Alarm Call

Chapter 19

She was wrong, though: I wouldn’t have hated her in the morning, only myself. I knew it as I watched her sleep, as I had many times in the past. The head that had lain on the pillow the night before had belonged to someone else, but the crumpled blonde look was definitely her.

I was smiling when she woke, as the phone rang our alarm bell, and focused on me.

‘You’ve cooled down, then?’

‘I reckon.’

‘Do you still want me to come over there?’

‘No,’ I told her, although the part of me without brains wanted just that.

‘I’ll shower first, then.’ She pulled off the pyjama top and climbed out of bed.

‘Good morning, ladies,’ I said.

The general manager was indeed waiting when I went to check out. His name was Benjamin E. King and he was full of apologies; he promised me a full internal investigation, and he did indeed offer me his assistant’s head on a plate. I turned it down, but accepted his offer to waive our bill. Charles’s smile was even wider than before as we climbed into the limo. I guessed that word had spread around the staff.

As soon as we had cleared flight security, I found a phone in the executive lounge and called home. Audrey answered, sounding distinctly uncomfortable. ‘Oz, it wasn’t me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t make the mistake, honestly.’

‘I know you didn’t. Don’t tell me Susie’s blaming you.’

‘She hasn’t said anything, but I get this feeling that she might be.’

‘I’ll sort it, don’t worry. Is she around?’

‘No, she’s gone to the Gantry Group office for a meeting.’

‘Okay. When she gets back, please tell her I called, and that I’ll call her again from Vancouver.’

It was a long flight, halfway across a continent and a bit more. The weekend was drawing near so I used the time to concentrate on Everett’s script, and on my longer scenes. The skies were cloudless, and Prim spent the time staring out of the window at the vastness of the northern states as they unrolled before her. I’d no idea what she was thinking about, but that sight on that sort of day doesn’t leave much room in the mind for anything else.

I hoped it was doing her good. As hard as I focused on my lines in the forthcoming movie, Susie’s angry voice kept breaking through. I was still kicking myself for the stupid thing I’d said to her in the middle of the night. Effectively I’d told her that when I was married to Prim she hadn’t had too many scruples herself, but that was then and this was another world, in which such an argument was irrelevant.

‘Fuck it!’ I muttered under my breath. ‘Who needs to be a nice guy?’ But then I thought about Janet and wee Jonathan, and I realised that I did. There was a problem about that, though. The Prim with whom I was travelling was not the shocked, emotionally broken half-drunk who’d tottered off the shuttle a week before, she was a woman who’d recovered her formidable courage and her sense of purpose. More than that she’d transformed her dowdy appearance, and had become a slightly older version of a woman for whom I’d had the serious hots from the very beginning. If she’d taken up my angry proposition in the middle of the night, I could only imagine the trouble I’d be in.

I thought about it and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

She looked away from Montana and at me. ‘For what?’

‘For keeping me honest.’

She smiled, took my hand and squeezed it. ‘Someone has to. But to be honest myself, tonight I’ll miss sleeping beside you.’

‘Yeah, well. If we hadn’t messed things up in the past. .’

‘You wouldn’t have been as happy as you are now. . or nearly as successful. Susie’s made you, I’d have held you back.’

Suddenly I felt resentful. ‘Hey, cool that one,’ I told her. ‘I’ve made myself. I’ve had a lot of help in the planning, but the execution’s been down to me.’

I was still thinking about that as we swung out over the strait that divides Vancouver from its island then round for landing.

I’d been to the city before and to Toronto, filming, so I was familiar with the strict formality of Canadian Immigration, but it took Prim by surprise. ‘Don’t they want people in their country?’ she asked, when, eventually, we’d been cleared.

‘Sure. They just don’t want the wrong people.’

There was another limo waiting for us, sent by the hotel on Audrey’s instruction. It wasn’t quite as plush as the Minneapolis job, but it was okay, and it was big enough to handle our luggage, which was all I really wanted. When we saw the Granville Island Hotel, I realised that I’d been there already. A couple of autumns before I’d been filming in the city and had been invited to a Scots reception organised as part of Vancouver’s annual writers’ festival.

