Jeffrey Archer - Cometh the Hour

When the pilot announced they would be landing in thirty minutes, the woman immediately disappeared into the lavatory and didn’t reemerge for some time. Hakim concluded that there had to be a lucky man waiting for her at Heathrow.

Hakim always liked to be among the first passengers to disembark, especially when he was only carrying hand luggage and wouldn’t be held up in the baggage hall. His chauffeur would be waiting for him outside the terminal building and, although it was a Sunday, he still intended to go into the office and tackle the mountain of unanswered mail that would have piled up on his desk. Once again, he cursed the Nigerian oil minister.

Since he’d become a British citizen he was no longer held up at passport control and didn’t have to endure the lengthy nonresidents queues. He walked past the baggage carousels and headed straight for the green channel as he hadn’t purchased anything while he was in Lagos. The moment he put his foot in the corridor, a customs officer stepped forward and blocked his path.

“Can I check your bag, sir?”

“Of course,” said Bishara, putting his small overnight bag on the low slatted table.

Another officer appeared and stood a pace behind his colleague, who was systematically going through Hakim’s single piece of luggage. All he found was a wash bag, two shirts, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks and two silk ties; all he’d needed for a two-day visit. The customs officer then unzipped a small side pocket that Hakim rarely used. Hakim watched in disbelief as the man extracted a cellophane bag packed with a white substance. Although he’d never taken a drug in his life, he knew exactly what it must be.

“Does this belong to you, sir?” asked the officer.

“I’ve never seen it before in my life,” Hakim answered truthfully.

“Perhaps you’d be kind enough to come with us, sir.”

Desmond Mellor smiled when he read the headline in the Daily Mail .

He was only halfway through the article when he looked up at Adrian Sloane and said, “This couldn’t be much better, Adrian, if you’d written it yourself.”

Sloane tossed over his copy of the Sun . “I think you’ll find this one tops it.”

Mellor laughed.

“He can’t hope to survive headlines like this,” said Jim Knowles. “Even the FT is saying, and I quote, ‘The Bank of England confirms that it has not received an application to merge Farthings and Kaufman’s banks, and will not be issuing any further statements on the subject.’”

“Shorthand for ‘don’t bother us again, we’ve kicked the ball into the long grass.’” said Sloane.

“What a coup,” said Mellor. “Dare I ask how you managed to pull it off, Adrian?”

“It’s probably better that you don’t know the details, Desmond, but what I can tell you is that the main participants are already safely back in Nigeria.”

“While Bishara is locked up in Wandsworth prison.”

“What’s more, I can’t see him enjoying any better accommodation for the next few months.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Jim Knowles. “That smooth-talking QC of his will probably get him out on bail.”

“Not if Bishara’s charged with unlawful possession of a Class A drug with intent to supply,” said Sloane.

“And if he’s found guilty,” asked Knowles, “how long could he be sent down for?”

“The minimum sentence is five years, according to the Times. I’m not too fussed about the maximum, because I’ll be chairman of Farthings long before then,” said Mellor.

“What do you think will happen to the two banks’ shares?”

“They’ll collapse, but we should hold fire for a few days until they bottom out,” said Mellor. “That’s when I intend to pick up another couple of percent, before I join the Farthings board. While the trial’s taking place I’ll position myself as a white knight who’s reluctantly willing to come to the rescue of the beleaguered shareholders. And after Bishara’s been found guilty, I’ll allow myself to be persuaded to return as chairman of Farthings in order to save the bank’s reputation.”

“Sebastian Clifton’s unlikely to just sit around twiddling his thumbs while all this is going on,” said Knowles.

“He’ll hang in there until Bishara’s convicted,” said Mellor. “And once I’m chairman, I’ll be the first to commiserate with him and say how sorry I am that he feels he also has to resign.”

Sebastian was sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and, like the sixteenth president, was deep in thought. He would have returned to England that morning if the school had been willing to release Jessica’s paintings, but Miss Tomkins wouldn’t allow him to collect them until Sunday afternoon.

He had decided to go back to the school and have another look at Jessica’s work, but not before he had convinced himself it was unlikely that she or Samantha would return on a Saturday afternoon. Or did he actually hope they would?

He finally left Lincoln and went in search of Jefferson. He took a cab back to the school with the excuse he ought to pay off his debt as soon as possible. As he entered the exhibition hall, he was relieved to see how few parents were there; it was clear from the plethora of red dots that most of them must have attended the opening night. One fixture remained dutifully in place behind her desk. Seb walked across to Miss Tomkins and handed over a thousand dollars in cash.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure you’d like to know that several people were disappointed not to be able to get hold of any of Jessica’s paintings. Including her mother, who had wanted to buy My Father . She asked me who’d bought it, but of course I couldn’t tell her, because I didn’t know your name.”

Seb smiled. “Thank you. And if I may, I’ll collect them all tomorrow afternoon.”

He left Miss Tomkins to have another look at Jessica’s paintings. He took his time studying the half dozen works he now owned and, with the satisfaction of a seasoned collector, he ended up in front of My Father, which he had already decided would hang over the mantelpiece in his flat. He was just about to leave when a voice behind him said, “Are you looking in a mirror?”

Sebastian swung around to see his daughter, who immediately threw her arms around him and said, “What took you so long?”

It was rare for Sebastian to be struck speechless, but he just didn’t know what to say, so he clung onto her before she took a step back and grinned up at him. “Well, say something!”

“I’m so sorry,” he eventually managed. “You’re right. I did see you once, years ago, but I didn’t have the courage to say hello. I’ve been such a fool.”

“Well, we can at least agree on that,” said Jessica. “But then, to be fair, Mom hasn’t exactly covered herself in glory either.” Jessica took his hand and led him out of the room, continuing to chat as if they were old friends. “Actually, she’s just as much to blame as you are. I told her to get in touch with you after my stepfather died.”

“You never thought he was your father?”

“I may not be that good at math, but even I can work out that if I was six and they’d met only five years before...”

Seb laughed.

“Just after Michael died, Mom confirmed what I already knew, but I still couldn’t persuade her to get in touch with you.”

They walked around the park, arm in arm, dropped into a Farrell’s ice-cream parlor and shared a hot fudge sundae, while she chatted about her friends, her painting, her plans for the future. As he listened he wondered hopelessly how he could make up for all the lost years in a couple of hours.