16

‘We had a visitor a few days ago,’ said the priest from St Stephen’s, the one with the long, pale face and hooked beak.

‘What kind of visitor?’

‘A fellow asking questions. I thought he was from you at first.’

‘But what did he look like?’

‘I didn’t see much of him. Youngish, I suppose. Dark sunglasses. Golf cap.’

‘In other words, just about anyone,’ the other’s tone was acid. ‘You said asking questions?’

‘He was looking for Dale.’

‘Shit! You didn’t—’

‘It was the lunch break. He gave two of the boys money to bring Dale out to the entrance.’

‘I don’t fucking believe it! What did he want to know?’

‘Not much. I was there straight away. It seemed to me that he was trying to bribe Dale with some sports kit.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Dale said he didn’t want it. He thought, you know, it meant he’d be invited out again. He was … unable to control himself.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘His bladder.’

‘Christ Almighty!’

‘I chased the fellow away.’

‘Why didn’t you follow him?’

‘He slipped out of sight. There were that many people about …’ After a pause, the other said, ‘You did the right thing to phone me.’ ‘Do you think it’s serious?’

‘Very serious. I’ll arrange to have him collected tonight. We’ll have to move him.’

‘Where?’ The priest was alarmed.

‘Leave that to me. I’ll figure it out.’

The message came at eleven a.m. the Monday following his exchange with Kate Taylor. Chris had been in a new business meeting, helping to prepare a client pitch, and had returned to his office when Lotte gave him half a dozen messages. One was personal.

‘A guy called Roger called. Said the sofa you were interested in is now in stock.’

‘Good,’ he’d nodded, walking towards his desk.

‘What kind is it?’ she asked now.

‘Kind? Oh,’ he had to think for a moment before gesturing dismissively, ‘just a kilim thing.’

That lunch-time he told Lotte he was going out for a sandwich. Often he just ordered down something from the Lombard kitchen, though if he could afford the time he liked to go out to stretch his legs. On this particular occasion though, he had more than roast beef baguette on his mind. Chris glanced at his watch as he approached the shop. A couple of minutes before one-fifteen. He headed towards the fresh fruit section, glancing across at baskets of apples and oranges and bananas. He was reaching out for a Red Delicious when he saw the man he was looking for, a white handkerchief in the breast pocket of his suit. Their eyes met for an instant. Then the other man was taking an envelope out of his jacket pocket and handing it to Chris, who quickly slipped it into his own suit. It happened in an instant. Then Chris went to collect some sandwiches before heading for the tills. He couldn’t wait to get back to the office.

Back on the fourth floor, he closed his door behind him before moving over towards his desk, retrieving the envelope from his pocket and tearing it open. The letterhead said ‘Advance Security’.

Dear Mr Treiger,

Further to your enquiry, we have conducted an electronic sweep of your property under the auspices of carrying out industrial cleaning of all carpets and curtains. Our sweep identified microphone transmission devices in the following locations …

Then followed two and a half pages of line-by-line entries for each room of his home. There were microphones in every single room – even the spare bedrooms he never used; both telephone receivers, of course; out on the balcony. Christ – even the bathroom was bugged.

Having his suspicions had been one thing. But knowing that they were justified was, as he discovered now, quite another. Everything, every damned thing he’d said for the last God-knew-how-long had been picked up. Recorded. Listened to. That must be why whoever it was had gone after Judith. They’d heard every damned thing the pair of them had said. They knew she had a story. They’d trashed her place trying to find it. They’d probably planted her place with bugs too.

He didn’t think he’d ever received such a disturbing letter. All the itemised details of room lights, picture frames, bedside tables – he’d been living in a broadcasting studio without being aware of it. At the end of the letter, Advance Security outlined two courses of action he could take: to have the bugs removed, or to disable them with a blocking mechanism. Chris knew that neither option was really available to him; on no account could he alert his pursuers to the fact that he knew they were monitoring him.

