Fatal Error

by Michael Ridpath

  When I reached the hotel I looked into the bar, but it was empty, apart from the manager. I thanked him for finding Mel somewhere to stay and went up to bed.

  I checked my key. Room 210. Deep in thought, I walked down the landing, put the key in the door and opened it.

  Three things hit me.

  First, room 210 wasn’t my room.

  Second, Guy was lying on the bed in room 210 locked in a deep embrace with a girl.

  Third, the girl was Ingrid.

  I stood there stupidly. For some reason the question that most puzzled me was why wasn’t I in my own room. I looked at the key in my hand. I must somehow have mixed up the keys: passed my own to the manager when I had left the hotel with Mel and kept hers.

  Then I looked at the two figures on the bed. They were both still mostly clothed. Ingrid sat up, dishevelled, bleary eyed. Guy looked stricken.

  ‘Davo. It was just a bit of fun. We weren’t doing anything.’

  I looked at Ingrid.

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  Without waiting for an answer I turned and left the room, shutting the door behind me. I ran downstairs and grabbed my own key from behind the desk in the hallway. I remembered the number clearly now: room 214. I climbed the stairs two at a time and opened the door, although my hands were shaking so much with anger I could barely hold the key steady enough to insert it into the lock.

  ‘Davo! Davo, wait!’

  I turned to see Guy approaching me down the landing.

  ‘Davo. I’m sorry, OK?’ he said, following me into my room.

  ‘Piss off, Guy.’

  ‘It was nothing. It means nothing.’

  ‘I’m quite sure it meant nothing to you.’

  ‘Or to Ingrid,’ Guy said.

  ‘Yeah. Well, it means something to me.’

  ‘Oh, come on. It’s not like you were going out with her or anything. You told me you weren’t even sure you wanted to try.’

  ‘So that makes it OK, does it?’

  ‘No, no it doesn’t. I’m sorry. I said I’m sorry.’

  He smiled that Guy smile. Just for a second I felt like saying everything was all right. He could forget it. But only for a second. Then the anger returned. I wasn’t going to let him charm his way out of trouble again. Suddenly I wanted to pin him down.

  ‘What happened in France, Guy?’

  Guy scowled. ‘Not again. It really would be best to forget all about France, Davo.’

  ‘I can’t. Mel told me about the cover-up. She says she overheard you and Patrick Hoyle talking about paying the gardener Abdulatif to disappear.’

  ‘That woman has a serious problem with her imagination,’ Guy said dismissively.

  ‘I know she overheard you two talking about him because I caught her at it. Until tonight I didn’t know what you said. Now I do.’

  Guy closed his eyes and sighed. ‘You’re not going to let this go, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I said firmly.

  ‘OK. You’re right. We did discuss it. Owen told me he had seen Dominique with the gardener and we talked about telling the police. It seemed a good idea because it would put the gardener under suspicion. Then I thought it would be an even better idea if he scarpered. So Hoyle paid him off. And he did an excellent disappearing job.’

  ‘Until last month.’

  ‘Until last month.’

  ‘Do you know how he was killed?’

  ‘You heard Owen. He was found in some slum in Marseilles in a garbage can. That’s all I know about it. I don’t want to know any more.’

  ‘Why did you do it?’

  ‘To help Dad,’ Guy said. ‘He was under a lot of pressure from the police. It was clear they were about to pin the murder on him. Hoyle and I thought this idea would take the pressure off. It worked.’

  ‘Did you think he had killed Dominique?’

  ‘No.’ Guy shook his head emphatically. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s my dad. He’s not a murderer. Do you think your father’s a murderer?’

  ‘No. But then my stepmother hasn’t been murdered.’

  Guy glared at me. ‘I knew Dad didn’t do it,’ he said with contempt. ‘He was with a hooker at the time. The police established that.’

  ‘All right. But if your father didn’t kill Dominique, and Abdulatif didn’t, who did?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea. Perhaps it was a thief who came in off the street. Or perhaps it really was Abdulatif after all.’

