Takeover Read online

  Takeover

  Brian Freemantle

  writing as Jonathan Evans

  For Allan and Colleen, with love

  Although some of the incidents in

  this book are based upon fact, all the

  characters are fictitious and any

  resemblance to actual persons,

  either living or dead, is purely

  coincidental.

  Prologue

  During the flight from London Harry Rudd explained the emergency and was the first to disembark when the aircraft landed at Logan airport. The pilot radioed ahead so immigration formalities were waived and because Rudd didn’t have any luggage there was no customs delay. Walter Bunch was waiting directly beyond the automatic doors, in the public section of the Boston arrival building. The lawyer moved to put his arms around him but Rudd shrugged his friend away. “How is she?”

  “Bad, Harry. Very bad.”

  “Christ!” said Rudd.

  Bunch had ignored the restrictions, parking immediately outside the exit. Rudd got in beside his friend and held himself stiffly, against any emotion, jarring with the movement of the vehicle. He blinked at the blurred kaleidoscope of headlights and neon that flashed in upon him as they left the complex and picked up the city road.

  “The baby’s dead,” said Bunch.

  “I don’t care about the baby.”

  “I thought you’d want to know.”

  Neither man spoke for several minutes. Then Bunch said, “The gynaecologist says there was no way of knowing it would happen.”

  “I should have been here.”

  “There wasn’t any delay: she was with her father.”

  “I still should have been here.”

  Rudd was forward against the windscreen, recognizing Charles Street and then the black outline of the hospital forming ahead in the darkness. He had the door open before the car stopped, running into emergency reception and babbling his name to the clerk. He wanted to find his own way but she insisted on summoning a houseman and Rudd stood with his hands gripped against the counter. Only seconds passed but his control went.

  “Where the hell is he!”

  The woman, who was used to it, didn’t reply.

  “I said where is he!”

  “Here.” The houseman was used to it, too. On the way to Angela’s room he talked of breech birth and haemorrhage and blood count but later Rudd couldn’t remember the conversation although he tried, desperately, because he wanted to remember everything.

  It was functionally bare, an intensive care unit cubicle, just a bed and monitoring equipment ticking and flickering, and everywhere an odour of cleansing disinfectant. He had expected to see her in pain but she was lying still and appeared quite peaceful. There were drips feeding into either arm and another tube protruding from the side of the bed, connected to some part of her body. Her black hair, usually so lustrous, but sweatsoaked now, seemed to have been arranged on the pillow but it didn’t make her beautiful because of the colour of her face. Her skin had a strange, unnatural texture, shiny and waxy yellow, like the candles that she lit when she prayed to the Virgin Mary for them to be happy forever. Rudd, whose church-going had been because she wanted it, pressed his eyes tightly and tried to believe and said, the sound hardly coming, “Please. Please help.”

  After several moments he opened his eyes and said: “Angela.”

  There was no reaction.

  “Angela, I’m here.” He went forward in sudden fear and then saw that almost imperceptibly the bedclothing was rising and falling with her breathing. He heard the door behind and turned to see Bunch enter.

  “She’s sleeping, that’s all,” said Rudd. “Just sleeping. I won’t wake her.”

  “No,” agreed his friend. “Better not to.”

  Rudd lifted a chair quietly across to the bed and sat down. Gently, anxious not to disturb the arm into which one of the drip needles was taped, he felt out for her hand; her fingers lay cold and flaccid in his.

  He pressed softly, and said, “I’m here, darling.” The hand remained still. If she was so cold, why was there the sheen of perspiration on her face? He wanted to dry her forehead with a tissue but didn’t, suddenly frightened of doing anything more than lightly touching her hand. From movies he had seen he supposed one of the bleeping screens was a cardiac monitor: the green dot was crossing in a regular, bouncing pattern.

  “Her heart’s strong,” he said.

  “There’s a cot for you in the room next door,” said Bunch.

  “I’m staying here.”

  “There’s no purpose.”

  “I’m staying!”

  Throughout that first night Rudd sat unmoving, forward in the chair, oblivious to the cramp or the efforts of Bunch to make him leave, leaving the room only when the doctors insisted. Then he stood right outside the door, unaware of the taste or even of drinking the coffee that Bunch handed him. This formed the pattern of the following day: quitting when the staff demanded, the rest of the time tensed forward in the chair, willing some movement from the still, resting, cold but sweat-flecked face.

  Herbert Morrison arrived early in the morning, entering the room without any acknowledgement and leaning over his daughter, whispering “Come on, baby: wake up. It’s Daddy.”

  “She’s very tired,” said Rudd.

  The older man ignored him.

  “I should have been here,” said Rudd.

  Morrison didn’t turn.

  “I won’t forgive you.”

  “Shut up.” Still Morrison didn’t turn.

  The feeling that had broken through, just briefly, at the reception desk surged through Rudd. He thrust up, wanting physically to hit the man, to hurt him, not caring who he was or how old he was, just wanting to see that waterfront hard, arrogant face split and bleed. And then he forced himself down in the chair, not looking at Morrison but at Angela. Not now; not here. Later. Morrison must have heard the movement and guessed the intent. He hadn’t moved.

