2009 - Ordinary Thunderstorms (43 page)

“A noble cause, Primo,” Lalandusse said. “Are you going to take on Calenture-Deutz’s phalanx of lawyers? My editor has thrown in the towel. As has the rest of the British press, it seems.” He. drained his bottle of beer. “Don’t get me wrong: there is a story to tell, but it may take a while to come out…Do you mind if we step outside? I need a ciggy.”

Adam and Lalandusse stood outside the pub under an awning, watching a persistent drizzle fall, while Lalandusse laboriously lit up. He puffed away like a schoolgirl, producing vast disproportionate clouds of smoke, as if he’d only just learnt what to do with a cigarette.

“What do you think will happen?” Adam asked.

“I suspect they’ll break up Calenture—a fire sale—sell off its profitable lines. They’ve got a new CEO—they sacked the old one. He’s ‘ill’ so they say.”

“Fryzer?” Adam waited for Aaron to stop coughing.

“Yeah…Sorry…‘Sick leave’—the handiest euphemism around when you’ve destroyed your company.”

“What happened to Redcastle?”

“Kicked off the board, pronto. Fled the country before the Fraud Squad got to him. He’s in Spain, so I hear. He’ll be ducking and diving for the rest of his life.”

Adam allowed himself to feel a momentary relaxation. Maybe this wholesale collapse meant he was finally safe—those people, whoever they were, would stop looking for him now, stop trying to kill him. Why bother with an Adam Kindred when there was no Zembla-4 to protect any longer? Surely the hunt would be called off…And he did feel good about that, for all the unanswered questions buzzing around in his mind and for all the guilt he felt about Mhouse…And what had happened to Ly-on?…Had he been taken into care? Fostered?…Thinking about them was the strangest experience: to recall his life with Mhouse and Ly-on in The Shaft—it was like another person’s biography. Still, Ly-on must be out there somewhere, and now things seemed to be calming down he should try and find out what had happened to him.

Lalandusse was lighting a second cigarette—it took him three matches and another coughing fit before he had it going to his satisfaction. Practice makes perfect, Adam thought.

“I’d better go,” Adam said. “I’ve got an appointment.” He shook Lalandusse’s hand. “Thank you, Aaron,” he said, “you’ve been a fantastic help.”

“No, thank
you
,” Lalandusse said. “It looks very like you’ve stopped a killer drug in its tracks—doesn’t happen every day. I’ll get in touch when I write it all up—there may be a book in it—once the dust’s settled.”

“Yeah, let’s see if we can nail that evil bastard Ingram Fryzer.”

“You bet.”

Adam said goodbye and walked off towards the Tube station.

He sat on the bench by Chelsea Bridge waiting for Turpin—who was late. It was well after 11.00 now and the traffic was quiet on the Embankment. He had stood on the bridge for a while when he had arrived, looking back at the triangle, remembering. The tide was turning and was flowing strongly back down to the estuary and the sea. While he was waiting there had been a heavy shower that had driven him under the trees by the triangle to take shelter—a few people hurried by, heads down under umbrellas, but the streets were surprisingly empty. Adam took a woollen beanie cap out of his pocket and pulled it over his wet hair, down to his eyebrows. The night was cool, he shivered.

He had called Rita and told her he was working late and that he hoped to be home around midnight. She had her own keys, now, to the flat in Oystergate Buildings and she asked him if he’d like something to eat when he came in. He said, no, don’t bother, don’t wait up—I’ll just slip into bed. The thought of slipping into bed with Rita excited him, of reaching out under the sheets for her warm body—he stood and paced up and down—how he wanted to be back there with her now, not waiting to meet his blackmailer, Vincent Turpin, this figure from his past, still haunting him, making demands. This was his third payment to Turpin, another £200, and he was running out of funds, borrowing money from Rita to make ends meet. He decided it would be his last—now he had spoken to Lalandusse and discovered what was happening at Calenture-Deutz: they had more than enough corporate chaos in their lives to be worrying about me, he thought. The dogs must have been called off.

He saw Turpin lurching down Chelsea Bridge Road, weaving across the pedestrian lights opposite the Lister Hospital, holding up one hand to stop non-existent traffic. He slowed down as he saw Adam, tried to straighten himself. Adam saw he was wearing a shiny new leather jacket, too long in the sleeve. So that’s where his money was going.

“Got a smoke, John?” Turpin said, breathing beer fumes over him.

“I don’t smoke,” Adam said, handing over the money and watching as Turpin laboriously counted it.

