Tall Poppies (27 page)

‘My flight leaves at noon,’ Nina said. ‘I’m going home now. To pack.’

‘Are you taking your bracelet with you?’

Nina picked up the trinket he’d bought for her tonight.

It was a light twist of silver set with opals and s.apphires.

‘I don’t think so. I don’t plan on going to many parties.’

‘I want you to take it,’ Tony said..

Nina stiffened. She hated it when he used that tone. The jewels she’d loved at first were now beginning to annoy her; she couldn’t say why.

‘I went to a lot of trouble to get it for you. Why won’t you take it?’

‘I guess,’ Nina agreed after a pause.

Tony smiled. Nina was too prickly for hearts and flowers, fine. But he was still in charge. That was the best thing about this little one: she was smart and driven, but still too young to really see things straight. When she got a good idea, she came right to him. Women did that a lot, he noticed. They picked up silly romantic ideas about work, they invented spurious loyalties and clung to the idea that haxd work would be rewarded. People worked hard in quarries, but rarely got rewarded. Results. It was all about results. Nina would give him her best work, she would be comfortable, she would wind up a middle manager and be grateful for it too. The jewellery made a nice point: he didn’t want her getting too independent.

Recently she’d been hanging back a little in bed. Initially she’d been passionate; lately it was like the bloom had gone for her. But Tony was skilled, he knew how to ride over that first reluctance. His desire for her was still at full throttle. He had no intention whatsoever of letting her go.

‘Good girl, that’s the ticket. Yo.u’ll want something to wear to the Olympic parties and launches that Liz dreams up.’

‘Yeah.’ Nina’s dark mood blackened further. She reached for her bra and dress and pulled them on quickly.

‘You must send me reports on her. See that she’s keeping out of trouble. And what the story is between her and the Taylor boy,’ Tony said.

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‘Of course. I’ll keep you updated.’

‘I knew I could count on you, darling. We’ll rush forward with wedding plans as soon as he pops the question. Throw her a spectacular bash, and then it’ll be off to darkest Texas.’

‘But never mind.’ Nina walked forwards and perched on the end of the bed. Tony’s wallet was laid open on the side-table; there was a prominent photo of the countess, Monica, with two teenage boys. Elizabeth was noticeably absent. She watched her lover as she added, ‘You won’t be so much gaining a son as losing a daughter.’

Lord Caerhaven gave a short bark of laughter.

God, you really do hate her, Nina thought drily. How interesting.

She took a taxi back from the lobby of the hotel. The receptionist kept shooting her sidelong glances, until Nina turned dark eyes towards him and stared him coldly in the face, at which the man dropped his eyes at once.

The cab took her up to Tufnell Park. It was only two h.m., but the roads in the city centre were already deserted. Nina stared out of the windows; a thin drizzle was lashing little beads on the windowpane that sparkled in the lamplight. Her new bracelet sparkled too, twisting “. between her fingers. It was a wonderful piece; expensive but not overpowering, impeccably tasteful. Just what you would expect from the Robber Baron.

The house was deserted and still. Nina had shoved most of her furniture into storage and switched her bills to Dragon. The answerphone was blinking furiously: six messages from New York and Europe that had missed her in the office; one from Anita Kerr, her secretary, inviting her out for a goodbye drink. Nina was sorry she’d missed that one. Anita, who knew how hard she worked, was the closest thing she had to a friend in the office. Anita and Brian Kane, her neighbour, .who she

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sometimes jogged with on a Sunday, represented her non Dragon social life. But I don’t need one, Nina told herself. I don’t need to be a butterfly like Elizabeth. I have things to do with my life.

