Deadly Business

by Quintin Jardine

  I made him wait until I’d finished the pastry and picked up another. ‘If income is split evenly between the partners … a safe assumption given the stupidity of everything else Phil did … there will have to be a thousand before we break even. But that depends on the bonds actually being sellable at a hundred grand.’

  ‘Is that realistic?’

  ‘I doubt it. I’d need to ask Jonny, Oz’s nephew. He’s a pro, and he has a very efficient manager called Brush Donnelly. He might be able to advise us. My gut, though, says that if we were marketing aggressively and internationally, quoting a hundred thousand US dollars, not sterling, it might be doable, but it would take a long time.’

  ‘If we could persuade Monsoon to hold off on demanding the extra thirty million?’

  ‘And finish the course with what we’ve put in so far? The number needed would drop to four hundred. But you saw Fabricant. Did he look negotiable? No, Wylie, it’s a set-up and old Phil’s taken us right into it, with his fucking nephew, if I read his reaction right. But what does Duncan have to gain if he is involved with it? Unless,’ a conspiracy revealed itself to me, ‘it’s a complete scam, the course never gets built and the money disappears. What about that?’

  ‘Then Farbricant would be party to a fraud,’ Wylie countered, ‘and there are no shooting parties in jail.’

  ‘True,’ I conceded. ‘So what else is up? Why do I feel there’s another game being played, right under my nose, only I can’t see the action?’

  As I demolished my second éclair, my companion shook his head. ‘I have no idea, Primavera,’ he murmured. ‘I’m only a humble solicitor.’

  I had to laugh. ‘That makes you unique in your profession, chum. Let’s go back to Glasgow,’ I said, ‘and find out what my boys have been up to.’

  I let Wylie pay the bill … as an unspoken punishment for scoffing all the sandwiches … and we left the hotel. We headed along the tram-ravaged Princes Street, towards Waverley Station, and had almost reached the Mound junction when my phone sounded once again. I took it out and was surprised to see that the caller was Tom.

  ‘Hi, love,’ I answered. ‘Where are you?’

  He shot my question back at me. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in Edinburgh with a colleague,’ I told him. ‘Now it’s your turn.’

  ‘So are we.’

  ‘You are? How come?’

  ‘We waited for Duncan,’ he began, ‘like you asked, outside. He had a car parked on a meter just around the corner. He didn’t see us and we were able to follow him. He went on to the motorway then came all the way through here and stopped at a house in a street called Farmer’s Way.’

  ‘When did he arrive?’

  ‘About ten minutes ago.’

  ‘What’s Liam doing? Why are you making the call?’

  ‘He’s busy, taking photographs of the house. It’s a big place, but we can see up the driveway. Duncan went right up the driveway and parked in front of the garage, then he went into the house. What’s he doing here, Mum?’ he asks. ‘He should be in Monaco, with Janet and wee Jonathan, if he’s going to be their stepfather. Shouldn’t he?’

  ‘You might think so,’ I murmured. ‘What happened when he got there? Who answered the door? Did you see?’

  ‘Nobody. He used a key and went in. He didn’t ring the bell or anything.’

  ‘Do you know if there’s anyone else in the house?’

  ‘That’s what Liam’s trying to see.’

  ‘What number is it?’ I asked. ‘Are you close enough to see that?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s got a number, Mum. But it does have a name. “Springs Eternal”, it says on the sign at the entrance.’

  ‘Somebody’s got a sense of humour. Let me see if I can find out anything about it. Tell Liam I’ll call you back.’

  As we crossed the junction I explained to Wylie what had happened. ‘How easy is it to find out who owns the place?’

  ‘Simple. Let me call my secretary.’

  I gave him the details. He phoned his office, snapped out clear crisp instructions, then suggested that we wait for a reply. We sat on one of the benches that look down into the eastern side of Princes Street Gardens. It was a warm afternoon, although not hot by my standards. Yet people were sunbathing, possibly getting themselves a base tan for the holiday season.

  ‘Is it as easy as that?’ I murmured.

  ‘Sure. The land and property registers are public documents; we can access them online, and get a pretty much instant return.’

