Ordinary Thunderstorms

49

THERE WERE THREE NEAT stacks of pound coins on top of the telephone and his pockets were heavy with more.

“That will be fourteen pounds,” the operator said.

Adam duly slotted in the coins.

“You know it’s so much easier with a credit card,” the operator said.

“My credit card was stolen, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, sorry. Thank you. I’m connecting you now.”

Adam was in a phone booth in Leicester Square. It was ten o’clock at night but the next day had already dawned in Australia. He heard the phone ringing in his sister’s house in Sydney.

“Hello, yeah?” It was his brother-in-law, Ray.

“Can I speak with Francis Kindred please?” He kept his voice deep and flatly businesslike.

“What’s it about, mate?”

“About a money transfer from the UK to his bank.”

“Hold on.”

There was a silence, then he heard his father’s reedy voice.

“Hello? I think there must be some mistake.”

Adam felt the tears brim in his eyes.

“Dad — it’s me, Adam…” Silence. “Dad?”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I didn’t do it, Dad.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“I had to hide out for a while. They thought it was me — the evidence was pretty overwhelming.” The phone beeped and he pumped in more coins.

“Go to the police, Ad. They’ll sort it out.”

“No they won’t. I have to sort it out myself. But I just wanted to tell you I was OK.”

“Well, it’s a relief. Emma and I — we were going to come back. See if we could help find you. Go on television again, if we could, make another appeal.”

Adam swallowed. He tried to sound composed. “I heard about the first one,” he said. “No need for another, now, Dad.”

“People came to see us out here. Police — and other investigators. Secret service, we think. Asked us all sorts of questions. And they’re still tampering with our mail — we can see letters have been opened.”

“That’s what I mean. It’s too big — there are other forces at work, other interests. Listen, I’ll call you from time to time — and I’ll let you know when I’ve sorted everything out.” The beeps came and more coins went in. “They’ll probably trace this call — you can tell them that we spoke. But I’m alive and well, Dad.” This statement made him feel like weeping, also, as he registered its poignant truth and its contingency.

“Well, take care, son. Oh, and thanks for calling.”

“Send my love to Emma and the boys.”

“Will do.”

“OK, Dad-bye.”

He hung up and wiped his eyes, swearing at himself under his breath. He should have said, “I love you, Dad,” or some such declaration, but that wasn’t the Kindred family way. He gathered up his remaining coins, wiped the mouthpiece of the phone with a tissue and stepped out of the booth. He took off his surgical gloves and dropped them in a bin before heading off towards the Tube station. He was tempted to hang around and wait to see how long it would be before the police arrived looking for him — it would have been a useful measure of their vigilance — but he had other more pressing tasks to occupy him.

It was a calculated risk calling his father, he knew, but it was something that he had been wanting to do for weeks. The fact that he had felt able to do it now seemed symbolic: it was a sign that matters were coming to a head, the slow crescendo was becoming louder and more agitated. He tried to imagine what his father’s reaction would be — he would have been pleased to have his son’s safety confirmed, proof that his son was alive, or so Adam supposed. Perhaps he hadn’t been that worried — his voice hadn’t sounded surprised or emotional — maybe he had practically forgotten that Adam was a wanted man, half a world away. Francis Kindred was enjoying his retirement with his daughter and his grandchildren — what could he do about it if his miscreant son had decided to go to hell in a handcart? He was not an easily perturbed man, Francis Kindred — still, Adam was pleased, he felt he had done his duty: it was a small step in his rehabilitation as a normal human being. He felt, in an absurd way, that he had his family back again.

♦

At the end of the afternoon of the next day Adam watched the man he now knew was Ingram Fryzer walk across the small piazza in front of the glass tower that contained the Calenture-Deutz offices and slip into the back of his parked Bentley. Adam was fifty yards away, sitting on his scooter and, spotting Fryzer, he started the engine. He had been waiting almost two hours — it was now just after 6.00 a.m. Earlier, he had called Calenture — Deutz, saying he was a journalist from The Times, and that he wanted to speak to Ingram Fryzer about Zembla-4. He was brusquely told that Mr Fryzer was unavailable, in a meeting, please contact Pippa Deere at Calenture-Deutz public relations. Now he knew Fryzer was in the building he had been happy to settle down and wait. Then he saw the glossy Bentley slide to a halt in the reserved parking bay and, moments later, Fryzer emerged. He looked an innocuous man — tall, in a dark suit with a thick head of grey hair — Adam found it hard to stir up any emotion against him.

Adam followed his car across London to Fryzer’s large house in Kensington, saw the Bentley pull into the drive and the chauffeur leap out to open the rear door. Adam accelerated away, heading for Netting Hill. He needed to know where Fryzer lived and to see how close he was to his brother-in-law, Lord Redcastle. It turned out that they were reassuringly far apart.

