by Andy Maslen
“I’m putting you through now Mr Wolfe. She doesn’t have much time, but she said any friend of Don’s, etcetera.”
Gabriel readied himself to say something he’d spent years avoiding. He heard a click as Valerie put him through to another phone.
“Hello Gabriel, I’m Fariyah Crace. You know Don?”
“He was my old CO. He gave me your card.”
She laughed. A lovely trilling sound that made Gabriel’s heart leap. “He gives them out like confetti. I ought to put him on commission. Now, I don’t know if Valerie explained, but I have a lecture to give in ten minutes, but I wanted to have a quick chat with you now. So why don’t you give me the bare bones of it and let’s see where we can go from there.”
Where to start? Gabriel ran his hand through his hair, digging the tips of his fingers into his scalp.
“I think I may be having some . . . psychological problems.”
“Well, that would certainly be my field of expertise. If you’d sprained your ankle, I’m not sure I’d be of much use to you. What kind of psychological problems have you been having?”
“If I tell you, I know what you’ll say.”
“Maybe you can just tell me and we’ll see if I agree with you.”
She was patient, he gave her that. But the clock was ticking.
“Where shall I start? I keep seeing someone who’s dead. And I have nightmares. Bad ones. And sometimes I feel like I’m going to die. I mean, I am, I know that. We all are. But die right now. In a coffee shop. Or an airport lounge.”
“Without putting a label on it, that doesn’t sound pleasant. And for a man with your background, I’m sorry to say it doesn’t sound uncommon, either. Can I suggest something?”
“Please do. I’m not really in my comfort zone at the moment.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to start psychoanalysing you down the phone. I want to ask you whether you have experienced any of the following symptoms since leaving the Army. Just say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to each one. Hold on a second. I just need to find the document.”
Gabriel held on, listening to his pulse beating in his ears with a dull achy throb. Then Fariyah came back on the line.
“OK, I have it. Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Good. Yes or no, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Repeated disturbing memories, thoughts or images of a stressful experience from the past.”
“Yes.”
“Repeated disturbing dreams of a stressful experience from the past.”
“Yes.”
“Suddenly acting or feeling as if a stressful experience were happening again.”
“Yes.”
“Feeling very upset when something reminded you of a stressful experience from the past.”
“Yes.”
“Having a physical reaction such as your heart pounding or trouble breathing when something reminded you of a stressful experience from the past.”
“Yes.”
She paused and Gabriel could hear her put a sheet of paper down. Somehow he’d imagined she’d be reading it from a screen.
“I’m going to stop there,” she said. “I think it would do no harm for you to come and see me. Just for an exploratory chat. I don’t like to give diagnoses over the phone, but I think we both know that what you’re experiencing has a name, and more to the point, a treatment. I’m going to transfer you back to Valerie. She’ll help you make an appointment.”
“Can I just ask about your fees? I have money and I do want to get this sorted, but I’d like to know what I’d be looking at. Financially, I mean.”
“My consulting fee for private patients is three hundred pounds an hour. However, you can see me via Audley Grange; they’ll pick up the cost for you. All you need to do is get a letter of recommendation from one of the doctors. Have you seen anyone there?”
Gabriel thought of Dr Norton. “Yes, there’s someone I can call.”
“Very good. Now I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me. My lecture starts shortly. I’m looking forward to seeing you, Gabriel.”
“Me too. You, I mean. Sorry. Bye.”
He waited while the line clicked and chattered, then he heard Valerie’s voice again.
“Hello Gabriel. Professor Crace has an appointment free next Monday at eleven in the morning. Would that suit you?”
He could picture her, manicured nail hovering over the mouse, ready to click his life into another phase. But what would it look like? Would he have to spill his guts in some shrink’s office for years to come? Would he end up weeping as he described his childhood? He inhaled deeply, opened his mouth and began to speak. He realised he didn’t know which answer would emerge from his trembling lips.
“Yes. That would be fine.”