Charlotte came in from her office and took one look at him and the Prêt-a-Manger bag on his desk. ‘Something not agree with you?’

‘What?’

‘Are you okay? You’ve seemed sort of … edgy today.’ Not just today, she couldn’t help thinking. Since his encounter with Elliott North, a week ago, he’d seemed strangely withdrawn.

Chris met her look of concern for a moment, then suddenly realised this place must be bristling with bugs too. ‘I’m fine.’ He tried a hearty laugh. ‘I don’t think this sandwich is really my style. Too garlicky.’

‘I’ll order something from the kitchen if you like?’

‘It’s OK, thanks. Maybe later.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I’m really not hungry any more.’

Seven-thirty p.m. two days later found Judith in her VW Beetle on the South Circular. She’d had the lock of the passenger door fixed, the driver’s side panel-beaten and had paid for a full service and assorted repairs. It had cost her nearly six hundred quid. But she was back in business for at least another ten thousand miles, she reckoned. She’d had trouble getting away from the office this evening. A breaking story about the merger of two oil giants had had three senior staff pulled off their usual briefs, and it was all hands to the pumps. Judith had pleaded a prior engagement with a PR company. Carter hadn’t been happy, but couldn’t complain. Quite apart from all the legwork she’d done on his behalf in the past two days, she’d also done a count of all The Herald business bylines, and found she’d had more than anyone in the past week.

Besides, nothing was going to keep her away from this meeting. Ever since this morning she’d been barely able to think of anything else. On her way to the tube station she’d stopped at J. P. Patel’s. As good as his word, Sanjay had not only found families who had pulled children out of bondage in Indian clothing factories, he’d even arranged for her to meet them – tonight. She’d overlooked his assumption that she had nothing already planned. This was no time to be precious.

He’d scribbled down an address on the corner of a day-old newspaper. Looking it up later in her London A-Z she’d found a street in Southfields, a suburb just north of Wimbledon with a strong Asian community. Turning into the street now, she found rows of terraced houses the same as in any other middle-class suburb in the country. As for the meeting, she didn’t know quite what to expect, but she thought she’d better plan a few words to say at the beginning. She’d start with child labour as an issue in general, and then talk in particular about companies whose products were sold in Britain. She wasn’t going to mention Starwear specifically – she’d seen too many cases where journalist prompting had produced all the right answers to begin with, only to backfire later. She didn’t know how well they all understood English. Best to keep it simple.

The house belonging to R. J. Patel looked no different from most of the others on the street. Shortly after seven-thirty she pressed the buzzer. The door was opened by a genial-looking man in a shirt and tie. ‘Come in, come in,’ he smiled, waving her into the house. ‘It’s Judith, right?’

She soon found herself in a full-length lounge-cum-dining room, with twenty or thirty people sitting on two rows of chairs that ran down each side. Some were in suits, having evidently come straight from work. Children played on the adults’ knees or on the floor in front of them. There were warm smiles and greetings as Judith glanced about them. She couldn’t help feeling slightly taken aback, having imagined the meeting would be smaller, more low key. This all seemed very organised. A dining-room chair had been placed in front of the mantelpiece, separate from all the others and clearly intended for her.

‘Thank you all for coming,’ R. J. Patel was saying, as conversations died down and parents shushed their children. ‘This is Judith who works for a national newspaper. She wants to ask us about child slaves in India.’ He turned to Judith and gestured towards the chair.

‘Thank you very much for giving up your time.’ She glanced slowly round the room. There was total silence as she met all those intense, anxious expressions. She’d always felt hesitant speaking to groups, and she felt even more apprehensive as she experienced, here and now, the scrutiny of men and women to whom child labour was not just some shock story they’d read about in a magazine. These were families who’d been through it. Who were going through it still. Desperate families who’d lost their children to the unimaginable horror of enslavement and whose lives, whatever the outcome had been, would always be scarred.

