Moroccan Traffic

by Dorothy Dunnett

  During all this Mo Morgan was silent and so, too, was Rita Geddes. She rose from time to time, as the rest of us did, and put her empty plate to one side, and collected another. Once, when the head waiter tapped on the door with a question, she got up and called just as Sir Robert was sending him off. ‘Oh, you!’ she said. ‘Listen! I don’t know your name, and I hope it isn’t a trade secret or anything, but come in and tell me what’s that I could taste in the galantine? Jimmy, it was ten-out-of-ten brilliant. Fennel. I knew there was fennel. But there’s another thing, son. . .’

  And as the rest of us waited, our discussion suspended, she and the waiter bent over the table, talking vigorously. Eventually, smiling, she straightened and led the man like a friend to the door. He was smiling as well. Sir Robert wasn’t. He said, ‘Forgive me. I was making a point.’

  ‘No, it’s me. I’m really sorry,’ said Miss Rita Geddes cheerfully, sitting down with a heaped platter of something. ‘But I never like losing a recipe. You were talking about extra cash generation for the divestiture of underperforming or unwanted assets?’

  ‘Was I?’ said Sir Robert after a moment. ‘I don’t really think so.’

  ‘Oh well. We’ve all lost the thread, and it’s my fault,’ said Miss Rita Geddes. ‘On you go. We’re enjoying it.’

  After that, of course, it was more difficult for him, even though Mr. Reed interrupted less and less and Mo Morgan never uttered a word, apart from a slight sound during the talk about fennel. But Sir Robert, as you’d expect, had no trouble keeping his head or his style, dividing his glances equally between the two of them although his argument, of course, was directed at Reed. He knew very well when it was time to draw his case to a close, which he did with a smile. He said, ‘Am I convincing you with every word, Mr. Reed, or is there something I’ve omitted? Whatever it is, I think we’ve now gone over the territory, and it remains to see whether we have reached common ground. Can Miss Helmann help you, Miss Geddes?’

  ‘No, no. I’ll be Mother,’ said his opposite number, turning with the coffee pot in her hand. Unpainted, her face looked freckled and healthy, and all her movements, it occurred to me, were surprisingly deft. She came round, pouring. ‘And while we’re at it, your mother’s well, Wendy? Just a ploy to get you here, very sensible. You bring her to see me. Johnson says she’s the best news since Golda Meir. So what made you buy Mr. Morgan’s business, Sir Robert, seeing that you hadn’t the cash or the prospects to back it with?’

  The stream of coffee continued to flow and she never even looked up, although Roland Reed did. I saw Sir Robert’s foot shift under the table. Rather little had been said about Mo Morgan’s division. Nothing at all had been said about Mo Morgan being buried a K.

  Sir Robert said, ‘I’m sorry. Perhaps I said rather less than I should about Mr. Morgan’s work since it is so highly technical.

  Perhaps, first, he would allow me to give you a summary, and then he may wish to talk to you himself. Do you know anything about electronics?’

  ‘I’ve got a washing machine,’ said Rita Geddes. It was a depressing reply. It reduced the status of Mr. Mo Morgan to the sort of handyman he’d been in our house, and I didn’t like it. I intervened for him.

  I said, ‘It’s really valuable business, electronics, Miss Geddes. It offers world-class opportunities in every field. Electronics supply the armour that gives modern military systems their new winning edge.’

  I had read it somewhere. Or really, my mother had read it somewhere and quoted it to me. There was a short patient silence and then Mo Morgan said, ‘Well, it beats selling budget-priced tights to the grocery trade. What do you want to know about it, Miss Geddes? If it’s the business angle, Sir Robert’s better at it than me.’

  It turned out to be the business angle. We had been warned by a previous encounter, and we should have taken note. Mr. Reed merely laid the bricks. Rita walked over them. She did it quite briefly. She said, sitting down with her coffee, ‘I just wanted to know why you bought him. I know why he needed to sell. Technology’s dear. Needs extraordinary cash resources to reach viability. Private, he’d be selling his patents and getting his royalties, but how far would that help him towards new development? Zilch. So he sells and you buy all his problems. Long term development eating up cash. As now expenditure needed to defend and exploit patents. And globally, the high-tech sector in crisis: the John Does and Japs got it buttoned up. No returns from Mr. Morgan for how many years? Yet you buy him.’

