Майкл Ридпат - Fatal Error

Donnelly noticed. ‘Got to keep it closed, I’m afraid. Street noise is pretty bad here. Can’t hear yourself think.’ He smoothed open the pages. ‘This is it. I had been following Jourdan on and off for two days, since he arrived at Heathrow on Sunday morning.’

‘Did you see him with a woman?’

‘That’s confidential to my client.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. I didn’t think it was important.

‘At eight fifty-eight I saw you and Ms Da Cunha enter Jourdan’s flat. At nine twenty-one you left. A couple of minutes later, Jourdan left the flat as well. He started walking south, towards Old Brompton Road. This was a bit of a problem for me because of the one-way system round there.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It means that I couldn’t follow him by car if he walked south. The one-way pattern is north. So I had to drive north, go around the block and pick him up as he came out on to Old Brompton Road looking for a cab. I’d already done that a few times before, so I thought it would work this time.’

‘But it didn’t.’

‘It didn’t. I went around the block and waited on the main road. No sign of him. Then I heard the sirens. I drove back towards his street and as soon as I saw it was filled with police cars I drove on.’

‘Why didn’t you stop and talk to them?’

Donnelly smiled. ‘Usually my clients don’t like me to do that sort of thing. I find things work more smoothly if I avoid the police. Although in this case that was a mistake. My client told them all about me. They weren’t impressed with my discretion.’

‘I imagine not. So you told them what you saw?’

‘I didn’t see anything. Apart from you.’

‘You must have!’

‘I didn’t. It’s true someone else must have been parked on that street watching Jourdan’s flat, but I didn’t see them. It was dark, I couldn’t tell whether any of the parked cars were occupied or not. It looks as though the second I’d driven out of sight round the corner, the other car started up and ran Jourdan down.’

‘Is that what the police think?’ I asked.

‘It is now. For a while they seemed to think I’d squashed him. They took my car apart, took me apart. But they didn’t find anything.’

‘So they let you go?’

‘Yes. They know I didn’t do it. Mrs Jourdan had picked me at random through the Yellow Pages. They know I’m not a professional hit man. I mean, look at this dump. I tell you, if I were a pro I’d be able to afford a better place than this. Also running someone down is about as hit and miss as you can get. A shot is much cleaner and quicker. They know I didn’t do it.’

And so should you, he didn’t need to add.

As I studied the weasel of a man in front of me, I couldn’t help but agree. He didn’t look like my idea of an underworld thug.

‘Have you ever met Guy Jourdan, Tony’s son?’

‘No. I did catch sight of him when I followed Jourdan to your offices in Clerkenwell. But I’ve never spoken to him.’

‘Do you have any theories as to who did kill Tony Jourdan?’

‘I’m sure I could find some if you retained me.’

‘No chance of that.’

‘No? Well I’ll give you my opinion for free. This was no professional hit. It was personal. Personal usually means family. And not my client. I’ve seen jealous wives before and frankly they come a hell of a lot more jealous than Mrs Jourdan.’

‘The sons, then?’

Donnelly shrugged. ‘My fees are thirty-five pounds an hour plus expenses. I could find out for you.’

‘No thank you, Mr Donnelly. And thanks for the information.’

‘Thirty? And there wouldn’t be much in the way of expenses.’

‘Goodbye, Mr Donnelly.’ It was a relief to get out on to the pavement and taste the fresh Hammersmith air.

Guy grabbed me as soon as I got back to the office.

‘There you are, Davo. I’ve been looking all over for you. You’ve got your mobile switched off.’

‘Have I? Sorry.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Howles Marriott. With Mel,’ I said too quickly.

Guy looked at me sharply. ‘No you weren’t. I phoned her there half an hour ago.’

I didn’t tell him where I had been. And beyond looking at me strangely, he didn’t ask. We trusted each other not to skive off. Which made me feel guilty: I had abused that trust.

‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I want to go over the stuff I was planning to talk to Westbourne about. I won’t be able to see them tomorrow, you’ll have to do it.’

I pushed my conversation with Donnelly out of my mind and focused on Ninetyminutes.

Things were coming together. Ninetyminutes now had a profile as one of the up-and-coming internet companies everyone had heard of. This was partly to do with the efforts of our PR firm and partly to do with Tony’s death, which had provided an unlooked for and unwanted hook for the press. But it was mostly to do with Guy. He was excellent with journalists. He had a good story to tell, which he told well. His vision of what the Internet was all about sounded original and made sense. He had an interesting background and he looked very good in a photograph. The November issue of one of the leading business magazines carried a picture of him on the cover, and inside a write-up of ninetyminutes.com as one of the top-ten internet businesses to watch out for in Europe. As a result of all this we were now better known than many of our longer-established rivals. This wasn’t just good for the ego: it was vital if Ninetyminutes was going to overtake the other soccer sites.

Derek Silverman was a real asset. He knew many of the top club chairmen and, more importantly, he seemed to be well respected by them. Guy and he developed deals with a number of clubs where they would pass on visitors to us who were interested in the football world beyond their official club site, and we would integrate our club zone with theirs. It was difficult to do: the areas of overlap had to be carefully dealt with, but for us it was very powerful. Die-hard club supporters would always look at their own club’s site first. This was a way of capturing at least part of their attention.

More work.

Owen was a problem. Not because of his understanding of the technology. That had worked brilliantly: the architecture of the site had proved totally scalable, as he had insisted it should be. It was his inability to communicate. He insisted on using e-mail. His messages were terse, often insulting and frequently meaningless. As the company grew, this mattered. He angered the consultants we had hired to put in place the e-commerce system so badly that they quit. That set us back three weeks. Guy was furious, Amy apoplectic. But Owen was untouchable. He was Guy’s brother.

We were planning to launch the on-line retailing site at the beginning of December. It was a tight deadline. Too tight. After the fracas with the consultants, Guy agreed to move it back another week, but that was all. We were all nervous we wouldn’t hit it and Owen wasn’t inspiring us with confidence.

Ingrid, though, was doing a brilliant job. For someone who knew very little about football, she picked it up fast. Not that she ever interfered with Gaz’s views on the substance of what was written. But she was constantly asking herself and anyone who would listen why a visitor would spend time on different parts of the site and what each visitor wanted. She didn’t believe we had a ‘typical’ visitor. Each was different, each wanted different things. Ingrid wanted to provide as much as possible for everyone as seamlessly as possible. We didn’t want to be a niche player, we wanted to be the soccer site for everyone. Not easy.

I spent a lot of time with her and I enjoyed it. She was fun to work with. She never became too uptight and in the whirlwind that was everyday life at Ninetyminutes, she was a voice of sanity. Although I knew she took Ninetyminutes desperately seriously, she never showed it, and she was always ready with a joke to defuse tense situations. We all trusted her to have the right answer to difficult problems and she nearly always did.