Requiem (15 page)

She hadn’t married him for sexual chemistry – she’d had quite enough of that and its attendant disasters in her early twenties – no, she’d married Tony for his dependability, his merchant banker’s income, and because she was tired of having to look after herself. The merchant banker’s income had disappeared soon after they married, when Tony had decided to earn his Brownie points by going to work for a big charity, but by then Camilla was on the way and she was rather taken by the idea of motherhood.

‘Do you like opera, Mrs Driscoll?’ Schenker asked with his rather stiff smile. ‘We’d be delighted if you’d come to Glyndebourne with us next month.’

Susan glanced at Tony for affirmation and smiled graciously. ‘That would be lovely,’ she said. She didn’t like opera, but she knew Tony would be keen to go, and everyone said the gardens were lovely.

‘Good. I’ll send you a programme then. There are four operas to choose from – Donizetti, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Strauss.’ There was a hint of hesitation and rehearsal in this speech, and Susan guessed Schenker had memorized the list especially for her benefit.

‘We also take seats at Covent Garden. I don’t know if you’d like that?’ He watched her face carefully. ‘Or the theatre?’

He spotted her flicker of interest and quietly seized on it. ‘The theatre then? Just let me know what you’d like to see.’ He waited, and Susan realized he was expecting her to name a play there and then. Mr Schenker was obviously someone who liked to nail things down.

‘I’m not sure,’ Susan replied. ‘Any ideas, Tony?’

‘Oh, you decide, my dear. You’re more up to date with these things than I am. Besides, I always like the things that you like.’ He raised his eyebrows at Schenker in a quick conspiratorial smile, as if they, as men, had conceived this ploy to keep the little woman happy.

Susan managed a thin smile, and named a popular musical you had to kill to get tickets for.

‘Good. That’ll be arranged then,’ said Schenker, and Susan had no doubt that it would. ‘The minister’s kindly agreed to visit our new plant in Newcastle in September,’ he continued, and for an instant Susan had to remind herself that this grand personage he was referring to was Tony. ‘We would be delighted if you would come too. But of course, we’d quite understand if you’d prefer not to …’ Schenker trailed off politely, awaiting his next cue.

Susan tried to think of something she’d hate more than a visit to a factory in Newcastle and failed. She put on an interested expression. ‘A new plant?’

‘Fertilizers. It’s the largest and most modern fertilizer plant in Europe. We’re very proud of it.’

‘Really? How wonderful.’ For a moment she was lost for anything else to say. ‘But fertilizers aren’t exactly environmentally friendly, are they?’ She rolled her eyes in mock disapproval. ‘I’m surprised at Tony having anything to do with it.’

It was not much of a joke, but she expected a favourable response. Tony did chuckle slightly, but Schenker was silent, the tight-lipped smile fastened to his face with difficulty, his small eyes unamused. Susan realized she had made the classic error of imagining that such a grey little man would have a sense of humour.

‘Fertilizers have had a bad name in the past, of course,’ Schenker said in a voice that was at once earnest and slightly reproachful. ‘But as I’m sure you’re aware, the agricultural industry in this country couldn’t function without them. In fact food would cost four times as much, maybe more, if farmers were forced to do without them. But that isn’t to say we don’t take our environmental responsibilities very seriously. We do. Very seriously indeed.’ The unblinking eyes stared into hers, as if he could convince her by willpower alone. ‘In the last ten years Morton-Kreiger have spent millions and millions on developing fertilizers which are less likely to leach away through the soil and find their way into water sources – fertilizers which are kinder to the environment. Millions and millions. No one else has done as much as we have. No one.’

Susan said hastily: ‘I’m sure that’s true – ’

‘And it’s the same story with pesticides. We lead the world in pesticide safety. Morton-Kreiger undertake more research than any other major company into producing safer products. Not only in terms of pounds and dollars, but in terms of the quality and thoroughness of the tests we run – ’

This was getting tiresome. Susan said firmly: ‘Mr Schenker, it was a joke. Really. Just a joke.’

The idea seemed to take him by surprise. He hesitated, absorbing the information, then nodded slowly. ‘I see.’

‘I think Susan was just echoing most people’s misconceptions about my job,’ Tony stepped in smoothly. ‘They seem to think that an environment minister should go around banning everything in sight, rather than persuading manufacturers to adapt and modify existing products. If we banned everything the Greens wanted us to ban, then we’d be back in the Dark Ages, living in hovels and eating porridge three times a day.’

