Death by Marzipan

by John Burke

  Death by Marzipan

  John Burke

  © John Burke, 1999

  John Burke has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1999 by Robert Hale Limited.

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  1

  It was a Friday afternoon when she came back from lunch to find her office door locked. Personal belongings from her desk drawers were propped against it in a large carrier bag. The two partners were waiting for her in Sandy Cameron’s office. They weren’t going to risk her confronting them separately.

  ‘Will somebody tell me just what’s going on?’

  They told her. It was as if they had rehearsed the piece and shared out the lines like a comedy duo. Only it wasn’t funny. She was fired, and they wanted her off the premises this very moment. A financial settlement would be communicated to her by their lawyers the following weekend.

  ‘What the hell am I supposed to have done?’

  They told her that as well, though she had guessed already. Word of her meeting with Alastair Blake had somehow been leaked, and they weren’t going to wait for explanations. No chance of her extracting crucial data from the computer to take with her.

  ‘You’ll be hearing from me,’ Brigid said as she left. ‘That’s a promise. And you know I keep my promises.’

  In the taxi bouncing and lurching along the Edinburgh streets to her flat she saw nothing, sitting too tense and choked to cry. It was years since she had cried about anything, anyway.

  First thing Saturday morning she rang Blake’s home number. That devious fat sod must have been behind the leak. Nobody else could have known about their meeting. Nobody else could have had any motive for ensuring that if she wouldn’t dance to his tune, she’d get no chance of leading a dance anywhere else.

  ‘Bridie. Great to hear from you again, so soon.’ He was always hearty and booming, much given to putting his arm round your shoulder and sharing his insincerity in gin-laden gusts. This morning there was an additional gloating undertone. ‘Been thinking things over?’

  ‘Yes indeed. What sort of cheap revenge d’you call this?’

  ‘Revenge? Why should I want revenge on anybody?’

  ‘Just because I turned down your offer —’

  ‘No hard feelings, lassie. None at all. On my oath.’ He paused, then said: ‘You havnae been having second thoughts, maybe?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. But I did want you to know …’ She floundered, and hated herself for it. Her swift reactions were legendary, but now she wasn’t even sure what she did want Alastair Blake to know. ‘I’m not going to let this rest. One way or another, you’ll be hearing from me.’

  ‘I look forward to that. Best of luck, Bridie.’ He sounded intolerably smug. And she hated being called Bridie or lassie.

  No use chasing anybody else until Monday morning. She was impatient for it to come. Before word got round and the stories got twisted, she had to tell her own story and wait for a good offer to come in. There were plenty of high flyers who had reached their present executive positions on her recommendation. They owed her. It was time to collect.

  But on Monday morning she learned that word had already got round. Not just that: it had been vigorously sent around. She ought to have known. She had been in the thick of it long enough, and watched it happen to others. Now, like so many of those others, she found herself the last one to learn that she was on the skids. They were all polite, all eager to invite her to lunch and have a good chat one day soon: but not too soon.

  ‘Why not take a sabbatical?’ one creep said urbanely. ‘You deserve one. And it’s not as if you have to work. I’m sure the laird’ll be delighted to have more of your company.’

  The bastards. After all she had done for so many of them.

  Seething her way through a few moments of tumultuous thought, she phoned the office and asked for Sara.

  ‘Who is that speaking?’

  ‘Brigid Weir.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Weir, I’m afraid I can’t put you through.’

  ‘What d’you mean, you can’t put me through? Is Sara there, or isn’t she?’

  ‘I can’t put you through.’ And the line went dead.

  Sara wouldn’t have been where she was if it hadn’t been for Brigid. That evening she rang the girl’s home number. All the admiration and warmth had gone from the usually obsequious voice.

  ‘I’ve been asked not to talk to you, Miss Weir.’

  ‘Asked?’

  ‘Well … told.’

  ‘Who the hell do they think they are? You’ve been with me for three years, why the hell shouldn’t we talk if I feel like it?’

  ‘Miss Weir, they think you were thinking of taking me and Ian with you when you quit.’

  ‘Who said I was quitting?’

  ‘They think —’

  ‘Thinking’s not usually their line of business.’

  It was true, of course, that she had considered taking two out of her team with her when she chose to leave — which had certainly not been in order to join Alastair Blake. But they’d have had no reason to jump to conclusions about her possible departure until the thwarted Blake had fed them a load of malicious gossip.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Weir,’ Sara was saying, ‘but there’s really no point in talking. I’m sorry. Really I am.’

  Another phone was put down.

  Now it was time to consult her solicitor. Or, rather, not so much consult him as tell him precisely what she wanted.

  And while all that was being set up, how would she occupy herself? A sabbatical? Bloody impertinence. She would love to have everything wrapped up and be presented by tomorrow lunchtime with a tasty carry-out of the heads of Sandy Cameron and his sidekick. But these things took time.

