I nodded; I couldn’t disagree with her.
‘What I’m saying is that I really am very bright. I think even you will concede that Babylon Links was a masterstroke. When I heard of Susie’s illness, I knew that Gantry had to be vulnerable. But it was still too big for me to swallow without conceding a substantial slice of the ownership of Torrent. In other words, I couldn’t do the deal for cash alone, there would have had to be shares involved, diluting my one hundred per cent ownership. So I wondered, “With Susie gone for a while at least, can I find a way to destabilise Gantry’s share price?” and that’s when the golf development was born, a joint venture, my land, their cash, and great wedges of it, without anyone ever knowing that I was involved because the true ownership of Monsoon is untraceable. Brilliant, yes?’
‘Clearly so,’ I conceded. ‘It’s worked, even if that owes a lot to poor old Phil being suckered by his nephew.’
‘He was one of Susie’s bigger mistakes,’ she said. ‘I knew from Duncan that the old man has never got over his wife’s death. He goes home every night, gets drunk and talks to her across the dinner table, as if she was still there. Do you ever do that with Oz?’ she asked, suddenly. ‘Did Susie?’ She laughed. ‘Did the two of you ever get the ouija board out and try to summon up his shade?’
There’s something hypnotic about Natalie Morgan. As I’d listened to her, I’d been drawn into what she was saying, seeing the sense and logic of it. With that last vindictive taunt she blew it all. But I bided my time.
‘Still,’ I countered, ‘it was a long shot, was it not?’
‘Not at all,’ she insisted. ‘The way it was set up, once Phil had taken the Gantry Group in he couldn’t get it out. The damage was done. Then Duncan had a message from Susie, via Phil. She said that she didn’t have long to go, that she didn’t know why he’d left her … that was the first time we knew that you hadn’t shopped him … and that she wanted him back. So I told him to go to her. I saw the way to complete control and now I have it.’
‘The marriage was your idea?’ I asked.
‘Of course. It was really handy being so close to Nevada, where you can do the deed in a couple of hours if you really want to. Viva Las Vegas, eh? As it turned out, Duncan made it work just in time. To be honest, I didn’t think Susie would be silly enough to defy the medical advice and fly all that way.’
‘No. You’d have thought the loving husband would have put his foot down and forbidden her.’
She shot me the archest of looks. ‘Oh, please,’ she chuckled. Then she winked at me. ‘You weren’t anticipated, I admit. I was astonished when you popped out of the woodwork on Monday as the new chair. You of all people, the woman whose husband the little slapper stole.’
I laughed, so heartily that she was taken aback. ‘Yes, she was good at that, wasn’t she?’ I rose from my chair, and headed for the door. ‘I think it’s time my driver joined us,’ I told her, over my shoulder.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ she called after me.
I ignored her and opened the door; my driver stepped through it and into the room. As he did, he took off the grey German officer cap he’d been wearing, and the big Vuarnet sunglasses that had covered half his face. ‘I don’t think you’ve met my brother-in-law,’ I said, ‘but you may know him by sight. He’s not as reticent as you are when it comes to cameras. Did you get that, Miles?’ I asked.
‘Every word of it,’ he replied. ‘Good quality.’
‘I’ll call security,’ Natalie threatened.
Miles hook his head. ‘Don’t do that. There’s a guy downstairs in the lobby by now; he won’t let them anywhere near here … unless you have half a dozen or so, in which case he’ll only delay them for a while.’
I resumed my seat, picked up my wine glass, and took my first sip. ‘Ouch,’ I murmured. ‘It’s a shame to treat a fine wine like that. You should use nitrogen storage; prevents oxidisation.’
Natalie stared at me; she’d run out of words, temporarily.
I nodded. ‘Yes, you really are very bright, aren’t you? Sixty watt at least.’ I picked up my mobile from the desk. ‘Yes, this is my phone,’ I said, ‘and it really is switched off.’ Then I produced another from my bag. ‘This is my boyfriend’s, and it isn’t.’
Miles produced a third from his jacket. ‘This is my nephew Tom’s phone.’ And a fourth. ‘This is mine; your entire conversation is recorded on it.’
She sat there, pale but fierce. ‘And what are you going to do with it?’ she challenged.
‘Are you kidding?’ he laughed. ‘I’m going to see the friendly local police force, honey, and I’m going to play it to them.’
‘And what exactly will they do?’ she snorted. ‘Tell me what law I’ve broken.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘there’s this one. It’s rare, I’m sure, so rare they’ve probably never had a case before, but it sure as hell has to be illegal somewhere.’
He grinned as he eased himself into a chair, beside mine. ‘When Primavera told me yesterday morning what had gone down with Susie, and what she guessed was going to happen, she asked me to confirm that she and Duncan had actually been married, legally and above board. So I had an employee call the Clark Country marriage registration office and run a check. The person there did a computer search for the name Duncan Culshaw, and sure enough, there it was, he and Susie Gantry, Mr and Mrs.’
He gazed at her. When it comes to hypnotic looks, Natalie was an amateur compared to him; she couldn’t break away.
‘Trouble was,’ he continued softly, ‘the name was coughed out twice. Same man, same blood group, same nationality, same passport number, married in Las Vegas four years three months and five days ago to Miss Natalie Morgan, of Edinburgh, Scotland. Legally recorded, and never annulled in the great state of Nevada, nor, I will bet you, anywhere else. You didn’t have time, did you? Susie was so ill that you took the chance and let Duncan go ahead and tie the double knot.’
She shrunk, visibly, into the big chair. When she looked at me, she wasn’t super-confident, arrogant Natalie any more, she was just a scared lady.
‘I have all the paperwork, copies of every document,’ Miles told her. ‘There’s a warrant out in Vegas for Culshaw even now. I’ve got no doubt the Edinburgh police will issue one for you as soon as we’ve seen them, for conspiracy, by encouraging your lawful husband to commit bigamy. After that, they’ll see how many other laws you’ve broken.’
‘And as for your takeover bid,’ I added, ‘that is royally fucked, if you’ll excuse my Catalan. Since Duncan and Susie’s marriage was never legal, he can never have been Janet and wee Jonathan’s stepfather, so he can’t have committed their shares in your support. We’ve already been to see Susie’s executor. He’ll have called the cops himself by now, Natalie, and set them on your husband. You’re next, just one phone call away.’
She picked up her wine and drained it. I pushed the rest of mine across the desk, and she did that in too. She looked out of the window for a while, then back at me. ‘What’s the way out?’ she asked.
‘What makes you think there is one, lady?’ Miles drawled.
‘There’s always a way out,’ she replied, ‘if you look for it.’
‘Why should we want to?’ I asked.
‘But you do,’ she countered, ‘otherwise you’d have made that one phone call by now. What do you want?’
I looked at Miles; he nodded. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Here it is. You make the phone call; not to the police but to Diego Fabricant, instructing him to agree to the winding up of Babylon Links PLC and to return the Gantry Group’s cash. Next, you announce this afternoon that you’ve dropped your takeover bid. All this happens before we leave this building. Agreed?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. Relatively cheap at the price, I suppose.’
‘Ah,’ I continued, ‘but I’m not done yet. Tomorrow morning you’ll receive a counter-offer for Torrent PLC from an American venture capital fund. Its owner is a significant shareholder in Gantry, who’ll be very happy by then, since he’ll have made a tidy gain on his investment yesterday. You were out to pick up our company for about one-third of its real value. This offer will be generous by comparison. It’ll offer you fifty per cent of yours.’