Requiem (70 page)

With a sudden swoop of disappointment Daisy realized that she had understood nothing. ‘But that’s just the point, Meg,’ she argued weakly. ‘I don’t think that the meeting achieved anything at all. I think it would only have spurred them into action …’

But it was no good. When it came to the law, Dermott’s judgement was to be respected above all other.

Ringing off, Daisy was filled with an acute restlessness. She ranged up and down the room, kicked at the dust, lit the fire, went into the kitchen for coffee and, changing her mind, returned to her chair. A minute later she stomped back into the kitchen and, sweeping up the cooking wine, poured herself a glass. The stuff was dark, almost black, thick with sediment and horribly bitter. But two glasses later it had succeeded in dulling her brain. Not long after that, it brought a thumping tiredness, close to exhaustion. Curling up uncomfortably in the chair, she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

The phone woke her, slicing slowly into her mind from a great distance. She waited for the answering machine to pick up the call before remembering she had turned it off.

She scrabbled for the receiver and raised it slowly to her ear.

‘Daisy? Daisy? Hullo – are you there?’ It was Simon’s voice.

‘Hi.’

‘You’re there.’

‘More or less.’

‘You should answer.’

‘What?’

‘
Answer
. Say hullo or something. It helps, you know.’

‘Yes.’

‘Your friends the Octek people,’ he said briskly, as if anxious to keep everything on a businesslike footing. ‘I got the information,’ he said. ‘Or rather, I got all there is to get.’

‘Thanks, thanks.’ She straightened her legs and knocked over her empty glass.

‘The answer, as far as they know, is that it’s being processed in the normal way.’

Daisy sat forward in her chair, wishing the wine out of her head. ‘You mean – ?’

‘No story. Nothing abnormal at all. Frankly, Daisy, I felt a right berk, being so totally in the dark. He didn’t believe I didn’t know anything. Thought I was holding out. Got shirty.’ He added resentfully: ‘And he’s a useful guy too.’

‘What did he think you should know, then?’

‘What Octek was about, that sort of thing.’

‘You didn’t tell him?’

‘Well, it would have been difficult, wouldn’t it?’ he said with heavy irony.

‘Yes … Sorry.’

‘Are you ill or something? You sound half asleep.’

‘Uhm – just tired. So what exactly did he say?’

‘Well –
nothing
,’ he retorted, losing patience. ‘That’s the point. There was nothing to report. The thing’s just going ahead in the normal way.’

Daisy lay back in her chair and closed her eyes again.

After a silence, Simon asked tentatively: ‘You all right?’

Maybe the day had simply been too long, maybe her head was too thick with exhaustion and bad wine, maybe she had simply reached the point where she had to tell somebody, but she told him.

She told him about Adrian and her fears of a care order, she told him about the final setback in the Knowles case and, since the entire world seemed to know about Octek, she told him about that too. Why it had been launched, her involvement, the lab set-up, the testing programme.

‘Jesus … That’s a large undertaking, Daisy. You’re doing it on your
own
?’

‘Sort of.’

‘But who – ? What – ? It must cost a fortune. Where’s the money coming from?’

‘Ah …’ She gave a soft sigh. ‘We had a backer … Though, as from this week, he may not be our backer any more.’

‘Oh.’ A sympathetic pause, and Simon said: ‘Look – er … I’d, er … ask you over, but I’ve only two eggs … no bread. And I’ve got to go out again at nine thirty.’

‘Thanks … It was sweet of you.’

‘No, well … I’m always here, Daisy, you know that. This backer, tell me … What happened? Who is he?’

‘Who is he?’ she echoed dully, seeing Nick against the backdrop of the sea. ‘No, I – I can’t tell you …’

‘Daisy, for God’s sake, it’s
me
.’

It was Simon, and in her exhaustion, in the skewing of her emotions, in her need, finally, to talk it through with someone, he took on rock-like form, a bastion of security.

Biggs, former detective sergeant, Metropolitan Police Notting Hill Division, in receipt of early retirement on health grounds, crouched in the Transit van and strained to hear. The reception wasn’t too good at this distance, but he hadn’t been able to park any closer.

He took a stab at the name the girl had mentioned, writing it methodically in his notebook, but though he had a strong feeling he’d heard it somewhere before, he wasn’t sure he’d got it right. The tape might tell him when he played it back later. In the meantime he fiddled with the volume control, checked the recorder was running all right, and pressed the cans closer to his head.

