Fatal Error

24

September 1999, Notting Hill, London

It was very late by the time I got home. I was far too wound up to go to bed. I looked for some whisky, couldn’t find any, and so I opened a bottle of wine. I slumped on to the sofa and thought about Tony.

He had been a horrible sight. He must have died instantly, but if his death was quick, it was also messy. The shock had been numbing, but as it wore off it was replaced by a feeling of great unease, which it took me a while to realize was guilt. I didn’t like Tony. Seconds before he had died I was very angry with him. Angry about what he had done to Guy, angry about what he was doing to Ninetyminutes, angry about what he was doing to me. And then, in an instant, he was dead. I knew I hadn’t killed him. I hadn’t even wished for his death. But the source of my present problems had been removed, as if by a miracle of the devil.

I drank three-quarters of a bottle of wine and went to bed. Some time in the small hours of the morning I went to sleep.

I managed to get into work early the next morning. I told the team. There was shock but also relief. Although Ninetyminutes’ future was uncertain, things looked better than they had twenty-four hours earlier.

Ingrid didn’t come in. Neither did Owen or Guy. I tried their home numbers but without success. But in the middle of the morning the police arrived in the form of Detective Sergeant Spedding.

‘Is there anywhere we can talk?’ he asked.

I showed him into the boardroom, the room that had been the scene of that acrimonious meeting only three days before. He sat opposite me and pulled out a notebook. He was about my age, with red hair, scattered freckles and an open, friendly face.

‘So this is one of those dot-com companies I’ve been reading about?’ he said, looking through the glass wall of the boardroom at the jumble of computers and young men and women.

‘Doesn’t look like much, does it?’

‘A mate of mine at the station said he’s had a look at your website. Says it’s very good.’

‘Thank you. Do you follow football?’

‘Bristol Rovers.’ I thought I’d detected a slight West Country burr. ‘I’ve been thinking about hooking up to the Internet at home, now you can sign up for free. Do you cover Rovers?’

‘Not yet. We just do the Premier League at the moment. But we hope to get on to the other divisions by the end of this season.’

‘Well, when I do sign up I’ll take a look myself.’ He glanced out at the office again. There was some bustle, but it was more lethargic than usual. ‘Must be a difficult day for you.’

With the Chairman killed and the Chief Executive gone missing he could say that again. ‘Do you think Tony Jourdan was run down deliberately?’ I asked.

‘It’s a possibility we have to consider. I know you gave a statement to my colleagues last night, but I’d like to ask you some more questions.’

‘Fire away.’

‘I understand that there was some conflict between Tony Jourdan and his son relating to this company?’

‘Yes. Although Guy founded Ninetyminutes, Tony was the biggest shareholder. There was a board meeting on Monday and they had a major disagreement over strategy. Tony wanted us to go into the pornography business and Guy refused. So Guy resigned.’

The policeman asked me plenty more questions about Guy, his father and Ninetyminutes, all of which I answered as honestly as possible. Then he asked me to go over my conversation with Tony at his flat the night before. He took careful notes.

‘In your statement last night you mentioned seeing a car waiting outside Mr Jourdan’s flat,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me a bit more about it?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll try.’

‘Do you remember what model it was?’

‘No,’ I replied immediately.

‘Are you quite sure? Think.’

Spedding was sitting back in his chair calmly, confident that I would be able to come up with something. So I closed my eyes, trying to picture the street sign and the vehicle in front of it.

‘Wait a minute. Yeah. It was some kind of hatchback. Oldish. A Golf. Something like that.’

‘Colour?’

‘Don’t know. Darkish. Black? Blue, maybe. No, it was black.’

‘I know you said you couldn’t remember the number plate. But can you remember part of the registration? The year prefix, perhaps?’

‘Yes. Yes, I can. N. It was N.’

‘Well done. What about the driver? Can you give even a vague description?’

‘I don’t know. I couldn’t see him clearly and I really wasn’t focusing on him.’

‘But he was male? White? Black? Young? Old?’

‘I see. Yeah, he was male. White. Wearing some kind of jacket. But no tie. Dark hair thinning a bit. Over thirty. Under fifty. That’s about the best I can do.’

‘Would you recognize him again if you saw him?’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘Could it have been anyone you know?’

‘No. Definitely not. At least, not anyone I know well.’

‘Are you quite sure you can’t remember anything more about him?’

The policeman’s friendly face encouraged me to be helpful. But there was not much more I could say. ‘I’m sorry. I know this is important and I wish I’d been more observant, but I had other things on my mind. Frankly, if the car hadn’t been obscuring the street name I wouldn’t have seen the man at all.’

Spedding nodded. He pulled out a sheet of paper, which was a diagram of the street. ‘Can you show me where the vehicle was parked?’

I placed an ‘X’ on the spot.

‘You say you heard the car start up. When was that?’

‘It was when Ingrid and I were walking round this corner here,’ I pointed to the diagram. ‘And Tony was coming out of his house here.’

‘Did you see it pull off?’

‘No. But once we were round the corner, I heard the engine rev up and then the thud and the scream. But by the time I’d run back to the street the car had gone.’

‘Well, we’re looking for it now. Our best hope is if we can find another witness.’

‘So you think it was intentional?’

‘I suppose there’s a chance it could have been an accident and the driver drove off — a hit and run. But on such a quiet narrow street it seems unlikely. I have one more thing to ask you. Do you mind if we examine your own vehicle?’

‘What for? It was outside my flat in Notting Hill at the time. Ingrid and I went by tube straight from work.’

‘Of course. But it will be useful to eliminate it from our enquiries. I’m sure you understand.’ I handed him the keys, told him where it was parked, and he left.

Very little work was done by anyone that day. Ingrid arrived about lunch-time, looking pale. And in the afternoon Mel rang.

‘Have you heard what’s happened?’ I asked her.

‘Guy called me an hour ago. He’s in Savile Row police station. He asked me to get him a lawyer.’

‘Christ! Do the police think he killed Tony?’

‘It’s not clear yet. But he’s obviously a suspect. He decided to do the smart thing and not talk to them without a lawyer. I’ve got hold of a good one who should be with him now.’

‘A detective came round here this morning. He was asking about Guy’s relationship with Tony. I’m afraid I told him.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Mel said. ‘They’d have found out soon enough. That’s not the kind of thing you can hide. If you had tried it would just have made them suspicious.’

‘Will he be OK?’

‘I’m sure he will. Unless they’ve got convincing evidence against him they’ll have to release him.’

‘Isn’t it terrible?’ I said. ‘About Tony.’

‘Yes,’ said Mel. ‘Although quite frankly I never really liked that man, as you well know.’

There was an awkward silence as I searched for a response to Mel’s honesty. I couldn’t quite admit out loud that I agreed with her. ‘Well, let me know if I can be of any help,’ I said eventually. ‘And tell Guy to call me when he gets out.’

‘All right.’

He did get out. He came straight to the office. It was eight o’clock and most people had gone home. He looked a wreck. Pale face, dark circles around his unsteady eyes.

‘So they let you go?’ I said.

‘Yes. Mel got me a good lawyer. The police were getting quite aggressive with me about my relationship with Dad. I just thought it made sense to ask for one. They don’t have any evidence against me, but they sure as hell are suspicious.’

‘Did you put them off?’

‘Yeah. They asked me where I was last night. Fortunately I was out drinking with Owen in a pub in Camden. I think they’ll be able to check up on that, so I should be OK.’

‘Did they tell you I saw a man in a car outside Tony’s flat? Right before he was run down?’

‘No. No, they didn’t. Have they found him?’

‘I couldn’t give them much of a description. But there was definitely someone there.’

‘I wonder who that was.’ Guy paused for a moment, but didn’t come up with any ideas. ‘They should leave me alone then. But the timing’s awful. Just after my row with Dad. I can see it must look really bad.’

‘How do you feel about it?’

Guy took a while to answer. ‘Numb. I feel numb. I mean, I’ve spent the last few days thinking how much I hate him. And then he goes and gets himself killed. It makes me... It makes me so bloody angry.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Angry at him. Angry at myself. Angry at the police for being so bloody stupid. But I know it hasn’t really sunk in yet. I still can’t quite believe I won’t see him again.’ He bit his lip.

Seeing Guy like this put my own feelings into perspective. My own guilt was nothing to his. I was in a much better position to cope.

‘Davo?’ Guy squinted at me.

‘Yes?’

‘Can you keep things together at Ninetyminutes for the next few days? Someone’s going to have to figure out what we’re going to do and I’m in no shape to do it.’

‘No problem. You take a few days off. Sort out your father’s affairs. Think about him. Spend time with Owen if it will help. I’ll mind the shop.’

Guy smiled. I was touched by the gratitude in that smile.

25

I did what Guy had asked me. I held Ninetyminutes together.

The staff were easy. This was a crisis and they performed well in a crisis. After the initial shock, they put their heads down and got on with the job. They knew Guy needed time, but they trusted me to sort things out.

I called Henry and told him the story. The whole story. About how Tony had been against Orchestra’s investment, about how Guy had threatened to resign and about Tony’s accident. Henry was still keen. Orchestra Ventures hadn’t made an investment for three months and they were worried they were missing the internet bus.

It turned out that the key to the whole thing was Hoyle. Tony’s shares in ninetyminutes.com weren’t held by him directly, but by an offshore trust. In fact, Tony’s affairs were a tangle of trusts domiciled in tiny islands around the globe. The ultimate beneficiaries were Guy, Owen, Sabina and her son Andreas, in varying proportions. The estate would be a nightmare to untangle. The only man who knew where everything was and how it related to everything else was Hoyle. He was also the only man left with executive powers over the trusts.

I had dealt with Hoyle before in his capacity as yes-man to Tony. But if Orchestra Ventures were to make their investment in Ninetyminutes, it would have to be with Hoyle’s say-so. And with Hoyle acting as an independent-thinking human being.

I managed to fix up a meeting with him a couple of days after Tony’s death. It turned out that Hoyle was quite capable of independent thought. It also turned out that he didn’t share Tony’s enthusiasm for the Internet at all. I sniffed an opportunity. He could either follow his late client’s strategy and be a majority shareholder of a small but marginally profitable soccer and pornography site without management of any kind, or he could take cash. Quite a lot of cash.

Hoyle went for the cash.

I didn’t have a deal yet, though. I had to persuade Orchestra to put in not only cash for Ninetyminutes to expand, but also enough to buy out Tony Jourdan’s trust as well. As a rule venture capitalists hate buying out existing investors, but the deal I suggested had several things going for it: it would allow management to retain enough of a stake to have a meaningful incentive, it would get rid of a potentially awkward shareholder and it would allow Orchestra to invest more money in the internet boom before it was too late. Henry ummed and ahhed and maybed, but then he went for it.

I received one further visit from Detective Sergeant Spedding. He was armed with a couple of photographs. One was of a middle-aged man, with thinning dark hair brushed back.

‘Do you recognize him?’ Spedding asked.

‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘The man in the car.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Definitely.’

‘He drives a black Golf GL, N registration. This is a photograph of a similar vehicle.’ He handed me the other print.

‘That’s it, I think. Of course I can’t be quite as certain about the car as the face, but it was definitely something like that.’

‘Excellent.’

‘Who is he?’ I asked.

‘He’s a private detective.’

‘Really? So he was tailing Tony?’

‘We think so. We haven’t spoken to him yet. We wanted to get confirmation from you that it was the same man first.’

‘I see. Do you know who he was working for?’

Spedding nodded. ‘Sabina Jourdan.’

I made my way through the post-modern ironic lobby of Sanderson’s Hotel. It was scattered with strange objects, the most noticeable of which was an enormous pair of red lips. I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to sit in them or sit on them: I gave them a wide berth. I spotted Guy amongst the other beautiful people in the designer-minimalist bar, nursing a bottle of beer. I asked for a pint of Tetley’s, just to see the look of disdain on the barman’s face, and settled for an Asahi.

