Майкл Ридпат - Fatal Error

‘I know. But Clare’s right, someone has to stand up to him.’

‘What do you think about going to the police?’ Ingrid asked Clare.

‘I don’t know. I’m nervous about that. The threat was pretty explicit. What do you think, David?’

I considered it. ‘Knowing Owen, if you talk to the police there’s a good chance he’ll carry out his threat.’

‘Whereas if you talk to Owen,’ Ingrid said to me, ‘he’ll kill you first, and then Clare.’ She quite clearly didn’t like that option.

‘What if I talked to Guy? Guy could talk Owen out of harming Clare.’

‘He might,’ said Ingrid. ‘But you and he are hardly best mates at the moment, are you? He blames you for all of this. And he’s not in the most stable frame of mind.’

‘I think he’ll listen to me.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m willing to take the risk. Short of Clare calling Silverman to say that she wants to reject the Champion Starsat deal, I can’t see what else we can do.’ Ingrid and I turned to Clare. ‘Well?’

She thought for a moment. ‘If you’re prepared to talk to Guy and Owen, then do it,’ she said, eventually.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘We’ll give it a go. You say Guy’s at Ninetyminutes?’

‘He said he’d be there all evening,’ said Ingrid. ‘And I’m coming with you.’

‘Oh, no you’re not,’ I said. ‘It might be dangerous.’

‘Of course it’s dangerous,’ said Ingrid. ‘But if you two are going to risk your lives, I don’t see why I shouldn’t too.’

I could see there was no point in arguing with her. ‘All right. Where will you be?’ I asked Clare.

‘Mel wanted me to meet her at Howles Marriott. If we don’t hear anything from Mercia Metro TV before midnight then Derek will send a fax from his house to Champion Starsat accepting their offer. We’ve already drafted it. As the company’s lawyer, Mel wants to be involved. Since she’s in Guy’s pocket, neither Derek nor I are too happy with that. I think she’s hoping that if I’m with her and a deal comes through from Mercia Metro, we can draft whatever papers are necessary on the spot. I don’t know. She was pretty insistent, though.’

‘It’s not a bad idea,’ I said. ‘Lawyers’ offices have plenty of security, even at night, so you should be safe from Owen. We’ll come and pick you up when we’ve had a chance to talk to Guy. Depending on what he says, we can figure out somewhere safe for you to go.’

‘OK,’ said Clare, downing her whisky. ‘What are we waiting for?’

Clare took the first passing taxi to Howles Marriott’s office off Chancery Lane and Ingrid and I took the second.

‘Are you sure Guy will be there?’ I asked her.

‘I think so. Hang on. I’ll check.’

She pulled out her mobile and dialled a number. ‘Hello, Guy, it’s me... Any news?... Nothing?... OK, just checking. Bye.’

‘He’s there?’

‘Yes.’

‘How’d he sound?’

‘Tense.’

‘Do you think Owen’s with him?’

‘I don’t know. He left with the rest of us. I suppose he might have come back. I could hardly ask Guy, could I?’

‘No.’

In silence we pondered the possibility that Owen might be in the office with Guy. It was a risk we would just have to take.

We were taking big risks. People had died. More people might die. Including Ingrid and me.

I worked through the logic of what we were about to do. It held together. Just.

I thought I understood Guy. He would be pretty strung out. I knew that Ninetyminutes meant everything to him. But I also knew that our friendship meant something. He wouldn’t callously kill me. Or Ingrid. Nor would he stand by and let Owen harm us. I was pretty sure of that. Wasn’t I?

I would just have to trust him.

The taxi turned right off Clerkenwell Road down the much quieter Britton Street. We stopped outside the familiar building and I paid the driver. He disappeared, leaving Ingrid and me on the empty pavement looking up to where Guy was sitting, we hoped, alone.

I glanced across at her. Her face was pinched. She was as nervous as me.

‘You really don’t have to do this,’ I said. ‘I can go in by myself.’

‘I know.’

‘It might be dangerous. You might get hurt.’

She turned to me and smiled, a small nervous smile. ‘So might you. I’m coming with you.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go, then.’

We took the stairs up to the fourth floor. We pushed open the door bearing the ninetyminutes.com logo and entered the large open-plan room.

Guy was sitting there, staring at his computer screen where a half-finished game of Minesweeper was displayed.

Alone.

We walked towards him. He turned. He looked worse than I had ever seen him, and I had seen Guy pretty bad. His eyes were set deep in dark shadows, their habitual bright blue now dulled. Stubble sprouted out of his chin and pale puffy cheeks. His yellow hair was greasy and uncombed.

‘Hi,’ he said, his voice flat, defeated.

‘Hello, Guy.’ I walked towards him.

‘Sit down.’ He waved distractedly at my desk. I sat in my old chair. Ingrid perched on the desk next to me.

‘Heard anything?’ I asked him.

‘No.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Ten past ten. I’m not going to hear anything, either. If Mercia Metro were going to do it, they’d have done it by now.’

‘They never were going to do a deal, Guy,’ I said.

He looked at me vaguely, his eyes unfocused. ‘No,’ he said quietly. Then he glanced at Ingrid. ‘Are you two...?’

I nodded.

‘For how long?’

‘Not long. Since you fired me,’ I said.

He smiled. More to himself than to us. ‘That’s nice.’ Then he seemed to notice us again. ‘Are you going to wait with me?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Because I wanted to be alone. Here. At midnight.’

There was something in what he was saying that scared me. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why do you want to be alone?’

Guy didn’t answer. He stared at his screen. He clicked the mouse. We let him play. Then he swore to himself as he clicked on a mine.

He pushed the mouse away. ‘Ninetyminutes is over, isn’t it, Davo?’

I nodded.

‘All that work. All those hours. All the worry, the arguments, the triumphs, all crumbling away into nothing.’

‘The site will live on.’

‘Yeah, but that wasn’t what Ninetyminutes was about,’ Guy said. ‘It was about you and me becoming new people. Better people. And for a time I thought we’d made it. For a long time. I was the entrepreneur who could make anything happen. You were my right-hand man who made sure that once it happened it didn’t all fall apart. We were good, Davo. We were really good. It shouldn’t have gone wrong.’

‘No, it shouldn’t.’

‘But it did. Tonight we sell out. Tomorrow? Tomorrow, there’s nothing.’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Ingrid.

Guy didn’t seem to hear her at first. Then he smiled a small quick smile, and bent down to open the bottom drawer of his desk. He straightened up. In his hand was a gun.

It was silver-grey, quite large for a handgun, I thought, not that I knew anything about handguns. It was one of those that have a magazine in the handle. He weighed it in his hand. It looked quite heavy.

‘Where did you get that?’ I asked.

‘Owen got it for me,’ Guy said. He chuckled. ‘It’s amazing what you can buy over the Internet these days. Shootsomeone.com. Why didn’t we try that one? Or www.blowyourbrainsout.co.uk. Not many repeat customers, though. And it’s all about repeat customers, isn’t it?’

‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘Use it,’ Guy said. ‘On myself. Don’t worry. I won’t take you with me or anything. I was going to wait till twelve. But if you force me, I could do it now.’