Payback (12 page)

‘
It’d have to be something pretty important to move the price, given all the flak recently. It’d have to be. And it
is
. On both counts. Can you do it?’

‘
I can try,’ Tom said, scrolling through his electronic diary. There was nothing he could not move.

‘
Good. This is what you do. Fly him first class to Miami. Have a night stop-over there. I’ll fix everything. I know things about Elkins. I know how to give him a good time. How to make him grateful. So, Tom, you do more than just try. Get him out here. Whatever it takes. Call and tell me when.’

Barton
kept private detective agency reports on all the top analysts, fund managers and financial journalists, and was perfectly prepared to use them to further his aims.

‘
I can’t guarantee anything...’ Tom began, but Barton had already hung up.

*

Lydia was about to leave late to join her work colleagues for the party when the night line began to ring. As usual no one was in a rush to pick it up, and Lydia for once did not feel like being Little Miss Responsible. When at last someone did take the call, she was walking through the door as her own phone rang. A colleague was obviously transferring the outside call to her. She almost did not answer even then. But her conscience, as ever, got the better of her.

‘
About that OTS. You told me to call, and, well...here I am.’

‘
Tom!’ She was surprised. Surprised and intrigued.

‘
I know it’s short notice, but I’m at a loose end and thought...Well, how about that drink? Or dinner tonight?’ James Barton’s call earlier had prompted him to take her up on the invitation to ring.

‘
Sure. Why not? Only...Well, there’s this office leaving party I was just off to. I have to show my face.’

‘
Sure. No problem. As I said, I know it’s real short notice. I’m off to Belize soon. We can meet when I’m back. We’ll fix some other time.’

He
sounded genuinely disappointed. ‘Look, why not join us?’ she suggested. ‘We just meet in a pub, so it’s hardly private. These things usually end with everyone piling in for a Chinese or Indian somewhere. But we can skip off early if you like.’

An
hour later, Tom Bates pushed his way through the crush at the Soho pub and caught her eye across the smoky room. Already two large vodkas the worse, she fought her way over and met him halfway. They looked at each other awkwardly, both hesitating over a phoney social peck on the cheek. Then Tom seized the moment. He kissed Lydia fleetingly on the lips, brushing her face with his hand, an arm around her waist pressing her into him. ‘Hello, you,’ he mouthed, before kissing her briefly again.

The
sexual charge that surged between them signalled in that instant that they would at last sleep together that night. That their thus far ambiguous relationship had just irrevocably been resolved, for good or ill. She took him by the hand, leading him proudly over to her work friends. He was, she felt, the best-looking man in the place, and noticed with satisfaction the glances he got from some of the svelte, leggy agency beauties. Especially the two glacial receptionists, blatantly hired as interior design accessories to impress and flirt with clients.

By
eleven o’clock she was happy drunk and in no mood for a raucous balti house. As they left, there was no ‘your place or mine’ debate. The dog needed his last exercise. They could not keep their hands off each other in the cab over to Pimlico, and on arrival Oliver was subjected to the fastest walk of his life.

*

Maddie came into the Chester Street study, closed the door behind her and put her glass of Evian on her husband’s desk. Some friends had asked her out to dinner at a new Mayfair restaurant they wanted to check out, and she had decided to wear her pearls. Along with the rest of her own and the Barton family jewellery, they were kept in the safe, for insurance reasons.

To
her horror, as if in slow motion, she saw the glass tumbling over. Having carelessly put it down on the edge of his blotter, it spilled over a sheaf of papers on which he must have been working. Finding a box of tissues, she dabbed frantically to soak up as much as she could, but it had already made quite a mess. They would inevitably dry out with tell-tale crinkles and water stains. Yet another row when he got back and found them. Trying to make as good a job of it as possible, her eyes caught some of the headings, and she began idly leafing through them. The top sheets seemed to relate to cash-flow forecasts for the Stow plant—the xeno-transplant side of the business. This she now knew something about, having read the magazine article that had recently appeared on him. Curious now, she picked up the other documents. There was one from his lawyers about patent and intellectual property rights. Obviously, she reasoned, if you invented some new cure, you had to protect yourself from the pirates. All tedious stuff.

