Fatal Error

by Michael Ridpath

  Guy smiled.

  ‘I’ve learned a lot from you,’ I went on. ‘I’ve learned to believe in you. Don’t tell me I was wrong.’

  Guy shrugged. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is it because it’s your father? If it was anyone else you wouldn’t just roll over.’

  ‘I’m not just rolling over!’ Guy snapped. Then he got a grip of himself. ‘No, you’re right. It is because it’s my father. I know him. He’s determined to turn Ninetyminutes into my failure and his success. And he has all the cards. As usual.’

  ‘Don’t give up.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Davo. I already have.’

  I looked at him. He meant it.

  We sat in silence. I could feel the edifice that we had all worked so hard to create over the last few months crumbling around me, as though Tony Jourdan had removed a vital keystone that kept the whole thing up. It was so bloody unfair!

  ‘We have to tell them back there,’ I said.

  ‘You do it. I can’t face them. Go on ahead. I’ll stay here.’

  So I left him, shrouded in his own darkness.

  2

  There was no sign of Guy in the office the next day, Tuesday. I called his flat in Wapping with no reply. My contact at Orchestra Ventures rang me three times but each time I avoided talking to him.

  I was drumming my fingers on my desk, wondering what to do next, when Ingrid joined me. Ingrid Da Cunha had known Guy almost as long as I had, but she had been with Ninetyminutes for only two months. She had joined as publisher of the website, and she had been the final ingredient that had made the team work together. I liked her. And I respected her opinion.

  ‘So, we’re going into the glamour business, are we?’ she said.

  ‘You are. Not me.’

  ‘You should stick around. Chartered Accountant of the Month. Mr October. We could really use you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Of course, with my ancestry this should be the perfect job for me. Copacabana babe. Swedish au pair. I could do it all.’

  I couldn’t help smiling. Ingrid had big pale-blue eyes, a wide friendly smile and thick chestnut-brown hair. But I had seen her in a bathing suit, and although she didn’t look bad, she was hardly page-three material.

  She caught me. ‘What are you laughing at? Sure, my bum’s too big. And my thighs. But I could get cosmetic surgery on the company now. It’s just a question of moving things around a bit. Tony will pay for it. I’m sure my father could fix me up with a surgeon in Rio. You wouldn’t recognize me.’

  ‘What about growth hormones?’

  ‘What do you mean? I’m five foot two. Five foot five in the right pair of shoes.’ She punched me on the arm.

  ‘Ow!’ When Ingrid hit, she hit hard. ‘Don’t get too excited. I think all Ninetyminutes will be doing is providing the links to some seedy little studio in Los Angeles. You’ll have to keep focusing your talents on the football.’

  ‘Arbroath nil, Hamilton Academicals nil,’ Ingrid said, in an appalling imitation of the results announcer on Grandstand. Ingrid had an accent like none I had ever heard before, although she probably spoke like every other woman in the world with a Swedish mother, a Brazilian father and a British education. Her tone became serious. ‘I just wanted to say that you don’t deserve this.’

  ‘None of us do.’

  ‘Tony isn’t going to give in, is he?’

  ‘I don’t know. I doubt it somehow. But it has to be right to try to get him to change his mind. We can’t give up without a fight.’

  ‘No, we can’t. But if it does all fall apart, you should be proud of what you’ve achieved. Guy would never have got this far without you. He has his own problems with his father to sort out. You were caught in the middle. It wasn’t your fault.’

  She was right. I knew she was right. And it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment.

  ‘I’ve been talking to the others,’ she said, ‘and nobody wants to hang around here if you and Guy leave.’

  ‘There’s no need for that. You’ve all put money in. If you stick around you’ll still be able to make something of the site.’

  ‘But if we leave, Tony’s screwed, isn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Think about it. No technical support, no writers, just a bunch of computers, some crappy old desks and a website that will be out of date within a week.’

  I thought about it. She had a point.

  I looked around me at the bodies beavering away. ‘Will they really do that?’

  Ingrid nodded. ‘Yep. I think we should tell Tony, don’t you?’