  And it was. It took less than three minutes for his very efficient secretary to call him back. As he listened, I saw him smile. ‘Thanks, Rita,’ he said, then turned to me. ‘You’re going to love this. The property is owned by a corporate entity.’

  ‘Monsoon Holdings Limited?’

  ‘Bullseye.’

  I rang Tom back, on his phone. As he answered, I could hear road noise. ‘We’ve had to go, Mum,’ he told me. ‘Liam was worried that Duncan would see us if we waited any longer.’

  ‘I understand. Look, come into Edinburgh and pick us up. Tell Liam we’ll wait across the road from the station.’

  We headed for Waverley Bridge. I’d been tired before we’d eaten, but all that sugar had refuelled me; as we passed it I was ready to run up the Scott Monument. When my mobile sounded yet again, as we stood waiting, across from the station access roads, I snatched my phone from my pocket like a gunfighter.

  ‘Yes!’ I exclaimed, so assertively that I think Cress Oldham was taken aback, for she paused for a second or two before replying.

  ‘I’ve issued your statement,’ she told me, ‘and it’s gone down well, so far. The analysts I’ve spoken to appreciate that you’re not a pushover, and that the Monsoon people aren’t going to have it all their own way. Also, we’ve got a hit, from that image you sent me. The one name on Fabricant’s board that’s common to the Greentree Stanley client list is a company called Torrent PLC. I can’t confirm that it’s behind the briefing but …’

  ‘That name’s familiar,’ I told her, ‘but right now I can’t place it.’ It was too, it had been mentioned recently, but I had so much information swirling around inside my head that I couldn’t bring it to the surface.

  ‘I’m in the process of finding out as much as I can about them,’ she replied. ‘But it could be a coincidence; I repeat, nobody at Greentree Stanley will confirm the source of leaked information … unless they’re forced to in court. I’ll—’

  ‘Yes, do that, get back to me. Got to go now.’ I cut her off because I could see our car turn down from Princes Street on to Waverley Bridge, with Liam at the wheel. Wylie and I ran across the road through a gap in the traffic and climbed into the back seat as he drew to a halt.

  ‘Starsky and Hutch,’ I laughed as he pulled away again. I could see him grin in the rear-view.

  ‘Who?’ Tom asked, twisting round to look at me.

  ‘Blasts from my past,’ I said. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Liam replied, as he turned right into Market Street, as our taxi driver could have done, but didn’t. ‘A few shots of Culshaw getting out of his car and going into the house. Whether he’s identifiable, that’s something else again. He’s in profile in one of them, but in the rest he’s mostly got his back to the lens. There are others, though. For a very short time, I could see him through an upstairs window, and there was someone else there. I got off a couple of frames, very fast. That was when we decided we’d better get the hell out of there. If we had a clear view of him, then vice versa.’

  ‘How good are the images?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I haven’t had a chance to look at them. Even if I did, I’ll probably need to load them on to a computer screen for them to be big enough to be legible.’

  ‘Can I have a look?’ I asked, reaching out a hand to Tom, who was holding the camera.

  ‘Better not, Mum,’ he said. ‘You might delete them by accident.’

  ‘Thanks for your tou
ching faith in my high-tech skills,’ I muttered, but he had a point. Push the wrong button and the memory card could have been wiped.

  ‘How do I get out of here and back to Glasgow?’ Liam called out from the driver’s seat. I hadn’t been in Edinburgh for years, but my trip up Lothian Road had reminded me of one route, and I was able to give him directions to and along the Western Approach Road, past Murrayfield Stadium, on to Gorgie Road, and eventually to the motorway.

  Once we were headed westward, moving steadily through heavy traffic, I asked Tom about his morning. ‘What did you see in the museum?’

  He shrugged. ‘Old stuff. Cars, trams, a steam train; like the motor museum in Monaco, only much bigger. There are a couple of streets too, like they used to be.’ He grinned, then switched into Catalan. ‘I liked it well enough,’ he said, ‘but Liam, he was like a dog with two cocks in a forest.’

