Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (119 page)

“Of course there is. However, I think that this is neither the time nor the place to examine those differences. just let me say that the open-cast mines that we intend developing in Ubomo will take full account of the sensitive environment of the area. We will operate on a refill-and-renew policy. BOSS has a green approach to nature. In fact, Doctor Armstrong, we are convinced that in the long term the environment will be significantly improved by what we are going to do for the country.”

He looked at Daniel challengingly, and Daniel almost rose to accept it. Then with an effort he forced himself to smile and nod. “You must excuse me playing the devil’s advocate, Mr. Anderson. These are the kind of questions people will ask, and I must be able to answer them. That’s what BOSS is paying me for.”

Anderson looked mollified. “Yes, of course. However, I must reiterate. BOSS is a green company. It’s Sir Peter’s firm policy. I know he is even considering altering the company logo. As you know the present design is a miner’s pickaxe and a ploughshare. Well, he intends adding a green tree, to show our concern for nature.”

“I think that’s very tasteful.” Daniel smiled placatingly. He knew that this discussion would be reported to Tug Harrison, there was even a likelihood that at this moment it was being recorded. If he displayed open hostility and opposition to the company, his free ticket to Ubomo and his contact with the Lucky Dragon and Ning Cheng Gong would evaporate. “With the assurances that you gentlemen have given me, I will be able to go to Ubomo with a clear conscience and I will endeavour to show the world the enormous benefits that will accrue to the country from the intensive development that the BOSS consortium is undertaking.” He spoke for the benefit of the hidden microphones, and then paused for emphasis. “Now, what I want from you is an architectural mock-up of the hotel and casino development on the lakeshore. I’d like to film the area as it is today, and then superimpose the concept over it, to bring out the best features of the design and how it blends into the natural background.”

“Sidney Green will take care of that, I’m sure.” Pickering nodded.

“Right, then I want details of the present per capita income of the average Ubomo citizen, and an estimate of what that income will be in, say, five or ten years time, after the full benefits of the development programme begin to make themselves felt.”

“You’ll see to that, won’t you, Neville?”

The meeting ran on for another half hour before Daniel summed up with a note of finality. “As a film-maker, I have to have a theme for this production. The general concept of Africa these days is one of a continent in trauma, plagued by seemingly insurmountable problems, demographic, economic and political. I want to strike a different note here. I want to show the world how it could be, how it should be. I see the theme of my production as…” He paused for dramatic effect, and then held up his hand to frame an imaginary screen. ‘Ubomo, High Road to the African Future’. The men at the table burst into spontaneous applause, and Pickering refilled the sherry-glasses.

As he escorted Daniel and Bonny back to the front of the building Pickering told them jovially, “I say, that went rather well. I think you both made a very good impression.” He beamed like an approving schoolmaster. “And now a little treat in store for you. Sir Peter Harrison, himself…” his voice took on a reverential tone, as though he had mentioned the name of a deity, “Sir Peter in person has expressed the wish to have a word with you and Miss Mahon.”

He did not wait for their agreement but led them to the elevators.

They waited a mere five minutes in the antechamber to Tug Harrison’s office, barely long enough to appreciate the priceless works of art displayed on the walls and in the glass-fronted cabinets. Then one of three comely secretaries looked up and smiled. “Please follow me. Sir Peter is expecting you.”

As she led them towards the door at the far end of the antechamber, Pickering dropped away. “I’ll be waiting for you outside. Don’t stay more than three minutes. Sir Peter is a busy man.”

The tall windows of Harrison’s office looked out across the Thames to the National Theatre. As he turned from the window, the sunlight flashed off his bald head like a heliograph.

“Danny, He said, offering his gnarled right hand. Have they looked after you?”

“Couldn’t be better,” Daniel assured him. “On the strength of what they’ve told me, I have come up with a theme for the production, ‘Ubomo, High Road to the African Future’.”

“I like it,” said Tug Harrison without hesitation, but he was studying Bonny Mahon as he said it. The approbation could have been as much for her as for Daniel’s title.

Exactly three minutes after they had entered the inner sanctum of BOSS, Tug Harrison drew back the cuff of his Turnbull and Asset shirt. Both his cuff-links and his wristwatch were of gold and diamonds. “It was good to see you, Danny. Very pleasant meeting you, Miss Mahon, and now, if you’ll excuse me…”

At the front doors of the BOSS building, Pickering had a taxi waiting for them. “It’s on the company account,” he said, shaking hands and giving Bonny’s bosom a wistful farewell appraisal. “It will take you wherever you want to go.”

