The tape ran silently. Rita Geddes said, ‘If it concerns Wendy and Mo, I don’t mind staying.’
‘It does,’ said Sir Robert. ‘Miss Geddes.’ The tape emitted sounds of chairs moving. In front of me, Mo Morgan gave no sign he was listening. The tape continued with a sharp, stuttering sound, as if a coin had been dropped on the table. I looked at it quickly. Sir Robert resumed, still speaking crisply and pleasantly. He said, ‘Do you know what that is? It’s a listening device. I found it here, in this room. Did you arrange to have it installed?’
‘Hardly,’ said Roland Reed. ‘We have reasonably good memories, Sir Robert.’
‘I will take your word for it,’ Sir Robert said. ‘It is of no material interest, as I found it before the meeting began. I use a scanner, as I expect you both do, as a matter of course. I would have mentioned it before, except that it opens a wider matter, the matter of business ethics. As you know,’ Sir Robert said, ‘there exists, as there should, a recognised code of ethical practice. Where it is breached, it is difficult for two companies to continue doing business together. Where it is seriously breached, it is a matter for the courts. On the other hand, an individual case of malpractice or personal misconduct might not be the fault of the employing company. It might indeed be grateful to have the offence drawn to its notice. We, Kingsley’s and MCG, have not been free of this blight during our recent exchanges.’
‘You suspect Wendy and Mo,’ said Rita’s voice. It was, as ever, helpful.
‘On the contrary,’ Sir Robert said. ‘I have asked them to leave because I think they are in danger of becoming the innocent victims of other people. The bug in this room is not the first example of espionage in our dealings with one another. You say you are not responsible for this: neither, patently, am I. It is worth, I think, devoting a moment to think who might be so interested in the affairs of our two companies.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Roland Reed. ‘I don’t see the need. If there are internal or external problems of spying or sabotage, we should expect to deal with them ourselves. And you and we no longer have meetings to safeguard.’
‘Perhaps not with each other,’ said the Chairman. ‘But what future meetings with others may not be endangered? And here is a chance to exchange notes. Today, for example. Is there anyone we know who has been in Asni before, and could have suborned a member of staff – it would require as much – to put this in place? Mr. Johnson, I believe, but we know he will receive a full oral report from yourselves. Mr. Oppenheim, I am told; but he is a friend of Mr. Johnson and the same may apply. What about Mr. Pymm? He is a journalist with an interest in financial and international affairs: does he also undertake private investigative commissions? Mr. Johnson had his suspicions at Essaouira.’
‘Sir Robert,’ said Rita Geddes, ‘if you want to know who’s behind Mr. Pymm, you’re going to have to find it out for yourself. I wouldn’t tell you if I could. Anything else?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sir Robert, ‘that you feel like that. You might remember that the valiant Miss Helmann was kidnapped, it seems, for the information she possessed and which she still possesses. To find the spy would at least ensure her safety.’
‘Send her home,’ Rita said. ‘She’ll be safe in a week, the rate your figures change. We really have to be going.’
‘Then,’ said Sir Robert, ‘let us move immediately from the question of outside espionage to something closer to the matter of ethics we were speaking about.’
He paused only, it seemed, to draw breath, but both Reed and Miss Geddes spoke together. Reed won. He said, ‘On the other hand, Sir Robert, let us not. Mudraking is not of great interest to either of us. Is this your only reason for keeping us?’
‘No,’ said Sir Robert. From that single soft word, I knew he was about to bring out his cannon. I found I was shivering with a kind of fearful excitement. I knew, from the changing sounds of the tape that he had risen, as he often did at such a point, and had walked a little distance away. His voice was still clear, though fainter. I could see him at the end of the table, a wrist perhaps laid on a chairback. In the same gentle way he repeated, ‘No. I should have preferred to place my reasoned explanation before you, but you force me to be blunt. You have told me you don’t wish to become part of my firm. You are not convinced by the data with which I have provided you. You have finished by saying, as if it ended the matter, that MCG do not intend to sell to Kingsley Conglomerates.
