouts to go through, boxes to tick, mindless tedium. I was a junior member of the audit team for United Arab International Bank. My current task was to make sure that the balances at the bank’s main accounts in each currency, known as nostro accounts, reconciled with the bank’s own accounting system. In theory I might uncover a multi-million-dollar money-laundering fraud at any moment. In practice they added up, with mind-numbing regularity. I glanced across at the manager in charge of the department. He was a small, rather scruffy man who seemed to have a permanent itch just below his collar. He was too nervous to talk to me. I fantasized that this was because he was a master criminal, afraid I would unmask him at any moment. Of course I knew he was actually worried that my boss might criticize his department. But there wasn’t even much chance of that, I thought, as I ticked another box.

I had tried to get myself on the audit teams for as many banks as possible, on the theory that it would make it easier to escape accountancy for banking once I qualified. A fine theory, but boring, boring, boring.

I had one thought to sustain me, like the glimpse of an oasis across the desert sands. That evening I was attending a reunion for the old pupils of Broadhill School. It would be held at a hotel near Marble Arch, the headmaster would make a speech pleading for cash and there would be lots to drink. Lots and lots. I was looking forward to it.

I was also looking forward to meeting the people there. I hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from school; my life at university and as an accountant had taken me away from them. I had read about one or two of them in the papers: a quiet girl in my economics class who had won a swimming medal at the Seoul Olympics and a boy who had rescued his fellow explorers after two weeks lost in the Borneo jungle. I had also read about their fathers: Torsten Schollenberger’s had been accused of bribing a senior German minister and Troy Barton’s had won an Oscar. No mention of Guy’s, though. Nor of Guy. The thought of them both made me shudder. Even five years after the event I couldn’t think of Guy without the guilt flooding back. I hoped he wouldn’t be there that evening.

He was. He was the first person I saw as I walked into the already crowded hotel function room.

He was standing holding a glass of wine, talking to two people I vaguely recognized. He hadn’t changed much: his blond hair was now brushed back off his forehead and he had filled out a bit. I hesitated, flustered, unable to decide how to enter the room without him seeing me.