Vicious Circle (31 page)

‘You are being insolent, sonny boy.’ Henry’s face turned puce. ‘That’s my private business.’

‘I apologize for that. However, I have to tell you that you have a classic case of atrial fibrillation.’

‘Cut out the technical gobbledegook. What the hell are you fibrilling and drivelling about?’

‘I am trying to tell you that your heart is dancing around like Gene Kelly on steroids. But that’s only the half of it. Your blood pressure is up there in outer space with Neil Armstrong. If I were your physician I would immediately place you on Coumadin, Mr Bannock.’

‘Thank God you are not my doctor. I know about this Coumadin stuff. I know it was used as rat poison and that it doesn’t taste like Jack Daniel’s; so you can take it, roll it into a small ball and stuff it up your rear end, Doctor Menzies.’ Henry stood up and marched out of the office.

Even without his pilot’s licence Henry continued to fly his beloved Gulfstream. He had two highly paid commercial pilots who covered for him.

However, sometimes in the still midnight hours he woke up with his heart stuttering and fluttering in his chest. He refused to see another doctor. He did not want to hear his death sentence being read to him.

With this warning that his days were numbered, he worked himself even harder. The idea of giving up his Havanas and his Jack Daniel’s was intolerable, so he put it out of his mind.

In November Bryoni Lee won a state-wide mathematics competition against other students three and four years senior to her and was voted by her classmates the most likely to succeed and the most likely to become the president of the United States of America. She took over from her absent mother the visiting duties for her older sister.

Every Sunday Bonzo Barnes, Henry’s chauffeur and bodyguard, drove her up to Nine Elms to spend the day with Sacha. Bonzo was a former heavyweight boxing contender. Like most others he loved young Bryoni. Bryoni sat up in front with him and they chatted happily all the way to Pasadena and back.

In December of that same year while his father was in Abu Zara reviewing the Bannock Oil concessions in that country, Carl Peter Bannock finally worked out the passwords and codes to Henry Bannock’s strongroom. Carl had found a spot on the swimming pool terrace from which he was able surreptitiously to overlook his father’s study. One Saturday morning he watched through the lens of a pair of 10x Zeiss binoculars as Henry sat at his desk and prised back the silk lining of his black leather desktop diary. Then he drew from beneath the lining one of his own business cards which he had concealed there.

On the back of the card in Henry’s large bold hand was written a long string of letters and numbers. He crossed the room to the steel door of his personal vault. Consulting the writing on the card, Henry rotated the dial of the lock back and forth to register the password and then he spun the locking wheel in a counterclockwise direction and swung open the massive door.

Carl had to wait several weeks until Henry left on his next business trip, but then he had ten days and nights to work with.

The first night, after many frustrated attempts, he was able to master the complicated sequences to deactivate the locking mechanism and to open the steel door to the vault.

The next night he photographed the interior of the vault and the arrangement of the contents. Before he dared move anything he knew he must be able to replace all of it in exactly its original position. He knew that his father would immediately notice any changes. He wore surgical gloves at all times so as to avoid leaving his fingerprints on any of the contents of the vault and he worked with painstaking attention to all the details.

On the third night he could start exploring the contents of the vault. The bars of gold bullion were stacked on the floor where their weight was borne by the steel and concrete foundations. He estimated that there must be about fifty or sixty million dollars’ worth of gold in the hoard.

Henry’s behaviour had always been dictated by a peculiar mixture of reckless daring and prudent caution. This hoard was his little emergency fund.

On the next line of shelves were Henry’s decorations and citations from his US Air Force days, and photographs and memorabilia of particular significance to him. On the steel shelves above were files of documents and share certificates, bonds and deeds of title to the numerous properties and concessions that Henry owned in his personal capacity. The other significant assets were held in the name of Bannock Oil Corporation.

On the fourth shelf from the top Carl found what he was really looking for.

He already knew of the existence of the Henry Bannock Family Trust. While he was still at Princeton he had begun hacking into his father’s telephones in his bedroom and in his study. He had even attempted to access Henry’s private phone lines at Bannock Oil headquarters, but the security cordon protecting the Bannock Building was impregnable.