‘How was the funeral?’ I asked Guy.

‘Awful.’

‘Who was there?’

‘Hardly anyone, thank God. It was just family — we’ll have the full-blown memorial service later. There was Owen, Mom, Sabina, Patrick Hoyle, a couple of great aunts and the vicar. Dad was buried in the churchyard in the village where he grew up, and the vicar did a good job in the circumstances. But no one seemed to really care. Apart from Sabina. The aunts hadn’t seen Dad for decades. I don’t know what my mother was doing there, she just looked bored. And Owen... well, you know what Owen’s like.’

‘What about you?’

‘I don’t know. During the service I felt nothing. Just cold and angry at all Dad had done. Or rather hadn’t done. All the times he ignored me, the times he walked out, what he did with Mel, what he was going to do to Ninetyminutes, they all ran around my head like a never-ending scorecard, with all the points against him. Then, when the coffin went down into that hole, I fell apart. I realized I’d never see him again, that I’d never have the chance to show him I wasn’t the loser he thought I was, that we’d never be close again. That we’d never be as close as I always thought we should have been.’

He swigged his beer.

‘You know, I used to think he was so cool, Davo. And he was. We’re a lot alike, he and I. But somehow we never quite managed to get on with each other, to respect each other like a father and son should. And now we never will.’

‘You did your best,’ I said. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘Just a few words every now and then would have done it. A bit of encouragement about how I was doing well, how he was proud of what I’d achieved. But whenever he got involved with anything I was doing he tried to take it over, prove he could do it better than me. Like Ninetyminutes. Or Mel.’

‘How’s your mother?’

‘God, I wish she hadn’t come. She’s pissed off because her alimony stops now Dad’s died. She brought her lawyer with her to talk to Patrick Hoyle, but Hoyle reckons she hasn’t a leg to stand on. It won’t matter, she’ll just get married again.’

‘To anyone in particular?’

‘Don’t know. She’ll find someone. And she was horrible to Sabina. As if Sabina didn’t have a right to be there. Which was particularly bad since Sabina was the only one who seemed truly upset about what had happened.’

‘Did you talk to her?’

‘Only briefly. She’s a nice woman. And I think she genuinely loved him, not his money. She’s probably the best of the three he married.’

‘What’s she going to do?’

‘Go back to Germany. She says she wants me to stay in touch with her and Andreas. I think I will.’ He checked his watch. ‘Mom will be here in a few minutes. We’re going out to Nobu for dinner. Anyone would think she was over here for a couple of days’ vacation. Thank God she’s going back to LA tomorrow.’

‘Are the police still on your case?’ I asked.

‘I think they’re leaving me alone. I’ve pretty much convinced them I was with Owen when Dad was run over. But they haven’t given up on the theory that he was murdered. They’ve been giving Sabina a hard time, apparently.’

‘Did you hear she’d hired a private detective?’ I said.

‘No.’

‘Yeah. The police asked me whether he was the guy in the car outside your father’s flat. I said I was pretty sure he was.’

‘So she had him tailing Dad?’

‘Sounds like it.’

‘Huh. No wonder the police are hassling her. And she gets the most out of the will. But I can’t imagine her having him killed.’

‘The police will get to the bottom of it,’ I said.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Tossers.’ He swigged more beer. ‘Anyway. Tell me what’s going on at Ninetyminutes.’

I ran through the details of the negotiations with Orchestra and Hoyle. Guy’s interest was quickened. Now that his father was buried I could see he was ready to focus on Ninetyminutes again. I was relieved.

‘Darling!’ We were interrupted by a loud female American voice. I turned to see a well-groomed blonde woman somewhere over forty approach Guy. She had high cheekbones, a polished tan, a well-toned body and bright white teeth. She should have been a good-looking woman, but there was something hard and charmless about her that instantly put me off. She didn’t look like anyone’s mother.

Guy introduced me. ‘Mom, this is my partner, David Lane. He was at school with me.’

‘Partner?’ she said. ‘I didn’t know—’

‘Business partner, Mom.’

Her interest in me evaporated. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said, unconvincingly. ‘I’d love to stop for a drink, but our reservation is for eight thirty and we’ll be late.’

I let them go.

As she led her son out of the hotel, Guy whispered to me. ‘Did you spot the facelift?’

I hadn’t.

He smiled. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he said and was gone.

Guy returned to the office the next day as promised. Everyone was pleased to see him, especially me. There was a lot to do. I had just one or two final details to sort out with Patrick Hoyle, so I went to meet him at Mel’s office off Chancery Lane. It didn’t take long, and after less than an hour we left the building together.

‘You sound as if you’re glad to be shot of Ninetyminutes,’ I said as we stood on the pavement waiting for taxis.

‘I’m not convinced by the Internet,’ Hoyle muttered. ‘And it was a very bad idea for Tony to get involved with his son.’

‘It wasn’t a good idea for Guy, either.’

Hoyle snorted. ‘At least he’s still alive.’

Something in the way Hoyle said those words caught my attention. I looked at him closely. He was an intelligent man. He suspected something. ‘Do you have any idea who killed Tony? Or why he died?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But it was awfully convenient for some people.’

‘Like Guy?’

‘Like Guy.’

‘You don’t think he killed his father, do you? There’s no proof.’

Hoyle shrugged, as though he didn’t want to be drawn any further into the conversation. But his use of the word ‘convenient’ reminded me of something. Something Ingrid had said more than ten years before.

‘I know what happened to the gardener in France,’ I said. ‘Abdulatif.’

‘Do you?’ said Hoyle, neutrally.

‘Yes. I know that you paid him to disappear after Dominique’s death. To protect Tony.’

‘And who told you that?’

‘Guy.’

Hoyle wasn’t even looking at me, but at the occupied taxis driving past us. ‘Can’t get a bloody taxi anywhere these days,’ he muttered. ‘What we need is another recession.’

‘I know Abdulatif was murdered a few years ago.’

‘So I understand.’ Still a neutral voice.

‘That was convenient too, wasn’t it?’

Hoyle finally turned his attention away from the traffic and on to me. ‘Yes, it was.’

‘Did you organize it?’ I asked.

Hoyle looked at me. ‘Let’s get a cup of coffee,’ he said, indicating a café just up the street.

Neither of us said anything until we were sitting down with two cups at an isolated table.

‘I like you, David,’ Hoyle said.

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to be liked by Hoyle.

‘You’re a good negotiator and you’re loyal to your friend. Loyalty is a quality I admire. But you should be careful.’

‘Of Guy?’

‘Let me tell you about Abdulatif. I suspect you know only half the story.’

‘I’m sure I only know half the story,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

‘You’re correct that Guy told me Owen had seen Abdulatif with Dominique. And he suggested paying him to disappear. It sounded like a good idea. It would deflect enquiries away from Tony. At that time I wasn’t entirely sure of his innocence. Tony had said he was with a prostitute when Dominique was killed, but prostitutes can, by definition, be bought. So I arranged things. I gave Abdulatif half a million francs and told him to make himself scarce. Guy had got hold of some of Dominique’s jewellery and we gave that to him as well.’

‘Why did he take the money?’ I asked. ‘Surely he ran the risk of getting caught and prosecuted for murder.’

‘I thought that at the time. There’s quite an extensive North African community in the South of France: it’s hard for the police to find a young man who wants to go underground. But I was soon to learn there was another reason.’

‘Which was?’

‘Blackmail. I’d assumed Abdulatif would leave the country. But he didn’t. He went to Marseilles, and after a year he got in touch with me again. He wanted two hundred thousand francs to stay quiet. So I paid him. Another year, another demand. A little higher this time. And so it went on.

‘I wanted to get the cash from Tony, but Guy was anxious that his father shouldn’t find out what we’d done. So I insisted Guy pay. The years went by and the demands got higher. It became more difficult for Guy to find the money: Tony was becoming less generous with him. It got to the point where I thought we should call Abdulatif’s bluff. By that time I was convinced of Tony’s innocence. And, of course, if Abdulatif went to the authorities he would be getting himself into just as much trouble as us. But it was an uncomfortable situation for me and for Guy. Paying off a key witness in a murder investigation is a serious crime.’

‘And then Abdulatif was found in the dustbin?’

‘Precisely. As we said. Very convenient.’

‘You have no idea how he got there?’

‘You mean, did I arrange it?’ Hoyle sipped his coffee. ‘I can’t blame you for asking. But no. I didn’t. That’s not the kind of thing I do, even for my best client.’

‘Do you think Guy arranged it?’

Hoyle shrugged. ‘What do you think?’

I paused. Was my friend a murderer? Of course not. ‘You said initially you thought Tony might have killed Dominique, but then you changed your mind?’

‘Yes. They weren’t getting on well. Neither of them was particularly faithful, as of course you know.’

I sighed, angry rather than embarrassed. Hoyle noticed.

‘Sorry. You were young, she was beautiful, and she was using you. Tony knew that. But I’m sure he didn’t murder her. I’ve spoken to him many times over the years about her death and, while I wouldn’t expect him to admit it to me, I’m sure I’d be able to tell if he had killed her.’

Hoyle sipped his coffee thoughtfully. ‘Tony Jourdan was much more than a client. He was my friend. We met when we were students together. He was one of the reasons I moved out to Monte Carlo. We’ve been through a lot together over the years, ups and downs. I was very sorry when he died. Very sorry.’

He put down his cup. ‘Now, I really must find a taxi.’ With a heave, he pulled himself to his feet and left me hunched over my cooling cup of coffee.

We closed a deal with Orchestra Ventures in record time. Orchestra bought out Tony Jourdan’s trust for four million pounds, twice his initial investment, and put in a further ten million. They ended up with seventy per cent of the company, leaving plenty for the management and employees. The board changed, of course. Orchestra found us a new chairman, Derek Silverman. He was a trim grey-haired businessman of about fifty. He had already made several million pounds from a management buyout of a marketing business that had been funded by one of Orchestra’s partners. More importantly, he was chairman of a Premier League club. Henry also joined the board as Orchestra’s representative and Patrick Hoyle was booted off.

Guy suggested Ingrid as a third executive director. She had made herself an indispensable member of the team and both Guy and I valued her judgement more by the day. Henry liked her, so she was in. Her only difficulty was with Mel. They were cool towards each other, but professional, and they did their best to keep out of each other’s way.

With the deal done and the ten million in the bank, we hit the ground running. There was plenty to spend it on. More office space: we took over the floor below. More staff, especially more journalists. Advertising. Gearing up the on-line retailing. Henry didn’t mind this profligacy. In the upside-down world of internet valuations, the more you spent on getting a website established, the more it was worth. So spend, spend, spend.

It worked. Visitor numbers to the website rose strongly as the season got under way. In the month of September we logged over four hundred thousand visitors and nearly three million page impressions. There were other soccer websites out there, but we were eating into their market share. Gaz’s stuff was just better. The site looked more attractive. It was quick, easy and fun to use. Guy began to sign up a network of partnerships with everyone from the leading search engines, to internet service providers, to online newspapers, to special-interest sites like ours. We signed a deal with Westbourne, one of the largest bookmakers in the country, for on-line soccer betting. It became popular immediately, and even generated a revenue stream.

We needed to generate dozens of stories a day for the site: transfer and injury news, gossip, opinion, and, of course, match reports. This required an ever-growing band of journalists, each controlling a network of freelances and contacts within the club system. We put television screens on the walls and, more importantly, installed software that allowed the journalists to watch video or listen to radio commentary live on their computers.