  For an hour Morrison stood appearing unaware of Rudd, finally leaving without bothering to look at his son-in-law. He returned early in the afternoon. Again he didn’t speak, just standing by the bedside. This time Rudd didn’t say anything either. He could no longer feel anger, he could no longer feel anything.

  Morrison had just left when Angela’s eyes opened, slightly. Rudd whimpered, saying her name again, and when there was no response he grabbed the summons button and kept it depressed until a nurse and the doctor hurried in. He had to leave and when Bunch brought the coffee this time Rudd laughed and said she was going to be all right and Bunch said sure, he’d always known she was going to be.

  It was longer than the other times before the gynaecologist came out and when he saw the man’s expression, Rudd’s excitement deflated. Sympathetically the doctor attempted to explain that involuntary spasms came with unconsciousness and that was all the eye opening had been, a muscle reaction. Rudd went back into the room and took up the chilled, damp hand and sat, waiting. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the formal prayers that Angela had known so perfectly but couldn’t, so he whispered again, “Please. I’ll do anything, but please,” not knowing if it were possible to strike a secular bargain with God.

  Angela died that night.

  Without recognizing it, Rudd had been listening to her even breathing and suddenly he couldn’t hear it any more and the green ball on the heart machine was crossing in an even, unbroken line. The staff came running again and didn’t bother to eject him this time, flustering about the bed with stimulants and injections and heart massage. It was an hour before they turned, the tension seeming to go from all of them at the same time.

  “I’m sorry,” said the gynaecologist. He must have said it many times but he still made it sound si
ncere.

  Bunch was there as he had been throughout, and this time Rudd allowed the arm around his shoulders because he didn’t know what to do or where to go. They were in the corridor but still close to Angela’s door when her father came running from the reception area. He must have heard the news because he was already crying. Morrison stopped in front of them, barring their way.

  “You killed her, you bastard. You killed her,” shouted the older man. “Jesus, you’re going to suffer.”

  Rudd tried to hit him then, lashing out in a wild, flaying punch that would have missed even if the doctor and the nurse hadn’t intruded.

  “Bastard,” yelled Morrison again and this time he tried to hit back but now Bunch was between them as well, forcing them further apart. The lawyer snatched at Rudd’s arm, hauling him down the corridor, and the hospital staff prevented Morrison from following.

  “I didn’t kill her,” said Rudd. The shock was already moving through him so the words came out dully. “He sent me away … I didn’t kill her.”

  “It was just grief,” said Bunch. “He didn’t mean it.”

  Bunch was wrong.

  Herbert Morrison had never meant anything more sincerely.

  1

  Sir Ian Buckland decided it had been a mistake to agree to the meeting, despite Condway’s insistence upon its importance. Friday, after all. And Condway knew damned well he always went out of London on a Friday, just as Condway invariably did. And sooner than this, too. What the hell was there that couldn’t wait until Tuesday? Nothing, Buckland knew; absolutely nothing. Buckland looked needlessly at the desk clock, establishing that Condway was more than half an hour late. Either testing the humidity of some Havana-Havana or debating with the sommelier the superiority of the Vintage Dow against a 1969 Warre.

  Buckland sighed. Fiona had said she understood when he’d telephoned, but he thought he’d detected an edge to her voice. It was still new enough for him to care about upsetting her. Bloody man.

  Buckland thrust up and began pacing the chairman’s office which was his by title but hardly by occupation, needing positive movement in his irritation. It was a large room originally designed by his grandfather and panelled still in dark Victorian teak, creating the impression of frames. In each square there was either a photograph or a print of one of their hotels throughout the world, London to the immediate right, Europe next, then Africa and finally India. Along the outer wall, where the windows overlooked Leadenhall Street, the shipping fleet was in modelled convoy, seven glass-encased liners steaming majestically back towards the desk that Buckland had vacated.

  He walked jerkily trying to reassure himself the day could still be salvaged. Another fifteen minutes and he’d abandon the confounded man altogether. He could be at Fiona’s by three and down to the Hamble by late afternoon. The yard were expecting him and knew it was more than their worth to close before he got there; he could have the yacht out into the Solent and into refit sea trials before the evening. And then an uninterrupted weekend with a woman who made love as if she’d invented it and was anxious to share the secret.

  He was striding purposefully back towards his desk and the door that led to the outer office when the intercom sounded. He was annoyed that he hadn’t made the decision earlier, to avoid being trapped. He punched the button and hoped Condway would detect the annoyance in his voice. If he had there was no indication of it having made any impression when the deputy chairman entered the room with his steady, measured tread. Lord Condway was plump, white-haired and port-mottled, the sort of British business director chosen as much for a lineage of four centuries as for his business acumen. The man carried a cigar still four inches long; he paused by Buckland’s desk to dislodge a ring of white ash.

  “You said two o’clock, George,” reminded Buckland.

  “Unavoidably delayed,” said Condway, without an apology.

  “I’ve an appointment.”

