by Nick Thripp
He stepped into the lift and the doors closed, leaving me staring at my distorted reflection in the shining metal.
Chapter 29
Honours, 2003
Every so often, Rachel and I would take it in turns to choose a place to meet for coffee. This time I’d chosen The Gardenia, a basic, clean café in Dalston, famous for its Cypriot pastries.
Rachel looked on disapprovingly as I licked my fingers
‘Yum. That kataifi was too good to waste.’
Rachel took a sip of her coffee and looked round. The café was empty apart from a couple of elderly ladies in the corner. Their views on the price of vegetables drifted across to us in snatches.
‘Swear to keep this secret?’
‘Of course.’
‘They’re going to give John a gong.’
My Greek coffee suddenly tasted very bitter. I didn’t want to puncture Rachel’s good mood, so I stifled the comments about John’s ‘knight starvation’ which sprang to mind.
‘What, you mean like that man from Rank films? Or the sort butlers use to summon people to dinner?’
‘Why can’t you be serious, you fool? They’re giving him the knighthood he bloody well deserves.’
‘So you’ll be Lady Beart, flouncing around in ermine-edged ball-gowns.’
‘Titles mean nothing to me. This is important because it’s an official vindication.’ She sighed. ‘It might stop some of those baseless rumours.’
I adopted my one-eyebrow-raised incredulous look. It often worked well on Rachel, though sometimes it just annoyed her.
‘They wouldn’t have given him a knighthood if they had any doubts, would they?’ she insisted.
‘There have been plenty of dodgy knights and even peers in the past. In any case, wasn’t it for services to the party, i.e. bunging them a load of dosh?’
Rachel looked affronted. ‘How could you say that? You know how busy he is, serving on all sorts of do-gooder committees and quangos. And he’s raised millions for that battered women charity he set up.’
I adopted my incredulous look again.
‘You’re never prepared to give him a break, are you? Just because you didn’t like him at school—’
I held up my hand to silence her. ‘It’s nothing to do with that. Please pass on my congratulations.’
‘You’ll be able to congratulate him yourself. We’ve finally finished doing up the Palazzo Urtica, and I’m going to throw a big party to celebrate his knighthood and his birthday. You must come.’
I had no desire to go.
‘When is it?’
‘We haven’t finalised that. You’ll find out when we send you an invitation.’
‘Can I bring Suzie?’ Surely the prospect of Suzie being there would put Rachel off and make my declining all the easier. Rachel’s face darkened.
‘Do you have to?’
‘I am living with her. It seems a bit churlish not to.’
‘I doubt she’d come.’ Rachel paused, then sighed. ‘If you must, then OK. I hope she can be magnanimous enough not to try to steal the show. Or the paintings.’
I ran through possible excuses for not attending while Rachel popped to the loo. On her way back, she settled the bill.
‘Very generous,’ I said. ‘You’re obviously practising being Lady Bountiful.’
She jabbed me in the ribs.
‘You’re incorrigible. I don’t know why I put up with you.’
‘It’s because you’re still secretly in love with me,’ I replied, as we found ourselves on the street, blinking in the bright sunshine.
‘You wish,’ she shouted over her shoulder, setting off at speed for the tube station.
*
I took Neil’s call on my mobile phone. He didn’t bother with the usual niceties.
‘I hear you’re going to Beart’s party in Italy?’
‘How do you know? In any case, it’s not true. I’m going to find some way to wriggle out of it.’
‘I’d like you to go.’
‘Why? What’s it got to do with you?’
‘It’s important,’ Neil said. ‘Trust me.’
An invitation arrived a week later, addressed to both Suzie and me. Suzie was astonished.
‘What’s that cow up to now?’
‘Perhaps she wants to make up with you.’ I much preferred the idea of going to Italy with Suzie to facing a weekend there alone. Suzie’s face twisted into a sneer.
