Next of Kin (32 page)

‘Really?' asked Montignac. ‘May I ask why not?'

‘Well I don't mean any offence,' said Keaton with a shrug. ‘But I knew your uncle quite well and he was something of a straight-shooter. He never would have involved himself in an operation like this.'

‘My uncle was not quite the saint that people like to portray him as,' said Montignac.

‘Sons never like to hear people speak well of their fathers. I bet if I had criticized him you would have defended him soundly, though.'

‘He wasn't my father,' Montignac pointed out.

‘Well be that as it may, I wasn't sure that I was doing the right thing approaching you. I see now that I was wrong. You've done a very efficient job.'

Montignac nodded. ‘Well I'm glad that I managed to impress you,' he said. ‘Can I ask you who recommended me in the first place?'

‘Of course you can ask,' said Keaton, smiling. ‘But it would be entirely inappropriate for me to tell you. Let's just say that it was someone who was familiar with your character and who believed you would be happy to provide me with this service.'

‘All right,' said Montignac, who understood the rules regarding transactions like this. ‘And what about where they're going then? Whose walls are these going to end up on?'

‘I'm afraid it would be improper for me to tell you that either,' he replied with a laugh. ‘I'm sorry, Mr Montignac, but there we are. It was nothing more than a discreet business arrangement. Perhaps we should leave it at that and not ask each other any more questions.'

‘That's fine,' said Montignac. ‘Although please do stress to your buyer that he won't be able to put any of these pictures on general display. If anyone should see them—'

‘Let me assure you that they are for his private collection only, and once these have left here today any association they may have to you or your gallery will be completely forgotten. No one would be able to prove a connection anyway.'

‘Good,' said Montignac. ‘Which leaves us with only one matter left to sort out.'

‘Indeed it does,' said Keaton, reaching inside his jacket to remove the envelope. ‘Fifteen thousand pounds to do with what you will.'

Montignac took the envelope and looked inside it.

‘You can count it if you want,' said Keaton but Montignac shook his head.

‘I'll trust you,' he said, extending a hand and they shook on it. ‘If there's any other business deals you can put my way you know where to contact me.'

‘Indeed I do, Mr Montignac, and now that you have proved your value and discretion, I may very well be in touch again. In fact, you can count on it. I think there's another matter, a far more important and financially beneficial matter, that you could help me out with.'

‘Oh really?' he asked. ‘Can I ask what it is?'

‘Your debt to Mr Delfy still stands at an extraordinary figure, does it not?'

Montignac hesitated; he hated admitting to his failures like this. ‘Yes,' he said finally, through gritted teeth.

‘Well there may be a way that I could help you clear the entire amount.'

‘Go on.'

‘Not here,' said Keaton, shaking his head. ‘I'll contact you shortly about it. It's a much riskier venture than this one, of course, but then the remuneration will be a lot higher. And it has far greater importance too.'

‘Sounds mysterious,' said Montignac.

‘Let's just say that it will take some ingenuity to pull it off.'

Montignac nodded. ‘I'll wait to hear from you then,' he said.

They shook hands again and Montignac left the lock-up; there weren't many people who made him feel uncomfortable but Keaton was certainly one. Despite his corpulent build and aristocratic bearing, he had a chilly manner and fixed smile that made Montignac think that under the right circumstances he could be quite brutal.

Throughout the rest of the afternoon, while relaxing at his flat on Bedford Place, it had been a battle of wills between Montignac's good and bad nature to hold on to the money he had just earned. He laid it out on his bed when he got home and counted it. As it turned out Keaton had been wrong, there was not fifteen thousand pounds there, but fifteen thousand one hundred. He smiled as he double-checked. It was a trivial amount in relation to the total but twenty-four hours earlier a hundred pounds would have meant a lot to him.

He separated the money into three piles. Ten thousand for Nicholas Delfy, one thousand for Gareth Bentley and four thousand one hundred for himself, and put the first bundle back into the envelope and sealed it.