  ‘Hm.’ I considered Guy’s response. It sounded honest, but could I trust him? ‘What about the jewellery case found in Abdulatif’s room?’

  ‘We grabbed the case from Dominique’s bedroom and gave it to Abdulatif. He left it in his room.’

  ‘What happened to the jewellery?’

  ‘He kept it.’

  It all made sense. But I had one more question. An important question. ‘And the footprint they found outside Dominique’s window?’

  ‘My footprint? I told you before, I was having a pee in the bushes.’

  ‘That’s a lie, Guy. I know it’s a lie. I was there, remember?’

  Guy tried his smile on me again. This time a bit more sheepish. ‘Come on, Davo. We’re both too strung out for all these questions. Let’s find the manager and get him to rustle up a couple of whiskies.’

  ‘It just washes over you, doesn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean France. I mean being so cruel to Mel. I mean trying to sleep with Ingrid when you know I like her.’

  ‘Look, I said I was sorry about that.’

  ‘You don’t get it, do you? You nearly killed us all today. You would have done if I hadn’t pulled the control column away from you.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks for that. You reacted quickly. But we were unlucky to be hit by such a big storm. I’ve never seen one like that before.’

  ‘We weren’t unlucky! You flew into it, Guy. You were deliberately flying us to our deaths and then you expect everyone to just forget about it afterwards. As usual.’

  As I thought about that flight, the anger boiled over. The tension and fear of those minutes had been bottled up inside me, the pressure rising, and now it all came out.

  ‘Face it, Guy. You’re a loser. A rich loser. You say you’re an actor, but you never actually get off your arse and get a job. You don’t have to. Daddy will bail you out, again. He’ll buy you a plane. A car. A flat. And you’ll get pissed again and whine that you might have to do a job like everyone else.’

  ‘So you want me to be like everyone else,’ Guy sneered, no trace of charm left now. ‘The thing is, I’m not like everyone else. You might lead a sad little life, but there’s no need to expect me to.’

  ‘There’s nothing sad about getting a job.’

  ‘Give me a break! You’ll become a chartered accountant and then you’ll get a wife and two point two kiddies and a mortgage and a nice family saloon, just like your parents did.’ Guy’s words were laden with contempt. ‘It’s your destiny, Davo. Sure you can come out for a few beers with me now and again but you can’t escape it. I’m not going to live like that. I don’t want any of that.’

  Something inside me clicked. I was angry, I was drunk and I had nearly died only a few hours before. And Guy was pressing on a very sensitive spot. Hard.

  I swung. Fast. My fist connected with Guy’s nose with a light crunching sound. Guy swore. Suddenly there was blood everywhere.

  Guy bent down and held his nose. Blood poured out on to the carpet. He straightened. I prepared to hit him again.

  ‘What the hell’s going on here!’ bellowed a strong Scottish voice. It was the manager, closely followed by Ingrid.

  I pushed Guy out of my room, shut and locked the door, and ignored the banging and angry shouts from outside.

  I got up early the next morning, paid for my room and walked the half-mile to Mrs Campbell’s. I woke Mel up, organized a taxi and began the long journey with her back to London. We st
opped off in Glasgow for an hour so that I could buy a couple of accountancy books for the rest of the trip. The last two months had taken its toll on my work. I did want to qualify as a chartered accountant. I did want to get a decent job in a bank.

  Above all, I didn’t want to piss away my twenties in a pub with Guy.

  PART THREE

  24

  September 1999, Notting Hill, London

  It was very late by the time I got home. I was far too wound up to go to bed. I looked for some whisky, couldn’t find any, and so I opened a bottle of wine. I slumped on to the sofa and thought about Tony.

  He had been a horrible sight. He must have died instantly, but if his death was quick, it was also messy. The shock had been numbing, but as it wore off it was replaced by a feeling of great unease, which it took me a while to realize was guilt. I didn’t like Tony. Seconds before he had died I was very angry with him. Angry about what he had done to Guy, angry about what he was doing to Ninetyminutes, angry about what he was doing to me. And then, in an instant, he was dead. I knew I hadn’t killed him. I hadn’t even wished for his death. But the source of my present problems had been removed, as if by a miracle of the devil.

