Fatal Error

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘She realized I had a bit of a hangover, so she decided to give me some neat vodka. I took it. It worked for a little bit, but I feel even worse now.’

  ‘Stupid sod. I thought you said you’d never drink again?’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said, looking him in the eye for the first time. ‘Believe me, not for a long time. Now I’ve got to hit the sack.’

  Guy left me to curl up in a little ball of my own misery.

  I couldn’t hide in bed for ever, so I emerged at supper-time. Wine and beer were on offer on the terrace, but I didn’t take anything. Neither did Ingrid, nor Owen, who had appeared after a whole day spent on his portable computer. Guy and Tony were drinking more beer, Guy with determination.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked Mel, who was holding an almost empty glass of wine.

  She glanced up at me, as though surprised by the sympathy in my voice. ‘A bit shaky,’ she said.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Cheer up, Mel,’ said Guy, putting his arm round her and refilling her glass. ‘This place isn’t so bad, is it?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said, summoning a smile. ‘No, it’s lovely.’

  ‘We’ll go over to Monte again tomorrow. Check out a casino.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ said Mel, unenthusiastically.

  I drifted away from them, leaving Guy working hard. I wandered over to the marble railings and stared down at the sea far below. As I watched closely, I realized that it was so far below that the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks was out of synch with the rhythm of the waves themselves. A long way down.

  A voice spoke beside me. ‘This is awful, isn’t it?’

  It was Ingrid.

  ‘Mel looks bad,’ I said. ‘Has she spoken to you about it?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘How did it happen?’ I’d seen Mel laughing at Tony’s jokes all evening, but I had never suspected anything would come of it.

  ‘Everyone was drifting off to bed. Dominique had already gone. Apparently Tony started talking to Mel about the Romans and the watchtower. He took her over to look at it in the moonlight. Then he kissed her. Then …’

  I shuddered.

  ‘Why did she do it? He’s in his forties, for God’s sake!’

  ‘He’s a charming man. He may be in his forties, but he’s sexy, and he knows it. Men like that have a pull for some women. Mel’s a romantic and Tony had engineered the most romantic of situations. He’s a pro. She’s an amateur. She never really stood a chance.’

  ‘But it wasn’t rape or anything?’

  ‘No. Mel was willing. At least at the time.’

  ‘Do you think she regrets it?’ Throughout the day I had seen no sign of Mel showing any interest in her lover of the night before.

  ‘Oh, yes. She definitely regrets it.’

  ‘What’s she going to do?’

  ‘Brave it out, I think. What else can she do?’

  ‘Go home?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘She doesn’t look too happy now.’

  ‘Neither do you,’ said Ingrid.

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Hey, what are you two doing here? Won’t you come and join us?’ It was Dominique, now dressed in tight white jeans and black top under a white jacket. She smiled broadly. ‘Come on, David. Come talk to me.’

  ‘I think I’ll stay here for a bit, thanks. It’s a beautiful spot.’

  ‘As you like,’ Dominique replied, touching her lip with her tongue.

  ‘What was that?’ said Ingrid, watching Dominique swing her hips back to the terrace.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ I said. ‘Please.’

  Ingrid gave me a look. ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’

  The evening was flat. I avoided talking to anyone much, especially Dominique. No one was having a good time and Tony still looked angry. At about ten the gathering broke up, and I went back to the guest cottage with Guy, who was still bemused by everyone’s lack of sparkle.

  I lay in bed for a long time in a kind of crazed semiconsciousness. Images of Dominique naked spun around my brain in a tumult of excitement and shame, until my eyes burned and my loins ached. There was a strange sickness in my stomach and a tightening in my throat. My heart beat fast. I would open my eyes and try to calm myself down. Then it would all begin again. I had no idea what to expect of sex for the first time, but it certainly wasn’t this. Eventually, somewhere in the middle of the night, the images left me and I fell into a deep sleep.

  I was woken by a loud rap at our bedroom door. A moment later the ceiling light was turned on. I sat up to see Tony standing in the doorway, his face haggard in the artificial light.

