‘Lifted?’
‘Identical data, duplicate results.’
‘And what’s meant to be the significance of this –
data
? What’s it meant to show?’
‘That the Silveron trials were not carried out properly.’
Schenker let out a harsh guffaw that rang loudly in the quiet of the flat. ‘You’re not suggesting it’s
genuine
?’
‘Well …’ Cramm spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘It
looks
genuine, and that’s the same thing.’
Schenker felt a shiver of anger. He slapped his palm down on the table. ‘I want that document on my desk first thing this morning.’
‘I’ll try – ’
‘By ten. At the latest.’
Cramm looked unhappy but did not say it was impossible.
‘So what’s the bottom line here?’ Schenker snapped. ‘A press bonanza? A media massacre?’
‘That’s about it.’
Schenker got to his feet, fighting for air, and strode to the window. What a cock-up! Christ, and he had trusted Cramm to keep a finger on the pulse! With a swoop of resignation, he saw that he was going to have to take personal charge of this, that nothing would get sorted out unless he did.
‘Okay,’ he said, turning briskly. ‘Let’s go through it from the top.’ He returned to his seat, leaning close over the coffee table, tapping the surface with a forefinger. ‘I want a list of damage containment ideas by the morning. I want to know how this Dubinsky – ’
‘Dublensky.’
‘ – how this Dublensky can be effectively discredited the moment the first journalist gets on the line. I want to know how he can be neutralized.’
And, he thought to himself, I want to know how to guard my rear, to cover myself in the unpleasant eventuality that this thing blows up in my face. He thought of the cola magnate, and the discussions on Long Island, and wondered how close he was to being offered a new job.
‘You might think of how to clip Miss Field’s wings too,’ he went on. ‘Have another go at finding out where she gets all this money from – ’
‘You didn’t hear then? I thought you’d have heard. It was all over the tabloids. It’s Nick Mackenzie, the rock star. He was financing everything, the Field woman’s salary, the laboratory.’
‘How deep?’
‘Must have been well over a million. Now he’s going to finance Dublensky.’
‘Finance him?’
‘Bring him over, dish him up to the press.’
‘Oh he is, is he! Jesus, who does he think he is? What the hell does he think he’s playing at?’
‘Saving the world?’ sighed Cramm.
‘Christ, these people!’ Schenker exploded. ‘Think they’re a cut above the common herd! Think they’ve the God-given right to tell everyone how to behave!’
Cramm threw him a shrewd look. ‘When it comes to behaviour, Mackenzie’s got nothing to boast about.’
‘Oh?’
‘He’s been seeing Mrs Driscoll. Every day.’ He paused significantly. ‘And some nights.’
Schenker stared unseeing at Cramm, then looked down at the table, gripped by a sudden pang, the nature of which he couldn’t identify but which left him off-balance, almost breathless.
‘Mrs Driscoll? Mrs
Driscoll
?’ He glanced back at Cramm and, seeing that it was true, murmured: ‘Well …’ Then, aware of Cramm’s gaze, added: ‘What a very stupid woman she is.’
It was the same Rolls that had picked her up on the evening she had first met Schenker, Susan realized. Leather seats, walnut trim, glass partition screening the grey-uniformed driver and, best of all, something she hadn’t noticed before, an old-fashioned voice tube with a brass spout.
‘Does this thing actually work?’ she cried delightedly, pulling the tube from its bracket and whisking off the cap.
Schenker glanced briefly across. ‘Certainly.’ But his look didn’t encourage her to try it, and she replaced the tube with a shrug.
The car was heading up the Brompton Road towards Knightsbridge. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked brightly.
‘I thought we’d drive round the park. Would you like to be dropped back at Harrods?’
‘Round the park? How mysterious! I thought you were going to take me somewhere exciting. To the Dorchester at least.’ She added teasingly: ‘Rather clandestine, isn’t it, a drive round the park? People will think we’re meeting secretly.’ She watched for Schenker’s discomfiture, and was rewarded with the sight of his tongue flicking nervously over his lips. What a character he was! She was almost fond of him in a repugnant sort of way. So desperate to succeed, so childish in his anxiety to get things right, applying himself to London society with the same humourless intensity he applied to his business life.
He answered: ‘I thought it would be better to talk here.’ He was looking ahead, watching the traffic.