Carl had been restricted to listening in on the line to the main bedroom suite to numerous conversations between Henry and his ex-wife and mistresses. But Carl had also made transcripts of conversations that Henry had conducted from his downstairs study, which included numerous conversations between Henry and his business associates and, more importantly, his lawyers.

Carl had been able to follow some of the discussions between Henry and Ronald Bunter, his principal lawyer, while they put together the Deed of Foundation of the Family Trust. But he had only a vague picture in his mind of the exact content and provisions of the final Trust Deed.

Now he found Henry’s copy of this large tome sitting in the middle of the fourth shelf.

Still he did not rush at it. He examined the deed minutely with a magnifying glass before opening it. He marked the pages that Henry had stuck together with tiny droplets of glue. He separated these carefully and re-glued them as he passed on.

Between page 30 and page 31 he found the hair that Henry had placed there to trap interlopers. He recognized it as one of Henry’s own hairs, wiry and springing, that he had plucked from his sideburns. Carl kept it in a clean white envelope and replaced it between the pages when he had finished with the document.

All these preliminaries left Carl with three uninterrupted nights before his father’s return from the Middle East to peruse the deed of the new Henry Bannock Family Trust.

What he read filled him with a soaring sense of his own supremacy. The Trust Deed had endowed him with almost god-like powers. He was armed against the world and shielded by billions of dollars. He was invincible.

*

Sacha Jean had gradually regressed over the years until she had reached the equivalent mental age of a five-or six-year-old. Her world had shrunk as her brain was stifled and shut down. She no longer recognized anybody except one of the middle-aged nurses, who had been especially kind to her, and her baby sister Bryoni.

When her nurse reached retirement age, Sacha’s already limited world was halved again and she became pathetically dependent on Bryoni. When the weather permitted it, the two of them spent all of every Sunday in the gardens of Nine Elms. Over time the physicians had learned just how reliable and responsible Bryoni was. They had no hesitation in giving her full care of Sacha for the day.

Sacha was now in her early twenties and obese. She towered over her little sister. Bryoni mothered her and led her by the hand to her favourite spot beside the lake, where they picnicked and fed the ducks. Sacha could no longer concentrate long enough to read for herself but she loved nursery rhymes. Bryoni read them to her. They played hopscotch, follow the leader and hide and go seek. Bryoni’s patience was endless. She fed Sacha the picnic lunch that she had brought with her from home, and wiped her face and hands when she had finished eating. She took her to the toilet and helped her wipe herself and readjust her clothes when she had finished.

Sacha particularly loved having her back tickled. She liked to take off her blouse and lie face down on the picnic rug and make Bryoni tickle her back. Whenever she stopped Sacha would cry, ‘More. More.’

One Sunday Bryoni was tickling her when Sacha said quite distinctly, ‘If he ever wants to touch your nunu, don’t let him do it.’

Bryoni paused in mid stroke and thought about what her sister had just said. Nunu was their baby name for the vagina.

‘What did you say, Sash?’ she asked carefully.

‘When?’

‘Right now.’

‘I never said nothing.’ Sacha denied it.

‘Yes, you did.’

‘I never did. I never said nothing.’ Sacha was already becoming agitated and nervous. Bryoni knew the symptoms. Next she would curl up in a ball and start sucking her thumb or bumping her head on the ground.

‘My mistake, Sash. Of course, you didn’t say anything.’ Slowly Sacha relaxed and starting talking about her puppy. She wanted her puppy back. For her last birthday Mummy had brought her a puppy, but Sacha was very strong and she loved and squeezed the puppy to death. They had to tell her it was sleeping to get the carcass away from her. She always asked Bryoni to bring it back to her, but the doctors would not let Sacha have another pet.

The next Sunday was bright and sunny and they picnicked at the same spot on the lake shore. Sacha didn’t like anything to change. Change made her feel nervous and insecure. When they had eaten their lunch, Sacha demanded, ‘Scratch my back.’

‘What is the magic word?’ Bryoni asked her. Sacha thought about it, scowling with concentration, but at last she gave up.

‘I forgot the word. Tell me what it is.’

‘Is the word please, do you think?’

