Connections (37 page)

The attitude of near-triumphalism she had noted in Barbados was not here in this house. It was not just London, the dark and cold of Britain. What was it? Sophia was unnerved, there were many phone calls, many people coming and going at night. Sleep swept over her. She woke some hours later, got under the covers and fell asleep again.

Dickie Jethro came into the breakfast room where Fleur sat alone at eight the next morning. He looked brisk in casual clothes, brown corduroys and a sweater. He bent over her and kissed her cheek, sat down and shouted, “Philomena!” The housekeeper was already coming in. “Bacon – an egg – sausages,” he ordered.

She looked at him sternly. “Sir Richard—” she said.

“Madam's asleep upstairs,” he told her. “So only you and I will know.” He leaned back in his chair. “Sometimes a man needs a proper breakfast and to forget what doctors say.”

“Did you work very late last night?” Fleur asked.

“Late enough for an old man,” he told her. “I'd have laughed when I was twenty-five. Then again, at twenty-five I wouldn't have been trying to raise three million in cash at short notice.”

“Gosh,” said Fleur. “To put in a bag and give to …?”

“Clients,” he announced, “can be very difficult.” He smiled. “Don't mention this at dinner tonight. Peter Strauss, my partner,
is coming with his wife. Roughly put, he's the banker and I'm the investor. Unlike US investment banks, British merchant banks have depositors. Peter watches over them. So Peter's the conserver and I'm the creator. It's a natural human division, but not necessarily without its conflicts. One thing is, he can't stand the clients asking for their own money. Deep down he believes it belongs to the bank. So don't give him a shock over the smoked salmon. That's what we'll be eating because it's almost the only thing he likes.”

The housekeeper brought in his plate and he tucked in. “Takes me back,” he said. “When I was a little boy my grandfather was still working in the docks. He'd leave the house at six in the morning and I'd get up and have the breakfast he'd cook for both of us. I can still remember his big boots standing in the kitchen ready to put on. Huge boots with steel toe-caps. His father was a farm labourer. You're from peasant stock, Fleur.”

“How did you get out?” she asked.

“Dad had an office job in the shipyards,” he told her. “I went into a high street bank, then into an investment bank. When Maggie got elected in 1979 I was at Devere Hatton, a conservative culture, slow and stodgy. Then it all took off, and, good for me, I'd just bought into Strauss Jethro Smith. You've heard of the Big Bang?” He was eating rapidly as he talked.

“Yes,” said Fleur.

“It made me,” he told her. “And I can truthfully say that, at a time when the competition's overextended, Strauss Jethro Smith is still sound as a nut.” He looked at her sharply. “There's a hole where the next Jethro of Strauss Jethro Smith ought to be.”

Fleur laughed. “I'm not the person. The last firm I had went bust,” she said.

“Almost. You have to go through it once. It's a rite of passage. There are very few top businessmen in this country who haven't felt the ground shaking beneath their feet at least once. That's how we do it, for ourselves and the country. Take risks – that's the game. The only one that's worthwhile.”

The housekeeper came in and told him Henry Jones was
waiting for him in the car outside. He got to his feet. “I'll see you at dinner tonight,” he said.

Fleur poured herself more coffee. Her father seemed in good spirits today, she thought. Last night's crisis, if there had been one, must have been resolved. Had he just offered her a job and a share of a merchant bank just then, or not?

She stood up and went to Camera Shake, arriving before Jess. She tried Dominic's mobile, still off, and then their flat. No one answered. There should have been someone in, asleep, at nine on Saturday morning, she thought. So had either of them slept there the previous night?

Jess arrived, hair flying. “I showed those pictures of August Tallinn to Dominic and Joe,” Fleur reported. “They said he was the man who beat up their friend.”

As she spoke the phone went and it was Sophia, naming a place for lunch and suggesting she bring her colleague with her. Jess agreed to come along and Sophia said, “Good – I'll book for all three of us, then.”

“She wants to fix you up,” said Jess.

“I know. There's a dinner party tonight. The bank's chairman is coming.”

