The Best of British Crime omnibus (45 page)

‘I can't get over how indifferent Garside was to the takeover.' Bodlin shook his head. He had made the same point earlier, during the drive from Harley Street.

‘Or the crash in our shares yesterday,' Larden agreed. ‘Of course, he knew that was nothing to do with Seromig. And it doesn't matter to him who owns the company. What's important is his attitude to Seromig.'

‘Which hasn't altered. Even after the cheapening news conference.'

‘The conference didn't bother him. These protected academics aren't nearly as touchy as people assume,' said Larden unfeelingly, since it was Bodlin who had made the dour predictions about Garside's attitude – and had continued the lament up to the time of today's encounter. ‘You were right to be sensitive about him, I suppose,' he added, in mitigation. ‘I'm glad we didn't postpone the meeting. Though we had plenty of cause.'

‘Garside's still postponing his paper.'

‘No disadvantage in that. It'll be a more definitive effort now. Mary Ricini said that, remember?' Larden waved a hand in the direction of a leather armchair. ‘Sit down, Stuart. I'm sorry Jane's out. I'll make us some tea. Unless you'd prefer something else? Something stronger?'

‘Tea's fine, thanks,' the other answered abruptly. The last time he had accepted alcohol had been at the Savoy dinner, and what had happened afterwards still made him uncomfortable, especially with someone who had been there.

‘Then I'd like to go over those notes Garside gave you,' said Larden. ‘Just the headings. You're still going back to the office?'

‘I need to, yes.'

‘There's no point in my attempting it. Not with Laurence Stricton from the bank meeting me here. He's coming at six. To update me on what's happened since lunch.' Larden had been at Grenwood, Phipps up to the time of the Garside meeting. He breathed out heavily. ‘God, I'll be glad when this week's over.'

The unguarded comment still only hinted at the turmoil Larden was enduring over his future with his company and his wife: he was reluctant to admit, even to himself, that he might have lost control of both. Counting his assets gave a short-lived buoyancy to his spirits.

His Closter shares had fetched 4.4 million pounds yesterday, even from the forced sale. He had a four-year, watertight contract as Managing Director of the company whoever owned it. Above all, he had paid a crippling price – half the real value of his shares – to keep his wife.

Only the final fact had a hollow ring. Jane's ultimatum in the car two nights before had rocked Larden to the core. He hadn't chosen, or dared, to press her since then about its true meaning – whether she had been insisting he had to save Hackle's life for reasons of humanity, or whether it was because Hackle meant more to her than her husband did.

‘I'm sorry? … Yes, Laurence Stricton's very good,' he said now, in answer to a comment from Bodlin that had hardly registered.

‘And Mark Treasure wants us to oppose the bid? Even if it has nothing to do with the kidnap?'

Larden moved towards the doorway. ‘You still believe the two aren't related?'

‘Krontag are very respectable,' Bodlin answered defiantly.

‘And they're involved in a very unbelievable coincidence.' Larden rubbed the side of his cheek. ‘Treasure has strong feelings about that. But he doesn't want any public comment till we've got Dermot back in one piece.'

‘Treasure's gone to Zürich?'

‘Not officially.'

‘What's that mean?'

‘Good question,' Larden commented with a frown. ‘He's making an off-the-record call on Willy Fritzoller. The bank set it up early this morning, but they're not acknowledging it's happening. Not to outsiders. Treasure wants to give Fritzoller a private chance to extricate Krontag if he wants. If he doesn't want, we'll know where we stand. Also where Krontag stand.'

‘Treasure's going to tell Fritzoller about the kidnap?'

‘Yes. Assuming – hoping he doesn't know about it already. Not that he could admit it if he did know.'

‘I'm positive he doesn't know.' Bodlin looked down at his bunched fists.

‘Even if someone else in Krontag does?'

‘Grubber, possibly. He's an odd man.' Both Bodlin and Larden knew the Krontag International President from their abortive meetings with him during the previous year.

‘It wouldn't have to be him, surely?' Larden questioned, then paused, considering Bodlin and his words more carefully. ‘Perhaps you're right. Difficult to credit though.'