  ‘What time is it?’ croaked Guy.

  ‘Four o’clock.’

  Guy and I just blinked. What the hell was Tony doing waking us up at four o’clock in the morning?

  ‘I have some bad news,’ Tony said. ‘Very bad news. It’s Dominique. She’s dead.’

  11

  April 1999, The City, London

  You have to get to Sweetings early to get a table. It is a crowded little fish restaurant near the Mansion House presided over by an Italian with a full moustache who harries his customers mercilessly. Quickly in, quickly out, and a huge bill to settle at the till as you leave. The place has a kind of institutional feel to it, like a school dining room with alcohol. And excellent fish. But I think it is the jam roly-poly and the spotted dick with custard that keep pulling in the punters. My father loved it.

  Every few months since I had started work at Gurney Kroheim he would meet me there for lunch while on one of his trips up to London for business. He was never specific and I never quite understood quite what business the manager of a small building-society branch had to do in London, but I never questioned him. I suspected he just wanted to get out of our little town, see an old crony or two, wander around the metropolis for a couple of hours and have lunch with me. I enjoyed those lunches and so did he.

  I was five minutes late, but he had grabbed a couple of stools by one of the bars set for lunch, behind which hovered a spotty teenage waiter. He was nursing a half-pint of Guinness in a pewter tankard, and had one ready for me. His face lit up when he saw me, and he pumped my hand enthusiastically.

  He was a large, kind man with a balding head and glasses perched half way down his nose. It was a minor miracle that he had managed to survive into his sixties as the manager of the branch. The reason was his shrewdness, which he always kept well hidden, and his refusal to accept promotion to the political minefield of the higher regional offices. He was very good at his job. He was well known throughout the small market town where we lived, and trusted. Competitors might try new marketing campaigns, higher deposit rates and thrusting customer-service managers, but none of that made a dent in his following. The building society he worked for had not yet been shaken up by demutualization, and his bosses realized that there was nothing to be gained from moving him and a lot to be lost. There had been a rocky moment during the recession of the early nineties when he had been criticized by head office for not taking a tougher line with some of his clients who were in arrears on their mortgage payments, but he had weathered it. Two more years and he would make it through to retirement.

  ‘Sit down, David. I got you a Guinness. Thanks for coming here. I suppose I could have gone to Wapping …’

  ‘Oh no, Dad. Don’t worry. This is fine.’

  ‘I’ve been looking forward to my pudding all week. Your mother doesn’t cook that kind of thing any more.’ He rubbed his comfortable stomach. ‘It’s not as though she’d notice another pound.’

  We ordered potted shrimps and sole and a bottle of Sancerre.

  ‘I like the haircut,’ said my father. ‘Reminds me of my National Service days. It certainly makes you look different.’

  I smiled. ‘I feel different, I suppose.’

  ‘What? Colder?’

  ‘No. This thing I’m doing with Guy Jourdan. It’s nothing like anything I’ve ever done before.’
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  I was slightly nervous as I said this. I knew that my father had been pleased when I had become a chartered accountant and very proud that I had joined a prestigious merchant bank. I had made my decision to join Guy without referring to him, but I found I wanted his approval none the less.

  ‘It was a big step to leave Gurney Kroheim,’ he said.

  ‘It was. But it’s changed so much since Leipziger took over.’

  ‘Don’t like working for the krauts, eh? I can understand that.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. There aren’t many Germans around in any case, and those that I dealt with are perfectly fine. It’s just the whole industry. The hire-and-fire culture, mergers, reorganizations, politics, it just doesn’t seem any fun any more.’

  ‘And this thing with Guy Jourdan is fun?’

  ‘Oh, yes. At least so far. In fact, I’ve never had so much fun in my career before. I mean, there are just the three of us working out of Guy’s flat. We have nothing but a blank sheet of paper. We’re building something from the ground up entirely ourselves. It feels totally different from working for a huge organization.’

  ‘How’s it going to work?’

