Deadly Business (30 page)

‘Could you represent me?’

‘Not a hope, chum. Susie’s surviving spouse,
i.e.
Culshaw, would most certainly contest you. As the executor I have to be neutral, so you’d need to get yourself another lawyer.’

‘How about Wylie Smith?’

‘He’s good enough, but he’s too close. He’s a partner in my firm, and there’s the greater complication for him that he’s company secretary of the Gantry Group. He’d probably have to give up that position if he acted for you in such a matter, and frankly, that’s not business I’d want my firm to lose.’

‘I see,’ I murmured. ‘Any ideas?’

‘Sure, but if I gave you a couple and things went against you, you could wind up blaming me, and I wouldn’t want that to happen.’ He paused. ‘You really don’t like this man Culshaw, do you?’

‘That obvious, eh?’

‘Rather.’

‘I have good reason to dislike him. What I can’t understand is why he’s been targeting me so specifically, and Tom for that matter. I’m in no doubt that he’ll kick me out as chair, given the chance. His uncle seems to be my enemy on the board. He’s calling the EGM and he’ll have his nephew’s support.’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t help you there either, for I don’t know. I can see why you would hate his guts, but … let me give you one single piece of legal advice.’

‘What?’

‘If you do take this to court, don’t make it personal.’

‘I’ll do my best, Greg. Thanks for being so frank.’ We shook hands, and he turned to return to the restaurant. ‘Hey,’ I called after him. ‘Who’s your lunch date, by the way?’

‘I can’t tell you that, honestly,’ he replied.

But he didn’t have to. I couldn’t see all the restaurant’s dining area from where I stood but did have a view of a wall mirror, halfway along. As I took a single step to my left, the reflection changed, and I saw, sitting along at a table set for two, a profile that I recognised: that of Duncan Culshaw.

I stepped outside to rejoin Wylie and did some thinking. Culshaw must have caught the first flight out of Nice to get to Glasgow in time for a meeting with Greg, but was he going straight back there? I doubted that; there’s no direct route between the two cities and four flights in a day would have been pushing it. I’d have loved to follow him, just out of interest, to see whether he and Uncle Phil met up, but that wasn’t possible; Fabricant was my priority. But …

I dug out my mobile and called Liam. When he answered after a few seconds, his voice sounded different from the one I’d come to know. ‘Where are you?’ I asked.

‘Burger King,’ he replied, more clearly. ‘You caught me mid-bite.’

‘Burger King,’ I repeated. ‘You?’

‘Mine’s a veggie; Tom’s reducing the animal population.’

‘Are you almost finished? If so, I’ve got a game the two of you might like to play.’

‘Sounds good. What does it involve?’

‘A little sleuthing.’ I explained where I was, and who was inside the restaurant. ‘How would you and Tom like to tail him when he leaves?’

He laughed. ‘That sounds like fun, but how exactly?’

‘I’ve got a hire car parked at the hotel; you can pick it up and park outside. You’ll need it, for I can’t see him walking anywhere.’

‘Are you sure you want Tom involved in this?’

‘As long as he’s with you, what’s the problem? Besides, you’ll need him; he knows what Culshaw looks like, you don’t.’

‘True,’ he conceded. ‘But why can’t you do it?’

‘Frying other fish,’ I told him. ‘My company secretary and I have to go to Edinburgh to corner somebody else. We’ll take the train.’

‘Okay,’ Liam said, cheerfully. ‘Hey, Tom,’ I heard him call, ‘d’you fancy playing detective, like your old man used to?’ I head a muffled reply. ‘He says yes. Bad guys beware: the A Team is mobilised and coming to getcha.’

‘Don’t let him spot you, mind.’

‘No chance. I’ve always wanted to do this sort of stuff. I’ll pick my camera up when we collect the car.’

‘Good idea. If you could get a picture of him with his fucking uncle that would be useful.’

‘You and old Phil didn’t hit it off, then?’ he surmised.

‘That would be an understatement, my darling. If he wasn’t a boring old accountant at heart, I might be watching my back right now.’

