Moroccan Traffic (31 page)

His eyes had opened. My mother, pursued by Lenny, made a Dalek-type exit and began clanking cups, leaving Lady Kingsley beside me. She didn’t take the hint. She said, ‘No. Either you trust me, or you don’t.’

There was a silence. Then Johnson said, ‘Rita?’

‘Men!’ said the dyslectic head of the MCG company. ‘Of course we bloody trust her, but she’s married, isn’t she? To Sir Robert, isn’t she? What right have you to meddle with that? Lady Kingsley, he’s going to speak about Sir Robert. Do you want to hear?’

Charity Kingsley was pale. She sat, her hands on the arms of her chair and said, ‘I’d be a damned poor wife if I didn’t. Don’t think, because I mend Robert’s fences, that I won’t add my shout on his side. And if, in the end, you want to keep me here, I shan’t make it difficult.’

‘They may have to,’ said Rita. ‘This is serious.’

‘Is it?’ said Morgan. ‘May I say I’m bloody glad to hear it?’

‘You may,’ said Johnson. ‘You may also take this meeting if you want to. In fact, I wish you would. Doris, I said whisky and I meant it. I’m sorry.’

She had brought nine cups on a tray that looked like a roll-on ramp held up by hawsers. She stood, her jaw swerved to one side, her eyes on Oliver. Then without a word she set about dishing out coffees while Lenny went and poured whisky into a tumbler. He was a small, soft-footed man with muscles like wire. He put no water in the whisky at all. Johnson took it in a green hand, drank, and set the glass down on the card table with a crack. Because of the green you couldn’t tell how drunk he was. He said, ‘Well, Mo?’

‘Not at all,’ said Mo Morgan. He had picked up the pack of cards and was doing long, elaborate flips with them. ‘The Chair is yours. I’m sure you know what to do with it. Item, Minutes of the last meeting – but we didn’t have one, did we? You’ve been poncing about entirely on your little own. Item, Apologies. Oh dear, Mr. Oppenheim couldn’t be here.’ He was angry, all right.

Johnson said, ‘Simmer down. Let’s get started. Two of you know exactly what’s happening, two have a good idea and the rest of you have to be told, for your own safety and, indeed for ours.’

‘Ours?’ said Lady Kingsley.

Johnson glanced at her. He said, ‘Accept for the moment that the yacht is my base, and Lenny and Oliver help me on her. Accept, too, perhaps that Rita and Rolly are old friends. When I need help with radio transmitters, like today, then I get it.’

‘Accept, too, that today you were armed?’ said Lady Kingsley.

‘Are you sorry?’ said Johnson.

I thought of the explosion, the flames, and blackened cinders where the man with the rifle had been. Lady Kingsley said, ‘We should be grateful, perhaps. But I should like, yes, to know more. Business espionage seems a more violent affair than I imagined.’

She didn’t know, then, why the London bomb was set off. No one told her. Roland Reed intervened. He had a split lip. ‘There’s a lot of it about, Lady Kingsley. Bugs are fixed; people are wired; electronic mail tapped; couriers intercepted. Key technicians are bribed or blackmailed or discredited. Everyone’s caught out some time.’

‘Rolly’s C3 defence speech, slow handclap Rolly,’ said Johnson. ‘She knows, we all bloody know it isn’t common for gangs of bully boys to be found trampling all over the pavements hammering chosen representatives of Upper Management as well as each other. For one thing, it gets into the papers. So obviously we’re not in your ordinary rat race, although business strategy has something to do with it. Why did we come here?’ He looked like a good course instructor, except that they don’t come in green.

‘Because of us,’ Rita said, participating dutifully. The streaks had come off round her nose. ‘Kingsley Conglomerates proposed to take us over.’

‘And wanted to begin with a little private wooing,’ Johnson said. ‘I
do
remember. I got Sir Robert all annoyed and set the whole game up in Marrakesh, sorry Wendy. When Rita refused to be taken, the going got rough and then extremely rough: courtesy Gerry, who went the whole hog; and courtesy pretty pictures of extremely pretty Wendy of which I want copies. The obvious reason for the takeover attempt was that Kingsley’s couldn’t afford Morgan short term without Rita’s outlets. The other reason was that Sir Robert was planning to sell someone Kingsley Conglomerates, and the someone wouldn’t take them without Rita.’

He was looking straight at Charity. And Charity said, ‘That is news to me.’

Rita said, ‘We’re fairly sure of it. We gave Sir Robert a test question at Asni. Of course we refused his takeover. We don’t want unknown masters.’

‘Never mind that,’ said my mother. ‘Bolt-on Goodies, this is what we are talking of. Rita—’ She broke off. ‘What makes you call yourself Rita? Marguerite, that is a nice name. And you like your hair that way?’