Valerie’s fingernails clicking on her keyboard sounded like the rattle of distant small-arms fire. Only this sound promised fighting of an altogether different kind. Today was Wednesday. That gave him five days to prepare himself. Before then, though, he had to secure an opening with Dreyer Pharma’s CEO. That meant writing and posting the letter today. He needed to clear his head, so he changed into running clothes and headed out.
Chapter 23
Coming in after his run, Gabriel saw a bulky brown A4 envelope on the mat. He picked it up and turned it over. On the front was a white label with a crisply rendered logo in a soft grey and gold colour combination: Lainey Evencroft. His name and address were written in exquisite calligraphy, by one of the Jennifers, presumably. He took it through to the kitchen and placed it dead-centre on the table.
He grabbed some cold roast beef, very rare, from the fridge, along with gherkins and English mustard. From the pea-green earthenware bread crock by the toaster, he lifted out a rough-crusted rye loaf. He liked to bake his own bread. It was a form of meditation: weighing, mixing, kneading and shaping. He sawed off two thick slices, slathered them with butter, added a swipe of the fiery yellow mustard to both buttered surfaces, then layered a few pieces of the bloody beef to one of them.
As he munched the sandwich, pausing occasionally to wipe away the meat juices that squirted from his mouth and ran down his chin, he read the dossier that Cressida Pennard-Johnston had prepared for him. He knew the Jennifer’s real name because she’d added it, again in beautiful handwriting, to the compliment slip paper-clipped to the front page. Hope this is useful, Gabriel, she’d written. Massive fan. He had no idea what she was a massive fan of – maybe Annie had been bugling his achievements. He’d have to ask her next time he saw her.
It became clear as he read that Dreyer Pharma wasn’t in the best of health. Since the founding partners had cashed out, the company had made only lacklustre profits. Its drug development pipeline was currently more of a trickle than a gush, placing huge pressure on James Bryant to deliver on Project Gulliver. Then Gabriel came to a section that brought him up short. Under “Executive Remuneration” there were concise notes explaining how the board of directors were due a huge payout, but only if they could meet certain financial targets. Bryant himself stood to collect £20 million – if he steered the business safely into the financial harbour the investors had planned for it. If he hit the rocks instead, he’d be down by a whopping amount of money and probably out of the business. No pressure there, then, eh, James? Suddenly, Gabriel felt a lot more confident that his missive would yield a request for a meeting. If there was outside interference with Project Gulliver that could damage the drug’s development, or stall it altogether, then here was a CEO who would bite the hand off anyone who offered his services as a troubleshooter.
Now, he sat at his desk, the silver sliver of his MacBook Air beckoning his fingertips to begin a letter that would lead him into the depths of a possible terrorist plot to kill British fighter pilots. He flicked through the dossier to the profile of Bryant himself. Would he match Gabriel’s knee-jerk character sketch or not?
It turned out Gabriel was right in places and off in o
thers. Bryant was born in 1970, so he’d nailed his age. As far as being an army brat, Gabriel was one hundred and eighty degrees wrong: Bryant was the son of Philip, a postman, and Molly, an office cleaner. Like many working-class children before him, he’d used education as a trampoline to bounce right out of the path that life, fate or the British class system had mapped out for him. King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon; then a first-class degree in chemistry and a PhD in pharmacology, both from Cambridge; and finally an MBA from Harvard Business School. One for three, Gabriel thought. Bryant had spent his entire career in the pharmaceutical industry and was now the boss.
“So, James Bryant,” Gabriel said to the thin screen of his laptop, “how shall I pique your interest and get some time with you face to face?”
He paused, then bent his head and started typing. An hour later, after a few false starts, and a lot of deleting, retyping and cut-and-pasting, he was finished. He pressed ‘Print’ and waited as the laser printer to his right hummed its digital tune while delivering a crisply rendered letter in 12-point Times Roman type on some expensive cream stationery.
