The First Novels: Pay Off, the Fireman (8 page)

       
Which was great news for everybody except the West Midlands firm, which would be paying over the odds, and Shona and me. A failed takeover bid wouldn’t do much for our reputations – or our fees.

       
We spent the rest of that evening putting away the best part of a bottle of Tamdhu and planning what we’d do to Mr  Tony Walker. He’d booked himself a suite on the fifth floor of the North British Hotel and the following day I went to see him.

       
To this day I’m not sure how it happened but I walked into his room fuming and ready to take a swing at him but within half an hour we were the best of friends. It just happened. It wasn’t personal with Tony, it was always business, just business, and when it came to making money there wasn’t a stroke he wouldn’t pull. He admitted that quite openly, he didn’t apologize, he just smiled and said I wasn’t to take it personally and that if it would make me feel any better then OK, I could take a swing at him but wouldn’t I really prefer that he bought me a good lunch?

       
To make myself feel better I ordered the most expensive items on the menu, but by the end of lunch we were laughing and joking and the prospect of Scottish Corporate Advisors losing a takeover battle didn’t seem like the end of the world. He became a firm friend, I’d trust him with my life if not my money, David loved him, and after Shona he was the first person I rang when my father died. He was on the first Shuttle up to Edinburgh, I cried on his shoulder and he helped organize the funeral and sat by me at the inquest.

       
As it turned out Scottish Corporate Advisors didn’t win or lose the fight for Young’s. The West Midlands company suddenly lost interest and I wasn’t altogether surprised when our client decided to drop out, too. Tony got his fingers burnt to the tune of £30,000, though he managed to cut his losses by selling his shares at a much lower price to an Edinburgh life office which saw Young’s as a possible recovery situation.

       
It was only much later that I discovered Shona had phoned down to Birmingham and dropped a few hints about what Tony was up to. She’s a lot harder underneath than I am, and she bears grudges, but now even she’d warmed to Tony. There was still a vague wariness about her whenever he was near, though.

       
Eventually word got round and Tony found it harder and harder to play the takeover game, and some eighteen months ago he’d joined up with a friend from his old university and now worked as an armaments middleman, selling mainly to the Middle East and doing a fair amount of juggling with end-user certificates. It was far from being a clean business, Tony had to make up most of the rules as he went along, and that often meant shunting money into Swiss bank accounts and encouraging buyers with wine, women and cocaine. With Tony it was just business, nothing personal.

As soon as I arrived back in London I phoned Tony and offered to take him for a drink that evening in a wine bar down the road from his Mayfair office. He was already sitting at a brass and glass table nursing a white wine and soda when I arrived.

       
‘Doctor’s orders, sport,’ he said after he’d jumped to his feet, and shook my hand and slapped my back and rattled my teeth. ‘Told me to lay off the hard stuff, liver trouble and all that. Can’t say I like this muck, though. And it’s about twice the price of a half-decent whisky.’

       
‘You can afford it, Tony, stop complaining,’ I laughed. ‘I’ve seen you collect enough receipts to know the sort of expenses you get. Just to make you feel bad I’ll have a double Glenmorangie, and you can pay for it.’

       
He slouched over to the bar, tall and fair in a dark blue business suit and highly polished shoes. He’d grown a moustache since the funeral and it added about fifteen years to his long, thin face. A thick rectangle of black hair, it half covered a thin scar that ran from the left side of his lip up to the middle of his cheek. The few times I’d asked him about the scar he’d laughed it off with jokes about jealous husbands, scorned lovers and frustrated business partners and after a while I’d stopped asking. There was a lot I didn’t know about Tony Walker but I loved him like a brother.

       
He brought the tumbler of malt back to the table and sat opposite me, careful to cross his legs so that the sole of his shoe faced away from me, a hangover from dealing with Arabs. He caught my look and smiled, reaching for the peanuts on the table with his left hand, just to show me that he wasn’t fully converted to Middle East customs.