It’s built on the waterfront, on a sheltered creek that cuts into the city and divides it. Granville Island is really an islet, and you can drive on to it, but it has the feel of a separate community. Once it was all industrial but now it’s very arty-crafty, with several theatres and workshops, although there is still a cement factory there, managing to co-exist happily with everything going on around it. The hotel lived up to the rest of the place. . quirky, modern in design but appealing.

The rooms were fine too, and this time we had one each, one floor up, at the front of the hotel, on either corner, looking down on some quite expensive boats and out across the water. The two corridors were divided by a glass-walled area that contained. . I could hardly believe my eyes. . a micro-brewery.

I left Prim to settle in and went to my room, to do an E.T. and phone home. The time change meant that it was still well shy of noon in British Columbia, but evening in Scotland. I had no illusions about the welcome that my wife had in store for me, but I wanted very badly to speak to my daughter.

It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared; in the twelve hours since we’d last spoken, or shouted, Susie had cooled down. In fact she’d gone all the way to frosty, but I could put up with that. ‘It wasn’t Audrey’s fault,’ I told her at once. ‘I heard her make the booking.’

‘Yes, I accept that. . but then you changed it.’

‘I didn’t, love, honestly. It was the hotel’s mistake, they didn’t have a second room, and Minneapolis was full of Elks or Shriners, or whatever they call masons there. I’m going to tell you this once and you’re going to believe me: we didn’t sleep in the same bed. To quote a former president, “I did not have sex with that woman.” Or maybe I shouldn’t quote him, all things considered.’

‘No,’ she growled, ‘maybe you shouldn’t. . unless you think that blow-jobs don’t count as well.’ A flutter ran through me at her use of the phrase.

‘I had an e-mail, Oz,’ she said, making my flutter fly away at once.

‘You had a what?’

‘An e-mail; it landed in my mailbox at the Gantry Group. It was from pwallinger. . one word. . at trickledown dot com.’

‘How would he know your e-mail address?’ The question was out as I realised its futility: all he’d have to do was look up the Gantry website. All the senior people, including Susie, have addresses listed there. ‘What did it say?’ I pressed on.

‘It said, “Do you really believe him?” That was all. I sent him back a reply, saying “Yes, now fuck off.” Then I called you at your hotel, to tell you about it, and to give you your flight information at the same time, and the guy on the switchboard let slip that you and your ex were in the same room. Is the lad still attached to his balls, Oz?’

‘By a single hair. Susie, you do believe me, yes? I’ll swear to you on anything you like.’

‘Since you put it like that, okay. How’s your new accommodation?’

‘Separate.’

‘Just as well. How long will you be in Vancouver?’

‘Three days, maximum: I have to be in Vegas on Sunday, remember. All we have to do here is secure Prim’s money, and see if we can pick up anything at the bank it’s in that might lead us to Wallinger. At least that’s what I thought; that e-mail changes everything. We’re after him, but the bastard’s tracking us.’

‘How did he know you were in Minneapolis, far less at that hotel?’

Good question, and I could only come up with one answer: dear old Mom had tipped him off. I told Susie about our call on her, and about my visit from brother John the Second. ‘What time did you say that e-mail arrived?’

‘It was there when I opened my box, less than half an hour before I called you.’

‘No, when did it arrive? It should tell you.’

‘Hold on, I’m switched on here. I can look.’

I waited for a minute or so.

‘It says that it was received at seven minutes past eleven.’

‘Well after I’d seen Mamma Wallinger, in that case.’

‘Couldn’t it have been the brother who tipped him off?’ she asked.

‘I don’t see it. I got the impression that John regards Paul as a non-person. But maybe I was wrong; maybe I’m losing it when it comes to judging people.’

‘Maybe I am too,’ Susie muttered.

