Unnatural Justice (Oz Blackstone Mysteries)

by Quintin Jardine

  It turned out that he had a table booked, for two, in a discreet corner alcove.

  We chose quickly from the interesting lunch menu, then I got straight to business. ‘Did you know I was catching the shuttle?’ I asked him. ‘Or was it an accident? You’d better tell me that it was, because I won’t like it if you’ve been following me.’ I held his eyes, trying to make him feel as uncomfortable as I could. I don’t mind leaning on guys like him: they invite it, almost.

  ‘Pure chance,’ he replied. ‘I assure you.’

  ‘But you did ask for the seat next to mine when you saw me check in.’

  He tried to smile. ‘Yes, I admit that. We’re always on the look-out for potential new clients,’ he added.

  ‘Do you always go about it as unsubtly as that?’ I asked him, hoping that our white wine wouldn’t be as acid as my tone. Instinctively I liked the guy, but I had no intention of giving him an easy time.

  Smith winced. ‘I’m sorry if I appeared overenthusiastic,’ he said.

  ‘You did, but apology accepted. Did I let anything slip, incidentally?’

  ‘Pardon?’ He looked almost shocked.

  ‘On the plane. Don’t kid me; you were on a fishing trip. You told me that you didn’t represent Torrent, but I knew all along that you did.’

  ‘How could you have?’

  ‘Because I’ve had people following Natalie Morgan since I first got wind that she might be having a go at our company. I could give you a list of the visits she’s made to your office, and it would start before you and I met on the plane.’

  Wylie looked up at me earnestly; I could tell that he was trying to look totally sincere, a difficult skill for a corporate lawyer to master. ‘You might never believe this, Oz, but at that time I honestly did not know that we were acting for Torrent. Duncan only let me in on it after I got back to the office. He had said earlier that he’d be grateful for any information that any of us could glean on the Gantry Group, that’s all.’

  I found that I did believe him. ‘So did I let anything slip?’

  ‘No.’ He grinned. ‘Did I?’

  ‘How could you? You didn’t know anything, remember. I can tell you something now, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked, but he didn’t look as eager as I’d expected.

  ‘Kendall McGuire will never act for the Gantry Group. Not ever.’

  ‘I didn’t expect that we would,’ he said, almost mournfully. ‘Not now; having been caught in the act, as it were.’

  I waited as the waiter served our starter. ‘That’s not important, though,’ I told him, when we were alone once more. ‘This isn’t about Natalie Morgan, it’s about the bloke who’s been behind her, pulling her strings and orchestrating a concerted, and very clever attack on the Gantry Group share price.’

  ‘That had nothing to do with my firm,’ Smith protested.

  ‘You can tell that to the Law Society if we make a complaint. Duncan Kendall’s signature won’t be on any documents, but if you expect me to believe that he could fail to work out what was going on, you’re taking me for an idiot. And you shouldn’t do that. As I speak, there’s a guy sitting, courtesy of the Glentruish Trust via Mr Woolfson of Largs, in what used to be our apartment, Susie’s and mine. The Glentruish Trust goes back to the Casamayor Trust, officially based in the Isle of Man, and that, my friend, is you.’

  The solicitor gave a brief nod. ‘What do you want to know? I may not be able to answer all your questions, but if I can I will.’

  ‘I want to know who the beneficiary of that trust is. I want to know the name of your client.’

  ‘I’m not allowed to give you that name. Technically, my client is the Casamayor Trust, and that’s all. Legally it leads to another trust, in the Cayman Islands this time, and to another firm of lawyers. It’s a real spider’s web, constructed to preserve the anonymity of the individual behind it.’

  ‘This web,’ I asked him, ‘what’s its total worth?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ he answered. ‘I am, as a famous boxer once said, just a prawn in the game.’

  ‘How about Duncan? Would he know?’

  ‘Why should he? Casamayor’s my client, not his.’

  ‘He might know because we believe that your spider’s web is funding the projected takeover of the Gantry Group by Torrent, and because Kendall’s involved in that. There has to be outside money, Wylie. Natalie isn’t big enough on her own to do what she’s doing.’