  ‘You haven’t heard of the European market?’ Sir Robert said mildly. He would never lose his aplomb. Only I could see his foot tapping.

  ‘You need cash now,’ said Rita Geddes. ‘Hence us. And you do need us, or you’d never be trying so hard. Know the cost of a hostile bid in this game? Of course you do. Three point four per cent of the expenses if you win: and that’s how many millions? And the City doesn’t like EPS dilution one bit. You’d be given three to four years to restore it – could you make it? I wonder. And if you fail, you’re a sitting duck for a predator.’

  ‘So are you,’ Sir Robert said.

  ‘Not if we burn the crops,’ said Rita Geddes. ‘Scorched earth tactics, they call it. Sell off all the stuff that someone like you might have stripped, and use the money to keep a core business that random raiders wouldn’t quite kill for. If we allowed you to buy, what guarantee do we have that you wouldn’t be taken over tomorrow?’

  ‘No one could afford us,’ said Sir Robert.

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Miss Geddes. ‘But do you know what I’d do? I’d consider your offer if you agreed to one clause. A form of capital restructuring that gave me first right of refusal to any new raiding company.’

  Sir Robert’s foot stopped. The silence was so absolute that I could hear the men’s voices outside, and the sound of tables and chairs being righted, and paving swept. Then Sir Robert said, ‘But, Miss Geddes, you are talking of the options open to two companies who agree to become allies in a strategic joint venture. We are Kingsley Conglomerates. You are an excellent but small single company in need of help.’

  ‘Then I think,’ said Rita Geddes, ‘that maybe we can find help elsewhere.’

  Sir Robert smiled. He said, ‘We have hardly begun to discuss the issues. Why don’t I call for more coffee, and we can really talk about what we’ve been saying?’

  Rita Geddes got up. She didn’t even glance at her accountant and Roland Reed, a strange look on his face, gazed at his hands and didn’t attempt to look at her. She said, ‘We have talked. I have listened. Sir Robert, I wouldn’t touch you even with the pole you stick pigs with. I did enjoy the galantine. Goodbye.’

  She was actually walking to the door. Sir Robert sprang to his feet. Mr. Reed, an apologetic look on his face, rose also. Morgan remained where he was and so, uncertainly, did I. Sir Robert said, ‘Do I understand that, without even the courtesy of a discussion, you have turned down my offer before you have heard it?’

  Miss Marguerite Geddes turned. Her hair had dried in a mess.

  Her bathrobe drooped. Her face, shining with health, held some vestigial streaks of mascara and rouge. She said, ‘You’re the firm in trouble. You’re the Chairman who fucked it. I don’t like anything at all of your package, and neither will a single one of my shareholders. The answer is no. You probably saved our skins today, and thank you, but no.’

  ‘Wendy?’ said Sir Robert. He wasn’t looking at me.

  ‘Yes?’ I said. I got up.

  ‘And Mr. Morgan. Leave us,’ said Sir Robert. ‘Never mind your things. Leave us, and shut the door behind you.’

  I obeyed without thinking. I realised, outside the door, that Morgan had taken longer to yield to his Chairman. When he walked through the door to join me, his expression was not just thoughtful, it was stunned. I grasped his arm. ‘It’s all right. Come downstairs. He does this.’

  ‘Does he?’ said Morgan. He followed me down the steps and into the silent public rooms. The drivers of the Voitures de Collection had dispersed a
nd so had most of the cars, departed back to Marrakesh to prepare for their start in the morning. We sat, as before, in the comfortable dusk of the central room with its hunting weapons, one of which was no longer there. Morgan said, ‘The chauffeur’s outside. We could go.’

  I didn’t answer him, because he couldn’t be serious. I said, ‘You kept your word. Sir Robert appreciates loyalty. Mr. Morgan, he will do everything he has promised.’

  He didn’t answer. He closed his eyes. Looking at him, his narrow ringleted head sunk in the embroidered wool cushions, his eyes shut, I saw he was actually sleeping. A director of Kingsley’s. I sat as erect as I could, and waited for the footsteps descending the stairs.