“Try to suggest he invests in a film,” Jess said. “What are you doing back at Eaton Square anyway? I thought it was all over between you, when you took French leave from Barbados?”

Fleur knew she couldn't tell Jess the whole story of what she was doing at Eaton Square, nor about the stranger, Sam Hope, who had turned up in the pub. Jess was married to Adrian, Adrian was a journalist and Fleur sensed that Jess, however much she promised, would not be able to keep quiet about it all. Whatever the truth was, the last thing they all needed at this moment was a journalist digging for a story.

She only told Jess, “I think they're still trying to adopt me. I don't think it's any good – I'm too old. If they want an orphan they should go to a children's home and find someone who really needs it.”

During the morning Fleur made two further attempts to contact Dominic and Joe, continued to receive no answer and became
increasingly worried. The man, Hope, had suggested people were out to hurt them. Had someone already done it? Were they in hospital, or worse? Or had Hope dragged them off somewhere himself? She wasn't sure what to do. If Dominic and Joe were in hiding, reporting them missing was not what she ought to do. But if they were in trouble, she needed to get help.

Finally, Dominic called and said, “We're not at home. Listen – I thought my mobile was on. But be careful what you say on it.”

She had to be guarded anyway because Jess was nearby in Debs' tiny bathroom getting ready to go out to lunch.

“Why did you go to Eaton Square?” he asked.

“I'm trying to help,” she told him.

“I wish you – well, be very careful. Fleur. I don't know when we'll meet again. We might have to go away, keep moving for a bit.”

“Where's Jason?” she asked.

“Here with me. Look – I'm really sorry … Are you crying?”

“No,” she said.

“Yes you are … I'm in touch with the man we met last night. I'm sure we can get this sorted soon.”

“You bloody can't,” she said. “How can you? I love you.”

“I've got to go. I love you too,” he said and broke the connection.

Jess came screaming out of the bathroom, comb in hand. “That was Dominic, wasn't it? You said you loved him. You're mad.”

Fleur told her, “It's more complicated than you think.”

“Oh yeah?” Jess said aggressively. “Explain why.”

Fleur could not. “Let's just go and have this lunch,” she said.

Jess wouldn't leave it alone. In the taxi to Knightsbridge she said, “What's going on? How come suddenly it's Dominic? Is he in trouble? Why? Come to that, why are you at Eaton Square? There's something going on, isn't there? What's happening?”

“It's a mess,” Fleur told her.

“If Dominic Floyd's involved it's bound to be. People like that are always trouble. And if you stick around you'll be in a mess, too.”

“It was so straightforward with Ben,” Fleur said angrily. “All
I had to do was put my flat up as security for the business and then one day find him gone and the office besieged with creditors. No trouble there, of course.”

“So you solved it by taking up with a street person,” Jess retorted. “So – why
are
you at Eaton Square?”

They were getting close to their destination and Fleur changed the subject. “You can't say Sophia's not being nice. After all, if she has children of her own she'll want a big chunk of Jethro for them. It's still a harem situation in those circles – lots of marriages and all the women thinking about the prospects for their own offspring. Or a medieval court where everybody wants to get to the throne.”

In the restaurant, a smiling Sophia greeted them. “Let's order. I want to buy you a dress for dinner tonight, Fleur. Please allow me. Dickie would be so pleased. Jess – you'll come and help, won't you?”

In this quiet restaurant with its bleached tablecloths and gleaming glasses and cutlery nothing seemed quite real to Fleur.

She thought of Dominic and Joe, with Jason. It was cold now and getting colder. Snow had begun to flurry around. If they went back on the streets again they'd be finding it hard. Soon Sophia would sign a bill for a sum which would be enough to cover two or three weeks' groceries for a poor family and then they would swan off to try on clothes in stores where even a scarf would cost as much as the meal. Then she would buy Fleur a dress. It all seemed quite easy, quite natural and as if the events of the previous night had never taken place.