  He gave me the sincere look again. ‘Oz,’ he began. For a moment I thought that he was going to say, ‘Trust me, I’m a lawyer’, and that I’d fall off my chair laughing. But he didn’t. ‘On my children’s lives,’ he said quietly, ‘I know nothing of what went on involving your company, of any of that carry on in New Bearsden, or of any of the detail of the proposed offer by Torrent for Gantry. The Casamayor Trust isn’t involved, though, I can tell you that. If you’re right, it’s happening further up the chain.’

  I glared across the small table. ‘If you mention that chain once more I’ll wrap it round your neck and hang you with it. I don’t have time to mess about. I want to know who the guy in the flat is, and unless you and Duncan want to have the heaviest book in the Law Society library thrown at you, you will fucking well tell me.’

  ‘I can’t, Oz,’ he replied. His smile surprised me, until he continued. ‘My specific instruction from the beneficiary is that I must not tell you who he is. Instead, now that you’ve come asking about him, I am instructed to take you to meet him.’

  I threw my napkin on the table and stood up. Seeing me, the waiter rushed over. ‘Is everything all right, Mr Blackstone?’ he asked.

  ‘The food is perfect,’ I told him. ‘As good as you’ll find in Edinburgh. But I’m afraid that my colleague has just remembered that we’re late for an important business meeting in Glasgow. Would you give him the bill, please.’

  Chapter 39

  With Wylie Henry Smith in the passenger seat, the tiny cockpit of the Lotus seemed distinctly overcrowded. It didn’t protest, though, as it whistled us back to Glasgow. Wylie did, though, at one point, as the speedometer neared a hundred. One’s arse is quite near the roadway in a vehicle of that type, and if one is not used to it, I suppose it can be a bit scary.

  I remembered that I’d said I’d keep Ricky in touch, but I decided to break that promise, in the meantime. Anyway, I guessed that he’d be fully up to date about thirty seconds after I showed up at our destination.

  My old apartment, subsequently the property of the Gantry Group, and more recently that of the Glentruish Trust, sits on a hilltop above Sauchiehall Street, not far from Charing Cross. The building was once a big church and my chunk of it was away up at the top of its tower. You will not find a better bolthole in all Glasgow.

  As we slipped off the motorway, my companion started to give me directions, until I reminded him that there was no need. As we reached the building, I turned straight in off the street, looking for the two parking spaces that had been mine. Finding them both empty, I parked in the one I’d always used in the past.

  It took Smith even longer to extricate himself from the Lotus than it had taken him to climb into it, but just as I thought I’d have to help him, he made it. After a degree of straightening out, and a few awkward smiles, he set off towards the main entrance. I looked over my shoulder and across the street. A woman, sat behind the wheel of a parked Rover, tried to avoid my glance, but I waved to her anyway.

  The solicitor took no time at all to work out which door buzzer to press; clearly he had visited his ‘beneficiary’ before. I tried to catch the voice that crackled from the speaker, but it was too distorted for the owner’s mother to have recognised it.

  The door swung open and I followed my escort inside. The tower isn’t easily found by the casual visitor, but Wylie and I didn’t have that problem, and we strode along, silently and purposefully, although I could sense a tension building within him.

  When we reached the apartment the front do
or was ajar, held against its automatic closer by a heavy glass weight. I kicked it aside as we entered, and suddenly the hall was almost dark.

  I knew where he would be, but I still motioned Wylie to lead the way along the corridor, until he stopped at the heavy wooden door. He rapped on it; as he turned the handle and began to open it, I looked into his eyes.

  In that instant, I’ll swear that I knew. It had been unthinkable, totally unimaginable, but when I saw the expression on his face I remembered how he had reacted at the very start of our conversation on the plane. I hadn’t appreciated what it was at the time, but his eyes had registered the same look of pure fright that I saw again in that doorway.

  I stepped past him and through it.

