35
“ARROGANCE AND GREED is the answer to your question,” spat out Desmond Mellor. “You had a banker’s draft, cash in hand, but you still weren’t satisfied. You wanted more, and because of your stupidity, I’m facing bankruptcy.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad, Desmond. After all, you still own fifty-one percent of Farthings, not to mention your other considerable assets.”
“Let me spell it out for you, Sloane, so you’re not under any illusions as to what I’m up against and, more important, what I expect you to do about it. I purchased, on your advice, fifty-one percent of the bank’s stock from Arnold Hardcastle, at a price of three pounds nine shillings a share, which cost me just over twenty million pounds. In order to raise that sum, I had to borrow eleven million from my bank, using the shares, all my assets including two homes, as well as having to sign a personal guarantee. Farthings’ shares are on the market this morning at two pounds eleven shillings, which means I’m showing a shortfall of over five million pounds, for a deal you said we couldn’t lose on. It’s just possible I may avoid going bankrupt, but I’ll certainly be wiped out if I have to put my shares on the market now. Which, I repeat, is because of your arrogance and greed.”
“That isn’t entirely fair,” said Sloane. “At the board meeting last Monday, we all agreed, you included, to put the asking price up to six pounds.”
“True, but the carpet trader’s son called your bluff. He was still willing to go ahead at five pounds a share, which would have got me off the hook and provided us all with a handsome profit. So the least you can do is buy my shares for three pounds and nine shillings, and get me out of a situation you’re responsible for.”
“But as I’ve already explained, Desmond, much as I’d like to help, what you’re suggesting would be breaking the law.”
“That didn’t seem to worry you when you told Bishara that you had a bid of six pounds on the table from a ‘well-established City institution,’ when no such third party existed. I think you’ll find that’s also against the law.”
“I repeat, we all agreed—”
The phone on Sloane’s desk began to ring. He pressed the intercom and barked, “I told you, no interruptions.”
“It’s Lady Virginia Fenwick, and she says it is urgent.”
“I can’t wait to hear what she’s got to say,” said Mellor.
“Good morning, Lady Virginia,” said Sloane, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. “How nice to hear from you.”
“You may not feel that way when you know why I’m calling,” said Virginia. “I’ve just received a pretrial invoice from my solicitors for twenty thousand pounds that has to be settled before the first day of proceedings. You will recall, Adrian, giving me your word that you would cover the costs of my trial. Pennies, in the grand scheme of things, if I remember your words correctly.”
“I did indeed say that, Lady Virginia. But you will also remember that the offer depended on the successful outcome of our negotiations with Mr. Bishara, so I’m afraid—”
“But Major Fisher tells me you only have yourself to blame for that remarkable lack of judgement. You may take this as you wish, Mr. Sloane, but if you do not keep your word and cover my legal costs, let me warn you that I am not without influence in the City…”
“Are you threatening me, Lady Virginia?”
“As I said, Mr. Sloane, you may take it as you wish.”
* * *
Virginia slammed down the phone and turned to Fisher. “I’ll give him a couple of days to come up with the twenty thousand, otherwise—”
“That man won’t part with a penny unless you have a written agreement, and perhaps not even then. It’s the way he treats everyone. He promised me a place on the board of Farthings but since the Bishara deal fell through, I haven’t heard a word from him.”
“Well, I can promise you that he won’t be working in the City for much longer if I have anything to do with it. But I’m sorry, Alex, I’m sure that wasn’t the reason you wanted to see me.”
“No, it wasn’t. I thought you ought to know that I was issued with a subpoena this morning from Mrs. Clifton’s solicitors, putting me on notice that they intend to call me as a witness at your trial.”
* * *
“I’m sorry I’m late,” said Seb as he climbed on to the barstool. “When we came out of the theatre, it was raining, and I couldn’t find a taxi, so I had to drive my aunt to Paddington to make sure she didn’t miss the last train.”
“Worthy of a boy scout,” said Bishara.
“Good evening, sir,” said the barman. “Campari and soda?”
Seb was impressed, as he’d only visited the club once before. “Yes,” he replied, “thank you.”
“And what does your aunt do in Cambridge?” asked Bishara.
“She’s an English don at Newnham, the family’s bluestocking. We’re very proud of her.”
“You’re so unlike your fellow Englishmen.”
“What makes you say that?” asked Seb as a Campari and soda was placed in front of him.
“You treat everyone as an equal, from the barman to your aunt, and you don’t patronize foreigners, like myself. So many Englishmen would have said, my aunt teaches English at Cambridge University, but you took it for granted that I knew what a don is, that Newnham is one of the five women’s colleges at Cambridge, and that a bluestocking is a girl who aspires to learning. Unlike that patronizing idiot Adrian Sloane, who, because he went to Harrow, thinks he’s well educated.”
“I get the impression you dislike Sloane almost as much as I do.”
“Possibly more, after his latest con trick when he tried to sell me his bank.”
“But it’s not his bank to sell. At least not as long as Cedric Hardcastle’s widow still owns fifty-one percent of the stock.”
“But she doesn’t any longer,” said Bishara. “Desmond Mellor has recently purchased all her shares.”
