Alexander McCall Smith - The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

“If I what?”

“Nothing. Just don’t blame me.”

“Fine. I won’t. So that’s it. Don’t talk to me about it again.’

She shrugged. “You wouldn’t have to pay. I’d do it for you. I’ve been trained.”

He said nothing, and it was at this point that the postman entered the shop with the post, including the letter from Richard Eadeston. Dee opened it, and read it quickly.

She was clearly pleased. “That’s good news,” she said. “Very good news.”

Martin was relieved to be talking about something other than colonic irrigation. “What’s good news?”

Dee told him about her meeting with the venture capitalist and his enthusiasm for her idea of marketing a Sudoku Remedy based on Gingko biloba. “He likes it,’ she said. “Listen, this is what he says: ‘I have discussed your proposal with my colleagues and they have agreed with me that this is a project that deserves backing. Obviously we shall need to see a proper business plan, but subject to that being put together satisfactorily, I think we shall be able to see our way to investing a small sum in your Sudoku Remedy. We are not prepared to fund the total cost, of course, and would want you, as matter of principle, to put up a certain amount. What disposable assets do you currently have? If you can raise ten thousand pounds, we shall match that sum in the first instance, with the possibility of a further tranche of between fifteen and twenty thousand pounds later in the year. We would expect such a quantity of shares to be issued to us as would reflect our level of risk: I suggest that seventy-five per cent of the equity should be vested in us, with twenty-five per cent remaining with you. You should, of course, seek independent advice, but I would recommend the arrangement to you and I look forward to working with you in the near future.’”

Martin’s eyes narrowed. “Twenty-five per cent? But the whole idea was yours. You deserve more than that.”

Dee told him that money was rarely a matter of desert. “That’s what happens,” she said. “If you need to raise money, you always lose control of your business. Cash has a price tag, you know.”

“Well, it sounds unfair to me … But then I don’t know anything about it.” He looked at her enquiringly. “Have you got ten thousand pounds, Dee?”

Dee was thoughtful. “Not as such,’ she said. “No, I don’t have ten thousand pounds as such. Not actual cash … But I do have an asset worth a bit more than that. Twelve thousand, or thereabouts.”

“Shares?” asked Martin.

“No, not shares. It’s an endowment policy I took out a few years ago. It’s my pension – or the beginnings of it. I could surrender it.”

Martin drew in his breath sharply. “You mustn’t, Dee, you mustn’t do that. Not your pension!”

“I won’t need my pension for ages and ages,” said Dee. “I’ll have time to get another one sorted out. No, I’ll cash this one in and use it to fund the Sudoku Remedy.”

Martin looked at her, the anxiety plain in his expression. ‘I’d say that’s very foolish. I really would. And anyway, can you trust this What’s-his-name?”

“Richard Eadeston. Of course I can trust him.”

Martin was not sure. “What if you give him the money and he just goes off with it. What then?”

She did not think this likely. Richard Eadeston was a graduate of the University of Sussex; he had frequented the same Brighton pub as she had, the Shaggy Dump. That was not the profile of somebody who might be suspected of fraud or other sharp practices. “He’s fine, Martin,” she reassured him. “And I’m a big girl, I really am. I know how to look after myself.”

Martin realised that he was not going to persuade Dee to think again about using her pension fund in this way, so he moved on to more practical considerations. How would she market the Sudoku Remedy once she had it bottled? And who would bottle it?

“What I think I’ll do,” said Dee, “is a trial run. I’ll get in some wholesale Gingko tablets and then I’ll get some labels printed. We – that’s you and I – can stick these labels on to little bottles full of the Gingko. And that’s it – we’ll put them in the window and see what happens.”

“You don’t need ten thousand pounds to do that,” Martin pointed out. “You could do that for a few hundred, surely.”

“Nice labels,” said Dee. “And leaflets. We’ll maybe even put an advertisement in one of the papers. You know those ads you see for booklets on how to talk to your cat – that sort of thing. Those companies do terribly well, you know. Everybody loves mail order.” She reached out and tickled Martin under the chin. “We’re going to be rich, Martin – or rather I’m going to be rich. But I’ll pay you separately for the help you give me. Filling bottles and so on.”

“I wish you wouldn’t tickle me,” he said. “It’s really annoying.” Tickling, and offers of colonic irrigation; it actually amounted to harassment, if one came to think of it. Dee should not assume she could treat him like that just because he was younger than she was, and her employee to boot. That kind of thing was no longer allowed, he believed, and Dee would have to learn that. How would she like to be tickled? How would she like it?

He sighed. My life is nothing, he thought. Nothing. Money – that was the answer. If you had money, then you could do something, and you would not have to put up with all this: being Dee’s employee; being tickled under the chin in a condescending way; being threatened with colonic irrigation. What he needed to do was to make money so that he could be somebody at last, not just a complete nobody.

He had five thousand pounds. It had been given to him by his godfather, who had a minicab firm in Essex. He had done nothing with it, merely left it in a deposit account in the bank. What he needed to do was to put it to work, and perhaps this was his chance.

“Dee,” he said. “This Sudoku Remedy of yours, will it really take off?”

Dee looked completely confident. “Well, I think it will. And Richard thinks it will too.”

“Could I come in on it?” said Martin. “I haven’t got very much. Just five grand. But I could become a … a partner.”

Dee thought for a moment. Martin was so young. But … “All right,” she said. “As long as you’re sure. I don’t want to take your money unless you’re sure.”

Martin swallowed. “I’m sure,” he said. It was spoken with conviction – exactly that tone of conviction we use when we are profoundly unsure of what we are saying, but hope that our words alone will make things work, will make everything all right.

The event that Tilly Curtain described to William so cursorily at their meeting in the restaurant – the sudden fading into silence of Freddie de la Hay’s transmitter – had only come about by pure chance. It was certainly not the result of anything that Freddie had done; he had behaved impeccably from the moment he had been brought by Tilly Curtain to the flat next door. He had been puzzled by what seemed now to be a fairly constant process of being passed from pillar to post, but he was not by nature a complainer, and he had accepted it.

Of course he did not like Anatoly Podgornin, the man to whom Tilly consigned him, but again he did not outwardly show this dislike – apart from a slight drawing back when the Russian bent down to pat him on the head. Nor did he like the smell of this new flat, which was heavily dominated by stale tobacco smoke. There were other disagreeable scents too: from the kitchen there came an odd, vinegary smell that made the inside of Freddie’s sensitive nose prickle; there was a meaty odour there, too, which was more satisfactory, but he could tell that something had been done to the meat to make it rank in the canine olfactory spectrum.