It had been hard to gain much useful information on Fryzer, he seemed to keep himself to himself, and the details available about his life were bland: a semi-smartish public school, a second-class degree in PPE at Oxford, a brief stint at a merchant bank in the City before he moved into property in the 19805 Thatcher boom. The most interesting fact that Adam had gleaned was that Fryzer’s mother’s maiden name was Felicity de Vere. Fryzer had married, in his mid-twenties, Lady Meredith Cannon, the daughter of the Earl of Concannon. Three children blessed the union. Then in the 19905 Fryzer had transferred, bizarrely, out of property development into pharmaceuticals, buying a small company called Calenture, whose main asset was a highly successful anti-hayfever treatment (pill and nasal inhaler) called Bynogol. Shortly after, the company became Calenture-Deutz (Adam couldn’t see where the ‘Deutz’ name originated: he suspected it was cosmetic, an ad-man’s clever branding notion: it had more of a ring to it than plain old Calenture. Calenture-Deutz suggested an aura of Teutonic thoroughness) and the company had steadily grown to a reasonable size — a comfortable mid-table player in the Big Pharma leagues. There was nothing there that would arouse suspicion; nothing that would hint at any more sinister ambitions.

On the other hand, information on Ivo, Lord Redcastle couldn’t have been more easily forthcoming. Ivo was readily unearthed on the internet where there was a badly designed, malfunctioning website for RedEntInc. Com that managed to provide an address of an office in Earls Court and a telephone number. He had called the office from a phone booth and a girl called Sam—“Sam speaking”—had told him Ivo was at lunch.

“It’s not about the T — shirts, is it?” she asked, her rising voice betraying her excitement.

“Actually, it is,” Adam lied spontaneously and Sam had immediately given him Ivo’s mobile phone number—“He’ll want to talk to you, I know.” When Adam called, Ivo himself answered. He could hear the clatter of silverware on crockery and the babble of a restaurant’s conversation. Ivo had told him where he was lunching as if the address conferred on him some kind of instant status.

“It’s about the T — shirts,” Adam said.

“Are you interested?”

“Absolutely.”

Adam said he wasn’t free in the day and so Ivo invited him to his house that evening, giving the address, and post code, and home phone number in Notting Hill. Adam agreed to meet him there at 8.00 that evening, having not the slightest intention of showing up. All he wanted was the address, but he decided, now that he knew where Ivo was, to confirm that he had indeed got his man. All that he knew of Ivo’s appearance was from a small photo in the Calenture-Deutz brochure. He bought a disposable camera and waited outside the restaurant until someone similar appeared. He had buzzed past in his scooter, calling Ivo’s name just to be sure and, when he looked up, taken a snap. It all went into the Calenture-Deutz file. And now he knew also that the man Ivo had been with that day was Fryzer. Perhaps they had been discussing Calenture-Deutz business…The success of the clinical trials…The upcoming press conference…

Adam smiled to himself as he turned off Ladbroke Grove looking for the number of Ivo’s house — there it was, tall white stucco, off-street parking. Two men were carrying a large abstract painting in through the front door. Adam pulled up across the street and pretended to be checking his A — Z street map. There seemed to be a CCTV camera mounted above the front door — he would have to be careful. He accelerated off — he was on the night shift at St Bot’s again. He needed his days free at the moment, the only disadvantage being that he hadn’t seen Rita since their night together…He would call her — they had spoken every day — and he beguiled himself as he motored east through London with images of her naked body flashing pleasingly through his mind’s eye. It was time for another date. She didn’t realise it yet but he had some need of the Nashe family in his emerging plan.

♦

“How does that look to you?”

“Ideal.”

It was a small memo pad of the sort that classier hotels place by the phone or on writing desks: one hundred leaves, a stiff cardboard back, and printed across the top of each page in blue-black ink, upper case, was the name ‘INGRAM FRYZER’.

“You’d have been better off ordering at least a dozen,” the girl in PrintPak said to Adam. “We’d have given you a discount. Seems very expensive for such a little pad.”

“It’s a present,” Adam said, handing over a twenty-pound note. “I may be back for more.”

He was leaving the shop when his mobile rang.

“Hello?”

“Primo Belem?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Aaron Lalandusse here. I got your intriguing message.”

“Can we meet?”

“Do you really have all that material?”

“Yes, I do.”

Lalandusse suggested a pub in Covent Garden, not far from his magazine’s offices in Holborn and Adam said he’d be there. It was beginning to come together. He called Rita and asked her if they could meet at the Bellerophon.

“My dad will be there.”

“I know. I need to have a word with him.”