Schenker swivelled his eyes back to Susan.

‘I’m not much of a one for porridge,’ she said.

Schenker seemed to take her remark as a sign of approval, not only for what Tony had just said, but for himself and all his chemicals.

‘Porridge.’ He nodded and smiled, and Susan realized this was probably the closest he ever came to laughing. ‘And what sort of cuisine do you like, Mrs Driscoll?’

Susan suspected she was meant to say: do call me Susan, but she resisted. ‘Well, I’m not complaining at this,’ she said, indicating the newly arrived dessert, an artistic array of sorbet, fruit, raspberry
coulis
and sugar wafers.

‘I see,’ said Mr Schenker, filing the information away. ‘Then we’ll come here again, shall we? After the theatre.’

Irritated at being parcelled up so tidily, Susan had the sudden urge to disturb Mr Schenker’s meticulous little world. ‘What about you?’ she enquired politely. ‘Do you like French food?’

‘Yes, indeed.’ Anticipating the drift her questions might take, he pulled back a little. ‘But nothing too rich.’

‘What sort of things exactly?’

His courteous expression slipped into something altogether more guarded, as if he was beginning to realize he was on thin ice. ‘Oh … their soups.’

‘Vichyssoise?’

He gave the faintest of nods, and looked away, trying to close the subject. It was just as she had suspected: he knew nothing about food.

‘And what else?’ Susan persisted.

He did not like being pressed, not when he was being shown up. Moreover, he was beginning to suspect her motives. With good reason, of course. She was rather enjoying herself.

‘The fish soups. They’re very good too,’ he said eventually.

‘Bouillabaisse?’

This time he made no attempt to reply, but stared at her, the little eyes gleaming darkly. Mr Schenker did not enjoy being disconcerted.

‘But you’re not so good with the shellfish, eh?’ Tony said. ‘Made you sick as a dog, didn’t they, Ronald?’

‘Oh dear. What happened?’ Susan asked pleasantly.

‘Oysters,’ Tony said. ‘That’s what happened. And it was me who persuaded him to try them. Not my finest recommendation. But you should have told me they were no good, Ronald. I would have called the hotel doctor. It could have been serious. Salmonella or something.’

‘Where was this?’ Susan asked.

There was a small pause. Susan looked up from her plate to see a shimmer of realization slide over Tony’s eyes, a flicker of caution as if he were thinking his way rapidly out of something. But the shift, which was so small that no one else would have noticed it, was gone as quickly as it had come and he said with his usual ease: ‘At this hotel in France.’

For once Ronald Schenker was not staring at her, but examining his coffee cup.

So the two of them had been in France together, had they? Dining together, staying at the same hotel. Was it at the château, she wondered, or in Paris? One way or the other, they seemed to be spending a lot of time together. And when Tony was so busy; and when he had to be so careful to be impartial and objective and all the other things ministers were meant to be.

And where did the woman fit into all this? When, in the middle of all these cosy evenings with Schenker, would Tony have had time to see
her
?

She put down her spoon and abandoned the last of her dessert. One way and another, this day had really been too much.

‘Everything all right?’ Schenker asked solicitously.

Susan looked up and realized she had been frowning.

‘Delicious,’ she said. ‘Absolutely delicious.’

‘Have we sent the flowers to Mrs Driscoll?’

‘Yes, Mr Schenker.’

‘What did we send?’

‘A mixed bouquet of seasonal flowers.’

Schenker looked up from his desk. ‘A mixed bouquet. But what was in it?’

The secretary flipped through her notebook, and Schenker knew immediately that she was stalling. He said briskly: ‘Find out, would you? And next time, make sure there are plenty of roses. I think Mrs Driscoll would like roses.’

When the secretary had gone Schenker buzzed the intercom and a moment later his personal assistant Peter Cramm entered. Schenker always felt invigorated when Cramm arrived. Cramm, tall, fit and well turned-out, was the only person whose energy matched his own, the only person with enough imagination to get things done unprompted.

‘Find out what charity work Susan Driscoll does, will you?’ Schenker said immediately. ‘She must be on some committee or another. It might be a cause we could support.’

