As the last person shut the door behind them, Xander very slowly counted Mrs Smith, me and Gareth with a shaking finger. Then he looked down at the long polished table.
‘If we could find a net,’ he said confidingly, ‘we could have a ping-pong four.’
I giggled. Gareth and Mrs Smith didn’t. Xander pinched another of my cigarettes and went over to the window. We could hear the clunk of his signet ring as his fingers drummed nervously on the radiator. Gareth looked worn-out. I realized now what a strain the meeting had been.
‘I wonder what’s happening in the Test match,’ said Xander to Mrs Smith. ‘You don’t like cricket? Perhaps you had to play it at school like I did? Terrible for breaking one’s finger nails.’
‘That’s enough,’ snapped Gareth. ‘I want to talk about your expenses.’
Xander and I sat quite still, not looking at each other. The temperature dropped to well below zero. My stomach gave a rumble like not so distant thunder. I’d only drunk cups of coffee since yesterday.
Gareth took a bit of paper from Mrs Smith. ‘We’ll start with you, Alexander. Your UK expenses for the last month alone were well over two grand,’ he said.
Xander removed his chewing gum reflectively, and parked it underneath the table.
‘Arabs are dreadfully expensive to amuse,’ he said.
‘What Arabs?’ asked Gareth. ‘Not a single order has come from the Middle East to justify expenses like this.’
‘Well it’s in the pipeline,’ said Xander. ‘These things take time, you know.’
‘I don’t,’ said Gareth brusquely. ‘In most of these cases, initial meetings were never followed up, some of them never took place at all. Mrs Smith has been doing a bit of detective work. You claim to have taken a certain Sheik Mujab to the Clermont three times, and to Tramps twice over the past two months, but he says he’s never heard of you.’
‘He’s lying,’ blustered Xander. ‘They all do.’
‘And Jean-Baptiste Giraud of Renault’s’, Gareth ran his eyes down the page, ‘appears to have had nearly ?400 spent on him during the last four weeks, being wined and dined by you and Octavia.’
‘Octavia’s a great asset with customers,’ said Xander.
‘I can well believe that,’ said Gareth, in a voice of such contempt I felt myself go scarlet with humiliation. ‘Unfortunately for you, Jean-Baptiste happens to be an old Oxford mate of mine. It took one telephone call to ascertain he only met you once over lunch at the Neal Street where he paid, and he’s never met Octavia at all.’
‘He must have forgotten,’ said Xander.
‘Don’t be fatuous,’ said Gareth. ‘I don’t hold much brief for your sister, but she’s not the sort of girl an old ram like Jean-Baptiste would be likely to forget.’
I bit my lip. Annabel Smith was loving every minute of it.
‘And so it goes on,’ said Gareth. ‘God knows how much you’ve cheated the shareholders out of — old ladies who’ve gambled their last savings, married couples with children who’ve hardly got a penny to rub together, and all the time you two’ve been treating the company like a bran tub, helping yourself as you choose.’
Xander started to play an imaginary violin. Gareth lost his temper.
‘Can’t you be fucking serious about anything? Haven’t you any idea what an invidious position you’ve put Ricky in? He can’t give you the boot because you’re his son-in-law, but at the moment you’re about as much good to him as a used tea bag.’
He walked over to the window, squinting at the traffic below, his huge shoulders hunched, his broken nose silhouetted against the blue sky, black and silver badger’s hair curling thickly over his collar. I suddenly felt absolutely hollow with lust.
We all waited. As he turned round his expression hardened.
‘I don’t suppose I’ve ever come across a more greedy couple,’ he said, speaking with swift curious harshness. ‘I guess Massingham let you get away with it. I gather he was quite a fan of Octavia’s.’
‘Don’t you dare say a word against Hugh,’ I hissed. ‘He was worth a million of you.’
Xander slumped in his chair. Suddenly to my horror I saw the tears pouring down his face. I put my arm round his shoulders.
‘It’s all right darling,’ I said.
Once again Gareth changed tack and, with one of those staggering
‘You were fond of him. I know. I’m sorry.’
Xander pushed back his hair and blinked two or three times.
‘He was my friend, faithful and just to me,’ he said slowly. ‘But Ricky says he was incompetent. And Ricky is an honourable man, so they are all honourable men. Oh Christ, I should have had breakfast,’ he added in a choked voice, groping for a handkerchief.
‘Can’t you leave him alone?’ I screamed, turning on Gareth. ‘Can’t you see he isn’t in any state for one of your bawlings out?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Xander. ‘When people call me Alexander, I always know they’re cross with me.’
Gareth opened the window and threw out his lighted cigarette, seriously endangering the passers-by in the street below. Then he slammed the window shut and said to Xander in a businesslike tone,
‘As I see it we have two alternatives. We could send you to prison for what you’ve been doing, or we can cart you onto the Board, which’ll give you more money and enable you to start paying back some of the bread you’ve borrowed from the firm. It’ll also mean we can keep a closer watch on your activities. You’re bloody lucky you’ve got a rich and loyal wife.’
‘The son-in-law also rises,’ sighed Xander. ‘I don’t think I can accept your offer.’
‘Don’t be wet,’ said Gareth brutally. ‘I want you in the office by nine o’clock tomorrow, so we can re-jig the export schedule. In the meantime you’d better take a taxi home and sleep it off.’
‘All the way to Sussex?’ said Xander.
‘You’ve got plenty of mates who’ll put you up for the afternoon. Now beat it.’
Xander walked very unsteadily towards the door, cannoning off the table, the wall and two chairs. At the doorway he paused, looking anxiously at me, clearly about to say something in my defence, but was baulked by Gareth saying again, ‘Go on, get out.’
There was an agonizing pause after he had gone. My stomach gave another earth-shattering rumble. I could feel my early morning cup of coffee sourly churning round inside me. I licked my lips.
‘Now,’ said Gareth grimly, ‘what about you?’ And he looked me over in a way that made me feel very small and uncomfortable and miserable.
‘Can I go too?’ I said, getting to my feet.
‘Sit
I sat.
‘Annabel, can I have those other figures?’ he said.
Annabel Smith handed him a pink folder at the same time putting a new tape in the machine. God, she was enjoying this.
‘You should go cock-fighting next time,’ I said to her. ‘You’d find that even more exciting.’
‘At the moment,’ said Gareth, glancing down at the figures, ‘you’re living in a flat that’s paid for by the firm. I also gather that, when you moved in three years ago, the firm coughed up at least seven grand to have it re- decorated. Since then Seaford-Brennen has not only been paying your phone bills and rates, but also the gas and electricity. And recently Massingham gave you the Porsche on the firm which is costing a fortune to be repaired at the garage. There’s also ?3,500 worth of unspecified loans to be accounted for.’
There was another dreadful pause. All you could hear was the hiss of the tape-recorder.
‘It wasn’t just
‘And you, I suppose, provided the service.’
‘I bloody did not,’ I said furiously. ‘What d’you think I am — a flaming call girl?’
I was shaking with anger. I could feel my whole body drenched with sweat. Annabel Smith gazed out of the window and re-crossed her beautiful legs.
‘Does she have to be here?’ I went on. ‘I suppose it’s customary to have a woman cop present if you’re going to beat up the prisoner. And can’t you turn that bloody tape-recorder off?’
