Permissible Limits (11 page)

‘
Because it was going to be an arm’s-length arrangement, at least the way he described it. And because, I guess, Steve’s still a kid.’

‘
But you trusted him enough to look after the Yaks.’

‘
Sure, but that’s different. As an engineer, I’ve never had a problem with the guy. As a businessman, he was getting in very deep, very fast. If Adam wanted to be a part of that, OK. But you need to be here, you need to be hands-on, every day of the week, otherwise it just runs away from you.’

I thought of Adam’s recent visits to Jersey. Some weeks it seemed to me he practically lived there. I shared the thought with Harald. He shook his head.

‘
He wasn’t with Steve,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t where he needed to be. He wasn’t with the action.’

‘
But he guaranteed Steve’s loan. I know he did.’

‘
Sure, and right now that’s not looking such a great decision.’

I nodded, miserable, lost for words. There was nothing to say, nothing to add, nothing to soften the brutal logic of what Adam had done.

‘
I didn’t know anything about this,’ I said softly. ‘I knew Adam had been interested but I’d no idea he’d got involved.’

For a split second, Harald looked astonished.

‘
He didn’t tell you?’

‘
No.’

‘
You only just found out?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
Jesus…’ he shook his head,’… then I’m sorry.’

One of the pilots at the bar came across and laid a hand on Harald’s shoulder. He flew commercial jets for a living but his real love was for warbirds and he couldn’t get enough of them. Adam had nicknamed him Martini. Any plane, any time, any where.

He smiled at me and murmured an apology. Then he asked Harald about progress on the 109. Harald told him the rebuild was on schedule. Fingers crossed, his engineers were looking to May for certification. Some time in July, once the auxiliary tanks were installed, he’d ship it across from Florida to the UK. I listened to the two men discussing how they’d showcase the Messerschmitt at the Fighter Meet, glad of the interruption.

The conversation over, Harald turned back to me.

‘
Are you really rebuilding a 109?’ I asked him.

‘
Sure.’ He nodded. ‘I’ve got three beaten-up hulls back home. If this one turns out nice, we’ll do the other two.’ He paused. ‘I’d no idea about Adam not telling you. Jeez, I feel almost guilty.’

‘
Don’t be.’ I shook my head. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘
I guess I just…’ He shrugged. ‘It was no business of mine. He wanted my advice and I gave it but in the end, hell, you do what you do.’

‘
Of course.’

Harald gazed at me, then shrugged again and got to his feet and glanced at his watch. We’d already established in the car that I’d eaten. Now, he apologised for fetching me out to the hotel. He’d have reception ring for a cab. I’d be back in St Helier in no time at all.

We left the bar and went through to the lobby. While we waited for the cab to arrive he promised to keep me briefed on progress with the search. He’d instructed the charter skipper to stay out at least another couple of days. The guy had worked the Channel currents most of his life. If there was really wreckage out there, he’d be the one to find it.

The cab arrived. Harald walked me down the steps. Already, I’d told him I planned to return home next day. Quite when, I’d left vague.

He opened the rear door for me, then paused, struck by a sudden thought.

‘
I’m going back myself tomorrow,’ he said.

‘
Which flight?’

‘
Private, not commercial. I’m taking the Yak.’ He reached forward, picking a ball of fluff from my coat. ‘Drop you off at Sandown? Save you the ferry from Southampton?’

He helped me into the cab and smiled, not waiting for an answer.

Dennis Wetherall collected me, next morning, at 9.45. I’d slept badly, Adam’s fault again, though this time his body was floating
down
some African river. One or two of the images echoed earlier nightmares I’d suffered when he was flying mercenaries out in Angola, and when I parried Dennis’s gruff ‘Good morning’ with a grunt of my own, I recognised the effect events were beginning to have on me. I was getting fed up. Maybe that was a good sign.

Gulf Services Banking Corporation occupied the fourth floor of a modern glass and steel block half a mile inland from the harbour. A secretary met us as we emerged from the lift. The manager’s name, she said, was Ozilio Sant’Ana.

I was still trying to commit the name to memory when she led us into a big, carpeted office at the end of the corridor. Mr Sant’Ana rose from his desk, buttoning his jacket and extending a hand. He was tall and courtly with dark curly hair and nice eyes. His skin was olive, beautifully smooth, and his smile revealed a perfect set of teeth. Used to doing business with dowdy, hard-pressed company ciphers, I was heartened by what I saw. This man oozed authority. If we made our case, I sensed he had the power to order a stay of execution.

At the other end of the office was an L-shaped sofa, arranged around a low table. Sant’Ana invited us to sit down. His voice was soft and he spoke with a light American accent. On the table, beside the waiting tray of coffee, were copies of the
Economist
and the
Wall Street Journal.

Dennis got down to business at once, snapping open his briefcase and consulting a thickish file. He wanted to establish a chronology, an exact list of dates. When, exactly, had Steve approached the bank for a loan? How long had it taken him to draw up a business plan? What kind of revisions had the bank demanded to the plan? And at what stage had Adam’s name surfaced as guarantor? Sant’Ana answered the torrent of questions with immense patience and I was still trying to put a name to his aftershave when Dennis caught my eye.

‘
We have a problem with one of the signatures,’ he announced. ‘Mrs Bruce denies ever seeing the form.’

A frown ghosted over Sant’Ana’s face. He must have been in his late forties. Fit, relaxed, good-humoured, he’d have fitted perfectly into the crowd of pilots at the hotel bar where Harald had taken me last night.