  I drank three-quarters of a bottle of wine and went to bed. Some time in the small hours of the morning I went to sleep.

  I managed to get into work early the next morning. I told the team. There was shock but also relief. Although Ninetyminutes’ future was uncertain, things looked better than they had twenty-four hours earlier.

  Ingrid didn’t come in. Neither did Owen or Guy. I tried their home numbers but without success. But in the middle of the morning the police arrived in the form of Detective Sergeant Spedding.

  ‘Is there anywhere we can talk?’ he asked.

  I showed him into the boardroom, the room that had been the scene of that acrimonious meeting only three days before. He sat opposite me and pulled out a notebook. He was about my age, with red hair, scattered freckles and an open, friendly face.

  ‘So this is one of those dot-com companies I’ve been reading about?’ he said, looking through the glass wall of the boardroom at the jumble of computers and young men and women.

  ‘Doesn’t look like much, does it?’

  ‘A mate of mine at the station said he’s had a look at your website. Says it’s very good.’

  ‘Thank you. Do you follow football?’

  ‘Bristol Rovers.’ I thought I’d detected a slight West Country burr. ‘I’ve been thinking about hooking up to the Internet at home, now you can sign up for free. Do you cover Rovers?’

  ‘Not yet. We just do the Premier League at the moment. But we hope to get on to the other divisions by the end of this season.’

  ‘Well, when I do sign up I’ll take a look myself.’ He glanced out at the office again. There was some bustle, but it was more lethargic than usual. ‘Must be a difficult day for you.’

  With the Chairman killed and the Chief Executive gone missing he could say that again. ‘Do you think Tony Jourdan was run down deliberately?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a possibility we have to consider. I know you gave a statement to my colleagues last night, but I’d like to ask you some more questions.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I understand that there was some conflict between Tony Jourdan and his son relating to this company?’

  ‘Yes. Although Guy founded Ninetyminutes, Tony was the biggest shareholder. There was a board meeting on Monday and they had a major disagreement over strategy. Tony wanted us to go into the pornography business and Guy refused. So Guy resigned.’

  The policeman asked me plenty more questions about Guy, his father and Ninetyminutes, all of which I answered as honestly as possible. Then he asked me to go over my conversation with Tony at his flat the night before. He took careful notes.

  ‘In your statement last night you mentioned seeing a car waiting outside Mr Jourdan’s flat,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me a bit more about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll try.’

  ‘Do you remember what model it was?’

  ‘No,’ I replied immediately.

  ‘Are you quite sure? Think.’

  Spedding was sitting back in his chair calmly, confident that I would be able to come up with something. So I closed my eyes, trying to picture the street sign and the vehicle in front of it.

  ‘Wait a minute. Yeah. It was some kind of hatchback. Oldish. A Golf. Something like that.’

  ‘Colour?’

  ‘Don’t know. Darkish. Black? Blue, maybe. No, it was black.’

  ‘I know you said you couldn’t remember the number plate. But can you remember part of the registration? The year prefix, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I can. N. It was N.’

  ‘Well done. What about the driver? Can you give even a vague description?’

  ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t see him clearly and I really wasn’t focusing on him.’

  ‘But he was male? White? Black? Young? Old?’

  ‘I see. Yeah, he was male. White. Wearing some kind of jacket. But no tie. Dark hair thinning a bit. Over thirty. Under fifty. That’s about the best I can do.’

  ‘Would you recognize him again if you saw him?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  ‘Could it have been anyone you know?’

  ‘No. Definitely not. At least, not anyone I know well.’

  ‘Are you quite sure you can’t remember anything more about him?’

  The policeman’s friendly face encouraged me to be helpful. But there was not much more I could say. ‘I’m sorry. I know this is important and I wish I’d been more observant, but I had other things on my mind. Frankly, if the car hadn’t been obscuring the street name I wouldn’t have seen the man at all.’