  I smiled. Tony was a stubborn bastard, but it was worth a try. Well worth a try. I picked up the phone and called him at his flat in Knightsbridge to ask for a meeting. He was quite businesslike. He agreed to see Ingrid and me at nine o’clock the following evening.

  Owen Jourdan strolled in at about midday, clutching a big cup of coffee. I was surprised to see him: if his brother had gone AWOL then I thought he would have too. Owen and Guy had an odd relationship that I had learned to understand over the years. In the normal course of things they hardly spoke to each other, but if one of them got into trouble the other was there for him. Always.

  Owen stalked over to his computer and turned it on, ignoring everyone around him as usual. I went over to his desk, pulled up a chair and sat down. He didn’t say anything, but stared at his computer screen powering up, and sipped his coffee.

  Although Owen was Guy’s younger brother, he looked nothing like him. It was as though some freak hormonal imbalance had stimulated the growth of some parts of his body while ignoring others. He was well over six feet tall and must have weighed close to seventeen stone. He was bulky without being fat, with an oversized head that gave the impression of immense stupidity. His tiny eyes were deeply set beneath full eyebrows. His mop of short white-dyed hair was uncombed and he looked as if he had just crawled out of bed. He was wearing what he always wore, long shorts and a ninetyminutes.com baseball cap. It was September and the weather was getting cooler. Owen would soon have to get himself a new pair of trousers.

  ‘How’s Guy?’ I asked.

  ‘Pissed,’ he answered.

  ‘By pissed, do you mean pissed off, or pissed drunk?’

  ‘Probably both.’ His voice was high, almost squeaky. Guy and Owen’s mother was American and they had both spent a fair bit of time living there, but Owen’s accent was much more pronounced than his brother’s.

  ‘And how are you?’

  ‘Me?’ For the first time Owen turned towards me, his tiny eyes showing a sudden interest in my face. ‘What do you care about me?’

  ‘He’s your brother. You’ve worked as hard as any of us in starting this company. It’s your father who’s shutting it down.’

  Owen turned away from me, and began tapping passwords into his computer. He ignored me for a whole minute before he finally spoke. ‘I guess I’m pretty pissed too.’

  ‘Guy seems to have given up,’ I said. ‘But the others haven’t. Ingrid says they’re all willing to resign with him. Your father will have to back down, won’t he?’

  Owen didn’t answer, but tapped away.

  ‘Won’t he?’ I repeated in exasperation.

  ‘Dad won’t give up,’ said Owen.

  ‘But why not? You’re his sons. This is his chance to support both of you.’

  ‘Because he’s a total asshole,’ said Owen. His high-pitched voice contrasted strangely with his size and the words he was saying. ‘He doesn’t give a shit about either of us. Never has. Never will.’

  He must have seen my surprise at the sudden vehemence of the response. ‘I used to worship him. So did Guy. Then he walked out on us. Left us with that bitch of a mother. Never saw us, never asked for us. When we did go to stay with him in France he still ignored us. Especially me. And when I saw that slut he left us for, I couldn’t believe it. You know she was a slut,’ he said.

  I could feel myself going red.


  Owen noticed and smiled to himself. ‘After all that screwing around in France I knew he was a total waste of space. It’s taken Guy a bit longer to figure that out. You know, I think Dad’s scared of him?’

  ‘Scared of Guy? That doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘It does to Dad. Guy represents everything he used to think he was good at. Chasing women, making money. Dad needs to prove to himself he can still do all that. That’s why he screws women half his age. That’s why he’s screwing Ninetyminutes now.’

  ‘But he’s made much more money than Guy.’

  ‘He did when he was young, yes. But that was a long time ago. I know for a fact he’s made some bad investments these last few years. It’s not surprising – he doesn’t concentrate on them. But it, like, bugs him. I can tell it bugs him. Now he wants to prove he hasn’t lost his touch.’ Owen’s eyes glowed with a black fire deep beneath his brows. ‘He’s a selfish pig, my dad. He hates us. Both of us. So I’m not at all surprised he wants to destroy Ninetyminutes.’