‘I suppose I would be a tiny bit interested in seeing what they’ve done to that poor old building. Bet they’ve desecrated it with their abominable taste. Rachel never had the faintest idea, that’s why she always dresses so appallingly. I’m not saying I will, but if I do decide to come, I’m certainly not staying at their place, and I’ll have as little to do with them as possible.’
About a week later, I bumped into Beart strolling casually along one of the corridors in his head office. He hailed me.
‘You look as though you haven’t a care in the world,’ I said.
‘I haven’t,’ he replied. ‘I pay other people to do the worrying for me. By the way, I’m looking forward to seeing you at the Palazzo. There are a few things I want to talk through while we’re there.’
‘Why can’t we discuss them here?’
‘I don’t want to waste your time now and, besides, it’ll be much more pleasant there. I’d like you to meet a couple of people too.’
Bearing in mind Neil’s exhortation, I didn’t feel I could decline the invitation, especially as Suzie had now grudgingly agreed to accompany me.
‘We’ll be there.’
‘Oh yes, Rachel told me you’ll be bringing Suzie. Remarkable girl.’
As we shook hands, I wondered why he’d said that. Surely, after exposure to Rachel’s incessant character assassination of Suzie, he could only think of her as a scrounging, drug-dependent petty thief?
*
The next few weeks with Suzie were idyllic. She ceased lounging about all night and secured some verifiable pet painting commissions, and one captured the essence of a spaniel so well I could imagine it hanging in the National Gallery.
We started going to the cinema and restaurants together, and Suzie even agreed to accompany me to an AP sponsored charity dinner. My initial doubts as to whether she’d behave herself, especially once the wine began to flow, proved unfounded, as she engaged in polite conversation with the people on our table about their gardens and children.
With some trepidation, I suggested inviting Richard and Sandra round. I’d been to dinner at their house lots of times and had yet to have them back. Surprisingly, Suzie jumped at the idea.
‘I could cook bouillabaisse.’
I thought she was joking. I’d never known her cook more than a boiled egg.
‘I’ve got this secret recipe. Well, the main ingredients, bream, monkfish, mullet aren’t secret. It’s the herbs and spices which count.’
‘When did you start cooking bouillabaisse, or anything else, for that matter?’
She didn’t reply.
The bouillabaisse was delicious. Sandra raved over it and asked for the recipe.
As we tucked into crepes suzette, Richard said, ‘I hear you lucky chaps are off to Italy this weekend.’ My face must have fallen, because Sandra asked, ‘Aren’t you looking forward to it?’
‘I’m dreading it. Bloody Beart; I see enough of him as it is, and I’m sure I won’t like the other guests.’
‘I’m not looking forward to it either,’ Suzie said. ‘Still, it’s a nice place. I reckon we’ll be OK if we can do our own thing. Some of the other guests are quite fun, so that’ll help.’
‘Who do you know who’s going?’ Richard asked.
I thought through the list of business associates, bankers, lawyers, and assorted hangers-on who were li
kely to be there.
‘Ignacio Rodriguez,’ she replied without hesitation. ‘And a couple of his Latino friends. They’re a very jolly crowd.’
The twinge in my guts felt uncomfortably like jealousy.
*
The Palazzo Urtica, a magnificent white marble mansion with an extensive water-front on the lake of the same name, dominated the town square. Using John’s seemingly endless supplies of money, Rachel had refurbished and considerably extended what had once been an eighteenth-century hotel where Goethe, Shelley and Wagner are all reputed to have stayed.
I’d booked us into the Albergo Ricardo, a hotel down one of the rambling town’s narrow alleyways.
We arrived at prosecco time on Friday, heading off immediately to a lakeside café for an aperitif. Overhearing a group of Americans at the table behind speculating over the identity of the owner of the Palazzo Urtica, we stopped talking to listen.
‘He runs the biggest investment fund in the world. What else is there to know?’ said a gravel-voiced man.
‘Someone told me he’s behind several of the big private equity outfits and through nominees owns half of the UK’s companies, though that doesn’t amount to much these days.’ A woman’s voice elicited a ripple of laughter.
