Conflict of Interest

As she lit another cigarette, waving the match out, she remembered the press conference arranged by Gorlan Smythe. The PR company had handed out comprehensive briefing packs which even carried pre-written articles. She’d jokingly complained to a Gorlan Smythe director that the articles weren’t available on disk. He’d taken her at face value, and had had a disk biked round to The Herald’s City office that very afternoon. It didn’t seem to bother Alex Carter that an almost identical piece had appeared the same day in The Daily Echo.

‘Tell me,’ he was being all sotto voce now, ‘are you cooking up anything special at the moment?’

It didn’t even enter her head to mention Starwear to him. Not yet. ‘Just a few bits and pieces. Interesting lead on ICI.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘A cost-of-environmental-management type piece.’

He nodded. ‘Sounds promising. Is that it?’

Judith glanced up towards the ceiling. ‘It’s all I can think of.’

He fixed her with a thoughtful expression. ‘It’s just that someone mentioned you were looking at Starwear?’

‘Oh. That.’ She tried to hold her composure. She had already planned what she would say if the subject ever arose, and had come up with a phrase to use: ‘A gentle probing,’ she told him. ‘Went to see one of their directors, Mark Hunter. But I didn’t come up with anything definite. Certainly nothing worth writing up at this stage.’

Carter rolled his cigar for a moment, to and fro. ‘I must have got my facts wrong.’ Irritation had crept into his voice. ‘I got the impression you were quite far advanced?’

‘Oh no. I haven’t even committed anything to paper. I only went in for a briefing.’

He nodded, before taking another drag and exhaling pensively. ‘Well, if anything comes up on that score, you’ll keep me up to speed?’

‘Of course.’

‘I need to know – management purposes – if some major piece is likely to materialise.’

‘I quite understand, Alex. I’ll let you know if … if anything comes up. But I doubt it will.’

He was already making his way to the door. ‘You do that.’

She watched him through the blinds that covered the glass partition between the smoking room and the outer office. As she followed his progress between crammed desks amidst the frenetic activity of the City office, her heart thundered in her head. Now that the moment had gone, she felt the shock of it pass through her. She’d been discreet. Very discreet. But somewhere out there, there’d been a leak. How in God’s name had he found out?

14

There was no one on his tail when he set out for work the next morning. He was always in the office early; maybe they just assumed he drove there directly. Which suited him fine. Two streets up from the house he pulled over to the kerb and stepped inside a telephone box. Swiping his credit card through, he placed a call to New York. He knew they were five hours behind London time, and it was still the middle of the night there, but all he needed was the answering machine.

Rick Kane worked for Information for Business – a desk research operation in New York. When Chris had been at MIRA, he and Rick had been in touch on a weekly basis. There was no formal business arrangement, but they were constantly trading favours. Just before he left MIRA, Chris had done more than his fair share of legwork for Rick, getting hold of London-based data sources. Just as well, he thought grimly. Now it was his turn to call in the favours – big time.

He left a short message on the answering machine. He was after the accounts of Ultra-Sports and Trimnasium for the last three years they’d been in business. He wanted them faxed to a private number, and no way was Rick to contact him on any telephone except the one he gave. Thank God for Bernie’s home office.

After Rick, he called a London number. He could tell that Brett Harrison, his former MIRA colleague, had still been in bed, although he pretended otherwise. He needed an alibi, he told Brett quickly. Could he visit him later in the day – say one p.m.? Brett had sounded bleary and surprised, but had agreed.

Then he was back in his car, driving the now-familiar route to the City. Last night, he’d gone through the whole thing in his mind: visualised where the telephone boxes were; planned what he needed to do – right now and through the day. After getting home from Bernie’s he’d analysed what needed to be done, and plotted it all out in detail. The knowledge that he was being pursued made him conscious of his every move. He had to find out what was going on. And fast. He had no doubt that this all had to do with Jacob Strauss and Elliott North. But how long had they been following him? And who else was in on the operation? Exactly who at Lombard could he trust? He had recalled his meeting with Bruno d’Andrea; the sallow face and shifty eyes. ‘He knows where the bones are buried,’ Kate Taylor had told him. All of a sudden, Monitoring Services had taken on a very sinister complexion.

After arriving at Lombard, he followed the advice he had given Judith: head down and act like nothing was happening. There was no shortage of work to keep him occupied. Lombard had three new client pitches on the go, all of which needed his strategic input yesterday – the usual way. Crisis management, so he had discovered, was a permanent state of affairs in the PR industry. After juggling his commitments so that he could leave the office for a couple of hours without his absence being noticed, he told Lotte shortly after twelve-thirty that he was heading off to MIRA for lunch, followed by a meeting with a former colleague. He would be back by four.

He’d put a lot of work MIRA’s way since arriving at Lombard. He knew the research company’s strengths and weaknesses better than anyone, and he’d commissioned several major qualitative projects. So there was nothing at all surprising about him heading back to his former employers. Though as he left the Lombard building and took the ‘hundred-yard walk’ back to MIRA he felt curiously exposed. Were they following him? he couldn’t help wondering. There were several times when he felt like turning to look over his shoulder. But he resisted the temptation. Who was he looking for anyhow?

Arriving at MIRA reception – an unassuming affair after the sweeping grandeur of Lombard – he reflected that he never could have guessed just how relieved he’d feel stepping into this building. The armchairs had seen better days, the oatmeal carpet might be coffee-stained, but it was as though a heavy burden had been lifted, temporarily, from his shoulders.

Reception buzzed for Brett, who came bounding down the stairs a few minutes later, wearing a bemused expression, and led him off immediately to a meeting room. He wanted to know what was going on, of course. But Chris told him firmly that he couldn’t say anything just yet. His seriousness was self-evident, and, to his relief, Brett didn’t press him for an explanation. Instead they agreed that if anyone should call for Chris at MIRA, a secretary was to field the call and say she’d pass on any urgent messages. Meantime, Chris took a MIRA mobile telephone on which he could be contacted.

Within minutes he was making his way out of the back of the building, down a service lane that squeezed, out of sight, alongside the building next door, and which emerged not far from the steps leading down to the Underground. He headed down the steps and was soon on a train travelling west. As he sat, surrounded by tourists, shift workers, anonymous men and women reading their papers, he couldn’t help checking up and down the compartment. But who was he looking for?

He got out at Earl’s Court and took a cab the rest of the way – it was quicker. They might be watching his house, he realised, but he’d just have to risk that. If they thought he was at MIRA, it was extremely unlikely they’d also be in Fulham. At home he quickly changed into his oldest trousers and a scruffy, long-sleeved shirt, both coated with the patina of several years’ worth of odd jobs. He added to the disguise with a pair of Reebok trainers and peaked golfing cap, and some ancient, eighties sunglasses, black and locust-like. He went through the cupboard of his future study, and rifled through

all the sports gear he’d planned to throw out, separating the stuff with his name on it from the things he was placing in a large black bin liner. It might be rubbish to you, but mere are a lot of people who’d be thankful for it, his mother had said, thank God for her! Once he’d finished, he went into his garden and, using the MIRA mobile, ordered a local minicab a.s.a.p. Peaked cap down, and glasses disguising his face, he was soon on his way out again.