Trading Reality (43 page)

She stood up. Our eyes met. She composed herself in front of me. Her face clenched up, her brow furrowed, her lips became a short thin line. She stared back at me, defiantly.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s gone.’

‘Did you . . .?’

Karen smiled.

‘I can’t believe it! How could you? In my house!’

‘With you likely to ring up any time of day or night, we had to.’

‘You mean when I called you from Scotland he was here? With you?’

‘Sometimes,’ she nodded.

There was no sign of shame. She knew she was caught, and she was admitting it, challenging me to accuse her.

‘Who is he? What’s his name?’

She didn’t answer. Her eyes held mine, defying me.

‘Get out,’ I whispered.

‘Mark,’ she said. ‘I love him. I always loved him. I always will love him.’

‘Get out!’ I shouted, and pointed to the door.

She was gone, passing a white-faced Rachel at the head of the stairs.

I collapsed into the armchair. It smelled of Karen’s perfume. I kicked it with my heel, and moved over to the big windows.

I should have known. I should have seen it coming. No wonder she had seemed strange recently. Of course she hadn’t really wanted to see much of me when she could have been seeing him. I thought of how distant she had seemed when we were making love. I bet she was different with him. How could she do it? How could she string me along like that?

Now I thought about it, I had been strung along from the very beginning. ‘I always loved him.’ Those were her words, thrown in my face, and they were true. I knew she used to love this jerk, but I thought she hated him now. And I had hoped over time she would grow to love me. What a fool!

I felt a nudge on my shoulder. Rachel handed me a tumbler of neat whisky. She was holding a glass of red wine in her own hand. I took the whisky, unable even to acknowledge it, and drained it, handing the empty tumbler to Rachel. She brought it back a moment later.

She sat in a small upright chair in the corner, bottle of wine next to her, and watched me. I was suddenly very aware of her presence, but I couldn’t talk to her. I sat down in my own chair, leaned forward, and stared at the rug.

Who the hell was this guy, anyway? What did I know about him? He was an older man. He had known Karen for several years.

Bob Forrester! Maybe. Hadn’t that jerk Jack Tenko said that he had the hots for Karen? She’d been sucking up to him like crazy this last couple of months. How come I hadn’t seen it? And I had spoken to him myself, just a few hours before!

But if it was him, why was he so keen for me to return to London?

My brain functioned incoherently for a long time. The first flush of anger was dulled, but still there. My mind darted rapidly from scene to scene with Karen: dinners we had been to together, watching her flirt with a customer on the phone, seeing her face glowing in the Inch Tavern. All these images that I had held so fondly now were black-edged.

Rachel finally said something. ‘You should go to bed.’

I nodded, stood up, and stiffly made my way down the stairs. I turned at my door, smiled weakly at Rachel, and let myself in.

But I couldn’t sleep in that bed. I grabbed a blanket, and headed for the sofa upstairs.

Rachel and I flew back to Scotland in silence. Rachel let me think; I had a lot to think about.

I had lost Karen, although I wasn’t sure I had ever truly possessed her. I felt foolish, and I felt used. I also felt angry. My pride was hurt. What could she see in that big oaf Forrester? Or whoever it was. The more I thought about it, the more I realised it could be anybody.

But at the same time I was surprised to feel a sense of relief. Karen had never been easy to figure out. I had worked hard at the relationship, and although that had seemed worthwhile when things were going well, it was good not to have to worry about her any more. I had my own problems to think about.

I sat in my office and stared at the electronic sea. Richard’s death had sent me reeling. I wasn’t going to let Karen’s betrayal do the same thing. I felt at times like a tiny piece of driftwood, pushed this way and that by waves swirling round the rocks. Onada, Jenson, Hartman, Baker, Doogie. They were all messing me around, messing my company around. Someone, probably one of them, had threatened to kill me. It would only be a matter of time before they carried out that threat.

All I had been able to do until now was react to events.

That was going to change.

I told Rachel what I was going to do. She was enthusiastic.

First, I called Hartman. I arranged to meet him at his offices in New York on Thursday.

