Tall Poppies (29 page)

Dr Hall.nodded. Nina got to her feet, leaving a couple of business cards on the table. She’d done it, she’d got them. That was what she should focus on, not the fact that the good-looking cowboy in the goggles and white coat had just utterly humiliated her.

‘I’ll see you out,’ said Harry Namath.

He walked her to the door. Nina offered him her hand.

Namath shook it. He had a dry, firm grip. ‘Brooklyn, right?’

‘Right,’ Nina said flatly.

He shook his head. ‘Twenty-two. Pretty funny, but then it was a good save.’

She smiled slightly. ‘Maybe it.was.’

‘I’m an American too, kiddo. You can’t putit past me.’ ‘My name is Nina, Dr Namath.’

He fielded the rebuke easily. ‘Only if mine’s Harry. So, your lawyer will be in touch, we’ll talk again.’

‘Right.’ She glanced up the street, looking for a cab. ‘Hey Nina,’ Harry said, ‘great suit.’ ‘Thanks,’ Nina muttered.

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He closed the door.

Tony Savage picked up his phone with a shiver of pleasure. Sex rippled through him now whenever he heard any mention of Nina’s name. She’d been away for a week. He wanted her to get through her deals quickly and get back. He was missing her softness and prickly

ambition; lays like Nina didn’t grow on trees.

‘Go ahead, m’lord.’

‘Nina? I read your fax. Good work.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Tony grinned. She wouldn’t use his first name on a company phone. Whether it was paranoia or her stupid pretence that she separated business and pleasure, he didn’t care. He liked Nina to call him sir; for her he was great God from whom all blessings flowed.

‘How long is it going to take for you to wrap things up? You’re missed around here.’

‘A while yet. Legal is on it, but I want to get to know them. Dr Hall is thorny, but she knows exactly what she’s doing.’

‘And Henry Namath?’

There was a pause. ‘Harry’s real interesting, sir. No bullshit. When we talk about computers, he’s … intense. He’ll go with us if he thinks it’s right for Lilly.’

‘You like him.’ Tony was surprised. ‘Good. It’ll be helpful in getting them to commit. Just don’t like him too much, there’s a girl.’ Nina said nothing, so he ploughed on. ‘Maybe I should come out there, Nina, get a sit-rep,’ Tony added, silkily.

‘I can fax you detailed reports. You don’t need to come OUt.’

Tony glanced .down at the receiver. ‘No. You don’t understand. Maybe I want to come out. And how’s Elizabeth?’

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‘I don’t know, sir. I’m seeing Lady Elizabeth next week. Where she’s training.’

Tony grunted. ‘What about her and Jack?’

‘As I said, I don’t know. I’ve been busy with Harry.’ ‘It’s important to me to know the state of that relationship, Nina. It’s a priority for me. Remember? Namath can get on just fine without you. My priorities are the ones that count. Don’t forget it. Do you understand me?’

‘I understand you perfectly, Lord Caerhaven.’

Tony flipped through the thick, gold-leaved pages of his desk diary. ‘First Saturday of the month. I think I’ll come over. To your apartment. We can have a chinwag before I fly out to Elizabeth. You’ll enjoy that.’

There was a small silence. ‘I might not be free on that Saturday.’

‘No, you’re not free. You’re tied up with me,’ Tony said.

He hung up. The pleasurable frisson had vanished completely. Tony glanced at the phone, then across his desk to the latest bunch of reports from sales. After the success of Dragon Gold, his wretched daughter had started taking matters into her own hands. They were small things, both of them, but not to be tolerated. Tony had learned early on that rebellion was there to be stamped on. In London, Switzerland, or anywhere else.

And the natives were getting restless.

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‘Yeah, the response is fantastic,’ Jake Ansom’s voice crackled down the hotel telephone. ‘Boots just put in another major order. Central buying says they’re thinking of stocking it as standard.’.

‘Brilliant.’ Elizabeth grinned. ‘What about the independents?’

Village chemists were important too. She wanted her pill to be flying off shelves everywhere, right now, while it was still hot. They wouldn’t allocate advertising money for ever. Elizabeth had spent months going over boring sales projections and histories for lots of their past brands. Now it was paying off. Once Dragon Gold was a household name, half the battle was won.

‘You’ve got a real instinct for this stuff,’ Jake said. ‘Everybody’s talking about it.’

Elizabeth laughed. ‘Look, I want to launch in France.

And put a major push into hospitals.’

