No Kiss For The Devil

31

Riley went downstairs and opened the front door. Richard Varley was standing on the steps. He was as elegant and expensively dressed as before, and seemed to fill the doorway.

She led him upstairs. This time the roles were reversed and it was he who seemed ill-at-ease. She wondered what had happened to bring him here like this.

‘Is there a problem?’ She kept her voice level, wondering how long to give him before telling him to take his assignment away.

‘Yes.’ He looked paler than usual and had cut himself shaving. She found it an oddly appealing sign. ‘I’m sorry, Riley, for coming round here like this… invading your space. But I’ve heard some unpleasant news.’

‘What about?’ Riley had a sudden image of Palmer’s face. Had they made the connection?

‘I have,’ Richard began, his voice uncertain, ‘some… principals in the publishing business. Directors, shareholders, if you like. They have made substantial investments over the years and are very watchful about what we publish. It has come to my — their — notice… that you’ve had a meeting with Al-Bashir. Is that correct?’

‘Yes. So?’ Riley felt her gut react. If Richard or his ‘principals’ knew she had been to see the Egyptian-born entrepreneur, there was only one way they could have found out. She had been followed.

Pechov.

At the admission, Varley’s expression underwent a change. A flicker of disappointment crossed his face. ‘That’s unfortunate. It would have been better if you hadn’t done that.’

‘Why? I told you when we first met that I do my own research. And speaking to the subject of a profile piece comes pretty high on the list, don’t you think? No ethical journalist takes someone else’s notes as gospel — and certainly not with a man like him. What’s the problem? More importantly, how do these ‘principals’ of yours know I’ve seen him?’

Varley shifted in his chair. ‘It came to their notice. How is not important.’

‘It is to me. Were they watching him? Were you?’ She desperately wanted to ask him if they had been keeping her under observation, but it might be best not to let them think she harboured suspicions in that area. If he thought she was merely a working reporter trying to hang on to an assignment, he might say more than he’d intended.

He ignored the question. ‘By going to see him, and possibly alerting him to the fact that a story is circulating, you’ve made the whole project more…difficult, don’t you see?’

Riley wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, but opted to play dumb. ‘But I haven’t submitted my copy yet. How do you know what line I’m going to take? If it’s his Batnev bid you’re worried about, it’s already public knowledge. Al-Bashir is hardly a wallflower when it comes to his business intentions. The man’s desperate for recognition.’

‘That’s not the point.’ Varley’s tone took on an almost desperate note. ‘Now he knows what’s happening, he’ll have time to prepare… to hide anything he doesn’t want aired in public.’

Riley very nearly blurted out that copies of the magazine currently being prepared for mailing would soon blow that hope out of the water, but she managed to control herself. And there had been no actual mention in the editorial tease of any scandal attached to Al-Bashir’s wife. So what was the real problem?

Fortunately, Varley unwittingly supplied the answer.

‘It’s a question of timing,’ he continued seriously. ‘Too soon and Al-Bashir can brush off bad news. His PR people can work on his backers and supporters, and convince them that everything’s peachy. Too late and… well, that’s even worse…’ His voice tailed off as if he had suddenly realised what he was saying.

Riley suddenly saw what he was driving at. She recalled what he had said at their last meeting, about how if Al-Bashir failed or pulled out right on the wire, it could drag everyone else down, too.

‘But either way, he still wins,’ she said. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? You don’t want him to win!’

‘Riley, you don’t understand. We’re just a journal — we’re right in the middle, here. We need your copy to go in urgently. We’re simply trying to avoid being the cause of any problems, that’s all.’

‘That’s easy: delay the piece until after the bidding.’

‘We can’t. It’s too late.’

‘Why? What’s the deadline?’

‘It’s very close. There have been…delays, and now we need to move along on this.’ He gave an unconvincing smile.

‘What sort of delays?’

‘I can’t go into that. I know I should have mentioned this before, and I’m sorry. I thought you’d be able to put the piece together very quickly from the data we provided. There’s a lot riding on it.’

Riley nodded and stood up. She so wanted to believe him. ‘So you said.’ Then an unbidden, unwanted thought squirmed slowly to the surface. Something she suspected Palmer had been thinking about all along. ‘Richard, who else was on this project before you contacted me?’

His expression gave nothing away. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Who gathered the material on Al-Bashir… the stuff about his wife?’

For the first time, Varley seemed unable to meet her eye. ‘Various people. Researchers…freelances — we went to several sources.’ He stood up and moved alongside her, his aftershave lingering in the air. ‘Are we okay on this?’ The way he was looking at her was different, almost nervous, and she wondered how much he had riding on this business.

‘I’ll call you,’ she said. He was crowding her too close and she needed time to think. ‘Let me have until tomorrow.’

Varley nodded, but with obvious reluctance. ‘The hotel where we first met? How about noon?’

‘If you wish.’

He nodded and walked out. It was only when Riley closed the front door behind him that she realised she’d been holding her stomach and felt sick with tension.

Palmer appeared a few minutes later, brushing dust off his sleeves. Riley suspected he’d slipped out of the landing window and shimmied onto the wall below to check the street. One look at his face and she knew.

‘He wasn’t alone.’

‘No. There was a black four-wheel drive at the end of the street, with two men inside. Sorry.’

Riley didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

‘I did not expect this.’ The man known as Grigori stared through the window from the fourth floor of Pantile House. Another day was dying on its feet. He tapped a thumb on the plastic sill. The dull tattoo lasted a full fifteen seconds. ‘She has to be convinced. There is much riding on it.’

‘Perhaps,’ suggested Radko, ‘it would be better to find someone else.’

‘We don’t have time to find another reporter with her credentials. She was the third, remember?’ Grigori’s words were savage with impatience. ‘If we continue this way, there will be no unattached credible reporters left for us to use. You think there is a bank of them, just waiting for you to work your way through like those sweets that idiot Pechov is always eating? We must have her name on that page.’ He drummed his fist on the woodwork in time to the words. ‘We’ve tried money; what else is there?’

‘She’s a loner. She has nobody we can use as leverage. It’s the down side of why we chose her — like the others.’

Grigori nodded. ‘That reminds me — what of the woman friend of Bellamy’s? The one whose details Pechov discovered in her apartment? Have you dealt with her? Bellamy may have talked to her about us.’

Radko looked defensive. ‘It was no good. I went to the address, but the house was empty, the milk cancelled.’ At his boss’s look of incomprehension, he explained quickly, ‘Over here, milk is still delivered to many houses, especially in rural areas. When people go away, they leave a note to cancel deliveries.’ He lifted his shoulders. ‘It was cancelled until further notice.’

Grigori gave a huff of irritation. A pigeon had flown. And they didn’t have time to go looking for it. ‘That is unfortunate. You should have gone sooner.’

The matter of blame was clear, and Radko shifted uncomfortably, but said nothing.

‘We still have the Gavin woman.’ Grigori reached down and switched on the desk lamp, throwing a green-tinged glow across the room. ‘Since gentle persuasion isn’t working, we must try other means.’

‘What do you suggest?’

‘Everyone has someone,’ Grigori insisted, ‘or something. Friends, family, a neighbour, even… there’s always a weak point.’ He looked bleakly at Radko, his meaning challenging. ‘I suggest you get out there and find out what Riley Gavin’s weak point is.’