  The room had changed a lot since I had been in it last. All the time I had owned or known it, it had been used at least in part as an office; now it was purely a comfort zone. The floor had been sanded and revarnished until it shone. A huge Bang and Olufsen television stood in one corner and a hi-fi unit by the same maker was on a stand against a side wall, with something by Vivaldi playing quietly through its tall speakers. It was much more spacious, since it was almost minimally furnished, where before it had been almost cluttered. The sofa was white leather, with a matching armchair and a swivel chair. Its back was towards me, as it looked out over the city, through the slanted Venetian blinds.

  Slowly, it began to turn.

  ‘Hello Jack,’ I said.

  ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ the former Lord Provost of Glasgow cackled, a soft laugh that was virtually without humour. ‘Well done, son, well done,’ he said, pushing himself up to greet me. He knew better than to offer to shake my hand. ‘When did you work it out?’

  ‘About a couple of weeks after I should have. About thirty seconds ago, in fact. But what I still don’t get is what you’re doing here, when you’re supposed to be pacing up and down a few yards of carpet in a top-security mental hospital. You’re bloody crackers, remember, guilty but insane, so what the everlasting fuck are you doing here?’

  ‘I’d be careful what you say, Mr Blackstone.’ Two men stepped through the door from the kitchen. Actually one of them looked more like a trolley-bus than a man, but I knew the speaker well enough, having seen his photo often enough in the Scotsman, and other business pages.

  ‘Duncan!’ exclaimed W H Smith behind me. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Setting you up, pal,’ I told him. ‘You may not have known what’s been going on, but you’re going to find out now.’

  I glanced at the converted public transport on legs. ‘What’s this?’ I asked Jack Gantry.

  ‘He’s my attendant. Call him my nurse, if you like.’

  I knew what he was, all right. The guy was about six eight, wearing a white tunic and black slacks. If Florence Nightingale had looked like him, the opposition in the Crimea would have headed for the hills. His hair was sleeked back, and there was a Hispanic look about him. The most remarkable thing about him was his complexion; it was spotless, without a single blemish or mark. I was reminded of the old saying that you shouldn’t worry about the thug with the broken nose and the face full of scars half as much as you should worry about the bloke who put them there. That very man stood before me.

  ‘His name’s Manolito, by the way,’ Jack added. ‘Little Manuel; some joke, eh.’

  He didn’t make me laugh. I looked at Duncan Kendall. ‘Who’s going to explain this?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh I will,’ said the Lord Provost. ‘Our three companions will step back into the kitchen, please. I just wanted you to see that they were there, Oz. Especially Manolito.’ He smiled at me, and I looked into his eyes. The first time I ever met the man, in his gold chain and all his glory in Glasgow City Chambers, that’s what struck me about him: those eyes of his and, when you stripped all the rest away, how stone cold they were. He seemed slimmer than in those days, older certainly, but that had stayed with him.

  Facially he was much changed, though. He was bald on top now, but he had compensated by growing a reddish beard. His hair, still dark although he was in his early sixties, was combed back, like Manolito’s, probably by Manolito, and he wore a pair of designer specs, with blue lenses in light rectangular frames.

  My mobile rang as the ‘nurse’ and the two lawyers left the room; it seemed unnatural in this surreal atmosphere, and for a split second I was startled. When I had gathered myself enough to press the green button, I assumed that Ricky would be on the other end, maybe wondering if he should send in the SAS. But I was wrong.

  ‘Oz?’ said Greg McPhillips. ‘Can you speak?’

  ‘I can listen,’ I replied.

  ‘Then listen to this. Torrent PLC’s advisers issued a statement to the Stock Exchange and the business press at two this afternoon, announcing that the company has decided not to proceed with its proposed takeover of the Gantry Group.’

  I raised an eyebrow as I glanced across at Jack; he was looking back at me, with half a smile on his face, as if he was making some pretty accurate guesses.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They said that they no longer regarded the group as a suitable avenue for diversification.’

  ‘Crap.’

  ‘Maybe, but there’s more. When I got back from court at lunchtime, I found letters waiting for me from the lawyers acting for Cornwell, Perry and Ravens, offering to accept our terms for withdrawal, if they can do so without publicity.’

