Conflict of Interest

‘I don’t have to take this crap from you.’ North was getting up.

‘You’re wrong there, too.’ Cullen looked up at him. ‘If you don’t get back in your seat, I’ll have you escorted off the premises. I can pull the plug on Jacob Strauss and you. One telephone call and you’re history. Don’t forget that.’

North slouched back to his chair.

‘Quite apart from compromising the credibility of my agency,’ Cullen continued, mighty with anger, ‘your interference has become intolerable. You’ve been getting under the feet of Kate Taylor, one of the finest practitioners in this agency. Showing up at client interviews – what’s the matter with you? Are you trying to make us the laughing stock of the national press? And if that isn’t bad enough, I hear you’ve been making cack-handed attempts to bribe a senior reporter.’

‘That was a misunderstanding,’ barked North.

There’ve been too many misunderstandings, haven’t there? Like the Chris Treiger misunderstanding. Here you have an intelligent young man, one of the best planners in the industry, and you blast him out of the sky.’

‘I only did that—’

‘1 know why you did it. But you were wrong.’ Cullen pointed across his desk. ‘Since you arrived, you’ve screwed with my staff, you’ve screwed with the national press, and you’ve screwed with our four-point strategy for Starwear.’

For a long while Cullen glowered across the desk at North who sat, hunched, in his chair.

Eventually, North found his voice. ‘So, what d’you want done?’ He spoke in barely a whisper.

‘That,’ Cullen was severe, ‘1 can sum up in a single word.’

16

‘We had a visitor a few days ago,’ said the priest from St Stephen’s, the one with the long, pale face and hooked beak.

‘What kind of visitor?’

‘A fellow asking questions. I thought he was from you at first.’

‘But what did he look like?’

‘I didn’t see much of him. Youngish, I suppose. Dark sunglasses. Golf cap.’

‘In other words, just about anyone,’ the other’s tone was acid. ‘You said asking questions?’

‘He was looking for Dale.’

‘Shit! You didn’t—’

‘It was the lunch break. He gave two of the boys money to bring Dale out to the entrance.’

‘I don’t fucking believe it! What did he want to know?’

‘Not much. I was there straight away. It seemed to me that he was trying to bribe Dale with some sports kit.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Dale said he didn’t want it. He thought, you know, it meant he’d be invit

ed out again. He was … unable to control himself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘His bladder.’

‘Christ Almighty!’

‘I chased the fellow away.’