Gaz came up with a high-profile scoop: the signing of one of Brazil’s top strikers by a major Premier League club for twenty-five million pounds. The club denied it and for two days it looked as if we had got things badly wrong. The tabloids ridiculed us, but Gaz was confident. Sure enough, the story was confirmed. Later, Gaz told me his source was the fourteen-year-old son of one of the club’s directors, who was an enthusiastic fan of our site.

With all this activity, there was scarcely time to think. And when there was time, I thought about Ninetyminutes. I didn’t hear any more from the police, nor did I discuss Tony’s death with Guy. But Patrick Hoyle’s words rankled. I tried to push them out of my mind, but they kept returning.

It was too convenient.

One morning I phoned the office to say I wouldn’t be coming in until the afternoon. Guy sounded a little surprised, especially when I told him I was going flying. He knew I hadn’t been since I had started working at Ninetyminutes nearly six months before.

It was a sunny day in early October, with a fresh breeze to blow away any autumnal mist or London smog. It felt good to be at the controls of an aeroplane again, alone, a couple of thousand feet above the ground, with England stretching out like a carpet of green, gold and brown beneath me. I flew over the Hampshire downs to one of my favourite airfields, Bembridge on the Isle of Wight, and walked the mile or so up the steep hill to the cliff tops above Whitecliff Bay.

It was cool up there in the breeze, but it was quiet and it was a long way from Ninetyminutes. I was hoping the distance would give me some perspective.

It did.

For the first time I faced up to the question I had been avoiding. Had Guy killed his father?

On the face of it, it was possible. Ninetyminutes had meant everything to Guy and his father had threatened to take it away. Tony had a hold over Guy that was difficult for me to understand, but it was powerful and I knew Guy wanted to break free from it. The police had certainly thought of Guy as a suspect. Owen had stood by him, provided him with an alibi, but then Owen had always stood by Guy.

But I had spoken to Guy on the day of the funeral. He had seemed genuinely upset about his father’s death. That was the thing with Guy. We were close. He could lay open his emotions to me. Over the last few months I had seen him in the good times and the bad. He trusted me with his feelings.

But he had also been a professional actor once. Could I really trust him?

I remembered when these same thoughts had invaded my mind, on Mull, when Mel had told me about Guy arranging to pay off Abdulatif. Both Patrick and Mel had seemed to suggest that Guy had done this to protect himself. That he had killed Dominique.

There was one other loose end. The footprint Guy had left outside Dominique’s window the night she died. I had never received a satisfactory answer from him on that. I knew he hadn’t put it there when the two of us had gone to bed. So how had it got there?

And then Abdulatif had himself been murdered. By Guy?

Had Guy really killed three people over the last thirteen years? That went against everything I knew about him, against the trust and friendship we had built up over the previous six months, and against everything I had put into Ninetyminutes. Unless I was able to put my doubts about Guy behind me, they would undermine everything.

I stared out over the sea. A fat ferryboat inbound from France was charging towards a sleek warship. It looked from my vantage point as if they were going to collide, but they passed each other without noise or fuss: it was only as they overlapped that I realized the warship was a couple of miles further away.

The trouble was, the doubts weren’t going away.

Until I knew for sure whether Guy was involved in these deaths, I wouldn’t be able to trust him. If I didn’t trust him, we couldn’t work together. If we couldn’t work together, ninetyminutes.com would fall apart.

But this wasn’t just about Ninetyminutes. Guy’s friendship was vital to me. If I was ever to do something interesting or unconventional with my life, to become more than just a bean-counting accountant, it would be because of Guy.

I had to convince myself that he was innocent.

26

I arrived in the office mid-afternoon to confront the usual pandemonium, the mixture of the very important and the entirely inconsequential, all of which had to be dealt with. Guy didn’t mention my morning off, although I could tell he was curious. He went off to a meeting at four, and never came back to the office.

I left work early, which was still about seven thirty, and took the tube to Tower Hill. I followed my familiar path past the Tower of London, looming murderously in the darkness, and the bright lights of St Katherine’s Dock, to Guy’s building in Wapping High Street.

He was in, working on a presentation.

‘What’s up, Davo?’ he said, seeing the expression on my face.

‘I want to talk to you. I need to talk to you.’

‘OK. Come in. Beer?’

I nodded. He pulled two out of the fridge, handed one to me and opened his own. ‘What is it?’

I hesitated, searching for the words. I wanted to know the truth. But I didn’t want to make it seem that I didn’t trust Guy. In fact, it was because I wanted to trust him that I was here at all.

In the end, I looked him in the eye. ‘Did you kill your father?’

Guy was about to protest. Then he thought better of it. He returned my gaze.

‘No.’

We stayed like that for a few moments, his brilliant blue eyes looking steadily into mine. He used to be an actor. He was a professional at hiding his real self. Yet he was my friend. We had been through so much together.

‘Good,’ I said at last. ‘But do you mind if I ask you a few questions? Difficult questions.’

‘Do you feel you have to?’

‘Yes,’ I said firmly.

Guy sighed. ‘OK. Ask.’

‘Where were you on the night he died?’ I asked, trying to make the question sound as dispassionate as possible.

‘I went out for a drink with Owen.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘The Elephant’s Head in Camden,’ he muttered, his impatience showing. ‘Near his place.’

‘What time did you leave?’

‘What is this?’ Guy protested. ‘I told the police all this. They checked out my story. Don’t you trust me?’

‘I want to trust you. But I can’t get Tony’s death out of my mind. I need to know who was responsible.’

‘Don’t you think I want to know too? He was my father.’

‘If I can start off by eliminating you it’ll make me feel much better.’

Guy scowled. ‘All right. I’ll tell you what I told the police. And what they checked out. Owen and I went to the pub about seven o’clock. We left about nine. I was already half-pissed, but Owen hadn’t had much. He went back to his flat. I went on to Hydra, you know, that bar in Hatton Garden? I came home about eleven.’

‘And your father was killed at nine twenty-five, wasn’t he?’ I said, remembering my interviews with Sergeant Spedding.

‘Something like that.’

Owen and Guy had left the pub at about nine. Just time to get to Knightsbridge if one of them hurried. It was such an obvious point, I didn’t need to make it.

‘Before you say anything,’ Guy said, ‘the police checked out the Elephant’s Head and Hydra.’

‘What about Owen?’

‘He stopped off at a Europa to buy some food on the way home. The CCTV got him. Timed at nine twenty-one. Can’t get better than that.’

You couldn’t.

‘Anyway,’ Guy went on. ‘What about the man you saw in the car? The private detective. He has to be a better suspect than me, doesn’t he?’

I nodded. ‘That’s true.’

‘Any more questions?’ Guy asked.

I had gone this far. I may as well go the whole way. ‘Yes. I was thinking about what happened to Dominique and the gardener.’

Guy looked angry again. ‘Why? What’s that got to do with anything? That was years ago, for God’s sake!’

‘I was talking to Patrick Hoyle about it. He’s convinced your father didn’t kill Dominique. And he told me how Abdulatif tried to blackmail you about paying him off.’

‘I don’t know who killed Dominique! Nor do I care. It was twelve years ago. And as for that bloody gardener, it’s true he tried to blackmail us. But I’ve already told you we paid him off.’

‘You didn’t tell me about the blackmail.’

‘No. Because it wasn’t important. Anyway, he was blackmailing Hoyle, not me. So what are you saying here, Davo?’ Guy’s voice was laced with scorn. ‘I killed all three of them? Because if you are, you can just sod off out of here.’

‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I was just wondering whether there was any connection between what happened in France and what happened to Tony. Perhaps I should mention it to the police.’

‘For God’s sake, don’t do that. It’ll open up a whole can of worms. This thing is bad enough as it is.’ Guy got a grip on his anger. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Davo. It’s hard not to get worked up when a friend doubts you. You’re a mate. A good mate. You were with me in France. You’ve been with me this last six months. You should know I don’t wander around killing people.’

‘I know I should,’ I said. ‘But...’

‘But what?’

The truth was, I didn’t know what. There was circumstantial evidence against him, so some suspicion was natural. But he was my friend. He did have a comprehensive alibi that the police had investigated thoroughly. It was Patrick Hoyle’s doubts against Guy’s word.

I considered asking him about the footprint, but I knew that he would only say what he had always said: that he had gone to relieve himself in the bushes. More than ten years on I wouldn’t be able to get him to change that story, even though I knew it was wrong.

I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right. But I had to ask those questions just to clear things up in my head. And you’ve answered them. I ought to go.’

‘No. Have another beer,’ Guy said. He dug a couple out of the fridge and handed one to me with a smile of friendship. My suspicions were forgiven. ‘Now, how are we going to get a Munich office off the ground in three months?’

We chatted amicably about Ninetyminutes for an hour or so. But as I sat in a taxi making its way west towards my flat, I realized that although Guy had made me feel better, I still wasn’t one hundred per cent sure of his innocence. The question was whether I could live with ninety per cent.

The following afternoon I had a meeting with the people who were going to administer the credit-card payments once customers started buying from us on-line. We had chosen this particular company because they had assured us that the process would be straightforward. It wasn’t. It was one of those meetings where more problems emerged than were solved. Frustrated, I returned to the office. I turned on my computer and checked my e-mails. There was one from Owen. I opened it, preparing myself for an obscure techie rant.

I looked up sharply to where he was hunched over his machine only a few feet away. Jerk. I hit Reply.

I glanced up. Owen’s fingers were flying over the keyboard. Whether he had read my response or not, I couldn’t tell.

I opened the file attached to the e-mail. My computer whirred and ground, then an animation appeared of a man about to take a swing at a golf ball. Except the golf ball was a head. The image zoomed in on the face. It was mine, taken from a photograph on the corporate section of the website.

The club was a driver, a wood. It swung back, then sliced down, making contact with my head, exploding it in a mess of blood and brains, to the amplified sound of cracking eggs. Despite myself, I flinched. It was only an animation, but it made me feel sick. I glowered over at Owen, who refused to meet my eye.

I looked back at the screen that was now displaying the message:

I swore, did as I was bid and drummed my fingers for a full minute while my machine ground and beeped itself to life again. I opened my e-mail program and typed furiously.

The reply came back in a moment.

I closed down my e-mail in disgust. What a sicko. What a twisted deviant.

When I left the office that evening, Owen was still working. I stopped at his desk. He ignored me. Sanjay, sitting next to him, gave me a nervous smile.

I bent down. ‘I’ll ask as many questions as I like,’ I whispered.

Owen paused for a moment. His screen was full of code. Then he began fiddling with his mouse.

‘No more threats,’ I said. ‘No more funny little e-mails. Let’s just stay away from each other.’

Owen looked up at me. His black eyes seemed to pierce right into me. Then he turned back to his screen.

I stretched my foot under his desk and flicked a switch with my toe. His screen went blank. All his work lost.

‘What the fuck?’ he muttered.

‘Whoops,’ I said and left him to it.

Owen’s threats just made me more determined to ask questions. The next day Mel and I were at my desk working on how we could secure the Ninetyminutes domain name in Spain and Italy. Guy was in Munich, talking to someone we might hire to start a German office. There was no one else within earshot. Mel was gathering her papers together to leave when I stopped her.

‘Have you got a minute?’

She noticed the seriousness of my tone. ‘What is it?’

‘I want to ask you something about France.’

Mel frowned. ‘Surely it’s best to forget all that, isn’t it?’

‘I know. I’d like to. It’s just, I can’t. I only have one question. That night on Mull when we were walking to the bed and breakfast, you told me you thought Guy might have killed Dominique. Did you mean that?’

‘You’re not serious?’ said Mel.

‘I am,’ I said. ‘I haven’t been able to get the question out of my mind. Partly because of what you told me that night. Which was confirmed by Patrick Hoyle, by the way.’