Satisfied
that she could do no more to repair the damage, she walked over to the opposite side of the room, folded back the section of antique pine panelling, and exposed the wall safe. Having tapped out the code, she removed a file that had been stuffed in, put it on the chair, and took out the red velvet box holding the antique pearls. Her great-grandmother’s. She held the four-string choker momentarily to her cheek loving its coolness, went to the mirror and put it on. As ever, the milky-white pearls drained her face of colour—an effect she sometimes liked. Set against her simple black couture Valentino dress, the consumptive, pre-Raphaelite look perfectly captured her vulnerable mood.

Having
closed the safe and panelling, she collected her glass and was about to leave when she noticed the file left on the chair. Mildly annoyed, she picked it up, and glanced through the contents, suddenly curious at what was in these particular papers for them to have been locked away.

Perching
on the chair, she began to read. The first document was a private detective agency report on a man called Elkins. Some kind of City analyst. It included a copy of his confidential medical insurance health file, with several AIDS tests ringed, copies of his personal bank statements and his latest annual appraisal from the broker employing him. She was appalled that anyone could get hold of such personal things. But was even more horrified when she turned over and saw grainy photographs of the man dressed strangely, performing homosexual acts. She threw the report to one side in disgust and started reading the next document.

This
contained threatening letters from one of James’s bankers. It warned of unacceptably high borrowing; Temple Bio-Laboratories had been put on what the bank called its ‘critical list’, and would be subject to detailed weekly inspections to ensure the firm met the cash-flow forecasts they had already imposed. The language was blunt and frightening.

It
was clear James was in real danger of going bust again. That at least would explain his manic focus on making money, at any cost. And it would explain at least some of his moodiness and irritability.

The
last papers were more difficult to follow. Some were in a foreign language. Portuguese, she thought. And others were technical, relating to the purchase of chemicals, the names of which she did not recognise. But then she saw a copy of a fax in English. Sent from Moscow. It was from someone called Rybinski, and referred to him accepting ‘the Lisbon appointment’, for half a million dollars for that year. But it was the next phrase that sent her blood cold...
‘To
meet
your
brief
,
will
need
at
least
ten
healthy
males
,
18
-
25
.
Destruction
testing
vital
.
You
to
supply
and
dispose
.
’

Her
eyes stared unbelieving at that single, telling stipulation. ‘Eighteen to twenty-five’ ruled out mice, rats, pigs or even apes.

Maddie
’s hand shook as she read it again and again until her head ached.

*

Lydia was woken by Oliver barking at her from the side of the bed. Looking at the clock, she saw it was almost nine o’clock. Horribly late. So late that Oliver was demanding his first walk and breakfast. Alcohol was still coursing through her, and her head pounded with the mother of a hangover. Then she remembered. Remembered everything! Throwing herself over, she realised she was alone. And no sign of his clothes. No sounds from the kitchen or bathroom. Jumping up, she dragged on her robe and rushed out, in a panic. The empty house sneered at her. Waves of guilt, embarrassment and self-disgust washed over her. This was why, this was
exactly
why she had stopped having short-term relationships. Why, why, why had she done it? And with Tom, of all people.

Could
she trust him not to talk? Men always had to boast, or at least hint about these things. An easy lay. A
lousy
, easy lay. That was what he would now think of her. How could she possibly face him again? She would just have to avoid going to the Manor and Chester Street. She would have to lie low for a while, and then somehow just brazen it out later when they did meet again. And unprotected sex too! With a man who spent his life travelling. Who was always in the Far East. Africa even...How could she be so foolish? So girlishly
stupid
?

Then
she saw the note, propped against the sugar bowl. White and sickly looking. Formal. How could words, any words explain? Let alone help? Stalking it, pacing, she dug deep for the courage to open the thing, to cope with the rejection it would inevitably contain. Pulling herself together, she finally tore the flap and read, steeling herself as if against a blow.