She went into the kitchen and pulled out the last Tesco pizza from the freezer. Then she started to fix a pot of coffee. She drank so much caffeine these days, she could drink coffee right before bed without any problem. Coffee and pizza was a small pleasure, a solitary moment in a day filled with people she didn’t really like. Take the function last evening, a stuffy Caerhaven party at the House of Lords. Senior Dragon people went. Why had she been asked? Because Tony wanted to impress her? Or his cronies? It was the eighteenth birthday of Charles, Lord Holwyn, Tony’s eldest son. Charles was a miniature version of his papa, striding through the crowd, being heartily congratulated by obnoxious schoolfriends and bluff business associates of Tony’s. Lord Richard, his little brother, seemed blond and bland, like his mother. Nina watched Tony’s wife curiously. She seemed sexless, almost faceless, despite her inoffensive prettiness. Yet she moved through that crowd with a poise Nina would never have, looking bored but charming at the same time. There were more titles and money together in that room than Nina could get her head round, and she hated every last second of it. An attractive but stupid girl named Camilla Browning kept bumping into her all night long, showering her with clumsy insults and cutting remarks about Americans. Eventually Nina escaped with a glass of bourbon to the terrace, to watch the Thames roll sluggishly by. When Tony wandered out and casually suggested the Halkin as a rendezvous, Nina was relieved. But by the time she met him in the lobby, her attitude had hardened. She disliked Tony almost as much as the rest of them.

The microwave pinged.

Even if it meant more run-ins with Elizabeth, she was looking forward to Switzerland. That country was all about money. And Nina knew money. Maybe in Zurich she could make the deal that would gain her respect once and for all.

Before she ate, Nina picked up her new bracelet and dropped it in an envelope, addressed to Anita Kerr. Her note asked Anita not to wear it around the office. It might be a foolish gesture, Nina thought, but it felt good. If rather dangerous.

The plane dipped towards Kloten airport, overlooking Lake Zurich and the snow-capped mountains around the city. Nina watched the scenery with idle curiosity. It was

‘ her first time in Continental Europe but she couldn’t spare much interest in picture-postcard views. Her mind was racing through the biographies of Dr Lilly Hall and Dr Henry Namath.

They were a strange pair. Dr Hall had been a full professor of biochemistry at the University of Western Australia. She was a holder of the Order of Australia for her breakthrough work in disease-resistant crop genetics. Lilly was a practical woman, she didn’t take time to publish her work. Her college demanded more name recognition, there was a spat over tenure, and Dr Hall left for the private sector. Her work since then was ambitious, and often failed, but the scores she did make were serious. Lean pigs! Nina could shiver just thinking about it. Her photograph in the file was ten years out of date; it showed a iowly woman in her forties, short, squat, with leathery skin from too much exposure to the sun. If there was a romance, nobody knew about it.

Dr Henry Namath. Pictured four years ago, nothing to write home about in the looks department - Buddy Holly glasses and facial hair that would do credit to Chewbacca the Wookie, but a razor-sharp mind. Between the lines of

his file Nina read him as your classic nerd. As a teenage boy from a cold northwestern suburb outside Minneapolis, Harry Namath had been twice expelled from school for crashing a mainframe computer. Later he had done two months in juvenile detention for doing the same to a state mainframe, causing all the lights in Pennsville, MA, to stick on green for a full day. Namath had been writing code and programming machines for ever, since that meant feeding strips of paper with holes punched in them to metal behemoths working the binary system. He’d maxed out his SATs, but with the criminal record, only scraped in to University of St Thomas, a Catholic college, where he’d barely cruised through. Nina grinned when she recalled that. Maybe UST didn’t have any computers.

Now he was writing programs as a freelance. Picked up an easy doctorate at the London School of Economics, hired by IBM, fired in six months. Clearly a maverick. Bumped into Lilly Hall at a hospital fundraiser in London, when she was completing a project for the Ministry of Agriculture. They’d been together ever since. Lilly did the pharmacology; Harry wrote programs for companies, showing how her drugs and genes could be used.

Both of them were arrogant, rebellious and probably as greedy as she was for the big score.

.Just the kind of hustlers I can do business with, Nina thought.

After Customs she picked up her baggage and jumped in a cab. Tony had personally selected hel” apartment off the Storchengasse.

‘Very nice,’ the cabbie said pleasantly when she gave him the address. ‘Very good area, you will like.’

They drove through the jazzy Niederdorf area, past outside cafes, tobacconists and bookstores with slanted roofs. After London everything seemed very clean. Nina’

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watched an ancient Kircbe slip by, then banks with brass nameplates. It was very cold and the sky was a dazzling blue. She could see mountains in the distance. It felt like an alien world.

The Storchengasse turned out to be a major shopping thoroughfare for the seriously rich. Hermes, Chanel, Cartier; it was thronging with women in silky-looking furs. When the cab drew up outside a smart, fiat-fronted building with a uniformed doorman, Nina stepped out with a sigh of pure satisfaction. She gave the driver a generous tip.