‘You’re not serious, are you?’ he exclaimed ‘’Cos if you are, the only place I’m going to be is by your side.’

‘That is noble of you, but I have seen off much, much tougher guys than him. Don’t you worry about me, Sherlock, you just get into position opposite La Bonne Auberge, soon as you can.’

I hung up on him and left him to it. I was under no illusions about Liam’s tracking ability; he could find his way around a woman pretty well, but he was so laid-back generally that I was sure he’d either get lost or give himself away. Regardless of that, though, he was the only show in town as far as I was concerned, and if he could come up with a snap of Duncan and Phil Culshaw deep in conversation, it might do me some good. After my conversation with Greg, I understood the depth of the shit that I was in, and any stick that might haul me out had to be clutched at.

It’s a very short walk from where we were to Queen Street railway station; past the concert hall, down Buchanan Street, turn left and you’re there. We caught the one fifteen train with a couple of minutes to spare and less than an hour later we were in the nation’s capital. In past times Edinburgh was called the ‘Athens of the North’; today the comparisons are with Barcelona, but since that city is four times as large, and its urban sprawl contains as many people as the whole of Scotland, they don’t really bear much scrutiny.

We jumped from one of Scotland’s most expensive trains into one of Britain’s most expensive taxis and asked the driver to take us to Fabricant’s address. He must have read Wylie as a Glaswegian, for he took us for a ride, and no mistake. Sixteen quid fifty later he pulled up outside a building that was less than a mile from the station. He blamed the Princes Street closure, but the chancer hadn’t needed to cross it. I gave him the exact fare, and smiled as I told him in Catalan that he was a chiselling son-of-a-bitch.

Cousland Tower turned out to be one of those blocks that were chucked up towards the end of the last century as Edinburgh business moved out of its traditional Georgian offices into premises that were deemed to be more IT friendly. There was no reception in the lobby, so we rode a glass-walled lift up to the eighth floor and stepped out, into another area with no welcome mat but with a wall board listing the occupants by suite number.

Fabricant’s was to the left, round a corner; the door was solid, with no name, only the number, Three. Wylie rapped on it, gently, and we waited. I was about to give it a more solid thump when it was opened by a tall woman in a hip-hugging dress, with supermodel looks. Her dark hair was piled on her head, her cheekbones were high, and her lips were naturally full, without the aid of collagen or any other agent. Bitch.

If she was surprised, she didn’t look it. ‘Yes,’ she purred, ‘can I help you?’

‘I, I, I,’ Wylie stammered; he still hadn’t got past the hips.

‘Is this Diego Fabricant’s office?’ I asked.

‘Yes, it is,’ the cover girl replied. ‘I’m Kim Coates, his secretary.’

‘Good. We’d like to see him. My name is Primavera Blackstone, and this is my colleague, Wylie Smith.’

‘Mmm,’ she murmured. ‘I’m afraid that Mr Fabricant doesn’t see anyone without an appointment.’

‘Then make one for us.’ I checked my watch; it showed two twenty-eight. ‘Half past two will suit us nicely.’

Her smile was patronising; the Queen couldn’t do that to me and get away with it, and Ms Coates had to be at least ten years my junior. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me a little more than that,’ she laughed.

‘Okay. Try this. Your boss is a director of a company that’s trousered twenty million of my company’s money. My colleague here is secretary of both of them, and he doesn’t know what’s happening to it. So, Tootsie, unless you back off and put me together with your boss, I’m going to stand here shouting so loud and so long that eventually the police will come to see what the fuss is about. Or maybe I’ll give my voice a break and go and fetch them myself. Go speak to him, now!’

She took half a pace back and that was enough. I stepped past her into the suite, with Wylie following, muttering a nervous, ‘Excuse me,’ as he did, but ogling her nonetheless as she sashayed towards the door behind her desk. I could understand why. I guessed that when he’d employed her, Diego hadn’t asked about her doorkeeping abilities. With that body, a wink, a smile and a crooked finger would get her through most situations.

I scanned the office as we waited. The furniture was a strange mix of modern and antique, as if some of it had come from Charlotte Square or some other former base. There was a bloody awful painting of a hunting scene on the wall beside the entrance door, and next to that an honours board, headed ‘Client companies’, with a couple of dozen corporate entities listed below.

