Learning curves: a novel of sex, suits, and business affairs

by Gemma Townley

  Jen frowned. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “When did you take his word?”

  “When he told me that his company was all above-board, many years ago. Your mother was trying to convince me to sever all ties with him, and I refused. Took his word over hers, which was, I can see now, a big mistake. A mistake for which we’re all paying now, in many ways.”

  Jen frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “He means that I divorced him over it. That and . . . other things,” Harriet said, darkly.

  Malcolm raised his eyebrows. “I’m glad I’ve made such a difference to your lives,” he said sharply. “Now, Harriet, perhaps you could ask your family to leave and we can get on with our meeting?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Jen said firmly. “I want to know what’s going on here.”

  George chuckled and looked at his watch. “Let me tell you,” he said calmly. “What’s going on here is that Malcolm Bray is about to get what’s coming to him.”

  Malcolm frowned. “George, just bugger off, will you?” he said angrily.

  “Oh, I intend to,” George said affably. “But not before the police arrive.”

  Malcolm and Harriet looked up sharply.

  “I don’t want the police here,” Harriet said quickly. “Paul isn’t even here. He’s—”

  “Going to be here in about five minutes,” George interrupted. “As are the police. I’m sorry, Malcolm, but it’s not looking too good for you, old chum.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “George, I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, but getting the police here is just going to speed your journey to prison. You organized the bribes; you transferred the money. Bell Consulting will never survive this. . . .”

  “Ah, now that’s where you’re wrong,” George said. “You see, when you thought that I was bribing government officials for you, via our friend Paul, I was actually paying compensation to the poor buggers whose houses you built—if built is the right word for those pathetic imitations of houses your company put up.”

  Malcolm stared at him. “If this is some ridiculous ruse to cover your tracks, George, it won’t work. . . .”

  “No ruse,” George said, then paused. “Actually, that’s a lie. There was a ruse. It’s just that it was aimed at you, not me. You see, our friend Paul may be a rather poor feng shui consultant, but he is a first-class undercover detective. One of Indonesia’s finest.”

  He turned to Jen. “You can imagine that the Indonesian government were very keen to get to the bottom of any suspected corruption, can’t you?”

  She nodded silently.

  “Well, Paul has been following your every move over the past few months, Malcolm. Every bribe, every lie. Sadly we haven’t been able to trace any of the bribes you paid to get the tsunami construction work in the first place, but Paul and I have a rather good body of evidence for your subsequent attempts to bribe the officials who were investigating you. And the threats, of course. Nothing like the carrot and the stick to get results, eh, Malcolm?”

  Malcolm regarded George stonily.

  “I only realized today that it was you that leaked that letter to the Times over Christmas, though. That was stupid of me. But as soon as I did, I imagined you might pull something like this.”

  Jen watched as Malcolm’s eyes narrowed, and her father winked at her.

  “Face it, Malcolm, the game’s over. You robbed me of my wife and you’ve tried to rob me of my firm, and now I like to think that I’ve partially got my own back.”

  Jen was looking at her father in shock. “You . . . you . . .” she stammered, unable to string a complete sentence together.

  “I’m not going to sit here, listening to this,” Malcolm said quickly, gathering his papers together and making for the door. “I’ve had enough of the two of you to last me a lifetime. Harriet, the deal’s off. And George . . .”

  But before he could finish his sentence, Paul Song appeared at the door, flanked by two uniformed policemen. He smiled politely at Jen, bowed to Harriet, and pointed out Malcolm, who was swiftly handcuffed.

  “You’re a bastard, George,” Malcolm said bitterly as he was led away. “I’ve always despised you, you know.”

  “So it appears,” George said in even tones. “And you, Malcolm, deserve everything that’s coming to you.”

  “So you slept with Malcolm? Eeuurgh.”

