‘Platt here. I’ve been waiting for your call.’
Bannerman had an immediate picture of Platt, fat and sweating, dabbing his brow with that red handkerchief of his, greasy hair forming in little ringlets about his thick, short neck. ‘Well?’ he said.
Platt was taken aback. ‘Well, I thought you might have something for me. You disappeared for two days. I thought maybe...’
‘Then you thought wrong. There’s nothing new.’
Platt’s mouth was dry when he said, ‘I’ve... I’ve been doing some digging of my own.’
‘And?’
‘Well, I’ve come up with something quite interesting.’
Bannerman sensed the other man’s nervousness. ‘What?’ he asked brusquely.
‘Perhaps,’ Platt said, ‘we should get together and, you know, compare notes. Don’t you think it’s time you came clean with me? We should be able to work something out to our mutual satisfaction.’
Bannerman sat down and lit a cigar. It was just possible Platt did have something, but then he might just be trying it on. And even if he did have something, it was likely that he would not realise its full significance.
‘Hello. Are you still there?’ Platt’s voice was anxious.
Bannerman decided to call his bluff. ‘I don’t think there’s much point in our meeting, Platt. If you’ve got something to tell me, tell it now. Otherwise forget it. I’ve got more important things on my mind.’
Platt was losing and he knew it. ‘Look, Bannerman, it’s time we laid this thing on the line.’
‘Goodbye.’
‘No, no, wait.’ Platt dabbed his forehead and glanced furtively around the newsroom. He cupped his hand round the mouthpiece. ‘I... I’ve been looking at the company records of both Jansen and Lapointe. It’s an absolute jungle. It took me a long time to piece together the relationship between all the companies. That’s Lapointe’s handiwork. He’s a master of company law. He can put companies together and take them apart again like a kid with building bricks. It all looks legit, but if you start from the basic premise that no organisation ever gets that big without getting involved in something a little shady en route, then things can look a bit different.’
‘Get on with it!’ Despite his tone, Bannerman was interested.
‘Okay, okay. Jansen’s outfit got fat by buying up a lot of smaller companies that were folding under pressure from his competition. Many of them were running into cashflow problems and borrowing from two or three finance companies in the City. And then when things got rough the loans were called in. When the companies couldn’t pay they were bought out by a holding company called La Trasque which, in turn, sold them off to Jansen. Only it turns out that the finance companies and the holding company were all owned by a nominee company, Corniche S.A., trading on behalf of unnamed clients. It wasn’t until about two years ago when Corniche S. A. shut up shop and re-registered in Lichtenstein that it became apparent who was really behind it.’
‘Who?’
‘No-one seemed to notice at the time, but it’s all there to see if you check back through the records. It was Lapointe’s own law firm, through another company which it had set up.’
‘It all sounds very contrived.’
‘Yes.’
Bannerman felt his impatient growing. ‘So?’
‘Well, don’t you see? Jansen put the screws on these companies, and lent them money they didn’t know was coming from him. He turned the screws a little harder and then called in the loans. And when they couldn’t pay he bought them up for a song. All indirectly, of course, through the cobweb of companies that Lapointe had spun for him.’
Bannerman sighed. ‘Well, is that illegal?’
Platt was confused. ‘I... I don’t know. But it’s a bloody good story.’
‘Maybe,’ Bannerman said, ‘you should stick to fires and press conferences on the price of butter. Frankly, how Jansen built his empire doesn’t really interest me.’
Platt was stunned. ‘But I thought you wanted something on them, Jansen and Lapointe.’
‘I only wanted a bit of background. You already got that for me. Look, Platt, I don’t know what the law is in this country, but I doubt very much if the procedure you have described is illegal. Unethical, perhaps, but not illegal. It seems like you’ve wasted your time. I’ll call you.’ He hung up.
Platt replaced the receiver slowly. His breath came in rapid bursts and his mind raced in confusion and anger and humiliation. His face had gone quite pale and he rose unsteadily, picking up his coat and hat and heading for the door.
Bannerman sat for a few minutes thinking about what Platt had told him. It might be of value, it might be worthless. It was impossible to know yet. He reached for the notepad beside the telephone and scribbled down the names of the companies while he still remembered them. Platt said that Corniche S.A. had shut up shop and re-registered in Lichtenstein. Technically, then, it was a new company. He wondered what point there might be in that and, as if to lodge the thought firmly in his mind, he underlined the name in his notes.
He stood up and took a long draw on his cigar as Sally emerged from the kitchen with a tray full of steaming mugs of coffee. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘It’s time we took the child back to the clinic.’ He saw her face harden and he said, almost apologetically, ‘She’s tired, I’m tired. I need time to think.’
Sally laid the tray on the table and looked at him coldly. His mood had changed and she felt angry and bewildered. Angry at his sudden indifference, annoyed at her own failure to respond to him as she would have liked. And then she needed to say the thing she had been keeping bottled up all day. She had been careful to keep herself discreetly in the background, not to impose on the relationship she saw developing between Bannerman and the child. There was a selfishness in the things that troubled her, but she could keep them to herself no longer. ‘I got the job,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow for Rome... It’s my last night in Brussels tonight, Neil. I... I’d like us to go somewhere and talk.’
Her words startled him, took him unawares, and he felt suddenly empty. She had been there, and it had not occurred to him that she might be gone before he had a chance to sort out what he felt about her. He was, perhaps, a little afraid to look inside himself for the answers. How many times had he learned that love was a thing that often you did not recognise until it was taken away from you? But how could he love her? He hardly knew her. He said, ‘All right,’ and turned away to the bedroom.
Chapter Ten
I
It was a cold, clear night. There was a splash of light above the entrance to the café, and across the cobbles taxi drivers sat picking their teeth in empty cabs waiting for fares.
Bannerman was dour, silent, as he crossed the square, weighed down still by the memory of the child. The bleakness of her face as he drove her back to the clinic had haunted him all through his solitary meal in some anonymous restaurant after he had left her. And now, his meeting with Sally on this dark, Brussels night, and he wondered why he felt it would be their last.
She was waiting for him at the bottom end of the square, her face pale and sad when they met and then flushing quickly in the sudden warmth of the café as they stepped inside. Neither of them had spoken.
The café was Eastern European, run by a small, fat exile from Communism. A four-piece Hungarian orchestra played in the light of the candles that burned dimly on the tables. A pianist who never smiled sat at a grand piano, and a tall thin creature wrestled with a double bass. The clarinetist sat on a high chair by the piano and a gaunt, middle-aged man stood out front by a microphone which hung by its lead from the rafters, and he played haunting melodies on his violin. The music was soft and pleasant, and stepping into this place was like stepping into the past.