She felt suddenly and unexpectedly humbled being here. Just as well, she thought, that she’d prepared a few words. She spoke about how child slavery in countries like India was coming increasingly to the attention of the media. Then she explained how, for a reporter in London, it was difficult to get first-hand evidence. She told them how she was particularly interested in cases where children had worked on garments which were later sold in Britain – cases that would be relevant to newspaper readers. Then she said, ‘Before we start, does anyone have any questions at this stage?’

A large, distinguished-looking man with all the bearing of a maharajah sat at the end of the room. He raised his hand. ‘We’re very pleased to see you, make no mistake, late is better than never,’ he began, ‘but why have you people never paid us any attention before?’

Judith was confused.

‘We’ve phoned you to tell you about this. We have written letters. We even sent a press release – but never any interest.’

‘It’s true,’ another woman, elegantly coiffed and wearing a cream sari agreed, ‘not even a letter to say you heard from us.’

R. J. Patel now said, ‘It’s as if the Jaipur Abolitionist Group didn’t exist.’

There was much nodding and agreement.

Judith put a hand to her chest. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know … did you say something about an abolitionist group?’

‘It was started three years ago,’ said R. J. Patel, ‘by families in Britain whose relatives had fallen into the hands of the slave masters. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of us, everyone in Southfields knows about us.’

‘The newspapers didn’t even return my photographs,’ another woman complained.

Judith glanced across at R. J. Patel. ‘There’s a press release about this group?’

He nodded, gesturing to a slim, anxious-looking man. ‘Bobby, you show her the press release.’

The man reached inside a box file on his lap, before producing a stapled sheaf of papers which he got up to give her. Addressed to ‘Editors of the Quality Press’ the headline read: ‘Jaipur Abolitionist Group Demands Immediate Freedom of Raja Dinesh Pudrah, Bala and Bhanu Patel, Jawaharlal, Prakesh and Nayendra.’ An ageing typewriter with a defective letter ‘e’ had been used, by the looks of it, and the ‘press release’ was poorly photocopied and ran to six pages, the first of which was a general rant on the abomination of the slave trade. The kind of document, thought Judith, which wouldn’t even make it to the editor’s desk.

But as she flicked through the pages, rapidly scan-reading, she found, starting on page three, examples of different children, where they had worked and what had happened to them – exactly the kind of first-hand evidence she needed, especially if she could find kids who’d worked in Starwear sweatshops. After looking through the press release she glanced up.

‘1 think I see the problem,’ she started to explain, as kindly as she could. ‘It’s all about how you present your case. You see, every day, newspaper editors get about six inches of mail sent to them by people hoping to get in the papers. Most of the press releases get thrown out almost immediately. It’s best not to send anything to the editor to begin with, but to the reporter covering that area – like the industrial relations correspondent. But even then, you’ve got to produce a release that instantly catches the attention. Summarise your story on a single page.’

There was stunned silence as she looked around at a roomful of concentrated expressions – all of the adults present completely absorbed in what she was saying.

‘Make no mistake,’ she reassured them, waving their press release, ‘this is a big story. A very big story. People are buying stuff in the high streets completely unaware that it’s been made by children chained to benches in India. It’s a bombshell’

‘And you’ll help us with it?’ asked one of the women.

‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘You have all the material. It just hasn’t been packaged right.’

A murmur of excitement passed through the room. Whatever else came out of tonight’s meeting, thought Judith, her trip wouldn’t have been wasted. She didn’t doubt for a moment that there was a story here. The big question was: would she find the evidence she needed?

Holding up her hand for quiet, she had to raise her voice. ‘When I spoke to Sanjay, I told him I was interested in cases where children have worked on sports clothes.’

The man who looked like a maharajah introduced himself as B. J. Singh. Evidently the group’s leader, he now told her, ‘Everyone here tonight knows children who’ve worked on sportswear.’

She nodded, trying to suppress her anticipation. ‘Were any of the garments major brands that are sold in Britain?’

