East of the City (46 page)

I went calmly across to the sofa and sat down. I rested my left ankle on my right knee and lolled back in the cushions. ‘Nice flowers,’ I said. ‘What’s the celebration?'

‘If you want an appoimment,’ Allen said, getting to his feet, ‘speak to Pam. I might have a window in my diary early next week, that’s the best I can do.’

‘I’m busy next week.’

Allen cocked his head. ‘Have you cleared your desk?’

‘Some of it.’

He exchanged a glance with Angela, not quite sure how to handle this.

‘Ian,’ she said. ‘No-one expects you to be happy with the way things have turned out. But if you want to discuss severance pay, that’ll have to wait.’

‘Till next week,’ Allen put in. ‘Next week at the earliest.’

Nodding towards the caterers, I asked him, ‘Do you want to keep this private?’

‘Ian—’ Allen jerked a thumb over his shoulder — ‘get off my sofa and out of my office. Now. Right now.’

‘How about you, Angela? Or shall I just come straight out with it?’

As usual, she hid her feelings brilliantly. She gave me a thoroughly bored look, like this was a ridiculous game she had to endure. Then she turned and waved the caterers out of the room.

When they were gone, she said, ‘Okay, Ian. Make it brief.’

That’s when I knew for sure. I said, ‘You don’t care, do you.’

‘Care?’

‘About what I say now.’

‘Could I stop you?’ She dropped into a chair by Allen’s desk. ‘But you can save your breath. Allen is -’ she glanced up at him, then quickly away - ‘aware,’ she said.

‘Happy?’ Allen said to me. ‘Now get out.’

I looked him straight in the eye. This was a moment I was going to savour. ‘So you’re aware,’ I said, ‘that Angela was fucking Sebastian.’

There was absolute silence. He was aware all right, and he had been for a lot longer than me, but that wasn’t helping him any right now. I’d just rubbed his nose in his wife’s infidelity, as crudely and as bluntly as I could. He was humiliated, and the fury he felt came off him in waves.

‘For God’s sake,’ Angela said, turning on me like she just couldn’t believe that I’d said what I’d said to Allen.

‘Well.’ I looked from one to the other. ‘It’s good to see that you’ve talked it through.'

Allen came at me. Angela jumped to her feet, blocking him with her arms.

‘Allen,’ she said, ‘Allen.’

He shrugged her arm off, but stayed where he was, in the centre of the room. He pointed at me. ‘I’ll fucking destroy you,’ he said. ‘You are nobody.’

I picked up my briefcase. Then I opened it beside me on the sofa. Taking out the photocopies, I said, ‘Before you get too carried away—’ and I held the photocopies out to them.

‘I want you gone,’ Allen said threateningly. ‘Now.’

But the way Angela looked at the photocopies, I think she must have guessed. And her guess somehow communicated itself to Allen. He made a sound in his throat. Finally Angela came and took them. She barely glanced at them before she pushed them into Allen’s hands and then went and sat down. He studied the sheets, his mouth slightly open.

‘How’s that?’ I said.

He looked up. ‘So we wrote the lead on Connolly and Blythe. So what?’

‘More than that, Allen. Angela knew they were crooks, and still we wrote the lead on Connolly and Blythe.’

He read the papers again, shaking his head. His pose seemed to be that I’d got it all wrong.

I said, ‘And that’s not all we did, is it.’

He turned to the next sheet. ‘We reinsured it? What else is the market there for?’

‘Angela reinsured all of it.’ I pointed at him. ‘And you knew that, Allen. It’s your scratch on the confirmation to the LCO.’ The stuff Lee had given me out at the airport. I faced Angela, she stared at the carpet. ‘And that’s not quite how the situation was explained to me the other night,’ I said.

She didn’t raise her eyes. Eventually she rested her elbows on her knees and buried her head in her hands.

But Allen — Allen bloody Mortlake — he just wouldn’t give up. He put on his angry-face and launched into a defence of Angela that was completely beside the point. I think, even then, he really thought he could steam-roller right over me. Unbelievable. The arrogance. And what made it worse was that I’d seen him put on performances like this before, bullying his way over people to get what he wanted, and those times I’d actually admired him for it. The whole market admired him for it. Allen Mortlake, as everybody knew, was tough. But now, with him waving the evidence of his own crime over his head, shouting at me that I was an imbecile, I saw it quite clearly. Allen Mortlake didn’t know the first thing about tough. Tough was Nev Logan, joking about his cancer. Tough was Tubs, looking after his mother to the bitter end. Tough was my old man, killing himself rather than bend his knee to Sebastian Ward and Allen bloody Mortlake. Tough was definitely not a rich managing director in a suit.

