Fatal Error

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Davo?’ Guy squinted at me.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you keep things together at Ninetyminutes for the next few days? Someone’s going to have to figure out what we’re going to do and I’m in no shape to do it.’

  ‘No problem. You take a few days off. Sort out your father’s affairs. Think about him. Spend time with Owen if it will help. I’ll mind the shop.’

  Guy smiled. I was touched by the gratitude in that smile.

  25

  I did what Guy had asked me. I held Ninetyminutes together.

  The staff were easy. This was a crisis and they performed well in a crisis. After the initial shock, they put their heads down and got on with the job. They knew Guy needed time, but they trusted me to sort things out.

  I called Henry and told him the story. The whole story. About how Tony had been against Orchestra’s investment, about how Guy had threatened to resign and about Tony’s accident. Henry was still keen. Orchestra Ventures hadn’t made an investment for three months and they were worried they were missing the internet bus.

  It turned out that the key to the whole thing was Hoyle. Tony’s shares in ninetyminutes.com weren’t held by him directly, but by an offshore trust. In fact, Tony’s affairs were a tangle of trusts domiciled in tiny islands around the globe. The ultimate beneficiaries were Guy, Owen, Sabina and her son Andreas, in varying proportions. The estate would be a nightmare to untangle. The only man who knew where everything was and how it related to everything else was Hoyle. He was also the only man left with executive powers over the trusts.

  I had dealt with Hoyle before in his capacity as yes-man to Tony. But if Orchestra Ventures were to make their investment in Ninetyminutes, it would have to be with Hoyle’s say-so. And with Hoyle acting as an independent-thinking human being.

  I managed to fix up a meeting with him a couple of days after Tony’s death. It turned out that Hoyle was quite capable of independent thought. It also turned out that he didn’t share Tony’s enthusiasm for the Internet at all. I sniffed an opportunity. He could either follow his late client’s strategy and be a majority shareholder of a small but marginally profitable soccer and pornography site without management of any kind, or he could take cash. Quite a lot of cash.

  Hoyle went for the cash.

  I didn’t have a deal yet, though. I had to persuade Orchestra to put in not only cash for Ninetyminutes to expand, but also enough to buy out Tony Jourdan’s trust as well. As a rule venture capitalists hate buying out existing investors, but the deal I suggested had several things going for it: it would allow management to retain enough of a stake to have a meaningful incentive, it would get rid of a potentially awkward shareholder and it would allow Orchestra to invest more money in the internet boom before it was too late. Henry ummed and ahhed and maybed, but then he went for it.

  I received one further visit from Detective Sergeant Spedding. He was armed with a couple of photographs. One was of a middle-aged man, with thinning dark hair brushed back.

  ‘Do you recognize him?’ Spedding asked.

  ‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘The man in the car.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘He drives a black Golf GL, N registration. This is a photograph of a similar vehicle.’ He handed me the other print.

  ‘That’s it, I think. Of course I can’t be quite as certain about the car as the face, but it was definitely something like that.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Who is he?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s a private detective.’

  ‘Really? So he was tailing Tony?’

  ‘We think so. We haven’t spoken to him yet. We wanted to get confirmation from you that it was the same man first.’

  ‘I see. Do you know who he was working for?’

  Spedding nodded. ‘Sabina Jourdan.’

  I made my way through the post-modern ironic lobby of Sanderson’s Hotel. It was scattered with strange objects, the most noticeable of which was an enormous pair of red lips. I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to sit in them or sit on them: I gave them a wide berth. I spotted Guy amongst the other beautiful people in the designer-minimalist bar, nursing a bottle of beer. I asked for a pint of Tetley’s, just to see the look of disdain on the barman’s face, and settled for an Asahi.

  ‘How was the funeral?’ I asked Guy.

  ‘Awful.’

  ‘Who was there?’