  I told him. Through the first course, the fish and most of the bottle of wine. He listened. He was a good listener.

  The waiter whipped away our plates and thrust menus into our hands. My father agonized over his decision before going for the jam roly-poly with custard. I had the bread and butter pudding.

  ‘What about Guy?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s fine. He’s very good, actually.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  I hesitated. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  My father raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Yes,’ I repeated, more firmly this time.

  ‘I thought you and he fell out a few years ago. Something to do with a girl?’

  ‘That and other things.’ I hadn’t told my father much about that.

  ‘And there was that business in France.’

  ‘Yes.’ I hadn’t told him much about that either.

  ‘Tony Jourdan was a bit of a sharp operator, I seem to remember. Successful, but a sharp operator.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I think Guy’s changed,’ I said.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure.’

  My father watched my face closely. ‘Good,’ he said at last. Then he beamed as the pudding arrived. ‘Ah. Tuck in.’ He took a mouthful. ‘Delicious. Well, I think it’s an excellent move.’

  ‘You do, Dad?’

  ‘Yes, I do. There’s a time in everyone’s life when they should take a risk. I missed mine somewhere along the line. But it sounds as if this is yours. I’m glad you’ve got the guts to go for it.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, trying to suppress my smile. I wanted to pretend that I was adult enough not to care what my father thought. But actually I was pleased that my act of rebellion had received the parental seal of approval.

  We talked about my mother and sister. My sister had recently moved into a flat in Peterborough with her boyfriend. My mother was having difficulties with this. My father disapproved too, but more of the boyfriend, whom he thought dull, than of the cohabitation. A few moments after the last trace of custard was scraped off my father’s dish it was whipped away and we were out on the street.

  ‘Tell you what, David. Send me the business plan, will you? I’d love to have a look at it.’

  ‘Will do, Dad. And thanks for lunch again. Give my love to Mum.’

  I left him outside the restaurant and disappeared underground to take the three stops to Tower Hill, the wine and my father’s blessing leaving a warm glow inside me.

  I posted the business plan off to him as soon as I returned to Wapping. Four days later I found a letter waiting for me back at my flat addressed to me in my father’s handwriting. I opened the envelope and a cheque fell out. I picked it up and read it. Pay ninetyminutes.com fifty thousand pounds. Jesus! I had no idea my father had that much money lying around. With trepidation, I read the letter.

  Dear David

  I very much enjoyed having lunch with you at our old haunt yesterday. I was fascinated by what you had to say about ninetyminutes.com and by what I read in the plan you sent me. It sounds like a terrific opportunity. So terrific, in fact, that I’d like to make an investment in the firm myself. Is this possible? I enclose a cheque for £50,000. I have the greatest confidence in you, David, and I am very proud of what you are doing.

  Love

  Dad.

  PS. Don’t tell your mother about this, will you?

  I stared at the letter. I couldn’t suppress a smile. There was the evidence that he believed in me. Incontrovertible. Fifty thousand quid.

  I realized immediately that I couldn’t accept it. I didn’t know what my father’s savings amounted to, but there had never been very much money around the house and I was pretty confident that the cheque I was holding accounted for a large proportion of them. He would need the money for his retirement. Sure, I believed in ninetyminutes.com, but I knew it was risky. Not the place to put your retirement nest egg.

  The injunction not to tell my mother was another problem. If I went ahead and cashed the cheque, that would be a disaster just waiting to happen. I picked up the phone and punched out my parents’ number. After some small talk with my mother, she put him on.

  ‘Dad, I don’t believe what came in the post today! Are you crazy?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. I could hear the smile in his voice, which was low, presumably so my mother wouldn’t hear. ‘I’m sure it will be an excellent investment.’

  ‘But, Dad. It’s a start-up! It could go bust within a year. It’s an enormous risk.’

  ‘That’s the point, David. We talked about it at lunch. I feel it’s about time I took a risk and what better way to take it? The Internet is going to change the way we live, even I realize that. And I have confidence in you. I can’t think of anyone else I would trust to do what you’re doing. At my age I can’t give up everything and start a company myself. But I can invest in one.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I can’t accept it.’