  I came within a breath of asking him why a dog would go on a woodland walk with poultry, when I realised that wasn’t what he’d meant at all.

  ‘Tell her about the ship,’ Liam chipped in, blissfully unaware that his tackle had been mentioned in despatches, and that I was still coming to terms with the mental image.

  ‘There’s a tall ship moored there as well,’ my son explained. ‘It has three masts, and it was built on the Glasgow river. It’s quite big, seventy-five metres long, but it doesn’t sail any more. I’ve seen bigger in L’Escala, and been on a couple.’

  Tom’s more into surfing these days, but he’s been to the local sailing school, and over the last year or so he’s crewed for a few people.

  ‘Have you?’ Liam exclaimed, clearly impressed. ‘Could you fix it for me to do that?’

  Tom nodded. ‘Sure, as long as you know what you’re doing.’

  Jesus, I thought, smiling, this man I’m involved with, he’s a schoolboy at heart.

  Suddenly, Cress Oldham’s last called forced its way back into my mind. I turned to Wylie. ‘Does the name Torrent PLC mean anything to you?’ I asked him.

  He swivelled round to face me in his seat. ‘Are you kidding?’ he gasped. In our admittedly short acquaintance, I’d never seen him so animated.

  ‘Hey,’ Liam called from the front, ‘even I’ve heard of them. Last time I was in Edinburgh, got to be ten years ago, making my first movie for Miles Grayson, after Oz got me the gig, he … Oz that is, got involved in this thing. It was a big scandal at the time. It involved a company and that was its name. There was this chick, too.’ He twisted as if he was trying to look at Wylie in the rear-view. ‘Isn’t that right … I’m sorry, I don’t …’

  I realised that they hadn’t been introduced, and did the honours.

  ‘So I believe,’ Wylie told him. ‘I wasn’t involved in that in any way, but there was another incident later on, and I was party to that. Torrent PLC tried to take over the Gantry Group, even though it wasn’t really big enough to do so. Oz was involved again, very much, since Susie was expecting her second child at the time, and he dealt with the crisis. I’m not entirely sure how he did it, but the bid was withdrawn.’

  Of course; and it was Harvey who had mentioned it by name.

  I knew how Oz had seen off the threat, because years later, he’d told me. It was one of the secrets that I had not wanted Duncan Culshaw to explore; it was well buried and it had to stay that way.

  ‘Torrent PLC is owned by a woman called Natalie Morgan,’ Wylie continued, ‘one hundred per cent. She inherited it from her uncle whose name it bears.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Liam exclaimed, again. ‘She was involved in that thing. The actor … Ewan Capperauld was his name … who was supposed to play the cop in our movie, it turned out he was banging her. His wife found out, the whole thing blew up in his face and hers, big time, and he had to pull out of the movie.’

  A few days before, I might have been concerned about his choice of words for Tom to hear, but after that crack about dogs and trees, my last delusions of innocence were in pieces.

  ‘If that’s the case,’ Wylie said, ‘she came out of the experience with a grudge against Oz, because the failed takeover bid was personally motivated, most certainly. But Primavera, why are you asking about Torrent?’

  ‘Because that’s who’s been using those leaked management accounts against us. The name jumped off Diego Fabricant’s client list.’

  ‘Can we prove they’re doing it?’

  ‘I doubt it, going by the advice I’m getting.’

  ‘But I don’t get it,’ the lawyer murmured. ‘Why?’

  I was pretty sure that I’d got it, but I was keeping it to myself for the time being.

  We were silent for most of the remainder of the journey. As we came off the motorway, Wylie asked Liam if he wanted to use his office computer to study the images he had shot, but I vetoed that. ‘It’s Greg McPhillips’ office as well, and he’s involved with the dark side. I’m not saying he’d spy on us, but let’s not put him in a situation where he might feel he had to.’

  With that decided, we went back to the hotel, returned the car to the parking valet and went up to my, our, suite. I booted up my laptop and handed it to Liam. He connected his camera through a USB socket, then waited while the machine recognised its software. Initially every image on the memory stick was displayed, but he soon isolated those in which we had an interest.