  ‘Hardly anyone, thank God. It was just family – we’ll have the full-blown memorial service later. There was Owen, Mom, Sabina, Patrick Hoyle, a couple of great aunts and the vicar. Dad was buried in the churchyard in the village where he grew up, and the vicar did a good job in the circumstances. But no one seemed to really care. Apart from Sabina. The aunts hadn’t seen Dad for decades. I don’t know what my mother was doing there, she just looked bored. And Owen … well, you know what Owen’s like.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I don’t know. During the service I felt nothing. Just cold and angry at all Dad had done. Or rather hadn’t done. All the times he ignored me, the times he walked out, what he did with Mel, what he was going to do to Ninetyminutes, they all ran around my head like a never-ending scorecard, with all the points against him. Then, when the coffin went down into that hole, I fell apart. I realized I’d never see him again, that I’d never have the chance to show him I wasn’t the loser he thought I was, that we’d never be close again. That we’d never be as close as I always thought we should have been.’

  He swigged his beer.

  ‘You know, I used to think he was so cool, Davo. And he was. We’re a lot alike, he and I. But somehow we never quite managed to get on with each other, to respect each other like a father and son should. And now we never will.’

  ‘You did your best,’ I said. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘Just a few words every now and then would have done it. A bit of encouragement about how I was doing well, how he was proud of what I’d achieved. But whenever he got involved with anything I was doing he tried to take it over, prove he could do it better than me. Like Ninetyminutes. Or Mel.’

  ‘How’s your mother?’

  ‘God, I wish she hadn’t come. She’s pissed off because her alimony stops now Dad’s died. She brought her lawyer with her to talk to Patrick Hoyle, but Hoyle reckons she hasn’t a leg to stand on. It won’t matter, she’ll just get married again.’

  ‘To anyone in particular?’

  ‘Don’t know. She’ll find someone. And she was horrible to Sabina. As if Sabina didn’t have a right to be there. Which was particularly bad since Sabina was the only one who seemed truly upset about what had happened.’

  ‘Did you talk to her?’

  ‘Only briefly. She’s a nice woman. And I think she genuinely loved him, not his money. She’s probably the best of the three he married.’

  ‘What’s she going to do?’

  ‘Go back to Germany. She says she wants me to stay in touch with her and Andreas. I think I will.’ He checked his watch. ‘Mom will be here in a few minutes. We’re going out to Nobu for dinner. Anyone would think she was over here for a couple of days’ vacation. Thank God she’s going back to LA tomorrow.’

  ‘Are the police still on your case?’ I asked.

  ‘I think they’re leaving me alone. I’ve pretty much convinced them I was with Owen when Dad was run over. But they haven’t given up on the theory that he was murdered. They’ve been giving Sabina a hard time, apparently.’

  ‘Did you hear she’d hired a private detective?’ I said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yeah. The police asked me whether he was the guy in the car outside your father’s flat. I said I was pretty sure he was.’

  ‘So she had him tailing Dad?’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘Huh. No wonder the police are hassling her. And she gets the most out of the will. But I can’t imagine her having him killed.’

  ‘The police will ge
t to the bottom of it,’ I said.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Tossers.’ He swigged more beer. ‘Anyway. Tell me what’s going on at Ninetyminutes.’

  I ran through the details of the negotiations with Orchestra and Hoyle. Guy’s interest was quickened. Now that his father was buried I could see he was ready to focus on Ninetyminutes again. I was relieved.

  ‘Darling!’ We were interrupted by a loud female American voice. I turned to see a well-groomed blonde woman somewhere over forty approach Guy. She had high cheekbones, a polished tan, a well-toned body and bright white teeth. She should have been a good-looking woman, but there was something hard and charmless about her that instantly put me off. She didn’t look like anyone’s mother.

  Guy introduced me. ‘Mom, this is my partner, David Lane. He was at school with me.’

  ‘Partner?’ she said. ‘I didn’t know –’

  ‘Business partner, Mom.’

  Her interest in me evaporated. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, unconvincingly. ‘I’d love to stop for a drink, but our reservation is for eight thirty and we’ll be late.’

  I let them go.

  As she led her son out of the hotel, Guy whispered to me. ‘Did you spot the facelift?’