“You’re short. I said £300.”

“You said two. Like the last time.”

“It always goes up a bit, John. Bad boy. Vince is not well pleased.”

“You said two. It’s not my fault.”

“Tell you what, sunshine. You must have a credit card now you’ve got so successful. Let’s go to a cash-point—see how much we can get—I’m in need of funds, as they say.”

“No, this is it. It’s finished.”

Turpin sighed histrionically. “You’re making it very easy for me to earn two grand, John. I’ll just call Ugly Bugger. Give him your scooter number. Where is it, by the way, you sold it?” Turpin prattled on, drunkenly verbose, and Adam was thinking: of course, of course,
of course
—he’s
already
told him. He’s got his two grand already. Why would Turpin do the honourable thing? Not in Turpin’s life, not his way of dealing with the world. He tuned back in to hear Turpin saying, “…and I can get the money from you or I can get it from him. I got his phone number. Call him up, give him the licence plate. Bingo. Two thousand pounds to Mr Turpin, thank you very much. Makes no odds to me.”

Adam thought fast: he wanted to get away from here, away from the triangle. Was it worth the risk of alienating Turpin for another £100? He should keep him sweet: it would give him more time, more time to figure out how to erase the Primo Belem trail once and for all—one final bit of security. But maybe he was safe—this man hunting him, whoever he was, wouldn’t work for nothing. And if Calenture-Deutz had gone to the wall—

“Make your mind up. Your call, Johnnie.”

“All right,” Adam said, turning towards Chelsea. “There’s a cash machine at Sloane Square.”

“I’m not that fucking stupid,” Turpin said, belligerently. “No, I know another one. You might have friends waiting for old Vince at Sloane Square. No, we’ll go to Battersea, mate.”

They headed off across the bridge, Turpin trying to hold on to Adam’s arm to steady himself. His drunken instability seemed to have accelerated. Adam shook him off.

“Don’t touch me,” he said.

Turpin stopped, angry. He put one hand on the balustrade.

“Don’t you talk to me like that. What am I? Filth?…Anyway, you’re the one going to fall over, you stupid cunt. Your shoelace is undone.” Turpin found this fact very funny all of a sudden and doubled up in a wheezy laugh.

Adam looked down to see that his right shoelaces were trailing on the wet pavement. Turpin, still laughing to himself, leant back against the purple and white, thick cast-iron balustrade of the bridge, resting on his elbows—like a drinker resting, at his ease, Adam thought, leaning back against a bar. A late-night bus rumbled by, the light from its upper deck flashing across Turpin’s seamed and folded face.

“I heard a funny joke today,” Turpin said. “Didn’t half laugh. It’s good to laugh, clears out the system. Doctors will tell you that. A tonic.”

Adam stooped to tie his shoelace.

“There’s this woman social worker, see?” Turpin began. “And she’s talking to a little girl, pretty little chicken. And she says: do you know when your mummy has her period?—You heard this one before?”

“No,” Adam said, beginning to re-tie his other shoelace for good measure.

“It’s bloody good. Hilarious. So the little girl says to the social worker”—now Turpin put on a piping falsetto—“Yes, miss, I know when my mummy has her period. Social worker: how can you tell?…And the little girl says: because daddy’s cock tastes funny.” Turpin shook with laughter again.

It all became clear to Adam at once, in a flash of insight, what he could do, here and now, and how easy it would be. At the very least it would be some recompense, some rough justice, for all the grief Turpin had visited on his various wives and his little children. Adam quickly reached out, while Turpin was still rocking drunkenly with mirth at his joke, and slipped two fingers under the cuff of Turpin’s right trouser leg. He gripped it, holding it firmly, and rose suddenly to his feet from his crouching position. Turpin went up and over the balustrade so fast and fluently he had time only to utter a short bark of surprise, his hands grabbing vainly at thin air. And then he was gone, falling into the dark beyond the bridge’s lights. Adam heard the splash of his body hitting the water. He thought for a second about running across to see if there was any sign of him downstream, but Chelsea Bridge was awkward to traverse—he would have to vault two sizeable structural barriers on either side of the roadway—and anyway, it was dark and the tide was strong and surging and would carry Turpin away so quickly, he knew. Adam didn’t pause any longer, he turned and walked on towards Battersea. The whole moment had been so fast—a mere second—no cars had passed by, no one else was on the bridge. At one moment there had been two men; the next moment there was only one. So easy. Turpin was gone, Adam thought, as he walked away, and he didn’t feel anything, to his vague surprise, he didn’t feel changed in any way and he didn’t feel guilty. It was a simple act, a decision that had occurred to him spontaneously—bringing about an end to Turpin as if a roof tile had fallen on his head or as if he had been hit by a speeding car. A fatal accident. Adam strode calmly, steadily, on to Battersea and bussed home to Rita.

