Fatal Error

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Not quite,’ I said.

  ‘It’s been done many times before,’ said Hoyle. ‘Sometimes it seems like the only solution. But the logic is faulty. It’s true that double or quits has a close to fifty-fifty chance of succeeding. But psychology dictates that desperate people play on till they lose.’

  ‘Well, that’s not why I’m here. I’m planning to see Owen.’

  ‘Really?’ Hoyle raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I understand he’s staying at Les Sarrasins at the moment?’

  Hoyle didn’t confirm this. ‘And you thought you’d drop in on me on the way?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Ninetyminutes has had another couple of strokes of good fortune. Like Tony Jourdan’s death.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Our major competitor was hit by a computer virus. And when our financial backer refused to give us more money, his family was threatened to make him change his mind.’

  ‘I see,’ said Hoyle. ‘And this is why you’re going to see Owen? You think he’s responsible?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t have proof, but I’m pretty sure he is. But what I still don’t know is who killed Tony.’

  ‘Neither do the police.’

  ‘So I understand. They haven’t even held the inquest yet. I’ve checked on Owen and Guy. They both have cast-iron alibis. But I can’t help thinking that Owen killed his father somehow.’

  I waited for some reaction from Hoyle. I didn’t get one.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think that you are talking about the son of my client.’

  ‘Who may have been your client’s murderer.’

  Hoyle shrugged his large shoulders. I had hoped for more assistance after our previous chat waiting for a taxi in Chancery Lane. But at least he hadn’t thrown me out. I had the impression that he was curious about what I had discovered.

  ‘I didn’t expect you’d be able to help me with Tony’s death,’ I said. ‘But I wanted to ask you about the gardener.’

  ‘I’ve told you, I had nothing to do with that,’ said Hoyle.

  ‘I know.’ I paused. Outside, a helicopter skimmed low over a cruise ship, which was manoeuvring in the cramped harbour. ‘Did you know that Owen killed Dominique?’

  Hoyle’s eyebrows shot up and his fleshy mouth dropped open. ‘Owen did?’ Then he pursed his lips, pondering for a moment. ‘I thought it might have been Guy.’ At last he was venturing an opinion of his own.

  ‘No, it was Owen.’ I told Hoyle what Guy had told me about that night. Hoyle listened closely. ‘And I think that it might have been Owen who killed the gardener, Abdulatif. He was in France around about the time the body was found, seeing Tony. Do you remember talking to him about Abdulatif?’

  The fat lawyer hesitated.

  ‘Oh, come on, Mr Hoyle. We’re on the same side here. We both want to know who killed Tony Jourdan. I think what happened to Dominique and the gardener might have some bearing on it.’

  Hoyle thought it over. In the end he spoke. ‘Yes, I do remember talking to Owen. He came to see me in this office. He brought a contribution towards the money to pay off Abdulatif.’

  ‘Did you give him Abdulatif’s address?’

  ‘I didn’t have it.’

  ‘Did you tell him anything about Abdulatif?’

  ‘I don’t think so. But I was planning to make a payment to Abdulatif whilst Owen was in France. He knew that: that was why he’d given me the cash.’

  ‘Where was the drop?’

  ‘Outside a bar in a seedy part of Marseilles.’

  ‘Did Owen know which bar?’

  ‘No. But I think he probably knew when I was going. He could have followed me.’

  ‘Did you hand over the cash to Abdulatif directly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it possible Owen could have followed you and then followed him? Followed him and killed him?’

  ‘I suppose it is. I didn’t see him. But I wasn’t looking. It is possible. Abdulatif’s body was found only a couple of days later. He had been stabbed.’

  ‘And you didn’t suspect Owen?’

  ‘I did suspect something. But not Owen. I still thought of him as a kid, even though he must have been, what, twenty at the time. But I thought he was too young. Too much of a computer freak. It was Guy I was suspicious of.’

  ‘What about the French police?’

  ‘They did go to see Tony, but I think it was just as a courtesy to inform him of what had happened to the man believed to have killed his wife. The death didn’t even merit a mention in the newspaper: I checked Le Provençal.’

