Майкл Ридпат - Fatal Error

‘Did they tell you I saw a man in a car outside Tony’s flat? Right before he was run down?’

‘No. No, they didn’t. Have they found him?’

‘I couldn’t give them much of a description. But there was definitely someone there.’

‘I wonder who that was.’ Guy paused for a moment, but didn’t come up with any ideas. ‘They should leave me alone then. But the timing’s awful. Just after my row with Dad. I can see it must look really bad.’

‘How do you feel about it?’

Guy took a while to answer. ‘Numb. I feel numb. I mean, I’ve spent the last few days thinking how much I hate him. And then he goes and gets himself killed. It makes me... It makes me so bloody angry.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Angry at him. Angry at myself. Angry at the police for being so bloody stupid. But I know it hasn’t really sunk in yet. I still can’t quite believe I won’t see him again.’ He bit his lip.

Seeing Guy like this put my own feelings into perspective. My own guilt was nothing to his. I was in a much better position to cope.

‘Davo?’ Guy squinted at me.

‘Yes?’

‘Can you keep things together at Ninetyminutes for the next few days? Someone’s going to have to figure out what we’re going to do and I’m in no shape to do it.’

‘No problem. You take a few days off. Sort out your father’s affairs. Think about him. Spend time with Owen if it will help. I’ll mind the shop.’

Guy smiled. I was touched by the gratitude in that smile.

I did what Guy had asked me. I held Ninetyminutes together.

The staff were easy. This was a crisis and they performed well in a crisis. After the initial shock, they put their heads down and got on with the job. They knew Guy needed time, but they trusted me to sort things out.

I called Henry and told him the story. The whole story. About how Tony had been against Orchestra’s investment, about how Guy had threatened to resign and about Tony’s accident. Henry was still keen. Orchestra Ventures hadn’t made an investment for three months and they were worried they were missing the internet bus.

It turned out that the key to the whole thing was Hoyle. Tony’s shares in ninetyminutes.com weren’t held by him directly, but by an offshore trust. In fact, Tony’s affairs were a tangle of trusts domiciled in tiny islands around the globe. The ultimate beneficiaries were Guy, Owen, Sabina and her son Andreas, in varying proportions. The estate would be a nightmare to untangle. The only man who knew where everything was and how it related to everything else was Hoyle. He was also the only man left with executive powers over the trusts.

I had dealt with Hoyle before in his capacity as yes-man to Tony. But if Orchestra Ventures were to make their investment in Ninetyminutes, it would have to be with Hoyle’s say-so. And with Hoyle acting as an independent-thinking human being.

I managed to fix up a meeting with him a couple of days after Tony’s death. It turned out that Hoyle was quite capable of independent thought. It also turned out that he didn’t share Tony’s enthusiasm for the Internet at all. I sniffed an opportunity. He could either follow his late client’s strategy and be a majority shareholder of a small but marginally profitable soccer and pornography site without management of any kind, or he could take cash. Quite a lot of cash.

Hoyle went for the cash.

I didn’t have a deal yet, though. I had to persuade Orchestra to put in not only cash for Ninetyminutes to expand, but also enough to buy out Tony Jourdan’s trust as well. As a rule venture capitalists hate buying out existing investors, but the deal I suggested had several things going for it: it would allow management to retain enough of a stake to have a meaningful incentive, it would get rid of a potentially awkward shareholder and it would allow Orchestra to invest more money in the internet boom before it was too late. Henry ummed and ahhed and maybed, but then he went for it.

I received one further visit from Detective Sergeant Spedding. He was armed with a couple of photographs. One was of a middle-aged man, with thinning dark hair brushed back.

‘Do you recognize him?’ Spedding asked.

‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘The man in the car.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Definitely.’

‘He drives a black Golf GL, N registration. This is a photograph of a similar vehicle.’ He handed me the other print.

‘That’s it, I think. Of course I can’t be quite as certain about the car as the face, but it was definitely something like that.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Who is he?’ I asked.

‘He’s a private detective.’

‘Really? So he was tailing Tony?’

‘We think so. We haven’t spoken to him yet. We wanted to get confirmation from you that it was the same man first.’

‘I see. Do you know who he was working for?’

Spedding nodded. ‘Sabina Jourdan.’

I made my way through the post-modern ironic lobby of Sanderson’s Hotel. It was scattered with strange objects, the most noticeable of which was an enormous pair of red lips. I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to sit in them or sit on them: I gave them a wide berth. I spotted Guy amongst the other beautiful people in the designer-minimalist bar, nursing a bottle of beer. I asked for a pint of Tetley’s, just to see the look of disdain on the barman’s face, and settled for an Asahi.

‘How was the funeral?’ I asked Guy.

‘Awful.’

‘Who was there?’

‘Hardly anyone, thank God. It was just family — we’ll have the full-blown memorial service later. There was Owen, Mom, Sabina, Patrick Hoyle, a couple of great aunts and the vicar. Dad was buried in the churchyard in the village where he grew up, and the vicar did a good job in the circumstances. But no one seemed to really care. Apart from Sabina. The aunts hadn’t seen Dad for decades. I don’t know what my mother was doing there, she just looked bored. And Owen... well, you know what Owen’s like.’

‘What about you?’

‘I don’t know. During the service I felt nothing. Just cold and angry at all Dad had done. Or rather hadn’t done. All the times he ignored me, the times he walked out, what he did with Mel, what he was going to do to Ninetyminutes, they all ran around my head like a never-ending scorecard, with all the points against him. Then, when the coffin went down into that hole, I fell apart. I realized I’d never see him again, that I’d never have the chance to show him I wasn’t the loser he thought I was, that we’d never be close again. That we’d never be as close as I always thought we should have been.’

He swigged his beer.

‘You know, I used to think he was so cool, Davo. And he was. We’re a lot alike, he and I. But somehow we never quite managed to get on with each other, to respect each other like a father and son should. And now we never will.’

‘You did your best,’ I said. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Just a few words every now and then would have done it. A bit of encouragement about how I was doing well, how he was proud of what I’d achieved. But whenever he got involved with anything I was doing he tried to take it over, prove he could do it better than me. Like Ninetyminutes. Or Mel.’

‘How’s your mother?’

‘God, I wish she hadn’t come. She’s pissed off because her alimony stops now Dad’s died. She brought her lawyer with her to talk to Patrick Hoyle, but Hoyle reckons she hasn’t a leg to stand on. It won’t matter, she’ll just get married again.’

‘To anyone in particular?’

‘Don’t know. She’ll find someone. And she was horrible to Sabina. As if Sabina didn’t have a right to be there. Which was particularly bad since Sabina was the only one who seemed truly upset about what had happened.’