‘
You
don’t bother,’ said Rita. She just looked interested.

‘I am a smallest-room girl,’ said my mother.

‘Back-room,’ I said. ‘What about Rita?’

My mother put down her cup, a movement of an inch and a half. ‘She is a nice girl, and has a nice company, and is important. But A Company’s Competitive Edge Depends Upon People. Whoever takes over Kingsley Conglomerates, they will need Mr. Morgan much more than they will need the MCG.’

‘Doris,’ said Johnson. It sounded wistful.

‘Yes?’ said my mother. ‘You want a pipe? You’ve had too much whisky. Rita agrees.’

‘Doris,’ said Johnson again. ‘Belt up, will you? Having said that, you’re right. Business Deal Number One, Kingsley’s want to take over Rita. Business Deal Number Two, person or persons unknown want to take over Kingsley’s. Business Deal Number Three, Morgan is being privately courted to buy himself out of Kingsley’s at the cost of astronomical debt which may or may not commit him to another master altogether. A series of moves with which the City is perfectly competent to deal in the normal way, and which in the normal way would be a matter for careful and mannerly negotiation. But.’

He stopped. I thought he had run out of steam, or he had heard something we hadn’t. I looked round. Charity’s face, except for her eyes, was artificial as plastic. Rita was biting her nails. Roland Reed was doing something to his split lip with a clean handkerchief. Morgan had stopped flipping the cards and was sitting outstaring Johnson, his ferrety chin on his chest. I could see his underlids and the whites of his eyes, and the cherry still on top of his head.

My mother stabbed a Gauloise into her mouth, lit it, and drew on it so fiercely it nearly came down her nose. She said, ‘You’re not one for responsibility, no?’ She was speaking to Morgan.

He turned his head. His dark skin looked a shade hectic. He said, ‘Sod it, why pick on me? It’s not my fault if Sullivan’s into rape, mass murder and mutilation; I didn’t appoint him. I’d no part in the muck-raking. I don’t want to spend my working life de-programming hitmen. I’d have considered Oppenheim’s offer, if he hadn’t been forced to withdraw it. Is that irresponsible? Or more so than your family painter here, who’s been two-timing us from the beginning?’

‘As a secret backer of Rita?’ said Lady Kingsley. No one answered her.

Johnson drew an irregular breath and compressed it, looking at Morgan. He said, ‘If you know that, you also know why.’ The compression burst. He said, ‘Until quite recently, I thought you really didn’t know what the stakes were. But, you stupid sodding prima donna, you did.’

He had insulted Morgan before, and been given back as good as he gave. This time, it wasn’t like that. It was savage.

Morgan said, ‘Do you have a cassette player?’

‘For the Asni tape? No, I don’t,’ Johnson said.

‘Not the Asni tape,’ Morgan said. ‘Oh no, not at all. That only rubbished Sir Robert and Wendy. No. You remember – of course you do – that Wendy’s mother spent the whole of today with Ellwood Pymm at your suggestion? You twigged that Pymm needed insider facts for
his
bosses. So you let her string him along, feeding him figures and hinting that he might find Wendy helpful. Sir Robert’s tactics, in fact. And Mrs. Helmann, because she is a nice, intelligent woman, performed like a hero. And because she wasn’t born yesterday, she listened to Pymm when he asked her, as a favour, to get into the room where Oppenheim was going to talk to Mo Morgan, and plant a tape-recorder there. And afterwards, to retrieve it and give him the tape.’

I looked at my mother. Everyone did. She was staring at Johnson: black brows, black eyes, the smoke from the Gauloise screwing her eyes and drifting into the thornbush of her hair. I knew she’d done it. I knew how she’d done it. The shopping bag with the sock in it had been in Oppenheim’s room all the time he was speaking to Mo and me. She had recorded all that happened, including all Sir Robert said, bursting in with the photographs. She had recorded Oppenheim’s surrender, and Morgan’s bitter statement of intent.

Johnson said, ‘She told you she’d done this?’

‘I wonder why she didn’t tell you?’ Morgan said. ‘Yes, she told me before we left Auld’s house. She also gave me the cassette. I still have it.’

Johnson’s eyes stayed on him. Then they moved to my mother.

He said, ‘So Pymm’s men wanted you anyway? They wanted the tape?’

‘And have I not given it to Mr. Pymm as he wished?’ said my mother. ‘With the warm Texas handshake? Not realising in my state of elderly faff I have handed him the wrong one? There’s always tapes in my shopper; I keep them for Wendy. They’ll be turning my bag over now, and your toe, Mo, I’m sorry. I know the very cassette I gave Mr. Pymm.
Overcoming the Anxiety of Change
, it was called. He must have played it pretty damn quick.’