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t accept it? Is fifty thousand too little? What’s the problem?’ He was beginning to sound angry. My father rarely sounded angry.

  ‘It’s not that. It’s just if I lose your money I’ll feel terrible.’

  ‘And what if ninetyminutes.com is a runaway success? What if I could have earned ten times my money and you hadn’t let me invest? How would you feel then?’

  ‘Oh, Dad, come on …’

  ‘No. You come on. You have to admit there’s a good chance that this is going to work, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘I can’t let you do this, Dad.’

  ‘David. I don’t believe this.’ My father’s voice was still low to prevent my mother hearing, but he sounded genuinely angry now. ‘I am capable of making up my own mind about investments, you know. I know this is high risk. I want to take a risk, just like you. And in the same way I won’t stop you from risking your career, you shouldn’t stop me from risking what is, after all, only money.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘OK, Dad, I’ll think about it.’

  ‘David –’

  ‘I said, I’ll think about it. Bye.’ I hung up. I rarely fought with my father, if ever, and I felt bad. I knew the right decision was not to accept his money.

  But we needed money from somewhere. Guy was finding it difficult to pin down a meeting with Torsten in Hamburg and he was still adamant he didn’t want to ask his father. Which left us with the venture capitalists.

  Venture-capital firms invest in new or growing companies. Until the late 1990s they were cautious and careful. It was not unheard of for them to spend months investigating a start-up company before deciding that they did not want to invest. I knew what they were looking for: experienced management, proprietar
y technology and a proven method of making money. None of which Guy and I had. Which was why I had been reluctant to approach them until we had at least a website to show that we meant business.

  But Guy couldn’t wait that long. And in the increasing heat of the last year of the century, neither could they. Stories were emerging of venture capitalists falling over themselves to back young entrepreneurs barely out of business school. Boo.com, an internet fashion retailer that was nothing but an idea and two hip Swedish founders who had started and sold an internet bookshop, had just raised forty million pounds. We only needed three million to get us going. Guy saw no reason why we shouldn’t get it.

  So, despite my doubts, I polished up our plan. Now all I needed was people to send it to.

  12

  The place was heaving. It was Tuesday, the first Tuesday of May, and I was at First Tuesday, the event for anyone in the internet world. It had all started six months before when a group of entrepreneurs had agreed to meet in a pub once a month to share war stories, and it had grown and grown. It was now the place to network, to find employees, office space, clients, suppliers, and that most precious commodity of all, money. I was there to make contact with venture capitalists, to give them the thirty-second ‘elevator pitch’, to collect their cards and send them our plan. Pretty straightforward, really. I was wearing a green badge, showing I was an entrepreneur. The venture capitalists were wearing red badges.

  The venue was the converted warehouse of an internet consultancy company near Oxford Street, quite close to Mandrill’s offices. There must have been two hundred people there, all talking frantically. Most were my age or younger, most were dressed in T-shirts or fleeces, nearly all were men, and nearly all had green badges.

  I took a deep breath and dived in. I was searching for the red badges. They were few and far between, but I soon realized how to spot them: they were the ones in the middle of tight groups of men and women all talking at once. Be forceful, I thought, pushing my way through to one such group. At its centre was a young-looking man in a suit being harangued by a voluble American who had an idea for selling wedding gifts over the net. It was clear he wasn’t going to go away until the VC had given him his card and told him to send him a plan. There was an unruly crush of green badges in front of me vying to give their own pitches. Most of them were selling something mundane over the Internet, from babyloves.com selling gifts for babies to lastrest.com selling prepaid funeral services. I wondered who lastrest.com’s target customers were – perhaps people who woke up in the middle of the night with chest pains and nipped off to their computer to make sure their funeral was sorted before it was too late. Some of the ideas were highly technical and incomprehensible. One or two made some kind of sense. But the venture capitalist had no chance of distinguishing one from the other.