The Business

But no.  Stephen was just stunned.  He hadn't really started to guess, or if he had entertained any suspicions whatsoever they had been the sort that occur to you unbidden, as purely theoretical constructs, the sort of thing that an imaginative mind throws up as a matter of course, but which the moral self dismisses as preposterous, and even feels shameful to be associated with.

He said, 'Yes,' once or twice, and, 'I see,' and, 'Right.'

'Stephen, I'm sorry.' Silence. 'That's hopelessly inadequate, I know.' More silence. 'I just hope you…Stephen, I've thought about this for a long time.  Two weeks.  I didn't know what to do.  I still don't know that I'm doing the right thing.  I think it's all pretty horrible, including Hazleton's part in it, and making me have anything to do with it, too.  I want you to know I'm not enjoying this.  I'm trying to be straight with you, trying to be honest.  I could have got Hazleton to let you know without me being —'

'All right! ' he said loudly, almost shouting.  Then, 'Sorry.  All right, Kathryn.  I take the point.  I guess you did the right thing.'

I looked up at the blue, blue sky. 'You're going to hate me for this, aren't you?'

'I don't know what I'm going to feel, Kathryn.  I feel…I don't know.  Winded.  Yeah, sort of winded, like when you fall on your back and can't breathe, but…hey, a lot worse, you know?'

'Yeah, I know.  Stephen, I'm so sorry.'

'Oh.  Well.  I guess it had to be done.  Jeez.' He sounded like he might be about to laugh or cry.  Breath whistled out of him. 'Some start to the day.'

'Is Emma there?'

'No, still away…Well, just coming back today.  God, the bitch.'

'You take it easy, okay?'

'Huh?  Yeah, sure.  Sure.  Ah, and thanks.  I guess.'

'Look, call me whenever, all right?  Get your breath back.  But keep in touch.  Call me later.  Will you?'

'Ah, yeah.  Yeah, right.  I'll… Goodbye, Kathryn.  Goodbye.'

'Good — ' The phone clicked off. ' — bye,' I said.

I closed my eyes.  Somewhere down the road, in Italy, I could hear the muted rasp of a high-performance engine, coming closer.

Lunch was a disappointment.  Poudenhaut couldn't stop talking about his car, a shiny red 355 soft-top with a black hood.  He'd driven me here in it, keeping the revs below five thousand because even though the engine was meant to have been run-in on the bench he just wanted to be sure.  Hans and the BMW would appear here later to take me back to the château.  We were in a modern glass and steel restaurant in the trees above an archetypically twee village that looked like it was composed of scaled-up cuckoo clocks: on the hour you expected a door under the eaves to flap open and Heidi to bounce out at the end of a giant spring.

We both drank spring water.  The food was Swiss-German, not my favourite cuisine, so it was easy to save plenty of space for a pudding, which was satisfyingly rich and chocolaty.

Poudenhaut tore his gaze away from the Ferrari again (he'd insisted on a table with a view of the car park). 'Yes, why did you want to see me?'

Nettle-grasping time again. 'I wanted to ask you what you were doing at the Silex plant the other day.'

His big, puffy face stared at me over our gently steaming coffee.  He blinked a few times.  I wondered which way he'd jump. 'Silex?' he said.  He frowned and concentrated on stirring some sugar into his espresso.

'You know, the chip plant in Scotland.  What took you up there, Adrian?'

I watched him decide.  He wasn't going for total denial.  Something closer to the truth. 'I was looking into something.'

'What was that?'

'Well, I can't say.'

'Was this for Mr Hazleton?'

He stirred his coffee slowly, then brought the little cup to his lips. 'Mm-hmm,' he said, and sipped.

'I see,' I said. 'I take it he had his suspicions too, then.'

'Suspicions?'

'About what was going on in there.'

He put on a serious face. 'Hmm.' His gaze flickered all over me.

'Come to any conclusions?'

He shrugged. 'How about you?'

I sat closer, leaning into the fragrant vapours rising from my coffee. 'There was something hidden in there.'

'In the plant?'

'Yes.  Ideal place, when you think about it.  Chip factories have brilliant security anyway.  You know how much chips are worth: more than their weight in gold.  So the places are really well guarded.  Then there's the whole prophylactic rigmarole you have to go through to get into the production facilities; all that changing and delay.  Impossible to just charge in.  Giving people inside time to hide stuff, if you know somebody who might ask awkward questions is coming in.  Plus there are all those deeply noxious chemicals they use, the etching fluids, the solvents and washes; really nasty chemical-warfare stuff any rational person would keep well away from.  So as well as all the usual security paraphernalia, the guards and walls and cameras and so on, and the sheer difficulty of accessing the place quickly, you've got a serious health disincentive to go there in the first place.  It's perfect, the ideal place to hide whatever.  I took a look round three or four weeks ago, but I couldn't find anything.'

Poudenhaut was nodding thoughtfully. 'Yes, well, that's what occurred to us, too.  So, what do you think it was?  Or is?'

'Oh, it's gone now, but I think they had another assembly line going in there.'

He blinked. 'Chips?'

'What else would you build in a chip plant?'

'Hmm,' he said, smiling briefly. 'I see.' He pursed his lips and nodded, staring at the table where the bill had just appeared.

'I'll get this,' I said, picking up the check.

He reached out too late. 'No, please.  This is mine.'

'That's okay, I got it.' I reached down for my handbag.

He snatched the bill out of my fingers. 'Male prerogative,' he said, grinning.  I hid behind my best chilly smile and thought, Suddenly you're far too full of beans, my lad.  He fished his company card out of his wallet. 'So, who do you think was cheating on us, who was behind it?  The management at the plant?  Ligence?  They're our partners there, right?'

'That's right.  Obviously the upper management must have known: you couldn't do it without them.  But I think it was somebody in the Business.'

He looked alarmed. 'Really?  Oh dear.  That's bad.  Any ideas?  What level?'

'Your level, Adrian.'

He paused, blinking again, his card poised half-way to the plate the check had arrived on. 'My level?'

'Level Two,' I said reasonably, spreading my hands.

'Oh, yes.' The plate was taken away again.

'So, did you find out anything?  Does Mr Hazleton have any ideas?'

He made a clicking noise with his mouth. 'We have our suspicions, but it would be wrong to say anything at this point in time, Kathryn.'

I waited until he was signing the card slip before I said, 'Of course, it could be a Level One conspiracy.  Somebody at Mr Hazleton's level.'

His Mont Blanc hesitated over the tip line.  He added a round number that was a little on the mean side and signed. 'Mr Hazleton has considered that possibility,' he said smoothly.  He nodded at the maître d' and stood. 'Shall we?'

'Grips like nothing else.  Just listen to that engine.  Isn't that wonderful?  I think you hear it better in a cabriolet, even with the top up.'

'Mm-hmm,' I said.  I'd been reading the handbook; I put it back in the glove-box with the spare set of keys and the purchase paperwork.

Poudenhaut was a poor driver; even allowing for the fact that he was trying to be kind to the engine, he changed up too early and still didn't seem entirely to have the hang of the car's open gate.  His cornering was awful, too, and the fact the car was right-hand-drive was no excuse either: he seemed to think hitting the apex meant driving into the depths of the bend then jerking the wheel round in roughly the correct direction, seeing where he was heading now, then making any necessary corrections (repeat as required until the road straightens).  We zoomed and dived along some wonderfully winding, empty mountain roads in one of the best sports cars in the world, but I was getting heartily sick of the experience.  He wouldn't even put the top down because clouds had moved in from the west and there had been a few flakes of snow.