  They were sitting in a pub round the corner from Bell Consulting, and Jen was staring at her mother incredulously, cradling a gin and tonic in her hands, while George was up at the bar buying a second round of drinks. Jen was still getting over the shock from the revelation that her father was the good guy after all, and Harriet was still having problems coming to terms with the fact that her feng shui adviser and confidant was actually an ex-militia policeman who’d bought her crystals from Wool-worth’s. All in all, Jen felt that they were handling it pretty well.

  “It was a long time ago,” Harriet said dismissively. “A lifetime ago.”

  “But Malcolm Bray?”

  Harriet shot her daughter a warning look. “Enough, thank you.”

  “Sorry I took a bit long—bumped into a client at the bar,” George said, appearing with a tray of drinks. “Enough of what?”

  Harriet looked at him guiltily. “Nothing, George,” she said quickly. “Nothing at all.”

  “I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” Jen said, looking at her father accusingly. “All that time you let me think you were involved. Why didn’t you trust me?”

  “You didn’t trust me,” he said with a little smile. “And I didn’t want you involved. Anyway, haven’t you heard of the phrase ‘a means to an end’?”

  “Oh great, so I was the means?”

  George shook his head. “Of course not. In spite of your mother’s best attempts,” he said, smiling.

  “I still don’t fully understand,” said Harriet, shaking her head, trying to make sense of the situation.

  “It’s simple really,” George said dismissively. “When Axiom got the deals in Indonesia, we were shocked, frankly. I saw the tender documents and they were un-competitive and patchy at best. But I didn’t think too much of it, until rumors started circulating about bribes and underhanded dealings. I dislike underhanded dealings, particularly when they’re too close for comfort to my firm, so I did a little bit of digging. That’s when I came across Paul, who was doing a bit of digging of his own. We hatched our little plan—I offered to help Malcolm out of a difficult situation by introducing him to Paul, who pretended to be a corrupt government investigator. Malcolm insisted on arm’s-length deals—he’s a clever man, I’ll give him that—so I was supposed to pay Paul through our Indonesian office.”

  “But you didn’t,” Harriet said. “Yes, I kind of got that. But why did it take you so long to pin it on him? And why did the newspapers keep saying there were no leads?”

  George shrugged. “My fault, I’m afraid. I didn’t want Malcolm to suspect anything. We needed solid evidence of the initial bribes, so I sent a consultant out to Indonesia to see what he could find. Of course it was too late. And then we realized what Malcolm was doing—his plans to make it look like we were the ones behind it all along. Bloody man. If only I hadn’t been in hospital over Christmas, I’d have worked it out sooner.”

  Jen reddened slightly as she remembered her attempts to keep him away from the news and away from work. “Still,” she said quickly, “you’ve got him now.”

  Harriet bristled. “I hope Paul’s got enough evidence to put him away for a long time,” she said passionately.

  George nodded sagely. “And to ruin his firm and put shockwaves through the industry.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes, Jen watching how, together, her parents seemed different somehow. Her mother seemed more open—softer, but in a good way. A way that admitted she had vulnerabilities. And her father—well, she’d never seen him so cheerful. Although she suspected that had more to do with Malcolm Bray than eith
er of them.

  After a while, George turned to Jen. “So, how’s the MBA going?”

  She looked at him in disbelief. They’d been through all this, and he still wanted to know that she was working?

  “Put it this way,” she said, rolling her eyes, “this morning I was all ready to give up, and now I’m not so sure. But to be honest, I’ve had my hands a bit full lately”—she looked at her parents meaningfully—“so I’m not exactly ahead on my coursework . . .”

  “You can’t give up,” George said immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous. What’s your latest assignment on? We’ll help you, won’t we, Harriet?”

  Harriet paused. “Well, I suppose I might be able to help a little bit, although you know how I feel about MBAs . . .”

  “You made me do it,” Jen said incredulously.

  “Come on, then, what’s the assignment on?” George said impatiently.

  “Bookselling,” Jen said, suddenly feeling slightly less elated. She didn’t want to write about bookselling anymore. She’d rather lost her enthusiasm for it.

