Deadly Business

by Quintin Jardine

  I hung up on him and left him to it. I was under no illusions about Liam’s tracking ability; he could find his way around a woman pretty well, but he was so laid-back generally that I was sure he’d either get lost or give himself away. Regardless of that, though, he was the only show in town as far as I was concerned, and if he could come up with a snap of Duncan and Phil Culshaw deep in conversation, it might do me some good. After my conversation with Greg, I understood the depth of the shit that I was in, and any stick that might haul me out had to be clutched at.

  It’s a very short walk from where we were to Queen Street railway station; past the concert hall, down Buchanan Street, turn left and you’re there. We caught the one fifteen train with a couple of minutes to spare and less than an hour later we were in the nation’s capital. In past times Edinburgh was called the ‘Athens of the North’; today the comparisons are with Barcelona, but since that city is four times as large, and its urban sprawl contains as many people as the whole of Scotland, they don’t really bear much scrutiny.

  We jumped from one of Scotland’s most expensive trains into one of Britain’s most expensive taxis and asked the driver to take us to Fabricant’s address. He must have read Wylie as a Glaswegian, for he took us for a ride, and no mistake. Sixteen quid fifty later he pulled up outside a building that was less than a mile from the station. He blamed the Princes Street closure, but the chancer hadn’t needed to cross it. I gave him the exact fare, and smiled as I told him in Catalan that he was a chiselling son-of-a-bitch.

  Cousland Tower turned out to be one of those blocks that were chucked up towards the end of the last century as Edinburgh business moved out of its traditional Georgian offices into premises that were deemed to be more IT friendly. There was no reception in the lobby, so we rode a glass-walled lift up to the eighth floor and stepped out, into another area with no welcome mat but with a wall board listing the occupants by suite number.

  Fabricant’s was to the left, round a corner; the door was solid, with no name, only the number, Three. Wylie rapped on it, gently, and we waited. I was about to give it a more solid thump when it was opened by a tall woman in a hip-hugging dress, with supermodel looks. Her dark hair was piled on her head, her cheekbones were high, and her lips were naturally full, without the aid of collagen or any other agent. Bitch.

  If she was surprised, she didn’t look it. ‘Yes,’ she purred, ‘can I help you?’

  ‘I, I, I,’ Wylie stammered; he still hadn’t got past the hips.

  ‘Is this Diego Fabricant’s office?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ the cover girl replied. ‘I’m Kim Coates, his secretary.’

  ‘Good. We’d like to see him. My name is Primavera Blackstone, and this is my colleague, Wylie Smith.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she murmured. ‘I’m afraid that Mr Fabricant doesn’t see anyone without an appointment.’

  ‘Then make one for us.’ I checked my watch; it showed two twenty-eight. ‘Half past two will suit us nicely.’

  Her smile was patronising; the Queen couldn’t do that to me and get away with it, and Ms Coates had to be at least ten years my junior. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me a little more than that,’ she laughed.

  ‘Okay. Try this. Your boss is a director of a company that’s trousered twenty million of my company’s money. My colleague here is secretary of both of them, and he doesn’t know what’s happening to it. So, Tootsie, unless you back off and put me together with your boss, I’m going to stand here shouting so loud and so long that eventually the police will come to see what the fuss is about. Or maybe I’ll give my voice a break and go and fetch them myself. Go speak to him, now!’

  She took half a pace back and that was enough. I stepped past her into the suite, with Wylie following, muttering a nervous, ‘Excuse me,’ as he did, but ogling her nonetheless as she sashayed towards the door behind her desk. I could understand why. I guessed that when he’d employed her, Diego hadn’t asked about her doorkeeping abilities. With that body, a wink, a smile and a crooked finger would get her through most situations.

  I scanned the office as we waited. The furniture was a strange mix of modern and antique, as if some of it had come from Charlotte Square or some other former base. There was a bloody awful painting of a hunting scene on the wall beside the entrance door, and next to that an honours board, headed ‘Client companies’, with a couple of dozen corporate entities listed below.

