‘Alex... are you there? Alex, will you answer me? I have just had a visit from Juliana Barkley, did Edward put her up to it? Alex, how can you, you of all people, treat me like this? I have trusted you... Alex? Are you there?’
He sighed and admitted he was, and Ming continued, ‘This little bitch walked in as if she owned the building. I offered her more than her shares are worth, double, and she refused. She wants all the audited accounts, and the Japanese company is giving me hell... You told me to go ahead and agree there would be no third party involved... Alex...?’
Alex swung his legs down from the bed. ‘Yes, I am here, and right now I couldn’t give a tuppenny damn about your bloody tinpot company. I know nothing of Edward’s daughter, and I haven’t seen him for months... and I don’t give a damn about it. Do you hear me? I don’t give a fuck what you do from now on, just don’t call me again.’
She screamed down the line, ‘You had better get this thing sorted out, do you hear me? You have been paid a hell of a lot of money off the top, so don’t start saying you don’t give a damn. You said you were taking over the Barkley Company — well, Alex, are you? I have to know.’
Alex hung up on her, then told the switchboard he was not going to take any more calls from Miss Takeda. Ming had, as always, touched a chord inside him. His intentions of taking over were as strong as ever but, like the pattern that always formed in his life, every time he took a step forward something dragged him back. He had not given a thought to Edward, to the carefully laid plans for uprooting him. Nothing could be further from his mind, and in a strange way he almost wished his brother were with him.
The phone rang again, and he picked it up. Miss Henderson told him that the press was full of leaks on insider dealing, the Barkley Company could be in trouble, and she needed to contact Edward. Did Alex know where he was?
Sighing, he interrupted her. ‘Will you not call me again unless it directly concerns my son, is that clear? Anything else will have to wait until my return. Just fend everyone off, do you understand me?’
There was a loud crackle on the phone, and Miss Henderson apologized for the intrusion, then the phone went dead.
Chapter Thirty-One
Edward’s arrival in Paris coincided with the transfer of Evelyn to the top-security wing. He missed his son by a matter of hours. He contacted London and discovered Alex was in Paris, so he went directly to the hotel, only to find he had checked out and left no forwarding address.
Edward spent a considerable time asking questions of as many people as he could get to see. He sifted through the facts, those he managed to acquire, then tried once again to discover where Alex was staying, without success. He decided to make his way to where Evelyn was being held. Before he left, he paid a visit to the Foreign Office, then drove across Paris to the prison in the hope of seeing Evelyn.
Edward now knew it was far worse than he had anticipated. The main terrorist group were amateurs who had been making attacks on post offices, telephone exchanges, television transmitters, tax offices and banks since the late seventies. They had also destroyed an office at the Academie in Brittany. The new faction had not started causing real damage until three years ago, when they had bombed an officers’ mess, two banks and a customs depot. The list made no sense, there was no logic to it. The only good thing from Evelyn’s point of view was that no one had been killed or seriously injured.
But the police had found enough ammunition and explosives at the farmhouse to give great cause for alarm. The terrorists’ every movement had been monitored by the police, who had had them under surveillance for six months. Initially prepared to wait and catch them red-handed, they changed their minds when they discovered that the group had bought vast amounts of explosive. They decided to move in before anyone got killed, and had raided the farmhouse. One of the ringleaders, Kurt Spanier, was determined, if he and his friends went down, to take their little stool pigeon with them. He had given the police a long statement implicating Evelyn as the financier behind the organization.
Edward was refused permission to see Evelyn. He was standing outside the high prison walls wondering how to trace Alex, when he saw him driving out of the prison. He shouted and waved, chased the car. His brother’s face was grey with worry, and he stared in panic at Edward for a moment, not recognizing him. Edward gasped for breath, ‘I’ve been trying to contact you all day, lemme in the bloody car... Hang on, I’ll pay off my cab.’
Alex opened the door and Edward, wheezing and coughing, squeezed in beside him. The cigar smoke made Alex feel sick, and he opened the window as he drove away from the threatening brick walls topped with barbed wire.
The visits were a nightmare for Alex. Every time he entered the prison he went through agonies. He washed himself obsessively after each visit, unable to get the stench of disinfectant and urine out of his nostrils. The acrid cigar smoke had a similar effect on him, and he kept gasping for air, unable to talk. Edward was totally unaware of the mental strain Alex was undergoing every time he visited Evelyn. Attempts at conversation drew nothing but blank silence.
Alex’s hotel room, though a double, was small. It was clean, but without any of the luxuries the two men had become used to. Alex splashed cold water on his face from the small handbasin, soaped and scrubbed his hands and nails. His brother’s questions, fired at him one after another, made him feel worse. Finally Edward blew his top, yelling, ‘For God’s sake, Alex, talk to me, talk to me.’
Edward’s presence filled the room along with his cigar smoke. He lay down, the single bed creaking beneath his weight.
Alex was washing his hands yet again, and Edward threw his up in despair. ‘You going to fucking talk this through with me or not? You tell me what you’ve got and I’ll say what I’ve sniffed out — isn’t there any room service in this dump?’
Alex loosened his tie and put his head into his hands. The headache still throbbed, but it was fading, the nausea subsiding. At last he spoke. ‘Any way you look at it, he’s going to get at the very least eight, they say more like ten years. The police were staking out the place, the farmhouse, for over six months. They watched him coming and going freely, so there’s nothing to that angle we can try. They have cheques I sent which were signed over to one of them — a German, the one they call Kurt Spanier. The stupid bastard was part of it whether we like it or not.’
Edward took off his thick overcoat and threw it on to the only chair in the room. It fell to the floor in a heap. ‘What about bribes, any joy in that area?’
‘That what you’re here for? What are you going to do, splash your money around? Grow up, money won’t get him off this one — have you seen the list of things they’ve been trying to blow up?’
‘Yeah, talk about arseholes... I dunno, but money gets everyone off everything, just that you’re too dumb to know it... I want to talk to the lawyers. I’ve got contacts in the Foreign Office, maybe we can work something out, some kind of deal. If you ask me, it would maybe do the boy some good to spend a year or two behind bars getting his arse kicked... You never gave him the thrashing he deserved over that Harrow business.’
‘Don’t you start telling me how I should have treated my son...’
‘He’s my son, and you know it.’
‘Wrong — you lost him when you kicked my wife out of your bed. Now why don’t you and your fat cigar get the hell out of here and leave me to try to sort out my son’s problems.’