  I hadn’t.

  He smiled. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he said and was gone.

  Guy returned to the office the next day as promised. Everyone was pleased to see him, especially me. There was a lot to do. I had just one or two final details to sort out with Patrick Hoyle, so I went to meet him at Mel’s office off Chancery Lane. It didn’t take long, and after less than an hour we left the building together.

  ‘You sound as if you’re glad to be shot of Ninetyminutes,’ I said as we stood on the pavement waiting for taxis.

  ‘I’m not convinced by the Internet,’ Hoyle muttered. ‘And it was a very bad idea for Tony to get involved with his son.’

  ‘It wasn’t a good idea for Guy, either.’

  Hoyle snorted. ‘At least he’s still alive.’

  Something in the way Hoyle said those words caught my attention. I looked at him closely. He was an intelligent man. He suspected something. ‘Do you have any idea who killed Tony? Or why he died?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But it was awfully convenient for some people.’

  ‘Like Guy?’

  ‘Like Guy.’

  ‘You don’t think he killed his father, do you? There’s no proof.’

  Hoyle shrugged, as though he didn’t want to be drawn any further into the conversation. But his use of the word ‘convenient’ reminded me of something. Something Ingrid had said more than ten years before.

  ‘I know what happened to the gardener in France,’ I said. ‘Abdulatif.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Hoyle, neutrally.

  ‘Yes. I know that you paid him to disappear after Dominique’s death. To protect Tony.’

  ‘And who told you that?’

  ‘Guy.’

  Hoyle wasn’t even looking at me, but at the occupied taxis driving past us. ‘Can’t get a bloody taxi anywhere these days,’ he muttered. ‘What we need is another recession.’

  ‘I know Abdulatif was murdered a few years ago.’

  ‘So I understand.’ Still a neutral voice.

  ‘That was convenient too, wasn’t it?’

  Hoyle finally turned his attention away from the traffic and on to me. ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘Did you organize it?’ I asked.

  Hoyle looked at me. ‘Let’s get a cup of coffee,’ he said, indicating a café just up the street.

  Neither of us said anything until we were sitting down with two cups at an isolated table.

  ‘I like you, David,’ Hoyle said.

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to be liked by Hoyle.

  ‘You’re a good negotiator and you’re loyal to your friend. Loyalty is a quality I admire. But you should be careful.’

  ‘Of Guy?’

  ‘Let me tell you about Abdulatif. I suspect you know only half the story.’

  ‘I’m sure I only know half the story,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘You’re correct that Guy told me Owen had seen Abdulatif with Dominique. And he suggested paying him to disappear. It sounded like a good idea. It would deflect enquiries away from Tony. At that time I wasn’t entirely sure of his innocence. Tony had said he was with a prostitute when Dominique was killed, but prostitutes can, by definition, be bought. So I arranged things. I gave Abdulatif half a million francs and told him to make himself scarce. Guy had got hold of some of Dominique’s jewellery and we gave that to him as well.’

  ‘Why did he take the money?’ I asked. ‘Surely he ran the risk of getting caught and prosecuted for murder.’

  ‘I thought that at the time. There’s quite an extensive North African community in the South of France: it’s hard for the police to find a young man who wants to go underground. But I was soon to learn there was another reason.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Blackmail. I’d assumed Abdulatif would leave the country. But he didn’t. He went to Marseilles, and after a year he got in touch with me again. He wanted two hundred thousand francs to stay quiet. So I paid him. Another year, another demand. A little higher this time. And so it went on.

  ‘I wanted to get the cash from Tony, but Guy was anxious that his father shouldn’t find out what we’d done. So I insisted Guy pay. The years went by and the demands got higher. It became more difficult for Guy to find the money: Tony was becoming less generous with him. It got to the point where I thought we should call Abdulatif’s bluff. By that time I was convinced of Tony’s innocence. And, of course, if Abdulatif went to the authorities he would be getting himself into just as much trouble as us. But it was an uncomfortable situation for me and for Guy. Paying off a key witness in a murder investigation is a serious crime.’

