The Stars’ Tennis Balls (32 page)

Oliver frowned suddenly. A car was parked in the bay next to his. A silver Lexus that did not bear diplomatic plates. He could see the broad silhouette of an enormously fat driver sitting at the wheel. He made a note of the number and fished for his latchkey.

The first sign that alerted him to something strange afoot in the house was the sound of the children’s laughter. Oliver’s brood were never merry at the breakfast table. They slouched over their cereal, sulkily reading the packets or groaning for the radio to be turned off in favour of the television. The second sign of unusual goings on was the smell of bacon hanging in the hallway. Oliver was following a strict low fat diet and Julia had been a vegetarian all her life. The children, although the youngest was now thirteen, were still addicted to Coco Pops and Frosties.

Oliver heard a man s voice as he approached the kitchen. Bugger, he thought to himself. Uncle Bloody Jimmy.

Julia’s brother Jimmy was a favourite with the children but, as so often with those that children take to, adults found him a complete bore. The time would fit, Oliver realised, glancing at his watch. Uncle Jimmy often ‘dropped by’ early in the morning, after his flight from America had landed and he had a few hours to fill before the business world woke up. At least his arrival cleared up the mystery of the Lexus and chauffeur parked outside. Oliver prepared a welcoming face and opened the kitchen door.

If he had been asked to compile a list of a thousand people he might expect to see sitting at his kitchen table performing magic tricks for the benefit of his family, the dot.com billionaire Simon Cotter would not have featured anywhere.

‘There
you are, darling!’ said his wife.

Cotter looked up and smiled. ‘Good morning, Sir Oliver. You must excuse me for barging in on your family like this. So early too. I was passing on my way to the airport and took a chance on your being in. Been for a run?’

Oliver, acutely aware of his tracksuit and headband and for no good reason embarrassed by them, nodded.

‘It’s a great pleasure to see you, Mr Cotter. If you’ll let me shoot upstairs and change…’

‘Come on, Simon. Where is it?’

India, the youngest, had grabbed Simon’s hand and was feeling up his sleeve and tugging at his beard.

‘Ah, now. Where would you
like
it to be? Would you like it to be under the sugar bowl, perhaps? In the toast rack? Inside the newspaper?’

‘Under the sugar bowl.’

‘Well, then. Have a look.’

‘Bloody hell!’

Oliver was amazed to see that Rupert, back from Oxford and tiresomely sophisticated these days, was as wide-eyed and wriggling as the others.

‘Another! Do another!’

By the time Oliver came downstairs again they were in the middle of a mind-reading trick. Even Oliver’s mother, sitting slightly apart in her wheelchair, appeared to be enjoying herself, if the quantity of dribble sliding from the corners of her mouth could be regarded as a reliable index.

Julia, the children and Maria had all drawn shapes on pieces of paper and were clustered around Cotter, who put a finger dramatically to each temple and stared downwards with a great frown.

‘The great Cottini must think. He must
theeeenk
… aпeee …
no desme la lata!’
he muttered to himself. Oliver was surprised to see Maria giggle. She said something in Spanish and Cotter replied fluently.

‘My spirit guide, he has advised me,’ he announced, after turning his face in turn to each of the giggling, hot-faced children. ‘Olivia, because she is
vairrry
clever and
vairrry
beautiful, she would be choosing a fine horse, yes? You have drawed a horse, I am fancying.’

Olivia unfolded her piece of paper to reveal a competently drawn horse.

‘It’s a pony, actually,’ she said.

Cotter slapped his forehead. ‘Ah, I am so stupid! Of course it is a pony. Not horse!
Pony!
Forgive me, child, my powers are weak in the mornings. Let me consider now, Hoolia. Hoolia will choose I think a napple. Yes. Of this I am quite sure. A napple. Half eaten.’

Julia opened her paper and the kitchen rocked with delighted laughter.

‘Good. We make progress, yes? Now we come to Rupert. Rupert is most spiritual. He does not know this yet, but he is most spiritual person in room. He chooses I think a fireplace, which is for him a symbol of his heart, which burns greatly.’

‘That is
unbe-fucking-lievable!’

‘Rupert!’

‘Sorry, Mother, but how the hell?’

‘Now, as for India. India is also great beauty, India is wise, India is cleverer than all her brothers and sisters combined together…’

Oliver exchanged a look with his wife. She beamed and he nodded back with a small smile.