*
Dear Mr Bryant,
I was a disappointment to my father.
He hoped I would follow him into the Diplomatic Service. Instead, I joined the Parachute Regiment. Then I applied for, and was badged into, the SAS.
More than how to fight, what I learned in the Army was how to communicate.
With the men I commanded. With terrified civilians. With terrorists. With captured enemy fighters who at best possessed only rudimentary English.
I also learned how to negotiate, to compromise and to persuade. These skills helped me in the advertising industry, where I found a berth after leaving the Army. Now I work with senior executives as a troubleshooter.
I’m sure Dreyer Pharma runs smoothly for ninety-five per cent of the time. And when things are going your way, you’d have no need of a man like me. But for the other five per cent, when union officials are giving you sleepless nights, or competitors are playing dirty, or regulators are winding you up tighter than a clockwork toy, perhaps someone with my talents might be of service. I am very good at listening, so you might find me an asset in situations ranging from hostile takeovers to litigation, where a confidential sounding board could help you try out different approaches.
Would it be too forward of me to suggest that I might be of help to you from time to time? If you could find forty-five minutes in your schedule, I would be delighted to come and see you.
Yours sincerely,
Gabriel Wolfe, MC.
*
Gabriel picked up his fountain pen – an old black and silver Parker he’d inherited from his father, whom, in the end he had pleased rather than disappointed – and signed the letter. He folded the sheet into precise thirds, then slid it into a matching envelope, feeling the subtle ridging of the paper under his fingertips as he sealed it. Finally, he hand-wrote James Bryant’s name and address, added a first-class stamp and then headed out to the village postbox.
The following day, at 11.48 a.m., his phone rang. He was in the middle of some woods near his house walking with a friend, Julia, and her Irish terrier, Scout.
“Sorry, I have to take this,” he said.
She widened her eyes and nodded vigorously. “Go on then, it could be a new client.”
“Gabriel Wolfe.”
“Hello. This is James Bryant. I got your letter this morning and, er, well your timing was spookily good. As it happens I would like to talk to you.”
There was something in the man’s voice that triggered Gabriel’s antennae. A tightness that flattened out his intonation, as though he was being forced to talk.
“Name a time. Your office is about a ninety-minute drive from here.”
“Could you come tomorrow? It’s a rare free day for me. And there is a potential . . . project . . . where I need some outside help.”
Chapter 24
For the meeting with James Bryant, Gabriel selected a navy two-piece suit with a thin strip of his crisply ironed handkerchief showing above the top pocket. A white button-down shirt, maroon silk tie with matching cotton socks, and a pair of black, monk strap shoes completed the outfit.
On the drive up to the business park in Reading, Gabriel planned his strategy. Start with the usual chitchat about family and careers, then ask Bryant how things were going. Or maybe what was top of his “most-hated” list at the moment. Those were the questions that got people talking. Julia had once called them his “oyster cracker” questions after a dinner party inquiry of a successful but reticent policewoman had yielded a flood of embarrassed and then hilarious anecdotes from the thirty-something detective inspector. What he’d said was, “Did you ever steal money from your parents when you were growing up?” Here, he wouldn’t let on that he knew something was amiss with Gulliver. Far better to get close enough to Bryant for him to volunteer the information. Then he could report back to Don and they could decide what to do next.
Planning meetings in his head was something Gabriel did out of duty rather than desire, so once he’d rehearsed a couple of oyster-crackers, he switched on the radio. It was 10.00 a.m. and the Radio 4 “pips” were on their last, elongated bleep. After a few items about wars in the Middle East and strikes in the West Midlands, the newsreader introduced a short item about the Farnborough Airshow.
“Britain will be showing off the Eurofighter Typhoon at this year’s Farnborough Airshow. A Royal Air Force spokesperson promised ‘something a little out of the ordinary’ that would really show off the jet’s spectacular capabilities.”
