Gilded Edge, The (20 page)

The brief house tour had left Vince in no doubt about Simon Goldsachs’ wealth – some of which was stashed all over the walls. It ranged from young British artists like Blake and Hockney, and the brash and blazing big guns of American Pop, to the subdued realism of the masters. The alarm system was a work of art itself. When Vince commented on the collection, Goldsachs dismissively told him that he had to cover the walls with something, and an art dealer friend of his had said they were a good investment. Vince got the message. This man couldn’t cover his walls in junk bonds or money, so he covered them in art that would make more money, which he could invest in junk bonds to make more money, to buy more art to . . .

The ‘study’ situated at the top of the house seemed to take up an entire floor and was all blond wood, exposed concrete, and boxy modern furniture. A huge semicircular window provided a vista of the grounds containing a man-made lake with a bobbing flotilla of pedalos clustered on its banks, a maze, a folly in the form of the Houses of Parliament, and a very inhabitable-looking multistoreyed pagoda.

Goldsachs had now removed the muddy wellies and slipped into a pair of dainty-looking loafers tooled from crocodile hide. Vince noticed the shoes because they were practically identical to the ones Beresford had been wearing, thus proving Vince’s theory about their friendship: they were, if not cut from the same cloth, then certainly shod by the same shoemaker. In one hand Goldsachs now held another accoutrement of success. The cigar, a cabinet-sized Bolivar, was as big and smelly and expensive as one of his factory chimneys. He fired her up with a long match; the only way to light a cigar was with a match, he informed Vince. So big was the cigar that Goldsachs’ whole head resembled a pair of bellows as he huffed and puffed, trying to get the thing lit.

Once it was up and running, he laughed good and loud, saying: ‘No, no, Detective, Guy must have been pulling your leg. I was never going to marry Holly. It’s a well-known dictum that when one marries one’s mistress, one merely creates another position. What else did he tell you about me?’

‘That’s all. The rest I found out myself. You made your first million at twenty-four by winning the franchise to bring low cost generic pharmaceuticals into the country. And you’ve made a few more of them since. It’s a varied portfolio, everything from food products and baby clothes to a logging company in Canada. You enjoy the reputation of being a buccaneering greenmail corporate raider and asset stripper. I’ve got my boss to thank for all that info, as he plays the stock market and follows your career. He says you always make money in any new ventures.’

Goldsachs stretched his arm along the top of the sofa in a gesture of expansive ease as he savoured this reputation. Then he smiled his fat-cat smile and said, ‘After that précis, you’ll no doubt be wanting to know my whereabouts on the night of the murder, Detective Treadwell?’

‘I intended to ask you the other night, when I saw you in the Montcler, but you left in a hurry. Not your usual practice, I hear. Nothing to do with me, I hope?’

Goldsachs fixed Vince with his big artillery – his eyes – and studied him as if he was examining something unpleasant on a Petri dish. Vince could see that the very idea that Goldsachs might alter his routine for a mere plod was anathema to him.

‘I left the club early, Detective, but not in a hurry. And I left because I wanted to.’ He made a little flourish of the hand that seemed to guide Vince’s eyes around the room, embracing the surroundings, the wealth and the sheer
I can do what the hell I like
of it all.

Vince had met three of them now: Asprey, Ruley and Goldsachs. And, unless Goldsachs pulled something pretty spectacularly charming out of the hat soon, he felt sure he didn’t like any of them. But he’d hold off final judgement on the Montcler set, as there were still three to go: Nicky DeVane, Lord Lucan and, finally, Johnny Beresford himself. But he would naturally come last. When Vince had found his killer and put the pieces together, then he’d finally meet the man.

Goldsachs continued, ‘As for the night of his murder, I was at home with my children.’

‘Your wife can verify that?’

‘She could, but they’re not her children. My other children, from another relationship, and their home is in Paris. But surely that’s all an irrelevance, since I thought you already had your killer, Detective?’

‘Isabel Saxmore-Blaine?’ Goldsachs nodded. ‘Not really, no. We’ll keep on investigating until we’re absolutely certain.’

‘Wish I could be of more help.’ The tycoon issued an approbatory little humming sound, and said, ‘It’s a funny thing about little Isabel. Such a sweet girl, and yet she’s gone and done something all of us think about, all wish we could do. Commit murder. Didn’t think she had it in her.’