A few names she’d never heard were called out, and she wrote them down in a notebook. Then Bobby, the anxious-looking man with the box file offered, in a soft voice, ‘Starwear.’

‘What was that?’ Judith looked up at him.

‘Our nephew made Starwear clothes.’ Next to Bobby, a large, motherly woman in traditional sari gestured towards a child who was lying on the carpet with colouring books. Judith glanced down at the child. He looked about eight years old.

‘Does he speak English?’ Judith asked.

The child looked up, almond eyes burning in a small, elf face. ‘Of course,’ he answered.

Judith could hardly believe it. Was she finally face to face with the diminutive figure who would provide the evidence she needed? ‘How long did you work there?’ she asked the boy solicitously.

‘Three years,’ he managed, before turning his face away from her.

‘From the age of five until he was eight,’ his aunt was explaining, ‘then he ran away to the police who managed to find his other uncle in Jaipur. Vishnu was one of the lucky ones.’

‘Several other children here worked in the same factory,’ B. J. Singh was saying now.

‘Really?’ asked Judith. ‘Who?’

There were assorted calls from around the room. This was incredible! There must be at least half a dozen.

‘You’re all absolutely sure it was Starwear? Not Starwear knock-offs?’

The room was filled with strenuous denials.

‘These children can tell fake Starwear just by looking at it,’ R. J. Patel told her. ‘They know Starwear garments down to the last detail.’

‘We had to do it right,’ the boy on the floor was looking up at her and speaking again, ‘or we were punished.’

Bobby was flicking through all the papers in his box file again, before producing a black and white photograph which he handed to her. It showed three men outside a large, corrugated-iron shed. ‘This is the factory,’ he told her. ‘My brother in India, he took the picture for our group. And this one,’ he pointed at one of the men, ‘he is the slave master, isn’t he, Vishnu?’ He showed the photograph to the boy.

The child took one look at the photograph before turning to his aunt, burying his face in her sari.

‘It’s all right, Vishnu,’ she comforted him, ‘you’re far away now. Safe with us.’

Meeting Judith’s eyes she said, ‘Every time we go past a shop selling Starwear he is like this.’

Elliott North had thought Cullen was about to try firing him. He’d never seen him so angry – hadn’t thought him capable of such elemental fury. Not, thought North, that it mattered a damn. The simple truth was that Cullen couldn’t fire him – unless he was prepared to put the Starwear account in serious jeopardy. And nothing, he knew, was more important to Mike Cullen than Starwear and his precious Four-Point Plan.

He’d been right, of course. Cullen hadn’t tried scalping him, though he would have liked to. Instead he’d summed up what he wanted North to do in a single word – apologise. After all the storm and bluster it had been pathetic, thought North. Wet and witless. He’d demanded that North do some serious ass-creeping with Taylor and her journalist buddy at the Sunday Telegraph. He was also supposed to sweeten up Treiger, whom he’d hardly seen since throwing out his academic treatise; ever since he’d heard he was balling Judith Laing, North had been keeping his distance.

Apologising was the very last thing he planned to do, knowing it was Taylor who’d come by the Ultra-Sports and Trimnasium accounts. As if it wasn’t bad enough keeping the hacks in check, now they were being sabotaged from within. He hadn’t liked Taylor from the start – and she made it clear she didn’t approve of him. The snooty cow thought her ‘principles’ put her way above him. The problem was that she was the most important person working on Starwear in Britain, with the exception of the Grand Four-Point Planner in the Sky. Despising her was one thing – but she’d become a real problem. Now she knew too much and, like Merlin de Vere, was too close to too many people. Something would have to be done about her, pronto. Something for Solly Kuczynski.

And it wasn’t just Kate Taylor who knew too much. As he sat in the darkness of the microfilm viewing cabin in Monitoring Services, rolling film laboriously through the machine and staring at it through his steel-framed lenses, he thought about Jay’s private life – and the threat of a serious leak there. Jay’s demands had been getting more and more extreme, and it was North’s job to make sure his boss’s desires were fulfilled – and no one else got to hear about them. But the greater the demands, the higher the risk. And every instinct told North they’d gone one risk too far. Something would have to be done to contain the leak. Another one for Solly.

