"He created the Reynard Organisation, didn't he?" I asked, trying to show off the little I knew about the man.
"That's right. He moved into the high streets, with a chain of boutiques; pop groups; music outlets; fast food. He had his finger on the pulse of the times and kept one step ahead of the trends. Now, as you know, he's big league. It's the FT100 and public utilities now, plus the two newspapers, if you can call them that, the football club and controlling shares in a television station. The Reynard bandwagon is unstoppable, and J. J. Fox runs it single-handed from a deck chair on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean."
"He built the big new hotel in Leeds," I said.
"The Fox Borealis," Crosby stated. "And the office block across the river from it. Leeds is the fastest-growing financial centre outside London, Mr. Priest, and Fox has a slice of the action."
I knew it was, I'd read it in the papers often enough, but I didn't know what it meant. "So where is this leading us?" I asked.
Crosby deflated with an audible sigh, drumming his fingers on the table as he gathered his thoughts. "He hasn't changed," he began. "He still exploits other people's bad luck, but he manipulates their luck for them."
I thought I was beginning to see where he was leading me. "You mean insider dealing?" I asked.
He shook his head. "No, it's much more than that." He leaned forward, closer to me, and began to speak rapidly in a low voice. "Two years ago, Mr. Priest, there was a crash on the Northern and Borders Railway. One person was killed and it was put down to a signalling fault caused by vandalism. A month later two trainloads of commuters had narrow escapes when one train cut across the other. The passengers were hurled to the floor as then-train braked and some of them saw the other train go by. Five seconds earlier and it could have been the worst disaster in British railway history. Again it was blamed on vandalism and hundreds of passengers vowed they would never travel by N and B again. Share prices plunged from over five hundred pence, Mr.
Priest, to below four hundred. Guess who stepped in to rescue the business? That's right, J. J. Fox. They now stand at five-eighty pence. Not bad, eh? Seven years ago they were giving away shares in the Alpha Brig oilfield after borehole samples were analysed and the predictions made the whole thing look like a white elephant. J. J. Fox bought up every available share and blow me if it didn't turn out to be a software fault and the samples were promising after all. Everybody agrees that the water companies have a licence to print money, but last year was the driest on record and things looked dodgy for a while. When a technician put a decimal point in the wrong place and tipped a hundred times too much concentrated aluminium sulphate into the Tipley Valley supply, five thousand people were made ill. Tipley Water shares plummeted but this year they are predicting a record dividend. Guess who suddenly became a major shareholder? I could go on and on and on, Mr. Priest." He sat back and waited for a reaction.
I wasn't happy. The midges were bothering me, my beer was warm and I didn't like his story. I had no doubts that Fox was a crook, but so what? Everybody in his position must have done something mean and nasty as they fought their way up the heap. Nice people didn't make it because they couldn't do it. Well, that was my excuse. "So what's all this to do with the fire?" I asked.
"I'm sorry," he said, leaning forward. "I get carried away. It's all been bottled up inside me for so long. Back in 1975 Fox was just making his mark nationally. He'd been involved in several contracts with a certain company of planners working on town centre developments.
I'd been looking into his activities for a number of years, when I was in local government, and didn't like what I was seeing. I asked questions in the House about him, and wanted him to appear before a select committee to explain his apparent good fortune. Proving what I knew was difficult, as I'm sure you appreciate, and I couldn't voice my allegations outside the House, but I wanted his replies on record. The fire, like so many events, came at a very opportune moment for Mr.
Fox."
I wished that we had the power of parliamentary privilege to shelter behind, and said: "You're saying he started the fire to discredit you?"
"Not personally, Mr. Priest. He didn't start the fire personally. He has a network of recruits to do his dirty work for him, but he gave the orders. It's the only explanation. The technician with Tipley Water is currently on a Reynard management training scheme. The computer programmer with Alpha Brig escaped the sack and moved to a systems analyst post in the Reynard Organisation, until he died in an accident.
Fox looks after his friends, one way or another."
"Can you put all this in writing for me?" I asked. It's a simple enough theory. Someone pops in and gives you a lifetime's work, so you bounce it straight back at them by suggesting they put it all in writing. Often, you never hear from them again.
"It's all here," he said, delving into his inside pocket and producing a bundle of papers and envelopes.
Ah well, I thought, it was never much of a theory. I pointed at his empty glass. "Same again?"
"Oh, er, yes please."
I meandered to the bar and ordered a pint of orange juice for myself.
I'd tell him I'd ask around, do what I could, but I'd only be stalling him. Fox might be as guilty as hell, we might even prove it, but we'd never get near a conviction. His lawyers would tie us in knots, spin things out for years, cost the taxpayer a fortune and we'd be accused of wasting public money by pursuing a man who gave employment to thousands. He would be left whiter than white. Perhaps, they'd concede, some of his staff were over enthusiastic in their desire to see Reynard do well, but that was the unfortunate reverse side of loyalty… We were on a hiding to sod-all.
I placed his beer in front of him and sat down. The three ladies were poring over the menus again, their empty dinner plates in a considerate pile for the waitress to collect. The fence around the garden was lined with tubs of blooms, blazing with colour. Fat bees stumbled between them, overladen with pollen. "The flowers are gorgeous," I said, nodding in their direction.
"Geraniums," he told me, although I was already fairly sure of it.
"They bring back memories for me." He looked unhappy, his thoughts filled with oomph ah bands and lederhosen, and thanked me absent-mindedly for the beer. After a silence he said: "Did you see the television programme a few years ago about Fox's early life?"
"No."
"It was a harrowing account, Mr. Priest, even after making allowances for it being a Reynard production. It told of how the storm troopers came to arrest his parents a few days after the Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass. His name then was Johannes Josef Fuchs, he said, and his father was an outspoken lawyer, hated by the Nazis, and a Jew, of course. Young J. J. was bundled out of the back of the house with as much money as they had, plus a few items of jewellery, and told to find his way to France and then England. He was twelve years old.
He caught a train that he hoped would take him to Strasburg, but a party of Hitler Youth boarded it at the next station and began to torment him. Eventually they beat him up, stole everything he possessed and threw him off the train. He walked the one hundred and fifty kilometres to the border, being looked after by several people on the way, farmers mainly, some gypsies, and eventually made it into France and then on to Britain. When he was settled here he Anglicized his name and became the John Joseph Fox we all know so well."
I wasn't sure what the point of the story was. I'd been expecting a last attempt to win my sympathy, but this justified some aspects of Fox's character. "In a way," I said, 'it explains why Fox has turned out the way he has: determined to succeed; single-minded; responsible to no one. Experiences like that must be ingrained in your character for the rest of your life." I had a good long drink of my orange juice. After the warm beer it tasted good. "Tell me," I went on. "Why have you suddenly resurrected all this, after twenty-three years?