The other glanced up. ‘Treasure's risking the SAE will find out what he's doing?'

‘Could find out, not will. It's a calculated risk. As our Chairman it's reasonable he should make a personal response to the takeover bid. Chairman to Chairman. He's determined no one else will be involved, and he's going to make Fritzoller swear to keep the confidence. Till Dermot's free. If Fritzoller won't agree— '

‘He will,' Bodlin interrupted fiercely.

‘Or agrees and then still gives us away to the SAE?'

‘Not possible,' the other insisted, even more fiercely.

‘Again, it wouldn't have to be him, of course. What if Fritzoller's private secretary, say, is an SAE mole? What if she can listen in to what's said in his office? Who knows?' Larden shrugged. ‘Well I hope you're right. I'll get that tea. Make yourself comfortable.'

‘I'd like to make a phone call.'

‘Help yourself. Sit at the desk if you want. It's probably easier.'

As Larden descended the stairs into the hall, the street door flew open. His wife came in, flushed and ebullient, wearing a crisp yellow dress, carrying a slim folio case and looking as if she hadn't a care in the world. She started when she saw him, recovered, then moved forward quickly to embrace him. ‘Darling, I didn't think you'd be back till tonight.'

‘The Garside meeting went on longer than we expected. There was no point in my going to the office.' He continued to hold her close to him – not caressingly, but tentatively, his hands around her waist. In a way his action seemed to increase the tension existing between them. ‘Stuart Bodlin's in the study. He's making a phone call. I was going to make us some tea.'

She pouted, drawing away from him a touch awkwardly. ‘I'll do that, darling. But could you have it down here in the sitting room? I have to fax a drawing to a client urgently, do some photoprinting, and make phone calls at the same time. I can do all that up there. Then I have to go out again. Incidentally, my bloody earphone's on the blink again.' She moved around him, heading for the kitchen at the back of the house.

Although she shared an office in Victoria with two other designers, it seemed to him she used it less than she did the house for business. ‘We'll come down,' he called after her.

‘Thanks.' She looked back over her shoulder. ‘Anything new? About the takeover?'

‘Not really. Nor about Dermot,' he added, his gaze holding hers until she looked away. ‘The SAE aren't phoning again till tomorrow. That reminds me, I haven't checked for messages yet.'

It was then that Larden saw Bodlin standing on the landing at the top of the stairs.

Bodlin's face was even more ashen than usual as he emerged from the study, clutching his briefcase to his chest. He looked and behaved as if he had just received shocking news.

‘I'm sorry, I … I have to leave. I'll explain later. All right?' His speech was faltering, like his steps on the stairs as he clung grimly to the banister.

‘Something happened? You all right?'

‘I'm OK, yes.' He shook his head. ‘Garside's notes. They're on the desk.'

‘Hello, Stuart. How are you?' This was Jane who was returning from the kitchen.

Bodlin, who had now reached the hallway, looked back at her with a sort of horror. He made as if to speak, then, instead, stumbled to the street door, wrestled with the lock to get it open, and fled.

Doris Tanner looked down at her less than prominent bare breasts, frowned, and pulled the sheet over herself. ‘Scrawny I'm getting, and that's a fact,' she said, then sighed and wriggled a little further down into the bed.

‘Go on. I've seen a lot worse,' her husband answered with feeling. He looked at the bedside clock. It was nearly four fifteen in the afternoon.

‘Thanks very much. Seen a lot worse lately have you? Topless customers, is it? Courtesy of British Gas? Oh Mr Engineer come quick, I think the leak's in the bedroom.' She giggled and dug her right elbow into his side.

‘Leave off, love. And I didn't mean nothing like that. I meant on the beach.'

‘That was last year.'

‘That's right. You was the best-looking bird there. Will be again this year as well. Far as I'm concerned, anyway. Pass the cigarettes then. Any tea left in the pot?' Bert Tanner took his arm from around her shoulders. He was short and muscular, with a gravel voice, crew-cut hair, a boxer's nose, and a mild countenance that could prove deceptive.

