Conflict of Interest

‘Yes, Kate was telling me about the artists that started out here.’

She scrutinised him thoughtfully. ‘Quite a number. The question is, should one continue?’

He didn’t know if the question was hypothetical, or addressed to him. He answered carefully, ‘I’m sure Nathan would have liked it to continue.’

‘He would indeed,’ she agreed crisply, ‘but there’s the financial side of things.’

Chris looked around for Kate, before spotting her talking to the Christie’s man. He only had a short time, he realised. He decided to wing it, ‘Perhaps someone else in the family could support it, in Nathan’s name, I mean?’

She glanced at him briefly, as though he’d taken leave of his senses. ‘There is only Jacob,’ she said.

‘It was just a—’

‘Jacob’s never had one brass penny to rub against another. He’d never be able to support something like this.’

This was more than he had expected. Much more.

Finding, in Chris, a sympathetic listener, she continued, ‘He’s never been any good at making money.’

Chris nodded, prompting her. ‘Before joining Starwear his businesses in America—’

‘Disastrous! He has what I call the anti-Midas touch. Everything he comes into contact with turns to dust.’ She sipped her champagne briskly before meeting his eyes. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you this, seeing that you work for him.’

‘I don’t, actually,’ he told her smoothly, disguising the tumult going on in his mind, ‘I work with Kate, on the financial side.’

‘Ah. The acceptable face of Lombard.’

Kate had finished talking to the Christie’s man, but had been stopped by one of the other judges. Chris knew he had to press ahead. ‘Maybe Jacob’, he noticed her expression of distaste when he mentioned the name, ‘could get Starwear to sponsor future exhibitions.’

She shook her head fiercely. ‘I wouldn’t want it. Even if he offered, which he won’t, I wouldn’t want it. There are personal reasons, which you couldn’t possibly know about, why I would never accept anything from that man, directly or indirectly. The whole reason we came to England was to get the family away from him.’

Chris didn’t have to exaggerate his astonishment. ‘I had no idea.’

‘I couldn’t have my girls growing up in the same city as that perverse creature. Even New York was too small a place,’ she shuddered.

‘But all the papers say he’s a great family man,’ Chris acted dumb, ‘who likes spending time with the kids.’

Madeleine fixed him with a withering look. ‘You’re the spin-doctor, you know how that works.’

He adopted a suitably abashed expression, then she murmured softly, ‘Other people’s kids, maybe.’

He instantly remembered the night he’d first met Jacob Strauss; his surprise at finding, outside his office door, a young boy from St Stephen

’s.

‘If you take my advice,’ Madeleine leaned down to check his name badge, ‘Chris, the less you have to do with Jacob Strauss, the better.’

He left the exhibition an hour and a half later, soon after Madeleine had departed. Kate and he went their separate ways – she was going straight home, but he needed to collect his car from the office. So he caught a cab to Lombard, and was soon driving himself west through the City. Usually he listened to music in the car. But tonight he wasn’t in the mood.

He headed along the river, on the Victoria Embankment and around Parliament Square, thoughts racing as he recalled his conversation with Madeleine. The Jacob Strauss she had described was certainly worlds apart from the Lombard version with which he was more familiar – and seemed to back up Judith’s accusations. But if there was any truth to what Madeleine had said, how was it that Lombard had successfully pulled the wool over the eyes of the whole City of London? And yet there was Merlin de Vere; Merlin, who had supposedly been murdered by agents of Jacob Strauss. It still seemed incredibly far-fetched.

It was as he passed Chelsea Bridge that Chris noticed, some way behind him, a red Citroen ZX Turbo he thought he’d seen pull out behind him when he left Lombard House. Following his usual route home, he noticed the car was still there as he turned left into Fulham Road. Plenty of Fulhamites worked in the City – nothing strange there. Except that instead of coming right up behind him at the traffic lights, the car held back, waiting for another vehicle to come between them.

That was when he wondered if he was being followed. Or was his imagination now operating on overtime? What was he supposed to do – race off and zigzag round a few blocks to see if he could throw off his followers? But if he did that, they’d know he knew. Better to act as if he hadn’t noticed. Who were these people?!

The lights turned green. He sped forward, deliberately faster than usual, before heading up Dawes Road – not his usual route. The car was still behind him. Thinking quickly, he remembered the Waitrose supermarket he could go to – make it look as if he’d come here for a reason. He pulled down a side street, heading past cars parked bumper to bumper. At the far end, he pulled into the first free parking space. He stared into the wing mirror. The Citroen had also turned into the street.

He got out of his car and hurried back to the supermarket. As the Citroen continued its slow progress down the street, he was walking right past it in the opposite direction. It was all he could do not to turn back. But he kept his head down and pretended not to notice. He already knew that if he looked in the window of that car, the faces would mean nothing to him. They were just the gofers, the snitches; shadows, he supposed, hired by the likes of Kuczynski.