  I was halfway through scanning them when Ms Coates returned. I’d found Monsoon Holdings Ltd, and was still looking for Babylon Links Country Club PLC. ‘Mr Fabricant will see you,’ she announced, managing to make it sound as if it was an honour and one that had been granted against her advice.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, moving towards her boss’s sanctum. ‘By the way,’ I murmured as I passed her, ‘a word of advice. In a dress like that, a woman can always tell when another woman isn’t wearing any.’

  ‘I imagine you know from experience,’ she hissed.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ I replied, ‘I surely do, but I never go without in the office.’

  I let Wylie go into Fabricant’s room ahead of me … and almost had to catch him. The man was holding a shotgun, its stock pressed to his shoulder and he was sighting it almost straight at us. I was startled too, but I wasn’t going to let him see it.

  He held the pose for a second, then broke the breech and laid the weapon on his desk. ‘Shooting party this evening,’ he said, in a public school accent that could have originated anywhere. ‘Just getting the feel for it again.’

  ‘You should relax a little more,’ I suggested, as we all took seats. ‘You looked a bit stiff.’

  He peered at me, over his substantial nose. ‘Indeed? I’ll bear that in mind. Do you shoot?’

  ‘Not for a while.’ No, not for over fifteen years in fact, and then it had been a pistol.

  ‘Well, shoot now, Mrs Blackstone, in another way. What can I do for you?’

  I held up my left hand; occasionally I wear a wedding ring, but not that day. ‘How did you know it’s Mrs?’ I asked. The window behind him offered a view of the Usher Hall, and also a reflection of the computer monitor on his desk. I could see that it was switched off, and there hadn’t been time for him to look me up and then power it down.

  ‘I read the business press,’ he replied, without pausing for as much as a beat. ‘You’re in it this morning, quite prominently, if I may say so.’

  ‘That’s more than I can say about you, Mr Fabricant. Not quite a man of mystery, but you keep a low profile, particularly when it comes to our joint venture, Babylon Links. Mr Smith, here, has never met you, and your name isn’t listed as present at any meeting. Don’t you have a duty to the shareholders of the company you represent, Monsoon Holdings?’

  ‘My dear lady, I am the sole shareholder of Monsoon.’

  ‘But you’re not the beneficial owner,’ Wylie pointed out. ‘You’re listed in Jersey as a nominee.’

  Fabricant laughed. ‘You have indeed been doing your homework.’

  ‘It’s not too difficult,’ he countered. ‘My assistant established that on day one. I don’t suppose you’d care to disclose the name of the actual owner of the company, and through that of the land that seems to be its sole asset?’

  ‘No, I do not care. If that person wished to be known, there would have been no point in using a nominee. Mr Smith, you’re not suggesting there’s anything illegal in what’s been done, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Wylie admitted; he’d been thrown on to the back foot.

  ‘Me neither,’ I said, ‘but as the chair of your partner I want to know the process that’s led to the Gantry Group being exposed in this way.’

  ‘Then hadn’t you better ask your managing director?’ Fabricant suggested. The man was confident, annoyingly so.

  ‘I did,’ I told him. ‘My former managing director, currently suspended from his position. From that, you might gather I wasn’t given a satisfactory answer, so now I’m asking
you. Who initiated this deal?’

  ‘I’ll throw you one bone, Mrs Blackstone. I’m prepared to tell you that Mr Culshaw was approached by a representative of Monsoon. The proposition was that we own a piece of land in Ayrshire that’s ripe for leisure development, and that we needed a fifty-fifty partner to fund the operation.’

  ‘And how’s our investment going to be recouped?’

  ‘Entry to membership will be through the purchase of bonds or debentures. These will be marketed internationally. It’s quite a common model; there are many examples.’

  ‘And how many are currently active,’ I asked him, ‘with the global economy hiding somewhere up its own arse. Man, I don’t live in Scotland, but even I know that the Ayrshire coast is lined with golf courses, and that the current insolvency rate among ventures like this is scarily high.’

  ‘You have to take a long-term view, Mrs Blackstone,’ he countered.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I shot back at him. ‘First and foremost I have to protect the interests of the Gantry Group, and this deal is undermining them. Leaked information about it is being used against us in the City, and it’s very damaging. I’m pulling our company out of this thing and I want our money back, pronto.’

