As Popsie Trudeaux drove home in her Mercedes 55 AMG she had mixed feelings. Strictly speaking, she wasn’t driving home in a 55 AMG, although the car carried those numbers and letters on its rear. Actually it was a standard model costing about a hundred thousand dollars less. It hadn’t been easy acquiring those badges either. The dealer had been outraged when she’d offered to buy them. ‘We sell cars, madam, not badges.’ So she told him to fuck off and found someone who could get them for a couple of hundred, God knows where from. Just because Angus couldn’t even bring home the bacon like he used to didn’t mean the whole world needed to know. But that wasn’t the cause of her mixed feelings. She’d managed to seat herself next to Mac, which was a plus, but despite her ample charms being on full display and all kinds of electrical impulses being directed his way, there’d not been a flicker of response. It was enormously frustrating. To be so close to a man like that, so rich, so well known for screwing around, so much the star of the night, and not even to score a lunch date or a leg tremble. Nothing. She’d ring her doctor first thing in the morning.
Certainly more Botox was required, perhaps something more radical, although her tits were perfect. Maybe the bottom. He was probably a bum man, that was it. Although she’d been sitting down all night. Certainly a new wardrobe. Angus would just have to pull his weight for once.
chapter eight
Jack parked his car two streets from Hedley Stimson’s house, as instructed, and walked through the piles of wet leaves left unraked from last autumn on the footpath under the arch of a liquidamber. It was drizzling lightly and he had no coat or umbrella. He shivered as he walked, whether from the chill or in nervous anticipation of the clandestine meeting he wasn’t sure. It was probably all a mistake. Sure, it looked like Mac was creaming off millions of dollars of HOA profits for his own personal gain, or at the very least failing to report benefits in filed documents. But what business was it of his? Why not let the auditors and the lawyers sort it out?
As for the big issue, well, he was no closer to pinning that down. HOA was reporting record profits, had just issued a market guidance-despite his objections-to the effect that it expected a substantial increase above expectations. His objections had been swept away in a landslide of factual argument from Renton Healey, Mac, the auditors, the actuaries-in fact everyone but the chairman. Sir Laurence had stated his position in a terse telephone conversation that added little to the knowledge bank and nothing to global warming.
‘It is not appropriate for a non-executive chairman to become involved in a discussion of this nature. It is a matter for the executive team, in conjunction with the auditors, to make a recommendation to the board. Please advise me when you are in a position to do so.’
And the recommendation had finally progressed, under Jack’s signature as CEO. Substantial releases from reserves due to favourable underwriting conditions, together with certain one-off gains, led the company to advise an upgrade in its full year outlook. The share price had reacted immediately. Not only was the slump arrested, but the shares had added three per cent in a week and were still rising. All under his name, with his brilliant salesmanship.
As he approached the lichgate that opened into the garden of the rambling federation house, he could hear the whirr of machinery and the scream of metal on wood emanating from the workshop at the rear of the house, hidden away in a grove of birches, and he could just make out the shape of a man’s head bent over in the lighted window. He knocked on the wooden door and the whirring stopped immediately.
When they were seated by the potbelly stove with mugs of tea, and Hedley Stimson was holding forth on the intricacies of lathe work and its contribution to the welfare of mankind, Jack relaxed, forgot about the documents in the briefcase alongside him and examined the studio in detail. It was one large room, roughly built with exposed beams in a vaulted roof where the corrugated iron sheeting was visible, a concrete floor obscured by a coating of sawdust and curled wood shavings. There was a long bench by the only window, with vices and a lathe set in, and a wall of tools meticulously arranged by size and use-chisels of every gradation and type, saw blades, routers, hammers and other tools of less obvious application, at least to Jack’s untrained eye. As the gravelly voice warmed to its passion, Jack felt, after a couple of sessions like this, his expertise on woodworking matters, if not on the legal implications of potential HOA misdemeanours, would be complete.
‘But I can see I may be boring you, Mr Beaumont. Wood-turning and its subtleties are not to everyone’s taste. More’s the pity.’ He placed his heavy mug on the floor beside the chair and its base and half the sides disappeared into the layer of sawdust. ‘It’s a lovely, quiet night for anything, Sunday night. Walk around the streets and you’ll barely hear a sound. Just the flicker of light from the great god in the living room as you pass each house. The churches are empty and we’re all crouched low before the god of light. Football, then the movies-a perfect Sunday. What more could you seek as the rockbed of true belief?’
‘You’re crouched low in front of a workbench.’
‘Not at all, Mr Beaumont. I am uplifted by the joyful experience of releasing useful creations from the fibre of God’s work. Under my hands a tree becomes a chair, a table, a rocking horse for my grandchildren. You see the difference?’
‘Do you have grandchildren?’ It was very quiet in the studio, apart from a faint hissing from the potbelly stove as the thick offcuts slowly turned to ash. The old lawyer spoke without looking up. ‘My only son died a long time ago.’
Somehow Jack knew he’d touched an undressed wound, but he asked the question anyway: ‘How did he die?’
Now the hooded eyes were raised to him and the big hands lifted slowly and began to circle as if to tell the story, but then fell back on the arms of the chair. When the voice finally came it was flat, empty.
‘He was only ten. Perfectly healthy. Bright little fellow. Short for his age-I don’t think he would ever have been a big chap-but full of courage. On the rugby field he’d tackle anyone, didn’t matter what size they were, and bounce up like a rubber ball just when you thought he had to be injured. Great little half-back, quick hands, clever with the play. I used to love watching him.’ He paused and looked away to the window where there was nothing to see. ‘I was in court. They handed me a note. By the time I got there he was gone. Just like that. Overwhelming virus of the heart. A virus-and gone.’
He continued to stare through the window into the night garden. ‘Have you ever been to a child’s funeral, Mr Beaumont? The coffin is white, for some reason. It looks like it’s made out of cardboard. Incredibly small and fragile-like a child’s life. That alone is enough to break your heart.’
Jack heard the tremor in his own voice as he spoke. ‘Did you never want to have more children?’
The square face swung to him and the eyes stared fiercely into Jack’s. ‘As you will certainly discover in the coming weeks, what you want and what you receive in this life are frequently worlds apart. Now, we’re not here to discuss the history of the Stimson family, so let’s get on.’
It was difficult to get on, Jack felt. He handed across the file of documents and waited, not speaking, for ten minutes or more as each was read carefully and placed aside, in order, on the floor. When the last document had landed in a puff of sawdust, the grilling began. There was anger in the questioning and heavy sarcasm, rather than irony, in the commentary.
‘This is flim-flam, card houses, walls made from woodchip, not a solid beam anywhere. Look at this reinsurance contract that you opine, in your ultimate wisdom, may breach some regulation, law, you know not what. Which clause in its labyrinthine depths do you wish to direct my attention to? Which specific aspect of its cover proves your case?’
Jack stood. ‘I don’t know. The Pope said it’s a financial reinsurance contract that probably doesn’t have any real transfer of risk involved.’
‘Probably? The Pope? You are communicating with God’s representative in Rome?’
‘Clinton Normile-we call him the Pope. I thought you knew him.’
‘Yes, I know Mr Normile, but not by any ecclesiastical appellation. You can tell Mr Normile that in these matters his infallibility is not accepted. Probably cuts no mustard in this room, Mr Beaumont. If there is no transfer of risk, there must be some accompanying document. Find it, or forget it.’
And so it went. The contents of the file were metaphorically shredded one by one. At the end, Jack felt his ego lay with them. But the hammering continued.
‘And here we have your suggested list of experts. Some of whom are worthy of their title. But this woman