I was halfway through scanning them when Ms Coates returned. I’d found Monsoon Holdings Ltd, and was still looking for Babylon Links Country Club PLC. ‘Mr Fabricant will see you,’ she announced, managing to make it sound as if it was an honour and one that had been granted against her advice.

‘Thank you,’ I said, moving towards her boss’s sanctum. ‘By the way,’ I murmured as I passed her, ‘a word of advice. In a dress like that, a woman can always tell when another woman isn’t wearing any.’

‘I imagine you know from experience,’ she hissed.

‘Yes indeed,’ I replied, ‘I surely do, but I never go without in the office.’

I let Wylie go into Fabricant’s room ahead of me … and almost had to catch him. The man was holding a shotgun, its stock pressed to his shoulder and he was sighting it almost straight at us. I was startled too, but I wasn’t going to let him see it.

He held the pose for a second, then broke the breech and laid the weapon on his desk. ‘Shooting party this evening,’ he said, in a public school accent that could have originated anywhere. ‘Just getting the feel for it again.’

‘You should relax a little more,’ I suggested, as we all took seats. ‘You looked a bit stiff.’

He peered at me, over his substantial nose. ‘Indeed? I’ll bear that in mind. Do you shoot?’

‘Not for a while.’ No, not for over fifteen years in fact, and then it had been a pistol.

‘Well, shoot now, Mrs Blackstone, in another way. What can I do for you?’

I held up my left hand; occasionally I wear a wedding ring, but not that day. ‘How did you know it’s Mrs?’ I asked. The window behind him offered a view of the Usher Hall, and also a reflection of the computer monitor on his desk. I could see that it was switched off, and there hadn’t been time for him to look me up and then power it down.

‘I read the business press,’ he replied, without pausing for as much as a beat. ‘You’re in it this morning, quite prominently, if I may say so.’

‘That’s more than I can say about you, Mr Fabricant. Not quite a man of mystery, but you keep a low profile, particularly when it comes to our joint venture, Babylon Links. Mr Smith, here, has never met you, and your name isn’t listed as present at any meeting. Don’t you have a duty to the shareholders of the company you represent, Monsoon Holdings?’

‘My dear lady, I am the sole shareholder of Monsoon.’

‘But you’re not the beneficial owner,’ Wylie pointed out. ‘You’re listed in Jersey as a nominee.’

Fabricant laughed. ‘You have indeed been doing your homework.’

‘It’s not too difficult,’ he countered. ‘My assistant established that on day one. I don’t suppose you’d care to disclose the name of the actual owner of the company, and through that of the land that seems to be its sole asset?’

‘No, I do not care. If that person wished to be known, there would have been no point in using a nominee. Mr Smith, you’re not suggesting there’s anything illegal in what’s been done, are you?’

‘No, I’m not,’ Wylie admitted; he’d been thrown on to the back foot.

‘Me neither,’ I said, ‘but as the chair of your partner I want to know the process that’s led to the Gantry Group being exposed in this way.’

‘Then hadn’t you better ask your managing director?’ Fabricant suggested. The man was confident, annoyingly so.

‘I did,’ I told him. ‘My former managing director, currently suspended from his position. From that, you might gather I wasn’t given a satisfactory answer, so now I’m asking you. Who initiated this deal?’

‘I’ll throw you one bone, Mrs Blackstone. I’m prepared to tell you that Mr Culshaw was approached by a representative of Monsoon. The proposition was that we own a piece of land in Ayrshire that’s ripe for leisure development, and that we needed a fifty-fifty partner to fund the operation.’

‘And how’s our investment going to be recouped?’

‘Entry to membership will be through the purchase of bonds or debentures. These will be marketed internationally. It’s quite a common model; there are many examples.’

‘And how many are currently active,’ I asked him, ‘with the global economy hiding somewhere up its own arse. Man, I don’t live in Scotland, but even I know that the Ayrshire coast is lined with golf courses, and that the current insolvency rate among ventures like this is scarily high.’