William Boyd - Ordinary Thunderstorms

Then he had removed from his pocket something the size of a slim old — fashioned transistor radio and had switched it on. Ingram cocked an ear: silence.

“Ultrasonic,” Rilke said. “Ambient interference — no one can hear us.”

“Alfredo,” Ingram said, reproachfully, “this is one of the most eminent and expensive private hospitals in London, not to say the world. This room is not bugged — I swear on my life.” He suddenly wished he hadn’t said that, given his current state of health.

Rilke ignored him.

“So, how are you doing, Ingram?”

“I feel perfectly well — apart from the odd strange symptom now and then — but apparently I’ve got a growth in my brain.” He paused. “My doctor suggested I had a brain scan and that’s what they found.”

Rilke winced in sympathy. He said something under his breath in Spanish that Ingram didn’t quite catch. It sounded like ‘ Madre de Dios ’. It was very rare to hear Alfredo speak Spanish.

“Ingram, Ingram, Ingram…”

“Alfredo…”

“What are we going to do?”

“I don’t really know.”

“It pains me — what I am about to say to you.”

“Well, I’m about to have brain surgery, Alfredo. My priorities are very clear cut. My resilience is supercharged. Please don’t worry.”

Rilke lowered his eyes and picked at the sheet edge around Ingram’s chest, then he looked up and made full eye contact.

“I am not buying your company.”

Despite his supercharged resilience this surprised Ingram, jolted him somewhat. He thought about his impending brain surgery — they were going to ‘debulk’ his brain they said — and he regained some perspective and composure.

“These crazy allegations about the dead children — is that what it’s all about?”

“No, no, no.” Rilke brushed invisible flies aside with both hands. “This we can deal with. You are already suing three newspapers and two magazines. There is a court injunction preventing future press speculation—”

“ Me? I’m suing?”

“Calenture-Deutz is suing. Burton has had the lawyers in and they’ve gone to work very effectively. It’s a scandal.” Rilke uttered the word in a very unscandalised way, as if he’d said ‘It’s a snowdrop’ or ‘It’s a sausage’ or something equally unremarkable, Ingram thought.

“Malicious, nasty lies,” Ingram said. “It’s the real downside of our business.”

“Lies we can deal with, easy. We would have ‘ridden this out’, no problem.” Rilke pronounced the phrase as if he’d only just learnt it. His expression changed — Ingram could only interpret it as sad. “Yes, we have these accusations — every week — about our products. We deal with them, we make them go away. But this time, I’m sorry to say, there is a complication.”

“A complication?”

“Your brother-in-law, Lord Redcastle.”

“Ivo…”

“He sold 400,000 shares two days before your announcement of our buy-out of Calenture-Deutz.”

“I know.”

Rilke moved his jamming device closer.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

“Ivo’s a fool, a complete idiot.”

“An idiot who looks like he knew something was going to happen. That there was something rotten in the apple barrel.” Rilke explained how it appeared from his angle, his point of view: Ivo sells all his shares. Then comes the announcement of the buyout. Then the allegations about the children’s deaths. “Did you see the fall in Calenture-Deutz’s share price?”

“I’ve been in the hands of doctors for two days. Tests, tests and more tests. I’m going to have brain surgery.”

“Your company’s lost 82 per cent of its value.”

“That’s absurd.”

Rilke shrugged. “The market doesn’t like what it sees. A board member dumping shares. It seems to everyone he knew something bad was going to happen. That there was some kind of cover-up going on in the Zembla-4 trials.”

“But there’s no cover-up, is there?” Ingram thought immediately about Philip Wang. It was like condensation slowly beginning to clear from a fogged-up windscreen. What had Philip Wang discovered?

“Of course there’s no cover-up,” Rilke said with iron assurance. “But the company is going to be turned over, now, picked apart because of your brother-in-law’s actions. Rilke Pharma cannot be associated under these circumstances. I’m sure you understand.”

“Ivo is a man with no money. He’s lost a fortune on stupid, hare-brained schemes. He was broke: he needed cash.”

“I hope you can make a good case to the investigation.”

“What investigation?”

“The Financial Services Authority. The Serious Fraud Office — who knows?” He reacted to Ingram’s genuine incredulity. “Someone really should have told you, Ingram: Calenture-Deutz shares have been suspended, the company is under investigation by the FSA.”

Ingram tried to feel rage against Ivo but, to his vague consternation, he could muster none. He felt an ironic laugh building in his chest. He coughed it away.

Rilke spread his hands. “You see our position: Rilke Pharma has to withdraw its offer. Burton will stay on as acting CEO — see what we can salvage.”

“Salvage?”

“We spent a lot of money on Zembla-4, Ingram. We have to find a way of recouping our investment. We can buy PRO-Vyril, the hay-fever inhaler, some of your other lines perhaps. Not all will be lost.” He reached over and squeezed Ingram’s hand. “It’s over, Ingram. We nearly did it, nearly. And it would have been magnificent.” He called for his two men and stood up, switching off and pocketing his jamming device.

“But what about Zembla-4? The licences? The PDA? Surely—”

“The PDA rescinded its approval this morning. The MHRA has put everything on hold in the face of this scandal. There will be no Zembla-4, Ingram. We will not cure asthma.”

Rilke leant forward and kissed Ingram’s cheek.

“I like you, Ingram. I was looking forward to our triumph. And now I’m sorry for your ill health. I wish you buena suerte .”

He walked out of the room and one of his henchmen closed the door behind him.

AARON LALANDUSSE FROWNED, THEN shrugged resignedly. “There’s nothing I can do. They won’t run any of my pieces about Zembla-4 and Calenture-Deutz. I can’t even mention their names. There are armies of lawyers out there, just waiting to pounce.”

“But that’s outrageous,” Adam said.

“Of course it is,” Lalandusse said. “But everything, so far, is pretty circumstantial, you have to admit. We have no smoking gun. What we need is a grieving family. An inter-office memo. Sure, it’s all on the Web…But so are ten thousand other conspiracy theories. I think you’re bang on to something sordid. And the legal might arrayed against us would seem to indicate that you were, but — from the journalism side, we’re stymied.”

Adam sat, thinking.

“I’d relax if I were you,” Lalandusse said. “Calenture-Deutz has had its shares suspended. Rilke Pharma has abandoned the buyout, it seems. No drug authority in the world is going to dare to license Zembla-4, what with all these rumours about the trials and the dead children swirling around.” He smiled. “If I were you I’d be feeling pretty chuffed.”

“Fourteen children died during the clinical testing of Zembla-4,” Adam said. “Those are the simple facts. And they covered it up in order to get a licence that would allow them to make billions and billions of dollars selling a potentially fatal drug.” He would have liked to have added that they covered it up to such an extent that they had had their head of research and development murdered when he’d discovered what was going on; that they had tried to kill me, Adam Kindred, because I was some kind of witness with a key piece of evidence; and that, in trying to kill me, they killed a young woman called Mhouse and orphaned her son. He felt his powerlessness and he felt his smallness. What could he do? So all he said was, “Somebody should be called to account. People should be prosecuted. Fryzer should be in jail, charged with manslaughter.”