‘Hey, don’t start that again. Is Janet still up? I want to speak to her.’

I had a conversation with my excited daughter, who updated me on the politics of her nursery school, then spoke to my son, who updated me with the contents of his stomach, judging by the noise he made into the phone, before finally I said goodnight, or good-day, depending on location, to my wife. Her farewell was warmer than her greeting: at least that was something.

I had told Prim that I’d see her at midday; that gave me time to spare. I’m not a computer nerd, but everywhere I go these days I take my laptop. There was direct Internet access in my room, so I dug it out of its flight case and plugged the modem into the wall.

Once it was booted up, I piggy-backed on to my AOL account and hit the ‘write’ icon. It waved at me and set me up with a blank. I keyed in ‘pwallinger@trickledown.com’ then wrote in the message box. What I said to him was as follows:

Until you e-mailed my wife, I was only in this for Prim’s sake. Now I’m in it for mine, and I’m coming to get you.

I hit the ‘send’ button, disconnected and switched off the machine without checking the rest of my mail and went off to collect Prim with a feeling of satisfaction.

I didn’t tell her about Susie’s message: it would only have upset her, and I saw no point in that. Instead I made sure that she had all the papers she would need when we tackled Fairmile and Company, and then we headed downstairs.

Prim had been for calling the bank to make an appointment, but I had talked her out of it. The way I saw it, we didn’t know anything about them, and we didn’t know what sort of a relationship they had with Wallinger. I preferred to go in with weapons locked and loaded and to take them by surprise, so the game plan was to grab a bite of lunch. . on Minneapolis time, a very late lunch. . then head straight there.

We stepped out of the lift and were heading for Reception to find a street map, when someone shouted across the hallway, ‘Oz? Oz Blackstone? Is that you?’ Surprised, I stared at the source, and saw approaching, with a smile on her face, a small woman with black, grey-flecked hair. She was middle-aged but had an eternally youthful look about her. ‘Alma,’ she reminded me. ‘We met here a couple of years back.’

It clicked into place. She was the director of the Writers’ Festival; we’d been introduced at the Scots Night and since she’d originated in Edinburgh we’d hit it off. In fact we’d wound up talking for the rest of the reception and into the evening in the hospitality room that she maintained for visiting authors.

‘Hi,’ I greeted her. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Busy as hell,’ she told me amiably. ‘This is the time of year when much of the work gets done. What brings you to town? Another movie?’

‘No. It’s a flying visit. This is Primavera; she’s my ex-wife. ’ As the two women shook hands I could read the question Alma was bursting to ask. ‘It’s a long story,’ I said. ‘The short version is that Prim has to pay a call on a private bank here in town and she needs a witness.’

‘Who are they?’

I told her.

‘On Horner Street? I know them. One of my board members was a director until he retired. Have you dealt with them for long?’

‘I’ve never met them,’ Prim admitted.

‘They’re very good, very reputable. If you like, I’ll ask Gordon to call them and pave the way for you, make sure they give you the VIP treatment. He still has clout there.’ She gave a clear, bell-like laugh. ‘Come to think of it, he has clout everywhere, even in my office.’

I thought about her offer, and accepted. A little inside influence couldn’t do any harm.

‘When were you planning to go there?’

‘About two thirty.’

‘Gordon will make sure they’re expecting you.’

‘That’s terrific,’ said Prim.

‘Don’t mention it. Anything else I can help with?’

‘How about somewhere for lunch?’ I suggested.

‘The Sandbar, just down there on Johnston Street; make sure you go upstairs. If you’re here for breakfast tomorrow, go to Granville Island Market.’

‘We’ll do all that. Would you like to join us?’

‘Love to, but I got to fly.’ She waved us goodbye and bustled off towards the door.

I asked the reception manager to book us a car for two fifteen, to take us to Horner Street, then we headed off to find the Sandbar.

