‘This is a nice house.’
‘We like it. Eric’s family comes from round here.’
‘I know. What about you?’
‘Philadelphia. The Main Line. It’s handy for Washington, which seems to be where all my family end up.’
‘Including Eric?’
Cassie smiled. ‘Probably. He can tell you about that himself. Now, how do you know Eric? He did tell me, but I find it difficult to keep track of all his friends.’
‘We were on the Bloomfield Weiss training programme together. Ten years ago.’
‘Do you still work there?’
Chris smiled. ‘No, thank God.’
Cassie laughed. ‘They all say that. I don’t know how Eric survives.’
‘He seems to be doing rather well.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Cassie. ‘I’m convinced he works in the mailroom. Have you seen his office?’
‘No.’
‘Precisely. Nobody has. And he calls his horoscope line every few minutes on his cell phone so that I’ll think he’s important.’
‘And then the horoscope line rings him back?’
‘Maybe it’s got callback. I don’t know. Eric would. He does seem to know about telephones.’
Chris laughed. Megan was right: Cassie was a nice woman. And attractive.
‘He says he spends a lot of time out of the country,’ Chris said.
‘Tell me about it.’ Cassie rolled her eyes. ‘But I think he genuinely does try to get back here whenever he can. Here, help yourself to another glass if you like.’
After twenty minutes or so, Eric joined them, and they all carried dinner through to the dining room. The table, chairs and cutlery were over-designed modern stuff, and didn’t look as though they were meant to be used for a real dinner at all. But Chris’s attention was grabbed by a painting on one wall. It was the picture of the petrochemical plant in the Saudi Arabian desert that he knew so well.
‘I recognize that,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ said Eric. ‘I think it was Alex’s best. His mother gave it to me.’
‘I’m glad you’ve kept it.’
They sat down. Another wall of the room was entirely glass, and it gave a terrific view of the bay and lights twinkling in the distance.
‘Is that Oyster Bay?’ Chris asked.
That’s right,’ said Eric.
‘Do your parents still live there?’
‘Not any more. Five years ago, my father ran off to California with some awful woman twenty years younger than him. My mother was so ashamed she moved out of town as well.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Chris said.
Eric sighed. ‘That kind of thing happens in families, these days. I’ve got to say, it was quite a shock. Dad never struck me as that kind of man.’
Chris changed the subject. ‘This is delicious,’ he said, digging in to the exotic salad Cassie had made. And it was. So was the main course, tuna steaks in a pineapple salsa sauce, and there was crème brûlée afterwards. The evening passed very pleasantly, and then Cassie announced she was going up to bed.
‘Would you like a cognac, Chris?’ Eric asked.
‘Here, I’ll help you with the dishes first,’ Chris said.
‘Oh, don’t worry about them,’ said Eric. ‘Juanita will deal with them in the morning.’
Chris paused for a second, thinking how nice it would be never to have to do the washing up after dinner parties, then followed Eric through to a large living room, with very little furniture and acres of empty floor space. Embers were glowing in a large open fireplace. It all looked good, but Chris suspected that Wilson spent very little time in there. Eric poured two brandies from a smooth curvilinear decanter.
‘Thanks for putting in a good word about me to Rudy Moss.’
‘No problem. How did it go?’
‘Waste of time,’ said Chris. ‘I had to try it, and I thought that I’d be able to persuade him, but he wasn’t having any of it. I reckon he just wanted to demonstrate his power over me. Gave him some kind of kicks I suppose. Nasty little man.’
Eric smiled. ‘It’s a shame someone so bright could be such a jerk.’
‘The fund’s in real trouble now. I’m going to have to sell some bonds to raise the cash to pay Rudy out, and the market timing is all wrong. Bloomfield Weiss won’t give me a decent bid for that stupid Eureka Telecom position Ian Darwent stuffed us with. And now another investor wants out. I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘You’ll figure it out,’ said Eric.
‘I wish I had your confidence. I’d hate to let Lenka down.’
‘Don’t take it so personally. She’d understand.’
No, she wouldn’t, Chris thought. She would fight tooth and nail to save Carpathian. And so should he.
‘Have you tracked down Marcus Lubron yet?’ Eric asked.
‘Not yet. That’s tomorrow’s task. Once I’ve seen George Calhoun.’
‘Oh, yes. What on earth do you want to see him for? That really is a bad memory I’d like to keep in the past.’
Chris told Eric all about his discussion with Abby Hollis. Eric listened closely. When he had finished, Chris asked him about Alex taking drugs.
‘I knew he did some drugs occasionally,’ said Eric. ‘But it was no big deal. It’s not like he had a problem or anything. We didn’t talk about it much.’
‘Until he got caught.’
‘Even then. Of course, he was really worried about it, and when I asked him, he eventually told me what was wrong. But he didn’t want to discuss it.’
‘Abby said that Calhoun was threatening him.’
‘Probably. Something was going on. But as I said, he didn’t want my help. I respected that. He and I were good friends, I knew him well. The thing with Alex was, sometimes he just wanted to be left alone. And that was one of those times.’
‘So you don’t know specifically what was going on?’
Eric shook his head.
‘And you didn’t say anything about it afterwards to any of us?’
‘No way,’ said Eric. ‘It just didn’t seem the right thing to talk about. Especially after what happened to him. Whatever his problems were, they died with him.’
‘I’m trying to think how this might be related to Lenka’s death,’ Chris said.
Eric looked blank. ‘I can’t see how. Why should it be?’
‘Well, I know Lenka wanted to tell Marcus something before she died. I’m pretty sure now that it was more than just Duncan knocking Alex into the sea. I thought maybe it had something to do with Alex getting caught with drugs.’
Eric frowned. ‘I can’t see a possible connection.’
Chris sighed. ‘Maybe Marcus can tell me. If I can find him.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Eric. ‘Let me know.’
Chris leaned back in his chair by the warm fire, and sipped his brandy. He looked across at Eric. Although he had a glittering future, indeed, was already living one, in many ways he was the most straightforward of Chris’s friends from the programme. Duncan was an emotional wreck, Ian had become cynical and selfish as his career had progressed, but Eric was still basically a friend. He didn’t have anything to prove to Chris, and there was no point in Chris trying to compete with him. He was glad it was Eric, not Ian, who had done so well.
‘What is it?’ asked Eric.
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Chris. ‘Are you still intending to go into politics?’
Eric smiled. ‘I guess so.’
‘Everything seems to be going according to plan so far.’
‘Partly. I’m making good money at Bloomfield Weiss, and I’ve also made some lucky investments. You can make excellent contacts in this business; it’s amazing how grateful a big company boss can be if you help him make the biggest acquisition of his career. The problem is I never have any time for all the schmoozing. I’m going to have to figure out how to make more time. But yes, I’m still interested.’