  Time for action — for a sortie they didn’t expect. Sometimes she had been accused of devising strategies off the top of her head, without careful consideration. But she had always maintained that it was better to make a wrong decision than to dither. Most of her decisions, even the wrong ones, had turned out successful in the end.

  By Tuesday evening she had decided on her next move.

  Sooner or later she would be back in the rat race. They couldn’t do without her. She was the most skilled selector of top-grade rats in the Edinburgh marketplace. But for a while she would have time on her hands; and that was something Brigid Weir couldn’t bear. She had to have something to occupy her.

  So she would write her memoirs.

  Once the idea was conceived, she could see the whole future: a book, serial rights to one of the papers where she had good contacts, interviews on TV, maybe a series of programmes tied in with the book. Maybe even putting something exclusive her stepdaughter’s way, to show she really did mean well towards her. Tell the world how the market worked, how the headhunters worked, and what happened to the heads when they had been turned by flattery and money.

  And, of course, by women. The prestige wives, the kept women, the family destroyers, the predators. She knew so many names.

  Hadn’t there been an 18th-century courtesan who sold chapters of her memoirs at a high price to the men who featured in them and wanted them suppressed? That was a tempting idea. But the first thing was to get the words dow
n on paper.

  Brigid Weir settled herself in front of the screen and began to put short sentences down at her usual speed. Start with her first big coup, the poaching of Colin MacWilliam from Kinloch Systems and delivering him to the office high above Heriot Row where he now looked down on the world. She remembered every last little detail, including a few that MacWilliam would probably prefer to forget.

  After five pages she sat back, fidgeted a moment, and then went to make herself a cup of coffee. She stared down from her own high window on to the oily undulations of the Water of Leith and its cargoes of plastic cups and crumpled lager cans; five minutes later was still staring unseeingly while her coffee grew cold.

  She had been one of the first to see the potential of these conversions within old wine warehouses in Leith, and had bought in before prices soared. Looking down from her eyrie was usually a soothing, rewarding experience. Today she was too much on edge to appreciate the view, the sunshine, or her own thoughts.

  Things would sort themselves out as she got into the swing. She had heard of writer’s block but didn’t believe in it. She didn’t believe in insurmountable obstacles anywhere, in any profession. But she certainly didn’t like what she had written so far. It was not much different from the headhunting appraisal she had written of MacWilliam at the time. For a book, more colour was needed; more depth. She sat down again and began to insert a few personal features she had omitted from her original report, bringing the man himself alive on the page. Still there was something lacking.

  She had been too clinical in her approach for too long, stripping things to the bone. That had been an essential part of her job, simplifying things for top personnel managers who found it difficult to cope with too many psychological complexities at a time. This present venture needed a different technique.

  It might be a good thing to have someone else with whom to mull over ideas until they bubbled into life.

  This was a field in which she was not at home. But there were always ways on to uncharted territory. Shifting managerial types and whizzkids about the board, tracing the routes from one boardroom to another, she had boned up on so many different skills and professions, mastering their intricacies and jargon in half the time it would take anybody else. Whatever the challenge, she had always known where to respond and who to use.

  Suddenly it came to her. Of course she knew who it had to be.

  Did she dare? What would he say? Would he dare?

  First things first. Get the deal set up before taking the chances. Two years ago she had headhunted a publishing executive from one specialised house in Glasgow and delivered him to a conglomerate in London, chucking out a languid, puzzled ex-Etonian in the process.

  Murdo Cowan owed her a favour. She phoned him and overrode his welcoming platitudes by saying bluntly that she was writing a book.

  ‘You’re thinking of a textbook on managerial consultancy? Could be interesting.’

  ‘No. A bit of autobiography, and some studies of leading individuals in the field.’

  ‘Individuals? Could be dangerously personal.’

  ‘I’m still kicking ideas around.’

  ‘And thinking of kicking a few old enemies around? Could be some nasty legal problems. Depending on just who …’

  She heard his faint hissing intake of breath. He would of course take it for granted that he was important enough to feature in anything she wrote. Let him stew.

  She said: ‘Murdo, if you’d rather I approached some other publisher, just say so.’

  ‘No, good heavens, no. After all the time we’ve known one another …’

  Even on the phone the tremor of his disquiet was obvious. Too many rival publishers would rejoice at the chance of seeing a chapter about Murdo Cowan over which he had no editorial control.

  Not that she had any intention of letting him exercise control over anything she wrote.

  ‘Another thing,’ she said. ‘I was thinking I needed — what d’you call it, a ghost?’

  ‘You, Brigid? I wouldn’t have thought so. Though I suppose you’d find the detailed work difficult to fit in with your usual ferocious schedule.’

  Clearly word of her downfall had not yet reached the London publishing world. On Sundays they all read the literary review pages, not the paragraphs tucked away in the business supplements.

  ‘Someone to act as a sounding-board,’ she said smoothly. ‘Just someone I can bounce ideas off.’

  ‘God help her, the way you’re likely to serve ’em.’