It was five minutes’ walk away, almost within sight of the hotel. As Alma had advised, we ate on the rooftop deck, from a menu that boasted most of the fish in the Pacific. I ordered a jumbo shrimp starter followed by orange roughy; Prim was in ‘bore for Scotland’ mode and settled for plain ordinary halibut. Our high table overlooked downtown Vancouver, and the False Creek Ferries that cross the inlet from Granville Island.

We felt more or less normal when we got back to the hotel, although already the day was stretching out in the way it does when you fly across five American states and try to pretend that it’s nothing. Prim wanted to do a girlie thing and change into something more formal, but the car was waiting for us, so I told her she looked business-like enough.

In the afternoon traff ic. . Vancouver’s a busier city than Minneapolis, where most of the cars spend the day in off-street parks. . we got to Fairmile and Company with two minutes to spare, even though it was in a building we could see from the island.

The offices were on the sixth floor of a high-rise: this was not the sort of establishment whose customers walked in off the street to withdraw a couple of hundred loonies. . that’s the Canadian equivalent of ‘bucks’, or ‘quid’; they say that the looney is a bird, but I’m not convinced.

Whatever position Alma’s pal had held there, it must have been a senior one for, as she said, he still had clout. The uniformed bloke in the lobby who’d directed us to the lift must have been under orders to phone ahead of us, for when I opened the door and stepped into Reception, the chief executive himself was waiting for us. He was a tall, slim, bald bloke, and he looked at least sixty, although if you’d told me he was ten years older than that I wouldn’t have argued.

He stepped up to me, hand outstretched. ‘Mr Blackstone, I’m Bill Hoover, president. I’m so pleased to welcome you to Fairmile. My former colleague Gordon Barney called to advise me of your visit. Come on through and you can tell me what it’s all about.’

I introduced Prim and we followed him into a room that was smaller than mine at the hotel: modest indeed by bank president standards, and deliberately so, I guessed, to make the right impression on clients. In fact, it had the same feel as HHH Asset, for all that I’d seen of it.

‘The first thing I should say, Mr Hoover,’ I began, ‘is that I’m not the principal at this meeting, Prim is. You’re holding a substantial deposit here, transferred from an account in Jersey; it’s her money and she wants to take full control of it.’

The president frowned. ‘I’m aware of the account in question, set up around three months ago by an intermediary. ’ He ruffled through several files on his desk until he found the right one. ‘Mr Paul Wallinger, on behalf of Primavera Phillips.’ He looked at Prim. ‘That would be your maiden name, yes?’

‘That’s right,’ she replied, then delved into her own papers, and slid two across Hoover’s desk. ‘These are copies of my birth certificate, and of my passport, to prove that I am who I say I am.’

I smiled. ‘And I’m here to verify that she is who she says she is.’

‘That isn’t in doubt. However, what I’ll need to see is proof of ownership of the funds. It’s not that I doubt anything that’s being said here; we have laws and I have independent supervision, so everything has to be done by the book.’

‘Sure,’ said Prim. ‘I understand that and here is the book.’ She took a file from her bag and handed it across. ‘Those are papers showing a chain of ownership, from my original investment portfolio put in place by my former advisers, through to its sale by Mr Wallinger and the transfer of the proceeds through Jersey to you. They’re all copies, but they’ve been notarised by a solicitor.’ She produced one further document, in a long slim envelope, and gave it to him. ‘And that is an original, an instruction by me revoking Mr Wallinger’s appointment as my adviser.’

Hoover opened the file and went through it from back to front. When he was finished he looked up and smiled. ‘Do I call you Miss Phillips or Mrs Blackstone?’ he asked.

‘Ms Phillips, but Primavera, or even Prim, will do fine.’

‘In that case, Primavera, Fairmile and Company is very pleased to have you as a client for however long you may choose to leave your funds with us.’

‘I haven’t given that any thought, Mr Hoover. I have other priorities at the moment. How am I invested at the moment?’