  ‘And what about Tony?’

  ‘He wasn’t suspicious, either.’ Hoyle paused and glanced at me. ‘At the time.’

  ‘What do you mean, at the time?’

  Hoyle didn’t answer for a long time. He was staring at me through his pink-tinted glasses, his huge head nestling in his many chins, weighing things up. It was uncomfortable, but I kept quiet, letting him think.

  Eventually, he spoke. ‘I think I told you that Guy was anxious that we didn’t tell Tony about the pay-off to Abdulatif?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I went along with that. It wasn’t something I was happy with, and I became increasingly convinced that it was unnecessary, since Tony was innocent. But having kept it from him to start with, it became harder to mention it.

  ‘Although Guy was in a way my co-conspirator, this whole business had made me distrust him. I wasn’t enthusiastic when Tony decided to back him in Ninetyminutes – you know my views on the Internet. I wasn’t surprised when the two began to clash. Anyway, Tony was convinced that Guy was doing things all wrong. Tony has always been a great believer in cash flow, and it worried him that Ninetyminutes was never going to produce any. And I think there was some rivalry in it. He wanted to show Guy who was top businessman.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s true.’

  ‘After that rather dramatic board meeting where Guy resigned, Tony and I went out to dinner. He talked about Guy and how he was never going to make it as a businessman. He asked me what I thought of him. That was usually a subject we kept clear of. Tony would sometimes talk about how proud he was of Guy, or how frustrated he was by him, but he had never asked for my opinion before.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I mistrusted him, and Tony knew I had some reason for saying that. He pushed me. It was late, we’d both had a lot to drink, he was an old friend and I felt bad about keeping what I knew from him. So I told him about Guy’s idea to pay off Abdulatif.

  ‘He leapt at it. He was convinced right away that Guy was trying to divert attention from the real killer, Guy himself. It only took him a few more seconds to suspect Owen of killing Abdulatif. I wasn’t nearly so sure, but when Tony got hold of a notion, then it was lodged in his brain.’

  ‘How did he react to the idea that both his sons were murderers?’

  ‘It was odd,’ Hoyle said. ‘He wasn’t shocked. More agitated. He really didn’t like Dominique at the end, and he didn’t give a toss about Abdulatif. It was almost as though he had half-suspected Guy all along, and I had finally given him the proof he had been looking for.’

  ‘Did he say he was going to talk to Guy about it?’

  ‘No. But he was thinking hard when we left the restaurant. His brain was whirring. I’d seen him like that many times before. He was making plans. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he did talk to Guy. But I never saw him again after that evening, so I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t know, either. Guy didn’t mention anything.’

  ‘Are you sure it was Owen who killed Dominique and not Guy?’ Hoyle asked.

  ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘Guy was quite convincing, although I’m not sure how much notice I should take of that. Both the brothers certainly felt abandoned by their father, but I don’t think Guy was quite screwed up enough to want to kill his stepmother just because he saw her having sex with so
meone else. Whereas Owen? Who knows about Owen? There’s a deep streak of violence in him and he has a warped view of the world. He could have transferred his anger with his father on to Dominique, and become even more angry when he saw her betraying him. Perhaps Guy’s right, Owen didn’t intend to kill her. But once Guy had realized what his brother had done, it was totally in his character to try to protect him.’

  ‘Watch Guy, David. He’s the actor, the schemer, the manipulator.’

  ‘Not a nice thing to say about your client.’

  ‘He’s not my client, technically. The estate is. And as I said, Tony was my friend.’

  ‘One last question. How long has Owen been at Les Sarrasins?’

  ‘Only a few days. Guy called me in the middle of last week to tell me he was coming.’

  That was just after Henry had changed his mind about the investment in Ninetyminutes. It meant Owen was in England when Henry’s family had been threatened. It also suggested Guy might have known about what Owen was doing, and had waited to send him away until after Henry had capitulated. An unpleasant thought.

  I stood up to leave. ‘Thank you, Mr Hoyle.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Hoyle groaned to his feet. ‘Did you say you’re going to Les Sarrasins now?’

  ‘That’s the idea.’