‘You think much about murder Mr Goldsachs?’

‘One uses the language of violence so frequently in business – make a killing, liquidate, bury the opposition, blood on the carpet – that you do wonder if you’ve actually got the guts to perform the act itself.’

‘Killing’s quite a preoccupation with your friend Mr Asprey. Theoretically, of course, and on a grander scale. He proposes earthquakes, H bombs and homicidal despots to alleviate the problems of overpopulation.’

The magnate shook his head, more in a gesture of good-hearted patronage than in disagreement. ‘Yes, what’s it up to currently? Two hundred and fifty million?’

‘Minus one, right now.’

Goldsachs made with the eyes again and delivered the dissecting stare.

‘Save me your looks, Mr Goldsachs. This isn’t the boardroom. Hitler had the same ideas, and your good friend Asprey is clearly a fan. Just wondering how that squares with you?’

‘Divide et impera.
Do you know what—’

‘Divide and rule. Boccalini’s defining principle for politics, warfare and economics.’

The industrialist, sitting so comfortably on his sofa, now looked uncomfortably wrong-footed. He weighed Vince up with fresh eyes.

‘I read law at university,’ said Vince.

‘I knew there was something about you.’

Vince felt a tangible shift in the room. Not seismic, but enough to dislodge the look of distaste that Goldsachs had on his face for the young detective. He was now eyeing him up like a potential acquisition. He had assimilated and dismissed Vince too quickly, and he knew it. It was a mistake, and Goldsachs didn’t like making mistakes.

‘I wasn’t a good student,’ he confided. ‘I left Eton at sixteen, had a couple of years in the army, then went straight into business. My plan was to make enough money that if I needed to know something, I’d pay some don to come and read to me in private.’

‘Standing on one leg, I’d imagine. Money buys you everything.’

‘But not friends. I’m loyal to my friends. And your little attempt to divide me and Aspers won’t work. Ours is a cloudless friendship, a love that is forever May. You always make enemies in business, Mr Treadwell. If you’re doing it well, that’s par for the course; it’s the free-market competitive nature of it. And me and my friends do it better than most. As for one of us being somehow responsible for Johnny’s death – which, let’s face it, is what you’re sniffing around for – well, you just don’t get it. Johnny was one of
us.
And there aren’t many of
us
around. It’s a tribal thing, Treadwell. We gambled together, fought and argued together, and occasionally shared women. But we were always the best of friends, who had each other’s well-being very much at heart. And if I knew who killed him, well, I might satisfy that lingering curiosity of mine – by killing them myself.’ Goldsachs gave three slow and solemn nods at the memory of his dead friend and continued, with some warmth in his voice, ‘I shall miss him, the Johnny of old. He was damn fine company, and very, very funny when the mood was on him, which it was most of the time. That’s why Aspers loved having him at the club, a supreme raconteur.’

‘Johnny the Joker, I believe?’

‘Yes, always the joker,’ Goldsachs murmured wistfully. The tycoon then slapped his thigh as if to break himself out of this melancholy, abruptly stood up, and said forcefully, ‘Let me show you something! You know, I had a favourite uncle called Vincent . . . your name is Vincent, isn’t it?’

Vince said it was. He’d noticed how Goldsachs had slowly eroded the ‘Detective’ title over the course of their conversation.

‘Yes, Vincent, I think you will appreciate this!’

He followed Goldsachs up some steps to the mezzanine tier of the study. Standing in the centre of the room was an oblong plinth-type affair, about the same size and dimensions as a professional snooker table and made out of a blond wood.

‘You admired the dome on the house. Whilst its aesthetic value is priceless, it has a practical purpose too. Solar panels fitted to it provide energy, meaning, in laymen’s terms, that it heats the boiler! It’s new technology. The chief reason for making money, Vincent, is to make a difference. And that’s why I make more than most, because I believe I can
do
more than most!

‘The ecology fascinates me, not only as a member of the human race but as a free-market businessman. It is, quite literally, the future, representing a whole new global marketplace. Since the rise of the industrial age, we’ve been voraciously eating up our resources. The road to progress has ironically become an irrefutable march towards our own demise. Overpopulation, food shortages, energy crises – yet the earth is a precious and limited resource. Believe me, I’ve spoken to scientists the world over who are convinced that in thirty to forty years’ time – if both sides can refrain from dropping the bomb on each other and we don’t blow ourselves up – the energy crisis and the pollution of the very air we breathe will become the world’s biggest issue! Are you with me, Vincent?’