‘Hospitals? But—’

‘Trust me, OK? Then we need to talk to water companies. Vittel, Evian …’

Jake snorted. ‘Bottled water? That’s never going to catch on. Why should anybody pay for water? You get it free out of the tap.’

‘Just set it up, Jake.’ Elizabeth didn’t mind his teasing, she was brimming with confidence. The years of reading trade magazines and pinning up Clio award-winning ads on her walls were all bearing fruit. Ideas were tumbling out of her like water bursting through a dam. And

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Elizabeth knew what the stakes were. She had something to prove. By the time she was through, not even Daddy would ignore her any more.

Jake was still fretting. ‘If you insist, but Liz - you can’t

launch in France, just like that.’

‘Why not?’

The line to England gave a crackle as though amazed. ‘Because it costs money to set it up! Lots of money! You don’t have the authority—’

‘I do. I’ve got total authority for Dragon Gold. But you’re right, it’s a waste to set up distribution in just one foreign country.’

Jake sighed with relief.

‘We need to go across the whole continent. No, it’s OK. I spoke to Father this morning, he wants me to go ahead.’ That was a lie, of course, but Jake wouldn’t know it. Everybody at Dragon assumed Tony adored his only daughter. ‘You can check with him, if you need to.’

‘No, that’s fine,’ Jake said hastily. ‘I’ll get our people in the local companies—’

‘To call me direct. Father’s very busy, he doesn’t want to be bothered. That’s why he gave me sole responsibility.’

When Ansom rang off she smiled. Maybe she was taking a risk, lying about Tony, spending millions, but someone else would soon discover how to link calcium and iron. Right now they had a USP, as Procter & Gamble would say, a unique selling point.

I know how this company wgrks, Elizabeth thought, her heart quickening with excitement. As her father’s daughter, nobody would question her. And with the power and wealth of Dragon right behind her, she could launch her product and make a success of it Europe-wide before anybody had time to stop her.

Elizabeth launched herself into her warm-up routine, flexing, stretching. Outside a new blanket of snow had.

z47

covered the mountains and she was late for meeting Hans and Jack. Oh well, they could talk theory for a bit. It was going to take some doing, supervising Gold and training hard, but she was sure she could handle it. Like they said round the office, if you want something done, ask a busy person.

Surely this boldness would win Tony over. That was the way he worked: jump first, ask questions later. Tony was always saying that the person swearing it couldn’t be done was run over by the person who just did it. It was daring, ruthless daring, that had made the Robber Baron - why shouldn’t it make his daughter?

She grabbed her lilac skisuit with the iridescent stripes. Success made her feel romantic. The skintight Lycra was what she’d been wearing during her first battles with Jack. It hugged her tight butt and chiselled quads, and it shimmered thousands of rainbows as she plunged down the slopes, flashing bright as a starling’s wing.

Elizabeth was annoyed with Jack for not calling, but she shoved that feeling aside. Today they’d be skiing again, skiing together, for the first time since she got to Switzerland. She twisted her glossy hair into a neat ponytail and picked up her goggles. No forests, no avalanches, God, this was going to be fun.

Elizabeth smiled softly at the bowing concierge as she left the Hotel M611er. It was one of the most exclusive in Klosters, unmarked from the Outside, at first glance just another gingerbread-gabled townhouse in the heart of the old town. Places like the MiSller did not advertise for guests. Hans knew the proprietress, so Elizabeth got the best of both worlds: as much privacy as you could get in the Olympic capital, stately courteousness and old-fashioned elegance, but also a first-class suite wired with faxes, three phone lines and even a small Quotron terminal, linked to the markets via Zurich. That was for

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the gnomes, rich Swiss financiers who used the M611er regularly. And despite the apparent rustic nature of the receptionists, they were ruthless on the phone. No journalist had scammed his way through to Elizabeth yet. The first night she arrived they camped outside the door; but when one tabloid hack tried sneaking into the lobby two gigantic bouncers had appeared silently from nowhere. The press let her alone.

It all came at a price, of course, but Elizabeth didn’t worry about that. She charged it as a business expense and used her Dragon corporate Amex. Well, she couldn’t ask Ronnie Davis to fork out for it, and the other girls were still sulking in St Moritz.