  ‘That’ll be right. Have you spoken to Culshaw?’

  ‘Yes. He gave me a rather abrupt reply, but he said I should ask you what you thought.’

  ‘Did he now?’ I smiled as I looked across at Gantry. ‘I think we should remind them, in case they’ve forgotten, that we cancelled those agreements earlier this week. Have they presented those cheques yet?’

  ‘Yes. All three. This morning.’

  ‘Fine. See they’re honoured, then send them another five grand each as a gesture of goodwill, and leak the story to the press. But not through Alison Goodchild: I want you to call Arnott Buchan at the Sunday Herald and tell him that it’s a present from me. Tell him also that we’ve made an agreed termination payment to Aidan Keane’s estate of one hundred thousand pounds, and that the company will meet his funeral expenses as a gesture to his widow. You should clear all this with Phil first, of course, but he’ll agree with me.’

  ‘I’ll do as you instruct,’ said Greg, but there was doubt in his voice.

  ‘It’s the smart thing to do,’ I told him. ‘The Three Bears won’t go away, not all at once anyway. For now they’re a fact of Glaswegian life, so there’s no point in rubbing their noses in their own mess. As for the payment to Keane’s widow, that’s good PR, no more, no less. We’d have spent that much defending an interdict hearing, and you know it.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ he conceded. ‘I’ll get it all rolling now.’

  ‘Good, then do something else for me. Call Sir Graeme Fisher and tell him that I will expect his letter of resignation from the board of the Gantry Group to be in the hands of the acting managing director by close of play this afternoon. Statement to the Stock Exchange tomorrow morning, please.’

  ‘What if he refuses to resign?’

  ‘Then he’ll face a vote of no confidence at the next board meeting, and will be publicly humiliated. But it won’t come to that; he supported Torrent, and he’ll know the consequences now they’ve pulled out.’

  ‘Golden handshake?’

  ‘Not a fucking penny.’

  ‘Who succeeds in the chair?’

  ‘A representative of the minority shareholders. Me.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, you can’t appoint yourself chairman.’

  ‘I think you’ll find that I have the support of the majority shareholder,’ I reminded him. ‘And of another significant player in the company.’ I looked at Gantry again. ‘Isn’t that right, Jack?’

  He gave that cackling, mirthless laugh of his again, and nodded. ‘For now, son, for now. After that, who knows?’

 
‘Oz.’ Greg’s voice was a whisper in my ear. ‘Who are you with?’

  ‘Never mind. Get on with all that.’ I pressed the red button. The Lord Provost reached out a hand. I knew what he wanted and gave him the phone so he could be sure it was switched off.

  ‘No tape either,’ I said, taking off my antelope hide jacket and throwing it on the couch, then turning so that he could see there were no bulges beneath my tight-fitting tee shirt. He looked at my physique. ‘You’ve been working out, son, and no mistake. Better just drop your kegs, in case you’ve got a microphone strapped to your cock.’ I did as he asked; anything to make him start talking.

  ‘So you called off the Bears,’ I said, as I buckled my belt. ‘And bloody Goldilocks as well.’

  ‘I had to. When poor silly Natalie panicked last night and came rushing straight here after you’d spun her your story, I knew the game was up. I knew full well that you’d tail her here, indeed that you’d probably done it before, and that you’d be on to me inside twenty-four hours. So I called the boys and told them to get here.’

  ‘You must have been really pleased with Nat, with her falling for the crap I spun her. She took a nice photo when she left. A bit different from when she arrived, though.’

  Gantry frowned. ‘That was unfortunate. Jock Perry will live to regret doing that. She told them what you had said, you see, that one of the three of them had turned over, and that it was probably either him or Kevin, since she guessed that Ravens had done the boy Keane. Perry was close to her; he gave her a backhander. I have to admit that you had even me wondering for a second.’ He tutted, four tuts, in fact. ‘Topping Keane was a fucking stupid thing to do, especially straight after Nat had been here.’