       
‘How’s the lovely Shona?’ he asked.

       
‘She’s fine. Sends her best.’ Not true, she didn’t know I was going to see him.

       
‘And David?’

       
‘He’s well. He’s staying at a private nursing home for a few months just until I get myself straight. They look after him really well but he can’t wait to get back with me.’

       
‘And when will that be?’

       
‘Soon. Soon, I hope.’

       
‘I hear Shona is handling most of the business herself at the moment. And handling it well by all accounts. She’s a capable girl, you should watch her. I should have paid more attention to her myself – I could have saved myself several thousand pounds.’

       
‘Now, now Tony, down boy. And what big ears you have.’

       
‘Word gets round, sport. You know how the grapevine works. Been down here long?’

       
‘Just arrived off the Shuttle, the noo,’ I said, lapsing into a music hall Scottish accent that made him smile.

       
‘Flying visit, or business, or social?’ he asked, and it felt suddenly as if I were being interviewed by a high-powered headhunter, feeling my way through traps set for the unwary. Tony raised his thick eyebrows and looked me straight in the eyes through long, dark lashes, but unlike Iwanek’s penetrating gaze Tony’s was warm and friendly and caring.

       
‘Business, Tony, but it’s got more in common with your line of business than mine. I’m in the middle of setting up an export deal with a West African country, dictatorship to be more accurate, and I’m due to entertain one of their Trade Ministers in London next week.’

       
‘Entertain?’

       
‘Exactly. And I’m afraid it’s not the sort of business I’m au fait with.’

       
‘What’s his predilection? Boys, girls, camels? Drugs?’

       
‘Girls, or at least a particular type. He likes them classy, very classy, the ultimate Sloanes. He likes them pretty, well-groomed and intelligent. This guy was educated at Sandhurst, he’s not out of the jungle. She’ll have to be talkative, witty, charming  . . .’

       
‘And screw like a rabbit?’

       
‘Exactly.’

       
‘Not quite your line of country, sport,’ he said, sipping his drink and grimacing.

       
‘We’re branching out.’

       
‘Are you sure you’re being one hundred per cent honest with me?’

       
No, Tony, I’m lying through my teeth but if I told you the real reason I want the girl you’d try to stop me. ‘Hell, Tony, if I could go into details I would, but I can’t. Now will you help?’

       
‘Of course I will. You knew that or you wouldn’t have come to me. I just want to make sure that you aren’t getting in above your head. Is there anything I can do to help? Some of these tin-pot states can be murderous.’

       
‘Just give me a name, Tony. I know what I’m doing.’

       
He took one of his gold embossed business cards from his wallet and scribbled a number on the back. ‘Her name is Carol Hammond-Chambers. You’ll have to mention my name or you won’t even get past her answering machine. Carol is very selective and very, very pricey. But by Christ she’s worth it.’

       
‘You haven’t?’

       
‘Of course I have. You wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it first, would you? There you are, then. I’ve introduced some very important clients to her and it was vital that I knew what they were getting into – if you get my drift.’

       
‘And how is she?’

       
‘The best, the absolute best. Worth every pound. Sexy, but very bright with it. You can’t go wrong with Carol. She lives with another girl, Sammy. She works for me from time to time as well. A nice pair.’ Freudian slip? Probably not, knowing Tony.

       
‘Why do they do it?’ I asked.

       
He sipped his wine before answering. ‘Different reasons,’ he said. ‘Carol has an expensive habit to fund and working for me means she gets well paid and moves in the sort of circles where the coke flows freely and is as pure as the driven snow. Best of both worlds.’

       
‘I tried sniffing coke once but the bubbles got up my nose,’ I said and Tony laughed.

       
‘What about the other girl, this Sammy?’ I asked.