“That’s not possible,” said Seb. “Mellor’s a wealthy man, but he’s not in that league. He’d need twenty million before he could get his hands on fifty-one percent of Farthings’ stock, and he doesn’t have that sort of money.”
“Could that be the reason the man who was sweating when I was in the Farthings boardroom wants to see me?” said Bishara, almost as if he was speaking to himself. “Has Mellor overstretched himself, and now that my offer is no longer on the table, does he need to off-load his shares?”
“What offer?” said Seb, not touching his drink.
“I agreed to pay five pounds a share for what must have been Arnold Hardcastle’s stock, or to be more accurate, his mother’s. I was just about to sign the contract when Sloane decided to raise the price to six pounds. So I withdrew my offer, packed up my tent, gathered up my camels, and headed back into the desert.”
Seb laughed. “But at five pounds he and Mellor would both have made a small fortune.”
“That’s my point, Mr. Clifton. You would have honored the deal, not tried to change the price at the last moment. But Sloane only thinks of me as a carpet trader he can take advantage of. But if I can get two questions answered before I see Mellor tomorrow, I could still take over Farthings and, unlike Sloane, I would welcome you onto the board.”
“What do you need to know?”
“Was it Mellor who purchased Mrs. Hardcastle’s shares and, if so, how much did he pay for them?”
“I’ll give Arnold Hardcastle a call first thing in the morning. But I must warn you, he’s a lawyer by profession, and although he hates Sloane almost as much as I do, he would never compromise a client’s confidentiality. But that won’t stop me trying. What time’s your meeting with Mellor?”
“Twelve o’clock, at my office.”
“I’ll ring you as soon as I’ve spoken to Arnold Hardcastle.”
“Thank you,” said Bishara. “Now on to more important matters. Your first lesson in the dubious art of backgammon. One of the few games you English didn’t invent. The most important thing to remember about backgammon is that it’s all about percentages. As long as you can calculate the odds after each throw of the dice, you can never be beaten by an inferior opponent. Luck only comes into the equation when two players are equal.”
“Not unlike banking,” said Seb as the two men took their seats on opposite sides of the board.
* * *
When Harry opened his eyes, he had such a splitting headache that it was some time before he could focus. He tried to raise his head but he didn’t have the strength. He lay still, feeling as if he was coming around after an anesthetic. He opened his eyes again and looked up at the ceiling. A concrete block with several cracks in it, one producing a slow drip of water, like a tap that hadn’t been properly turned off.
He turned his head slowly to his left. The condensation on the wall was so close that he could have touched it if he hadn’t been handcuffed to the bed. He turned the other way, to see a door with a square window in it, through which he could, like Alice, have escaped if there hadn’t been three iron bars across it, and two guards standing on the other side.
He tried to move his feet, but they were also clamped to the bed. Why such precautions for an Englishman who had been caught with a banned book? Although the first seven chapters had been fascinating, he sensed that he hadn’t yet discovered the real reason every copy had been destroyed, which only made him even more determined to read the remaining fourteen chapters. They might also explain why he was being treated as if he were a double agent or a mass murderer.
Harry had no way of knowing how long he’d been in the cell. His watch had been removed, and he couldn’t even be sure if it was night or day. He started singing “God Save the Queen,” not as an act of defiant patriotism but more because he wanted to hear the sound of his own voice. Actually, if you’d asked him, Harry would have admitted he preferred the Russian national anthem.
Two eyes peered through the bars but he ignored them and continued singing. Then he heard someone shouting a command, and moments later the door swung open and Colonel Marinkin reappeared, accompanied by his two Rottweilers.
“Mr. Clifton, I must apologize for the state of your accommodation. It’s just that we didn’t want anyone to know where you were before we released you.”
The words “released you” sounded to Harry like Gabriel’s horn.
“Let me assure you, we have no desire to keep you any longer than necessary. Just some paperwork to complete, and a statement for you to sign, and then you can be on your way.”
“A statement? What kind of statement?”
“More of a confession,” admitted the colonel. “But once you’ve signed it, you’ll be driven back to the airport and be on your way home.”
“And if I refuse to sign it?”
“That would be remarkably foolish, Mr. Clifton, because you would then face a trial at which the charge, the verdict, and the sentence have already been decided. You once described a show trial in one of your books. You will be able to give a much more accurate portrayal when you write your next novel—” he paused—“in twelve years’ time.”
“What about the jury?”
“Twelve carefully selected party workers, whose vocabulary only needs to stretch to the word guilty. And just to let you know, your current accommodation is five-star compared to where you would be going. No dripping ceilings, because the water is frozen night and day.”
“You’ll never get away with it.”
“You’re so na?ve, Mr. Clifton. You have no friends in high places here to take care of you. You are a common criminal. There will be no solicitor to advise you, and no QC to argue your case in front of an unbiased jury. And unlike America, there is no jury selection, and we don’t even have to pay the judges to get the verdict we want. I will leave you to consider your options, but in my opinion, it is a simple choice. You can fly back to London, first class on BOAC, or take a cattle train to Novaya Uda that only has straw class, and which I’m afraid you’d have to share with several other animals. And I feel I should warn you, it’s a prison from which no one has ever escaped.”
Wrong, thought Harry, as he recalled from chapter three of Uncle Joe that it was the jail Stalin was sent to in 1902, and from which he had escaped.