A waiter came with our drinks and we missed the conversation behind us for a few moments.
‘…so he worked his way up from nothing, and now he’s a billionaire.’ A young woman’s voice was cool and rational.
There was a moment’s silence.
‘I don’t think so.’ It was an older woman, sounding tentative. ‘I’m sure I read he inherited it all. He’s some sort of aristocrat distantly related to the Queen.’
I sneaked a glance over my shoulder.
They digested the thought of possible royal connections for a moment. The silence was soon broken by a man with a neatly trimmed moustache.
‘You’re all wrong. I heard he’s a front man for Colombian drug barons and the investment fund he runs really belongs to them.’
‘No! Really?’ It was a different young woman. ‘I suppose that makes sense. Apparently, he had a man killed but managed to bribe his way out of it. It was all hushed up.’
‘You and your conspiracy theories!’ said the gravel-voiced man. ‘I don’t know where you get them from. You don’t read The Enquirer, do you?’
‘I tell you, I had it on good authority—’ the younger woman insisted, before the man with the moustache interrupted her.
‘Well, whatever he does, he sure gives us something to gossip about.’
Suzie’s eyes met mine and we exchanged a meaningful glance at the rumours which were circulating. The Americans paid their bill and left.
We looked at each other again and sighed. The air was fragrant with the scent of jasmine, and the clear water of the lake lapped softly against the quay.
I leant across and kissed Suzie gently on the cheek.
‘I’m so glad you came.’
We finished our drinks and left to change for dinner at the Palazzo. Rachel had told us Friday’s gathering would be a relaxed affair for twenty close friends. The real festivities would start on Saturday with a formal dinner for forty, and would culminate in Sunday’s party, which fell on Sir John’s birthday.
The dinners on Friday and Saturday at the Palazzo Urtica, held in a vast candle-lit ballroom, passed off uneventfully. Suzie and I found ourselves relegated to the lower reaches of the table on both occasions, struggling to make small talk with local luminaries. Apart from ritual greetings and farewells, we were largely ignored by our hosts who concentrated their efforts on a couple of the fund’s biggest investors, who both sucked on six-inch cigars and swilled champagne like cold lager. Ignacio Rodrigues had yet to make an appearance, though Suzie told me she’d received a text saying he would arrive on Sunday.
Chapter 30
Travelling back from Urtica, 2003
The return flight from Turin took off two hours late. Once airborne, I sat back and reflected on Sunday evening’s party. It had all been very strange. Beart had seemed unusually friendly with Ignacio Rodriguez, whom he had introduced as a major food exporter and investor in his fund. There were various technical issues relating to the accounting treatment of Rodriguez’s investments, which we cloistered ourselves in an adjoining room to discuss.
Although I’d been concerned that Suzie would be all over Rodriguez, she acted in an uncharacteristically demure fashion, indulging in no more than a peck on the cheek.
I’d also been shocked to meet Simon, Amelia’s ex-husband, outside the marble-clad lavatory. He was equally surprised but, after a moment’s hesitation, we shook hands in an almost friendly way.
‘No hard feelings?’ I asked.
‘Frankly, you did me a favour, old boy. I couldn’t bear having that bitch around any longer, whingeing and whining. Gather she’s shacked up with some other woman now.’
‘Are you sure?’ Amelia had so often commented on men’s bottoms or speculated on their lunchboxes, it was difficult to believe she hadn’t meant it.
‘Absolutely. John met her and her partner the other day; a real pair of lovebirds, apparently.’
Amelia’s rejection had made me feel a failure, and now this information cast it in a different light; I just wasn’t the right sex.
‘Great to see you again, Simon. It really is.’ I slapped him on the back and made my way towards the ballroom, a new lightness in my step.
Narrowly avoiding colliding in the doorway with a couple of Arabs, he strode off in the direction of a slim, dark-haired young man, whom he touched affectionately on the arm, earning a dazzling early-in-a-relationship smile. Later, I saw them leave together, the younger man leaning heavily on the older.
