When the Siren Calls (6 page)

“Now we’ll go to my penthouse, ok?” said Mo, dissatisfied to be making less progress than his companion. He snapped his fingers and a minion appeared.

“Tell Toni to pull round the front.” He put a reassuring hand on her thigh, his fingers edging their way towards her crotch. Isobel seized the offending hand and delivered it back to him with contempt, flinging him aside as she stood up.

“I’m going, Maria,” she said, her voice loud with panic. Maria wiggled her fingers from behind Safi’s bulk and Isobel turned to Mo, “You have been most generous, thank you.”

He grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the seat, his breath hot with champagne. She dug her nails into his arm.

“I am leaving alone, if you don’t mind, and my husband is waiting in the car outside. Thank you and goodnight.”

He shrugged, “Your loss, Cinderella.” With that last compliment to remember him by, she turned on her heels and fled as, behind her, Maria took Mo’s hand and placed it on her thigh as Safi eyed his friend with expectation.Seven

In their university years Jay and Andy tolerated each other for their own gain, maintaining a superficial camaraderie that only fooled the people that really mattered. But that was many years ago and as they sat in The Candle — London’s top celebrity restaurant — celebrating their good fortune, not one of the C list actors or reality TV stars would have guessed tension ever festered beneath their surfaces. They sat like kings in their corner booth, selected by Jay for prime people watching opportunity, sprawled out as they luxuriated in fleeting fame.

“So tell me,” said Jay, his mood particularly gregarious, “how come someone who cannot keep time to a beat made a fortune out of the music industry?”

“Luck,” said Andy, batting away the compliment but beaming nonetheless, his eyes fixed on the back of a man who looked strikingly like John Travolta.

“Bullshit,” said Jay, smiling. “Don’t be so modest. I’m keen to know, really I am.”

Andy leaned back, mirroring Jay’s posture, while surveying his wine, deep red in a glass the size of a flowerpot. “Anyone could have done what I did, if you work hard enough that is.”

“But there’s a lot of hard-working guys who aren’t rich, and never will be,” said Jay, cheerful and matter-of-fact. “What was your secret?”

“No secret really. It just needed a thimbleful of insight into technology and one whole bucketful of perseverance.” Jay nodded solemnly, restraining a snort of laughter at his metaphor. “Everyone at the top was so het up about the threat of the internet, you know, renegade students copying CD’s in their dorms, that they gave no thought to the future of digital music.”

“Well, whatever you did, you are looking mighty well on it.” Jay smiled agreeably, about to change the topic, but Andy wanted to relive his glory days a while longer.

“The strange thing about the music business,” he said serious and slow, leaning towards Jay, “is that hardly anyone in it has any talent. But the good news is you don’t need it to make money. They are so crap at everything that there’s plenty of opportunity.”

Jay smiled but stayed silent; he had gained too many great things from letting a tipsy man ramble.

“What those guys need to do more is stay focused on what they know best — finding talent and selling records — and leave all that back office stuff to others.”

Jay’s attention was now sincere. “You mean they should give it to specialists who are experts with numbers, accountants maybe?”

“Yep, exactly.”

“Are you still connected with the music guys, the ones at the top?” asked Jay, lowering his voice as if hoping to avoid spooking the other man.

“I’ve kept in touch,” said Andy, his tone wary, as that low, soft voice of opportunity dragged him back to university, as if he was being asked again if he was interested in popping his cherry with the most beautiful girl in the medical faculty. “Why do you ask?” he said, his eyes narrowing.

“Oh, no reason,” said Jay. “Anyway, what do you think of The Candle? Is it somewhere the lovely Kate would like?”

Andy bellowed with laughter; he had told Jay enough about Kate over the last few months for the answer to be an obvious one.

“Hmm, well let’s see,” he said, pausing in mock-thought, “it’s famously hard to get into, always booked a month ahead, even though they don’t take bookings a month in advance, it’s notoriously expensive, and there’s a chance she might see someone very famous.”