She caught the cable-car up to Gotschnagrat. Klosters dropped away beneath them, and Elizabeth’s heart lifted along with her stomach; the sun was brilliant in crisp blue sky,-new snow on the mountains glittering like powdered glass. Skiers were out in force, neon specks blazing over the runs, hundreds-and-thousands spattered on ice cream. This was skiing, this was coming home. Rocky crops and plunging walls of ice vanished below them as they moved on. Everything was so vast in the roof of the world; the sky so close you could touch it, crevasses that would drop you straight into hell.

Elizabeth moved among the tourists. She kept her dark goggles on so she wouldn’t be bothered. Now Klosters was some brown speckles on the snow, they were passing Davos, with its dreary purpose-built blocks and endless lift queues. Traffic was toytown cute from the cable-car windows, bright sun flashes sparking from tiny windscreens. She felt an edgy knot in her gut as she looked down. Funny, you really felt how high up you were in one of these, whereas a plane seemed clinical and safe. Sometimes a car would stop for a few moments, and hang reaking over the void. That always scared her. Maybe it was too many Bond flicks: they made you’

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expect a wheel failure, a lurch southwards, sickening drops into a fireball death. Chairlifts were worse. Years out on the circuit, and Elizabeth still thought that was a dodgy idea, park benches that flew. She never told Hans about her little phobias, he’d have teased her unmercifully. And as for Jack …

Elizabeth grinned at that thought as she stepped out at the Gotschna station, selected a flat patch of snow and buckled on her skis. Rossignol had custom-made these for her; they slid and turned, almost weightlessly, slicing and twisting in motion like part of herself. The snow was good, well packed but not icy, and the air at altitude had a perfect champagne sparkle. Just a few brave souls were pushing off towards the start of the Gotschnawang, and

‘ she recognised Hans straight off; you couldn’t mistake that ramrod stance, nor the incongruous shock of white hair under the ancient goggles.

She glided over with one effortless push. ‘Giiten Morgen, mein Herr, wie geht’s Ihnen?’

‘Elizabeth!’ Hans smiled, clapping one mitt on her shoulder. ‘You are well? Good!’ He glanced her over critically. ‘Ach, not bad. It almost seems that you are fit. But fitness in the gymnasium does not equal speed on the slopes. All winter Heidi Laufen has been practising, and you are dabbling in business. What have you to show for it?’

Elizabeth grinned. Same old Hans. ‘Maybe something big, in a couple of months.’

The old man’s face creased. ‘In a couple of months, you will see something big. Heidi Laufen with an Olympic Gold.’

‘I don’t think so. You don’t get them for second place.’ ‘So,’ Herr Wolf was sarcastic, ‘you think Louise Levier will beat her to it?’

‘I’m not that bad, boss, I’ll show you,’ Elizabeth said cheerfully. She waved down the plunging drops of the

zSO

Gotschnawang run with a ski-pole. Ski-instructors scared tourists with tales of this one; the Wang route to the south was unmarked, full of stomach-lurching dives and vicious mogul fields. If you were trying to crunch your way back into contention, there was no time for easing into it. Elizabeth’s nipples tightened pleasantly from more than the cold. She’d been looking forward to taking this on with Jack, the adrenalin, bobsled-speed, his hard

quads and glutes straining and pushing beside her … ‘OK. We go.’ Hans pushed off. ‘Wait! Where’s Jack?’

‘Jack?’ Wolf blinked; his mind was already locked into the run. ‘You were late.’

‘You mean he’s left?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘He can’t have done, Hans, I’m only fifteen minutes—’

‘]a, ia.” Hans was impatient. ‘He is by now halfway down. Ho-said, this is too important to waste time, he does not like waiting. Maybe at the bottom he stays for you, maybe he takes the gondola to Parsenn.’

‘I see,’ Elizabeth said coldly. She couldn’t believe it. Son-of-a-bitch, selfish, arrogant bastard! Fifteen bloody minutes! First he didn’t ring her, now he wouldn’t wait for her … As she followed Hans over to the lip of the first schuss, Elizabeth ran over all the moments they’d had since he presented her with her little platinum ski. There weren’t that many of them, really. Phone calls in the office, mostly brief news updates on their lives.

Jack’s platinum trinket pressed against her collarbone as she thrust off from the top. Instantly her reflexes took over as her body hugged the ice, her stomach floating fifty yards behind her as she flew behind her coach. Elizabeth flicked into ski mode like she’d turned on a light, keeping her eyes a hundred yards in front, turning to the left cleanly. The slicing edges of her skis threw up a small arc of ice. She barrelled left again, then right, hugging Hans’s tracks so perfectly you could hardly tell there were two’