Cramm, sitting in his customary seat at one side of Schenker’s modernistic desk, did not reply but made a brief note on his pocket jotter.

‘Now – Aldeb,’ said Schenker. ‘What’s the update?’

‘Still stuck on Senator Brisco.’

‘Do we really need him?’

‘He’s on the Senate Appropriations Committee.’

‘I know, I know, but haven’t we got anyone else?’

‘Our people are working on it.’

Like all large conglomerates, Morton-Kreiger employed a considerable number of lobbyists to look after its interests in Washington and other major capitals. When things were quiet the Morton-Kreiger board questioned the necessity for spending hundreds of thousands in this way, but when things got rough, as they had been with Aldeb, the board were only too happy to have made the investment.

‘It’s the re-test data that’s the problem with Brisco,’ Cramm said. ‘The environmentalists got hold of some of it, as you know, and they must have sent it to the senator, because he keeps quoting the figures at us. He sees himself as rather a science buff, I’m afraid. He’s says even an idiot could see the data gaps and that he’d find it difficult to help until they can be explained.’

‘What about the original tests? Hasn’t he been shown a summary or something?’

‘He says it’s impossible to be sure they’re unbiased.’

‘Not unbiased?’ Schenker echoed in an offended voice. ‘What does he think he is, an expert? Does he have the slightest evidence for that sort of allegation?’

‘He says TroChem is an industry-controlled laboratory and therefore incapable of delivering impartial data.’

‘But everybody uses TroChem. Half the products on the US market have been tested at TroChem.’ An exaggeration, of course – TroChem hadn’t been going that long – but truthful enough for the purposes of the argument. Schenker tapped his fingers delicately on the desk. ‘He must have been nobbled,’ he declared. He didn’t have to say who by.

The eco-mafia, as many people called them – and Schenker never discouraged the term – had loomed large in the lives of the agrochemical industry for some time. If the eco-mafia had their way, products would cost ten times as much and take ten times as long to bring to market, and this at a time when the number of new products getting through the system had already been squeezed to a trickle. These people also wanted to see products withdrawn on the most flimsy and far-fetched evidence, the sort of data that came from feeding rats virtually undiluted chemical for a month and getting a point-one per cent cancer rate.

‘You know, I’d almost like the supply of products to dry up,’ he remarked to Cramm, ‘just to witness the anti-Green backlash.’

The anti-Green backlash was an old hope of Schenker’s, one he had harboured ever since the Environmental Protection Agency had first moved to ban Aldeb in the US – since, as he liked to put it, environmental fever had taken over the Western world and bludgeoned the media into submission.

Swivelling his chair, Schenker pushed himself smoothly to his feet and walked over to the window to stretch his spine. His back always gave him trouble first thing in the morning, the left-over of a water-skiing injury sustained when staying with the chief executive of Morton-Kreiger Incorporated in the Bahamas. Water-skiing, sports fishing, game shooting, snow skiing: Schenker had tried them all during his occasional and necessarily brief holidays. But the learning curves were too steep for his temperament and the available time.

Far below, the Thames flowed grey and sluggish. Even from this height he could see the whorls of polystyrene, plastic and aluminium cans swirling around the moored vessels. Soon the tide would turn and carry the debris back down-river in long ugly trails towards the East End, where doubtless it had originated. He bent over and touched his toes to ease the pressure on the lower vertebrae. ‘That Senator Brisco should learn not to meddle,’ he blew over his shoulder.

‘Our people are working on one possibility that might swing him.’

‘Yes?’

‘It involves trading a few favours.’

That was always the way in American politics. ‘And what are the chances?’

‘Good, I’d say,’ Cramm replied, and Schenker experienced the satisfaction he always felt when Cramm and the rest of the team had been beavering away behind the scenes. He didn’t enquire further. It was quite enough to know that his people were working on it. The how and why did not concern him. Feeling brighter, he did some side bends, raising one arm in the air, putting the other hand on his hip and pushing over as far as he could go.

‘A pity we never had conclusive data,’ Schenker said more to himself than to Cramm, dredging up possibilities again. Although he, better than anyone, knew that Morton-Kreiger’s scientific staff had been squeezed dry in the hunt for data favourable to Aldeb. ‘Anyone else on that appropriations committee we should be attending to?’ He breathed through a series of controlled pants.