‘Well, you should. I was angry with Guy and that whole France episode left me feeling guilty. Blaming him was a way of sharing the guilt with him. I certainly didn’t mean it. I can’t even remember exactly what I told you.’

I could. ‘So you don’t think Guy was covering for himself when he got Hoyle to pay Abdulatif to disappear?’

‘No.’

‘I see.’ That was clear enough.

Mel hesitated. ‘I have a question for you. Just as awkward.’

‘What’s that?’

Mel swallowed. ‘Do you think there’s anything going on between Guy and Ingrid?’

I looked at her. ‘Now you’re not serious.’

‘They seem to spend a lot of time together.’

‘We all spend a lot of time together. If you work fifteen hours a day in the same office, you’re quite likely to.’

‘So you’re sure there’s nothing going on?’

‘Quite sure.’

Mel looked at me doubtfully. ‘I don’t trust that woman,’ she said, and walked off.

I stared after her. Although I had meant what I had said, Mel’s suspicions about Guy and Ingrid echoed around my brain long after she had gone.

I wanted to find out more about the private detective. Guy was right, he did seem the most likely person to have run Tony down. Although if he had, he was being paid by someone. Sabina, according to the police. But perhaps it was someone else? I called Sergeant Spedding. He sounded pleased to hear from me.

‘I wondered what progress you’re making in your investigation?’ I asked.

‘We still have some leads,’ Spedding said, ‘but nothing solid. Why? Have you got something for me?’

I felt uncomfortable. The last thing I wanted to do was tell him my suspicions about Guy. Nor did I want to mention France.

‘No, not really. It’s just, we’re curious here.’

Spedding’s tone changed, became more formal. ‘If we have anything concrete to report, we’ll inform the family.’

‘Yes. I see. I just wondered whether you’d arrested the private detective. Since I might have to identify him in court you can probably understand my curiosity.’

‘We’ve ruled him out as a suspect, although he might be a useful witness.’ A pause. ‘Is there anything else?’ I could tell from Spedding’s voice that he suspected there was something other than curiosity behind my questions.

‘No, no, nothing,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

I put the phone down. I hadn’t even got the private detective’s name.

I needed to talk to Sabina Jourdan. I knew she had gone back to Germany, but I couldn’t really ask Guy for her address, so I rang Patrick Hoyle at his office in Monte Carlo. He took a little persuading, but he gave me an address in Stuttgart.

Our plans to open an office in Munich were gathering pace, which meant that Guy and I were making frequent trips there. On my next one of these I engineered a gap in my schedule. I finished a meeting at three in the afternoon and drove my hired car west out of the city along the autobahn.

It was only an hour and a half’s drive from Munich to Stuttgart. It was a grey October day with a fine drizzle obscuring the German countryside. I fought through the industrial outskirts of the town, wondering why anyone would want to give up the clear blue sea and sky of Les Sarrasins for this. But then the stern factories gave way to suburban streets lined with trees dressed in autumnal golds and browns and neat, large houses with high-gabled Germanic roofs. Prosperity, order, tranquillity, security. Perhaps this was a good place for Sabina after all.

I found the address Hoyle had given me and rang the bell. The door was answered by a tall middle-aged woman with grey hair and finely sculpted features. For an instant I panicked that I had got the wrong house. Then I knew who she was. Sabina’s mother.

‘Ist Frau Jourdan hier?’ I asked slowly, in what I hoped was German.

‘Yes,’ the woman replied in English. ‘Who is it?’

‘David Lane. I’m a friend of Guy Jourdan’s. Tony’s son.’

‘Ein Moment.’

The woman was suspicious, not surprisingly, so she left me at the doorstep while she disappeared inside. A moment later Sabina appeared wearing a sweatshirt, dark hair hanging loosely over her shoulders, long legs in faded jeans, bare feet. She was beautiful.

She frowned for a moment and then recognized me. ‘I remember you. You’re Guy’s partner at Ninetyminutes. You were with him when he came to see us at Les Sarrasins?’

‘That’s right. I wonder if I could have a quick word?’

‘Of course. Come in.’

She led me through to a large spotless kitchen. A baby was playing with a plastic contraption on the floor. ‘Do you remember Andreas?’ she asked.

‘Hi, Andreas,’ I said.

‘He doesn’t speak English,’ Sabina said firmly.

‘No, of course not.’ He didn’t look to me as though he could speak any language quite yet, but I didn’t want to argue the point with Sabina.

‘Would you like some tea? We have some Earl Grey. Tony always liked Earl Grey.’

‘Yes. Yes, that would be lovely.’

She put the kettle on, and her mother said something rapidly to her in German, scooped up the baby and left us alone.

‘You haven’t flown all the way from England just to see me, I hope?’

‘No. We’re opening an office in Munich and since it isn’t too far away, I thought I’d come and see you.’

‘If you want to talk to me about the estate’s investments I’m afraid I can’t help you. Patrick Hoyle deals with all that.’

‘No. It’s not that. I want to talk to you about your husband’s death.’

‘Oh.’ Sabina sat down at the kitchen table. She clearly wasn’t excited about the subject, but she seemed willing to talk, for the moment at least.

‘I was the one who saw Tony just before he died. And I also saw the private detective who was waiting outside his flat. I understand from the police that he hasn’t been charged. I wondered what he was doing there?’

‘I hired him,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘I was worried about Tony’s safety.’

‘Really?’ My eyebrows rose. ‘So he was a sort of bodyguard?’

‘That’s right.’ Sabina fiddled with a spoon on the table. ‘A bodyguard.’

I didn’t believe her. If Tony needed a bodyguard he would have organized one for himself. It was obvious that Sabina had hired a private investigator to spy on her husband for the reason that wives always hire private investigators to spy on their husbands. She just didn’t want to admit it to me. Which was understandable.

The kettle boiled. Sabina busied herself with the tea.

‘How long were you married to Tony?’ I asked as she handed me a mug.

‘Three years last April. We met five years ago at a party in Cannes. I was working for a film company. There was instant chemistry between us. I’ve never known anything like it. After the festival he flew over to Germany to see me: I was working in Munich at the time. We fell in love.’

‘I’m very sorry about what happened to him, by the way. Sorry for you.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, biting her lip.

‘I only saw you for a few minutes this summer. But you seemed to be very fond of each other.’

‘We were,’ she said. ‘Then.’ She looked at me doubtfully. She wasn’t much older than me and at that moment she seemed young and vulnerable. She wanted to talk.

‘Then?’ I said quietly.

‘Yes.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Until I found out he was having an affair. That’s why I hired Leonard Donnelly. I overheard Tony talking to a woman on his mobile. I checked the last-numbers-called on his phone later when he wasn’t looking and got the number. It was British. London. So I contacted a private detective agency and asked Mr Donnelly to watch Tony next time he went there. It was a terrible thing to do, but I couldn’t stand the thought of him seeing another woman. I mean, what did he find wrong with me?’

A very good question, I thought.

‘After Andreas was born I was convinced he didn’t think I was attractive any more. I wanted to know who this other woman was.’

‘Did you find out?’

‘Yes.’ Sabina looked crushed. ‘It was the wife of a friend of his. Mr Donnelly thinks she is forty-eight. I was humiliated. And very angry.

‘And then... Then he was killed. Can you imagine how bad I felt then? I hadn’t stopped loving him. In fact, it was because I loved him that I was so angry with him. It almost destroyed me. And now, whenever I think of him, I think of him and her. I wish I’d never heard that phone call. I wish I’d never hired Mr Donnelly.’

‘Do you have any idea who might have killed him?’

‘No. None.’

‘What about business enemies? I remember reading many years ago that he forced out his partner.’

‘That was many years ago. In fact, the man died last year. Cancer, I think. No, it’s a long time since Tony’s property days. He hardly ever spoke about them, and I never met anyone from then.’

‘What about in France? Had he made any enemies there?’

‘Oh, no. Or none that I’m aware of. No, I don’t think so.’

‘So what was this man Donnelly up to?’

‘Well, as you can imagine, the police had lots of questions about him. They thought I might have paid him to do it. But he’s not that kind of man, and they know that. Anyway, I was the one who first told them about him.’

‘He must have seen who did run Tony over?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘But I don’t see how he can have missed it?’

‘I don’t know the details. I don’t want to know the details.’ Sabina shuddered, her face pinched. ‘Why are you asking all these questions?’

‘Tony’s death was very close to home. I don’t know whether it had anything to do with Ninetyminutes. The police haven’t got anywhere. So I thought I would check, myself.’

‘I’m sure the police will find who killed him in the end.’

‘I hope so. What are you going to do now?’

‘I’m not sure. I’m not living in Les Sarrasins, that’s for certain. I’ll stay here with my parents until I decide what I want to do. According to Patrick, Tony left me quite well off. And, of course, he left me Andreas.’

Her eyes began to fill with tears. I decided it was time to leave.

27

I caught the first flight to London the next morning, and was in the office by ten. Guy didn’t know and didn’t care that I had spent the night in a Munich airport hotel. I did some research on the Internet and soon located Leonard Donnelly. I phoned his number and spoke to a man who informed me he was Donnelly’s partner. I made an appointment to see Donnelly that afternoon.

His office wasn’t far from Hammersmith tube station. There was a doorway right next to a bookmaker’s with a steel plate proclaiming AA Abacus Detective Agency. Not very imaginative, but it had snared Sabina. I pressed the bell and climbed the dingy stairs in front of me. AA Abacus was on the second floor, and I was greeted by Mr Donnelly himself. I recognized him, as much from the photograph Spedding had shown me as from when I had seen him in his car that night. He was thin, with small bright eyes that quickly moved over me. He was wondering whether he recognized me too.

He led me into a small office with two desks, two computers and lots of filing cabinets. Both desks were empty. His partner was out on the streets. There was a funny smell in the place. Damp or drains or both.

‘Take a seat, Mr Lane,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’ He spoke rapidly in a clipped Irish accent.

‘We’ve met before,’ I said, sitting down. ‘Or, if we didn’t actually meet, we saw each other.’

Donnelly nodded, and smiled a thin smile. In doing so he displayed protruding front teeth with a clear gap between them. I wished I’d seen them when I was describing him to Sergeant Spedding.

‘I saw you waiting in a car the night Tony Jourdan died,’ I began.

‘I know.’

‘I was wondering if you could tell me what happened. What you saw.’

‘I told the police.’

‘I know. Now perhaps you would tell me.’

Another smile. Those teeth again. ‘Doing a little detective work, are you, Mr Lane?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Now, why would it be in my interest to help you?’

I had anticipated his question. I pulled out five twenties. ‘I believe you make your living by providing information for a fee. There’s the fee.’

Donnelly glanced at me. I had no idea what the right amount to offer him was. He could see that. He could also see that I was keen to get the information.

‘That’s quite true,’ he said. ‘But I charge more than that.’

‘How much?’

‘Two-fifty. Including VAT.’

I counted out another five notes. ‘Two hundred. That’s all.’

Donnelly pocketed the notes.

‘What do you want to know? I warn you I can’t divulge any private information relating to my client. That would be unethical.’

‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Just tell me what you saw that evening.’

Donnelly took a well-worn notebook out of a desk drawer and thumbed through it until he found the right day. The smell seemed to me to be getting worse. I glanced at the window. Shut.

Donnelly noticed. ‘Got to keep it closed, I’m afraid. Street noise is pretty bad here. Can’t hear yourself think.’ He smoothed open the pages. ‘This is it. I had been following Jourdan on and off for two days, since he arrived at Heathrow on Sunday morning.’

‘Did you see him with a woman?’

‘That’s confidential to my client.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. I didn’t think it was important.