Darling
,

Had
a
seven
-
thirty
appointment
.
So
I’ve
left
for
home
,
at
the
crack
of,
to
change
and
pick
up
some
papers
.
You
were
so
deep
in
sleep
I
didn’t
want
to
wake
you
.
I’ve
tried
to
set
your
radio
alarm
for
quarter
to
eight
.
Hope
I
did
it
right!
But
I
can’t
even
set
my
own
Skybox
to record
properly!

Last
night
was
really
special
.
Because
you’re
a
very
special
lady
.
Call
you
later
.
See
you
soon
.

Love
,
Tom
.

She
read it once more, searching every word, every nuance to divine his real meaning. On the surface it seemed straightforward enough. There was none of the morning-after nausea or recrimination. None of the cold, self-centred hostility she had herself felt after a couple of meaningless one-night stands at university. She had always hated that empty, Noël Coward endearment ‘darling’, but how was he to know that? No. On balance, it seemed genuine.

A
gossipy call to Philip about being an hour late, and a quick bath, left her feeling much better. And not a little excited about seeing Tom again.

Chapter Six

‘Gary? Hi. Tom here. How goes it?’ Tom pushed his computer key pad aside and reclined, putting his feet on his desk.

‘
Fine. And you? Still down-sizing corporate Europe for a living?’ Gary joshed.

‘
Right
-sizing! That way it doesn’t sound so bad.’

‘
Well excuse
me
. I’m sure the losers you people throw on the trash heap feel
so
much better, being
right
-sized and all.’ The Texan accent had not softened even a fraction over the three years he had been stationed at the American Embassy. ‘Anyhow, what is it you want? I’m kinda busy right now.’

Gary
was ex-WMC, and like all the consultancy’s old staff, was in everyone’s alumni networking database. ‘You know people in the FBI and CIA over here,’ Tom said. They had talked about it once after Gary confided in him that he had been asked to join the Agency soon after his arrival in Grosvenor Square. ‘Well, I need to know something.’ He told him about his meeting with Mitchell, and that the Englishman had claimed to have cleared the approach with the embassy security people. ‘Can you check it out for me? I need to know if it’s official or not. And quickly.’

Gary
promised to phone him back as soon as he found anything out, and was as good as his word. In less than an hour, following a visit to the FBI legat on the fourth floor, he was on the line. ‘This Mitchell guy’s genuine enough. They call him The Recruiter. Works for MI6, but he’s now semi-retired and under cover of some commercial job. Big hitter in his day. His name gets a lot of respect from our people here. It seems he spent some time in the States as UK liaison officer with the CIA. Until his semi-retirement, he continued as the main link between London and Langley, working out of Vauxhall.’

‘
And has he asked them about me?’ Tom had known intuitively that Mitchell was genuine. But to learn that he was such a senior player only served to alarm—and intrigue—him all the more.

‘
Sure has. They gave him your file—’

‘
My—What goddamnn file!’

Gary
laughed at his old friend’s naïvety. ‘You don’t think that people like you can globe-trot—Russia, China, the old Soviet bloc states—and whiz in and out of major defence and pharmaceutical corporates without being checked out, do you? Wake up!’

‘
Have you seen it? My file?’ This whole secret world was beginning to draw him in, a moth to the flame.

‘
I shouldn’t have. But I did get to sneak a view.’

‘
And?!’

‘
Hey...I can’t divulge a thing. No way,’ he teased, before finally relenting. ‘But...and this buys a favour back sometime when
I
need one. Well, you know your last trip to Moscow a couple of years ago, and that girl you somehow managed to charm into bed? The brunette dining next to your party at that restaurant by Gorky Park?’

Tom
made a strangulated noise, a mixture of anger and fear. ‘What the hell...?’

‘
Well, it seems she was FSB. That’s the newly formed KGB. They were very interested in the assignment that took you over there. For the computer company. You probably felt hung over in the morning? That right?’

‘
Why?’ Tom was now defensive. He had most certainly felt desperately hung over and distinctly odd the next day.