‘Yes. Yes. It’s please.’ Sacha clapped her hands with joy. ‘Please, Bryoni. Pretty please scratch my back.’ She pulled off her blouse and stretched out on the rug. After a while Bryoni thought she had fallen asleep, but suddenly Sacha said, ‘If you let him touch your nunu he will stick his hard thing into you and make you bleed.’

Bryoni froze. The words shocked her deeply, to the extent that they made her feel physically sick. However, she pretended not to have heard and went on stroking Sacha’s back. After a while Bryoni began to sing: ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall.’ Sacha tried to join in but she got the words all muddled up and they both laughed.

Then Sacha said, ‘If he sticks his thing in your nunu it will be very sore and you will bleed.’ It was a trick of her damaged mind to repeat things over and over again.

‘It’s time for me to go now, Sash,’ Bryoni said at last.

‘Oh, no! Please stay a little longer. I get very frightened and sad when you go and leave me.’

‘I will come back next Sunday.’

‘Promise?’

‘Yes, I promise.’

*

The next Sunday Bryoni brought with her a Dictaphone she had ‘borrowed’ from Henry’s study.

She and Sacha walked hand in hand down to the lake. Bryoni carried the rug and the picnic basket. When they reached their special spot Sacha spread the rug and made certain there were neither folds nor tucks in it. Arranging the rug was her responsibility and she was very conscientious and proud of her ability to spread it to perfection. While her sister was concentrating all her attention on the rug, Bryoni slipped the Dictaphone out of the pocket of her jeans, switched it on and then returned it to her pocket without Sacha having noticed.

The day followed its familiar pattern; they fed the ducks and spoke about Sacha’s puppy that was staying with its mummy dog in heaven. They ate their lunch and Bryoni took Sacha to the toilet. They returned to the lakeside and lay on the rug. Sacha asked her to scratch her back and Bryoni made her say please. Then, while she was tickling Sacha’s back, she started humming ‘Humpty Dumpty’. It set off a train of ideas in Sacha’s crippled mind, as Bryoni had hoped it might.

Suddenly Sacha said, ‘I didn’t like it when he made his thing squirt into my mouth. It tasted awful.’

Bryoni shuddered but kept on humming quietly. For once Sacha was at ease and she rambled on.

‘I have been trying to remember his name. He said he was my brother, but I don’t have a brother. He showed me how to hold his thing and go up and down with it until it squirted. I liked it when he told me how clever I was and how much he loved me.’

She fell silent again and Bryoni went on humming softly and soothingly. Suddenly Sacha sat up and exclaimed, ‘I remember now! His name was Carl Peter and he really was my brother. But then he went away. They have all gone away. My mummy and daddy; all of them have gone away and left me; all except you, Bryoni.’

‘I’ll never leave you, Sash. We will always be together like sisters should be.’ Sacha was placated and she subsided back onto her stomach. Bryoni stroked her back and hummed softly.

Suddenly Sacha spoke out in a tone of voice more resembling the woman she was, rather than the five-year-old she had become.

‘Yes, I do remember now that it was my brother Carl who came to my bedroom that night and climbed into my bed. It was Carl who pulled my legs open and put his big hard thing deep into me and made it squirt. I screamed but nobody heard me. I was bleeding and it was so sore, but I never told anybody because Carl had told me not to. Do you think I did the right thing, Bryoni?’

‘Of course you did, my darling sister. You are such a good girl, and you always do the right thing.’

‘Promise you will never leave me, Bryoni.’

‘I promise you I will never leave you, my dearest Sash.’

*

When Bryoni arrived back home from Nine Elms that Sunday evening Carl’s brand-new Ford Mustang was parked in the driveway. As she entered the front doors Carl was coming down the main staircase at a run. He was dressed in a suit and tie. His shoes were polished and his hair was slicked and glossy with oil.

‘Hi, Bree!’ he called down to her. ‘How’s our coo-coo sister? Is she still playing with the fairies?’

‘Sacha is just fine. She’s a very sweet and lovely girl.’ Bryoni couldn’t look up at his face; that smug arrogant face.

Carl swiftly lost interest in Sacha. He had only mentioned her name to rile Bryoni. He stopped in front of the full-length mirror at the foot of the stairs and adjusted the knot in his necktie. Then he took out his comb and carefully rearranged a few hairs that were out of place.