For Fleur they bought a beaded dress in a faded rose colour and a velvet scarf to go with it. Jess, once they'd started shopping in earnest, got herself a flaming chiffon shift and a lot of new make-up, her manner indicating to Fleur that in spite of Adrian's presence at home in Highgate there was a new man somewhere in the background.

They went back to Eaton Square in the car and while Sophia was discussing final arrangements for the dinner with the housekeeper Jess plopped down in a chair in the drawing-room by a
roaring log fire. She gave a relaxed sigh and said, “I could get used to this.”

The manservant came in, took out a large arrangement of white and yellow flowers, put them down outside the door and brought in another which he put on a low table by the window.

“I can see the flowers would be a worry,” Jess continued, “and the seating plan for dinner. Otherwise I think I could cope. Fleur,” she added, “you look miserable. What's the trouble?”

“I really can't tell you, Jess. Especially here.” Fleur was still not sure she could trust Jess not to tell Adrian, so she prevaricated. “I'll come over tomorrow.”

“OK,” said Jess. “But can you find time to read some scripts? We've still got a living to earn.”

“I'll try,” said Fleur.

Jess looked around her, sighed, got up from the fire and said reluctantly, “I must go.” Fleur went upstairs to read scripts in her bedroom.

The snow continued to fall outside her window and she imagined Joe and Dominic, and Jason, out in the street in it. Where were they? she worried, while she sat, as if wrapped in cotton wool, in the warmth and luxury of her father's house.

After I left the pub I went down to Goolies' smallholding. It would take a bit of time for Robinson to report he hadn't been able to contact me, a bit longer for Prothero to flounder about, wondering what it was safe to do. I guessed I'd be all right at Goolies' place for as long as it took me to organise my transport out of the country.

On the way down to Kent I stopped and gave Hoppo a ring. I asked if he'd go round to Eaton Square and take pictures of those who came and went at Jethro's house. There might be a percentage, if things were hotting up, to seeing who was coming and going at Eaton Square.

Down in Kent I relaxed. Goolies and I sat in his front room with the blue curtains and the red velvet suite. There were pictures of his family – weddings, holidays and christenings – all over the room on every surface. Goolies' missis had gone off to bed with the grandchild, one that Goolies' daughter had dropped and left two years earlier. This infant slept in a crib in their bedroom.

We sat up late in front of the fire, drinking beer. I told him the whole story as I knew it and added, “I'm sorry, Goolies, but it looks as if I might have to suspend operations. For the foreseeable – maybe forever.
”

He said philosophically, “All good things come to an end. But it may get sorted yet. It looks like a cock-up to me. That's what happens when men behind desks get involved. They don't have to stand the consequences like you do in the field. It seems to me at stage one they should either have knocked off the three homeless kids or paid them heavily to leave the country and never come back. Threatened them a bit.” He paused, thinking. “Maybe
they weren't taking them too seriously at first… Tallinn and the girl's father, if it was him, had to be doing some private business neither of them wanted anyone to know about. Then Tallinn lost it with the girl he picked up and the others, Floyd and Carter, were suddenly witnesses. So Jethro called the plod and claimed the three of them burgled him, in case they went to the police with their story and all this private business came out. Accusing them of burglary would take the wind right out of their sails. Who was going to be believed – Sir Richard Jethro, important guy with plenty of contacts, or three toe-rags off the street, one a drug addict? So the police enquiries send them flying – then it's over. But then you get called in, months later, to find them. And you can't, not with the time and money available. I can't see why they needed you. Or why they gave up looking.
”

“
I think Jethro just wanted to keep tabs on them. So he had a word at the Home Office. He wouldn't have needed to supply any explanations. They'd just help out a pal. So Pugh was put in charge of the search. He called me. I don't know what Jethro, if it was Jethro, planned to do when he'd found them. Maybe it was just sensible reconnaissance, no action till necessary. When I couldn't find them he just thought they'd gone and were shutting up and his mind moved to other things. He's a busy man.

“
Five years later, when they called me in to find the threesome again, something had to have changed. Must have. Between the first attempt to find them and the second, something else had happened.
”