“Caviar Kaspia,” Daniel told the driver recklessly.

When they were seated at a window table in the discreetly panelled frontroom of the lovely little restaurant, Bonny whispered, “Who is paying?”

“BOSS,” He assured her.

“In that case I’ll have 250 grams of the Beluga, with hot blinis and cream.”

“Spot on,” Daniel agreed. “I’ll join you and we’ll split a bottle of bubbly. What do you fancy, Pal Roger, or the Widow?”

“What I truly fancy can wait until after lunch when we get back to your flat, but in the meantime a glass of the Widow will help to pass the time, and build up your strength.” She slanted her eyes lewdly. “You are going to need it. That’s a direct threat.”

Bonny tucked into the caviar with the relish and appetite of a schoolboy at half-term.

“So what did you think of Boss?” Daniel asked.

“I think Tug Harrison is one very sexy man. The smell of serious money and power is a stronger aphrodisiac than caviar and champagne.” She grinned at him with sour cream rimming the fine coppery down on her upper lip. “Does that make you jealous? If it doesn’t, it was meant to.”

“I am devastated. But apart from Harrison’s sex appeal, what did you think of BOSS’s plans for Ubomo?”

“Mind-boggling!” she enthused through a half-chewed blini. It was an expression that particularly irritated Daniel. “Awesome!” That was even worse. “If only you paid me enough to enable me to buy a block of BOSS shares! Someone is going to make a bagful of corn in Ubomo.”

“That’s all there is to it?” Daniel smiled to make a joke of it. Yet was this the girl who had conjured up that hauntingly evocative sequence of caribou in the Arctic sunlight? “A bagful of corn? Is that it?”

For a moment she looked mystified by the question, and then she dismissed it lightheartedly. “Of course. What else is there, lover?” She mopped up the last grains of the Beluga with a scrap of blini pancake. “Do you think that your newly acquired expense account could run to another pot of fish eggs? Not often a poor working girl gets a shot at them.”

Chapter 19

Bonny Mahon was nervous. It was an unfamiliar sensation. The skirt and stockings felt just as unfamiliar. She was accustomed to the firmer embrace of denim. However, the occasion was sufficiently unusual to call for a change of her customary attire.

She had even gone to the extraordinary lengths of visiting a hairdressing salon. Usually she managed or, she grinned at the thought, mismanaged her own hairstyle. She had to admit that the girl at Michael John had done a better job.

She considered her reflection in one of the gilt-framed antique mirrors opposite where she sat in the lobby of the Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly. “Not bad,” she admitted. “I could pass for a lady at a hundred paces.” She preened her new curls which were fashionably anointed with gel. It was an uncharacteristic gesture, a symptom of the nervous anticipation with which she regarded the coming meeting.

The female secretary who had arranged the meeting over the telephone had suggested that the car pick her up at her lodgings. Bonny had shied away from the idea. She didn’t want anybody to see her digs; she was economising and the area of south London where she presently resided was hardly salubrious.

The Ritz was the first alternative rendezvous that came to mind. It was more the image that she wished to project. Even though his secretary had arranged the date she had high hopes for what would come out of it. “I mean, it just has to be a proposition, doesn’t it?” she reassured herself. There was no doubt about the way he looked at me. “I’ve never been wrong about that before. He’s got a head of steam for me.”

She glanced at her wristwatch. It was exactly seven-thirty. He was the type who would make a point of being punctual, she thought, and when she looked expectantly towards the main doors a page was already coming towards her. She had taken the precaution of tipping the doorman and telling him where to find her. “Your car has arrived, madam,” the page informed her.

A Rolls-Royce stood at the kerb. It was an iridescent pearly grey and the windows were smoked and opaque, giving the magnificent vehicle a surrealistic appearance. The handsome young chauffeur, who wore a dove-grey uniform and cap with a patent-leather brim, greeted her as she came down the steps.

“Miss Mahon?”

“Good evening.”

He opened the rear passenger door and stood aside for her.

Bonny settled into the sensual embrace of the soft grey Connally leather. “Good evening, my dear,” Tug Harrison greeted her in that dark-molasses voice that sent a shiver of unease and anticipation up her spine.

