It was barely light when Stone woke in the bedroom of his suite at Claridge’s. After showering, he dressed, took painkillers and very soon felt fresh to start the day. Room service brought him coffee which was laid out with a white tablecloth.
Stone took the two newspapers hanging in a large suede bag outside his suite door. The business section of a daily paper fell out as he walked to the window. Flicking it open, he looked down a column of share prices as he had done each day for the last week. As he scanned the page, his eye did not miss a headline headed “Electric Motors Inc”.
He could feel his heartbeat quicken as he saw that the share price of Electric Motors Inc had moved up to almost double. Xavier had given out priceless information. And the phone call from Xavier in HMP Belmarsh was not a hoax. That extortionist behind bars was not working a scam to prise money out of him. Everybody was now buying electric cars, so there was big demand for electric motors; he should have known that. But he did have a wide grin as he threw the newspaper onto the floor and laid back in a deep armchair.
But Stone swore. What had he missed? Frustration tugged at him – of course he should have looked deeper into the business of Electric Motors Inc. Making enough in one deal to sign off all the money he needed for Marine House, that’s what he had missed. It was not only the money that would roll out at the other end, but it was also being part of the deal, the waiting, the expectation. There would be another time and then he would be at the casino for the next roll of the dice.
That, for the moment, turned Stone’s grin into a laugh, and he began to feel good. But money was not the only obstacle in the road to buying Marine House. Riled still by the brush-off from Lady Ruth that he did not have the money to buy her big house on Brighton seafront, Stone went to his bedroom. There was a small safe on the floor. Stone opened it and withdrew bundles of £20 and £50 notes. They totalled over £100,000 – Stone could feel it in his hands. And that was just what Josh, in his sly way, had asked for upfront for Marine House. With a sexual assault case against him, paid off and hushed up, it left a tempting thought which he would play out. Maybe the world should know exactly what Josh had done.
His life suddenly had a more positive feel to it. Three times that morning he reread the article on Electric Motors Inc. It left him, for the first time in some days, feeling hungry, and he had some sandwiches brought to his suite. He poured a large whisky from the decanter on the sideboard.
Pacing his suite, again his pain no longer stabbed into his right hip, and he began to hope that Xavier would call again. Ever since he had known this criminal, he had never before wanted that to happen. Another secret leaked from the prison would close off the gap in the money he needed for Marine House. But just pressing his computer buttons to make money was too easy. He did not trust this criminal in HMP Belmarsh, and it left a nagging thought. He was being enticed into something bigger to snare him.