I was roused from my reverie by the aircraft crew clattering along the aisle serving greasy croissants and scalding, tasteless coffee. Suzie appeared to be asleep. I looked at her, wondering about the true nature of her relationship with Ignacio. She stirred and I thought for a moment she’d woken up, but she merely twisted in the narrow seat, mumbled something and settled down again. I decided against waking her for breakfast, took a bite of my croissant and gazed out at the white candyfloss clouds, my thoughts returning to the party.
It still rankled that I’d been dragged in from the comfort of the fringes of the proceedings to give tax advice. Beart refused to entertain my protests that a clear conflict existed between the roles of adviser and auditor and steamrollered me into doing it anyway. But why had it been so important to discuss those matters during the party, when any competent accountant could have given them the answer over the phone? And how come Beart was mixing with those Colombians anyway, when he must have known they were drug barons?
Suzie opened her eyes, looked first at me and then out of the window.
‘It’s really boring up here,’ she said, shutting her eyes.
‘What did you think of the party last night?’
‘Dull.’ Suzie stretched languorously as her eyelids flickered open again. ‘John and I had a good long chat, though. He’s quite cute.’
‘I bet Rachel loved that.’ I could imagine her fuming as Beart neglected his other guests to heap attention on her despised sister.
Suzie looked at me coolly. ‘I don’t give a fucking monkey’s what Rachel thinks.’
We parted at the airport.
‘Are you going back to the apartment now?’ I asked.
‘I’ve got to see some people about a few things first. I’ll catch you later. Bye.’
She hugged me.
I didn’t see her for several weeks.
*
Neil was waiting at my office when I arrived.
‘This is a nice surprise.’ I ushered him in and asked my secretary to make two coffees.
‘I’m here on business.’ His voice was unusually terse. I scrutinised
his expression trying to discern his mood. I could make little of it.
‘I gather you took my advice and went to Urtica.’
‘My goodness, society news travels fast these days. Been reading The Tatler?’
He didn’t smile.
‘Meet anyone interesting?’
I told him about Ignacio Rodriguez and his companions, recounting the conversation as accurately as I could.
‘Beart’s a slippery fish,’ Neil said. ‘We’re sure he’s up to something.’
‘What I can’t understand is why you lot are so interested in Rodriguez. Isn’t that Drugs Squad business?’
‘Everything’s connected, isn’t it?’ He frowned. ‘What’s that theory? You know the one where the butterfly flaps its wings in Asia and there’s a hurricane in the US.’
‘Chaos Theory?’
‘Could be; anyway, there’s a lot going on, and we probably don’t know the half of it. Your friend Beart seems to be at its centre.’
‘He’s no friend of mine.’
A belligerent look came into his eyes.
‘You’ve done very well for yourself thanks to him.’
‘You did too – for a while. How much of a friend of yours does that make him?’
His voice softened. ‘Just make sure you don’t blow it. By the way, you know Beart’s mother has just gone into a hospice?’
My heart missed a beat. ‘Where?’
‘The Alison Rose in Abbotsford. Why are you so interested?’
‘Don’t forget I was her gardener. I knew her quite well.’
Neil stood up.
‘This Beart business could be serious, you know. I hope you auditors really have done your stuff properly. By the way, I wouldn’t be surprised if you get a visit from some heavy-handed colleagues of mine.’
‘Are they from B6 too?’
‘No, just about everyone has a finger in this pie.’
We shook hands and he left. I didn’t know what to do with these persistent warnings about Beart. The time-honoured letters CYA came to mind; cover your arse. I summoned Alana and told her I’d decided to call on the services of a couple of the other more experienced partners to carry out an independent review of what we’d done and the decisions we’d made about irregularities. I didn’t mention the police’s suspicions to her and I wouldn’t share them with my colleagues. I’d choose the most biddable and was sure, with a little subtle prompting, they would see our largest client in the same light as I had and confirm the appropriateness of my actions. If later we found something amiss, they’d have to shoulder some of the blame and support me.
