‘I don’t mind,’ she said distantly. ‘I just wish…’
‘Wish what?’
She had a vivid flash of recall, toothpaste-white. She would have been about six or seven at the time, staying with grandparents in Tromsö and cocooned in the cold outside/warm inside security the visits there always brought. She remembered Erik and Kirsti Nyquist on skis, propped against each other for support on the hill behind Kirsti’s parents’ house and laughing into each other’s faces. Having fun in the definitive Nyquist fashion that she, as a child, had always imagined would characterise her future married life, the way it would always characterise her parents’.
The flash faded, into the dull red glow of the electric fire. She reached for her father’s hand.
‘Nothing.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘Drink?’
Mike Bryant shook his head. ‘Still dealing with a hangover, thanks, Louise. Just water, if you’ve got it.’
‘Of course.’ Louise Hewitt closed the steel-panelled door of the office drinks cabinet and hefted a blue two-litre bottle from the table beside it instead. ‘Sit down, Mike. Drinking – or whatever – mid week, that can be a pretty lethal mistake.’
‘Not lethal,’ said Bryant, massaging his temples a little as he sank onto the sofa. ‘But definitely a mistake at my age.’
‘Yeah, must be hell being thirty-four. I remember it vaguely.’ Hewitt poured water into two glasses and sat on the edge of the sofa opposite. She looked at him speculatively. ‘Well, I won’t toast you with water, but congratulations do seem to be in order. I just got off the phone to Bangkok. That sketch on Cambodia you dropped last time you were out there finally landed on the right guerrilla head.’
Bryant sat up straighter, and forgot his hangover.
‘Cambodia? The smack-war thing?’
Hewitt nodded. ‘The smack-war thing, as you so elegantly define it. We’ve got a guerrilla coalition leader willing to deal. Khieu Sary. Sound familiar?’
Bryant drank from his water glass and nodded. ‘Yeah, I remember him. Arrogant motherfucker. Had ancestors in the original Khmer Rouge or something.’
‘Yeah.’ There was the slightest hint of mockery in Hewitt’s echo of the grunted syllable. ‘Well, it looks like this Sary needs arms and cash to hold the coalition together. The Cambodian government’s on the edge of offering an amnesty to any of the heroin rebels who want to come in and disarm. If that happens, the coalition’s gone and Sary loses his powerbase. But if he can hang on, our sources in Bangkok reckon he’s in line to march on Phnom Penh inside two years.’
‘Optimistic.’
‘Local agents always are. You know how it is, they pitch rosy so you’ll bite. But this guy’s been on the money in the past. I’m inclined to go with it. So you’d better break out your copy of Reed and Mason, because this one’s yours, Mike.’
Mike Bryant’s eyes widened. ‘Mine?’
‘All yours.’ Hewitt shrugged. ‘You made it happen, you’ve got the executive experience to cover it. Like I said, congratulations.’
‘Thanks.’
‘The proposal is not uncontested,’ said Hewitt casually.
Bryant grinned. ‘What a surprise. Nakamura?’
‘Nakamura and Acropolitic both. Nakamura must have parallel information on Sary, they’re offering him essentially the same deal you put together in Bangkok, and the bastard’s smart enough to know that forcing us all to tender will bring the prices down.’
‘And Acro?’
‘They’ve got the status quo mandate. Official economic advisers to the Cambodian regime. They’re in it to squash the proposal before it gets off the ground. It’s all already cleared with Trade and Finance.’
‘What’s the ground?’
‘North. Three-hundred-kilometre duel envelope, contracts to be signed in conference auditorium six at the Tebbit Centre. Turn up with blood on your wheels or don’t turn up. The word is Nakamura have pulled Mitsue Jones for this one. Flying her in to head up the UK team. Acropolitic don’t have anyone in her league, but they’ll no doubt be sending their finest. Against all of that, you get a team of three including you. Suggestions?’
‘Nick Makin. Chris Faulkner.’ There was no hesitation in Bryant’s voice.
Hewitt looked dubious. ‘Your chess pal, huh?’
‘He’s good.’
‘You don’t let personal feelings get in the way of professional judgment around here, Mike. You know that. It’s bad for business.’
‘That’s right, I know that. And I want Faulkner. You said this was mine, Louise. If you don’t—’
‘Makin doesn’t like Faulkner,’ said Hewitt sharply.
‘Makin doesn’t like anyone. That’s his secret. The problem here, Louise, is that you don’t like Faulkner. And it isn’t much of a secret, either.’
‘May I remind you that you’re speaking to the executive partner of this division.’ Hewitt’s voice stayed level, just a shade cooler all of a sudden. She poured herself more water while she talked. ‘For your information, Mike, personal feelings have nothing to do with this. I don’t think Faulkner is up to a tender of this magnitude. I also think that you’re letting a friendship cloud your professional judgment and I’m going on record with that. This is going to go badly wrong if you’re not careful.’
‘Louise, this is going to go like a dream.’ Bryant grinned wolfishly. ‘Makin and Faulkner are both proven hard men on the road and as far as I’m concerned that’s the bottom line. We don’t have anybody better and you know it.’
There was a pause in which the loudest sound was Louise Hewitt swallowing water. Finally she shrugged.
‘Alright, Mike, it’s your call. But I’m still going on record against it. And that makes Faulkner one hundred per cent your responsibility. If he fucks up—’
‘If he fucks up, Louise, you can fire him and I’ll hold the door open.’ Bryant flashed the grin again. ‘Or the window.’
Hewitt took a disc out of her pocket and tossed it onto the table between them.
‘If he fucks up, you’ll all be dead,’ she said shortly. ‘And Shorn’ll be out of a medium-term CI contract worth billions. That’s the briefing. Route blow-ups, road-surface commentaries. Make sure they both get copies. Make sure Faulkner understands what he’s got to do. Blood on the wheels, Mike, or there’s no deal.’
‘I remember a time,’ Bryant let just a hint of his American burlesque tinge the words, ‘used to be enough just to get there first.’
Hewitt smiled despite herself. ‘Bullshit, you do. You just heard Notley and the others talk about it. And even they barely remember when it was that cuddly. Now get out of here, and don’t disappoint me.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ Bryant picked up the disc and got up to go. At the door, he paused and looked back to where she was still sitting at the desk, sipping her water.
‘Louise?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thanks for giving me this.’
‘Don’t mention it. Like I said, don’t let me down.’
‘No, I won’t.’ Bryant hesitated, then took the plunge. ‘You know, Louise, you go on record against Faulkner now and you run the risk of looking very silly when he works out.’
Hewitt gave him an icy, executive-partner smile.
‘I’ll run that risk, thank you, Michael. Now, was there any other advice you’d like to give me on running the division?’
Bryant shook his head wordlessly and left.
He stopped by Chris’s office and found the other man standing at the window, staring out at the hail. Winter was hanging on unseasonably long in London and the skies had been gusting fistfuls of the stuff for weeks.