  The strength of all this bitterness took me aback. ‘Where’s Guy?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Owen. He had shared a flat with Guy in Wapping, but once Ninetyminutes had established itself he had moved out and found himself his own place somewhere in Camden.

  ‘Will he be coming in today?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll change his mind?’

  ‘No point. I told you. Now, I got a line of code here I need to fix.’

  I left Owen to it, reflecting that I had had just about my longest conversation ever with him. And it hadn’t changed my opinion of him one jot.

  He was strange. Very strange.

  There was no sign of Guy on Wednesday, either, and I didn’t even try to ask Owen about him. Ingrid and I worked till half past eight in the evening, and took the tube to Knightsbridge. She was more confident than I, bristling with arguments and justifications to win Tony over before the next morning’s deadline. I was going to try, but I was much more sceptical of our chances of success. Funnily enough it wasn’t Guy’s defeatism that worried me most, it was the unalloyed certainty of Owen’s hatred for his father. This was not a family about to forgive and forget.

  Clutching an A to Z, I led Ingrid through a maze of small streets just to the north of Harrods to where Tony’s flat should be. I paused under a streetlamp to check the map. I was pretty sure I was in the right place, a narrow one-way mews. I looked around for a street sign. A century ago the houses had been inhabited by horses. Now they were inhabited by humans who probably paid at least a million quid for the privilege.

  I saw the sign obscured by a car on the other side of the street. I moved a couple of yards down the road to get a better view. I was in the right place. There was a man in the car who caught my eye for a second and then looked away. I wondered briefly what he was doing sitting in a car in the dark. Waiting for someone, presumably. Then I looked for Tony’s flat, which turned out to be the top floor of one of the mews houses.

  We rang the bell. Tony answered.

  ‘Ah, the deputation,’ he said. ‘Come in. I’m afraid you can’t stay long; I’m meeting some friends for dinner in half an hour.’

  We sat on pale leather armchairs in his expensively decorated living room. There was no sign of anyone else in the flat. I suppose I had secretly hoped that I would find Guy there negotiating an arrangement with his father.

  Ingrid came straight to the point. ‘We’ve come to ask you to keep Guy on.’

  Tony raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, I can try to persuade Guy to stay, but it’s his decision. There’s really nothing I can do about it.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Tony,’ I said. ‘We all know why Guy is resigning. You won’t let us raise more money to fund Ninetyminutes’ expansion. I was there. I saw it.’

  Tony held up his hands. ‘There’s no point in discussing this now. Let’s see what happens tomorrow morning, shall we? We can talk about it then.’

  ‘No,’ said Ingrid. ‘We talk about it now. You see, if Guy resigns the rest of the team will resign also.’

  ‘That’s up to you,’ said Tony calmly.

  ‘But if we all leave, how are you going to run the site?’

  ‘I’ll hire people.’

  ‘That won’t work,’ Ingrid pointed out. ‘You need people who are up to speed with the content, the design, the site software. You can’t just get bodies off the street to do it.’

  ‘Are you trying to blackmail me?’

  ‘No,’ said Ingrid. ‘I’m just trying to explain what will happen to your two-million-pound investment if Guy resigns tomorrow.’

  ‘You are trying to blackmail me,’ said Tony, a patronizing smile playing on his lips. Then his expression changed: all traces of humour disappeared as he leaned forward, deadly serious now. He spoke with a low measured urgency that commanded our total attention. ‘Let me tell you something. I don’t respond to threats. No one in my entire working career has threatened me and got away with it. Whatever happens, Ingrid, you won’t have a job tomorrow. Neither will you, David. Now, it’s time for you both to leave.’

  I could see Ingrid was furious, but I caught her eye, and we got up to go.

  ‘Creep,’ muttered Ingrid as we strode down the mews towards Knightsbridge and taxis.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘It was worth a try.’

  ‘Guy was right,’ she said. ‘We never should have taken his money.’

  ‘No, we shouldn’t. Big mistake.’

  My mistake.

  We passed the man in the car at the end of the street. He looked as if he had fallen asleep. With a jerk, he seemed suddenly to wake up and start his car. As we turned the corner, I looked over my shoulder and saw Tony coming out of his mews house.