'… so India, she would choose an object most deceiving, I think. What would be most deceiving, I must ask myself?
Nothing.
Nothing would be the most deceiving and wicked thing of all. Show me your paper, oh deceiving and wicked person.

Blushing, India unfolded a blank piece of paper to tremendous applause.

‘Finally, Seсorita Maria. What shall we say she draws? Maria is a good woman. Maria is kind. Maria is holy. Maria will draw a chicken, I think, which is a holy creature of God, like herself.’

Dropping her paper and crossing herself, Maria babbled in Spanish, to which Cotter replied in a fluent stream. She kissed him and fluttered from the room, giggling.

‘One more, please, one more!’

Cotter looked up at Oliver and smiled. ‘I’m afraid I have to have a few words with your father now,’ he said.

‘Business!’
he whispered to them privately and gave a hollow groan.

The children groaned back and made him promise to visit again.

‘We’ll go up here,’ Oliver led Simon upstairs. ‘We shan’t be disturbed.’

‘Tremendous place,’ Simon said looking round approvingly.

‘It’s my mother’s, actually.’

‘Ah.’

Oliver saw that Cotter was looking with interest at the stair-lift. ‘She had a series of strokes some years ago. Mind’s all there but…'

‘Very sad. And Maria looks after her?’

‘That’s right. Come in here.’

‘Thank you. What a charming room. You have a wonderful family, Sir Oliver. Something rare these days.’

‘Just Oliver, please. Well, I have to say you bring out the best in them. I’m sorry to repeat their badgering, but how the hell does that trick work?’

‘Ah, well,’ Simon tapped his sunglasses. ‘I provided the paper they drew upon. Very dull chemistry, I’m afraid. Nothing more. Sort of trickery you MI6 boys used all the time in the old days, I expect. Promise not to tell them?’

‘You have my word. But…’

‘Yes?’

‘What you said about India being cleverer than the others. It’s true, but how could you possibly tell?’

‘It’s perfectly obvious. It’s much easier to hide stupidity than brains. Surely you know that?’

‘Well, you’ve certainly scored a hit. Please, sit down.’

‘Thank you. You must be wondering why I’m here.’

Oliver, who had been biting his tongue with curiosity for the past fifteen minutes, shrugged amiably. ‘It’s a surprise, certainly. A pleasant one, I assure you.’

‘Mm. I’m afraid my ways of doing business are a little unorthodox, as you may know.’

‘New rules for a new industry.’

‘Exactly. I’ll be absolutely direct with you. As you may know, CotterDotCom has had to dispense with the services of its head of internet security.’

‘Cosima Kretschmer?’

‘A grim affair. The woman is being treated by many as a kind of cyberhero, but as I have made clear, she acted entirely without the company’s authority.’

‘I understand that Barson-Garland’s family is suing?’

‘I have satisfied their lawyer that all Cosima’s research was undertaken on her own time, not the company’s. The action is now solely against her. She is in hiding somewhere. Germany, they believe. I fear that Mrs Garland will find it difficult to win so much as a penny from her. After all, it seems that the allegations were far from baseless. A sad business.’

‘Hm… I have to confess it was quite the most riveting evening’s television I have ever experienced.’

‘You knew Barson-Garland quite well, I believe?’

Oliver studied his fingers and picked a sliver of skin from under a nail. ‘Knew him? Yes, I knew him. I wouldn’t say
well,
exactly.’

‘Rumour has it that he was trying to recruit you as an ally for his Security Agency. That he’d promised you the job of heading it up, if it were ever to get off the ground.’

‘Really? I –'

Oliver turned his head at the sound of a sudden creak on the stair. He strode quickly across the room and opened the door.

‘Ah, Maria, how can we help?’

‘I’m sorry disturbing you, Sir Oliver. I woss wunnering if you or Seсor Cotter like maybe some cop of coffee? Or some bisskiss? I have bake yesty some bisskiss. I come in.

Oliver stood uncomfortably by the fireplace while Maria cleared away piles of art books and magazines from the coffee table to make space for her tray. Cotter chattered away to her in Spanish and she left the room, simpering like a schoolgirl.

‘Lace on the tray!’ said Oliver, closing the door. ‘You’ve scored quite a hit there too. I seem to remember reading in some magazine or other that you are fluent in nine languages. Can that be true?’