       
‘Sammy’s more of a mystery. You’ll understand what I mean if you meet her. She’s very smart, very sociable. She enjoys the company of stimulating men, men with power, men I can introduce her to. She’s more than able to handle the physical side, too, and I think she enjoys that as well. To be honest I’ve never been able to work her out. Sometimes she’ll turn a job down simply because she doesn’t like the man’s politics or his sense of humour. Strange girl. And I know for a fact the money’s not important, she comes from a wealthy family, father’s a Surrey landowner and farmer. Look, sport, are you sure I can’t help?’

       
‘If you could you’d be the first person I’d come to, believe me. You’ve done more than enough giving me Carol’s name.’

       
‘Good. I mean it, if things get tough call me. And take care. You can give me your number in London before you go, too. Now, have you heard what happened to Ferguson over at Kleinwort Benson?’

       
Then he was off, gossiping and joking like the Tony I knew, but he was worried about me now and perhaps it had been a mistake going to him.

The voice on the answering machine was smooth and soothing, the sort of voice that relaxed you but at the same time gave you a hint of pleasures to come, illicit pleasures, pleasures to make your toes curl.

       
It was the sort of voice that usually belongs to fifty-year-old telephonists with spots and halitosis who flirt outrageously with men they’ll never meet, but in this case Tony had promised me it belonged to a body that would more than live up to my expectations. I left my name and number and said that Tony had suggested I give her a ring.

       
My phone rang ten minutes later, which meant she’d just got in, had been in the shower, or more likely that she’d been in all the time and had rung Tony first to check up on me. Whatever, her warm sultry voice seemed to float out of the receiver, wash down my neck and tickle my back and I could feel my toes pressing against the top of my shoes. It wasn’t Carol, it was Sammy. Tony’s first choice was all set to fly to Oman for an extended ‘holiday with friends’ but she was sure she’d be able to help. It was Sammy’s voice on the answering machine. If ever I get knocked down by a bus and go into a coma, play me tapes of Sammy’s voice. I’ll either wake up or die happy.

       
I asked her if she’d like to go for a drink and she said why didn’t I just go round because she had more than enough drink for two, and I couldn’t help wondering what Tony had told her as my toes fought and slashed to cut their way out of my shoes.

       
An hour after the call I was at the door of her Kensington flat, one floor up in one of those white buildings that used to hold one very rich family but are now home to several very, very rich families. To the side of the building were parking spaces for three cars and standing next to each other were a Rolls, a Mercedes and a Jeep – Dinah would have loved it. McKinley waited outside in our rented Granada. I was still waiting for my Porsche to be repaired, and even when it was I doubted that I’d ever let him take the wheel.

       
The names above the entryphone at the main door had said S. Darvell and C. Hammond-Chambers but there was no label on the shining white door to the flat itself, just a brass knocker in the shape of a diving dolphin.

       
She opened the door and I saw a flash of red hair cascading down to sun-browned shoulders, a wide mouth with teeth every bit as white and sparkling as the front door, then my eyes drifted down to breasts thrusting to get out of a backless white dress which stuck to her waist and hips and ended above the most perfect calves I’d ever seen.

       
Sammy was a cracker, an absolute angel who’d turn heads and necks and even whole bodies in order to get a better look. My eyes returned to her face, eventually, and the slightly mocking smile told me that she was getting the sort of attention she was used to and which she expected.

       
‘Come in,’ she breathed and I walked into a room which looked like a soap powder commercial. Everything – walls, carpet, settee, coffee table – everything was white, even the blue-eyed cat which lay on a sheepskin rug and purred and stretched and sounded every bit as sexy as its mistress was a dazzling white.

       
Another girl walked into the whiteness from a bedroom, toting a green fabric suitcase and a matching holdall. Carol? Couldn’t have been anyone else. I thought of Tony’s test drive and I grinned.

       
‘You must be Carol,’ I said, and held out my hand to a curly-haired brunette with big brown almond eyes, lips that formed a permanent pout and a figure that matched Sammy’s inch for inch, though she was a hand shorter. The leather jacket was white and so was the blouse, but the skirt was black and slit to the thigh and the legs were brown and sleek and long.