The Good Liar (6 page)

established the company together.

Vincent signed carefully: Bryn Jones. Attaboy. He could do a rea-

sonable approximation that would pass muster against the facsimile

held by the bank’s City branch and couriered over that morning.

Roy signed and it was done. He shook the manager’s hand sol-

emnly, his mind apparently on his important meeting, and thanked

him profusely for the convenience of using the Westminster branch.

It was, again, not a problem. Roy said goodbye to Mr Jones in for-

mal but friendly tones, every bit the chairman to a board member

he did not know especially well. He walked confidently to the door, crossed the road and entered the toilet again to dishevel himself

suitably.

‘Fuck you been, Roy?’ asked Bernie, when he returned to the

table.

‘Fucking prostate,’ he said. ‘Bleeding murder.’

‘You been a long time.’

‘I know. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.’

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‘Funny,’ said Bryn in his insinuating lilt. ‘I just been to the khazi for a slash and didn’t see you there.’

‘Check all the cubicles, did you?’

‘I thought you was just having a piss.’

‘I was. Fucking try it, Bryn, standing there forever waiting for it to come. You get some funny looks. Besides, might as well take the

weight off your feet if you’re waiting that long. Feel the benefit.’

Dave was pushing a button on his mobile phone. ‘Just had a call

from Vinny,’ he said. ‘He’s finished down in Sevenoaks. All

tickety- boo and he says have a chaser for him.’

Seat of the pants. Marvellous.

2

It had taken a number of months to bring the project to this point.

It was on that pleasurable thought that he luxuriated silently, his smile verging on complacent, in the pub. If asked by one of the

others why he seemed so satisfied, he would have answered truth-

fully, within reason. A job well done, he would have said.

But he was not asked and at length rose to take his leave. The

usual male ritual of clamorous bawdy voices proposing one more

for the ditch followed, but he refused all blandishments with a modest grin. ‘He’s a dark horse, our Roy,’ Bernie would say once he had left. ‘Top man, though,’ Dave would add thoughtfully, ‘top man.’

Martin would drink to that. Bryn would look.

Each had played his role in the drama. Martin had smoothed the

way with his mellifluous, effortless interposings, the yin to the yang of Bernie’s booming bruiser ready at any moment for an argument.

The absent Vincent had been the bespectacled, blinking, i- dotting finance man. Dave and Bryn had, not out of character, been security for the deal. Roy, naturally, had been top dog, content in meetings to smile benignly and twinkle his eyes while Bernie and Martin did

the talking; though Roy had given them their scripts at each nightly wash- up so that the transaction could be appropriately nuanced and nudged the following day.

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At the same wash- ups Vincent had proffered advice on the legal-

ity of the property deal that approached so slowly but had suddenly been upon them. For those aspects where strict adherence to the

law was not feasible if this coup were to be pulled off, he had advised on likely detection, severity of penalties and sensible precautions.

He had repeatedly emphasized that their stake money gave at least

the hope of a defence of acting in good faith. The money in the

company account was therefore a kind of insurance policy. In truth

most dimensions of the transaction were unlawful in some respect,

though repeatedly Roy had reminded his companions that their

interlocutors were hardly likely to approach the authorities. Bryn

and Dave, meanwhile, observers of the proceedings mostly, had

been able to comment on the other side’s posture and demeanour,

trying to see below the surface of the amicable machismo to any

reservations or suspicions. Only Vincent and Roy himself, of course, had known that this was nugatory, if necessary for them to complete their own private supplementary sleight of hand. Would Roy

in reality have been so stupid as to tangle with a bunch of Russian oligarchs and ex- KGB hoods? Good God, no; and nor had he been.

The ‘Russians’ were a group of well- paid Eastern European mis-

fits whom Roy had known when he lived for a time in the Balkans,

and whom he’d engaged to take four rooms at the Savoy for two

weeks and spend a bit of pocket money supplied by him. They had

only to take a few hours out each day to read their lines, carefully scripted by Roy. It was of course rather more complex and demand-ing than that, but those were the bones of it. These were nimble

and wily men too, never entirely to be trusted, who recognized a

common interest with Roy and, importantly, knew that he was at

least as canny as they were. They did not cross Roy and there was

no need for them to. He knew, literally, where the skeletons were

buried. Roy was thankful that no one on the home team had any

Russian, or certainly not sufficient to recognize that these individuals when they muttered occasionally to one another did not speak

the language. He was grateful to good old British ignorant hostility towards foreigners. Innate antagonism neatly obscured the areas in

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which genuine suspicion should have been vested. I can handle

these people, he had told the others; I have the experience.

And for insurance against the event that Bryn might have dis-

charged his responsibilities for security a tad too assiduously, Roy had told him in hushed tones on a strictly bilateral basis that the Russians were ‘known’ in their true identities and had acquired

dodgy passports with sundry Balkan citizenships for their sojourn

in London.

Of course he had also had to ensure that the ‘Russians’ could

get nowhere near the real money, the stakes finally delivered to

the enterprise by Bryn, Martin and Bernie, which amounted

to over £2 million, to match Vincent’s and Roy’s rather more

notional contributions to the enterprise. It was these deposited

funds that Roy and Vincent had conveniently transferred elsewhere

this afternoon.

So far, so routine. The trickiest aspect had been the process of

getting Vincent on board with the more private project. He had

known from the outset that the accountant would be required, but

a careful management of Vincent’s transition to full awareness had

been necessary.