‘On Mr Wallinger’s instructions your funds are in a three-month fixed-term sterling deposit account, earning you around four per cent annual compounded.’ He paused and consulted a computer on his desk. ‘Your first maturity date is due the week after next.’

‘That’s fine for now. But if I’m going to stay with you I’ll need to do better than that.’

‘Prim, we can do better than that. Let me ask you, are you planning to reside in Canada?’

She smiled. ‘Much as I like it at first sight, I don’t think so.’

‘Do you have dependants?’

‘I have a son.’ She frowned as she replied, but Hoover didn’t notice.

‘Then I would probably advise you to look at setting up an international trust as a means of protecting your, if I may say so, substantial assets, wherever you decide to go. Within that we would set up an investment portfolio, again internationally based, pretty much like the one you had in Britain, designed to give you a combination of growth and income. As added value to what you had before, we can give you full banking services, cheque books, credit cards, the lot, so that your financial management is concentrated in one place.’

I intervened: ‘Bill, I hope you don’t mind me asking this, but what’s your bank’s asset position? To be honest I’ve never heard of you and I find myself wondering why Wallinger should have chosen to divert Prim’s assets here.’

‘I don’t take exception to your question at all, Oz. I should hope he did it on the basis of high-quality research. We’re a wholly owned subsidiary of FedCan, the biggest bank in Canada, set up to provide discreet and very flexible services to high net worth individuals like yourself and Primavera. As far as deposit security goes, we’re as safe as the Bank of England.’

‘That’s comforting to know,’ said Prim. She glanced at me. ‘Although I would have got round to asking that question myself. How long would it take you to give me a detailed proposal?’

‘How long will you be in Vancouver?’

‘I don’t know for sure.’ She looked at me.

‘It’s up to you,’ I told her, ‘but I have to go to Vegas this weekend; then there’s the other matter.’

‘Come back in three hours,’ said Hoover. ‘I’ll put my top team on it and we’ll make a presentation then. Normally we close at five thirty, but we’ll stay open for as long as it takes.’

‘Okay,’ said Prim. ‘I’ll do that.’

The president looked at me. ‘Is anything I’ve said of interest to you, Mr Blackstone?’

I knew he’d have done research on me before I walked through the door. ‘It’s an area that my wife and I are considering at the moment,’ I replied. ‘We’re taking professional advice, though; I’ll have to wait and see what that comes up with.’

‘Of course.’

I glanced at Prim, to make sure she was done. ‘Can I ask you, Bill,’ I said, ‘how this account was set up? Did Wallinger come here in person?’

‘No, the initial contact was made by telephone. He spoke to one of our relationship managers and told him he had a large sum of money that he wanted to transfer to our bank. He wanted us to set up an international discretionary trust, so that the ownership of the funds would be cloaked, but it was explained to him that we couldn’t do anything like that without a personal instruction. It was further explained that we couldn’t accept a deposit without evidence of ownership of the funds, and an assurance from the transmitting bank that they were legitimate. It was only at that point Mr Wallinger stated he was an intermediary, not the principal.’

‘Did your manager suspect a fraud situation?’

‘At first, yes, but when Mr Wallinger accepted what we told him and wanted to proceed, we had no reason not to. He faxed us his authority, and the Jersey bank gave us the assurances we needed, so we went ahead and set up the account. By that time the transaction had been reported to me; I specified that we would only accept the funds if they were put on a minimum three-month deposit. It was my idea of a cooling-off period, just a little safeguard on our part.’

‘Have you heard from Wallinger since?’

‘No, but I didn’t expect to, with the funds being locked up for three months and everything. Once the arrangement was made, he said he’d have further instructions for us after the first maturity date about where the interest should go.’

‘So he should surface the week after next?’

‘That would be right. What do you want me to do if he does?’

‘Flush him out. Tell him you will only accept a further instruction if he presents himself at the bank in person, make an appointment, and let us know. Can you do that?’

‘Technically, probably not.’ His leathery face split into a smile. ‘But I will.’