  When they came, I knew from the very sound it was bad news. First emerged Roland Reed, his bathrobe elegant, his expression oddly apologetic as he made for some wing of the ground floor and, presumably, his proper clothes. Miss Rita Geddes came next, her red head flaming, her strong feet grasping their way down the steps. She not only saw me, she came over and looked at Mo Morgan. ‘That’s a really nice fellow,’ she said. ‘You tell him. Here. I brought down your dispatch-case.’ And smiling warmly, she pushed the case under my chair before passing through the same doorway as Reed.

  Last of all came Sir Robert Kingsley. I thought I’d missed him. Then I realised that, of course, he had stayed to vacate the room formally. He walked downstairs, his bearing easy, his expression sardonic. ‘Dear Wendy,’ he said. ‘The riff-raff have prevailed. Have they gone?’

  It was easy to tell whom he meant. ‘Yes, Sir Robert,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing cataclysmic,’ he said. ‘We are not to assume our seats beside the present management of the MCG company, and I must say that personally, I feel nothing but gratitude. There is nothing more to be said. Is Mr. Morgan capable of bearing you home?’

  ‘His driver is,’ I said. ‘Sir Robert? I’m so terribly sorry.’

  ‘Why?’ he said. ‘It might have been good for business but, my dear, I don’t think I could have borne it. Don’t be concerned. It’s of no possible import. Go home. Don’t trouble your head. Enjoy yourself.’ He knew that I couldn’t: he was just being kind. But I stood, smiling, and watched as he strolled out of the hotel and got into his car.

  Then Mo Morgan unaccountably woke, and reached under my chair, and drew out my briefcase. This he laid on his knees and unlocked with keys from my handbag. Then he flung back the lid and sat looking. Inside, the spindles on my recording machine were still slowly turning. Morgan switched them off and took out the tape. Then, and only then, he released the climbing-grip he had used to keep me from fighting him.

  I snatched my wrists back and rubbed them, still ejaculating. I said, ‘What d’you think you are doing? That’s mine! How did you know that was there?’

  He closed the case on the machine and looked up. He still held the cassette in one hand. He said, ‘Legacy of the jungle. We’ve exceptional hearing.’

  I believed him. I remembered something as well. The case had arrived from my mother that morning. Along, of course, with Mo Morgan’s washing. I didn’t speak. He went on talking.

  ‘You taped it all, like a good secretary, and probably no one else knows that you did. You don’t want me to hear it?’

  I took my time, answering. My wrists were sore, and I was furious. It probably didn’t matter whether he heard the playback or not: in fact, it might reassure him. Dismissing his staff from a difficult meeting was a card Sir Robert occasionally played. It left him alone, without apparent defences, and sometimes the other side fell for it. He liked the drama, as well. Eventually I said, ‘I can’t stop you. But you’ve no right to do this.’

  He said, ‘I might disagree with you there.’ We had both risen. He had the case in one hand, and had slipped the cassette into his back trouser pocket. There wasn’t much room.

  I said, ‘Where are you going to play it? Here? In the car with the driver?’

  ‘No, Wendy,’ he said. A surge of powerful noise from outside the hotel told that the Harley-Davidson was being revved up. It escalated into a roar which increased in volume and then started to fade. The Ritas, the triumphant Ritas had removed themselves finally.

  Morgan said, ‘I’ll keep it private. But wherever we go, I think we should hear it together.’ Towards the end, his voice faded, and I saw he was gazing beyond me. I turned.

  Tramping busily towards us was the feminine half of the Ritas. The dyes of her poncho had run, and her stretch pants had shrunk and she had no hat and, as yet, no new paint on her face, but she looked as friendly as ever, and perfectly helpful. She came to a halt and examined Mo Morgan. ‘Ah, you’ve got the tape,’ she said, viewing his buttock. ‘That’s nice. You’ll want to hear it of course. Mo, I’ve sent Rolly off on the Harley and unless you give me a lift, I’ll need to walk all the way back to Marrakesh. Can you drive?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr. Morgan slowly.

  ‘Good, because I’ve paid off your driver. No need for an audience. And I got a rubber band off a box. Here it is, so wind up your hair: it’s a muddle . You’d do better with bicycle clips. Are you for speaking to me again? If not, bend your mind to it quickly and see if you can. And come on.’ She had turned and was walking out of the hotel, waving a hand at the desk. We found ourselves walking beside her. I realised it and stopped.