  He shook his head, still wearing that annoyingly assured smirk. ‘It’s not as easy as that,’ he said. ‘Babylon Links can only be wound up by agreement between the parties, and I have very firm instructions from my principal that we are not going to agree to that. The same goes for the Gantry Group’s investment; it won’t be returned either.’

  I was contemplating how long I’d get for battering dear Diego to death with his own Purdy when my mobile sounded. I looked at the number, recognised it as Cress Oldham’s, and took the call.

  ‘I’ve got a certain amount of information,’ she announced. ‘It’s strange. Two different consultancies have been active against us. One of them is Seventh Financial; its people have been spreading the personal stuff about you, but I’m sorry, they won’t tell me who’s instructed them.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ I told her. ‘I know who it was, and I’ve dealt with it. What about the others?’

  ‘According to my tame analyst, the leaked information is being put about by a firm called Greentree Stanley City. I know a couple of their people and I nobbled one at lunchtime. He admitted it but didn’t give me the faintest hint of the source.’

  ‘Any chance of progress on that front?’ I asked, cryptically, because Fabricant was making no pretence of not listening to my end of the conversation.

  ‘I’d have to go through their entire client list, and when I did I’d still be guessing. I’ll try, though.’

  ‘You do that, and respond soonest.’

  ‘I will, but … there’s something else happening, Mrs Blackstone, and I don’t know what it is. The share price is heading south again; that tells me there’s new information out there, and it’s not good.’

  ‘Then get digging. Cheers.’ I pocketed my phone.

  ‘Not bad news, I hope,’ Fabricant oozed.

  ‘Only for whoever it is that’s trying to undermine me. I will find them, and I will get even. When that happens, mate, it will be cataclysmic.’

  ‘That may be,’ he said. ‘But I would suggest you do it quickly. From what I hear your tenure of office may be rather short.’

  ‘That’s been said at other times and in other places, but I’m still here.’ I started to rise. ‘I’ll give your principal forty-eight hours to authorise the release of our funds.’

  ‘Actually, I had the opposite in mind.’ There was something in his tone that made me sit down again, as he took a document from his desk and slid it across the desk. ‘This is a copy of the agreement signed by Mr Culshaw when we set up our joint venture. If you read it, you’ll see that it commits Gantry to providing funding of up to fifty million, not merely the twenty that’s been lodged so far.’

  I scanned the document, then passed it to Wylie. He read it and winced. ‘What he says is the case, Mada … Primavera.’

  ‘And we’re calling for the balance to be subscribed immediately,’ Fabricant announced. That was Cress’s new information, I realised at once; it was out there in the public domain and it was screwing us already.

  ‘And I’m telling you to fuck off,’ I retorted. ‘Come on, Wylie, we’re out of here.’

  As we stood, he stayed seated, grinning at my anger. ‘We’ll sue,’ he warned.

  ‘You do that,’ I snapped. ‘See if you can arrange for the case to be heard by Lord January. He’s my son’s uncle. I’ll be telling him all about you, Diego, and he’ll be telling all his friends.’

  It was a crap threat and we both knew it, but it was all I had, other than the satisfaction of shaking his office door on its hinges as I closed it behind me. I’d expected to see Kim Coates beaming behind her desk, but she was gone.

  I headed for the exit, then paused. I took out my phone and photographed Fabricant’s client board, then stepped into the corridor. Outside I sent the image to Cress Oldham, with a text message.

  ‘Check this against the enemy’s client list. See if it sets anything off. P.’

  ‘We’re in trouble, aren’t we?’ Wylie sighed as we stepped into the glass lift.

  ‘That’s a fair analysis,’ I chuckled.

  ‘You must be regretting letting yourself get involved in this.’

  The chuckle became a full-out laugh. ‘Are you kidding?’ I exclaimed. ‘I haven’t felt so alive in years.’ He probably thought I was crazy, and if he did, quite possibly he was right.