  ‘And then Abdulatif was found in the dustbin?’

  ‘Precisely. As we said. Very convenient.’

  ‘You have no idea how he got there?’

  ‘You mean, did I arrange it?’ Hoyle sipped his coffee. ‘I can’t blame you for asking. But no. I didn’t. That’s not the kind of thing I do, even for my best client.’

  ‘Do you think Guy arranged it?’

  Hoyle shrugged. ‘What do you think?’

  I paused. Was my friend a murderer? Of course not. ‘You said initially you thought Tony might have killed Dominique, but then you changed your mind?’

  ‘Yes. They weren’t getting on well. Neither of them was particularly faithful, as of course you know.’

  I sighed, angry rather than embarrassed. Hoyle noticed.

  ‘Sorry. You were young, she was beautiful, and she was using you. Tony knew that. But I’m sure he didn’t murder her. I’ve spoken to him many times over the years about her death and, while I wouldn’t expect him to admit it to me, I’m sure I’d be able to tell if he had killed her.’

  Hoyle sipped his coffee thoughtfully. ‘Tony Jourdan was much more than a client. He was my friend. We met when we were students together. He was one of the reasons I moved out to Monte Carlo. We’ve been through a lot together over the years, ups and downs. I was very sorry when he died. Very sorry.’

  He put down his cup. ‘Now, I really must find a taxi.’ With a heave, he pulled himself to his feet and left me hunched over my cooling cup of coffee.

  We closed a deal with Orchestra Ventures in record time. Orchestra bought out Tony Jourdan’s trust for four million pounds, twice his initial investment, and put in a further ten million. They ended up with seventy per cent of the company, leaving plenty for the management and employees. The board changed, of course. Orchestra found us a new chairman, Derek Silverman. He was a trim grey-haired businessman of about fifty. He had already made several million pounds from a management buyout of a marketing business that had been funded by one of Orchestra’s partners. More importantly, he was chairman of a Premier League club. Henry also joined the board as Orchestra’
s representative and Patrick Hoyle was booted off.

  Guy suggested Ingrid as a third executive director. She had made herself an indispensable member of the team and both Guy and I valued her judgement more by the day. Henry liked her, so she was in. Her only difficulty was with Mel. They were cool towards each other, but professional, and they did their best to keep out of each other’s way.

  With the deal done and the ten million in the bank, we hit the ground running. There was plenty to spend it on. More office space: we took over the floor below. More staff, especially more journalists. Advertising. Gearing up the on-line retailing. Henry didn’t mind this profligacy. In the upside-down world of internet valuations, the more you spent on getting a website established, the more it was worth. So spend, spend, spend.

  It worked. Visitor numbers to the website rose strongly as the season got under way. In the month of September we logged over four hundred thousand visitors and nearly three million page impressions. There were other soccer websites out there, but we were eating into their market share. Gaz’s stuff was just better. The site looked more attractive. It was quick, easy and fun to use. Guy began to sign up a network of partnerships with everyone from the leading search engines, to internet service providers, to online newspapers, to special-interest sites like ours. We signed a deal with Westbourne, one of the largest bookmakers in the country, for on-line soccer betting. It became popular immediately, and even generated a revenue stream.

  We needed to generate dozens of stories a day for the site: transfer and injury news, gossip, opinion, and, of course, match reports. This required an ever-growing band of journalists, each controlling a network of freelances and contacts within the club system. We put television screens on the walls and, more importantly, installed software that allowed the journalists to watch video or listen to radio commentary live on their computers.

  Gaz came up with a high-profile scoop: the signing of one of Brazil’s top strikers by a major Premier League club for twenty-five million pounds. The club denied it and for two days it looked as if we had got things badly wrong. The tabloids ridiculed us, but Gaz was confident. Sure enough, the story was confirmed. Later, Gaz told me his source was the fourteen-year-old son of one of the club’s directors, who was an enthusiastic fan of our site.