‘At eight fifty-eight I saw you and Ms Da Cunha enter Jourdan’s flat. At nine twenty-one you left. A couple of minutes later, Jourdan left the flat as well. He started walking south, towards Old Brompton Road. This was a bit of a problem for me because of the one-way system round there.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It means that I couldn’t follow him by car if he walked south. The one-way pattern is north. So I had to drive north, go around the block and pick him up as he came out on to Old Brompton Road looking for a cab. I’d already done that a few times before, so I thought it would work this time.’

‘But it didn’t.’

‘It didn’t. I went around the block and waited on the main road. No sign of him. Then I heard the sirens. I drove back towards his street and as soon as I saw it was filled with police cars I drove on.’

‘Why didn’t you stop and talk to them?’

Donnelly smiled. ‘Usually my clients don’t like me to do that sort of thing. I find things work more smoothly if I avoid the police. Although in this case that was a mistake. My client told them all about me. They weren’t impressed with my discretion.’

‘I imagine not. So you told them what you saw?’

‘I didn’t see anything. Apart from you.’

‘You must have!’

‘I didn’t. It’s true someone else must have been parked on that street watching Jourdan’s flat, but I didn’t see them. It was dark, I couldn’t tell whether any of the parked cars were occupied or not. It looks as though the second I’d driven out of sight round the corner, the other car started up and ran Jourdan down.’

‘Is that what the police think?’ I asked.

‘It is now. For a while they seemed to think I’d squashed him. They took my car apart, took me apart. But they didn’t find anything.’

‘So they let you go?’

‘Yes. They know I didn’t do it. Mrs Jourdan had picked me at random through the Yellow Pages. They know I’m not a professional hit man. I mean, look at this dump. I tell you, if I were a pro I’d be able to afford a better place than this. Also running someone down is about as hit and miss as you can get. A shot is much cleaner and quicker. They know I didn’t do it.’

And so should you, he didn’t need to add.

As I studied the weasel of a man in front of me, I couldn’t help but agree. He didn’t look like my idea of an underworld thug.

‘Have you ever met Guy Jourdan, Tony’s son?’

‘No. I did catch sight of him when I followed Jourdan to your offices in Clerkenwell. But I’ve never spoken to him.’

‘Do you have any theories as to who did kill Tony Jourdan?’

‘I’m sure I could find some if you retained me.’

‘No chance of that.’

‘No? Well I’ll give you my opinion for free. This was no professional hit. It was personal. Personal usually means family. And not my client. I’ve seen jealous wives before and frankly they come a hell of a lot more jealous than Mrs Jourdan.’

‘The sons, then?’

Donnelly shrugged. ‘My fees are thirty-five pounds an hour plus expenses. I could find out for you.’

‘No thank you, Mr Donnelly. And thanks for the information.’

‘Thirty? And there wouldn’t be much in the way of expenses.’

‘Goodbye, Mr Donnelly.’ It was a relief to get out on to the pavement and taste the fresh Hammersmith air.

Guy grabbed me as soon as I got back to the office.

‘There you are, Davo. I’ve been looking all over for you. You’ve got your mobile switched off.’

‘Have I? Sorry.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Howles Marriott. With Mel,’ I said too quickly.

Guy looked at me sharply. ‘No you weren’t. I phoned her there half an hour ago.’

I didn’t tell him where I had been. And beyond looking at me strangely, he didn’t ask. We trusted each other not to skive off. Which made me feel guilty: I had abused that trust.

‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘I want to go over the stuff I was planning to talk to Westbourne about. I won’t be able to see them tomorrow, you’ll have to do it.’

I pushed my conversation with Donnelly out of my mind and focused on Ninetyminutes.

Things were coming together. Ninetyminutes now had a profile as one of the up-and-coming internet companies everyone had heard of. This was partly to do with the efforts of our PR firm and partly to do with Tony’s death, which had provided an unlooked for and unwanted hook for the press. But it was mostly to do with Guy. He was excellent with journalists. He had a good story to tell, which he told well. His vision of what the Internet was all about sounded original and made sense. He had an interesting background and he looked very good in a photograph. The November issue of one of the leading business magazines carried a picture of him on the cover, and inside a write-up of ninetyminutes.com as one of the top-ten internet businesses to watch out for in Europe. As a result of all this we were now better known than many of our longer-established rivals. This wasn’t just good for the ego: it was vital if Ninetyminutes was going to overtake the other soccer sites.

Derek Silverman was a real asset. He knew many of the top club chairmen and, more importantly, he seemed to be well respected by them. Guy and he developed deals with a number of clubs where they would pass on visitors to us who were interested in the football world beyond their official club site, and we would integrate our club zone with theirs. It was difficult to do: the areas of overlap had to be carefully dealt with, but for us it was very powerful. Die-hard club supporters would always look at their own club’s site first. This was a way of capturing at least part of their attention.

More work.

Owen was a problem. Not because of his understanding of the technology. That had worked brilliantly: the architecture of the site had proved totally scalable, as he had insisted it should be. It was his inability to communicate. He insisted on using e-mail. His messages were terse, often insulting and frequently meaningless. As the company grew, this mattered. He angered the consultants we had hired to put in place the e-commerce system so badly that they quit. That set us back three weeks. Guy was furious, Amy apoplectic. But Owen was untouchable. He was Guy’s brother.

We were planning to launch the on-line retailing site at the beginning of December. It was a tight deadline. Too tight. After the fracas with the consultants, Guy agreed to move it back another week, but that was all. We were all nervous we wouldn’t hit it and Owen wasn’t inspiring us with confidence.

Ingrid, though, was doing a brilliant job. For someone who knew very little about football, she picked it up fast. Not that she ever interfered with Gaz’s views on the substance of what was written. But she was constantly asking herself and anyone who would listen why a visitor would spend time on different parts of the site and what each visitor wanted. She didn’t believe we had a ‘typical’ visitor. Each was different, each wanted different things. Ingrid wanted to provide as much as possible for everyone as seamlessly as possible. We didn’t want to be a niche player, we wanted to be the soccer site for everyone. Not easy.

I spent a lot of time with her and I enjoyed it. She was fun to work with. She never became too uptight and in the whirlwind that was everyday life at Ninetyminutes, she was a voice of sanity. Although I knew she took Ninetyminutes desperately seriously, she never showed it, and she was always ready with a joke to defuse tense situations. We all trusted her to have the right answer to difficult problems and she nearly always did.

I found my relationship with her slowly changing. I began to miss her when she was out of the office. I would go and talk to her about issues that I should have been able to deal with by myself. I would watch her in meetings. And when I was alone at the end of the day, or when I was travelling, I would think about her.

This all crept up on me. When I did finally realize what was happening, it unsettled me. I wasn’t sure what to do about it, if anything.

I had hoped talking to Mel about Guy would clarify things, but it had just made them more opaque. I wasn’t sure what Mel’s real views on Guy and Dominique were. And although I had been firm in my opinion that there was nothing going on between Guy and Ingrid, Mel’s suspicions had stayed with me. They nagged at me and raised another question I had wanted answered for a long time.

Ingrid and I were sharing a taxi to our ad agency in Soho. Except we weren’t going anywhere. They were digging up High Holborn and the only thing moving was the meter. Ingrid was staring out of the window at the pedestrians overtaking our cab at a stroll. She checked her watch. ‘We should have taken the tube.’

‘Too late now. You said we didn’t have time.’

‘See that man there? The one in the Barbour? I bet you five quid he gets to those next traffic lights before we do.’

‘You’re on.’

Three minutes later I handed her five pounds. The taxi moved forward ten feet.

We were locked together in the back of the cab. The driver’s window was shut. A wall of noise from pneumatic drills seemed to shield us from the street outside.

‘Ingrid?’

‘Yes?’

‘About Mull?’

‘Mull?’ she said in surprise.

‘Yes, Mull.’

She tensed. ‘What about Mull?’

I swallowed. Afraid to ask the question, but knowing I had to ask it some time and now was as good a time as any.

‘Why?’

Ingrid looked at me. ‘You asked me that then. I never answered you, did I?’

‘No.’

‘You deserve an answer.’ She sighed. ‘I could say I was drunk and Guy seduced me. And that would be true. I’m sure that if I’d been sober I’d never have gone into his room. But I wanted him to seduce me. And I didn’t want to say no.’

‘Why not? Especially given what he’d done to Mel?’

‘I guess I just wanted to see what it was like. I admit it, I was attracted to him. And the fact that I knew nothing would come of it made it more exciting. I could sin for a night and forget it. I’m not proud of it, not proud of it at all. I was stupid. I lost Mel as a friend. And you.’

So now I knew. But knowing made me disappointed in Ingrid. I had assumed she was different, but she was just like all the rest of them, queuing up for Guy’s favours.

‘If it makes any difference,’ Ingrid said, ‘it didn’t go any further. He flew back on his own the next day and I took a ferry to the mainland and a later train to make sure I missed you and Mel. I felt pretty small.’

I looked away from her. But it did make a difference.

It was ten o’clock and I was tired. Time to go home. I was shuffling the papers around on my desk ready for the next day, when I noticed a legal document. Damn! Guy was going to Paris first thing in the morning to finalize discussions with the man we had found to set up an office there. And I had forgotten to give him the contract.

I dialled Guy’s home number. No answer. Tried his mobile. Switched off. Damn, damn, damn. I stuffed the contract into an envelope, grabbed my briefcase and walked up to Clerkenwell Road, where I hailed a cab for Wapping.

The driver dropped me outside Guy’s building with his meter running. I told him I would only be a minute. I followed a woman into the building and took the lift up to the second floor. I rang the bell.

No answer. Bloody hell. What was plan B? Should I wait here, or try to meet him at Heathrow the next morning? Or was he flying from City Airport? I range the bell again.

This time I heard muttering. ‘All right, all right.’ A few seconds later Guy opened the door in his dressing gown. He seemed surprised to see me.

‘Sorry to get you up,’ I said. ‘I forgot to give you the contract when you left this evening. You couldn’t really go to Paris without it, so I took a taxi here. It’s waiting outside.’

‘OK, OK,’ said Guy, with impatience. ‘Give it here.’

I was a little put out at this. I had, after all, taken a taxi significantly out of my way to get the bloody document to him. OK, I should have remembered to give him the contract, but then he should have remembered to ask for it –

‘Hi, David.’

I looked up. There was Mel. Wearing one of Guy’s T-shirts that was barely long enough to cover her. Her blonde hair was tousled. She was smiling.

I glanced at Guy. A spark of irritation flashed in his face. I noticed he had been sweating.

‘Hello, Mel,’ I said, smiling back at her, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

‘You said your taxi’s waiting,’ said Guy.

‘Yes.’ I backed out of the hallway.

‘Thank you for this,’ he said.

‘Bye, David,’ Mel called over his shoulder.

‘Goodbye.’

‘Davo,’ Guy whispered as he saw me out of the door. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you? Be a mate.’

I didn’t answer him. I turned and took the stairs down to my waiting taxi.

It was late morning, not even twelve o’clock, and the Elephant’s Head had just opened. While Guy was in Paris I had decided to take the opportunity to check out his story. Somehow, seeing him with Mel the night before had spurred me on. The Elephant’s Head was a darkened pub just by Camden Lock. At this time of day it was very quiet. I ordered a Coke from the woman behind the bar.

‘Were you working here in September?’ I asked her as she was pouring it. She was a big blonde woman, who looked like she wouldn’t take any nonsense from anyone and wanted people to know it.

‘I’ve been here almost a year,’ she replied in an Australian accent. ‘Why?’

‘Do you remember the police asking about two men drinking in here one evening? It would have been Tuesday the twenty-first.’

‘Maybe.’

This was not going to be easy.

‘What did they ask you? What did you say?’

The Australian woman was suspicious. ‘Why should I tell you?’