The idea of taking the entire amount to a card table at another club and doubling, tripling or quadrupling it by teatime was very attractive but he managed to resist it. He had only left himself with two days to go before the payment was due and if he lost it now there would be nowhere to hide. On the other hand, the thought of taking all the money and disappearing to Europe was also a possibility but he couldn't trust that he wouldn't be found there too. In the end, proud of his determination, he stayed at home until nearly eight o'clock and then, to prevent any further temptations, left for the Unicorn.

‘Mr Montignac,' said Henderson as he approached him on the street outside, the same man who had escorted him from the pub some weeks earlier when Delfy had made contact to demand repayment. ‘We didn't expect to see you tonight.'

‘Really?' said Montignac. ‘I have some outstanding business with Mr Delfy.'

‘Yes, but he thought you would wait until the last possible minute to arrive which, by my calculations, would be two days from now.'

‘Well I have plans two days from now,' said Montignac with a casual air. ‘So I thought I'd come now. He is in, isn't he?'

Henderson smiled and led the way down the corridor and told Montignac to stay put while he went inside the office. He stood there and looked across at the club which was surprisingly busy for early on a Sunday night. He saw the barmen loading up the cash registers with the money that was being spent on bottles of wine and champagne; he could see the croupiers in the distance raking in thousands of pounds' worth of chips and wondered how one managed to set oneself up in a business like this. The income from it must be extraordinary and could make a tall and powerful man out of a runt like Nicholas Delfy.

The doorman stepped out of the office and moved back on to the corridor, nodding Montignac in the direction of the door. ‘Go on in,' he said.

Montignac walked slowly towards the door, stepped inside and closed it behind him. He felt a sigh of relief descend on him that he had got this far with the money intact, despite all the temptations, and that this meeting would be a lot more pleasant and a lot less threatening than their last had been.

‘Mr Montignac,' said Nicholas Delfy, leaning back in his chair and smiling broadly. ‘Or shall I start with Owen and see how we get on?'

‘Owen's fine,' he said. ‘Hello, Nicholas. Nice to see you again.'

‘Is it?' asked Delfy in surprise. ‘That's not something I hear very often.'

‘Well I don't really mean it,' said Montignac with a shrug. ‘I'm just being polite for form's sake.'

Delfy stared at him, unsure how to take that, but gave a gentle laugh; there was something about Montignac that he couldn't help but like.

‘Sit down, Owen,' he said. ‘Take the weight off. Can I get you a drink?'

Montignac was about to shake his head, the urge as strong as ever to stay for as short a time as possible, but then reconsidered. ‘All right,' he said. ‘I'll have a glass of whisky if you're having one.'

‘No, I like to keep a clear head,' said Delfy, walking across to the small bar in the corner and pouring one for his guest. ‘But you have one by all means. Ice?' he asked.

‘Please,' said Montignac, accepting the glass a few moments later and tasting it appreciatively. ‘Very nice,' he said.

‘Aged twenty-five years,' said Delfy, sitting down again. ‘Just like you.'

‘Sadly I have a birthday coming up shortly,' said Montignac. ‘I'll be twenty-six.'

‘Feeling confident you'll make it that far then?' asked Delfy.

‘More confident than I was a month ago.'

‘Well that's good. No one likes unnecessary violence,' said Delfy. ‘More than I,' he added with a laugh. ‘But I am hearing wonderful things about you, Owen,' he said with a flamboyant gesture. ‘My spies keep me well informed of course and they tell me that you've been working terribly hard at raising the money you owe me and there's a possibility, a slim possibility of course, that you may have ten thousand pounds in your pocket for me right now.'

‘Indeed,' said Montignac, enjoying the cat and mouse. ‘And what else do your spies tell you then?'

‘They say you've trapped an innocent little fly in your web and you're just waiting for an opportunity to swallow him up.'

‘Well I don't know where they got that from,' Montignac replied. ‘But it's true that I have the money I owe you.'

‘The whole fifty thousand?' asked Delfy in surprise.

‘No, no,' said Montignac quickly, laughing nervously. ‘Just the first payment. That's what we agreed upon, isn't it?'

‘It is indeed,' said Delfy. ‘So there's no need to look so nervous, Owen. And you've managed it with two days to spare. That's very impressive. Very impressive indeed. It fills me with confidence about your trustworthiness and our future relationship.'