‘I am not sorry. I rather expected it. But of course, that is only the preliminary. You may not yourselves wish to sell, but very shortly you will find that your shareholders are eager to do so. I and my Board will take pleasure in submitting to them by mail a statement of the true position of the company in which their money is invested, and the personal qualities of its Board and some of its preferential shareholders. I felt I should properly inform you of this before you departed. I felt you should have an opportunity, both of you, to make some comment. Perhaps you wish to make none.’
Roland Reed answered. He said, ‘This is linked to your sermon on ethics, I gather?’
‘Does that amaze you?’ said Sir Robert. ‘Considering what is now known, for example, of your Mr. Johnson? Mr. Johnson was, I understand, a major source of finance behind your unquoted firm. As it progressed to the market, he diminished his shareholding so that you, Miss Geddes, and you, Mr. Reed should, with others move towards major control. This you have done. He did, however, keep a considerable interest, although none of it in his own name. He obtained a commission to paint me, therefore, in the full knowledge that a dialogue was taking place between MCG and my firm, but said nothing of it. It is, of course, quite apparent why.’
Roland Reed said, ‘Johnson paints tycoons all over the world. Do you think they ask to see his portfolio?’
‘Perhaps they should,’ said Sir Robert. ‘Few people have quite such privileged access to boardrooms as he has. Through his proximity to me, he obtained unlawful sight, on his own admission, of secret company documents in Miss Helmann’s possession. He has also applauded, I gather, the misguided attempt by Mr. Oppenheim to seduce our Mr. Morgan. Perhaps he abetted it. The loss of Mr. Morgan would, of course, affect the negotiation between MCG and my firm. Mr. Johnson may even have instigated an explosion at my London office, which enabled sensitive papers to be located and read. . .’
‘Did he?’ said Mo Morgan’s actual voice from the front of the car. Rita stopped the tape. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Or that’s what he said. Wendy heard him. No hand in the explosion, the killing, the kidnapping, but a lot of busybody stuff about papers. Did he ask you to give some thought, Mo, to the Kingsley figures produced at the meeting?’
The car rumbled on, passing lorries and donkeys and children. Morgan said, ‘During the night in my room. Yes, he did.’
‘I thought he might. Can we go on?’ said Rita. And she pressed the button, as if everything necessary had been said.
‘And then,’ said Sir Robert’s voice, in its own extinct context, untouched by what we were saying, ‘And then there is Mr. Johnson’s other, proved crime: that of perverting royal Moroccan justice by stowing a consignment of dangerous drugs where Colonel Sullivan would be blamed. That can be proved and, now there remains no need for secrecy, I shall see that it is. I have also to assume, and shall tell the Sûreté, that the drugs came from Mr. Johnson’s own stock in the yacht Dolly. That he is, in fact, a drug trafficker.’
‘That is not true,’ said Roland Reed to Sir Robert. In the car, Morgan didn’t speak, and neither did I.
‘No?’ said Sir Robert’s voice on the tape. ‘I understand that it has been proved that drugs of that exact nature have been stored aboard within the last thirty-six hours. Forensic science is very precise in these matters.’
‘He doesn’t deny it,’ said Reed. ‘They were on his yacht. But he didn’t put them there.’
‘I am sure he says so,’ said Sir Robert. ‘I am sure you believe him when he tells you that he is not a drug user. I gather there are those in Essouira and
Marrakesh last night who might disagree. I shall always regret that I was stupid enough to be deceived by this man. For his rescue of my unfortunate Miss Helmann at Essaouira I am, of course grateful, although one can remember better and more intelligent secretaries. The rest of his activities I should indeed prefer to have been spared. What must concern you,’ said the even, resonant voice, ‘is that Mr. Johnson has, although he has not hitherto proclaimed it, the strongest possible link with the MCG company. That he is and has always been your strongest backer, your ally and your personal, I shall not say intimate friend. Do you think your shareholders will see this as the mark of a responsible management?’
‘Bullshit,’ said the unemotional voice of Rita Geddes. ‘The drugs charge won’t stick. Dolly was swept when she arrived. Your precious Sullivan’s had no more than a fright – routine police work will cancel the charges. The rest is fantasy. Nothing connects JJ to the bomb in your office. It was more likely to be Pymm, or even your freelancing Sullivan. Tell my shareholders that, and you’ll bore them to death or worse, they’ll all want to sit for their pictures.’