He finished with another order for me to get out. I stayed right where I was, on the sofa.

I said, ‘Tell me that bit again, Allen, where you and Sebastian each get a share of Connolly and Blythe’s claim.’ He laughed at me, but I was way past worrying about that bullshit. I indicated the photocopies. ‘How much was it? Four and a half million quid? That makes it — what? — a third of the claim each. That makes it one and a half for you, one and a half for Sebastian, one and a half for your friends at Connolly and Blythe.’

He raised a finger. ‘Repeat that allegation outside this room, and I’ll sue you till your nose bleeds.’

I reached into my briefcase and took out the final photocopy. This was the clincher. The telex Katy had saved from the fire. I didn’t ponce about with it, I just read it straight out aloud.

‘ "Confirmation of payment. Attention Mr S. Ward. Cheque for the sum of 1,500,000.00 pounds sterling received on 3/7, and deposited to the benefit of account account name Mr A. Mortlake. Funds cleared 7/7 ." ’ I glanced at Allen; he wasn’t glaring any more, the colour was draining right out of him. Then I read the rest. ‘ "Cheque for the sum of 1,500,000.00 pounds sterling received on 3/7, and deposited to the benetit of account number name Connolly and Blythe.Funds cleared 7/7. Regards, Banco della Republica (Jersey) ." ’

Looking up, I held the photocopy out to him. He didn’t take it. 

‘Honestly,’ I said smiling. ‘That’s what it says.'

Angela couldn’t face me, either. She turned and stared out through the glass wall into the atrium. Allen finally came over and took the photocopy. He looked at it and mumbled something about how he thought we could all sort this out, that maybe there’d been a few misunderstandings, but we could resolve them. He mentioned Angela’s job. When I didn’t respond to that, he took another look at the photocopies.

I said, ‘When did you decide to stitch me up, Allen?’

He screwed up his face. He turned to Angela for support but she wasn’t having any of it; she kept her gaze fixed on the glass wall. ‘Me stitching you up?’ he said, turning back.

‘Was it when you saw that photo of Justine and Sebastian?’

‘You’re on drugs.'

‘You must have known back then.’ I glanced at Angela. ‘Both of you, given the history. If Sebastian was shafting Justine, and Justine had signed up on Ottoman, you must have put two and two together. You must have known why she’d done it.’ Like mother, like daughter; Justine had fallen for Sebastian. Only Justine wasn’t half the underwriter Angela was. She didn’t reinsure. ‘The way I see,’ I said, ‘you couldn’t have known much earlier. If you had, you would have settled, wouldn’t you? There’s no way either of you would have let Justine step into court with that hanging over her.’

‘You’re reaching,’ Allen said.

I pointed. ‘You knew right from the start that the Ottoman claim was bent. That’s why Bill Tyler was set loose on it from day one, wasn’t it?’

Neither of them spoke.

I said, ‘Sebastian must have mentioned that he had Mehmet lined up. But when you went into hospital-’ I pointed at Angela ‘- Sebastian decided not to wait. He needed the money. As Nigel Chambers explained to me, WardSure wasn’t in as good a shape as people thought. So Sebastian put it through Justine. She didn’t reinsure, and my guess is he meant to cut you out of your share of the claim. Am I right?’

‘You’re romancing,’ Allen said.

But Angela’s face said something quite different.

‘And at first you must have thought Justine just screwed up. You didn’t think it was her Sebastian had in his pocket, did you? No, at first you thought it was me. And that’s why,’ I said, facing Angela, ‘that’s why before you went into hospital you told me I’d be getting your job, and when you came out after the Ottoman sting you suddenly went cold on the idea. You thought I’d conspired with Sebastian to rip you off.’

She said, ‘You’re drawing a long bow, Ian.’

‘Am I? And then the K and R.’ I turned back to Allen. ‘And after that the murder investigation. Whenever things got messy you made sure I was right in the middle of it. You stitched me up.’

‘Ian,’ Angela said. ‘No-one stitched you up.’

I studied her a moment. Maybe, just maybe, she really believed that.

‘I don’t suppose either of you knows anything about a certain diamond brooch. Possibly Sebastian’s. Shaped like a butterfly?'