Montignac nodded and they stared at each other for a minute before Delfy made a come-hither gesture with his left hand. Montignac frowned, unsure what he meant by it, and leaned forwards in his seat.

‘Not you, Owen,' sighed Delfy. ‘The money.'

‘Oh yes,' he said, reaching into his inner pocket and extracting the envelope and handing it across. ‘It's all there,' he said, relieved that it had been handed over now and he couldn't possibly risk it any further. ‘All ten thousand pounds. Count it if you like.'

Delfy laughed. ‘I'm sure you wouldn't be that stupid,' he said.

‘No.'

‘Well, like I said I'm very impressed,' he said. ‘Now you must promise to stay out of casinos from now on until the debt is fully paid off. Clearly, Owen Montignac and gambling do not go hand in hand.'

‘No,' said Montignac, not appreciating the sensation that he was being chastised like a child. ‘No I don't think we do.'

Delfy reached into a drawer and extracted a ledger and thumbed through it for the page he needed. ‘Ten thousand pounds,' he said as he wrote the figure down. ‘Paid in full. Excellent. Now we should probably talk about the balance.'

‘The balance,' said Montignac. ‘Yes, I'm working on that. But if you could give me a little more time I'd appreciate it.'

‘Well we agreed on Christmas, didn't we?' asked Delfy, looking up. ‘And since you've been so successful with the first installment I think we should stick to our original arrangement.'

‘Christmas will be fine,' said Montignac, who had been slightly worried that Delfy would turn around and change the conditions; it had been one of his motivating factors in bringing the ten thousand two days early.

‘Do you want to know the outstanding balance, Owen?'

‘Just over forty grand, I would imagine,' said Montignac.

‘Forty thousand one hundred and fifty,' said Delfy. ‘And if you can organize ten in a month I'm sure you can sort out the rest, which will mean you'll still be around next year to celebrate your twenty-seventh birthday.'

‘Don't worry,' said Montignac, draining his glass. ‘I'll sort it. It won't come to that.'

‘Then I thank you for your time and will wish you goodnight, Owen,' said Delfy, reaching across and shaking his hand as if this had been a perfectly friendly business meeting and not a potentially fatal one. Montignac nodded, stood up and left.

He considered his options as he left the club. He had four thousand one hundred pounds left, plus almost six hundred in personal savings, and of course there was Gareth's thousand which he wouldn't need where he was going. That made almost six thousand. Nowhere near enough. He hoped that Keaton had not been joking when he'd suggested that he might have another scheme for him to be involved in.

As things turned out, he only had to wait until the following lunchtime to hear from him again.

10

GARETH BENTLEY ARRIVED AT
the Threadbare at seven o'clock precisely, just as Montignac had told him to.

‘Perfectly punctual,' said Montignac with a smile as he let him in.

‘I was delighted when you phoned,' said Gareth. ‘I was starting to worry.'

‘Worry? About what?'

‘Well it's just that you told me not to contact you. You said you'd be in touch. But then I hadn't heard from you and it had been almost a week since—'

‘Shh, Gareth,' said Montignac. ‘Let's not talk about it here. Let me just go and grab my jacket and I'll take you out for dinner and then I may have something to give you at the end of it.'

Gareth gave a sigh of relief. His biggest worry was that he would arrive at the Threadbare Gallery to find the place closed up and Montignac disappeared to places unknown with his money. But not only was he still there but he seemed to be in an uncommonly good mood and in possession of the payment. Immediately his mind was set at ease and the dreams he had been imagining over the past few days danced before his eyes again; he felt uncommonly happy.

‘You got it then?' he asked.

‘Got it?'

‘The money, of course.'

‘Yes, I got it,' said Montignac with a laugh. ‘You didn't doubt me, did you?'

‘No, no, of course not,' said Gareth quickly. ‘I just can't believe it was so easy, that's all. I was worried that—' Something caught his eye and he looked down at Montignac's shirt sleeve. ‘Good God, Owen,' he said. ‘Have you hurt yourself?'