Riley looked at the card. It held his name and a telephone number. No business address. She waved the envelope containing the cheque. ‘And if I decide not to take your offer?’
He shrugged affably. ‘That’s your decision — and your cheque to keep.’ He lifted his eyebrows and looked suddenly boyish. ‘Uh… in the meantime, maybe we could do dinner.’
Riley tried to gauge whether he was serious or simply trying it on. He was undoubtedly an interesting man, and seemed to have an abundant supply of self-confidence. But she’d only just met him. Was dinner all he was after, or did he want to extend their putative business relationship beyond trading on the written word?
Before she could reply, his eyes slid past her shoulder and his face became serious. Riley turned her head. The balding man who had met her at reception was standing in the entrance to the lounge. He gave them both a brief smile, then turned and walked away without a word.
‘Riley,’ said Richard Varley, getting to his feet and picking up his briefcase. ‘I’m afraid I have to be going. My associate needs me to deal with something.’ He thrust out his hand and held hers for a long moment, towering over her. Then he let it go and stepped past her.
Ten minutes later, Riley was in the back corner of a coffee shop, holding a large latte and scanning the contents of the heavy folder Varley had given her.
Her initial reaction back at the hotel, given Varley’s wandering eyes and the fact that she’d never heard of the magazine, had been to ignore the lure of the unusual signing-on fee and give the job a miss. Now she saw who the profile target was, she was beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t go straight back and dump the papers — and the cheque — in Varley’s lap.
She had no first-hand reason to think that billionaire retail giant, industrialist and party benefactor, Muammar ‘Kim’ Al-Bashir, was anything other than above-board. There were whispers of heavy-handed reactions whenever journalists delved too deeply into the Egyptian-born businessman’s background, aided by a private army of no-nonsense security guards to discourage further probing. Added to that were friends in very high places and a ruthless thirst for revenge on those who dared cross him.
But a quick glance at this file showed that it contained material which wasn’t exclusively business gossip — although there was plenty of that. Included were pages of detail and much anecdotal reportage about the man. Her initial impression was that it had been compiled by someone with a very organised approach to gaining the maximum effect from every word — yet in a very readable style.
Another journalist?
Riley pondered on this for a while, uneasy at the idea that someone else had already worked on this project. If they had ducked out of the assignment before her, as Donald Brask had so pithily suggested, maybe she should ask who… and why. Then she noticed something even more interesting.
In addition to the commercial information in the file, which must have been difficult enough to collate — knowing what little she did of the subject and his ways — there was information of a purely personal kind: the kind which delved into the biggest no-go area of Al-Bashir’s life.
His wife, Asiyah.
Riley wondered whether this wasn’t simply courting disaster for the sake of it. Taking on a known litigant of biblical proportions, a man with his own security force and the confidence to use it, was not likely to go unnoticed. Nor would it do her reputation much good if the detail contained in the file turned out to be erroneous, misguided or even downright malicious.
She picked up the copy of East European Trade and took out her mobile. She had promised to let Donald have details of the publisher involved. She didn’t want to get into a discussion with him about this just now, so she took the easy option and texted him the details instead.
As for Al-Bashir, she toyed for all of five seconds with the idea of tossing the assignment aside. Even if she was going to tell Varley to get lost, maybe a more detailed look at the file first wouldn’t do any harm.
12
Palmer sat at his desk and picked up the large brown envelope. It was bulky but light. He soon saw why. Ripping it open, he tipped out a miscellaneous collection of sheets from spiral notepads, sales receipts from various shops, discarded sheets of A4 plain paper, a holiday postcard showing a slice of blue sea and a rocky coastline, and even a couple of envelopes addressed to Helen at her London home. Mrs Demelzer hadn’t been kidding when she said she’d put in everything she could find.
Among the papers were two or three stands of blonde hair. Palmer placed them gently back in the envelope. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but he thought he detected a faint hint of Helen’s perfume, too. He breathed deeply, forcing himself to relax and concentrate on the papers.
Most of it was, as Mrs Demelzer had said, jottings and doodles, random notes, some scribbled through and illegible, others circled or underlined. Exclamation marks and stars appeared regularly, but their placing had more to do, he guessed, with points Helen might have been reacting to in conversations rather than relating to any specific words on the paper.
There were several phone numbers. He made a list of them for checking later. He did the same with names, although they were sufficiently vague or common to make identifying the owners all but impossible without Helen’s address book, Blackberry or computer records.
His doorbell rang, followed by footsteps on the stairs. He continued reading, surprised to see his own name written along one edge of a page torn from a spiral notebook. It was followed by the words ‘send photo’ underlined twice in a heavy hand and the word 4th. There was no indication as to when the note had been written, nor to whom the photo was to be sent, although he had a good idea. Was it a photo taken of either of them while they were together? If so, he couldn’t recall one, or why she should have chosen to send it now, after all this time.
He checked through the pile again. There was nothing. He stared at the wall on the other side of the office. Maybe it was at his flat. If it had been sent there any time in the last week, he wouldn’t have seen it. He made a mental note to check the box later, vaguely aware that someone was standing in the office doorway.
‘Palmer?’ It was Riley, her face flushed from the stairs. She was carrying two large polystyrene mugs of coffee. ‘What’s up? You look like you swallowed a frog.’
Palmer swung his legs out from behind the desk and stood up. He took one of the mugs and nodded at the desk. ‘Take a look at that, will you? See if anything strikes you as significant. How did the meeting go?’
Riley sat down, prising the lid off her mug. ‘It was okay. I’ve got a job if I want it. Are you going to tell me how you got on in rural Basingstoke?’
‘Later. Trawl through that lot first, would you? I need an objective eye.’ He wandered round the desk and stood at the window, staring down at the street and sipping his coffee.
Riley did as he asked, carefully studying each item without comment. When she had finished, she sat back. ‘How did you get this?’
Palmer told her about his visit to Mrs Demelzer. ‘Helen asked her to send it to me. That’s all I know.’
Riley nodded and sipped her coffee. ‘Most of it’s meaningless, I’d say,’ she surmised. ‘Stuff she was working on, people she was talking to, memos to self… I’ve got scribbles like this all over — even on my bathroom wall. Except this.’ She leaned forward and tapped a finger on the piece of paper bearing his name. ‘Looks like someone was thinking about you recently. Could the fourth be a date?’