‘And Mr. Johnson’s own confession?’ said Sir Robert.
Rita Geddes sounded no more disturbed than before. ‘He got hold of some figures. You paid Seb Sullivan to do the same if he could. You expose JJ, and we expose Seb and Gerry. Today’s scene would make a great story.’
There was a brief silence. Then again, the tape recorded the sound of Sir Robert’s tread as he returned to his place and sat down. His voice, rebuking now, said, ‘And you are prepared to drag Mr. Johnson through all that, rather than allow me a quiet takeover? Well, perhaps you are right. But what about yourself, Miss Geddes?’
The tape ran silently for a moment. I tore my eyes away from the spools. In front, Morgan was driving mechanically, his chin on his chest. Beside me, Rita Geddes didn’t seem to be listening at all. Her eyes, seeing or unseeing, were on the landscape outside, and her face showed an expression I’d rather not have caught. Her voice said from the machine, ‘You mean the time I took up professional bonking? That was just a young girl’s cry for attention.’ Her voice, on the tape, was flatly caustic. Beside me, her face didn’t change.
‘I mean,’ said Sir Robert, ‘the kind of life indicated by these photographs. Where was that taken, for example? Ah, Madeira, I think I was told. And another. And another, over the shoulder, I do believe, of a particularly notorious photographer. We have more. We even have some of your Mr. Johnson.’
There was a space. Then Reed’s voice said, ‘How particularly nasty. Who took these? Sullivan, I suppose.’
‘He was at Essaouira,’ said Sir Robert’s voice placidly. ‘The half-naked lady, I gather, is Mrs. Daniel Oppenheim. The yacht, as can be seen, is the Dolly. And there, of course, is the latest.’
There was another brief silence. Then Roland Reed’s voice said, ‘And how do you justify that?’
‘You don’t find it attractive?’ said Sir Robert.
Reed said, ‘Johnson helped Wendy escape from Essaouira. Without him, brave as she was, she might have been forced to speak; to damage you and your firm. And this is their reward?’
‘She has quite passable legs,’ Sir Robert said. ‘On a machine of that power, her arms embracing your drug-sodden friend Mr. Johnson, I thought she looked almost fetching. Repressed, of course, and eager for sexual favours, but not normally promiscuous. One must blame Mr. Johnson, not Wendy.’
The tape went quiet. I thought Miss Geddes had switched it off, and then realised that it was the silence in the meeting room that I was hearing. Roland Reed said, without haste, ‘I find what you have said to be singularly offensive. As to your threat, I cannot believe you expect either of us to entertain it for a moment.’
‘Threat?’ Sir Robert said. ‘It’s not a threat, my dear fellow, it’s a promise. If you force me to do so, I’ll publish. I’ll send copies of these and every other photograph, every other gossip item I can find to news agencies on both continents and to all your shareholders. You and your Board will be forced to resign, and your investors will be thankful to welcome us. So what is your answer?’
Mo Morgan said, ‘Turn it off.’
Rita Geddes was looking at me.
Morgan said, again, with passion, ‘Turn it off.’
‘Will I?’ said Rita Geddes.
I said, ‘No.’ I wanted it over. I’d rather suffer it now, and not in instalments. I watched her press the button again, and the tape resumed, with her own voice making its answer. It sounded forthright, and Scottish, and grim.
She said, ‘I don’t know how you ever ran a company, and you such a poor judge of people. My answer is, of course, go ahead: publish. We have more friends than you think, and I’d pay a bigger price than my privacy to see you and your company off. You’ve shown us we’re right to give you the boot. You’ve shown us that Kingsley’s is garbage.’
‘I see,’ said Sir Robert. ‘Mr. Reed, I know you comprehend what I have said.’
‘You think Rita doesn’t?’ Reed said. ‘And I understand now why you sent these two decent people away. There is, I think, nothing more to discuss. I trust we shall not meet again.’
The tape gave back the screech of two chairs. Sir Robert said, ‘And that is your final conclusion? You will forgive me for saying that I think you have been unwise to the point of real folly. It is your unfortunate shareholders who will suffer.’
‘I think,’ said Rita Geddes, ‘that they will prefer our folly to your ethics, Sir Robert. Goodbye.’
