I called Henry and told him the story. The whole story. About how Tony had been against Orchestra’s investment, about how Guy had threatened to resign and about Tony’s accident. Henry was still keen. Orchestra Ventures hadn’t made an investment for three months and they were worried they were missing the internet bus.
It turned out that the key to the whole thing was Hoyle. Tony’s shares in ninetyminutes.com weren’t held by him directly, but by an offshore trust. In fact, Tony’s affairs were a tangle of trusts domiciled in tiny islands around the globe. The ultimate beneficiaries were Guy, Owen, Sabina and her son Andreas, in varying proportions. The estate would be a nightmare to untangle. The only man who knew where everything was and how it related to everything else was Hoyle. He was also the only man left with executive powers over the trusts.
I had dealt with Hoyle before in his capacity as yes-man to Tony. But if Orchestra Ventures were to make their investment in Ninetyminutes, it would have to be with Hoyle’s say-so. And with Hoyle acting as an independent-thinking human being.
I managed to fix up a meeting with him a couple of days after Tony’s death. It turned out that Hoyle was quite capable of independent thought. It also turned out that he didn’t share Tony’s enthusiasm for the Internet at all. I sniffed an opportunity. He could either follow his late client’s strategy and be a majority shareholder of a small but marginally profitable soccer and pornography site without management of any kind, or he could take cash. Quite a lot of cash.
Hoyle went for the cash.
I didn’t have a deal yet, though. I had to persuade Orchestra to put in not only cash for Ninetyminutes to expand, but also enough to buy out Tony Jourdan’s trust as well. As a rule venture capitalists hate buying out existing investors, but the deal I suggested had several things going for it: it would allow management to retain enough of a stake to have a meaningful incentive, it would get rid of a potentially awkward shareholder and it would allow Orchestra to invest more money in the internet boom before it was too late. Henry ummed and ahhed and maybed, but then he went for it.
I received one further visit from Detective Sergeant Spedding. He was armed with a couple of photographs. One was of a middle-aged man, with thinning dark hair brushed back.
‘Do you recognize him?’ Spedding asked.
‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘The man in the car.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Definitely.’
‘He drives a black Golf GL, N registration. This is a photograph of a similar vehicle.’ He handed me the other print.
‘That’s it, I think. Of course I can’t be quite as certain about the car as the face, but it was definitely something like that.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Who is he?’ I asked.
‘He’s a private detective.’
‘Really? So he was tailing Tony?’
‘We think so. We haven’t spoken to him yet. We wanted to get confirmation from you that it was the same man first.’
‘I see. Do you know who he was working for?’
Spedding nodded. ‘Sabina Jourdan.’
I made my way through the post-modern ironic lobby of Sanderson’s Hotel. It was scattered with strange objects, the most noticeable of which was an enormous pair of red lips. I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to sit in them or sit on them: I gave them a wide berth. I spotted Guy amongst the other beautiful people in the designer-minimalist bar, nursing a bottle of beer. I asked for a pint of Tetley’s, just to see the look of disdain on the barman’s face, and settled for an Asahi.
‘How was the funeral?’ I asked Guy.
‘Awful.’
‘Who was there?’
‘Hardly anyone, thank God. It was just family — we’ll have the full-blown memorial service later. There was Owen, Mom, Sabina, Patrick Hoyle, a couple of great aunts and the vicar. Dad was buried in the churchyard in the village where he grew up, and the vicar did a good job in the circumstances. But no one seemed to really care. Apart from Sabina. The aunts hadn’t seen Dad for decades. I don’t know what my mother was doing there, she just looked bored. And Owen... well, you know what Owen’s like.’
‘What about you?’
‘I don’t know. During the service I felt nothing. Just cold and angry at all Dad had done. Or rather hadn’t done. All the times he ignored me, the times he walked out, what he did with Mel, what he was going to do to Ninetyminutes, they all ran around my head like a never-ending scorecard, with all the points against him. Then, when the coffin went down into that hole, I fell apart. I realized I’d never see him again, that I’d never have the chance to show him I wasn’t the loser he thought I was, that we’d never be close again. That we’d never be as close as I always thought we should have been.’
He swigged his beer.
‘You know, I used to think he was so cool, Davo. And he was. We’re a lot alike, he and I. But somehow we never quite managed to get on with each other, to respect each other like a father and son should. And now we never will.’
‘You did your best,’ I said. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘Just a few words every now and then would have done it. A bit of encouragement about how I was doing well, how he was proud of what I’d achieved. But whenever he got involved with anything I was doing he tried to take it over, prove he could do it better than me. Like Ninetyminutes. Or Mel.’
‘How’s your mother?’
‘God, I wish she hadn’t come. She’s pissed off because her alimony stops now Dad’s died. She brought her lawyer with her to talk to Patrick Hoyle, but Hoyle reckons she hasn’t a leg to stand on. It won’t matter, she’ll just get married again.’
‘To anyone in particular?’
‘Don’t know. She’ll find someone. And she was horrible to Sabina. As if Sabina didn’t have a right to be there. Which was particularly bad since Sabina was the only one who seemed truly upset about what had happened.’
‘Did you talk to her?’
‘Only briefly. She’s a nice woman. And I think she genuinely loved him, not his money. She’s probably the best of the three he married.’
‘What’s she going to do?’
‘Go back to Germany. She says she wants me to stay in touch with her and Andreas. I think I will.’ He checked his watch. ‘Mom will be here in a few minutes. We’re going out to Nobu for dinner. Anyone would think she was over here for a couple of days’ vacation. Thank God she’s going back to LA tomorrow.’
‘Are the police still on your case?’ I asked.
‘I think they’re leaving me alone. I’ve pretty much convinced them I was with Owen when Dad was run over. But they haven’t given up on the theory that he was murdered. They’ve been giving Sabina a hard time, apparently.’
‘Did you hear she’d hired a private detective?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘Yeah. The police asked me whether he was the guy in the car outside your father’s flat. I said I was pretty sure he was.’
‘So she had him tailing Dad?’
‘Sounds like it.’
‘Huh. No wonder the police are hassling her. And she gets the most out of the will. But I can’t imagine her having him killed.’
‘The police will get to the bottom of it,’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Tossers.’ He swigged more beer. ‘Anyway. Tell me what’s going on at Ninetyminutes.’
I ran through the details of the negotiations with Orchestra and Hoyle. Guy’s interest was quickened. Now that his father was buried I could see he was ready to focus on Ninetyminutes again. I was relieved.
‘Darling!’ We were interrupted by a loud female American voice. I turned to see a well-groomed blonde woman somewhere over forty approach Guy. She had high cheekbones, a polished tan, a well-toned body and bright white teeth. She should have been a good-looking woman, but there was something hard and charmless about her that instantly put me off. She didn’t look like anyone’s mother.