‘Thing of it is,’ said Simon, helping himself to a biscuit, ‘I spent so much time learning languages that I never learned to count, so I couldn’t tell you how many I speak.’

Oliver smiled dryly.

‘You’re probably wondering,’ Simon went on, ‘-absolutely
delicious
biscuits by the way, simply melt in the mouth – how on earth I could know that Barson-Garland had been trying to seduce you.’

‘That question had crossed my mind.’

‘I haven’t bugged the tables or bribed the Thursday waiters at Mark’s Club, no need to worry about that. No, the fact is that dear old Barson-Garland was also flirting with
me.
Bit of a two-timing whore, that one.’

‘I see.’

‘He wasn’t sure whether to go public or private, you see. His instincts were actually quite sound in that respect. Which way will the world go? Some think that governments should oversee the formation of a global internet police force. Many are afraid that this is exactly what will happen and scream about privacy and civil liberties. You are probably aware that the recent spate of viruses, worms, mail-bombs and portal attacks has led the international community to one inevitable and irrevocable conclusion. They can’t do anything about it. Nothing will work. It’s too expensive. It’s too impractical. The legal ramifications of borders, copyright treaties and so on are complex and insoluble. The only answer is for private enterprise, at local corporate levels, to do its own policing, its own firewalling, its own vaccinating and prophylaxis. Only the private sector can cross the borders, only the private sector has the resources and the power to take the responsibility. The post of Head of internet Security at CotterDotCom takes on a greater meaning than ever before. Frankly, even if Cosima had not gone mad I would still be offering you this position. That, if you had not guessed, is what I am doing. It’s frankly the same job that Ashley Barson-Garland offered you, but it’s bigger, it’s real, it’s now, it’s free of political interference and it carries embarrassingly good pay. I do need an answer soon, however. I’m off to Africa later this morning and I’d love to know that you can start work as soon as you’ve cleared it with your people … in the meantime, I’m absolutely
dying
for a slash. You couldn’t…?’

‘Oh, yes. Of course. Through there, second door on the right.’

‘Do try one of those biscuits. So light. They can’t do your diet the least bit of harm.’

Simon left the room and crossed the landing as directed. As he passed the stairs he noticed that the stair-lift had moved from the bottom of the staircase to the top. A half open door caught Simon’s eye and he pushed it open and went in.

Alone and immobile, Oliver Delft’s mother sat on a wheelchair facing a window that overlooked the Square. Simon came and stood beside her. Her eyes rolled up towards him. It seemed to Simon that her face was capable of showing some expression, for he thought he detected a gleam of surprised pleasure.

‘Philippa Blackrow,’ he whispered. ‘How strange to meet you. I’m Ned Maddstone. Do you know that you are responsible for the destruction of my life? Do you know that because of you I spent twenty years imprisoned in an insane asylum? Twenty years because of you and your cunt of a son.

Breath hissed and bubbled from Philippa’s lungs and he could sense the strain in her as she tried to mobilise her sagging cheeks and drooping mouth into some shape that might move towards speech. Saliva ran from her lips and her clawed and wasted hands shook like dried leaves in a storm.

‘I was to have delivered a letter to you. From your Fenian friends. Of all the people in the world, it was your son who intercepted it. That is how cruel fate can be. To protect you and to save his own worthless skin he hid me away to rot amongst the mad for ever. And now I have come back. I am much crueller than fate. I thought you should know that. Infinitely more cruel. They tell me that inside this lifeless carcass your mind is fully active. Now it has something to ponder on for the rest of its days. Goodbye.’

The last picture of Philippa that Simon took away with him was of a mother down whose withered cheeks tears were flowing. He did not see, as he flushed the lavatory and crossed the landing to return to Oliver, that her mouth was trying to force itself into a smile and he could not know that the tears dropping from her eyes were tears of joy.

Albert banged into the house and called out from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Mum! Dad! Where are you?’

Only after he had yelled three times and heard no reply did he realise that Gordon and Portia would be out picking up his grandfather to bring him back for supper. That was the very reason for Albert leaving work so early, but the horrors of the tube journey had banished all such thoughts from his mind. He stormed angrily into the kitchen at the sound of the phone, swung his bag viciously onto the kitchen table, not caring if he cracked the screen of his laptop and pushed the phone off its hook, letting the receiver dangle down and bang against the wall. Java the cat wound around his ankles and he kicked him away.