Allen’s gaze didn’t flicker. But Angela frowned, her brow creasing. I said to her, ‘It was found in my flat by the police. Someone gave them the idea it was Sebastian’s, and that maybe I’d stolen it when I murdered him and burnt his house down.’

Shocked, she made a sound, almost a gasp, and faced Allen. He wouldn’t look at her.

I said to Allen, ‘Bill Tyler’s a handy bloke to have around, isn’t he.’

Allen dropped the photocopies on the desk, moving away from me.

‘Hard up, what with those two ex-families to pay for. And violent, but in a manageable kind of way. Ideal combination really.’

Now Allen pushed a vase of lilies to the side of his desk. ‘I don’t follow.’

‘Well, let me put you back on track. Bill Tyler’s hard up and violent. And you, Allen, you’re rich and gutless.’

His jaw clenched so tight his neck muscles stood out in cords.

‘You had him plant that diamond brooch in my flat, then you or - him?- tipped Fielding off where to find it. And you knew Fielding was out to nail me for the murder, because I — with my big fucking mouth — I told you. As long as the fingers were pointing at me, they weren’t pointing at Justine or you.’

He sat very still. From over by the glass wall, Angela studied him. This bit she quite obviously had not known. ‘Allen?’ she said.

‘And I told Clive Wainwright, and Clive told you, that Pike had saved some of Sebastian’s papers, and the desk, from the Ward fire. Christ.’ I gestured to the photocopies. ‘You must have died when you heard that one.’

‘I don’t see that any of this is relevant.’

‘Relevant?’ I raked my fingers up through my hair. Very evenly, I said, ‘just tell Tyler from me, that if he ever tries to see my sister again, someone’s going to be up on a murder charge. Just tell him that.’

‘I hardly think—’

‘Just tell him!’

Allen reared back. It was probably the first time anyone had shouted at him in years. But his look, when he came forward again, was dark. As he spoke, he counted the points off on his fingers.

‘The Mortlake Group wrote leads on business that turned out bad. No crime. The Mortlake Group happened to reinsure those leads. No crime. I received the repayment of a personal debt for one and a half million that Sebastian happened to owe me. No crime.’ He indicated the photocopies. ‘You think this is evidence of anything? It’s evidence that a recently sacked employee has a very big axe to grind. No court is going to give you the time of day, son.’ He rose from behind the desk. ‘Now piss off,’ he said. ‘We’ve got guests coming.’

‘They’ve been delayed.’

Angela looked at me curiously. Allen cocked his head.

‘What?’ he said.

‘There’s an important meeting going on upstairs.'

‘Get out.’

‘Piers Crossland,’ I said, pointing a finger upward, ‘and the Chairman.'

It took a moment for this to sink in. When it did, Angela let out a low moan. Allen looked down at the photocopies, then up at me.

I said, ‘I gave Crossland his copies on the weekend.'

This time the colour didn’t just drain from Allen’s face, he went absolutely white. He sat down, holding the desk.

I said, ‘Piers contacted the Chairman straight away. Apparently they had some senior LCO people going through the files all Sunday. They got Max Ward to open the WardSure offices too. They’ve been in there checking on whether full payment was made on those other claims, Nestrel and the rest. You know what? Only a third each time.’

You could see the realization of what I’d done to him take hold. Allen touched his forehead, dazed for a second. Under normal circumstances, he was right, I couldn’t have blown him out of the water with what I’d discovered. But Piers Crossland was not, like me, a nobody. Maybe what I knew about the Mortlakes was useless in court, but in the hands of Piers Crossland it was dynamite. And Piers Crossland wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. The merger might — probably would — still go ahead, but everything would happen on Crossland’s terms now. Suddenly he wasn’t the junior partner. Suddenly he was helping the Chairman of Lloyd’s clear up a very messy situation. Discreetly. Nobody wanted a scandal.

‘You shit,’ Allen said quietly.

Gesturing around, I told him, ‘Maybe you can save the flowers for another time.’

He snatched at the vase on his desk. I think he meant to hurl it at me, but he mis-timed the grab and the vase went skating over the edge and smashed on the floor. A water stain spread out across the carpet.

‘Fuck,’ he said. And then, ‘You.’ He pointed at me, but the rage was choking him, he couldn’t get the words out.

‘Allen,’ Angela said. ‘For God’s sake.'

Then Pam’s voice came over the intercom. ‘Mr Mortlake? The Chairman’s office just called through. They’re asking if you can go up there. Now, if you can, they said.’

Allen looked sick as a dog.

After a long moment, Angela told him, ‘You have to go.’