Then I called the SEC in Washington. I said I wanted to meet them to discuss information I had relating to insider trading in my company. They too agreed to meet me in New York.

Then Jenson Computer. Friday in Palo Alto.

Baker and Doogie I wasn’t sure about. I had better leave them to the police. And I should tell Kerr about Yoshi’s visit to the Inch Tavern. I was about to phone Sergeant Cochrane, when Susan told me that Detective Inspector Kerr was downstairs.

‘Send him up.’

Kerr looked tired and serious. He was trailed by a younger man in a smarter suit.

‘This is Detective Inspector Morland of Edinburgh CID.’

‘Afternoon, inspector. Would you like a cup of coffee?’ I asked. ‘You look like you need it.’

‘Aye, I do that,’ Kerr said. ‘White. Three sugars.’

Morland shook his head.

I slipped off to the machine and came back with two cups. ‘What can I do for you?’ I asked.

‘Doogie Fisher’s dead,’ Kerr said. ‘Murdered.’

‘What?’

‘He was found in his car at the bottom of a cliff. A walker spotted it at low tide. It looks like someone strangled him, and drove his body there to dispose of it.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Some time last night. He was last seen at eleven o’clock in a local pub with some friends. He said he was going off to meet someone. Apparently, he was looking forward to it.’

‘Do you have any idea who did it?’

Kerr sighed. ‘No. Not yet, at any rate. But Inspector Morland and his colleagues are working hard on it.’

‘Do you think there’s a link with Richard’s death?’

‘We don’t know yet. But it’s obviously worth checking. Doogie’s dog was shut in his bedroom, which suggests that he might have met someone in his flat, and then left. He may even have been killed there. So far we haven’t been able to find a note of any appointment. There’s nothing in his diary.’

‘No one saw anything?’

‘There are a lot of people wandering around that area of Edinburgh at night, and it’s quite a transient population. No one would think anything of seeing a stranger. We have vague descriptions of about six different people from a girl of fifteen to a man of fifty-five. Oh yes, and a young man of about thirty, tall with dark hair.’

‘Oh, I see. That’s why you want to talk to me?’

Morland cleared his throat. He had listened disapprovingly as Kerr had rattled on. To him, at least, I was a suspect.

‘Where were you last night, sir?’

I winced as I remembered. Creeping into my own bedroom, to find my girlfriend’s underwear all over the floor.

‘I was at my house in London. I flew back up to Edinburgh this morning. Hang on, I’ve probably still got my boarding card.’ I fished it out of my pocket, and showed it to Morland, who peered at it closely.

‘Thank you, sir. Do you have any witnesses we can talk to, just to confirm that?’

‘Yes. Rachel Walker was there. And so was my ex-girlfriend, Karen Chilcott.’ Kerr raised his eyebrows at this. ‘Inspector Kerr has already met her.’

Kerr nodded to Morland.

‘Have you any idea why Doogie Fisher was killed?’ Morland asked.

I shook my head and glanced at Kerr. ‘No, none. No more than Inspector Kerr and I have discussed. Wait a moment.’ I dug out the printout of the e-mail BOWL had sent me the day after the break-in. ‘Have you seen this?’ Morland nodded. I had sent a copy to Kerr. ‘By the way, did you get round to charging him with that burglary?’

‘No,’ said Kerr. ‘There wasn’t enough evidence. But frankly we were more interested in linking him to your brother’s murder.’

‘He could still have done it,’ I said.

Kerr scratched his ravaged nose again. ‘Maybe. Maybe not. You have no idea what he’s referring to here?’ he asked, looking at the e-mail.

‘No, none. Although by the sound of it, it’s pretty damaging to FairSystems.’

‘Well, whatever it is, it must be important. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Doogie was murdered for possessing it. We still don’t know why your brother was killed. But we think his killer was someone he knew. Perhaps your brother had the same information as Doogie. Perhaps he was murdered by the same person.’

It sounded possible. Plausible.

‘There is something else I should tell you,’ I said, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable.

I pulled the photograph out of a drawer. ‘This is a picture of Yoshiki Ishida. He works for Onada Industries, the Japanese company that recruited David Baker to help them take over FairSystems. The regulars at the Inch Tavern identified Yoshi as the Hiro Suzuki you have been looking for.’