  “Bookselling?” said Harriet. “What an odd subject to choose. I’d have thought something about corporate social responsibility would be much better. Darling, you’re so clever, you should choose a subject that really demonstrates your ability, don’t you think?”

  Jen looked her mother in the eye. “Mum, stop manipulating me. I’m doing bookselling.”

  Harriet sighed. “Well, if you think it’s a good idea . . .”

  “Of course it’s a good idea,” George said cheerfully. “In fact, the client I just met over there is in the book industry. She’s in publishing, not sales, but she knows the book world better than anyone I know. You should meet her. Why don’t I introduce you?”

  Jen nodded vaguely. “Sure. Give me her number,” she said.

  “Rubbish, I’ll introduce you now. You’ve got to grab opportunities when they present themselves, Jennifer. Don’t ever leave till tomorrow what you can do today.”

  “I’m tired, Dad.” Jen groaned. “Let me just have a drink, please?”

  But her words fell on deaf ears, and George was already on his feet. “Come with me,” he commanded.

  Reluctantly, Jen followed her father to the other side of the pub, where she saw a glamorous blond woman sitting with three middle-aged men.

  Her eyes flickered up and met George’s with a smile, then she turned to Jen, who was frowning.

  “Anita, this is my daughter, Jen. She’s doing an MBA at Bell and writing a dissertation on bookselling. I thought the two of you should get to know each other. What do you think?”

  Anita flashed a smile at Jen. “Love to, George. Hi, Jen. So you’re interested in bookselling, are you?”

  Jen stared at her, scowling. She was the woman from the restaurant, the one whom Daniel had been all over.

  “Actually, I’m not sure my dissertation is going to be on bookselling anymore,” she said quickly, her stomach starting to churn. Anita was the last person in the world she wanted to talk to. In fact, she didn’t want to have to look at her for one more minute.

  “What are you talking about?” asked George, bemused. “You just said—”

  “I said I was thinking of bookselling. I’ve changed my mind,” Jen said firmly, adding, before she could stop herself, “I’ve had enough of booksellers and bookselling.”

  Anita stared at her, then her eyes widened. “You’re not Jen as in Daniel’s Jen, are you?” she asked.

  Jen’s eyes narrowed. “I was,” she said pointedly as her father looked at her, confused. “Before he decided to drop me for you.”

  Now Anita was looking confused. “Drop you for me? What the hell are you talking about? Daniel’s crazy about you,” she said, eyes wide.

  “I saw you in the restaurant,” Jen said angrily. “Look, it’s fine, really. Have him.”

  “But I don’t want him,” Anita said, her face incredulous. “We were having lunch, that’s all. Why would you think otherwise?”

  Jen tried to keep her voice level but was struggling. The last thing she wanted was to come across as the petulant girlfriend in front of the glamorous Anita. And her father.

  “He kissed you. And he hasn’t called me. He was shitty to me when I last saw him and as soon as I left he went running off to have lunch with you . . .”

  So, not doing so well at not sounding petulant, she thought to herself.

  But Anita was smiling, not staring at her as if she were a sniveling child. “I was giving him advice, Jen. He was feeling terrible about the argument you guys had. He told me he’d behaved like a total prick and he didn’t think you’d ever want to see him again.”

  Jen noticed her father wince slightly. “He did behave like a total prick,” she said with a little smile.

  “And when he told me what he said to you,” Anita continued, “I totally agreed with him. But I said that if he apologized for a week, you might just forgive him.”

  Jen nodded, and her smile grew a little bigger.

  “Anyway, he only kissed me to say thank you before running off to find you. He even called Bell Consulting and discovered you weren’t there, so he was planning to go to your flat. That’s the last I heard, anyway. So didn’t he find you?”

  Jen frowned and shook her head. “He never came,” she said, her heart quickening its pace at the news that Daniel wasn’t sleeping with Anita. That he’d felt bad after the argument. But why hadn’t he come over? What had stopped him? “Maybe he changed his mind,” she suggested, in a faltering voice.

  Anita shook her head. “No, he was definitely going over.”

