‘Neal Brose?’
A Welsh voice, unknown and familiar. A short, Mr Mole-ish bloke, with horn-rimmed glasses.
‘Yeah?’
‘My name’s Huw Llewellyn. We met at Theo and Penny Fraser’s New Year Party.’
‘Ah, yeah, Huw... Sure, sure...’ I didn’t know him from Adam.
‘Mind if I pull up a pew?’
‘Sure... If you can say that about moulded plastic seats bolted onto cast-iron frames. You’ll have to forgive my frazzled memory, Huw. Who are you with?’
‘I used to be with Jardine-Pearl. Now I’m at the Capital Transfer Inspectorate.’
Fuck. Now I remember. We’d talked about rugby, then business. I’d dismissed him as a born compromise candidate. ‘Poacher turned gamekeeper, eh?’
Huw Llewellyn smiled as he unloaded his tray, and wriggled out of his corduroy jacket, with leather pads on the elbows. So fucking Welsh. A veggieburger and a styrofoam cup of hot water, with tea bleeding out of its bag. ‘People usually say “It takes a thief to catch a thief.”’
Dad used to say that. ‘I’ve read about your raids on — who was it? Silk Road Group?’
‘Yep. Would you pass me a sachet of ketchup, please?’
‘I’ve heard some interesting rumours about them money laundering for Kabul’s biggest drug exporter. Is it true? Go on, I won’t tell a soul.’
Huw bit into his veggieburger, chomped a few times, smiling, and swallowed. ‘I’ve heard some interesting rumours about Account 1390931.’
Fuck. I suddenly wanted to vomit my shitburger. I laughed lightly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Fuck. That’s exactly what liars say.
Huw squeezed the tea-bag with a plastic fork. ‘Go on, I won’t tell a soul.’
‘Is it a bicycle combination lock?’
‘No, it’s a Cavendish Holdings Account that only you have the keys to.’
He had upped the stakes. ‘Is this a fishing expedition, or do you have a warrant for my arrest?’
‘I prefer to see this as a friendly chat.’
‘Mr Llewellyn, you don’t know who you’re dealing with.’
‘Mr Brose, I know far more about Andrei Gregorski than you. Believe me. You’re being set up. I’ve watched him do it before. Why do you think neither his name — nor Denholme Cavendish’s name — appears on not one single document, not one single computer file? Because they like you? Trust you? You are their bullet-proof vest.’
How much did he know? ‘It’s just a hush-hush hedge-fund for—’
‘I don’t want to watch you zip yourself up in lies, Mr Brose. I know your personal life is in tatters. But unless you co-operate with me, by the weekend things are going to take a sharp turn for the worse. I am your last way out.’
‘I don’t need a way out.’
He shrugged, and swallowed the last morsel. He’d put that away without me noticing. ‘Then our friendly chat has come to an end. Here is my business card. I strongly recommend a change of mind, by tomorrow noon. Goodnight.’
The door swung. I was left looking at the wreckage of my shitburger.
I went back into Cavendish Tower, but changed my mind in the lobby. I asked the nightwatchman to wait five minutes, then tell Avril I’d gone home. I waited twenty minutes at the harbour for the next ferry, looking across the black water at all the shining skyscrapers. Back on Lantau Island — just as a precaution — I emptied three quarters of my account from the bank’s cash machine, in case my cards got frozen. There wasn’t another bus for 30 minutes, so I walked back to Phase 1 through the chilly night.
She was waiting in the apartment. The air-conditioner was belting out frigid air.
‘For fuck’s sake, I’m sorry! I had a lot of work!’
Resentful silence.
‘I’ve got a lot on my mind! Okay? I’m going to bed.’
I hid the money in a shoebox at the bottom of Katy’s dressing table. I’d think of a better hiding place before the maid came. She might be a necessary drug, but she was still a thieving bitch.
I came to a shrine, and the sound of running water. There was a fountain guarded by two dragons. Hygiene be fucked, I was thirsty. I drank until I heard the water sloshing about in my belly. At least I wasn’t going to die of dehydration. I wanted to dunk my arms and face into this cool, clear water, so I unstrapped my Rolex, perched it on the nose of a dragon, stripped off my shirt, and immersed as much of my torso in the fountain as I could. I opened my eyes under the water, and saw the underbellies of wavelets, with the sun beneath.
Where now? There was an easy path and a steep path. I took the easy one, and twenty metres later arrived at the cess pit. I came back to the dragons and started climbing sharply. I was feeling much, much, better. As though my body had stopped fighting the ’flu, and was submitting to its will.
The path steepened. At times I had to use my hands to scramble up. The trees were growing dense, scaly and damp, the pinpricks of light that got to the path sharp and bright as lasers. I took off my jacket and gave it to a blackberry bush. It was already ripped. Maybe a passing monk or escaped refugee will take a shine to it. The air was busy with out-of-tune birds and their eyes.
Time lost me.
I looked at my Rolex, and remembered that I’d left it on a dragon’s nose.
Grabbing a root to pull myself up, it came off in my hand and I tumbled down the path a few yards. I heard a crack, but stood up right as rain. I felt fabulous. I felt immortal.
Higher up loomed a rock as big as a house, but I scaled it like a teenager, and was soon surveying my domain from the top. A slow-moving 747 made its stately descent, skinning the afternoon with its jagged blade of noise. I waved at the people. The sun glints off the tail. She is with me, waving too, jumping up and down. It’s good to make somebody feel good, even if she doesn’t exactly exist.
‘She likes me.’
The maid was standing in front of the mirror, naked, holding up Katy’s summer frocks against her body. If she liked it she’d try it on. If it fitted, she’d put it into Katy’s Louis Vuitton bag. If she didn’t, it joined the others on the reject pile.
I was floating, anchored to the bed by the deadweight of my groin. ‘Who likes you?’
‘The little girl.’
‘What little girl?’
‘Your little girl. Who lived here. She liked me. She wanted sister to play with.’
The wind blew the curtains gently. These Chinese are fucking crazy.
The last time Katy called, she wasn’t drunk. I took that as a bad sign.
‘Hello, Neal’s Answerphone. This is Katy Forbes, Neal’s separated wife. How are you? You must be rushed off your feet, considering how Neal has forgotten how to pick up receivers and dial. I want you to tell Neal that I am now the proud owner of a palatial residence in north-east London, that we’re having the rainiest summer since a very long time ago, and all the cricket is being rained off. Tell him that I’m having sessions with Dr Clune twice a week, and that they are working wonders. Tell him that Archie Goode is going to be my lawyer, and that the divorce papers should get to him by the end of the week. Tell him I’m not going for his jugular, I just want what’s rightfully mine. Lastly, tell him it would prepare the ground for an amicable settlement if he gets off his lazy arse and ships me home my Queen Anne chair. He knows it’s the one heirloom I give a damn about. Goodnight.’
The key to understanding Neal Brose is that he is a man of departments, compartments, apartments. The maid is in one, Katy is in another, my little visitor in another, Cavendish Hong Kong in another, Account 1390931 in another. In each one lives a Neal Brose who operates quite independently of the neighbouring Neal Broses. That’s how I do it. My future is in another compartment, but I’m not looking into that one. I don’t think I’ll like what I’ll see.