L
IFE’S JOURNEY WAS VERY strange, Ingram decided, and it had recently taken him to places he never thought he would have visited on his personal itinerary from cradle to grave. He sat upright, now, in his hospital bed, leaning back against a fat pile of pillows, with his shaven, massively scarred head wrapped in a neat, tight turban of bandages. He had a drip in his arm and his left eye was covered with a black pirate’s patch—something he’d requested himself, to see if it would subdue the firework display that glittered and sparkled against the shifting grey mica dust that was all his left retina was currently supplying as vision. With light not coming in, the darkness seemed to quell the pyrotechnics. Only the occasional supernova or atom bomb blast made him flinch—otherwise he felt pretty well, if 3 out of 10 could be regarded as a norm: nausea, parched throat, out-of-body trances not being included in the audit. He could speak, he could read (out of one eye), he could think, he could eat—though he was never hungry—he could defecate (effortfully, meagrely), he could drink. He craved sweet, cold drinks—he asked all visitors to bring chilled colas—Pepsi, Coke, supermarket ‘own’ brands—he did not discriminate.

It was three days since his operation—the urgent ‘debulking’ of his brain—and he had been informed that his tumour had been removed along with the other tissue. His chemotherapy was underway and he could receive visitors. His wife, Meredith, had left five minutes before—trying to hide her tears but failing.

Currently, Lachlan McTurk sat heavily on his bed, helping himself to a toothglass of the malt whisky he had brought as a present.

“You’ll like this, Ingram,” McTurk said. “Speyside. Aberlour. I know you don’t enjoy West Coast.”

“Thank you, Lachlan. I look forward to it.”

McTurk topped himself up again.

“Who was your surgeon?” he asked.

“Mr Gulzar Shah,” Ingram said. He had popped in an hour previously, a tall, gaunt, softly spoken man with dark eye sockets, as if he had applied eye-shadow to them.

“Oh, very good man. Top man. Did he give you a final diagnosis?”

“Glioblastoma multiforme,” Ingram pronounced the words carefully. “I think that’s what he said.”

“Ah…yes…Hmmm. Oh, dear…Yes…”

“You’re wonderfully reassuring, Lachlan. Mr Shah said he wanted to wait for more biopsy results before he confirmed. But that was his provisional judgement.”

“It’s definitely something you don’t want to get, old son, is all I’ll say. Very nasty.”

“Well, I seem to have got it, by all accounts. I don’t have much choice.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“You’re my doctor, Lachlan—what’s your prognosis?”

Lachlan sipped his whisky, thinking, sucking his teeth.

“Well…If you follow the usual pattern you’ll probably be dead in three months. Don’t give up all hope, though. Ten per cent of glioblastoma multiforme sufferers experience remission—some have lived five years. Who can say? You might be the exception. You might prove medical science wrong: live a long, fulfilled life. It is a rare and virulent cancer, though.” Lachlan reached forward and patted his hand. “Exceptionally. Still, I’ll put my money on you, Ingram. At least five years.”

“Many thanks.”

There was a knock on the door.

“I’ll haste awa’, laddie,” Lachlan said in his best Rabbie Burns mode. He pushed the whisky bottle towards Ingram. “Do have a wee dram of this. No point in holding back, eh? Chin up.”

As he left he passed Ingram’s accountant, Chandrakant Das, coming in. Chandrakant was in an evident state of shock—he couldn’t speak for a while, his face pinched, his eyes moist, he gripped Ingram’s hand with both his hands, looking down and breathing deeply for a minute, composing himself.

“I feel surprisingly well, Chandra,” Ingram said, trying to put him at his ease. “I know everything is collapsing around me but I feel in sufficiently good health to want to enquire about the state of my finances. That’s why I asked you here. I do apologise.”

Chandra was finally able to speak. “It’s not good, Ingram. Not good, not good, not good, not good.”

Chandra explained. Calenture-Deutz shares were currently trading at 37 pence and heading south. Rilke Pharma had made a buy-out offer to the other shareholders of 50 pence a share but were reconsidering as the company rapidly devalued. Ingram had been voted off the board as chairman and CEO and it was only his ‘health crisis’ that was keeping the Serious Fraud Office at bay.