“Huh!” Gabriel grunted. “Spectacular would just about cover it, if the pilot tripped out and flew into the crowd.”
He changed from radio to the Aux setting and told his phone to “play Jazz playlist”. After a few seconds, while the digital circuits in the Maserati engaged their counterparts inside the phone in conversation, Ella Fitzgerald’s yearning tones burst from the car’s speakers. Every drawing of breath as she sang was audible, and Gabriel leaned back into the cushioning embrace of the leather sports seat, rolled his head from side to side, then swept past a convoy of lorries with a broad smile on his face.
He arrived on the perimeter of the business park at 10.45 a.m. It wasn’t the first he’d visited, and he felt sure it wouldn’t be the last. Whoever designed these places – ‘campuses’ they liked to call them – seemed to have a love affair with Mediterranean planting. Gravel paths curved between neat beds of spiky grasses with sword-shaped leaves, nodding cobalt blue agapanthus, red hot pokers and lots of lavenders. Less maintenance, he supposed. But always looking like they should be in Barcelona or Aix en Provence, rather than the commuter-belt towns of Southern England.
He followed the road round to the car park for Dreyer Pharma plc. The huge, cuboid building was hard to miss. Its exterior was encased in sheets of bronze-tinted glass that reflected the sun in a blaze of burnt-orange light. Each side of the building was branded with the company’s logo, a Moebius strip rendered in green, yellow and black, its eternal twisting form seeming to move restlessly in the sunlight. He parked in one of the visitor spots thoughtfully provided close to the main doors, and clicked the switch to release the Maserati’s boot. The sun was warm on his back as he pulled his battered, tan leather briefcase from the boot then walked into the reception area.
Inside, the air was cool and scented faintly with vanilla. The reception desk was situated right in the middle of the creamy marble floor. Above him, nothing but a glass roof several storeys up, with banana palms and black-stemmed bamboo twenty feet high growing right through the middle. He walked up to the desk, smiling at the two receptionists, one male, one female. The woman was on the phone and so, although she returned his smile, he approached the man to her left, thirtyish, blond, handsome, muscular build under a plain back suit.
Looking up at Gabriel over the wood and glass plinth topping the reception desk, the man was all business efficiency.
/>
“Yes, sir. How can I help you today?”
“I have an appointment with James Bryant.”
The mention of the top dog’s name clearly impressed the receptionist. He sat a little straighter and smiled a little wider.
“Yes, of course. May I take your name and ask you to sign in?” He pushed a leather-bound visitors’ book towards Gabriel, who scribbled his registration and name on the next free line.
“Gabriel Wolfe, of Wolfe and Cunningham.” His company was a one-man-band. But he’d named it in memory of a man he’d worked with in the US.
“Very good, Mr Wolfe. Thank you. I’ll let Mr Bryant’s secretary know you’re here.” He looked over at a set of leather sofas and armchairs against one wall. “Please take a seat. Would you like tea or coffee or a water while you wait?”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
Gabriel picked up his briefcase and wandered over to the seating area. Selecting an armchair and pulling the Financial Times off the mahogany table in the centre of the seats, he settled in to wait. A wall-mounted plasma TV was tuned to Sky News. The presenter, long golden hair, bright-blue eyes, pouting carmine lips, was as beautiful as a model.
The click of high heels alerted him to the approach of another Dreyer functionary. It was the female receptionist.
“Mr Wolfe? Mr Bryant is waiting for you. Please take the lift to the fifth floor. His secretary will meet you and take you through.”
By the time the lift reached the fifth floor, it was empty apart from Gabriel. A robotic female voice announced the floor and the doors whispered open. Facing him across the carpeted corridor was a solidly built woman wearing a tweed skirt and cream silk blouse. She was in early middle age, he estimated, and clearly chosen for her business smarts; in the looks department she couldn’t compete with the male and female eye-candy on the ground floor.
“Gabriel,” she said, real warmth in her voice. “I’m so pleased to meet you. Come this way, please.”