  ‘You’re suggesting a she?’

  ‘Melanie Parkes. Just up your street. She’s collaborated on a couple of top sellers for us. Really good at digging into the feminine psyche, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t fancy another woman in on my psyche. I’d prefer working with a man.’

  ‘Could be a bit embarrassing.’

  ‘Not for me.’ Maybe for her collaborator, though. She had always known the top man in any field — that was what she had built her reputation on — and in this case she had every reason to know who that man was. It would be interesting to see him after all this time. And interesting to see what his reaction would be. ‘From what I hear,’ she said, ‘Gregory Dacre’s the top man.’

  ‘Well, yes. We’ve used him a number of times. But he can get very quirky. I’m not sure he’d be quite what you’re looking for.’

  ‘I’ll make him what I want him to be.’

  ‘I ought to have a word with our sales team and work out just how many copies we can be sure of shifting.’

  ‘Get Mr Dacre in on Friday,’ said Brigid. ‘I’ll fly down and we can sort out a basis for working together.’

  ‘Friday? Rather short notice. Depends on how he’s fixed.’

  ‘He can get to you easily enough from Norwich. He is still living there, isn’t he?’

  ‘You know a bit about him, then?’

  ‘A great deal. Oh, yes, indeed. A very great deal.’

  After past experiences with Brigid Weir, Cowan knew when to stop arguing. ‘I’ll see how our senior editor is fixed, and she can set up a meeting. She’ll be able to suggest a general approach, and she’ll be the one to see your book through the press. Though of course I’ll be on hand if you need any extra weight. And we could have lunch together after you’ve made up your mind.’

  She wondered what sort of chapter she might make out of Murdo Cowan and whether, if he did become her publisher, he would fight to cut all the snide bits out.

  There were likely to be snags and stormy scenes ahead. But overcoming snags had always added spice and excitement to any of her undertakings so far. Not to mention out-and-out stormy scenes, when the adrenaline really began to flow.

  There was nothing more to be done here in Edinburgh for the moment. Time to spend a couple of days at home. For a brief spell she could switch from being Brigid Weir to being Lady Crombie, while waiting for the answer to her question. But not — the word still rankled — not anything as protracted and inoffensive as a sabbatical.

  A breathing space, that was all. And the breathing wouldn’t be all that leisurely.

  Would Greg be capable of facing her again, and facing some of the revelations she must inevitably bring out into the open?

  Would he dare?

  2

  Should he dare?

  Greg Dacre’s first impulse had been to turn the job down. Did Brigid really think that after all this time she could condescend to him, toss him scraps from her table? He didn’t need her. And he didn’t suppose she would really be willing to tell all the truths that were needed if her book was going to be any good. She hadn’t been all that good at telling the truth in the past. Why should he suppose she had got any better?

  He wasn’t put off by the possible troubles there could be with other people and companies. Once word got out that Weir the Wheeler-Dealer was letting her hair down, there were bound to be twitches of terror in the business and advertising fraternities. There might even be threats or hurried
attempts at bribing her into silence. She would know that as well as anyone. The threats could reach out to her collaborator as well; but it wouldn’t be the first time he had found himself saddled with the blame for interpreting what the nominal author of the book had told him. He had learned to cope.

  On one project he might have been alarmed by the activities of shadowy little men from MI6, if they hadn’t been so absurd. During his work on the memoirs of a Soviet spy with a mistress in Moscow and one in Manchester, the spooks had prided themselves on keeping him under the most sophisticated covert surveillance; until the day when he walked up to one of them in the street with a sheaf of typescript, and said: ‘Here’s the latest chapter. It’ll save you trying to get through my computer firewall.’

  In his time, Greg Dacre had been not just a Soviet spy but a rock star, an Olympic athlete, and an international faith healer. He even, for a few months, immersed himself utterly in the character of a highly respected brothel keeper and was offered a number of free perks which from professional integrity — or sheer funk — he declined. So it came as no great surprise to be offered ‘a substantial advance and a generous percentage on royalties’ — the meanings of ‘substantial’ and ‘generous’ to be thrashed out with his literary agent — to take on the persona of a tough female headhunter. He had good reason to know just how tough she could be. But hadn’t it occurred to her that of all men he was the one best qualified to know her weaknesses, too?

  He came down by train from Norwich to Liverpool Street — some folk said ‘up’ to London, but Greg had long ago come to regard London as down from almost anywhere — and took a taxi to the Clement & Cowan office block.

  *

  Brigid was already there, sitting facing the door as if to challenge him the moment he appeared. ‘So you decided to come.’

  ‘Just to find out what precisely the deal is.’

  ‘As I told you in our phone conversation, Mr Dacre’ — Penelope Vaughan-Smith, spikily upright behind her desk, didn’t like authors or anybody else taking up the running before she had even fired the starting pistol — ‘Miss Weir … or do you prefer to be called Lady Crombie, Lady Crombie?’