'She excited?'
'She has no idea. I sorted the time off with her boss, and as far as she is concerned we're off to her parents for the weekend.'
'So they're in on the big surprise too?' Campbell looked quizzically at his smiling brother, obviously pleased at the smooth planning of a surprise holiday trip for his girlfriend of a year.
'So won't they be disappointed when you come back and she isn't any more engaged than when you left?'
'I'm not proposing. Why would they think I'm proposing?' Luke replied, the grin dropping a little.
Campbell's smile moved in the other direction.
'I never said anything about that. I'm fucking miles away from any of that…' he said and after a moment more of Campbell's broadening grin, added 'Fuck off.'
'You've paid for and organised a surprise holiday for their only daughter and you have involved them in the deception. The thought won't have crossed their mind that you have a plan here of some kind?' He was enjoying this, particularly the slowly dawning realisation of the corner that Luke may have painted himself into.
'I've got one very simple plan which involves a pool, a bar, an all-you-can-eat-buffet and copious nudity.'
'You might want to keep those relatively separate. There's a limit to what "all-inclusive" means at these paces. Bringing your own sausage to breakfast is considered poor form.'
But Luke wasn't playing along and the look on his face was getting sourer by the moment.
'I was just trying to do a good thing,' Luke protested to nobody in particular. 'Now I'm right in the shit.'
Daniel Campbell felt the smile fade from his own face.
'Well that backfired on me,' Luke said. 'How the hell do I get out of this?'
Campbell shrugged at him. 'No good deed goes unpunished.'
24
Tuesday. 10.30pm.
Michael Horner quietly replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle and turned up the volume on the television. There was a calm serenity about him that was directly at odds with the tone and manner he had taken during the previous brief conversation.
Geoffrey Asquith was not a man given over to unnecessary worry or drama but he had certainly sounded rattled as the conversation wore on. At first he had sounded relaxed, almost confused — that what he had called Horner to talk about couldn’t possibly be the truth but some terrible misunderstanding. Horner, for his part had begun by responding in a vague and noncommittal manner until Asquith pushed him, revealing that information had come into his possession that indicated strongly that Horner had, whilst the two were business partners, engaged in corrupt and illegal activity. This, Asquith had speculated, would have been of great personal profit to Horner and great risk to the business at the time and to both men for some time to come.
Reluctantly Horner had been forced to admit it. It certainly sounded as if Asquith had convincing evidence.
‘I’m not entirely sure that you appreciate the magnitude of this Michael,’ Asquith had said indignantly when Horner tried to play it down and whose apologies did not allay Asquith’s obvious sense of injustice and betrayal.
‘Please Geoffrey, there’s no cause to panic. It was many years ago. I took numerous precautions. The money and transactions have been layered and laundered countless times. Do you really think I would have put you or the company in any real risk?’
‘Michael, that is precisely what you have done,’ Asquith countered sharply. ‘If this information finds its way into the public domain it will ruin both of us, not to mention Griffin and the staff it employs. This is no game.’
‘Everything is a game Geoffrey, it just depends on how you play it.’
‘For God’s sake! You can dispense with the fortune-cookie wisdom. I am seriously upset about this. You may have the luxury of a low profile but my own life is now very much lived in public. There are grave implications. I'm probably in breach of any number of rules or regulations just having this conversation with you. This could destroy everything I’m working for. Do you know the number of foreign development contracts we are negotiating at the moment? The number of companies and jobs that could be affected if I am forced out of office?’
‘I think you’re jumping the gun a little. Has anyone contacted you yet? Threatened you? To what end? Think clearly man. You’d have heard by now if this were about you or I. It’s probably some bungled industrial espionage — one of Griffin’s competitors stealing the wrong bloody information.’
‘How can you be so blase?’
‘I am not being dismissive Geoffrey but with all due respect, until someone comes forward and declares their intent then there is nothing we can do. Except of course work yourself into a lather of paranoia and panic if you really want to. But until then we have no problem to tackle and if we do, then we will deal with it. I rather fancy the two of us can dispense with a couple of small time blackmailers or troublemakers if they do deem to come into the open. Stop borrowing trouble. And more to the point please don’t dump this nonsense on me.’
Asquith had paused, surprised by the stinging rebuke from Horner who had long played the understudy to Asquith’s wise old hand. Horner would relive that moment over again in his mind.
‘I thought you ought to know at the very least,’ Asquith had said sounding a little more reserved. ‘But this is potentially very serious and we need to remain alert.’
When the conversation had ended with Asquith making a further pointed comment about what Horner had done and how shocked and let down he felt by the younger man, Horner had apologised again. But he had not missed the opportunity to underline that as upset and angry as Asquith might be, any sense of injustice or instinct toward retribution would not only be counterproductive but foolhardy in the extreme. Like it or not, he reminded him, they were still partners, even now. Particularly now.
It was quite obvious from what Asquith had said, what he had learned about Horner’s past, that the implications were extremely serious. The consequences could be far reaching, could impact on the lives and livelihoods of a very many people if the situation was not handled correctly. Horner could hardly deny what he had done, not in the face of what Asquith had quite demonstrably discovered and in any event such a course of action struck him as futile. No, in order to control and contain this it was important that Asquith did not panic. The old man had sounded scared and Horner would have to be in charge of the situation to guide them safely through it. And so he had done.
Michael Horner was a veteran of a thousand board meetings, of hostile take-overs, of making million pound trades on foreign equity markets before most people had eaten breakfast. He had skied alpine black runs in blizzards and scuba dived with sharks. As he sat thinking everything through he began to feel the strange and unfamiliar pangs of fear in his stomach.
25
Wednesday. 6.45am.
He had gone home thinking about it, all the long drive back across city. He had fallen asleep thinking about it and woken up thinking about it as well. Slater was going to enjoy this. He was going to savour each second.
The space that he had been parked in the night before was still vacant but he decided not to leave the car there this time where the neighbours might begin to wonder. All the others in this leafy SW postcode seemed to be sporty hatchbacks and soft-tops. He found a spot around the corner and trotted back along the pavement to Campbell’s front door.
‘Here we go again,’ he said and pressed the bell.
He would answer in a minute. Give him a moment or two — maybe he wasn’t even up yet. And then, all bleary-eyes and bed-hair — Slater was picturing it now — in his dressing gown, he would look blank for second as Slater asked if he was Mr Campbell? And then, before he’d got to the S of yes Slater would be on him, barrelling into the flat, a heel kicking the door shut behind him, maybe stick a couple on him. Crack a rib, or loosen a tooth perhaps.