  ‘Be careful.’

  As I drove up the winding road in low gear, with the Mediterranean stretching out a brilliant blue below me and the maquis clinging to the hillside above, I began to feel nervous. I had been impelled this far by the conviction that I had to do something to stop Owen. I had successfully pushed all thoughts of the risks involved out of my mind, but now, as I was approaching Les Sarrasins, they seemed all too obvious. Owen would not take kindly to what I was about to say. Owen was bigger and stronger than me, we had already established that. As long as Owen behaved rationally, I was safe. But how could I be convinced that Owen would be rational?

  I almost turned back. But the thought of Owen causing more mayhem with other people’s lives in the name of Ninetyminutes kept me going. I had to stop him.

  I parked the car outside the big gates and pressed the buzzer on the intercom. They swung open, and I left the car by the side of the road and walked into the courtyard in front of the house. It was as immaculate as I remembered it; clearly the Jourdan estate was still paying for the place to be maintained. I pressed another bell on the front door.

  I waited and pressed the bell again. Finally I heard movement inside and the door opened.

  It was Owen, dressed in grey Ninetyminutes T-shirt and shorts, his white spiky hair peeking out of a Ninetyminutes baseball cap. His feet were bare.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  ‘I’ve come to talk to you.’ I pushed past him. I went through to the living room. Although Hoyle had said Owen had only been there a few days, the place was a tip. There were food wrappers, soft-drink cans and pizza boxes everywhere. A sweatshirt was draped over one of the abstract sculptures. And on a desk in a corner in the midst of the greatest concentration of rubbish a laptop hummed. I could clearly see the ninetyminutes.com logo on the screen. Owen was looking at our website.

  He chuckled as I walked over to the machine. ‘You see, you can’t keep a good man away from the office.’

  ‘Are you trying to hack into our site?’

  ‘Hack into it? I go into it, like, every day. Sanjay might not have told you, but I like to keep a close eye on what goes on at Ninetyminutes.’

  I turned to him, stunned. How foolish we had been! After Owen had left we had taken no measures to protect the system from him. There was all kinds of damage he could have been doing since he had left, probably had been doing.

  ‘Don’t look so shocked,’ Owen said, smirking. He was really enjoying this. ‘I haven’t done Ninetyminutes any harm. In fact, I’ve been a lot of help to Sanjay in the last couple of months.’

  ‘Does Guy know about this?’

  ‘Probably. We haven’t spoken about it specifically, but he knows me. You thought you’d gotten rid of me. But I can control things just as well from here.’

  Jesus! But I believed Owen when he said he hadn’t done any actual harm. In fact he probably had done some good. I felt a surge of anger at Guy. He knew what Owen was doing. I was bloody sure he knew.

  Owen moved over to the kitchen area, tripping over a pizza box on the way. A half-eaten slice spun across the floor.

  ‘Where’s Miguel?’ I asked.

  ‘He couldn’t handle the place like this, so I told him to stay away. But I think it feels kind of cosy.’

  He opened a can of 7 Up and strolled out into the garden. I followed him. It was a brilliantly sunny day, but there was a cool breeze blowing in from the sea. He sat down at a table near the marble railings overlooking Cap Ferrat, and I joined him. Wrappers and cans lay at the base of the lavender bed a couple of feet away. Owen was treating his father’s house with the contempt that he had always felt for its owner. His smugness was getting to me, as I was sure he intended it to.

  ‘I know what you’ve been doing,’ I said.

  Owen sipped his drink and squinted out to sea, ignoring me.

  ‘You threatened Henry Broughton-Jones. Scared the wits out of his family so that he gave Ninetyminutes the ten million quid.’

  ‘Really? How do you know that?’

  ‘Don’t worry: he wouldn’t tell me anything. But it’s obvious he’s scared. And it’s obvious who’s been scaring him.’ I wanted to keep Henry safe from any more of Owen’s attention.

  ‘So, Orchestra did invest, did they?’ Owen said.

  ‘And you sent the virus to Goaldigger.’

  ‘Technically it wasn’t a virus. It was a worm.’