Why indeed? There could only be one reason. Feeling slightly awkward, I pulled two twenty-pound notes out of my trouser pocket and laid them on the bar in front of her. A couple of early drinkers at a table were immersed in conversation. There was no one else to see us.

‘It can’t do any harm,’ I said. ‘You’ve already told the police. I’m just looking for confirmation.’

The woman considered asking more questions but then thought better of it and reached out to take the money.

‘Fair enough,’ she said. ‘Two detectives came in. They said they were investigating a murder. They showed us pictures of two blokes. One was a big ugly feller with white hair. The other was much smaller. We’d seen them that night. The smaller one was getting pissed. The big one was drinking Red Bull and watching him. They left at about nine.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘It was nine or thereabouts. On his way out the big one barged into one of our staff coming in to work. He was late. He remembered how late.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Cheers.’ I drank the Coke and left the bar.

I walked out on to Camden High Street. The Europa Owen had visited was about a quarter of a mile away. I found it and wandered up and down the cramped aisles. There were three cameras in there, pointing at the till and various parts of the shop hidden from the view of the shopkeeper.

Fortunately, it was quiet. I picked up a packet of biscuits and took it to the till.

‘Hey, I’m on TV,’ I said, pointing to one of the cameras.

The man behind the till was a gruff middle-aged Asian who was used to nutters. This was Camden, after all. ‘A movie star,’ he said to humour me.

‘Do those things work?’ I asked.

‘Of course they do.’

‘Have you caught any criminals yet?’

‘Someone held up the shop a year ago with a gun. Took three hundred quid. We got his face on the camera. But the police didn’t do anything. Never found him. No bloody good, innit?’

‘Do the police ever ask you about people that come in here? You know, like people they’ve spied on?’

‘Oh, yes. There was a murder a few weeks ago. One of the suspects said he was here when it was committed. The coppers wanted to look through the tapes to check his story.’

‘And was he lying?’ I said, with what I hoped looked like innocent curiosity.

‘No. The videotape is timed, so they knew exactly when he came in.’

I made a face at the camera, slipping into my harmless nutter role again.

The shopkeeper had had enough. ‘Yes, please?’ he said to the old woman patiently waiting behind me.

I left the shop and checked my watch. It was half past twelve. So far everything Guy had said he had told the police had stacked up. Was there any point in checking out Hydra? I had piles of stuff to do back at the office. I dithered, but the bar was pretty close to Britton Street, so I decided to stick with my plan.

Hydra was quite crowded at lunchtime, but nowhere near as crowded as it would be at ten o’clock. Bathed in a blue neon glow, it was one of the coolest bars in the area and I had been there a couple of times with Guy. Not often enough to be remembered, though. Was there any chance that the barmen would recognize one solitary drinker a month after the event? I wouldn’t know until I asked.

I caught the attention of one of them. ‘I wonder if you could help me? I’m trying to find out whether a friend of mine was in this bar one night a couple of months ago. The twenty-first of September?’

‘Hold on. I’ll get the manager,’ the barman said and disappeared through the door. A moment later a purposeful man in a black T-shirt and jacket emerged.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked, with the strong suggestion that the correct answer to that question was no.

‘Yes, I was wondering whether the police have been asking about someone drinking in your bar.’

‘If they have, why would I talk to you about it?’

‘He’s a friend of mine. He’s gone missing. We think the last place he was seen was here.’ I pulled out a photo of Guy. I had used the same source for the photograph as Owen, the corporate section of our website.

The manager barely glanced at it. ‘Have you any idea how busy this place gets in the evenings?’

‘I know it’s difficult. But I’d be very grateful if you’d try to remember. This would have been about six weeks ago. The twenty-first of September.’

‘Sorry, sir. I can’t help you.’ The manager returned the photo.

‘Can you even tell me whether the police have been asking about him?’

‘No, I couldn’t do that.’

He didn’t want to tell me and his look challenged me to try to talk him into it. He was used to defying stroppy customers. I was pretty sure my twenty-pound notes would be wasted on him.

‘Thanks for your time,’ I said and turned on my heel.

Just as I was reaching the exit, I was stopped by a shout. ‘Oi! Hold on a minute!’

I returned to the bar.

‘You said the twenty-first of September?’

‘That’s right.’

‘We were closed that week. Refurbishment. So unless your friend is a decorator, I doubt he was seen here.’

Bingo.

I walked back to the office. So Guy had lied to me. I now knew that he hadn’t gone to Hydra at nine o’clock that night, as he had told me and, presumably, the police.

So where had he gone?

Had he driven to Knightsbridge and lurked outside his father’s flat, waiting for his moment to run him down? Or perhaps it wasn’t premeditated. Perhaps he had decided to go and talk to his father about the situation at Ninetyminutes, seen him in the street and put his foot on the accelerator in a flash of half-drunken anger? That was more likely. Uncomfortably likely.

The idea appalled me. My brief euphoria at finally getting somewhere with my investigation quickly disappeared. My friend had lied to me. Lied to me about something vitally important.

He may even have killed someone.

28

As soon as I got back to the office I phoned Donnelly and asked him whether he had seen an electric-blue Porsche in the street outside Tony’s flat. Guy’s car was noticeable enough that he might have spotted it.

He prevaricated for a moment, fishing for a further fee, but I refused. Then he answered my question.

No.

Of course, that didn’t mean that Guy wasn’t there in some other car. And it was possible that Donnelly might have missed a Porsche, even an electric-blue one, in a part of London that was littered with them.

The trouble was, I just didn’t know.

I sat at my desk considering what to do. It was difficult. I could confront Guy again, but there didn’t seem much point. If he was guilty, he would deny it convincingly. If he was innocent, he would be seriously offended that I had been prowling around checking up on him. He would explode. And an explosion at that moment was the last tiling Ninetyminutes needed.

Things were getting tense. The number of site visitors was still growing strongly, but the planned launch of on-line retailing was drawing uncomfortably near. I wasn’t sure we were going to make it.

At some point I would have to face up to the problem of Guy’s guilt or innocence, I knew, but I decided I would have to put that point off. There was just too much else to do.

Amy had done a phenomenal job of putting together a range of products for us to sell. There were the classic club and national strips and then our own line of clothing, sporting the logo that Mandrill had come up with five months before. She had lined up designers, manufacturers, warehousing and distribution. Everything was ready to go.

The technology was, of course, the biggest worry. Running a website that actually sells things requires much more technology than a site that people only look at. Separate computers, or ‘servers’, are needed to hold product information and prices, customer and transaction information, financial and accounting records and credit-card verification. Between these and the customer is a web server, which communicates with the customer’s computer over the Internet and makes sure that each inquiry is integrated with all the other systems in real time. Firewalls, proxy servers and routers are needed to protect the whole system, provide backup and control the web traffic efficiently.

Originally a company that wanted to sell over the web had to set all this up from scratch. The problem then was getting the different systems to talk to each other. Fortunately, by the time we wanted to install Ninetyminutes’ e-commerce system it was possible to buy it all off the shelf. This saved time and was worth the expense, but it did limit some of the features of the site.

This bothered Owen. In California he had been working on on-line catalogues for a big retailer and he had made some interesting breakthroughs in the technology. He showed them to us and we were all impressed. Naturally, he wanted to incorporate these into Ninetyminutes’ site. Naturally, they didn’t fit.

At first Owen suggested that we delay the launch of the site for a month so he could make them fit. A month was after Christmas. Guy said no. So, without really telling anyone, Owen set out to write an application programming interface to bolt his ideas on to our off-the-shelf system.

Dcomsult, the new firm of consultants we had brought in to implement the system, knew about this, and they didn’t like it. But Owen insisted. Guy and I picked up that there were some problems between Owen and Dcomsult, but we assumed this was just another result of Owen’s notorious ability to infuriate anyone he worked with. Guy gave him the benefit of the doubt and I wanted to have as little to do with him as possible.

Two days before the site launch we did a dummy run, bombarding the system with fictional requests for clothing. It worked like a dream. And the on-line catalogue looked really good.

The launch day came. We had spent plenty of money announcing it at a time of year when advertising is at its most expensive. The press were warmed up, indeed the fashion editor of one of the biggest middle-market newspapers was planning to make some purchases. Her article would be a terrific way to reach the women who were thinking of Christmas presents for their football-mad boyfriends or husbands.

We went live at ten o’clock in the morning. The hits began immediately. Traffic rose strongly. People started ordering. The system didn’t crash. By five o’clock it had been operating without a hitch for seven hours, so we all trooped out to Smiths, a cavernous warehouse-cum-bar opposite the Smithfield meat market that was developing a useful franchise as the watering hole for the internet businesses in the area. Guy ordered champagne. After an hour or so I went home, leaving some of the others to return to the office to check the system.

I came in the next morning slightly late to be met by mayhem. Amy, Owen, Sanjay, Guy and the people from Dcomsult had been there all night. The batch file that was sent to our distributor with all the information on the day’s purchases had been corrupted. That meant that the distributor couldn’t be confident of what goods to ship to whom. Amy seemed to be having great difficulty getting to the bottom of exactly how it had been corrupted. Owen seemed to know, but said he was too busy to explain and forbade Sanjay from doing anything but try to unravel the problem.

More orders were coming in. We couldn’t handle them. At ten o’clock Guy pulled a group of us together. He asked Owen whether he could guarantee that the problem would be solved in the next hour. Owen said he couldn’t. So Guy gave the command to shut down the e-commerce section of the site.

Amy called the fashion editor to ask her what she had ordered and to promise her that it would be delivered to her immediately. The fashion editor was unimpressed, although she spotted her opportunity. The next day, ninetyminutes.com hit the front page for the first time. ‘Don’t trust the Internet for your Christmas shopping’ was the message. Just the kind of publicity we needed. Even worse, we were making the whole industry look bad.

By working all day and long into the following night we managed to piece together manually who had ordered what and to send this information to our distributor’s warehouse by motor bike. The goods were shipped. But our credibility had suffered enormous, possibly irreparable, harm.

It wasn’t just our credibility. Amy had tried to keep our product line as simple as possible, but we had had to order substantial quantities of clothing from our manufacturers. Clothing that would have to be paid for. If we couldn’t sell most of it before Christmas, we would take a big financial hit.

It took Guy to pinpoint what had happened. The fault was in the API Owen had written. There were lots of told-you-sos from Dcomsult. Owen blamed them for not anticipating what he was going to do. Guy tried to put a lid on the recriminations and make everyone concentrate on getting the site on-line again. It was a difficult task. Owen was not prepared to admit he was wrong.

Eventually Dcomsult insisted on a meeting. We were sitting round a table: two of them, Guy, me, Amy, Ingrid and Owen. The leader of the Dcomsult team was a Yorkshireman called Trevor. He was squat, compact, with a permanently intense expression. You could tell he was a techie, because he spoke rapidly, but he was articulate and what he said was clear and understandable.

‘We have identified the problem with the system,’ he began. ‘It’s with the API that modifies our product catalogue.’

‘The problem’s with your e-commerce package, not the API,’ interrupted Owen.

Trevor writhed in frustration.

Guy held up his hand. ‘Just a moment, Owen. I want to hear what Trevor has to say, then we’ll hear from you.’

Owen growled, his small eyes gleaming.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said Trevor. ‘The API is ingenious. And if we could integrate it with the rest of the solution it could be very powerful. But that’s going to take time. And that’s basically our choice.’

‘Go on,’ said Guy.

‘We have two options,’ Trevor continued. ‘One: we can work on the API until we have it reliably integrated into the system.’

‘How long will that take?’

‘There’s no way of knowing,’ said Trevor. ‘Could be a week. Could be a month. Could be longer.’

‘It’s trivial,’ muttered Owen.