Jay burst out laughing. “She’d be in heaven.”

“She’d love it,” said Andy, bonhomie washing over him, “and I was actually thinking of it for our anniversary. But anytime I’ve tried, it’s been fully booked.”

“When’s your anniversary?”

“A week on Saturday,” said Andy, his suspicion giving way to supplication. “At least that’s when we’re celebrating it. We’re spending the weekend in London, taking in a show, you know, that sort of thing.”

“Saturday night at The Candle,” said Jay, rubbing his chin theatrically, as aware as Andy that such a request was considered impossible. “Before the show or after the show?”

“I’d take any,” said Andy with a hapless smile.

“After would be better though,” said Jay, still rubbing his chin. “You don’t want to be presented with the bill when they serve the first course. I’ll see what I can sort out.”

“Thanks,” said Andy, lulled by Jay’s selflessness and by the wine.

Jay raised his palm, as if to wield off the gratitude, and refilled Andy’s glass. After a respectable interval, he raised the topic that had brought him to the restaurant that night, now buried enough beneath friendship and alcohol to be almost innocuous.

“By the way, did you ever have a chance to look at the Tuscany pack?”

Andy nodded. In their late night cruising and bonding over the past two months, he had continued to make subtle enquiries into the progress of Jay’s venture. His friend had been pleasant but business-like — it was an exceptional opportunity but there was simply no room for Andy. But things had changed unexpectedly, and perhaps wonderfully, two weeks ago when Jay’s main backer withdrew, unable to come up with the money and Jay, in deference to his friend, magnanimously offered Andy the chance to step into the man’s shoes, before someone else did.

“Yes, I did,” said Andy, “So, the plan is, we renovate these properties, sell them at a fat profit, then the people who’ve bought them hand them straight back over to us so we can rent them out at another fat profit?”

“Right, they get to own a dream holiday property plus a guaranteed rental income. Everyone wins.”

Andy leant back, as if a better view of Jay was an aid to judgement. “So the key to the whole scheme is really the rental income. That’s the carrot to buy.”

“And the carrot to give the property back to us to rent. It’s a proven model in places like Dubai. It’s just that no-one’s done it in Tuscany.”

“And the timeshare sales are the cream on the cake?”

“Right again. Though it beats me why anyone would part with good money to put a yoke around their neck, but that’s the timeshare business, and who are we to argue with the customer?”

“ But if I were to be interested, how could I be sure that the whole thing won’t crash around me a few months later?”

Jay looked at him with overt and deliberate confusion.

“Andy, there’s that risk with any business venture. You put your money in and take your chance, right? That’s what you did with your music idea, you threw away a safe salary and invested in the future—”

Andy smiled at the compliment but cut him off nonetheless.

“Did you think I wouldn’t have done my research, Jay? That failed timeshare venture in Malaga does not reflect well on you.” He studied Jay as he continued. “The bank was left owed fifty million and plenty of other people are looking to get even. Do you want to tell me your side of it, the bits I couldn’t read in the papers? And is the Tuscany thing totally legal? Is anyone going to get hurt?”

Jay put down his glass, and steepled his fingers under his chin. He expected this, though perhaps in less blunt a manner, and looked his friend confidently in the eye with all the seriousness of a man ready to bare his soul. “That could have been such a good story, and would have been a good story,” he said, his eyes glazing with the memory, “but the ugly truth is that I got screwed by those banking bastards.”

“How so?” said Andy, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t the banks put up all the money? The way I read it, the banks got fucked over, the punters got fucked over, the staff got fucked over, and you walked off with your pockets jingling.”

Jay looked pained at his words and pushed his fingertips together until they were white.

“That’s what the banks and their lackeys in the press might have you believe. But the thing is they were calling the shots from start to finish. They had full control.”

“But I read you were the managing director, the guy in charge?” said Andy.

