This Was a Man (The Clifton Chronicles 7)

“But when he comes out of jail—”

“I’ll be long gone, and living somewhere that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Britain.”

“What about me? I’ll be left carrying the can.”

“No, no—by then, you will have resigned from the board in protest. But not before a large sum has been deposited in your Swiss bank account.”

“How much time will you need to close the deal?”

“I’m in no hurry. Our absentee chairman won’t be going anywhere for the foreseeable future, by which time our pension plan should be in place.”

“There’s a rumor Thomas Cook and Co. are interested in taking over the company.”

“Not while I’m chairman,” said Sloane.

* * *

“There’s a Mr. Mellor on line one,” said Rachel, conscious that she was interrupting Sebastian’s morning meeting with the bank’s currency exchange director.

Seb glanced at his watch. Ten o’clock. “Do you mind if I take this call?” he said, placing a hand over the mouthpiece.

“Go ahead,” said Victor Kaufman, well aware who was on the other end of the line.

“Put him through, Rachel. Good morning, Mr. Mellor, it’s Sebastian Clifton.”

“Have you come to a decision, Mr. Clifton?”

“Yes, I have, and I can assure you that Farthings took your offer very seriously. However, after considerable deliberation, the board decided this was not the kind of business the bank wished to be involved in, and for that reason—”

The line went dead.

12

DESMOND MELLOR lay on the thin, horsehair mattress for hour upon hour, his head resting on a rock-hard pillow as he looked up at the ceiling and tried to work out what he should do now that Clifton had turned down his offer. The thought of Adrian Sloane ripping him off while at the same time destroying his company was making him ever more paranoid.

The cell door swung open and an officer yelled, “Yard!” even though he was only a few feet away. It was that time every afternoon when prisoners were released from their cells for an hour and allowed to walk around the yard, get some exercise, and be reunited with their mates so they could work on their next crime before they were released.

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; Mellor usually sought the company of first offenders who had no intention of returning to a life of crime. It amused him that he’d literally bumped into his first Etonian (marijuana) and his first Cambridge graduate (fraud) while circling the yard. But not today. He’d already decided who he needed to have a private word with.

Mellor had completed two circuits of the yard before he spotted Nash walking alone a few paces ahead of him. But then, not many prisoners wanted to spend their hour’s exercise break with a contract killer who looked likely to be spending the rest of his life in jail, and didn’t seem to care that much if he spent a few days in solitary for roughing up any inmate who’d annoyed him. The last poor sod had been a hotplate server who’d failed to give Nash a large enough portion of fried potatoes and had ended up with a fried hand.

Mellor spent another circuit rehearsing his well-prepared script before he finally caught up with Nash, though the simple greeting “Bugger off” almost caused him to think again. If he hadn’t been desperate, Mellor would have quickly moved on.

“I need some advice.”

“Then get yourself a lawyer.”

“A lawyer would be useless for what I have in mind,” said Mellor.

Nash looked at him more closely. “This had better be good, because if you’re some fuckin’ grass, you’ll be spending the rest of your sentence in the prison hospital. Do I make myself clear?”

“Abundantly,” said Mellor, suddenly understanding the meaning of “hard man,” but it was too late now for him to turn back. “Hypothetically speaking…” he added.

“What the fuck?”

“How much does a contract killer get paid?”