  ‘You haven’t asked me, Miss Geddes,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t go with you anywhere.’

  ‘Rita,’ she corrected. ‘Then I’ll just have to hike. I’ve the legs for it.’ She didn’t look worried. She said, ‘By the way, the takeover plan isn’t off, it’s just become sort of radical. You really ought to know what Sir Robert was saying. Because I’m not dead convinced that he’ll tell you.’

  ‘But then you don’t know him,’ I said.

  She looked at me with her sandy lashes. Her face without paint was as vivid in its own gaudy way as with. She said, ‘I know. Not the way you do, but still. Take a chance. Listen to me. Hear the tape. Go straight back and tell Sir Robert everything. I won’t stop you, or Rolly, or Johnson. Mo might.’

  Morgan suddenly said, ‘All right, I’ll buy it. You’ve refused to sell, but Kingsley’s still want your company, yes? So they’re planning a hostile takeover bid, right? A bid to capture MCG and get rid of its management, you?’

  ‘Right,’ said Rita Geddes.

  ‘Which means you’re still the enemy?’

  ‘Depends what you both call an enemy. It’s getting late,’ Miss Geddes said. ‘Come on, Mo. Take me or leave me?’

  It wasn’t late: it was mid-afternoon. She was the enemy. I didn’t want to take her with us. Morgan walked to the car that brought us and stood, one hand on the bonnet. He turned. He said, ‘OK. We’ll risk it. I drive, and you and Wendy sit in the back, and at the first sign of trouble I hit you with this boar-spear I have. Incidentally, he did save your life.’

  ‘I know,’ said Rita Geddes. ‘Thank God. There, at least, we know where we stand.’

  ‘Then why are you fighting him?’ I said. I didn’t want to get into the car. I didn’t know what to do, but I had to trust Mr. Morgan.

  Miss Geddes looked at me. I tried not to think of her as Rita. She said, ‘Hell, I don’t know. I don’t like being made to do something I don’t want to do by somebody bigger. I was brought up all wrong.’ And getting a resigned nod from Morgan, she got into the car.

  We both followed, and Morgan checked over the various controls and got started. As we drove off from Asni, a solitary monkey hurled a rock at us from the hotel roof. It hit the post between our two open windows and filled our laps with glittering pieces of genuine amethyst. The monkey seemed pleased.

  We joined the road to Marrakesh, turning right out of the forecourt. After a while, Miss Geddes lifted the tape recorder out of my case and sat silently nursing it. I wondered why she was putting off time. Then she said, ‘All right. Give me the cassette,’ and took it from Morgan.

  I was at her elbow, but she didn’t need me to hel
p. She slid the cassette into place, rewound it to the beginning, and then wound it fast-forward to the moment when Morgan and I left the meeting. There she stopped it again.

  A moment passed. Morgan said, ‘What is it?’ He was driving less than well, with a frown on his face that wasn’t usually there.

  Miss Geddes said, ‘I know what’s in the tape; I was there. I just wanted to warn you. There were bad scenes: real shit-and-fan category. So I’m not doing this for a laugh, or to get back at someone, or anything. It’s just a thing you must hear; and I’m sorry.’

  Morgan said, ‘We should play it later, maybe?’ I saw their eyes meet in the mirror.

  ‘No dice,’ said Rita Geddes. ‘It can’t be helped, Mo. It can’t bloody be helped.’ And she pressed the button and set the tape going.

  Chapter 13

  The recording we heard, above the sounds of the car engine and of our own breathing was very clear. The briefcase had been under my seat: it was unlikely that Sir Robert would have remembered it, even had he known I was taping. His was the first voice I heard, after the click as the door shut behind Morgan and me. It was, to begin with, a little crisp but quite pleasant. He said, ‘I am sorry to ask you to stay, when you clearly feel there is nothing to gain from it. But there is one matter I must insist on discussing, whatever you and I feel about the words we have just exchanged. Would you oblige me by coming back and sitting down?’

  The tape ran silently. Rita Geddes said, ‘If it concerns Wendy and Mo, I don’t mind staying.’