It was all getting hectic. Too hectic. Like their last days in New York. But he did have his plans. Sure, things were coming to a head, driving towards an inexorable climax. But he had made arrangements. And part of the arrangements included what to do with someone who’d started out as a mere irritant, but developed into a potentially far more devastating adversary: Judith Laing.

It was all very well for that smug prick d’Andrea to tell him Laing’s computers at work and at home were blanks. He’d said the same thing about Treiger. ‘Squeaky clean’, he’d said, before it turned out Treiger was rooting Laing. Talk about colossal cock-up. When he’d got on to Alex Carter, the guy had acted like he was doing North some huge favour even mentioning Starwear to Laing. He was quite happy to take their money, of course, but ask for something back and he gets all up himself with his lordly airs and graces.

When Carter had finally got back to him, he’d been no better than d’Andrea. Laing had done some ‘gentle probing’ into Starwear, he said. The kind of thing that went on all the time. Every day his hacks looked at half a dozen different stories, but would only write up one of them – and even that might get spiked if a really big story came along and took the space.

North hadn’t thanked him for the sermon on how a newspaper works; he’d just hung up. He’d never operated on the basis of what people said, but on what he suspected them capable of. And he suspected Judith Laing capable of a lot. She wasn’t the type to go rifling through Forbes documents, compare their analyses to sets of annual reports, ask Mark shit-for-brains Hunter about the discrepancy – and then just walk away from it. No way, José. She’d be right in there, and her investigations would take her exactly where she couldn’t be allowed to go. Because where she was heading was more than explosive. Jay’s miserable business failures were as nothing compared to India. That was meltdown material.

Christ knew what she’d already told Treiger, and what Treiger would do, which was why they were both being watched twenty-four hours aday. The activity reports had shown nothing more suspicious than visits to friends’ houses for dinner – all very twinky. Which, in itself, was suspicious. Wouldn’t be long now till the game was up, thought North. The final curtain. But, until then, he had to keep a grip on things.

Eventually he found what he was looking for. The record of the deal with Hydrabull Investments, consisting of a wadge of documents, some on Hydrabull letterhead, which provided contact details for the Company Chairman, Prince Abdul. Checking his watch for the time difference – early evening over there – he picked up a telephone receiver and started dialling.

‘Can I speak to Prince Abdul?’ he demanded when the phone was finally answered after much clicking and long-distance signals.

‘Just hold on.’

There was a lengthy pause, during which North gazed into mid-distance, lips pursed with impatience.

Then at the other end, ‘Who is calling?’

‘John Acker from the Wall Street Journal.’ The name tripped out with ease of practice.

There was another long pause before a voice came on the line. ‘How may I help?’

It was a public school voice – upper-class Indian twit, no doubt. ‘John Acker, Wall Street Journal, Prince Abdul,’ he said. ‘Sorry to disturb your evening. I’m just researching a story on Starwear.’

‘Yah?’

‘The transaction you made when you sold them some property—’

‘I expect you’ve been reading The Herald?’

North jumped to his feet. ‘The Herald?’

‘British newspaper,’ the Prince told him. ‘I had a young lady reporter the other day taking just the same line.’

North fought to control his voice. ‘I like to find out the answers for myself.’

‘Well, as I told her,’ the Prince seemed irritated having to repeat himself, ‘it was a straightforward agreement. I sold two factories to Starwear. There was no office block involved. She seemed to think a town block worth a considerable amount of money had changed hands. I don’t know where this story is coming from but it really is most distracting.’

North raised a hand to his forehead.

‘I don’t deal in commercial property,’ the Prince lectured North, ‘only industrial. I hope The Herald got it right. What are they saying?’

‘Nothing has been published as yet,’ North replied now, ‘and isn’t ever going to be.’