‘Memory,’ murmurs Paul.
‘Yeah, of course. Our MD’s an accountant. We nicked him from KPMG. He knows what he’s good at and doesn’t get involved on the sales side. Not at all. I deal with all that. And John and Tony run two super-teams. We wanted to cut out as many managers as possible — pare it down. We each get ten per cent of gross sales. The sales force gets ten to fifteen per cent. The rest goes to the company. I made over a million quid last year, Paul. I’m not joking. That’s more than anybody makes off the geegees. Even fucking Henry Rix.’
‘Who’s Henry Rix?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Now we’re starting to think about an MBO.’
‘What’s that again?’
‘Management buyout. The company’s owned by a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a shell company that’s part of some fucking offshore investment vehicle. Fuck knows what else they’re involved with. I don’t really know much about it — Trevor’s my only point of contact with all that. But whoever does own it isn’t really interested in it, or they wouldn’t have let Kirkbride fuck it up for so long, and they wouldn’t leave an old codger like Trevor in charge. The point is, they’ll probably sell if the price is right.’
‘Sell to who? To you?’
‘Yeah,’ Eddy says, with a hint of impatience. ‘A management buyout. We’d buy the company — me, Littleton and Pascoe.’
‘With what money?’
‘We’re looking into that. A mixture of debt finance and venture capital probably. Mezzanine, maybe. We’re looking to end up with about half the equity. Anyway … But that’s not really relevant.’
‘Relevant to what?’
‘To what I want to talk to you about.’
‘What do you want to talk to me about?’
‘Should we get something to eat?’ Eddy says. ‘I’m starving. What about going to the Wine Press? For old times’ sake.’
After two Ayingerbraus and a Prinz, Paul has no appetite. He feels settled in the warm low-vaulted space. ‘All right,’ he says unenthusiastically. ‘If you want.’
‘Excellent.’
Outside, fine light rain is falling in the alley. The Wine Press, a venerable pizzeria where they sometimes went in the Northwood days, is a little way along Fleet Street, near Fetter Lane. Paul is about to ask Eddy what he wants to talk to him about, but Eddy speaks first. ‘How’s your sex life, Paul?’ he asks as they walk. Paul is evasive. ‘It’s all right.’ He is aware of having described many aspects of his life as ‘all right’. ‘How’s yours?’
‘Very good actually. I think it was Henry Kissinger said power is the greatest aphrodisiac.’
‘Did he?’
‘He did.’
‘You still with Kim?’ Paul asks.
Eddy laughs. ‘No.’ He holds open the plate-glass door. ‘After you.’
‘Cheers,’ Paul mumbles, and steps into the torrent of warmth under the heater inside.
‘This place hasn’t changed,’ Eddy says.
Paul nods and lights a cigarette.
4
ON THE WAY to Blackfriars tube, Paul stops for a pint in the King Lud. Eddy had waved down a black cab outside the restaurant, and asked him if he could drop him somewhere, but Paul, to some extent out of pride, more from a wish to be alone, had declined, and walked slowly on up to Ludgate Circus, where — impressed by the floodlit slice of St Paul’s that can be seen from there — he had looked at his watch, held his nose for a moment, and entered the Old King Lud. They occasionally went there in the Northwood days; it is not, however, a pub he knows well. A perfect place, then, for sorting his head out, and settled at a small table with a pint of lager he turns over his talk with Eddy Jaw. He wishes he were able to think more lucidly. Everything seems jumbled up. He is experiencing a kind of flaming excitement, and at the same time — as if it disturbed him — trying to damp it down. It does disturb him. He is not used to anything interesting or unexpected happening; he is not used to opportunities, and he finds himself instinctively shrinking from these things. Tomorrow, he feels — the next few days — will be the time to think about them.
There is one thing, however, which he is unable to stop himself from thinking about, which troubles his smoky torpor. ‘No passengers.’ Those were Eddy’s words. ‘No fucking passengers.’ Paul had half-heartedly tried to persuade him that Murray would not be a ‘passenger’, but Eddy had shaken his head and said, again, ‘No fucking passengers. Murray is just not good enough for this game.’ And of course, Paul had found the implicit flattery too pleasing to want to jeopardise the mood by making an issue of Murray (of all things) and he did not mention him again. Indeed, the vague, embarrassed sense of loyalty that had led to this short-lived quibble on Murray’s part immediately seemed quaint and foolish under the Nietzschean stare of Eddy’s small blue eyes. Despite which, it continued to trouble him. Eddy’s proposal was that Paul join him at Delmar Morgan, as a manager, with those members of his team ‘who can actually fucking cut it’. It was when Paul had asked what ‘actually fucking cut it’ meant in practical terms, that Eddy had cited Murray as an example of someone who could not. Seeing Paul’s surprise at this, he said, ‘And I’ve always thought that. I have always thought that.’ It was essential, Eddy said, that the whole thing be kept secret. He wanted it to happen in the new year.