buy or trade at supply costs like that: no bona fide business would accept supply costs like that. But Mulder, Encomp and Innsflow do…’
‘Buy for cents – fractions of cents – and pad it up into dollars and then tens of dollars and then hundreds of dollars, all the way along the chain,’ accepted Carver. ‘They boost true costs of say ten thousand dollars up to an inflated hundred thousand, pay forty thousand in tax…’
‘And they’ve laundered fifty thousand dollars worth of dirty money,’ completed Alice. ‘Multiply that by the number of subsidiaries throughout every state in this country and all the international locations – just those that we know about, by the way – and you’ve got your billions.’
‘Or more,’ agreed Carver, reflectively. Until that moment he’d had no conception of how big, almost literally how cosmic, the operation was.
‘You think George devised the whole thing?’
Carver decided against a third Martini. ‘He said it had taken a long time to set up. But although it’s simple, like you said, no one man could operate and control such a system. And there are different tax laws in different countries.’
‘It wouldn’t take many,’ suggested Alice. ‘Remember it’s basically done in-house, by their own accountants. They only need to go outside for the legally required independent audits, to keep the wheels moving. And those wheels move damned fast. The subsidiaries never deal with each other within the states in which they’re established. They’re spread – oh so very cleverly spread – throughout the regional centres, none impacting in such a way to enable cross-referencing. So no one local tax authority sees a return that can be compared to show how the costs are being inflated with dirty money.’
Carver snorted a humourless laugh. ‘I wonder if they’ll use what happened to George – what they did to George – as an example to any others who want to get out?’
‘Something else we’ll never know,’ said Alice. She left the desk and her printouts, leading Carver back to the couch. She nodded to the Martini pitcher. ‘You want any more?’
‘Yes, but I won’t,’ he said.
‘So where does all this take us?’
It takes you nowhere, decided Carver, positively. Where did it take him, coupled with everything else he’d assembled? The squaring of the circle. It was unquestionably enough to give to the FBI to initiate an investigation into off-sheet, double accounting. But as he’d known from the beginning, doing that would destroy in ignominy and disgrace the firm of George W. Northcote International. It would also mean Alice’s arrest on countless charges, a second reason why the FBI was not an option. But he could meet the men who’d controlled and manipulated George – if such an encounter ever occurred – with the ground level, knowing enough to confront them, and if it got bad make the threat of going to the FBI. Create a stand-off, on his own terms. Could, that is, if he had the courage to do so. And he did have that courage and that determination. George had failed because George was old and failing and fallible. Not up to confronting anyone. But he was, Carver knew. It wasn’t the arrogance that Alice – even Jane – sometimes accused him of. He was the only person who was up to it. Could do it.
He limited his answer to confirming that he’d found incomplete, out-of-date BHYF and NOXT spreadsheets, missing out any mention of the photographs of Anna.
‘If there was anything else at Litchfield, it would have been found?’ she persisted.
‘Unquestionably.’
‘So everything could be all right? If they found whatever they forced George Northcote to disclose – lead them to – they’ve got no reason to pressure you or the firm?’
How many times had he tried to reassure himself with that thought? ‘They’re still on the client list.’
‘Which you’re having to adjust and reduce, because of George’s death: you’ve had that as your out from the beginning.’
Would he really be able – brave enough, strong enough, convincing enough – to meet the situation if it came to a confrontation? Pre-empt it, he thought. There were the post office box numbers in Georgetown, on Grand Cayman, on the client list, against all five companies. He’d write that afternoon severing all and every connection. It didn’t need to come down – or more accurately escalate – to confrontation and threats: just a simple business disassociation, the sort of thing that happened all the time. He said: ‘I want to take everything you’ve turned up.’
Alice looked back to the desk. ‘Why?’
To prevent you being a target, Carver thought. And then he thought, why not be honest? ‘You’ve stopped now, haven’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Alice, only just avoiding the hesitation.
‘There are some things I haven’t had time properly to look at – assess – yet. It might interface with what you’ve accessed and downloaded: make everything complete. I won’t know if it does unless I have your stuff.’
‘Why not bring what you’ve got back here and we’ll go through all of it together?’ Alice attempted to bargain.
‘You know why.’
‘I am involved!’
‘Not any longer. People this clever, they’ve got ways.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’
Their first argument, about anything, recognized Carver. He wondered if Alice recognized it, too. He said: ‘I want to take away with me everything you’ve got. We’ve already agreed – at least I’ve decided – that we can’t count the number of laws you’ve broken, getting what you have, let alone the other risks there could be. I don’t want any arguments about no one ever being able to find out and trace you…’ He hesitated, deciding to continue the honesty. ‘I’m not angry or disappointed. I’m frightened. Very, very frightened and I don’t even know completely what I’m frightened about. At the moment all I can think of is containing things. And containing – taking away from you – all that’s on that desk over there is the most important containment there is at this precise moment.’
She could get it all again, thought Alice. That and more. It would be tiresome and time consuming but she knew the electronic doors through which she could go in and out as she pleased. And just to allay his fears – not that he’d ever know – when she finished she’d leave behind a trigger word to self-destruct her hidden presence when it was entered into the machine. She got up, gathered together everything from the desk and silently handed it to him. Then she said: ‘That was our first row.’
‘I already worked that out.’
‘I’m glad it wasn’t a serious one.’
‘So am I.’
‘Can you stay longer?’
‘Tonight. We’ll eat somewhere in the Village.’
‘Tonight then.’
‘Leave it alone now, darling. I thank you – love you – for helping. For working it out when I was approaching from entirely the wrong direction. But now I don’t want you to do anything more.’
‘I already promised,’ said Alice. When she was a child and made a promise she knew she wouldn’t keep she’d crossed her fingers behind her back, because then broken promises didn’t count. She crossed her fingers now.
Carver walked back to the office, glad he was on foot because as usual SoHo was virtually gridlocked. It still took him almost half an hour, because the sidewalks weren’t much better.
The ground-floor receptionist said: ‘People are looking for you, Mr Carver,’ and Hilda, red-eyed, was waiting outside the elevator doors when it reached his floor. ‘Your cellphone’s off.’
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘Janice hanged herself,’ said the woman.
There wasn’t any risk of her being discovered, which meant there was no reason for John to be frightened. She hadn’t liked his admitting being frightened. She’d recognized he’d been overwhelmed by George Northcote but George Northcote had been a physically overwhelming man. And being overwhelmed wasn’t being frightened. It was still only one fifteen: more than enough time to duplicate what she’d surrendered and carry on pricking at the sites and their local tax and company registration offices, to colour in more of the incomplete picture.
‘Thought you’d deserted me,’ protested the Space for Space manager.
‘Never,’ Alice flirted back.
‘Feeling thirsty yet?’