  ‘I never liked that man,’ said Ingrid. ‘Ever since we stayed with him in France, I knew he was a scumbag. He gives me the creeps every time I look at him. He thinks he’s a super-suave playboy, but he’s just a dirty old man. He always was. Do you know what I’d like to do to him?’

  I never found out what Ingrid would like to do to Tony. Instead I heard the roar of an engine from the mews, and a cry, abruptly cut short.

  I glanced at Ingrid and ran.

  I rounded the corner and saw a body splayed out at an unnatural angle on the pavement just in front of Tony’s house. As I came closer, it was obvious who it was. I recognized the clothes. I recognized the shape and size. But when I reached him, I couldn’t recognize his face. His head was a bloody mess.

  A second later, Ingrid arrived at my shoulder. She looked down at the body on the pavement and screamed.

  Ninetyminutes had lost its chairman.

  PART TWO

  3

  July 1987, twelve years earlier, Dorset

  I began running from the edge of the penalty area just as Guy kicked the ball, aiming for the far post. I leapt at the same time as Phil, the ’keeper. The ball drifted an inch above Phil’s outstretched fingers and struck my head, ricocheting between the posts and into the brambles guarding the ditch behind.

  ‘Yes! Nice one, David,’ Torsten cried. ‘Five–four. We win!’

  I glanced over to Guy, who wore a quiet smile of satisfaction on his face. Guy seemed able to place a football anywhere on the pitch with perfect timing.

  I trotted off to retrieve the ball from the brambles, and joined the others picking up items of discarded clothing and ambling back towards the house. It was a lovely evening. During the game, unnoticed by the players, the sky had turned to a deep blue-grey and the small puffs of cloud to inky black. Rooks kicked up a fuss in the copse running along the side of the playing field as we made our way down to Mill House, the converted watermill where forty of us boarded. The sprawling modern campus of Broadhill School itself was still visible a mile and a half over peaceful cow pastures to the east.

  Evenings, which until that week had been crammed full of revision for exams, were suddenly free for pick-up games of football. Nearly all th
e O and A level exams had finished. I had only one maths paper left and thought my brain deserved a rest. In three weeks’ time my life at Broadhill would be over. The race from thirteen-year-old new boy to eighteen-year-old adult would be finished. At that moment, it seemed like a shame.

  I caught up with Torsten and Guy. ‘Nice cross,’ I said.

  Guy shrugged. ‘Your head is difficult to miss, Davo.’

  We walked three abreast along the short stretch of country lane to the house.

  ‘I spoke to my dad earlier,’ Torsten said. Torsten Schollenberger was a tall, clean-cut German whose father owned a network of magazine publishing interests throughout Europe. ‘He wants me to work in his office over the summer. In Hamburg.’

  ‘What? That’s inhuman,’ said Guy. ‘After exams and everything?’

  ‘I know. And I’m going to college in Florida in September. I deserve a break.’

  ‘So, you won’t be coming to France?’

  ‘It doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘Man, that sucks. Can’t you just tell him to piss off? You’re eighteen. You’re an adult. He can’t make you do what you don’t want to do.’

  ‘Guy, you’ve met my father. He can do what he damn well likes.’

  I walked next to them in silence. My parents were taking the caravan down to Devon again that summer. They were hoping I would come with them. I probably would. The caravan was very cramped, but I actually liked my parents and I liked Devon. I enjoyed striding over the moors with my father. He, too, had offered me a summer job working in his office, a small branch of a building society in a Northamptonshire market town. He would pay me sixty quid a week. I was planning to take it. I needed the money.

  None of this, though, did I feel like mentioning to Guy and Torsten.

  Broadhill was a unique school. It was one of the most expensive boarding schools in England and had superb facilities. But it also offered scholarships to a large minority of pupils, and not just for academic ability. I had an academic scholarship, but Phil, the goalkeeper, was an accomplished cellist from Swansea. I knew Guy’s father paid full whack, although Guy’s sporting skills at soccer, cricket and tennis could have secured him a sporting scholarship. Torsten probably paid double.