The door opened and shut. There was no conversation, but I thought I heard Roland Reed cursing under his breath. Listening hard, you could hear feet treading lightly on carpet: running even. The sound of one pair receded. The other went on. The tape was jerking in rhythm. The feet stopped. The voice of Rita Geddes said, as it had had said by my chair in real life, ‘That’s a really nice fellow. You tell him. Here. You forgot your dispatch-case.’
Sitting beside me, the same Rita Geddes didn’t speak. As prosaically as she had turned it on, she switched off the tape, returned the machine to its case and sat back, her rings all interlaced, saying nothing. I looked out of the window. I thought if she touched me, I’d slap her. But she kept as still as if she were sleeping.
After a long time, Morgan said, ‘The fucking bastard.’
She didn’t reply. Then she said, ‘He can throw a boar-spear.’
‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ Mo Morgan said.
She looked at him through the mirror, and waited until his eyes turned to hers. She said, ‘Then you haven’t seen real villainy, Mo. It stinks. I can smell it. So could Johnson, as far back as London. Robert Kingsley is nothing.’
And then the tears started to come, but I stopped them.
Lured by a lump of sugar, Morgan and I had been to the Ritas’ house in Marrakesh once before. It looked the same now, in late afternoon sunlight, except that the door in the wall was ajar. Across the patio, leaning against one of the pillars was the Harley-Davidson. Reed had arrived; we were expected; but there was no one about. Rita herself didn’t call up as Rolly had done. She simply led the way past the fountain towards a different door and ran up a flight of tiled stairs, while we followed her.
The only discussion we’d had, after hearing the tape, had been about where to go. They wouldn’t let me return to the Golden Sahara or to Morgan’s hotel. I didn’t want to face my mother anyway. I didn’t care where I went, but I listened to what Morgan said. I found I was tired. Morgan parked in the Place Jemaa-el-Fna, which was full of late afternoon tourists. Two water-carriers stood in our way as we began to cross the square, and Morgan automatically searched in his pockets. He dropped the coins in their cups without speaking. None of us wanted to speak.
Another time, I suppose, I would have joined an umbrella party and gone to witness the snake-charmer, the sword-swallower, the acrobats and the storyteller; the man with the monkeys; the man who sold potions to cure coughs, or love. I walked across the most excitin
g square in Morocco and saw nothing, because of the voices speaking inside my head. I followed Rita Geddes and Morgan up the tiled stairs in the same way.
At the top stood Roland Reed. His expression eased, when he saw Morgan and me. But his eyes were mainly on Rita, and seemed to be passing a warning. Then he said, ‘We have company, but Johnson thought you should all come in anyway.’ He opened the door of a sitting-room. Standing inside, still wearing his Palace clothes, was Johnson Johnson. Beside him was Sir Robert’s wife Charity.
She was kitted out for riding, in jodhpurs and shirt, a kerchief tied round her elegant neck, her well-cut greying hair ruffled. Her large, light eyes turned to us were unsurprised. Perhaps she thought we dressed like this regularly. She said, ‘I know Miss Helmann, of course, and Mr. Morgan. You must be Miss Geddes.’
‘Rita – Lady Kingsley,’ said Johnson. The last time I’d seen him he’d been propped up in Morgan’s old sweater, drying out from something other than water. I hardly remembered it now. He was a voice, like a voice on a tape, played in the presence of actual catastrophe. If Sir Robert thought the way he did, what was I to Charity Kingsley?
‘I wanted to meet you all,’ said Lady Kingsley. ‘I captured Mr. Johnson at the Palace and made him bring me back and show me the film clips. You have extraordinary talent, all of you.’ It was her usual, rather grotesque social manner. She seemed to be sincere.
‘We’ve spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen,’ Johnson said. ‘Raiding Rita’s refrigerator and gossiping with all the boys and the grips. Lady Kingsley didn’t know about Miss Helmann’s bad time at Essaouira. I told her we thought it safer if Miss H. went to ground for a bit. She’s sworn not to tell where she is.’
As he spoke, Charity wandered over the room and seated herself in one of the armchairs. ‘He’s been trying, politely, to get me to leave ever since. Come in,’ she said. ‘I shan’t tell Sir Robert where you are, if you really insist. Miss Geddes is the wonderful cook?’