  Jen racked her brain desperately. Had she been out? Had she been in the bath? Had she . . .

  Suddenly she looked at Anita and took out her phone. “Gavin,” she said frantically. “Gavin was there.”

  Anita nodded, humoring Jen as if she knew exactly who Gavin was.

  Jen dialed a number and waited, her face gradually getting hot. She heard Gavin’s voice as he picked up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Gavin,” she said. “Did you bump into Daniel the other day? When you left my place, did you bump into Daniel? And if you lie to me, I swear I will skin you alive.”

  There was a pause. “I might have done.”

  Jen sighed loudly. She could feel the adrenalin sweeping through her body. “And did you, by any chance, say anything to him that might have made him turn around?”

  Another pause. “Look, Jen, I might have told him that we were kind of back together. And that you never wanted to see him again. But I was only thinking of you. I was just working on the basis that if he wasn’t on the scene, you and me might . . .”

  “You . . . you bloody imbecile,” Jen shouted. “You stupid, idiotic . . .”

  “Bastard?” offered Anita.

  “Bastard,” confirmed Jen, quickly hanging up the phone. “Dad, I’ve got to go,” she said breathlessly, turning to Anita and smiling. “Thanks. And sorry about the whole thinking you were sleeping with him business.”

  Anita smiled. “No problem. Maybe we could have lunch sometime to talk about your dissertation. Make Daniel jealous instead?”

  Jen nodded gratefully, gave her dad a quick kiss, and ran out of the pub, stopping only to tell her mother that she was going, and refusing to listen to Harriet’s suggestion that she do something else entirely.

  30

  Daniel wiped his hands on his trousers and looked at his watch. In just five minutes, the other board members would arrive and all eyes would be on him. He would tell them about his cost-cutting plans; about his plans to wage a price war with children’s fiction. And then he would go and kill himself.

  Daniel frowned. No, he corrected himself, that’s not what he’d do at all; he would go and implement the plans. He was a managing director and he had to start behaving like one. It wasn’t like he had much else going for him, he thought ruefully.

  Suddenly he got the urge to call Jen, to ask her why she was with that ridic
ulous tramp of a boyfriend, to ask her to run away with him to Borneo or somewhere equally far away. But he dismissed the idea as soon as he’d had it. Focus on the here and now, he told himself. Focus on what you’ve actually got, not on pipe dreams.

  He checked his watch a second time and decided he had time to nip to the men’s room.

  Jen pushed open the doors to Wyman’s tentatively, trying to work out what she was going to say. “I’m sorry” didn’t really seem to cover it sufficiently; “I’m sorry, and don’t worry, I’m going to detach Gavin’s limbs from his body” seemed a little over the top. And what if he just looked at her like she was mad? He might not have cared when Gavin told him that she’d got back with him. He might have been relieved.

  She shook herself. Of course he wasn’t relieved. This was going to be one of those great reunions, she just knew it. Maybe she should have brought flowers.

  The receptionist was busy chatting to someone at the desk, and Jen decided not to risk being asked if she had an appointment, heading straight for the elevator instead. Then she thought of something. Pausing briefly, she reached for the flowers that were still sitting right there. So, the lilies were a bit old—they were still better than nothing. She tried taking out one or two stems, but they were all tied up together and after grappling for a moment or two and worrying that the receptionist was going to say something, she picked up the entire vase and jumped into the elevator.

  A minute later, the doors pinged open on Daniel’s floor and Jen stepped out, wondering again what on earth induced her to take an entire vase of flowers from the reception area. It was so big it nearly covered her face. Which, she conceded, wasn’t such a bad thing—at least it gave her camouflage as she walked down the corridor, even if she did look faintly ridiculous.

  As she approached Daniel’s office, she saw that the door was open and that no one was inside. A middle-aged woman, presumably his secretary, was sitting outside.

  “Those for the board meeting?” she asked vaguely, peering at her computer screen as she spoke.

  Jen thought for a moment. If there was a board meeting, Daniel would be there.