  He began by looking at the shots of Duncan leaving his car; yes, I could tell it was him, because that profile shot was recognisable. Another of those shots interested me. It showed him with a key in the Yale lock of the front door. He looked completely at ease and sure of his circumstances, not glancing over his shoulder, nothing furtive about him. He’d been there before, many times. Even in a still image, his body language was that of a man going home.

  Liam moved on to the last two pictures that he had snatched, before he began to feel exposed and split from there. The first was blurred beyond redemption, but the other showed two figures. It was a telephoto shot, though, and their faces were indistinct. By the clothes he wore Duncan was one; by the clothes she wasn’t wearing the other was female, very obviously female. Long dark hair fell on to her shoulders, but didn’t hide any assets.

  ‘Tom,’ I began.

  ‘Forget it, Mum,’ he said. I didn’t argue, but I made a mental note to monitor his computer usage from that point on.

  ‘Liam,’ I asked, ‘can you make that any clearer?’

  ‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘It’s a high-resolution image, the sharpest the camera can do. Let me zoom it up, and make it as sharp as I can.’

  He leaned over the laptop, two fingers moving gently, almost sensually, over the track pad, then when he was ready, clocking the return key with his thumb. ‘There,’ he announced, turning the computer so that Wylie and I could see what he had done.

  Wylie’s mouth fell open ‘That’s …’ he gasped.

  So did mine. ‘That’s Kim Coates,’ I exclaimed.

  Liam chuckled. ‘You two can call her anything you like, but trust a man who never forgets a face, especially if it’s above a rack like that: that is Natalie Morgan.’

  Why was I not surprised? She’d played me for a mug in Fabricant’s office, and she must have loved it.

  ‘I am professionally embarrassed,’ Wylie Smith said. ‘I should have known who she was, given her past history with the Gantry Group.’

  ‘Forget it,’ I told him. ‘You’re a man; you never got as high as her face when we met her. What I want to know is, what’s her past history with Duncan Culshaw? Do you keep company annual reports in your office?’

  ‘Only those of client companies,’ he replied, ‘but if Torrent has a website, you might find its reports available there. That’s if they publish them at all, beyond what they have to list with Companies House, by statute. It doesn’t have any shareholders to impress, other than Natalie herself.’

  ‘What does the company do?’

  ‘It’s always majored in office equipment. When Natalie’s uncle, James Torrent, was alive,
they called him the photocopier king. When that market started to die, Natalie was smart enough to spot the symptoms early and diversified into information technology. She sells, installs and updates computer systems to companies of pretty much any size. In fact, when I think about it, I recall that Torrent provided a new set-up for us a couple of years ago. Let me call our IT manager; she may have some information about it.’

  I left him to do that, and phoned Cress Oldham. ‘I’ve got the low-down on Torrent,’ I told her, then explained what I knew of the company and its owner.

  ‘How did Torrent get the leaked information? Do you have any idea about that?’

  ‘From very early on. The source was Susie Gantry’s second husband, now pretty much ecstatic widower, Duncan Culshaw. He stole it off her computer, although I’m sure he’ll argue that he had every right to do so. This is the same guy who brought the Babylon Links project to his uncle, and got him to commit fifty mil of Gantry money to the project.’

  ‘So why’s he feeding information to this Morgan woman?’

  ‘He’s feeding her more than information,’ I snorted, then had a particularly vicious brainwave. ‘I’m going to email you an image. You might be a little shocked by it. I don’t want you to do anything with it, until you hear from me, just keep it and think about where you would put it if you wanted to do the maximum damage to an individual’s reputation. I do believe I can answer your question, but I’d prefer not to, until I’ve sorted a couple of things out in my head.’

  ‘Okay to all of that,’ she said. ‘But help me out here. We’ve got Culshaw setting up the Babylon Links project with his uncle for Monsoon Holdings, then going to Torrent with information that’s designed to shaft it and Phil. That right?’

  ‘Spot on.’

  ‘So who’s Monsoon really?’ she asked. ‘Who’s Fabricant fronting for?’

  ‘Natalie Morgan, who else?’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘If I’m right, you will, very soon.’