Roy had, in a series of drip- fed sidebars, eased Vincent into a position of almost full disclosure. He had confided his suspicions of the Russians and his unease that their aim might be to fleece the syndicate; that his discreet inquiries had shown his disquiet to be well founded; that this might now be turned to their advantage; but that only Roy and Vincent had the deftness of touch and lightness on

their feet to bring this home; that it was unfortunate for the boys, but when it came down to it all was fair in love and war.

And, finally, Vincent had said, ‘You’ve planned it this way all

along, haven’t you?’

Silence. Pained expression.

‘Those guys are your people, aren’t they?’

Silence. Doleful look.

‘It’s no skin off my nose. So long as I come out ahead. Substan-

tially ahead.’

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This was precisely the conversation that Roy had wanted. He had

painstakingly led Vincent to this point, let him be the clever one, let him deduce. He engaged enthusiastically, telling Vincent he had

always intended to involve him but that for obvious reasons it

was . . . delicate.

Yes. Vincent could appreciate that. And that, more or less, had

been that. Allocations of proceeds might have been an issue, but

Roy, aware that Vincent alone of the others knew the precise detail, had decided to be generous. Vincent’s 50 per cent was, to Roy’s

mind, an investment.

Now Roy stepped outside to the river path, took stock moment-

arily of the hubbub and began his walk along the Embankment.

The somewhat vacant smile remained on his face and there was a

spring in his step, though a spring, he acknowledged inwardly, that might have a little less pert bounce than not so long previously. He was getting older. By most measures he would have been described

as an old man, but Roy did not gauge himself by normal standards.

He still had more vigour than most thirty- year- olds and much more fire in his belly.

But now was a good moment to finish it and enter a new phase.

This would necessitate ridding himself of his Beckenham pad and

moving to the genteel Surrey mansion apartment he had pru-

dently secured for himself, abandoning his little flat like the
Mary
Celeste
with rent unpaid. Roy Mannion would once again be laid to rest and he would revert to being Roy Courtnay. This was all just

housekeeping and, with a little attention to detail, easily accom-

plished. There was just one last flourish in the final act of this

theatrical performance, so to speak, to dispose of himself for

once and for all, but that would be elementary. He checked his

stride, barely discernibly, and glanced behind him before he reached the steps up to the bridge.

He ambled across Westminster Bridge and paused in the middle,

leaning on the balustrade and looking down the Thames towards

Docklands, the present- day barometer of London’s confidence.

Mr Blair will do us all right, he thought. Not like the old days, when his lot spelled disaster. He saw Canary Wharf, that crisp, clean

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phallic symbol of City bullishness, its tip blinking red in the summer sunlight, and inhaled the rotting green salt stench of the river before continuing his journey, crossing the road carefully and walking down the steps to the water again.

He entered St Thomas’ Hospital from the riverside path and

accelerated through its corridors, left and right, right again, through doors, up and down stairs, according to a route that he had designed and learned assiduously. Were Bryn – for it was Bryn he believed

most likely of this – to have decided that Roy might not be suffi-

ciently trustworthy and have had the temerity to follow him, or

have him followed, this should be an adequate countermeasure. An

unlikely eventuality, but as Roy knew only too well, you couldn’t be too careful these days. And it fitted in very neatly with the legend for the little denouement he and Vincent had devised.

3

A quick dash to a cab, and he was conveyed swiftly to one of the

grand hotels along Park Lane where he had a room. Into the room,

and he suddenly felt weary, felt his age. He would have dearly loved to collapse into the plumped opulence of the bed and doze. But

there was no rest for the wicked and he was on the move once more,

to the hotel next door, where he had booked a business room in the

name of a company that would soon be discarded.

He waited patiently for Vincent, reliable as ever. Solid as a rock, just what Roy required. He poured three fingers of Scotch into a

tumbler – he deserved this – and added ice. The fatigue was extreme but it was a good fatigue. He sighed, and observed his feet for a

moment before pulling himself together, standing and stretching

his arms and shoulders.

Nearly there. The first day of the rest of his life. How many times had he uttered those words privately? But this time it was for real.

He appreciated, if not openly, that his energies were waning: in

the very real physical sense that he was perceptibly less capable of accomplishing what no more than five years before had been

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simple, and in the less direct but equally obvious to him way that

mental concentration was difficult to sustain over extended periods.

No one else had yet noticed, or at least this was what he believed.

Now was the time to depart, at the top of his game, without ran-

cour. He was in his mid- seventies, for heaven’s sake. A good innings, more than good. He could now subside in relative comfort and let

his body and mind wind down and tick over to that inevitable day. It was only life, after all, and must be regarded dispassionately. He had always been impatient of those who railed indulgently against inevitabilities rather than examining their own shortcomings, and would not do so himself. When faced with his own mortality he did not

intend to become histrionic.

At least now, with this coup, he would be able to manage his

decline in some comfort. He would be able to rattle around in his

apartment. He would be able to embark on Caribbean cruises in

first class and dine with the captain. He would be taxied here and

ferried there, enjoy lavish medical care to offset the effects of ageing so far and long as this could be achieved. He could afford the services of visiting top- class, discreet young courtesans – that word had the right tone – at his home and they would be paid well enough to conceal their distaste for his crumbling being as they harvested his remaining virility. Eventually he would be able to lie back while the hired help wiped his arse, fed his quivering face and dabbed the dribble away. Bleak thoughts indeed.