He was looking at me now. He’d already told me how sorry he was about Adam.

‘
Your husband didn’t give the form to you?’

‘
No.’

‘
It’s not your signature?’

‘
No.’

He looked, if anything, amused, spurring Dennis to yet greater efforts. The assets against which the loan was secured were held in joint names. If my signature was indeed a forgery, then the guarantee
was invalid.

‘
But how do we know?’ Sant’Ana gestured at the photostat Dennis had laid between us. ‘I accepted the signature in good faith. How can I be sure it’s fake?’

‘
Are you calling my client a liar?’

‘
Of course not, Mr Wetherall, but there are protocols here. We have a formal agreement. There are procedures. They govern what we do.’

Dennis repeated that I hadn’t been party to the deal. I hadn’t discussed it, nor had I given it my authority. My husband had been acting on his own, without my knowledge. I listened to Dennis with a sinking heart. As far as money was concerned, despite my efforts to keep costs under some kind of control, it seemed a pretty fair description of our relationship.

Sant’Ana reached for the coffee pot. The spout hovered above my empty cup. When I nodded, he smiled.

‘
He sounds very Brazilian, your husband.’ He began to pour the coffee. ‘What would women know about business?’

‘
Nothing. Until they have to sort it all out.’

I regretted the comment at once. It sounded thin-lipped, embittered, not at all the way I felt. Sant’Ana was still smiling.

‘
Your husband treated me as a friend,’ he said. ‘I like to think you’ll do the same.’

An hour or so later, Dennis and I were back in the Porsche. We had, in Dennis’s phrase, got the beginnings of a result. The bank was aware of the depth of the hole Steve Liddell had dug for himself, but Mr Sant’Ana had given his word that nothing would happen to the collateral on the loan until the insurance picture was a good deal clearer. Perhaps Steve’s insurers would pay out on the claim. Perhaps Steve, given a reasonable period of grace, could trade his way back to solvency. I listened to Dennis putting his gloss on the conversation we’d just shared. Under the circumstances, he concluded, it had turned out a lot better than he’d expected. What still bewildered him was the speed with which the bank had advanced the loan in the first place. Given Steve’s lack of a track record, his relative inexperience, £300,000 was a helluva lot of money.

‘
Thank Christ you came along, though.’ He glanced sideways at me. ‘He’ll be asking you out to lunch next.’

‘
Who?’

‘
Sant’Ana.’ He scowled. ‘Just don’t bloody sign anything.’

We’d come to a halt in the multistorey car park where Dennis garaged the Porsche. I said I was grateful for his support but there were things about Steve Liddell’s business he really ought to know. I told him about last night, about Harald’s interpretation of the accident and - worst of all - about the shortfall in the insurance.

‘
Two hundred and fifty grand?’ Dennis couldn’t believe it. ‘That’s even worse than I thought, Liddell’s definitely stuffed.’

He gazed out of the car, shaking his head. Someone had stuck a pebble of pink chewing gum on the grey concrete pillar beside the window. Finally, Dennis sighed, and reached for his briefcase.

‘
Insurance companies like to move fast,’ he grunted. ‘It cuts down the legal bills.’

‘
Meaning?’

‘
We’ve got less time than we thought.’ He frowned, sifting through a pile of documents. ‘And while we’re talking insurance, you might as well have the rest of it.’

He extracted a bound copy of our last year’s accounts. With it came a photocopy I didn’t recognise.

‘
This is Adam’s insurance policy. I’ve been hanging on to it as a fallback.’ He gave me a thin smile. ‘Just in case Sant’Ana starts acting like a bank manager again.’

He handed me the policy. The print was tiny. Nothing made any sense.

‘
Adam took out something called Aircrew Life and Loss of Licence cover. He’d had it a couple of years. It meant that losing his licence would trigger a hefty payout. Ditto dying.’ I looked away, hiding my smile. Sometimes Dennis could be so tactless, so blunt, it was almost comical.

‘
You’re telling me there’s money due?’

‘
Potentially, yes, but it isn’t as simple as it sounds. We’re dealing with the life element here. There’s a problem with proof of loss.’

‘
Whose loss?’

‘
Yours.’

‘
You want proof?’ I looked at him at last, the smile gone. ‘You think this is some kind of picnic? Some kind of game? Who wants this proof? What proof are you talking about?’

Dennis eyed me for a moment. Like so many single men, he lived in a world of his own - armour-clad, secure, cosy - and I think he was genuinely shocked that he’d angered me.

‘
We’re talking small print,’ he said defensively. ‘The problem is the body.’

‘
There is no body.’

‘
Exactly.’

‘
But there’s no Adam, either. And that’s because he’s dead.’

‘
Sure, but we have to prove it. That’s what they want, proof.’

‘
You
do
mean a body.’

‘
Yes, otherwise it’s hard for them to deem him dead.’

‘
Hard for
them.
Are you serious?’

I stared at him, furious. I’d had enough of all this talk of collateral, and periods of grace, and insurance shortfalls, and remote accountants in city offices who had difficulty deeming my husband dead. I had difficulties, too. I had difficulties conceiving another week without him, another month, a whole bloody lifetime. Something had happened, something had taken him away from me, and all I could do was thrash around in a swamp of impossible six-figure debts I could never hope to pay. My life was Adam. Adam was dead. The money stuff could wait. End of story.