‘
Because she drugged you, and after your...shall we say, tryst?...she made copies of just about everything you had in your document case. And laptop.’

Tom
felt sick. ‘Are you sure?’

‘
Absolutely. But the Bureau checked things out with firm’s own security people, and it seems you could have given them nothing they didn’t have already. So no big deal. Except you’ll be forever categorised as a patsy. Someone who can’t keep his dick in his pants.’

‘Enough!’

‘
And
- people here assume she’ll have taken, er, interesting pictures of the two of you together. For possible future use. That’s S.O.P.’

‘
S.O.P?’

‘
Standard Operating Procedures. Sap!’

‘
This isn’t funny! And what else does the report say about me?’

‘
Just that you’re someone who travels a lot, and has access to a wide range of important business people and bankers. And some political fixers in the east of Europe. There’s a whole lot of guff about your relationship with Sir James Barton. They obviously have you down as someone open to routine honey traps, but clean of drugs and other illegals.’

‘
And what do you think? You know about these things. Should I agree to help?’

Gary
snorted in disbelief. ‘Hell no! It’s all downside. That’s why I didn’t join the Agency. Tell this Mitchell guy to go screw himself. You’d be crazy to put yourself in harms way for these people. They’re all bastards. That’s their job. And this Mitchell guy’s one of the best there is. Stay out of it.’

*

‘Hallo. It’s me. Maddie.’

Lydia,
surprised to hear her voice, looked away from her computer screen, glanced towards Philip to check he was too busy to eavesdrop, and focused her mind. The two women in James Barton’s life rarely spoke one to one. ‘Hi. This is a surprise. Where are you?’

‘
I’m in town. At the house. Look. I was wondering if you were free for lunch today. I mean, I guess you’re real busy, but...’

Lydia
’s mind spun, trying to get a fix on what this could be about. Whatever it might be, it was certainly intriguing. ‘Yes. Sure. But only a quick bite. I have got a lot on...’

Maddie
mistakenly took this as an implied attack on her as a ‘lady who lunches’. It had not been meant that way. Lydia really was very busy, and behind with things. ‘Just a sandwich somewhere then,’ she replied with an edge.

Lydia
sensed that she had inadvertently hurt the woman. ‘No, no. I’m fine for an hour or so. I know a very nice salad and pasta place near here. Veggie, I’m afraid. If that’s OK?’

‘
Fine. I’ll come to you then. Twelve-forty-five-ish OK? See you then.’

Lydia
hugged herself nervously after Maddie had hung up. What could it be about? What would they talk about? Dad? The houses? The twins? Tom even...? Deep down she liked Maddie well enough as a woman, but all daughters had difficulties in relating to stepmothers. Especially young, attractive, title-hunting American stepmothers. But that all seemed to go with this particular emotional territory, and need not, surely, stand in the way of them getting closer.

Thinking
this made her decide that it was time to stop sitting and waiting for Tom’s promised call. She would call him now and judge how things really stood between them. Before she lost her nerve, she reached for the phone.

He
was not in the office and she next tried his mobile. ‘Bates.’ His voice was clipped and businesslike.

‘
Hello, Bates,’ she said. But as she spoke, the signal broke up, and she could not make out his reaction. ‘Hello? Tom! Tom! Can you hear me?’ Suddenly robbed of the immediacy of his response, she panicked. How was he reacting to her calling him like this, on the hop—and at work? After all, what exactly was there to their so-called relationship? A night of sweaty, drunken love-making, and a neutral letter on a sugar bowl. Was she really building some fantasy relationship on so little? Get real, she chided herself.

The
line then went dead as the signal finally gave up the ghost.

Deciding
firmly against ringing again, she reasoned that he probably would not even have recognised her voice over a bad connection. Cursing herself, she got on with some work and called up a TV contractor, giving him a hard time for letting her down. A minute or so later, Philip suddenly leaned over and stuck a mini Post-it sticker on the tip of her nose—something he often did, and which he knew annoyed the hell out of her. It would be Philip’s turn to get a tongue-lashing when she was finished with her current hapless victim. Shooting him an angry look, she peeled it off and read the message he had neatly written out. ‘Call Tom back. ASAP.’