  Buckland remained standing. Condway nodded, settling himself expansively in one of the soft leather armchairs fronting the desk. “Necessary that we talk this through, Ian,” he said.

  Reluctantly Buckland settled himself behind the desk. “What?” he demanded. If Condway could be discourteous, so could he.

  Condway moved his head again, absent-mindedly, suddenly interested in the burn of his cigar. “We’ve got a good finance director in Henry Smallwood,” he said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” said Buckland. Smallwood was their most junior director, a round-bodied, round-faced man: even his spectacles were circular, making him appear exactly as Buckland regarded him, a clerk.

  “Came to see me yesterday,” disclosed the deputy chairman. “Something he can’t understand in the accounts.”

  Buckland sighed, looking at the desk clock again. “Couldn’t this have waited until Tuesday, George?”

  Condway raised his eyes from the cigar, shaking his head. “There’s a company cheque with your signature on it, Ian. For £635,000, made out to Leinman Properties and provisionally entered under investment.”

  Buckland’s annoyance leaked away. “It was a private matter,” he said shortly.

  Condway shook his head again and Buckland was reminded of his housemaster at Eton: he’d smoked cigars and drunk port and been patronising. “It’s a company cheque,” said the deputy chairman.

  “Buckland House is my company!”

  “No it’s not, Ian. And you know it. It’s a public company with public investors. The only Leinman Properties Smallwood can find in the company register own casinos in Curzon Street and Hertford Street.”

  Buckland laughed dismissively. “It was a debt,” he said.

  “A gambling debt?”

  “Yes.”

  Condway sat regarding him expressionlessly for several moments. When he spoke it was slowly, for the words to be understood. “You’ve committed a criminal offence, under the Company Acts.”

  “What!”

  “A charge could be brought against you, under the fraud provisions.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “That’s the law,” said Condway, with quiet persistence.

  “Your interpretation of it? Or Smallwood’s?”

  “My interpretation,” said Condway. “Smallwood wanted to know if it was an executive decision we’d made between us in the absence of the full board and omitted to have entered into the minutes.”

  “What did you say?” demanded Buckland.

  “Condway hesitated again. Then he said, “I told him I had a vague recollection but that I’d have to check my notes.”

  “It could have been an executive decision,” said Buckland, seeing the way out and grabbing for it. “We only need three directors to agree.”

  “Was it your intention to attempt to get £635,000 through the company books?” asked Condway formally.

  Not his housemaster, corrected Buckland. His father. The tone had always been like this, slightly weary, vaguely superior. Condway had served on the board under his father and Buckland knew the deputy chairman made comparisons, as they all did.

  “It was an oversight,” he insisted. “I happened to have a company cheque book on me and it was the convenient thing to do.…” He stopped, conscious of the other man’s concentration. “An oversight,” he repeated.

  “It could be listed as an executive decision on a director’s loan,” said Condway. “Could you repay it?”

  “Of course.”

  “Now?”

  “That’s offensive.”

  “I’m being practical. And trying to avoid some public embarrassment,” said Condway.

  From the top, right-hand drawer of his desk Buckland took his personal cheque book and hurriedly completed an entry. In his annoyance he tore it out badly, leaving part of the counterfoil still attached, which made the gesture seem petulant. Slowly Condway reached forward for it and said, “I’ll see it goes to accounts this afternoon, with a memo. There’ll need to be a retroactive minute, which will mean board di
scussion.”

  “I understand,” said Buckland. He looked obviously at the desk clock: he was more than an hour late for Fiona.

  “It is an offence,” said Condway.

  “You’ve made your point.”

  “I just felt it was worth repeating,” said Condway. He was unable any longer to maintain the white ash at the top of his cigar and it snowed down on to the carpet.

  “You’re driving too fast.”

  “I want to cast off before six,” said Buckland. “After that the water starts to drop.”

  “You’re in a rotten mood, too,” accused Lady Fiona Harvey. She had a little-girl voice: occasionally, when she was excited, it actually came out as a squeak. Usually Buckland found it attractive but today it grated.

  “Something awkward at the office,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I had a letter from Peter’s solicitors today. They’ve given me a week to get out of the flat.”

  “I thought it was yours, under the terms of the settlement,” said Buckland. She was bloody lucky there’d been a change in the British divorce laws, making an irretrievable breakdown the only grounds necessary. Sir Peter Harvey had proof of six different men with whom she’d committed adultery and a scandal would have been inevitable.

  “It’s one of the things that’s got to be sold, for the division of the family property.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s a bloody nuisance.” She moved her hand across into his lap and began caressing him. “I could always move into one of your hotels, I suppose: would I get preferential rates?”

  “How could I explain the visits?” he said, laughing with her. He shifted on the seat, making it easier for her, feeling himself stir under her touch. He’d never known anyone as sexual as Fiona.

  “What did you tell Margaret?” she said.

  “The truth,” said Buckland. “That I was going to Hamble to put the yacht in the water.”

  “But forgot to mention me?”

  Buckland smiled quickly to her. “She regards you as a close friend,” he said, “though not that close.”