‘And the second option?’

‘Drop the API. Use the bog-standard catalogue architecture that comes with the package. True, it’s not as pretty and it’s not as functional. But we will be up and running at the end of the week.’

‘And if we follow option two, are you a hundred per cent sure the system will work this time?’

‘Nothing’s a hundred per cent in this business. But we’ll be using a system that has worked dozens of times before.’

‘I see.’ Guy turned to his brother. ‘Owen?’

‘It’s a second-best solution, man,’ he mumbled.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you talk about having the best soccer site on the Internet. With my API, we’ll have it. And we’d get it done in, like, a week if these monkeys would just pull their fingers out.’

Trevor pursed his lips. I was impressed with his self-control.

Guy turned to him. ‘Owen says we can do it in a week.’

‘And I say we can’t.’

It was time for me to intervene. Owen was Guy’s weak spot and he could twist himself into knots over this one if I let him.

‘I think the answer’s clear,’ I said.

‘Oh, yes?’ said Guy.

‘Yes. Unless we get the site up in the next week we’ll have a total failure over the Christmas season. It’ll be hard for us to recover our reputation from that. And financially we’ll be strapped. We have to move forward and if that involves making some compromises, we’ve made them in the past.’

‘Amy?’ Guy asked.

‘I like Owen’s application. But I can live without it. And David’s right, we have to shift product. We have no choice.’

‘Ingrid?’

‘We have no choice.’

Guy nodded at the three of us. We were silent. He was dithering. For one usually so decisive, it was obvious he was dithering. Owen’s large bulk was slumped in a chair opposite his brother, staring at him.

‘Trevor, we’ll go with option two,’ I said. ‘Owen, give the Dcomsult people all the help they need.’

Owen looked at his brother. Guy nodded minutely.

‘Let’s get to it,’ I said.

We returned to our desks, Guy subdued. Ingrid brushed past mine. ‘Coffee?’ she whispered, so Guy couldn’t hear.

I followed her out to a coffee shop round the corner. We collected our cappuccinos and sat down.

‘He’s got to go,’ said Ingrid.

I didn’t answer her. I would have loved to get rid of Owen. But it wasn’t that easy.

‘He’s got to go,’ she repeated.

‘I know, but how?’

‘We’ll have to tell Guy.’

‘But he’s Guy’s brother!’

‘Yeah. And Guy should realize that he’s going to cripple the company.’

‘He should, but he won’t.’

‘I don’t understand those two,’ Ingrid said. ‘I mean, I know they’re brothers, but I can’t imagine two people more different. Their relationship seems much closer than most brothers’. It’s weird. It’s almost unnatural.’

‘It is unnatural,’ I said. ‘They’re both screwed up in their own ways, and the only people they can rely on are each other. It’s always been like that. I remember at school when someone started teasing Owen. He was an obvious target. I think they called him “The Incredible Hulk” or something. It was a nasty kid called Wheeler: you know, one of those bullies who maintains power over a group by ganging up on individual members.’

‘So Guy beat him up?’

‘Worse than that. Wheeler was away one weekend. Guy went up to the dormitory that night and explained to Wheeler’s cronies how Wheeler was manipulating them all, dividing them by bullying each one of them in turn. Guy was cool. People listened to Guy. When Wheeler came back to school, all his stuff was trashed and no one would talk to him. He left Broadhill the following term.’

‘So you’re saying Guy protects little brother?’

‘Always.’

Ingrid drank her coffee thoughtfully. ‘That’s as may be, but Owen has to go. We can’t let him ruin Ninetyminutes. If Guy can’t look at the problem objectively, we’ll go to Derek Silverman. We have no choice.’

‘You’re right.’ This wasn’t to do with my personal problems with Owen. He was threatening the very existence of the company. ‘Do we do it together?’

Ingrid nodded. ‘Together.’

We wanted to deal with Guy on the Ninetyminutes premises. This wasn’t personal, this was business, and we wanted to emphasize that. So as soon as we got back to the office I asked him if we could meet behind the closed doors of the boardroom.

Owen saw us go in.

I told him. As we had expected, Guy protested. ‘We can’t get rid of Owen! He’s one of the founders. He was the one who provided all the cash at the beginning. He came up with the technology for the site. He’s worked as hard as any of us. Without him, there wouldn’t be any Ninetyminutes now.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘But with him there won’t be any Ninetyminutes in the future.’

‘Oh, come on!’

‘David’s right,’ said Ingrid. ‘This cock-up was entirely Owen’s fault. We may never recover from it. And it’s not an isolated incident. There will be more. One of them will finish us off.’

‘But he’s the most brilliant techie I know! He can run rings round those Dcomsult people.’

‘That’s exactly right,’ said Ingrid. ‘He does run rings round them. But the truth is, as we get bigger we’re going to have to rely on a team of people for the technology in this company, not just one. Owen doesn’t fit.’

‘I can tell him to get along better with the others,’ Guy said.

‘That won’t make any difference,’ I said. ‘You know Owen.’

‘What if I say no?’

‘We go to Derek Silverman,’ said Ingrid.

‘Behind my back?’

‘No. We’re speaking to you first,’ I said. ‘This isn’t just your firm any more, Guy. If it was, then you could keep Owen and that would be your right. But now there are a lot people with stakes in this company. For those people’s sake he has to go.’

‘Are you ganging up on me?’ Guy said. ‘You and your old buddy Henry Bufton-Tufton.’

‘No,’ said Ingrid. ‘It’s precisely because it’s your brother that it’s so hard for you to take action. That’s why we need to go to the chairman.’

Guy inhaled. ‘I’m CEO of this company and I take the decisions. Owen stays. He was here at the beginning and he’ll be here at the end. Whenever that is. Now, let’s get back to work.’

I went to Ingrid’s desk and called Derek Silverman’s secretary. I made an appointment to see him in two days’ time.

I got back to my flat in Notting Hill late, as usual, carrying a takeaway. I didn’t always eat takeaways; sometimes I warmed up something from M&S. Rarely anything more these days. I looked around the flat. It was clean in places; I paid a woman to come round once a week to make sure of that. But overall it was a mess. There was a pile of bills and junk mail to go through. The kitchen needed painting. The tap in the bathroom basin was dripping. The living-room window needed fixing. My taxes were late. I hadn’t called my parents for three weeks.

It hadn’t always been like this. Until Ninetyminutes I had lived quite an ordered existence. But no longer.

As I flopped down at my kitchen table and unwrapped my doner kebab I decided I’d worry about it all on Sunday. If I didn’t spend the whole day at the office.

The doorbell rang. I lived in a purpose-built block, so visitors usually had to announce themselves from the entryphone at the front of the building. Probably a neighbour then. Probably complaining about something I hadn’t done.

I opened the door.

It wasn’t a neighbour. It was Owen.

He barged past me into the living room, his bulk brushing me aside.

‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he said. He was angry. The small dark eyes glimmered dangerously under his brows.

I was too tired to deal with him. ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

‘No.’ He advanced towards me. I stood my ground. I wasn’t going to be pushed around in my own flat.

He stopped inches in front of me. ‘You tried to get me fired today.’ He was so close, I could smell his breath. Mint covering something stale.

‘Yes.’ I was determined not to be intimidated.

‘Why?’

‘You’re a clever boy, Owen, but you don’t talk to people. That matters. It leads to screw-ups we can’t afford.’

Owen jabbed a finger into my chest. ‘It was that stupid piece-of-shit system that was the problem, not me.’

‘Your job was to make the piece-of-shit system work. It didn’t. You screwed up.’

‘I’m staying,’ Owen said.

‘We’ll see.’

‘You plan to go to Silverman about it?’

I didn’t flinch. ‘That’s right.’

‘You just changed your plans.’

‘I’ll do what I think is right.’

Owen backed off a foot or two. ‘Has this got anything to do with Dad’s death?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you keep on asking questions, don’t you? About Guy and about Dad.’

‘I don’t like being threatened.’

‘Oh, really?’ He grabbed hold of my collar and pinned me against the wall. He was strong enough that my feet barely touched the ground. His large fists clutching my collar squeezed into my neck, making it hard to breathe.

‘I’m telling you. No more dumb questions about how Dad died. If Guy really was your friend, you’d let it drop. And you should forget about Dominique too. That was all a long time ago. You understand me?’

I should have placated him, said yes, Owen, no, Owen, and let him go on his way. But I was tired, I’d had a bad day and I really didn’t like someone barging into my own flat and pushing me around, even if they were much bigger than me.

So I raised my knee sharply to Owen’s groin. His grip on my collar loosened and he bent down, his face contorting in pain. Having started, I had to finish it, so I hit him on the chin. He staggered back, stunned, and I punched him in the stomach. As he reeled, I grabbed hold of his sleeve and dragged him to the door.

‘Get out, Owen,’ I said. ‘And don’t come back here again.’

At first he let himself be pulled along. Then as I reached the door and opened it, he straightened up. He was angry. I had a problem.

I tried to hit him again, but my blow bounced off his shoulder and didn’t make good contact with his jaw. And then he was on me. He was big and he was strong and he was surprisingly fast. I struggled, but within a few seconds he had me pinned against the wall. He hit me hard in the stomach three times. All the air was knocked out of my diaphragm and somehow I couldn’t replace it. I slumped doubled up to the ground, gasping. Then he started kicking. Ribs, head, back. One thump on the skull must have been too hard because everything went dark.

I woke up to find two paramedics leaning over me. Everything hurt. I hadn’t been out for long, they said. A neighbour had heard the commotion and called an ambulance. A couple of police uniforms were there as well. They asked me who had attacked me. I was too confused to decide how to answer that and so I just closed my eyes until they left me alone.

I spent a couple of days in the hospital for observation and X-rays. Amazingly, nothing was broken, but plenty was bruised. I had a nasty bout of concussion that didn’t just give me a headache, but also made me throw up twice in the most spectacular fashion — ‘projectile vomiting’ they called it.

A couple of visitors came. First, Guy.

‘Jesus, you look a mess,’ he said when he saw me.

‘Thanks.’

He sat on the chair by my bed. ‘I’m sorry about Owen.’

‘So am I.’

‘He should never have done that to you.’

‘It was partly my fault. He barged in and pushed me around, so I hit him. Then he hit me.’

‘Are you going to press charges?’

I shook my head. ‘The police wanted me to, but I said no. He is your brother. And I did hit him first, after all. But I tell you, Guy, one of us has to go. It’s either him or me.’

Guy’s eyes searched mine. He saw that I was serious, then he looked down. ‘We’ll see.’

‘We’d better see.’

‘Stupid bugger,’ he said. ‘Look, I really am sorry.’

‘I know. Don’t worry. I’ll mend. I’ll be back at work in a couple of days.’

The other visitor was Ingrid. I had been hoping she would come, but I was surprised by how pleased I was to see her. I felt better the moment she walked in. She was shocked by Owen’s behaviour. I told her about my ultimatum to Guy and she supported me. The hour she spent by my bedside passed very quickly.

The next day I went home under doctor’s orders to stay there. But it was boring and there was so much that needed doing at Ninetyminutes. So that afternoon, despite the continuing headache, I went in to the office.

Everyone was pleased to see me. Everyone was sympathetic. Guy smiled and seemed to be genuinely happy that I was back.

Owen was packing up his stuff.

‘So he’s going?’ I asked Guy.

‘Yes,’ Guy said. ‘It was his decision. I think he realizes his position here is going to be difficult from now on.’

‘Well, I’m glad,’ I said. ‘If he had stayed, I was going to leave.’

‘I know.’

I took it slowly. Concentration was difficult with my head, and I couldn’t read for more than a few minutes at a time. After a couple of hours I gave up and left for home.

I passed Owen in the corridor.