“The guy in charge?” cried Jay with a harsh laugh. “The fucking fall guy, more like. I offered them a great opportunity and they bought into it because the numbers stacked up, and that’s all they were interested in, the numbers.” He looked bitterly down at the table.

“But you were still the managing director, right up until the whole thing folded. If you were heading for a derailment, why didn’t you jump train when the going was good?” Andy wasn’t ready to drop it, his every iota wanting to be part of the Tuscan venture, but he had to be sure.

“A simple reason,” said Jay, self-righteous indignation etched in his voice and lined in his face. “Someone had to try and look after the little guys. We had over five hundred salt of the earth people who had taken shares in the property. Some of them even invested their life savings. Someone had to try and protect those innocent poor sods, and the fucking banks weren’t interested. All they wanted was their money out.” Jay paused as if seeking to renew himself. His voice went lower still. “They went and sold the hotel from under my feet.”

“So you didn’t fuck up at all then?” said Andy. “It was all the banks’ doing, have I got that right?”

“Listen Andy,” said Jay, direct and assured, “he who pays the piper calls the tune, right? And you will be calling the tune in Tuscany, if you want to that is. Sure, I made some mistakes in Malaga, but I’ve learnt from them. In Tuscany we’ll be working as partners, making the decisions together. We won’t have any fucking banker with his hand up our arses, pulling all the strings.”

“Would that be pulling them with the hand that’s up our arse, or with the other one?” asked Andy with a smirk.

The two men lapsed briefly into laughter, the tension broken by unspoken agreement. Andy confirmed the peace with a broad smile and an unsubtle suggestion. “I wouldn’t mind a drink somewhere else.”

Jay nodded. Their evening excursions now invariably ended in one place — the capable and professional arms of Eva’s finest.

He stopped by the maître d station as they left, signalling Andy to continue to the cloakroom. Jay was waiting when Andy returned and with a wide grin he slipped a card to his friend.

“Your anniversary dinner is all sorted. Any time you want to eat at The Candle, call the VIP number on the back of the card. Mention my name, just until they get to know you.”

Andy beamed, buoyed that Jay had delivered on his first commitment.

“Come on, let’s go and get that drink,” said Jay, putting his arm round Andy’s shoulder. They left The Candle as two brothers in arms, having for a second time silently agreed a deal that would shape their destiny.Eight

Isobel awoke in a sweat; the smoke still on her skin from the Moroccan alleyways that once more filled her nightmares. She rarely dreamt of the souk since Marrakech, but each re-visitation seemed more terrifying than the last. The alarm clock ruptured the morning silence and she leant out and hit the snooze button, her fingers dragging on the embossed invitation card, still lying where she left it the night before. She picked it up again and studied it, dwelling on its ambiguity. Jay was inviting her to a marketing function. It was the third such invitation she had received since Marrakech — but this time the event was on her doorstep, in Cobham High Street no less. Whether he was attending was uncertain; the invitation was written in his hand, or so it appeared, but he was not the host. She flicked it from the table as self-loathing welled within her. Even if he would be there, why should she attend? Her brief flirtation in Marrakech was nothing more than that, and the mundane reality of daily life had long since displaced any foolish romantic notions stirred in a far off exotic location. No. She declined the two previous invitations, and she would decline the third.

She turned towards Peter’s side of the bed, already empty. As her mind cleared, she could hear the sound of running water as he prepared once more to take on the world, and subjugate it to his will. She sank back into the bed and stayed lying down, collecting her thoughts and contemplating another day of nothing but emptiness. She nestled back into the rich cotton sheets, determined to fall back asleep so that, just maybe, she might be spared the chore of tending to Peter’s domestic needs. It was her fault, the result of years of training him that he need not divert one microsecond of thought away from his obsession with the world of work and the insatiable needs of his clients.

“Are you awake, darling?” His words came sailing from the bathroom like a call to duty.