Vince wasn’t with him; he thought the man was sounding like a nut job. He’d never heard anything like it, but he nodded along. And Goldsachs, enthused and full of energy, just full of it, continued.

‘Oil, that most precious of commodities, has its prices going through the roof, and its major source is an increasingly unstable region. Coal is unsustainable, since the filth it produces is gradually choking the world. So, we will need to find new energy sources – and there is only one place to look. It’s the greatest untapped source of energy of all time: the one right at the centre of our solar system!’

With his fiercely beaming eyes, Goldsachs looked at Vince expectantly for the answer.

Vince took a wild guess: ‘The sun?’

‘That’s what I’m looking into, Vincent. The sun.’

‘It’s recommended you don’t, as it’ll blind you.’

Goldsachs wasn’t listening. Apart from heavily prompted answers to endorse his points, he really hadn’t factored Vince into this one-way conversation.

‘The sun indeed. That is where I intend to invest next – in technology and materials that can capture that ultimate energy. This house is just a prototype, a doll’s house if you will, compared to the version I plan on building. It’s here we’ll gather together the finest brains in the field, in order to capture the power of the sun!’

‘Didn’t Icarus try the same thing? But without your budget, obviously.’

Again no reaction from the tycoon. Clearly his own vision wasn’t just blinding him; it was deafening him too. His thousand-watt eyes were lit up brighter than the fiery star he was determined to win control of. He picked up a device that looked like a radio receiver and was about the size of a house brick. He aimed the long aerial protruding from it at the large boxy table nearby. On the press of a red button, the table top began to electronically slide open. A scaled-down model of what looked a coastal area slowly began to rise up until it rested flush with the table top. What became immediately recognizable was the type of house Vince was standing in. But the model on the table portrayed a larger version of it, a much larger version with not just one rotunda but six. An enormous dome rose in the middle, with five smaller ones orbiting it on the various wings of the house. There were other domes, too: three huge skeletal glasshouse structures, like circus big tops, that contained what seemed to be model trees and plants and foliage. Another area contained a zoo, even bigger than London zoo – more like a game reserve where the animals (plastic model figures) came in two by two. And a lake with a giant aviary sitting on an island in the middle. The whole place was a verdant paradise covered in lush foliage, tall trees with Tarzanesque hanging vines, and even a rocky waterfall. It looked like a Hollywood version of a jungle, or a tourist trip up the Amazon. Or just a lot of fun if you were ten years old and liked toys. But this was no toy.

‘My new home. Offshore the country is oil rich, excellent for the short term. It’s got good soil, mineral rich for sustainable farming and vegetation. And it’s a perfect environment for the breeding of rare animals, and lots of . . .
Shit! . . . Shit! Shit! Shit!’

That wasn’t exactly how it sounded, for Goldsachs wasn’t planning on breeding lots of shit. He was merely swearing at the table. Because the mechanism had obviously broken. Technology was letting the great man down. The model of Goldsachs’ Xanadu was yo-yoing up and down.

Vince stood back and concentrated on scratching a fictitious itch on his nose, in an attempt to hide the grin that was spreading across his face, as Goldsachs began to frantically stab a stately finger at the red button. Nothing. It got worse, in fact. The table top began to open and close at a comical speed. Goldsachs’ legendary temper then began to emerge. His golden tan became lavishly luminous, he was burning up, going through the entire-colour spectrum of rage, before settling somewhere between puce and blue. His head seemed to hunker down into the broad bulk of his shoulders.

‘Damn! Damn! Damn!’
was followed by worse, worse, much worse.

It was then, obviously hearing the commotion and the swearing, that a very attractive, petite Frenchwoman with short black hair and big Betty Boop eyes, bustled into the room and ushered Vince out of it. She was obviously the visionary’s wife, or mistress, or secretary, or at least two out of those three, and had herself the foresight to see that it would be best if Vince left now. As she guided him by the arm, she explained in breathy broken English (which didn’t need fixing, because it sounded completely charming and very sexy) that there was no use trying to talk to Goldsachs now; once he was in this kind of mood, it was damage limitation.