Black Cathedral

‘So Jane Talbot’s agreed to take the assignment,’ she said in a clipped Boston accent. Her U.S. education had been of the highest quality. Everything her billionaire father could afford.

‘Yes.’ Crozier shifted in his seat, slightly uncomfortable to be seated on the wrong side of the desk in an unfamiliar office. He crossed his legs and then uncrossed them, unable to settle.

Jessica Anderson smiled with satisfaction. ‘Good, that’s good. And Robert Carter?’

‘Jane is going to see him this morning, to persuade him.’

The smile slipped from her face and a concerned frown creased her brow. ‘Yes, good. But will she be successful? I thought you said the Minister would only go ahead with the investigation if Carter’s part of the team.’ Her anxiousness was part of her youthful inexperience but also intrigued Crozier. Why was Carter so important to these American businesspeople? And to the Minister?

Crozier sighed. ‘He wants Carter as part of the team, but I’m sure his position is flexible. He wants an answer to this mystery, as we all do. And, as I’ve told you before, Jane Talbot is the best investigator we have. She’s more than capable of running this assignment. I would have thought that, from your point of view, you need to get this matter sorted out, by what ever means.’ He hadn’t been entirely honest with Jane. Sometimes he wondered if he had forever lost the capacity to be honest with anyone, even himself. The Minister had insisted Carter be part of the team for Kulsay, but he had hinted his hands were being twisted somewhat. Putting everything together in his mind, Crozier had concluded the Andersons were pulling the strings.

‘We do, but we’d also prefer to have Robert Carter on the team. My people put together a dossier on him.’ She tapped the gray folder on the desk in front of her with a perfectly manicured index finger. ‘He really is a remarkable man.’

‘He’s also stubborn, cantankerous and a bloody nuisance,’ Crozier said, a cold smile playing on his lips.

‘You don’t like him, do you, Simon?’ Jessica wasn’t smiling at all.

‘My personal feelings are neither here nor there. Though I’ll admit I don’t much care for his methods. He’s a maverick; insubordinate and reckless. The fiasco that led to Sian Davies’s disappearance was down to him. If he’d followed proper procedure it might never have happened. At least he had the good grace to resign over it.’

‘Resignation would have been good for you, maybe, but for the Department?’ She skewered him with a look. ‘That’s if it had been a resignation. My dossier suggests suspension…’

Crozier shifted in his seat again. ‘The Department can manage without him. John McKinley’s taken over many of Carter’s cases, and made significant progress. He’s really very good. All he needs is a chance to flex his muscles.’

She opened the gray folder and flicked through a few pages, ignoring Crozier for a moment. Finally she said, ‘You may not like Robert Carter’s methods, Simon, but he does get results, which is why we want him on Kulsay.’ Was that an admission? Crozier wondered. Is she going to reveal what’s behind this interest in Carter?

‘You should read McKinley’s file. It’s just as impressive as Carter’s.’ He continued to prod and probe.

‘I’ve read it and I agree, but that’s not the point. We want Carter. Do you think Talbot will be able to persuade him?’

Crozier shrugged. ‘I really can’t say. But if she can’t, given their history, then no one can.’

Jessica Anderson smiled. ‘I see. They have a history. It’s always useful to be aware of these things.’ She snapped the file shut. There was nothing in the dossier she had been shown that mentioned a romance between Talbot and Carter. ‘When will you know?’

‘Jane has promised to call me after their meeting. I’ll let you know then.’

‘Then I’ll wait to hear from you.’ The meeting was over.

Once outside in the street Simon Crozier took a deep lungful of London air. The night was humid. Along Regent Street cars were bumper to bumper, their exhausts blowing out clouds of pollution that gathered in a haze above the city. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow, then waved the handkerchief in the air to hail a taxi. ‘Beaumont Place,’ he said to the driver, took a seat in the back of the cab and opened his briefcase. For the duration of the fifteen-minute ride back to his apartment he read through Martin Impey’s file on Jessica Anderson and the KDC, refamiliarizing himself with the details.

Jessica Anderson seemed to be a very sharp, very confident businesswoman, a woman who appeared to know her own mind and had a very clear idea of what she wanted out of life and what she expected others to provide; but when he dug a little deeper into the file a wider picture of the dynamic within the KDC and within Jessica’s family itself began to emerge.

The money behind the KDC came from Jessica’s father, the financier Carl Anderson. Anderson owned large swathes of land in North America, but had made his fortune as a venture capitalist, financing various companies and creaming off the profits. He was a major player on the New York Stock Exchange, and it was obvious he was grooming his daughter to follow in his footsteps. As far as Crozier could see the KDC was the first of his projects in which Jessica had been involved. Her father had given her sufficient leeway and let her develop it, making her the company’s figurehead, but so far it had been a financial and PR disaster.

Anderson had a reputation for being a ruthless operator, and Crozier couldn’t imagine him letting the Kulsay situation drift for long before instigating some kind of damage limitation plan. He wouldn’t let his family name and his own reputation be tarnished, and if that meant relieving Jessica of her position as CEO, Crozier was in no doubt the man would do it. So Jessica was a woman with a lot to prove and Crozier didn’t envy her.

Which still didn’t explain the interest in Carter, and the insistence on his involvement.

As the taxi pulled up outside the apartment block in Beaumont Place, Crozier snapped the file shut and slipped it back into his briefcase. He paid the cabbie and let himself into the block, taking the elevator up to the fourth floor where his apartment was situated. With its view over the Thames and desirable postcode, the apartment cost him a small fortune each month, but he wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else. He opened the door onto the balcony and looked out over the water. There were cars on the nearby Tower Bridge, nose to tail, making snail-like progress across the river. A pleasure boat, lit up like a Christmas tree, was meandering its way west, music from an onboard disco wafting up to him on a thermal of torpid air. Further down the river a police launch was cruising past a line of houseboats, a regular patrol to reassure the boats’ inhabitants.

He went back inside and poured himself a large brandy and brought it back to the balcony. He slumped down on a steel-mesh chair and lifted his feet onto the balcony railing. As he took his first sip of Courvoisier the telephone rang.

‘Crozier,’ he said. He hoped it might be one of his regular companions, inviting him out for dinner and afterwards some mutually pleasurable entertainment.

‘Simon? It’s Jane.’ The female voice quashed his rising anticipation.

‘Jane,’ he said, trying to keep the surprise and disappointment out of his voice. She’d never called him at home before. ‘What can I do for you?’ Surely she hadn’t contacted Carter already.

There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Finally she said, ‘I’m very drunk.’

‘That’s nice. Celebrating?’ He looked at his watch. Once this conversation was dealt with he’d call a friend and make the arrangements for the night.

Another pause.

‘Celebrating.…yes…We didn’t, you know…Rob and me…we didn’t…the affair was not like…’

‘Jane, is everything all right?’ Despite his instinct to stay detached he was concerned about such an important person in the Department acting in this way.

‘I know you think we did…everyone thinks we did…but we didn’t.’ Her voice was clear, though palpably slurred.

‘If you say so.’ He knew from CCTV footage he had been secretly shown how far Carter and Talbot had or had not proceeded in the denied affair.

‘David’s gone…left me.’ The sound of liquid being poured into a glass accompanied these words.

A flicker of hope toyed with his thoughts. A fully concentrated Jane Talbot would be a major coup in obtaining ongoing funding. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do?’ He glanced at his watch.

He thought he heard a sob on the other end of the line but the mouthpiece was hurriedly covered.

‘Jane?’ An unfamiliar feeling of genuine concern had permeated his emotions. He was never any good with weeping women. Never any good with women at all in all honesty, which is why he preferred the company of men