‘Ooh dear,’ she said, making a face. ‘This sounds ominous.’
She kept her tone light. Whatever this was about, she wasn’t going to be robbed of her mood, which was euphoric.
Schenker didn’t respond immediately. It wasn’t until they had passed under the Bowater building and were driving along the South Carriage Drive that he began to speak in a flat monotone. ‘The Kershaw woman. She’s been asking for money again. Additional expenses, was how she put it.’
Susan regarded the sky which until an instant ago had looked unblemished, and, despite her intentions, felt her euphoria deflating. She looked accusingly at Schenker but his profile was unreadable. ‘And so? Will you give it to her?’
‘We already have.’
She felt a flutter of relief. Of course he had. Schenker knew which side his bread was buttered on.
‘Unfortunately it’s unlikely to finish there,’ said Schenker. ‘She’ll come back for more.’
What was Schenker trying to do to her? She shot him a furious look. ‘Oh?’ she replied stiffly. ‘And why do you think that?’
He was examining the traffic with concentration. ‘Well, it’s rather an attractive proposition, isn’t it? A limitless supply of cash.’
‘She can’t be that stupid, surely. I mean, she can’t think it’ll go on for ever.’
‘She’s already making noises again,’ he interrupted smoothly.
A tremor of annoyance passed through Susan. Schenker was playing games with her, trying to undermine her happiness.
‘But she can be stopped, can’t she?’ said Susan, unable to suppress a hint of desperation in her voice. ‘I mean, it’s ridiculous. The woman’s behaving like a criminal.’
‘And how would you suggest she be stopped?’ He threw her a questioning glance, and she caught a glint of something unfamiliar in his eye, a coolness, a spark of hostility. It was another side of Schenker, one she had never seen before.
‘There must be a way,’ she argued. ‘I don’t know … I mean, can’t she be threatened with legal action or something?’ This, she well knew, was not a realistic proposition, but then she could hardly be expected to provide serious answers. Problem-solving was Schenker’s province, and she was surprised, not to say annoyed, that he should want to consult her about it. He had seen to all the arrangements, had struck the deal, whatever it was, and now he would have to see the matter through.
Schenker said: ‘Sadly, I really don’t think there’s much more I can do.’
Susan looked at him sharply. ‘What do you mean?’
Schenker turned his head towards her, his black button eyes unblinking. ‘Simply that I have done all I can and if this woman comes back … Well …’ He lifted his shoulders slightly.
‘What are you saying?’ She almost prodded him on the arm, she was so irritated with him.
‘That there’ll be no more money.’
Susan stared at him, trying hard to interpret this. Did he simply mean he was going to get tough with the woman, keep her quiet in some other way? Or did he mean what she feared he meant, something so unpleasant she could hardly bring herself to think about it?
‘But what happens if this woman gets difficult?’ she asked, feeling her way forward. ‘What happens if she threatens to go to the press?’
Schenker’s eyes dropped slowly to the floor before coming back to her face to resume their steady gaze; his mouth curved down at the corners. She realized this was his way of showing regret.
‘You’d let her …?’ she asked incredulously. ‘You’d
let
her?’
‘Hopefully it won’t come to that.’
‘
But you’d let her!
’
He turned a palm upward. ‘I’d really have no choice.’
It was a moment before Susan could speak. ‘But what about Tony?’ she cried. ‘What about everything he’s done for you? God, you have an odd way of showing gratitude! After all he’s
done
for you!’
‘I’m not quite sure what you mean. We’ve enjoyed a pleasant working relationship, your husband and I, but I wouldn’t have said we owed each other any favours. On the contrary, the minister has gone so far out of his way to avoid showing partiality since he’s been in office that, if anything, I would say my company has suffered from our association, rather than the other way round.’
Was this what it was about, then? Sour grapes? Or was he after favours from Tony, in exchange for which he would find more money for the Kershaw woman? Was this an elaborate way of exerting pressure? Susan felt as if she had been plunged into a pit blindfold.
‘But you’re implicated in this business as well!’ she protested. ‘If the woman talks to the press, you’ll get dragged into it too!’
‘Oh? And how would that be?’
‘Well, you introduced her to Tony for a start.’
‘Hardly,’ he murmured in a tone of mild distaste. ‘They met at a party. I didn’t even know the girl.’