The chauffeur closed the door behind her, and sealed her in a cocoon of wealth and privilege. She inhaled the rich expensive smell of leather and cigar-smoke and some marvelous aftershave, the aroma of power. “Good evening, Sir Peter. It was so good of you to invite me,” she said, and bit her own lip in anger. It sounded wrong, too gushing and subservient. She had planned to be cool and unimpressed by his condescension.

“Chez Nico,” Tug Harrison told the chauffeur, and then touched the button on the arm-rest that operated the soundproof glass division between the driver and passenger seats. “You don’t mind my cigar, I hope?” he asked Bonny.

“No. I enjoy the smell of a good cigar. It’s a Davidoff, isn’t it?” It wasn’t a guess. She had noticed the discarded hand tucked into the ashtray. She had an eye for detail; it was the secret of her success as a photographer.

“Oh!” Tug Harrison acknowledged. “A connoisseur.” He seemed amused.

She hoped he had not noticed her little cheat, and she changed the subject quickly. “I’ve never been to Chez Nico. Mind you, that’s not surprising. Even if I could get a reservation, I’d never be able to meet the bill. They say you have to book weeks in advance. is that true?”

“Some people might have to.” Tug Harrison smiled again. “I really don’t know. I’ll ask my secretary; she makes my arrangements.”

God, it was all going wrong. Every time she said anything, it came out sounding callow and gave him reason to despise her. For the remainder of the short journey she let him do the talking, yet despite her poor start to the evening, Bonny’s imagination was running riot. If only she played her cards correctly from now on, this could be her future, Rolls-Royce barge account at Harrods and Harvey and dinner at Nico’s, a flat in Mayfair or Kensington, holidays in Acapulco and Sydney and Cannes and a sable coat. Pleasures and riches without end. This could be the big casino. “Just cool it, girl.”

She had spent most of the afternoon tucked up in bed with Danny, but that seemed like a hundred years ago in another half-forgotten land. Now there was Sir Peter Harrison and a new world of promise.

The restaurant surprised her. She had expected a pompous dimly lit atmosphere, and instead it was gay and the lighting was cheerful. The lovely stained-glass ceiling was in green garden colours and captured a mood of art nouveau. Her own mood expanded and lightened in sympathy.

As they were ushered to the special table in the elbow of the L-shaped room, the conversation at the other tables faltered and all heads revolved to follow them and then came back close together to whisper his name and barter the latest gossip about him. Tug Harrison was the stuff of legend. It felt good to be at his side and savour the envious glances of other women.

Bonny knew just how striking were her tall athletic body and her flaming hair. She knew everyone would be jumping to conclusions about her status in Sir Peter’s life. “Please God, just let it come true. I’d better remember to take it easy on the wine. Perrier and a quick wit, those are the watch-words for this evening.”

It was easier than she expected. Tug Harrison was urbane and attentive. He made her feel pampered and very special by directing all his attention and charm upon her.

Nico Ladenis came up from his kitchen, especially to speak to Tug Harrison. With his dark satanic good looks Nico had a fearsome reputation. If he served the best food in England, he expected it to be treated with respect. If you ordered a gin and tonic to ruin your palate at the beginning of one of his celestial repasts you had to expect his wrath and contempt. Tug Harrison ordered a chilled La Ina for himself and a Dubonnet for Bonny. Then he and Nico discussed the menu with the same serious attention that Tug would give to BOSS’s quarterly report.

Then Nico left, sending one of his underlings to take their order.

Tug turned to Bonny to ask what she had chosen, but she feigned a girlish confusion “Oh, it all sounds so gorgeous that I can’t possibly make up my mind. Won’t you order for me, Sir Peter?” He smiled and she sensed that she was on the right track at last.

She was getting the feel of the relationship, her intuition working up to cruise speed. Clearly, he liked to be in charge of any situation, even to choosing the meal.

She went very gently on the Chevalier-Montracket that he ordered to complement her salmon. She encouraged him to relate the adventures of his young days in Africa. It was not difficult to show intense interest in his conversation, for he was a fine raconteur. His voice was like the caress of velvet gloves, and it didn’t matter that he was old and that his skin was wrinkled and bagged and foxed by the tropical sun. Recently she had read somewhere, perhaps in the Sunday Times Magazine, that his personal fortune was over three hundred million pounds. At that price, what were a few wrinkles and scars?