  ‘I don’t care what it was, technically,’ I said, fighting to keep my frustration under control. ‘It was sabotage.’

  ‘Horrible,’ said Owen. ‘I hope they catch whoever did it.’

  ‘I know you killed Dominique. And I think it’s highly likely that you killed Abdulatif.’

  ‘Abdulatif?’

  ‘The gardener who was blackmailing you and Guy.’

  ‘Oh, you mean the dude the police think wasted my stepmother.’

  ‘Yes. Him. You knew Patrick Hoyle was going to pay him off. You followed Hoyle to the drop. You saw him give the money to Abdulatif. You followed him and then stabbed him.’

  ‘Man, you do have some weird ideas.’

  ‘And I think you got your father killed. I don’t know how, but I’m sure you arranged it.’

  ‘Have you been smoking something?’

  This time I stared out to sea, towards the white craft buzzing round Cap Ferrat.

  ‘You don’t have any proof,’ Owen said at last.

  ‘No. But I have enough to get the police asking difficult questions.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You have nothing to link me with any of this. Half this stuff happened, like, years ago.’

  ‘I want you to stop,’ I said.

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Stop threatening people. Stop hurting people. Stop killing people.’

  ‘Huh!’ Owen snorted.

  ‘I know you’re doing all this for Ninetyminutes. I know you think it’ll help your brother. But Ninetyminutes can get by without that kind of help.’

  ‘Can it? I don’t think so. You know how close Ninetyminutes has gotten to the edge. It’s been real lucky to make it this far. I guess sometimes it needs a little help.’

  ‘I’d rather Ninetyminutes went bust than it survived with your kind of help.’

  ‘You know what? I don’t give a shit what you think.’ Owen’s flippancy left him: he looked serious. ‘Ninetyminutes means everything to my brother. It’s, like, his last chance. It’s also his best chance. If it works he’s going to be just as rich as Dad, probably richer. If it fails, it’s going to be worse than just a disappointment to him. It will totally destroy him. I don’t like you very much, but I know you like him. You know I’m right.’

 
; Owen was trying to talk me into seeing his point of view. That was a first. But he was right. I remembered Guy in the Jerusalem Tavern the evening after Henry had turned us down. If Ninetyminutes went under, so would Guy.

  But.

  ‘Guy is my friend. I know you’re trying to help him. But listen to me. Listen to me carefully.’ I leaned forward. ‘I would prefer Ninetyminutes went into liquidation tomorrow than it survived by terror or murder, whatever effect that may have on Guy or any of the rest of us. So if I see you trying any more of this extortion, if anyone else gets hurt, I will blow the whistle. I’ll tell the police, I’ll tell the press, I’ll tell anyone else who’ll listen. It will finish Guy. It might finish Ninetyminutes. But I’m prepared to do it.’

  Owen watched me for a moment. Then he burst into laughter. ‘You’re just as bad as me or Guy, you know that? You’re desperate for Ninetyminutes to succeed. You’ve looked the other way for so long, why should I believe you’ll suddenly become a good citizen? You and me are no different. Except I’ve got the guts to do something to make Ninetyminutes survive, and you’re too scared. Sure, you’ll take the millions of pounds from the IPO, but you won’t get your hands dirty. You’ll let other people do that. People like me.’

  There was something uncomfortably true about what Owen said, at least as it related to the past. But not for the future; I was determined about that.

  ‘You know,’ said Owen, ‘I never really liked you since I saw your naked butt going up and down on my stepmother.’

  I couldn’t answer. I stood up and turned to leave.

  I felt, as much as saw, a sudden movement behind me. I spun round as Owen grabbed my shoulder and dragged me back towards the railings. I squatted down to prevent myself being tossed over, and jammed one leg against them to try to get purchase. He leaned into me and pushed. He was stronger and heavier than me. I felt my foot slip. I took a swift glance behind me. There was nothing, just air, and then, far off, the sea.

  Owen lunged again. My foothold gave way, but I managed to twist so that Owen’s forward momentum brought him up against the railings. For a fraction of a second I had the chance to give him that little extra push that would send him on his way. But I didn’t do it. I couldn’t do it.