‘David!’

I stopped. ‘Yes?’

He scanned my face and must have seen the still visible signs of our previous meeting. ‘It’s because of Guy I’m going. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with you. Ninetyminutes means everything to Guy and I don’t want to screw it up for him.’

‘OK,’ I said neutrally.

‘You know I’d do anything for my brother. Anything.’ He stepped closer. I tensed. This time if he tried to touch me I’d run. ‘If you harm him in any way, or harm Ninetyminutes, I’m coming after you. Understand?’

I nodded. I’d had enough of standing up to Owen.

‘Cool.’ He stepped past me and returned to his desk.

As I walked to the tube I marvelled at Owen’s loyalty to Guy. I also felt a little afraid. Owen meant what he said, that much was clear. And I had no idea to what lengths he was capable of going to protect his brother.

29

I was soon dragged back into the Ninetyminutes maelstrom. Guy and I went to Munich to interview a couple of key people for the operation there, which now consisted of two men, a woman, an office and lots of computers. We had a successful day. Rolf, the man we had hired to set things up, was good. He was efficient, competent and above all quick. Germany would be on-line by March.

I was silent on the plane back, looking down at the lights of nameless German towns flickering through the darkness and wisps of cloud. Guy was in the seat next to me absorbed in some papers on the new French operation.

The time was coming. The time when I would have to satisfy myself once and for all of Guy’s innocence. The time was now.

‘Guy?’

‘Yes?’ He put aside his documents.

‘What’s the connection between France and your father’s death?’

‘Jesus Christ, Davo! Can’t you think about anything else? You’ve got to focus. There’s too much going on at Ninetyminutes. If you keep worrying about all that you’ll miss something. We can’t afford another screw-up.’

I wasn’t going to be put off this time. ‘Before Owen kicked the shit out of me he warned me off asking any more questions about your father’s death. And about Dominique.’

‘So?’

‘So, if there’s nothing to hide, why should he care?’

‘Who knows? Owen’s crazy.’

‘I checked at Hydra. You weren’t there the night your father died.’

‘Yes I was. It’s a big place. Whoever you spoke to just didn’t see me.’

‘It was closed that week. For refurbishment.’

Guy didn’t answer.

I went on. ‘How did that footprint get outside Dominique’s window?’ Guy was about to protest, but I stopped him. ‘Before you say anything, I know it’s twelve years ago, and I know what you told the police. But that night is etched in my brain just as it is in yours. I can remember every detail of it. And we went to the guest cottage together. The garden had been watered late that afternoon, which means that your footprint got there between the time we went to bed and the time the police started nosing around the next morning.’

‘Can I get you a drink, sir?’

It was the flight attendant with the trolley. Guy was obviously grateful for the interruption. ‘Gin and tonic, please. A large one.’

I waited while she prepared his drink. He took a gulp.

‘Another thing. When did you take the jewellery box from Dominique’s room? The one you gave to Abdulatif. The police cordoned off her bedroom as soon as your father called them. So you must have taken it before then. When?’

Guy drank some more gin.

‘I’m waiting,’ I said.

He turned to face me. ‘I didn’t kill Dad. And I didn’t kill Dominique.’

‘Then who did?’

Guy swallowed. ‘I don’t know.’

Now he was hiding something. He was hiding it well, but he was hiding it. ‘I don’t believe you.’

He shrugged.

‘Guy. I’ve been thinking about this long and hard. I don’t want to believe that you killed Dominique. Or your father. I really don’t. But there’s something going on, something that I think you know about. And until I know what it is, I can’t trust you and I can’t work with you. When we get to London I will get off this plane and never go into Ninetyminutes again.’

Guy studied my face. I knew he didn’t want to tell me. Although my departure from Ninetyminutes would be a blow, it wouldn’t be an insurmountable one. But he needed me just like I needed him. At that moment I realized that. And so, I think, did he.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I will tell you. But only if you give me your word not to tell anyone else. Not Mel, not Ingrid. And not the police.’

I thought before I answered. I had no idea what he was going to admit to, or confess. What if he had murdered his father? I certainly wouldn’t work with him any more. And I’d have to tell the police.

Guy saw my doubt. ‘If you do tell anyone, I’ll deny it. And there’s no proof of what I’m about to say one way or the other. Now, do you give me your word?’

He knew that I would take giving my word seriously. He had known me as a well-brought-up public schoolboy and I hadn’t changed as much as I would have liked.

‘OK,’ I said.

Guy breathed in. ‘All right. First, let me say I didn’t kill my father, and I have no idea who did. No idea whatsoever.’

‘What about Hydra? You were never there.’

‘No, I wasn’t. After I left the Elephant’s Head I got a cab to Mel’s flat in St John’s Wood.’

‘Mel’s?’

‘Yes. You saw her at my place last month, didn’t you? Well, I’d been seeing her for a while before that. On and off.’

‘I see.’

‘The police checked it out. She had a friend staying with her who saw me as well. I didn’t want to tell you this when you asked me, because... well, you can understand why.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘So I don’t have any idea who killed my father, or why.’

‘Might it have something to do with Dominique?’

‘Ah, Dominique,’ said Guy.

I waited.

‘I didn’t kill Dominique.’ He was definitely telling the truth this time. ‘Owen did.’

‘Owen did? But he was only fifteen!’

‘He was a big guy, even then,’ Guy said.

‘But why?’

‘He hated her. He was seriously messed up when my father walked out on us; you know that. He held Dominique responsible. That whole trip he became obsessed by her, the more he saw her the more he hated her. You remember he said he was always working on his portable computer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, he wasn’t. Actually he spent a lot of time watching her.’

‘Which is when he saw her with the gardener.’

‘And you.’

I took a deep breath. Even after all these years the consequences of that half hour reached out to tear at me.

‘It tipped him over the edge,’ said Guy. ‘Not only had she stolen Dad away from us, but then she was cheating on him. He was angry. He watched her. Watched her fight with Dad. Watched Dad leave the house. Watched her shoot up with heroin. Watched her drink. Watched her finally pass out.’

‘Then what?’

‘He went into her room. He tried to talk to her. Tell her what he thought of her. I don’t know what he expected, whether he thought she’d just listen quietly to what he had to say and then let him go. But when she woke up and saw him, she was about to scream, so he put the pillow over her mouth. She tried to struggle. He kept it there. He kept it there a long time.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Then he left her.’

‘God. But it was your footprint, not Owen’s, they found.’

‘Owen knew he’d done something badly wrong. At the time, I don’t think he intended to kill her. I think he barely realized he had. I don’t know what was going through his head. But he wanted to talk to me. He woke me up. We went out into the garden and he told me all about what Dominique and you had done, about what a slut she was, about what an evil woman she was. I was shocked about you and her, but I thought Owen was just ranting. Which was strange for him, you know how little he likes to talk.

‘Then I realized he’d smothered her with the pillow. I rushed up to her room, climbed in through the balcony. Dad wasn’t there. But she was. Lying there, not moving, her face still under the pillow.’

Guy breathed heavily. There was sweat on his upper lip.

‘I looked for a pulse, but there wasn’t one. I had to take a decision there and then. I could either turn Owen in, or I could help him. I was shocked by what Dominique and you had done. I hated her too. And if Owen was screwed up enough to kill her, it was as a result of her actions. I know now it was all my father’s fault, but at the time I blamed her. I knew Owen had done wrong, but he was my brother and no one else was going to stand up for him if I didn’t.

‘So I crept back outside. Asked Owen exactly what he had touched. Came back and wiped it all down carefully with a cloth. I had to be quick; I had no idea when my father would get back. I took the pillowcase off the pillow. I grabbed the jewellery case to make it look as though a thief had been in there. I left through the balcony and dusted over our footprints, although I must have left one of mine. And then I went back to bed.’

‘I never noticed,’ I said.

‘You were out of it. Snoring. Loudly.’

‘Christ.’

Guy shrugged.

‘I’m amazed the police didn’t discover anything.’

‘I was careful,’ Guy said. ‘While they were focusing on Dad, I was safe. I knew they would figure out he was innocent pretty soon, and I needed to give them someone else to worry about. Which is why paying the gardener to disappear was such a good idea. But then I got a real scare when they found my footprint. I’m eternally grateful to you for getting me out of that one. I’ve never quite known why you did that.’

‘I didn’t believe you’d killed Dominique,’ I said. ‘I was still a schoolboy. I was helping my innocent friend against the authorities. Or at least, that was what I thought I was doing.’

‘Well, thanks, anyway. Without that explanation they’d have found it harder to blame Abdulatif.’

‘Whew.’ I thought through what Guy had just told me. Owen had killed Dominique. At the age of fifteen! I shuddered. ‘What happened to Abdulatif?’

‘He died on the streets of Marseilles. It’s a tough place.’

‘You don’t think Owen killed him?’

‘No. I’m sure he didn’t.’

‘Oh, come on! His death was so convenient. So timely. Just when the blackmail was beginning to really bite.’

Guy shrugged.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘I remember when Owen told us that Abdulatif had been murdered. It was just before we went to Mull. He’d been to visit your father in France.’

‘Hold on, Davo,’ Guy said, a note of anger in his voice. ‘I told you the whole truth just now, and I’m telling you the truth when I say Owen didn’t kill Abdulatif. Or Dad. I don’t think he really meant to kill Dominique. He was young then. And screwed up. He’s grown up now. He’s less impulsive. He’s straightened himself out.’

‘Huh.’ I wasn’t going to enter into an argument with Guy about Owen’s psychological well-being.

‘I mean it. He’s OK now. And I want you to leave him alone.’

‘Leave him alone?’

‘Yes. Leave him alone.’ Guy’s voice was firm. It was a command, not a request.

We were silent for a couple of minutes, as I absorbed what Guy had just told me.

‘So now you know,’ he said.

‘Now I know.’

‘But you won’t tell Ingrid, will you? Or Mel?’

I had given my word. I shook my head.

‘Or the police?’

I hesitated.

‘It wouldn’t matter too much if you did. I’d deny we’d had this conversation. It’s a long time ago in a foreign country and the case was closed to everyone’s satisfaction. There would be no point. Would there?’

I shook my head. ‘There wouldn’t.’

‘So will I see you at the office tomorrow morning?’

‘I don’t know.’

I lay in bed that night staring at the bands of light and shadow projected on to the ceiling by the streetlamps outside. I was shaken. Owen was a murderer. He had killed Dominique and I was pretty sure he had killed Abdulatif too. And Guy had helped him cover it up.

Guy had given himself all kinds of justifications at the time as to why Owen had done what he had done. None of those counted for anything with me. I believed Owen was screwed up, but I also believed he was responsible for his actions. Perhaps it was right for a big brother to cover up for his younger brother, I didn’t know. I couldn’t even begin to imagine being related to Owen. I was now exceedingly glad that he no longer worked for Ninetyminutes. But what about me? What should I do? Should I just ignore what I knew?

As a good citizen, I should tell someone. But I had also given my word. It was only on that basis that Guy had told me anything.

I thought of the practicalities. Who would I go to? Would anyone in the British police help me with a case that was thirteen years old? Perhaps I should call the police station in Beaulieu. I’d have to go there. I’d have to talk to French officials who might or might not have any interest in what I was saying. I would have to start my own personal crusade for justice.

And what would happen? It would be impossible for me to continue working at Ninetyminutes. It would make it difficult for Guy to run the company properly, especially if the French police decided to investigate further. I might screw the whole thing up. I’d certainly have to find another job, perhaps back in banking, or even worse, accountancy. And I would have lost Guy as a friend. Despite what Owen had done, that mattered.

I decided to keep my word.

Eventually I went to sleep. I was at my desk by eight thirty the next morning, ready for everything that Ninetyminutes could throw at me.