‘Doris?’ Johnson said. I still couldn’t see his expression under the green. ‘I love you to die. So the real recording is here?’

‘But what’s the point? You haven’t a player,’ said Morgan.

‘For that, I have,’ Johnson said.

Morgan smiled. It wasn’t a smile I’d seen before, and I didn’t like it. He said, ‘Well, now. Why don’t you bring it out and we can all hear it?’

There was a pause, but it didn’t last long. Johnson said, ‘I would gather you’ve played it. All right. So be it. It’s open-kimono time, folks. Rita? There’s a machine somewhere about?’

Oliver said, ‘There are nine people here.’

‘Three more to make a jury,’ Morgan said.

‘Six more to make a rugby side. Don’t be a berk,’ Johnson said. ‘A pig-ignorant twit, but not a berk.’

Morgan’s angry smile only widened. ‘Oh, look. We’ve sobered you,’ he said. ‘What a pity.’

‘Adds to the thrills,’ Johnson said. ‘Lenny? I need fifteen minutes.’

Fifteen minutes proved to be the same amount of whisky with as much water again. Then the tape machine was brought in, and the tape from Auld’s party was played.

Only Oppenheim, Morgan and I knew the conversation it began with, and the same three people and Sir Robert knew how that interview ended. The photographs were produced; Sir Robert strode out, and Morgan and I spoke, and then left the room also. The tape ran silent, and Johnson touched it off. He said, ‘Wendy. Did you see the pictures of Muriel?’

I said, ‘We saw the sunbathing ones on your yacht.’

‘But the others?’ he said. ‘The ones that shook Oppenheim so badly?’ He looked directly at me and not at Morgan, whose face had produced one of his small split-pea smiles.

I said, ‘No. Were you in them?’

‘No, as it happens,’ Johnson said. ‘Not even Muriel was in them, I rather fancy. I don’t especially want to explain, but I rather suspect that I’ll have to. Yes, Mo?’

The split-pea smile widened. ‘You haven’t finished the tape,’ Morgan said.

‘I was sure you would remind me,’ said Johnson. He looked down at the tape. Something about him reminded me of Rita in the car coming from Asni, and her hesitation before she switched on. He looked at Lady Kingsley, and at me and my mother. He said, ‘After Wendy left, Oppenheim had another visitor. The meeting was secret, and of course no one was aware it was being recorded. I don’t suppose even Mrs. Helmann knew, when she took out the tape, that she had two meetings on it, not one. The mercy is that she gave the tape to Morgan and not as she promised to Pymm, or the attacks we all suffered tonight would have had a different ending. I’ll play it for you. Then you will have to make up your own minds what to do about it.’

Wherever a device has been planted, I suppose there is a tape, and a group of people somewhere, hearing it for the first time as we were; with lively curiosity, with a raw excitement quite outside the formal processes of boardrooms. We listened, all nine of us; and I watched Roland Reed watch Johnson, and Oliver look at Rita, and Lenny scowl at them all. Whether or not they had heard the tape, they had an idea what was on it. And we, Charity, Morgan, my mother and I were to be the jury of four.

Johnson switched on, and we heard the door close behind Morgan and me, and then a long silence filled with the sounds a man makes at his desk, moving papers and writing and opening and shutting drawers. Then there came a tap at the door, and Oppenheim’s voice said, ‘Oh.’ It sounded dull. Then he said, ‘Yes. Well, come in.’

The door shut. ‘What is it?’ said someone. ‘What happened? There isn’t much time.’

The voice was Johnson’s own.

Oppenheim said, ‘I don’t know how to tell you what happened.

Well, I’ve blown it, if you want the quick news. I had Morgan ready to fall, and Kingsley somehow got news of our meeting. He’s just been here. He said if I didn’t let Morgan alone, he would publish some pictures. I’ve told him I’ll let Morgan alone. End of mission. End of bloody mission.’

‘What were the pictures?’ said Johnson. After a while he said, ‘Danny? What were they? I’m accountable. I’ll have to explain this.’

And Oppenheim said, ‘What do you think? What’s the only thing that would force me into letting everyone down? They were of Muriel. Muriel. My wife. With . . . more than one man.’

There was a little silence. Then the tape said, ‘Show me,’ in Johnson’s voice. It was very quiet.

Oppenheim said, ‘What do you take me for?’

‘They may not be genuine,’ Johnson said. ‘That’s all I meant.’

Oppenheim seemed to swallow. Then he said, ‘I know my wife’s body. And I know the men. Be glad you were spared this with Judith.’