There was a faded tattoo on his left forearm showing a heart pierced by an arrow. The word Mother came underneath this in a flowery script. Doris had been on at him for years to have that tattoo removed. It was a relic of six youthful years in the regular army. He'd promised to have something done about it when his mother died. His mother was barely sixty and in robust health.

Like his wife, Bert Tanner was a Cockney from south of the river, but without her acquired polish. If asked, he would have said you didn't need phony polish in his job – just knowledge and experience, and he had plenty of those.

Bert had been awake for half an hour. He was due on duty at the gas maintenance depot at six thirty. He didn't like the shift he was on this month. It paid good overtime, but he didn't see much of Doris. This was the first time they had been in bed together all week – and they were only there now through a chance variation in her routine.

Doris normally reached home shortly after five thirty. Today, Bob Larden, her boss, hadn't been to the office at all. He had told her she could leave early to make up for working long hours on the previous two hectic days. She had come in just as Bert had been waking up.

He inhaled deeply on his cigarette. He never smoked at work, and not much anywhere else nowadays, except here. ‘There's nothing beats a cuppa and a smoke in bed,' he said. ‘Well only one thing, and we've just had that.'

‘You are coarse,' she said. ‘Sit up properly then.' She passed him the tea she had poured. The tray was on the bedside table beside her.

He pushed his back up the pillow till his neck was resting on the top of the newly upholstered bedhead. ‘Ta.' He sipped noisily from the mug, then balanced it on the undue expanse of stomach below what until recently had been a recognisably barrel-shaped chest. ‘Nice drop of tannin in that.' He turned his head to look at Doris. ‘What's for my breakfast, then?'

‘You want to lose some weight before we go to Minorca,' she said, fingering the mane of black hair below his navel.

‘Thought you liked me the way I am?'

‘The way you used to be. Not gross.' She pinched his flesh.

‘All right then. Two rashers instead of four from now on. Is Mr Larden still on a diet?'

‘Shouldn't think so. Poor sod's got too much to worry about to think of diets.'

She lay back on the pillow, eyes roaming the room contentedly through a slight but flattering mist since she didn't have her glasses on. The place was much prettier since their last redecoration. They were always decorating, the two of them; improving their home. This room faced south with a bay window that got the sun all afternoon. Sunbeams were streaking in as strong as stage lighting. She had enjoyed making love under what she'd imagined as spotlights. Not that anyone could see through the net curtains. The sun was also lighting up the new dressing table: she'd draped that with the same yellow and green fabric as the curtains. She'd made the curtains herself too.

Lazily she slid her left foot back, bending her knee upwards so that the sheet fell away from her bare leg in a mildly erotic sequence. Then she straightened the leg, twisting it about in the air while pointing the foot. ‘I've still got nice legs, haven't I?'

‘Very nice, yes.'

He put his hand on her other thigh, then patted it under the sheet. She sensed this was more an involuntary gesture of approval than a sign of rekindling passion, and she didn't mind.

‘My legs'll be nicer still with a Mediterranean tan. Can't wait for the holiday.'

‘Will the shares pay for it? Like you said last week?'

‘If we want to sell them. Easily. Now the price is back to a pound twenty-five.'

Bert shook his head. He didn't understand high finance: the building society was good enough for him – and more reliable than shares going on recent experience. All he knew about their Closter Drug shares was that they'd bought them at a special price with two hundred pounds from their savings; against his better judgement. That was five years ago when the management had taken over the company. The value of the shares had gone up to two thousand, four hundred pounds last Thursday. He'd said it was too good to be true – and it looked as if he was right when the figure dropped to eight hundred pounds yesterday afternoon. Today Doris said it was back to two thousand, five hundred because there was a bid for the company.

‘Can we get the money out now?' he asked.

‘We'd have to sell the shares for that. I asked Mr Closter-Bennet. He said not to. Not yet.'

‘You think he's right?'

‘Well he's the Finance Director. He ought to be right. I'm sure Mr Larden'll say the same. He did yesterday, even when the price was right down. He said I wasn't to tell anyone else though. What he'd told me. About not selling. Funny that.'