  Spedding nodded. He pulled out a sheet of paper, which was a diagram of the street. ‘Can you show me where the vehicle was parked?’

  I placed an ‘X’ on the spot.

  ‘You say you heard the car start up. When was that?’

  ‘It was when Ingrid and I were walking round this corner here,’ I pointed to the diagram. ‘And Tony was coming out of his house here.’

  ‘Did you see it pull off?’

  ‘No. But once we were round the corner, I heard the engine rev up and then the thud and the scream. But by the time I’d run back to the street the car had gone.’

  ‘Well, we’re looking for it now. Our best hope is if we can find another witness.’

  ‘So you think it was intentional?’

  ‘I suppose there’s a chance it could have been an accident and the driver drove off – a hit and run. But on such a quiet narrow street it seems unlikely. I have one more thing to ask you. Do you mind if we examine your own vehicle?’

  ‘What for? It was outside my flat in Notting Hill at the time. Ingrid and I went by tube straight from work.’

  ‘Of course. But it will be useful to eliminate it from our enquiries. I’m sure you understand.’ I handed him the keys, told him where it was parked, and he left.

  Very little work was done by anyone that day. Ingrid arrived about lunch-time, looking pale. And in the afternoon Mel rang.

  ‘Have you heard what’s happened?’ I asked her.

  ‘Guy called me an hour ago. He’s in Savile Row police station. He asked me to get him a lawyer.’

  ‘Christ! Do the police think he killed Tony?’

  ‘It’s not clear yet. But he’s obviously a suspect. He decided to do the smart thing and not talk to them without a lawyer. I’ve got hold of a good one who should be with him now.’

  ‘A detective came round here this morning. He was asking about Guy’s relationship with Tony. I’m afraid I told him.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mel said. ‘They’d have found out soon enough. That’s not the kind of thing you can hide. If you had tried it would just have made them suspicious.’

  ‘Will he be OK?’

  ‘I’m sure he will. Unless they’ve got convincing evidence agains
t him they’ll have to release him.’

  ‘Isn’t it terrible?’ I said. ‘About Tony.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mel. ‘Although quite frankly I never really liked that man, as you well know.’

  There was an awkward silence as I searched for a response to Mel’s honesty. I couldn’t quite admit out loud that I agreed with her. ‘Well, let me know if I can be of any help,’ I said eventually. ‘And tell Guy to call me when he gets out.’

  ‘All right.’

  He did get out. He came straight to the office. It was eight o’clock and most people had gone home. He looked a wreck. Pale face, dark circles around his unsteady eyes.

  ‘So they let you go?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Mel got me a good lawyer. The police were getting quite aggressive with me about my relationship with Dad. I just thought it made sense to ask for one. They don’t have any evidence against me, but they sure as hell are suspicious.’

  ‘Did you put them off?’

  ‘Yeah. They asked me where I was last night. Fortunately I was out drinking with Owen in a pub in Camden. I think they’ll be able to check up on that, so I should be OK.’

  ‘Did they tell you I saw a man in a car outside Tony’s flat? Right before he was run down?’

  ‘No. No, they didn’t. Have they found him?’

  ‘I couldn’t give them much of a description. But there was definitely someone there.’

  ‘I wonder who that was.’ Guy paused for a moment, but didn’t come up with any ideas. ‘They should leave me alone then. But the timing’s awful. Just after my row with Dad. I can see it must look really bad.’

  ‘How do you feel about it?’

  Guy took a while to answer. ‘Numb. I feel numb. I mean, I’ve spent the last few days thinking how much I hate him. And then he goes and gets himself killed. It makes me … It makes me so bloody angry.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Angry at him. Angry at myself. Angry at the police for being so bloody stupid. But I know it hasn’t really sunk in yet. I still can’t quite believe I won’t see him again.’ He bit his lip.

  Seeing Guy like this put my own feelings into perspective. My own guilt was nothing to his. I was in a much better position to cope.