Kerr grabbed the photograph. ‘How long have you had this picture?’

‘About a week.’ I could feel my face reddening.

‘And why didn’t you show it to us earlier?’

‘I wanted to show it to Yoshi myself. He says he was just up for the weekend to play golf. I think there’s more to it than that.’ I couldn’t have given it to them earlier. Their questioning of Yoshi might have endangered our negotiations. That was something I couldn’t risk.

Kerr was angry. ‘Listen, sonny. When you get information like this, you tell us right away, OK? We’ll ask the questions.’

I held up my hands. ‘OK, OK. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.’

Kerr got up to go, taking the photograph with him. ‘Someone killed Richard and Doogie because they got in his way. It seems to me you’re getting in a few people’s way, yourself. So you’d better take this seriously.’

‘I will,’ I said.

As the two policemen reached the door, I called after them. ‘Have you spoken to David Baker about Doogie?’

Kerr turned and scowled. ‘He’s legged it. He had a row with his wife and left home two days ago. We don’t know where he is. But we’ll find him.’

We were crushed into the metal box twenty feet underground with at least a hundred other human beings. It was rush hour. Rachel and I had arrived in New York the night before. Our plane had been four hours late, so we had checked into an airport hotel. We took the subway into the city to save on expenses.

There was silence in the carriage as it lurched along. My head was jammed six inches away from a banker who had eaten something very spicy the night before. The air-conditioning was fighting a losing battle with the heat; it was boiling in there. Even in my lightest summer suit, I was sweating hard. Rachel stood about a yard away from me. She was looking good in a tight black top and trousers. No bra. Her summer clothes, I supposed. I hoped Hartman would appreciate them.

Her eyebrows suddenly shot up, and she reached down behind her. ‘Excuse me!’ she said in her loud, clear Scottish accent. The press of people drew away from her. Oh oh, another weirdo. ‘Excuse me! Does this belong to anyone? I found it on my backside!’

She held up a hand. The hand was attached to a besuited arm, which was in turn attached to a small man with glasses, a
Wall Street Journal
and a briefcase. He looked like he wanted nothing to do with the offending item.

‘Ah, it’s yours sir. Please keep it in your own pockets in future. It will do less damage there.’

The man went bright red, and everyone in the subway car cracked up. He scurried off at the next stop.

Hartman’s offices were in a nondescript tower block near the Rockerfeller Center. He had one floor, the twenty-sixth. The name on the door was Hartman Capital.

We waited in reception, watched over by an elegantly dressed black woman. On one side was a door labelled ‘Hartman Capital Employees Only’. People scurried in and out. As the doors swung open we could catch a glimpse of a small trading room, maybe twenty desks. But just a glimpse.

After twenty minutes a man in his mid-forties thrust his way through the doors. He was tall and spare, balding, with what remained of his hair close-cropped. He walked straight up to us, and, ignoring introductions, said, ‘Come through.’

He took us through the door opposite the trading room, into a small conference room with a view of the flanks of the next-door skyscraper.

‘Sit,’ he said, gesturing to some chairs. He walked round to the other side of the table, pulled a chair back, and sat with an ankle crossed over his knee. He stared at us through black framed glasses, the pyramid he made of his fingers tapping his chin. In most people this might appear a relaxed pose, but not in Hartman. He was listening, hard.

There was silence for a moment. ‘You wanted to see me. I only have ten minutes, so you had better get to the point.’

I did. ‘Mr Hartman, I know you have a stake in my company.’

‘Hartman Capital has a small stake in FairSystems, yes. One point two per cent, I believe.’

‘We think that when you add in the stake of companies associated with you, your stake becomes much larger.’

Hartman’s brows narrowed slightly. ‘My other financial interests are none of your concern, Mr Fairfax.’

‘They are when in total they own a big chunk of my company.’

Hartman just snorted. I waited, hoping to lure him into saying something. But he waited too. He wasn’t going to say anything.

‘I know that you, through your various investment interests, voted against me at the recent Extraordinary General Meeting. What I want to know is, what are you doing with my company?’