“Is he …?”
The secretary nodded. “My boss, Monsieur Patrimonio. He’s the chairman of the selection committee.”
The sound of a buzzer on the secretary’s phone put an end to the conversation, and she was already getting to her feet as she answered. Picking up a notepad, she made her excuses to Sam and hurried through to the office, leaving him to return to his forms. When these had been dealt with, he glanced at the contents of the dossier: a name tag, a thin sheaf of documents, and his handsomely engraved invitation to the reception. He was wondering whether he should leave or stay when the office door opened and the secretary came out, followed by the chairman of the committee and his aftershave.
Patrimonio was a man who took his appearance seriously. His suit was a poem in lightweight pearl-gray worsted, cut in the close-fitting Italian style that leaves precious little room in the pockets for anything more bulky than a silk handkerchief. An extravagant show of sky-blue shirt cuff protruded from the sleeves of his jacket, with a large Panerai watch worn over the left cuff in the manner of Gianni Agnelli. Tall and slim, his hair dark except for wings of gray brushed back from his temples, he was the picture of distinction. Sam felt underdressed in his check shirt and cotton pants.
Patrimonio advanced with hand outstretched. “Enchante, Monsieur Levitt, enchante. Welcome to Marseille. Nathalie told me you were here. I hope she’s been looking after you?”
Before Sam had a chance to reply, one of Patrimonio’s trouser legs started to vibrate. “Ah. Forgive me,” he said, as he slid a paper-thin phone from his pocket before retreating to the privacy of his lair.
“Well,” said Sam, “I guess that’s the end of our little meeting.”
“He’s a very busy man.” Nathalie smiled, and picked up some papers from her desk. “And now, if you’ll excuse me …”
Everyone seems to be very busy, thought Sam, except me. He decided to take advantage of his idleness by strolling down to the Vieux Port for a coffee in the sunshine while he went through the official dossier that Nathalie had given him.
He found the sales pitches of the fish-sellers on the Quai des Belges much more entertaining than the documents in the dossier, which had suffered from the dead hand of creation by committee, cliche plodding after cliche in a dreary procession on every page. A brief history of Marseille was followed by a puff for the city’s selection as the European Capital of Culture in 2013 (with ten million visitors expected), followed in turn by a heavy-handed description of the charms of the Anse des Pecheurs, a highly technical account of the process used to select the three finalists, and a reassurance-obligatory in these green times-about the total lack of damage the project would cause to the environment. The whole thing was a classic of its kind, a model of self-important bureaucratic verbiage, and Sam made a mental note to tailor his presentation accordingly. Jokes were out. Gravity would be the order of the day. The very thought of it made him yawn.
Less than three miles away as the seagull flies, Lord Wapping and Ray Prendergast were huddled over a pile of papers in his lordship’s private stateroom. They had been going over Wapping’s portfolio of business interests, and the news was not good; worse than that, it was potentially disastrous.
The problem was one of excessively optimistic leverage, combined with a couple of what Prendergast described as dodgy downturns in the global economy. Surefire investments had gone sour. Long-shot investments had failed to come off. There were increasingly loud rumblings of discontent from the banks, which were becoming more and more nervous about the huge loans they had made to Wapping. Even the core business of bookmaking was feeling the effects of increased competition, and the money it generated was barely enough to service interest payments.
“In other words, Billy,” said Prendergast, “we’re stuffed unless this deal goes through. You’ll lose your shirt. Mind you, there’s still a bit tucked away in the Cayman Islands and Zurich, but you’d have to say goodbye to everything else.”
Lord Wapping drew on his cigar as he contemplated a future without the house in Eaton Square, the duplex on Park Avenue, the lodge in Gstaad, the yacht, the racehorses, the stable of overpowered cars. Gone, all of it. And with it, no doubt, Annabel.
Prendergast rubbed his eyes and thought wistfully about a pint of English beer. He was exhausted after spending half the night trying to squeeze some good news out of the figures. He’d also had more than enough of life on board, where he was cramped and fed strange foreign food. As for the French he’d met, he wouldn’t give any of them house room. Untrustworthy prima donnas, the lot of them. He’d advised against getting involved with this project right at the start. Ironically, it was now the only chance to save the Wapping empire. “Like I said, if this doesn’t come good, we’re stuffed. So what do you reckon the odds are?”
Wapping was a gambling man, and this was the biggest gamble of his life. Millions, many millions, were at stake here, more than enough to settle his debts, with plenty left over for a few new acquisitions. That was his business philosophy, always had been: you have to speculate to accumulate. It had worked well for him in the past, and despite the facts, he remained hopeful about the future. “The trouble with you, my old sunshine, is that you always see the glass half empty instead of half full.”
“I spent most of last night looking at the glass, Billy. It’s not half empty. It’s as dry as a bleeding bone. Not a drop. You don’t have to deal with the banks, like I do. Take a look at this lot.” Prendergast took a sheaf of papers and fanned them out on the table in front of Wapping-e-mails and letters, all with the same basic message: We want our money, and we want it now.
Naturally, the terminology was a little more subtle. There were “mounting concerns” about the “unacceptable situation.” References to the “exceptional fragility” of the market. Regrets that Lord Wapping had been so difficult to contact. And, in every case, there was the urgent wish for Lord Wapping’s presence so that matters could be resolved.
“So there you go,” said Prendergast. “They’re out for blood. Their next step is to call in the law. This is it, Billy. Shit or bust.”
Wapping was spared further bad news by the arrival of Annabel, burnished from a morning spent on the sunbathing deck and dressed for lunch in white jeans and white T-shirt, both one size too tight.
“Sweetie,” she said, “I’m just a tiny bit worried about the time.” She looked at her watch, one of Cartier’s finest. “How long does it take to fly to Monaco? Mustn’t be late for lunch-I think one of the royals is going to be there, tres incognito. One of the Monaco royals, of course, but still.”
Ray Prendergast looked up at Annabel, feeling once again a dislike that he’d done his best to conceal since her arrival last year in the Wapping menagerie. A stuck-up bit of posh, he called her privately, out for all she could get, and with ambitions to become the fourth Lady Wapping. In every way, she was an unnecessary expense. And yet Wapping seemed to dote on her. Prendergast tapped the papers in front of him. “Before you go, Billy.”
Wapping aimed a shrug of apology at Annabel. “Tell Tiny to warm her up,” he said. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
Annabel blew him a kiss, scooped up a crocodile handbag the size of a military backpack, and disappeared in the direction of the helicopter.
Wapping glanced down at the papers and ground the remains of his cigar into a crystal ashtray. “Right. E-mail all of them. Tell them I’m deeply involved in final negotiations that will secure a massive construction project in Marseille. These negotiations will be concluded within the next week or two, and I will then return to London to share the good news personally with them.” Wapping got to his feet, brushing cigar ash from his shirt front. “There. That should hold the bastards.”