Chapter Eight
Sam was sitting alone by the time Purdue arrived back. Nina had decided to get an early night, telling Sam to wake her if Purdue did not return within his specified window. He did, if only just. He looked exhausted.
“Are you alright, Purdue?” Sam asked.
“Well enough,” Purdue replied in a manner that was friendly but did not invite further questioning. He headed for his room, but Sam called him back. “What’s the matter?”
“I…” Sam stopped. He had promised Nina that he would talk to Purdue, but as he opened his mouth he knew that it would be futile. Purdue never revealed anything upon request, and they both knew it. Still, he had promised… “I just wanted to ask you a few things,” Sam said lamely. “Sit down for a minute?”
Purdue sat obligingly, looking at Sam with an expression of polite enquiry. It was quite disarming.
“Look, I just wanted to ask you a few things while Nina’s asleep.” He rapidly weighed up his chances of getting information out of Purdue and whether he would be best to be direct or to try to wheedle information out of him gradually. In the end he settled on the former option. Trying to manipulate Purdue into disclosing anything was doomed to failure. “She’s been doing some research on all this Black Sun stuff. I know, I know — but she has. And what she’s found is some pretty alarming stuff. I just want to know a couple of things… first of all, just how powerful are these people, and second, are they really into all this white supremacy stuff? Is that what we’re facing?”
The silence that followed was long enough for Sam to wonder whether Purdue had heard him, whether he had actually spoken aloud. Then at last he spoke. “The answer to your first question is something I am still assessing,” he said, “and I do not feel that I can give you an accurate answer yet. As for the second… I do not know. I believe that some embrace Theosophy and all its precepts, while others reject it or see its icons and myths as symbolic and nothing more. That is as much as I feel able to tell you.”
“Is it as much as you know?” Sam asked baldly.
Purdue’s only reply was a regretful half-smile, a clear signal that Sam had had all the information he was going to get out of him. He unfolded himself from the chair, reminding Sam as always of a tall wading bird. Just as he opened the door to his room, something occurred to Sam.
“Purdue?”
“Yes?”
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“That depends entirely on what it is, of course. But assuming it is not a request for information I cannot provide, then yes.”
“I’m… I’m trying to write something. It’s about my time in investigative journalism.” Sam watched Purdue carefully for anything that might confirm that he had read the contents of Sam’s notepad that day. “It’s about what happened to Trish. My girlfr- well, my fiancée, actually. There was a column she wrote, it’ll be available online and it would be really useful if I could re-read it. Any chance that you could find it for me?”
Not a flicker. There was nothing to tell Sam whether his work had been read or not. Either Purdue had not looked at the notepad, or he had not been appalled by what he had seen.
“Of course, Sam. Published in the Clarion, I presume? What is the title?”
“Mad, bad and dangerous to know: The frightening secrets of the City playboys.”
“Leave it with me.”
“Thanks.” Sam raised his mug in a grateful salute and smiled.
It’s the end of January. For most of us, this is a time of year when belts are tight. Our bank accounts, our livers and our waistlines are only just starting to recover from the excesses and indulgences of Christmas and New Year. But in Canary Wharf, bonuses have just been announced and the party is just beginning.
Sam caught himself unconsciously tracing a finger over the gritty picture on the print-out Purdue had given him. It was barely an inch in height and the resolution was low, but it was unmistakably Trish. He remembered how he had teased her over her professional headshot, so different from the girl he knew. The Trish that Sam had come to love was never without a pen shoved in the mad twist of hair clipped to the top of her head, and he had never, ever seen her wearing a smart cream-colored blouse. The expression on her face was serious, her blue eyes serene. She did not look like the kind of woman who would cry with laughter watching Bruichladdich chase his tail, or break her pen in rage when she realized the extent of the corruption surrounding Charles Whitsun. He skimmed down the page.
Among the revelers is Charles Whitsun. Son of an Admiral, educated at Winchester and Oxford, 39 year old Whitsun spent time working on Wall Street before being headhunted by ASB — a trading firm where, coincidentally, his father sits on the board of directors. He plans to get out of the City this year, so the £500k bonus that he had just pocketed will be his last.
A picture of Whitsun was inset. He was an arrogant-looking man, his light brown hair starting to go grey at the temples, icy blue eyes staring out from under a high forehead. In the courtroom he had smirked and nodded to his friends in the public gallery, confident of his imminent acquittal. When his rich friends and well-connected family failed to get him off the hook, his astonished reaction had been incredible to watch. Sam had seen the man crumple before his eyes. Shock was followed by blind terror as he was led away to begin his sentence — a sentence he would never complete, since Whitsun had taken his own life just a few months later.
The rumor mill of the city has been in full swing since news of Whitsun’s departure broke. No-one knows for certain what his new job will be, but on one thing all speculation agrees — Whitsun’s next move will take him out of the public eye. Although he has previously spoken of entering politics, following a series of highly-publicized scandals including allegations of insider dealing and underage lovers it seems unlikely that he will seek public office.
It almost made Sam laugh to think how scandalized he and Patricia had been by the first few things they had learned about Charles. How little they had known… The man’s abuse of his knowledge of the markets had paled in comparison to his subsequent career as an international arms dealer. Trish had been furious, determined to take him down, and Sam had been prepared to help her in any way he could.
“This will get you your Pulitzer, Trish,” Sam had told her as he helped her to position the microphone that she was going to wear during her final encounter with Whitsun in the warehouse. “We can hang your certificate up next to mine.”
‘If I had known what was going to happen,’ Sam thought, ‘I never would have let her leave that room.’
Chapter Nine
A whining, high-pitched buzz zipped past Nina’s ear in the darkness. Her eyelids were heavy, but the moment she heard that sound she was dragged back from the edge of sleep, her mind instantly alert.
“Really?” she muttered, swinging her legs round and reaching for the light switch. “It’s January. Why the hell are there mosquitos in January?” As she searched for something to swat the bug with, the glowing digits on her alarm clock caught her eye. 4.07. About the right time to be half-awake and anxious. Her gaze fell upon a newspaper she had bought in the hope of picking up a few more words of Italian. She rolled it into a cylinder, pulled on her slippers and crept across the cold tiles, hoping that she could murder the mosquito quickly and quietly.