The two of them were still talking about the guy, but not by name. It was all ‘he’ and ‘him’. Biggs went on making notes, hoping the name would come up again, but the girl was getting tired of talking, you could hear it in her voice. She wanted to get off the phone and shift over to his place, she wanted a bit of the old how’s-your-father. But her boyfriend wasn’t sounding so keen, not since he’d heard the name of the character with all the gravy.

Suddenly the boyfriend said the name again. This time it came over loud and clear, and there was no mistaking it.

Biggs wrote it down in capitals.
NICK MACKENZIE
. No wonder the name had sounded familiar. Just like the rock star.

The girl ended the call and after a few minutes he saw her leave the house and walk past the van.

He took the tape from the recorder, pocketed it and put in a fresh one. He set the recorder to sound-activated operation and, picking up his mobile, dialled Hillyard’s number. Hillyard answered straight away. From the sound of it he was out of doors somewhere. As if to confirm it, there was the sound of a car door slamming.

Biggs gave him a full report, leaving the choicest bit till last. The moment Hillyard heard the backer’s name, he started crowing with pleasure, his voice rising in a series of outrageous sighs, like a tart catching sight of a rich Arab. If Hillyard hadn’t been such a regular employer, if he hadn’t been such a pro in his work, Biggs would have told him to stuff off long ago. In his Met days Biggs had duffed up lesser queens than Auntie Colin, and for no more than the way they twinkled their little toes.

A car door slammed again, there were voices, and Hillyard’s sighs ceased as quickly as they’d begun. In one of his lightning shifts of tone he shut off with a blunt: ‘See yer.’

‘Shall I bring the tape over?’

A car engine fired. ‘Not now,’ he snapped as if Biggs had suddenly ceased to exist. ‘We’re off.’ And with an abrupt click the connection was broken.

The room was hot and uncomfortably crowded. Nick looked round for Susan but she had gone. He was startled not only by the fact that she’d vanished, but the speed with which she’d done it. A moment ago she’d been at his elbow, protecting him like a seasoned diplomat, guiding selected guests towards him, cutting off more unwelcome advances, steering people firmly away when their allotted five minutes were up, while at the same time moving him slowly but steadily through the room in a curve that would have brought him to the door – and escape – within fifteen minutes.

Her dress was an unusually vivid blue, her hair swept up into an ingenious and very distinctive topknot, but even from his height, normally a good one for crowded rooms, he couldn’t spot her. He looked briefly for David but he, too, seemed to have disappeared.

He tried to calm himself, but he’d forgotten how easily these things rattled him. He tried to move away but someone was pulling at his elbow. He turned, hoping for Susan, and found himself facing a vermilion-lipped woman. She waved a programme in his face. ‘I
hate
to be a nuisance,’ she crowed, ‘but you
did
promise.’

No one had a pen. Someone called for one. A second arm descended, waving a programme, then a third. People pressed in from both sides. Several voices spoke at once. He felt the heat rise into his face and the sweat start on his back, and knew he was hovering close to some limit that didn’t bear thinking about. He felt a snatch of bewilderment, a spurt of anger, and finally and more persistently, misery.

Signing, replying as best he could to the questions, he kept looking up for signs of rescue. He saw the distinctive topknot over the sea of heads long before he saw her face. She was shouldering her way through the circle of people like a small but determined tank, apologizing profusely as she came, but in a tone of such authority that no one dared challenge her. When she finally burst through and stood in front of him she rolled her eyes in an expression of apology and sympathy.

‘God, what animals,’ she breathed. ‘Sorry, but I had to go and find the
one
person you have to meet.’ Taking his arm, she extricated him firmly from the group and led him back the way they had come. She must have sensed his alarm because she said: ‘After this, that’s it, I promise. The end –
really
. I’ll never bother you again.’ Stopping abruptly, she smiled: ‘Apart from our curtain and carpet sessions of course. There’s no escaping that!’

She squeezed his hand, then, releasing it, led him to a less crowded corner where a man stood waiting.

‘Can I introduce Ronald Schenker?’

They shook hands. Schenker’s grip was cool, like his expression.

‘Ronald’s a great benefactor of ours,’ Susan explained. ‘In fact I don’t know what we’d do without him.’

