There was a pause on the phone.
‘Hello?’ said Straker hesitantly.
‘It’s not a document,’ said the voice.
‘What is it then?’ Straker asked.
There was silence on the line.
Straker wasn’t sure the man was still there. ‘Hello?’
‘Trifecta have fired Michael Lyons,’ said the informant. ‘Lyons is pissed off. It’s thought he’s taken copies of all kinds of documents and emails.’
The phone went dead.
Straker immediately rang Krall in London. ‘I tried to pass on your advice,’ he reported.
‘But?’
‘He didn’t offer any documents. It was more of a tip-off.’
Krall listened attentively. ‘Okay. I’ll add that to my note. If your phone has stored the number, please do not feel tempted to ring him back.’
‘It hasn’t.’
‘Who else knows about your calls with this guy?’
‘Only Remy, who’s with me now.’
‘Let’s keep it that way, okay?’
Straker’s buzz, though, faded quickly that afternoon.
As a pre-emptive strike, Quartano issued a press release declaring Ptarmigan’s regret at the embarrassment it had caused Mandarin Telecom — apologizing unreservedly — and confirming the team would be withdrawing from any further sponsorship negotiations with the Chinese company.
Straker felt the news of this badly.
Having deduced Van Der Vaal’s motivations from the press cuttings — that the Massarella boss sought to remove Ptarmigan as a threat to his ambitions of being the commercial Big Dog of Formula One — Quartano’s withdrawal meant that Van Der Vaal had succeeded in exactly what he had set out to do all along: to sabotage or even destroy Ptarmigan’s commercial standing and reputation — simply through unsubstantiated insinuation.
In not being able to stop it, Straker took this as a failure in his own assignment. His disappointment was severe.
What crushed his soul was the injustice of it all — that Van Der Vaal had got away with this using such twisted assertions, such despicable tactics — and, worst of all, by lying.
Straker felt his mood turn dark. His mental recovery was stalling. From somewhere deep, though, another emotion grew. Anger.
If only he could find a way to harness it.
FIFTY-THREE
The next day, Human Resources circulated another email around Ptarmigan personnel — this time asking members of staff about their involvement with Charlotte Grant earlier in the year. From the responses, it was clear that she had been in contact with almost every part of the factory. Narrowing the investigation down was not going to be easy. Straker began with those people Charlie had interacted with in Design and Aerodynamics — logically the most obvious areas connected with the Fibonacci Blades, or ASDs, as they now knew Massarella called them.
Straker and Nazar set up a temporary interview room in the Ptarmigan factory. He and Nazar started questioning all members of these two departments in turn.
‘Jason, we’re in trouble with the FIA,’ Straker explained to his twentieth interviewee that day. ‘We’ve been accused of using Massarella’s proprietary technology. Can we talk about your involvement in the Fibonacci Blades, and where this idea came from? And, secondly, whether or not you had any contact with Charlie Grant over it.’
Jason, a somewhat shy thirty-year-old designer with glasses and carrying a couple more stone than he should, looked and sounded rather defensive.
Hesitantly, he explained: ‘I was brought a basic idea for these things by Charlie.’
Straker fought to control his reaction to this admission. He sat up and leant into the conversation. ‘She came to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you didn’t think it strange that she did this — when she had nothing to do with Design?’
‘Kind of,’ replied Jason, ‘but she said that she was working for us as an industrial spy, and she’d come back with this from the grid.’
‘Did she say which team she’d got it from?’ asked Nazar.
‘No.’
‘Did you discuss drawing this up and developing it with your boss?’
‘Charlie told me not to. She could be very persuasive,’ he said coyly as his voice began to break.
‘Okay. Did you talk about this with anyone else?’
Jason nodded. ‘Only one other.’
‘Who?’
‘Andy Backhouse.’
‘Oh my God,’ hissed Nazar, as he slumped back in his chair.
Straker dismissed the exclamation, trying to keep Jason calm. ‘When did you talk to him about it?’
‘When we were testing it in the wind tunnel.’
‘That far into development? Can you remember what he said?’
‘He asked me how we’d come up with the idea.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘That the idea had come from Charlie.’
‘How did Andy react?’ asked Straker.
Jason looked unsure of himself. ‘He seemed relaxed about it all. I didn’t get the feeling there was anything wrong. He said it was important for us to get the best ideas — wherever they came from — to see our cars go as fast as we could possibly make them.’
‘Okay, Jason, thank you — and for being so open with us. You’ve been very helpful,’ said Straker with a reassuring smile. ‘I’m going to need more of your help, though.’
‘Anything,’ said Jason with an air of relief, sensing the tension might have abated somewhat with Straker’s investigation.
‘I need you to write down everything you can remember about this design — how you talked it all through with Charlie, how she gave you the idea, in what form, and what happened afterwards.’
FIFTY-FOUR
Oscar Brogan QC came to lunch in Quartech’s London headquarters two days later. Hosted by Quartano in his private dining room on the top floor of 20 Cavendish Square, they were joined by Straker and Krall. Nazar was away.
‘I wanted to talk through the possibilities mentioned by the whistle-blower,’ said Quartano.
Brogan was helped to a fillet of beef by one of the stewards. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘But there’s little point, Dominic, if you’re not interested in mounting a counter-claim.’
Quartano was served last, with his main course and vegetables of red cabbage, spinach and roasted sweet potatoes. ‘My reservation about launching a counter-claim was before we lost Mandarin, Oscar. Now Massarella have cost me $750 million from that sponsorship deal, I want to hit them with everything we’ve got.’
Straker saw that Krall was fighting to contain herself.
‘Stacey, what’s your take on the substance of the counter-claim?’ Quartano asked.
‘We need hard proof of their acts of sabotage,’ she replied. ‘Oscar and I have been discussing some possible courses of action.’
When Krall finished, the lunch seemed to fall silent as the full possibilities sank in. Straker, aware he was breaking the silence, then said: ‘Andy Backhouse seems to have been involved in different aspects of this. Are we able to cross-examine him as a witness — if we needed to?’
Brogan nodded, looking slightly surprised. ‘If you think that would help? The World Council is keen to give people a fair hearing. If a witness is required — even a hostile one — they’ll sanction their being called.’
With brusque scepticism Quartano asked: ‘And you think that would be helpful, do you, Matt?’
‘If we can put the man under oath, sir, yes.’
For the following few days Straker watched Stacey Krall work frenetically. After Quartano’s go-ahead for filing a counter-claim, she was completely pumped up with preparing to take the fight to Massarella.