‘Believe me,’ Cullen spoke with feeling, ‘I’m going to get the bastard responsible.’
‘You’d better. My Comms guy says the whole thing came out of Lombard.’
‘I can understand why he might think that,’ interjected Mike Cullen, ‘but it’s not entirely fair. We did produce a report on the sportswear market, a bona fide marketing strategy. All this … personal detail was in an appendix to the document commissioned by Jacob Strauss’s PR hit man. I suspect he was the guy who leaked it.’
‘The day before the Textiles Act is debated in Parliament?’ Mike Cullen closed his eyes. ‘The intention was pretty clear.’
‘He’s going to completely derail us!’ Snyder’s voice rose. ‘The chances of that sportswear amendment sticking now are at least fifty-fifty!’
‘I agree it’s bad news for Active Red right now,’ Mike Cullen said after a pause, ‘but look at the big picture. What’s bad news for Ed Snyder today is very good news for him tomorrow.’
‘Are you seriously telling me I’m supposed to ignore the national media?’ ‘I am,’ murmured Cullen, ‘on this particular occasion.’
‘Well, excuse me for sounding ungrateful, but I’m just finding this all a bit of a mindfuck.’
There was a pause before Cullen responded. ‘Look, Ed, I can completely understand the way you’re feeling. And believe me, my heart goes out to you,’ he tried his best to be reassuring. ‘1 just want you to be sure of two things. First, this isn’t coming from Lombard, it’s coming from Jacob Strauss. And second, despite all this crap, we still have our understanding.’
There was silence at the other end. ‘In just a couple of days, things will look a lot different.’ It was a long while before Snyder finally said, ‘You’d better be right.’ ‘Oh, I am right,’ Cullen told him. ‘Nothing in the world is more important to me.’
•••
Bernie came downstairs to Reception in shirt sleeves, and swiped Chris through security with a guest card.
‘We can use this for two minutes,’ he led him to a ground-floor meeting room, closing the door behind them and glancing over at where Chris stood, expectant. ‘Judith called late yesterday afternoon. I left a message on your mobile, but you obviously didn’t get it.’
‘Answering service is playing up,’ Chris grunted. ‘What’s up?’
‘She asked me to tell you that Carter’s sent her to India for the rest of the week.’
‘What?’
‘Staying at the Royal Jaipur Gardens Hotel. Something about a press tour and getting first-hand evidence for an article.’
‘Christ Almighty!’
‘What’s going on?’ Bernie was bemused.
‘Wish I knew.’ Chris stared at him for a moment, before shaking his head. ‘Yesterday morning I was given orders to join the same tour. Starwear’s Jaipur plant. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? And the guy giving the orders is the same guy who’s been having me followed. The same guy—’ He halted in his tracks. No. He couldn’t tell Bernie about Merlin de Vere. William van Aardt. Kate Taylor.
Bernie was following him intently. ‘So how d’you reckon this chap got Carter to send Judith?’ he asked.
‘That’s what’s bothering me.’
‘Well, he’s got to have Carter in his pocket, hasn’t he?’ Bernie pointed out the obvious.
Chris quickly recalled Judith telling him about the time Carter had wanted to know what she was writing up on Starwear. How, she had wondered, had he got wind of that? He also remembered Judith saying how Carter had demanded a ‘sympathetic portrait’ of Jacob Strauss on his appointment as CEO – and the resulting hagiography produced by one of his lackeys.
The possibility that Carter was taking money from Starwear had, of course, crossed Judith’s mind – but she had dismissed it as preposterous. Paranoia. Surely not even Carter would allow himself to be so compromised? Right now, however, it seemed far from paranoid. As Chris thought rapidly through what had happened, the sequence of events was shockingly self-evident: yesterday morning she had handed in her piece to Carter. Carter had immediately been on the phone to North. North had come up with the scheme to send both of them to India.
‘Why d’you reckon this chap wants you out of the way?’
Chris glanced back at him, fear in his face. A tragic accident, he couldn’t help thinking. Some appalling incident in Jaipur …
‘I’ve got to warn Judith,’ he told Bernie urgently.
His friend gestured to a telephone. ‘Want to try?’
‘Her room’ll be bugged.’ He met his friend’s expression of concern. ‘No. This is something I have to do myself.’