Schenker gave a smile, modest but tinged with complacency, as if he didn’t really believe he had a great deal to be modest about. He stood in a small man’s posture, upright and slightly defensive.

Schenker eyed Nick appraisingly. ‘I found the concert very interesting,’ he said carefully, ‘and far more …’ He paused to choose his words. ‘…
thought
-provoking than I’d imagined.’

Nick took it as a compliment. ‘Thanks.’

A waiter appeared with a tray of food. Aware that he should eat, Nick spiked three pieces of chicken and balanced them on a paper serviette. When he glanced up, he caught Schenker staring at him.

Schenker said in his studied way: ‘I noticed that a number of your songs had ecological themes. Harking back to some Golden Age we were meant to have enjoyed when we were cave men.’

‘Well, not quite – ’

‘There never was a Golden Age, you know. Life was tough, life was harsh. It was dog eat dog. It’s only civilization and technical advances that have taken the sting out of the daily grind. No one ever got anywhere by going backwards, and that’s truer today than it ever was in the distant past. It’d be extremely dangerous to chuck everything away and start again. We’d be sabotaging our chances of survival. You can’t stop progress, you know.’

‘Some of us think progress has gone far enough.’

‘Oh, it’s very quaint to think of turning the clock back, running everything off water power, recycling junk, starting up crafts and cottage industries, but the average person wouldn’t take kindly to having his electricity rationed, his rubbish charged by the metre, his food doubling in price. There’d be a revolution.’

‘But you can be selective about progress – keep the good, regulate the bad.’

‘Ah, regulations!’ Schenker bared his teeth in something that approached a smile. ‘The present government’s fought three campaigns on the issue of the free market economy, and won handsomely every time. I think maybe the public aren’t too keen on having their lives regulated.’

‘But they’re keen on a better quality of life.’

‘Quality of life,’ Schenker mused as if he wasn’t quite certain what that involved. ‘To most people I think that means having more of what they want at a lower price.’

‘I think most people want to sleep easy in their beds in the knowledge that they’re breathing clean air, eating clean food, drinking clean water … Creating a healthy world for their kids to grow up in.’

‘You make us sound as if we’re working against it, trying to prevent it.’

Susan saw the question in Nick’s face. ‘Ronald’s one of the baddies,’ she explained in a whisper designed to be heard. ‘He makes chemicals. He’s chief executive of Morton-Kreiger.’

‘Just the Agrochemical Division,’ Schenker elucidated.

Susan winked in Nick’s direction. ‘He’s still in charge of billions! Ronald’s a corporate star.’

But Schenker made no response to her flattery, he was too busy watching Nick’s face.

‘Time to go,’ Nick said to Susan, sending messages to show he meant it.

One thing about Susan, she was quick. She picked up his signal straight away and, narrowing her eyes in reply, spirited a highly plausible excuse out of thin air and gave Schenker a charming goodbye.

Taking Nick’s arm, she cut a swathe through the room and had him outside and into his car before the autograph-hunters looked up from their champagne. Telling the driver to wait, she perched beside him on the seat for a moment.

‘You look exhausted,’ she said. ‘I wish …’ She didn’t finish but leant over and pressed her cheek to his.

She pulled back and regarded him fondly. ‘Was it such an ordeal, the party?’

‘No,’ he lied.

‘It meant a lot, that you came.’ She gave a little smile and said cheerfully: ‘See you tomorrow as usual?’

He remembered something he was meant to be doing the next afternoon, something financial with David.

‘I’ve got a brilliant fabric for your bathroom,’ she said. ‘Hand-made for a rich Arab with more money than taste.’

‘Should be just the job then.’

She laughed as if he’d said something really funny; she was good like that.

‘I’ll come over then, shall I?’

He nodded.

‘I’ll bring the buns,’ she whispered and kissed him lightly on the lips.

Hillyard drove into the estate on the dot of two a.m. Drawing up outside the Octek building, he killed the engine, wound the window down another notch, and listened. Satisfied, he signalled to the shadowy outline of Len’s face in the mirror. He watched a crack of light appear as the van doors opened, and saw the dark figure slip out. Len closed rapidly on the gates. A moment later the padlock was undone and the gates swung open. Hillyard drove through and backed the van up the side of the building into the shadows.