She met his eyes. ‘What is it?’
He exhaled loudly.
‘Look, I don’t have many standards, but I do believe you should leave children out of it.’
‘Children?’
He pulled a face.
‘They use kids in the mine. Some as young as seven working in the tunnels. Terrible injuries, deaths, parents quietly paid off, but it starts to leak out just as an American automobile giant shows interest in buying the mine. So Jon and his mates wanted me to clean up its reputation, come up with a bunch of bullshit initiatives aimed at making the mine look good. Holiday camps for the kiddies, all that crap.’
‘Where is the mine, Jago?’
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
‘I’ve already told you enough,’ he said, turning back towards the bar. Lara took his arm.
‘Jago, please. Tell me.’
Bain opened his mouth to speak, then both of them saw Eduardo approach them. Coming to check on her presumably, which was sweet, but terrible timing.
‘You want the name of the mine, pay me,’ said Bain, his bravado coming back. ‘You can both afford it.’
Lara caught Eduardo’s eye and shook her head.
‘I thought you said you had a conscience, Jago.’
‘And I also need to make a living.’
‘Those guys humiliated you, Jago, because you’re a better person than they are. Or at least you want to be, otherwise why did you come here tonight?’
He didn’t speak for a few seconds.
‘The Kanjomo mine,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s owned by an off-shore company belonging to the inner circle. You’ll have to find it yourself. The people on the Pandora that night were Richard Stewart, Donald Van Leder, Bernard Gander, Philippe Marsaud, Eugene Dre and Jonathon Meyer – you’ll have to remember all that, because I won’t be repeating it and, in fact, I never said it in the first place.’
His eyes met Lara’s and he waved his empty glass.
‘Now if you don’t mind, I have some champagne to drink. Tell Eduardo he will be covering my tab.’
He turned and walked back towards the thumping music of the bar.
‘Jago,’ called Lara, but he just raised a hand as if he were flapping a fly away.
‘Thank you, Jago,’ she said to his back. ‘Thank you.’
Chapter 16
Monaco was buzzing. The Place du Casino was packed, well-dressed tourists rubbing elbows with the ultra-rich, high-rollers with rubber-neckers. Race weekend was Monte Carlo’s biggest weekend of the year and there was a carnival atmosphere in the air; lights and laughter and couples walking arm in arm, some women’s heels so high they could barely walk any other way.
Lara and Stefan stood by the Hotel de Paris watching Eduardo ascend the wide steps and push through the revolving doors. No one had been particularly surprised when Eduardo had cried off after they’d left the Buddha Bar: Mo
nte Carlo clearly wasn’t his kind of town.
Lara, on the other hand, was beginning to love its energy and spectacle. And the company wasn’t too bad either.
‘So you’re not at the De Paris?’ she asked Stefan as they turned away from the hotel.
Stefan shook his head.