Her apartment was fully automated. Nina punched a combination into a wall panel and the front door slid open. Doubtless Dr Namath would approve. It was

‘ decorated in white and cream with touches of gold, very Swiss and baroque. The refrigerator was fully stocked; a basket of fruit was laid out on a small ebony table by her bed. The card was a sterile, printed welcome message

from Luc Viera, MD of Dragon Switzerland. Tony kept a skeleton office in Geneva. Mostly Viera and his gnomes kpt abreast of the gossip floating out of the banks. Nina imagined the Robber Baron’s orders coming through, how annoyed the career suit Viera would be to be told he was point man for a kid. That idea pleased her almost as much as the apartment.

Money and power, that’s what Tony Savage was dangling in front of her face. Nina selected a bitter Swiss chocolate from the open box in the kitchen and bit into it carefully. It was sublime. Maybe she should wear his jewellery, next time he told her to. After all, wasn’t this everything she’d always wanted?

‘So.’ Elizabeth dumped her skis down in the boot room for waxing and pushed her goggles up over her face. Her skin was stung red from the cold; white wax was smeared clown-like over her lips but right now she wished she’d

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done her cheeks too. She clump-clumped her way into the hotel foyer. It was so ironic: good boots anchored your turns like rocket boosters on the slopes, bombing you forwards with perfect weight precision, and yet the second you unclipped the skis you were crippled, tripping and lurching like astronauts on the moon. She sat down carefully on a step and unstrapped them, ignoring the stares from the tourists and sports groupies. ‘At least I haven’t forgotten how to ski.’

‘You could have fooled me,’ Karen Carter sniped. ‘Still four seconds off your best. And five off Louise’s - she did that course in two-twenty over Christmas.’

Elizabeth shrugged. ‘I’m improving every session.’ What the hell was your time, loser? she wanted to snap, but bit it back. She was coming in for unexpected stick from the press. Slagging a fellow Brit would only make things worse. Karen or Janet Marlin would be bound to leak it. Jealousy over Jack Taylor had soured the team spirit, and the Olympic setting made things a lot worse. Everywhere the team trained they were greeted with huge five-ring banners, cheering Swiss and multinational officials, sports journos and television crews. The World Cup felt like a local gymkhana in comparison. Big stars were wandering round every venue: Torville and Dean, Robin Cousins, and the rest. Since it was Switzerland, the bobsledders would be tackling the Cresta Run. Glamour and glory were in the air; deadly rivalry and the weight of history. You couldn’t escape the atmosphere. Adrenalin crackled around like .electricity up the cable cars. The 61ite were here for Olympic g01d medals. Nothing less.

Karen Carter, Janet Marlin and Kate Cox were not here for Olympic gold medals. Or for Olympic medals of any description. They had no chance. Martin Bell in the men’s team had no chance. Lady Elizabeth Savage was the UK’s only real contender. All the other girls got asked’

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was, what was it like to ski with her, didn’t they feel privileged watching such a great talent emerge? Des Lynam contented himself with Karen, because Elizabeth was too busy to speak to him. And the stuck-up cow had somehow waltzed off with Jack bloody Taylor, after pretending for months and months that she hated him. Janet told Karen Elizabeth was a proper little madam, and Karen had totally agreed. Ronnie Davis kept his distance, because Ronnie would soon be training only the main team. Elizabeth would zoom off again with Hans Wolf, the genius coach they’d all have given their eye teeth to work with. Elizabeth .was just too good for the rest of them.

‘Did you take a look at the Sun this morning?’ Janet

‘ asked.

‘Yeah, but it doesn’t bother me.’ The tabloids were all running nasty pieces about Elizabeth’s lack of commitment, commenting on her Alpine rivals’ current times. ‘I’m heading out to Klosters with Hans tomorrow to start the real work,’ she said lightly.

“Well, hold the back page,’ Karen sniped.

Elizabeth smiled softly at her. What was the point? Did Jack get this crap from his teammates?

‘Will you be packing all your pictures with you?’ ‘Yes, I will.’ She grinned as she thought about her piles of ad mock-ups. Elizabeth had been spending every moment she wasn’t skiing working on Dragon Gold. Nina Roth was due in Zurich soon and Elizabeth wanted to have something to show her.