  Finally, I had to admit to the truth, that I’d been hiding from myself, and that, apart from watching Tom grow towards manhood, the challenge of risk and danger, be it financial or physical, is the only thing that really floats my boat.

  Fourteen

  Wylie and I had quite a bit to take in. I didn’t want to do it on the move, or in a pub, and so at his suggestion we went for afternoon tea in the Caley Hotel. Expensive yes, but compared with that taxi trip, good value for money.

  ‘What do we do, Mr Company Secretary?’ I asked him as we surveyed a three-tier stand laden with the kind of items that I’d been warning Tom since infancy were bad for his teeth.

  He didn’t reply immediately. Instead he took Diego Fabricant’s document from the pocket to which he’d consigned it, and reread it, slowly and carefully.

  When he was finished he passed it to me. ‘That’s watertight,’ he decreed. ‘Phil did have the authority to commit the company to providing that level of finance, when called upon by our partner. We are liable.’ He paused. ‘Look, you’d need to ask Gerry Meek to confirm this, but I don’t believe it would bankrupt the company. You could cover it, but it would mean selling assets in a down market for much less than their potential worth, or borrowing against them at rates that would make your eyes water. It won’t bust you, but it will devalue your shares.’

  ‘And that’s what’s happening already,’ I murmured.

  ‘So it appears. Did you mean it when you said that you wouldn’t meet your obligation?’ he asked.

  ‘Christ, Wylie!’ I exclaimed. ‘Don’t put it that way. You don’t need to be that blunt.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but Monsoon’s QC will be even more direct than that if this gets to court.’

  I called Cress Oldham. ‘What’s happened since we spoke last?’ I asked her.

  ‘The opposition is suggesting that Gantry’s due to funnel another thirty million into this development,’ she replied. ‘Tell me it’s not true, please.’

  ‘Sorry, it is. I’ve just found that out.’

  ‘In that case we can’t hide from it.’ I was getting to like Cressida, for her frankness and the honesty of her advice. ‘We have to advise the Stock Exchange of the position … as gently as we can, but we have to do it.’

  ‘I can see that. I’ll authorise you to issue a statement by me, confirming that we are committed to providing up to fifty million to finance the development. You should ad
d that it is the upper limit of our involvement, and that the plan is for the investment to be recovered by the sale of tradable bonds to future members of the club. Finish up by saying that pending an extraordinary general meeting, Mr Philip Culshaw has been suspended as managing director, and succeeded temporarily by the finance director. How does all that sound?’

  ‘Strong,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t hide from the company’s weekened position, but it does show that you’re firmly in charge. The market will approve of that; they’re getting to like you already.’

  ‘Hopefully it isn’t going to turn into a long-term romance,’ I told her, ‘and I’ll be able to hand over to a permanent chair.’

  She whistled, softly. ‘If you don’t mind, Mrs Blackstone, I’m not even going to hint at that. They’ve worked out who your brother-in-law is.’

  ‘His name is not to be mentioned,’ I warned her.

  ‘And it hasn’t been, by me, but it’s a fact and if it helps us, so be it.’

  ‘It won’t help us when it counts, though: at the EGM. Culshaw’s called it and he’s threatened to bring me down.’

  ‘But he can’t, can he? He doesn’t have the shares.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed, ‘but two people can, even if neither of them would. Two children, kids I love and who love me. The way things stand, they’ll be my undoing. And probably yours too,’ I warned, ‘if it goes that way.’

  ‘Is there anything you can do about it?’

  ‘Change the rules of the game,’ I responded, ‘but right now I don’t have a clue how to do that.’ I didn’t want to depress her further so I changed tack. ‘Did you get the image I sent you?’

  ‘Yes I did, and it’s legible. I’ve put my assistant on it. If there’s anything there he’ll find it.’

  ‘Soon?’

  ‘Yes. Meanwhile, I’ll issue your statement, and brief as hard as I can in your support.’

  I let her get on with it, and turned back to the tea table to find that Wylie had eaten all the sandwiches. I picked up an éclair and was halfway through it when he asked me, ‘How many members do we have to recruit to get our money back?’