Майкл Ридпат - The Predator

‘Wouldn’t you just love to know,’ said Lenka, and rang off.

Chris and Ian exchanged glances. Hearing Lenka talk like that had been tough for both of them. But it was what she had said that interested Chris. No wonder Ian hadn’t wanted him to hear the tapes. It wasn’t just that it revealed their relationship. It also revealed that Ian had been effectively giving Lenka inside information.

Radaphone was one of the big three European mobile telephone networks. If they bought Eureka Telecom, the bonds would shoot up in price. Carpathian would make a nice quick return on twenty-five million euros. As Lenka had said to him when he had phoned her in Prague, there was a story.

Chris glanced at Barry. His ears had progressively reddened throughout the conversation. Chris remembered him vaguely. He was an IT guy through and through. He might have picked up the possibility that Ian had given away too much information to Lenka, but he would be much more interested in the nature of the relationship between her and Ian. The Bloomfield Weiss gossip machine would have plenty of new material before the day was out. Tough.

‘Well?’ said Chris, after Barry had left the room.

‘What can I say? I’m embarrassed.’

‘Not that. Radaphone.’

‘Oh. Radaphone.’

‘Will Radaphone take over Eureka Telecom?’

Ian paused for a long time before answering. In the end, he seemed to make up his mind. ‘It’s possible.’

‘But no signs yet?’

‘None at all.’

‘Do you have any concrete evidence of a takeover?’

‘You heard the recording,’ said Ian. ‘It’s just guesswork.’

‘You didn’t see Radaphone executives talking to anyone from Eureka Telecom?’

Ian shook his head.

‘What about any of your corporate finance boys?’

‘I wouldn’t know about it if they did, would I? Chinese walls, and so on.’

‘She just trusted your hunch, didn’t she?’

Ian smiled. ‘Looks like it.’

Chris had had enough. Lenka’s death, Rudy’s demand for his money back, the collapse of Eureka Telecom’s bond price, his presence in the Bloomfield Weiss trading room and now the discovery that Ian and Lenka were having an affair, all combined in some cavity deep within him to produce a surge of disgust.

‘You lied to her, didn’t you?’ he muttered through clenched teeth.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Because she was sleeping with you, you sold her a pile of crap and took the sales credits. And now that she’s dead, you think there’ll be no comeback.’

‘That’s just not true.’

‘What’s going on here?’ A sharp voice barked behind Chris. He recognized it. Herbie Exler.

The feeling of disgust became overwhelming.

Chris turned to face his old boss. ‘You probably put him up to this,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Well, you can take the Eureka Telecoms and shove them up your arse. Both of you.’

‘Get out!’ hissed Exler. ‘Get out now. I don’t ever want to see you in this building again.’

‘I’m going,’ said Chris, and he left the conference room, passing the stares of a hundred salesmen and traders as he made his way to the lift.

Megan was waiting for him in the Drayton Arms, a pint of bitter in front of her. Chris liked the way American women ordered pints; they thought it was English and it didn’t seem to worry them that it might look unladylike.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘Have you been here long?’

‘Ten minutes.’

‘Here, let me get myself one of those.’

Chris returned from the bar with a pint and took a long drink. ‘I needed that.’

‘It tastes good,’ said Megan.

‘I’m glad you like it. Did you have a good day?’

‘Oh yeah. I went to the Tate Modern. And the Wallace Collection. And the ICA.’

‘All in one day?’

‘What can I say? I like art. You have a lot of it in London. How about you?’

‘Jesus,’ Chris said, shaking his head. ‘I had a pretty awful day. I lost it with someone, and I think I’ve blown my only chance of getting rid of a disastrous bond position.’

‘Oh,’ said Megan.

‘Sorry,’ Chris smiled. ‘I don’t mean to burden you with my work problems. But you might find it interesting. Do you remember Ian Darwent?’

‘He was with us on the boat, wasn’t he? He jumped into the sea after Alex. English. Quiet. Quite good-looking.’

Chris winced. ‘I wouldn’t know about that. But that seemed to be Lenka’s opinion.’ He explained what he had found out.

Much to his disappointment, Megan didn’t seem surprised.

‘Don’t you think it strange that she and Ian were sleeping together?’ he asked her.

‘Not really. You know Lenka,’ Megan said. ‘And I do remember Ian.’

‘Actually, I don’t know much about that side of her life. She didn’t talk to me about it. I didn’t ask.’

‘Probably wise.’

But now Chris couldn’t restrain his curiosity. ‘So she slept around, did she?’

‘That would be unfair,’ said Megan. ‘We did talk about men sometimes, especially when we went on vacation to Brazil. She said she often went for months without sex, then she would see two or three men in succession. She liked men, and she liked sex, but she hated the idea of tying herself down. I guess you could say she was confused. And she sometimes chose the strangest guys. Ian isn’t nearly as weird as some of them, I’m sure.’

Chris shook his head. ‘I’m glad I didn’t know about all that.’

Megan looked at him closely over her pint. ‘What about you and Lenka?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Megan. ‘I didn’t mean to suggest anything. It’s just you obviously liked each other, and...’

‘That’s OK. We did like each other. And I can’t deny she was an attractive woman. But somehow I never considered it. She was too good a friend, I suppose. I always assumed she was out of my league. If I had tried something, and she’d rejected me, it would have been awful. And even worse, if we had gone out together it wouldn’t have lasted long and then I’d have lost a good friend. No, we were much better as we were.’

‘Perhaps.’ Megan looked at Chris steadily.

‘Did Lenka say anything to you about her relationship with Ian?’ he asked, uncomfortable under her gaze.

‘No. I only had that one conversation last week. It didn’t come up. She did sound a bit stressed out, though.’

‘Stressed out?’

‘She said that something had happened that she wanted to talk to me about when I came to stay. She didn’t say what it was.’

‘No clue at all? Was it something to do with work?’

‘I don’t know. I was curious, of course, but I thought I’d find out all about it when I got here.’

‘Hmm. Did she mention Eureka Telecom to you?’

‘No.’

‘Or a man called Marcus?’

‘Marcus? No. Who’s he?’

‘A tall thin American man came to see her in our office last week. Apparently, he upset Lenka pretty badly. But I’ve no idea who he is.’

‘Neither have I.’

Chris stared thoughtfully into his pint. ‘Something was going on,’ he said. He glanced over to Megan’s glass. It was almost empty. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’d better go and check out her flat.’

Lenka had lived on the first floor of an elegant white-stuccoed building guarded by twin pillars in Onslow Gardens. The Czech police had recovered the key from her bag, and her parents had asked Chris to sort through her things and send them any personal belongings. There was going to be a lot to do. Chris was counting on a helpful neighbour.

He let himself and Megan into the building. There was a pile of mail for Lenka neatly stacked on a windowsill in the hallway. Chris carried it upstairs with him. Her door opened easily. It was as though she had been away for a day, not a week. The heating was still on. The flat was untidy, but not a total mess. Her bed was made. There was a note from ‘Adriana’ to Miss Lenka saying she was owed twenty pounds for Wednesday. The cleaning lady, no doubt. The flat was a mishmash of furnishings, things she had seen around the world that she just had to buy. They formed a pleasing jumble, and some of them, like a set of two-foot-high wooden carvings of elephants from Africa and a large intricately decorated table from somewhere in Asia, were quite dramatic.