Her
heart leapt and she cut short her call and re-dialled the mobile number. ‘Tom?’

‘
Lydia! Hi!’ His voice sounded genuinely excited.

‘
How did you know it was me?’ she asked, still unsure of herself.

‘
It was spooky. I was thinking of you a few minutes ago, hunting for your number, when there you were—on the line.’

‘
And what were you going to say?’

‘
Just that last night was really special. That you are really special.’

‘
And I should believe this, should I? I mean, you do have something of a reputation, you know. Are you sure that it wasn’t just some reminder call from your smartphone to telephone last night’s
femme
du
jour
?’

‘
Hey. You’re not a client, you know. They
pay
me to be nice. On my free time I’m generally obnoxious. Ask anyone. Me being nice without a fee? This
must
be the real thing.’

She
began to soften. ‘I got your note this morning. Fact or fiction?’

‘
Fact.’

‘
Prove it.’

‘
How?’

‘
You’re the smart consultant. You figure something out, something convincing,’ she teased.

‘
OK. Dinner tonight. And later I’ll be suitably—what?—Turandotian. You know? Ready to face any of your tests.’

‘
There’ll be only one test,’ she laughed sexily. ‘And for that—
nessun
dorma...
’

Lydia
had started to recognise he was the kind of person who had to talk about personal, emotional issues obliquely, usually using the prop of humour, irony or parables. ‘But if there really was a dinner invitation wrapped up in all of that, you’re on.’

‘
Nut cutlets at eight?’ he teased, but the signal was beginning to fade again.

*

Banto had been quietly adjusting to the new world around him ever since his kidnap in PNG. That’s what warriors did to stay alive. They watched, listened and adapted. At any cost, they survived.

As
he could not run, he exercised his muscles instead by tensing and then relaxing them. And as he could not sleep deeply, he visited the quiet, very private hollow tree inside his head to refresh himself and become strong. The words aerobics and yoga were unknown to him, but he instinctively practised both to a high degree of sophistication.

Above
all, though, he had been learning voraciously. His retentive memory had by now virtually re-mastered the basics of English, and the context in which words were used. At airports, on planes, there in the lab, between people not addressing him. In his head, and by whispering softly to himself—he was an extraordinary mimic, like the monkeys and birds of his forests—Banto practised the hundreds of words and sentences he had retained. Watching no less intently, he had also observed how they used small tools to eat, and a different kind to make marks on paper-leaves. He accepted without question that they could also talk to people not there by tapping and pressing banana-shape, shiny creations to their faces. And he observed the very clear tribal hierarchies. The big man who had just arrived—they called him Sir James—was obviously the chief: the big
kepala
, with his strange corn-coloured hair, blue eyes and pig nose. The other brutal man, Bolitho, who had killed the rascal and brought him all this way, was an important warrior. The man who now took from him—Dr Penny—was another tribal leader, a medicine man. And then there were the low people who, he observed, were treated with no respect. The women. And the black men.

One
of the Caribs now came in to his cell. It was the usual time to deliver the last feed of the day. The routine had been set days earlier, and Banto was expecting him. Ready for him. Tonight, he had decided, it was time to show them what a warrior could do. The loss of blood was making him weaker by the day, and he knew that if he was to escape, it had to be soon while he still had some strength.

Slamming
the food and water down contemptuously, the man made to leave, not even having bothered to look at him. Banto had all along cultivated the impression of a cowering, subdued prisoner, meekly doing as he was told. Until that day he had never physically fought back or resisted, even when he was beaten. As a result, the guards took his compliance and cowardice for granted. This was exactly as it should be, Banto knew. His enemies underestimated him.

As
the man turned his back, leaving to lock the door, Banto spoke for the first time. ‘What is your name?’ His accent was American from the Christian missionaries who first taught him, and from his exposure on the endless flights to Bolitho.