“The factory project would seem to be only the key to a much bigger enterprise,” I said. “The factory was to have cost about twenty million euros, with your family trust putting in just over six million and getting European Union funding at the rate of two euros for each one of yours.”
He nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “It was about five million pounds.”
“Yes,” I said. “But it was the funding of the factory that triggered the grant for the housing project. And that was a whopping eighty million euros, without the need for any further private finance. So it was your investment that was the key to it all.” I paused. “How did you hear about the investment opportunity in the first place?”
“I can’t really remember,” he said. “But it must have been through Gregory Black. Almost everything the trust invests in, other than the family estate, is done through Lyall and Black.”
“So was the naming of the factory Gregory Black’s idea?”
“Oh, I can’t remember,” he said. “What does it matter? The important thing is whether the factory exists. That’s what I’m most concerned about.”
“I haven’t yet managed to find that out. Is there any chance I could speak with your nephew?”
Mr. Roberts looked doubtful.
“I’d just like to ask him where he went and what he saw, or not, as the case may be.”
“He’s up at Oxford,” he said.
“Oxford University?” I asked.
Jolyon Roberts nodded. “At Keble. Reading PPE. Thinks he wants to change the world. Bit full of himself, if you ask me.”
PPE was philosophy, politics and economics. I’d thought of applying for it myself, but had opted instead for a degree course at the LSE.
PPE at Oxford was often seen as the first step on the political ladder to real power, both in British and foreign governments, and elsewhere. Alumni included such diverse members as three UK Prime Ministers, including David Cameron, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Burmese pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and the convicted IRA bomber Rose Dugdale. Even Bill Clinton had studied with the Oxford PPE class for a while when he was at the university as a Rhodes Scholar.
If Jolyon Roberts’s nephew wanted to change the world, he was starting at the right place.
“Do you have a telephone number for him?” I asked.
Jolyon Roberts seemed rather hesitant. “Look,” he said, “I’d much rather he wasn’t involved.”
“But, sir,” I said, “he is involved. You told me he was the one who started your concerns in the first place by visiting Bulgaria.”
“Yes,” he said, “but my brother, his father, has told him to forget it.”
“Does your brother have any idea you have spoken to me?”
“Good God no,” replied Mr. Roberts. “He’d be furious.”
“Sir,” I said formally. “I think it might be best if I left you to sort out any further questions you might have with Gregory himself. I have rather gone out on a limb here to find out the small amount I have, but I think it’s time to stop. The Roberts Family Trust is our client in this matter, and your brother is the senior trustee. I really should not act behind his back.” Nor behind Gregory’s, I thought.
“No,” he said. “Quite right. I can see that.” He paused. “Sorry. Should have realized. I’ll give Gregory Black a call about it on Monday.” He paused again. “Right, matter closed, as far as you’re concerned. I’ll trouble you no further.” He stood up, nodded at me briefly and walked out of the bar.
I sat there for a while longer and transferred my allegiance from white wine to red.
Had I done the right thing?
Definitely.
I was a financial adviser, not a fraud investigator.
But what if there really was a hundred-million-euro fraud going on? Had I not a responsibility to report it to someone? But to whom? Perhaps I should send an e-mail to Uri Joram at the European Commission. But did I care?
I finished the red wine and decided it was time to head home.
Going home to Claudia had always filled me with excitement, raising the pulse a fraction and causing things to stir down below. But now I was hesitant, even frightened of what I might find, of what I might hear, of what I might see.
Claudia was at home when I arrived and she’d been crying.
She tried to hide it from me, but I could always tell. The slight redness of the eyes and the streaky mascara were dead giveaways.
“You could have phoned me,” she said crossly as I walked into the kitchen. “You should know better than to sneak up on a girl.”
I’d hardly sneaked up, I thought. This was my home, and I was arriving back from the races at six-thirty on a Saturday evening.
“You can’t phone on the Tube,” I said.
“You could have phoned on the train from Sandown.”
That was true, but the reason I hadn’t was because I didn’t want my call to go straight to voice mail again. That alone sent my imagination into overdrive. It was much better not to know if Claudia’s phone was turned off.
“Now, darling, what’s the matter?” I said, putting an arm around her shoulders.
“Nothing,” she said, shrugging me off. “Just my back hurts. I’m going up to have a bath.”
She walked briskly out of the kitchen, leaving me standing there alone. She had complained of backache a lot recently. Probably from too much lying on it, I thought somewhat ungraciously.
I mixed myself a large, strong gin and tonic. Not really a great idea after two glasses of wine at Sandown, but who cares? I wasn’t trying to make a riding weight for the next day’s racing. More’s the pity.
I could hear her bath running upstairs and, quite suddenly, I was cross. Did she think I was a fool? Something was definitely not right in this household, and, painful as it might be, I had a right to know.
I thought about charging upstairs and confronting her in the bathroom, but I was frightened. I didn’t want to lose her. And I’m not sure I could bear it if she said she was leaving me for someone else.
I walked through into the living room and flicked on the television, but I didn’t watch it. Instead I sat in an armchair feeling miserable, and drank my gin.
In due course, I heard the bathwater draining, and, presently, Claudia came downstairs and went into the kitchen, closing the door.
I really didn’t know what to do. Did she want me to go in to her or not? “Not,” I thought, or she would have left the door open.
I stayed where I was in the living room and finished my drink. According to the clock on the mantelpiece it was twenty past seven.
Was it too early to go to bed?
I sat in the armchair while some teenage stick insect warbled away on the screen in a TV talent show, going over and over in my head what I needed to say to Claudia. Doing nothing was no longer an option.
If our relationship was dead, so be it. Let me mourn. Anything was better than remaining in this state of limbo with my imagination running wild and my emotions in turmoil. I loved Claudia, I was sure of it. But, here I was, angry and hurt, accusing her in my mind of deceiving me and sleeping with another. It was time for the truth.
When I walked into the kitchen, she was crying openly and with no pretense this time that she wasn’t. She was sitting at the kitchen table in her blue dressing gown, her elbows on the table, a glass of white wine in one hand and her head in the other. She didn’t look up as I went in.
At least, I thought, she’s not leaving me with a dismissive wave of the hand and not a single glance back. This breakup was going to be painful for both of us.
I went over to the worktop beside the fridge and poured myself another stiff gin and tonic. I was going to need it.
“Darling, what’s the matter?” I said, but without turning around.
Perhaps it would be easier for her to talk if she couldn’t see my face.
