The Yacht Party (Lara Stone)

‘When your body is found out on the drive.’

Lara immediately turned and strode back to the lift, reaching for the ‘down’ button. But there was no ‘down’ button. In fact there were no buttons at all. Her panic rising, she pulled out the security pass and waved it in front of the door. Nothing.

Lara whirled around.

‘This is what they call a smart building,’ said Sachs, raising a finger towards the cameras dotted all around the room. ‘The whole thing is wired up for audio visual monitoring, facial recognition, GPS orientation, voice commands: seamless integration between security and data.’

Lara backed away past a line of offices, looking for another corridor or a staircase.

‘Only way out,’ he said, nodded towards the billowing plastic. The weather outside was deteriorating again; the wind was tugging at the tarpaulins.

Shit.

‘Come on Lara,’ said Sachs, following her. ‘As a writer you must appreciate how elegant the story is. Accosting my wife at her benefit lunch only shows how unhealthy your obsession with me was. So, driven mad by grief, you steal a security pass from your boyfriend, Sachs Capital researcher Stefan Melberg, and jump to your death in an attempt to frame me. You want to end it all, but at least you’ll take me with you.’

She looked down at the laminate. ‘This is Stefan’s?’

He shrugged. ‘Like I said, elegant.’

Lara threw down the pass and moved away from Sachs, trying every door she came to. All locked. Or maybe they required face recognition or a magic word or something. Sachs followed her, his movements unhurried. He wasn’t a particularly big man, but he could certainly overpower Lara.

And then there was nowhere else to go. Sachs was between her and the lift bank, only the open window frames behind her.

‘You don’t have to do this, Michael,’ she said as calmly as she could.

Sachs smiled.

‘Correct. Which is why I have a loyal roster of specialist staff.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Speaking of which, Mr. Schmitt should be hear any time now.’

‘Schmitt? Who’s Schmitt?’

‘I don’t know what his real name is, but that’s what Jonathon Meyer called him when he introduced us. Schmitt is the man who snips off all my loose ends.’

Sachs picked up an office chair. ‘Here, have a seat while we wait.’

‘I prefer to stand.’

‘SIT DOWN!’ he roared, banging the chair down. Lara sat, painfully aware of the open space only a few feet behind her. Lara knew she had to do something – anything. Ask questions, hope for an opening. Make him think he’s won.

‘So this is what it’s all about?’ she said, as Sachs sat down opposite her. ‘A building?’

‘Not just “a building”, Miss Stone. A legacy. Something that will stand for centuries. Carnegie Hall, the Tate Gallery, the Guggenheim, all owe their existence to the proceeds of industry; steel, sugar, mining, but who remembers that?’

Sachs nodded to himself. ‘But you’re right, the project was far more expensive than I ever anticipated. So I couldn’t let your friends Helen and Sandrine derail my sale of Sachs Capital.’

‘What happened?’ croaked Lara. She knew it might be the last thing she ever heard, but she desperately wanted to hear it, to know if she had been right.

‘I asked Jonathon Meyer if he knew a man who could fix the problem,’ said Sachs. ‘He did – and it was shockingly easy. I mean, this Helen girl walked around the slums of Haiti with a big camera,’ he said incredulously. ‘It was almost as if she had a death wish.’

His mouth curled into a sneer.

‘And then there was poor Sandrine Legard and her history of mental health problems. A suicide was plausible, which was fortune for me.’

Lara felt fury flood through her, but she knew she couldn’t rise to his bait. Keep him talking.

‘But what about Jonathon Meyer? He was your friend.’

‘Was, Lara,’ snapped Michael. ‘Past tense. He tried to blackmail me, said I owed him for shutting up that ImpactAid girl, wanted me to bail him out. Now does that sound like a friend?’