‘In France then. That weekend.’
‘No, you’re quite wrong. Your husband made all the arrangements.’
It came to her then: he was prepared to let Tony sink without trace.
But perhaps he wasn’t quite so clever as he thought he was. He’d forgotten one rather important point. She rang triumphantly: ‘Well, what about the money then? She’ll say who gave it to her, won’t she? She’ll tell them it was you!’
With forbearance, in the tone of a teacher explaining basics to a child, he said: ‘She has no idea where the money comes from. She certainly has no reason to think it comes from us. And even if she were to get the idea, she wouldn’t be able to substantiate it.’
‘Oh, come on! Who else could it come from?’
But even as Susan finished asking the question, she knew the answer. Tony. Of course. Tony.
She turned hastily to stare out of the window, trying to absorb the implications of this terrifying development. The car was approaching Speakers’ Corner, passing the row of parked tourist coaches that lined Park Lane even in late October. In that moment Susan grasped what she should have understood from the beginning, that Schenker had thought this out very carefully, that he had left nothing to chance, that if there was a scandal then one person at least was going to emerge unscathed.
‘You’d
let
this happen?’ she repeated weakly, feeling herself close to tears.
‘Really, we did what we could.’ It seemed to her that he was suppressing a sigh. ‘Under the circumstances …’ He waved a hand as if it wasn’t worth explaining all over again.
Lifting her chin, she asked bravely: ‘So why are you telling me all this? What d’you want?’
‘Want?’
‘From me.’
‘From you? Why, nothing. Nothing at all.’ He seemed surprised and mildly offended. ‘No, no. The only thing I wanted was to warn you about the wo— about the situation. To tell you I could do no more.’ But his tone was a little too emphatic, his surprise a little too polished to be entirely convincing, and she knew she wouldn’t feel any confidence on this point until the drive was over. But if he was planning to say anything he wasn’t in a hurry, and they sat in silence as the car swept into the north carriageway.
Finally Schenker said: ‘Things are very tough at the moment.’
Was this her cue? Maybe. But she wasn’t in the mood to make things easy for him.
Schenker, seeing he wasn’t going to get any help, went on: ‘Your friend Mr Mackenzie’s causing me a few headaches.’
Before she could prevent herself, she had jerked her head round to stare at Schenker. Of all the lines he might have taken, of all the approaches, this was the last she had expected. For an awful moment it occurred to her that he might know about her and Nick, but in the next instant she rejected the thought. No one, and especially not Schenker, could possibly know about that. Much as she’d wanted to shout it from the rooftops, much as it had killed her to suppress her exhilaration, she hadn’t told a soul, not even her best girlfriend. But then, unless you wanted the entire world to know, you never told your best girlfriend.
No, it couldn’t be that. What could he mean? Then it came to her. ‘The laboratory, his project …?’
Schenker twisted in his seat to face her. ‘He has this obsession with one of our products. I don’t know why. He seems to think it harmed his wife. Though at the beginning the villain was meant to be something completely different – a wood preserver named Reldane. But when that proved harmless, he lighted on Silveron. Frankly, we’re mystified as to why he should go to these extraordinary lengths to try and prove that there’s something wrong with what is basically one of our best products, a substance that’s been tested to within an inch of its life.’ He leaned closer and, resting his arm along the seat back, extended a finger as if to touch her shoulder. ‘Oh, don’t misunderstand me. I’m sorry he was the victim of those animal rights people. But at the same time I can’t pretend I’m actually crying about it.’
Here was the confident approachable Schenker again. It was as if the unpleasantness of the last few minutes had been an unfortunate interlude which, now it was out of the way, could be ignored. She realized how little she understood this man, and how much he alarmed her.
‘Well, he’s finished with all that now,’ she said. She added quickly: ‘So I understand anyway.’
‘Finished? Really?’ His tone was polite but unbelieving. ‘I’m reliably informed that he’s already setting up a second laboratory, that he has every intention of continuing with this obsession. More unfortunate for him, I also understand that he and these Catch people have fallen victim to some forged laboratory data and are planning to make allegations to the press that they cannot possibly substantiate. We would have to sue, of course. It would be an ugly business, do him a lot of harm. As well as causing us a great deal of trouble.’