The Business

'Kathryn?'

'Mr Hazleton.'

'I've spoken with Adrian Poudenhaut.  He's very upset.'

'Yes, I think I'd be upset in his situation too, Mr Hazleton.'

'Apparently you made some rather wild allegations about me.  Which he might have seemed to confirm, though of course it was done under considerable duress.  Not the sort of thing that would stand up in court.  In fact, the sort of behaviour that could very easily land you in court, Kathryn.  I'm not sure what you did to poor Adrian isn't against the Geneva Convention.'

'Where are you, Mr Hazleton?'

'Where am I, Kathryn?'

'Yes, Mr Hazleton.  We have these conversations on the phone and you quite often know where I am, whether it's in the middle of the Himalayas or on an obsolete cruise liner, but you're always just this placeless, disembodied voice floating in from the airwaves for me.  I keep wondering where you are.  Boston?  That's where you live in the States, isn't it?  Or Egham, on the Thames.  That's your UK home, isn't it?  Maybe you're here in Switzerland:  I've no idea.  I'd just like to know for once.'

'Well, Kathryn, I'm on a fishing boat off the island of St Kitts, in the Caribbean.'

'Weather nice?'

'A little hot.  Whereabouts in Switzerland are you?'

'I'm walking in the grounds of the château,' I lied.  I was nearby, but not in the compound itself.  I was in a neat but damp little park in the town of Château d'Oex; I could see the château through the trees on the other side of the valley.  If things were going according to plan, Hans the chauffeur would be there now, picking up my things from the rather swish two-balcony room.  I walked across springy black rubber tiles and sat on a child's swing.  I looked warily around, not so much for Hazleton-controlled Business heavies like Colin Walker as for ordinary Swiss citizens, who'd probably shout at me for sitting on a swing meant for persons of less than a certain height and/or age.  Nobody about.  I was probably safe.  I lifted my feet up and swung gently back and forth.

'There,' Hazleton said. 'Now we each know where the other is perhaps we can discuss more serious matters.'

'Ah, yes.  Like your Couffabling antics.'

'Kathryn, you are probably already in deep trouble.  I wouldn't make it any worse for yourself.'

'No, Mr Hazleton, I think you're the one in trouble.  You're way up ordure inlet with no means of non-manual hydro-kinetic propulsion, and the sooner you drop this patronising now-look-here-young-lady bullshit the better.'

'What a colourful turn of phrase you employ, Kathryn.'

'Thank you.  Yes, I'm firing on all cylinders, Mr H, which is probably more than can be said for Adrian's Ferrari.'

'Indeed.  As I said, he is very upset.'

'Tough.  So, let me run this past you, Mr H: a senior executive in a venerable but still vital business organisation specialising in long-term investment sets up an unofficial and cleverly sited dealing room in a factory which the very people he's cheating on are keeping secure.  He makes, oh, I don't know how much money, stashes it in several accounts, probably here in the land of the oversize Toblerone bar, and then sends one of the account numbers to the chief executive officer of a Japanese corporation via an unorthodox route involving somebody's mouth.  Oh, and this CEO — according to my latest research — has just resigned and bought himself his own golf course outside Kyoto.  Now that must have cost a pretty pe

'Kathryn, if I can just stop you there.'

'Yes, Mr Hazleton?'

'I'd just like to point out that the CIA and other US agencies regularly monitor cellphone transmissions in the Caribbean area.  They're usually looking for drug-dealers, but I'm sure anything else of interest they happened to hear would be passed on to the relevant governmental department.'

'Such as the State Department?'

'Exactly.  Let's just say I understand what you're getting at without you having to go into any more detail.  It's all very interesting indeed, in a hypothetical sort of way, but where exactly does this leave us?'

'It leaves you with a choice, Mr Hazleton.'

'And what would you suggest that is?  I suspect you're dying to tell me.'

'Beyond a confession extracted — and recorded, I might add — under some duress, a few specialised land-line co

'Yes.  And?  But?'

'But the evidence must be there.  I'm sure the Essex kids could be traced easily enough, for example, with the right resources.'

'The Essex kids?'

'That's what the regular people at Silex called the eager beavers wheeling and dealing for you in the secret room.'

'Ah-hah.'

'It wouldn't take much to get a serious investigation going, Mr Hazleton.  Frankly I'm not entirely sure if there were other Level Ones involved, but I guess just telling all of them would get things moving.'

'That's the sort of thing that might split the Business, Kathryn.  If there were other Board members involved.'

'That's a risk one might just have to take.  Anyway, I suspect our fellow was acting alone.  The point is that even if one or two others are implicated, the entire Board can't be involved or there would be no need to hide everything like this in the first place.  No matter how you cut it, the person behind this scam would be in very serious trouble indeed.'

'Of course, they might be rich enough not to care.'

'They were rich enough not to have to undertake all this in the first place.  The sort of person who'd organise this sort of wheeze does it because they love the organising, the gamesmanship of it all, the buzz of getting away with adding a zero to their personal worth just for the sheer hell of it, not because they actually need the money to spend on anything.'

'You shouldn't underestimate the developing ambitions of rich people, Kathryn.  One might decide it would be interesting to take on Rupert Murdoch in the international media business, for example.  That would take a lot of cash.'

'So would buying up a plot as expensive as the low-lying property we're talking about and then what?  Selling it on to somebody else who might want their own state?  Keeping it banked?  Whatever.  The person behind all this isn't going to be able to do any of that any more; they've been found out.  The game is up and the ball is most comprehensively on the slates.'

'It is?'

'Scottish saying.  Are you still with me, Mr H?'

'I think so.  So, let's proceed on the basis of this hypothesis then.  For amusement value only, of course.'

'Of course.  Thing is, there might be a way out of a total loss situation for our hypothetical miscreant.'

'Might there?'

'If the person involved were to present the deal he had struck selfishly for himself to the organisation he is part of, if he were simply to give what he had worked for to his peers, asking for nothing from them except perhaps their thanks, then I think they might be surprised — even shocked — and suspicious, but they would be grateful, too.  It would be nod-and-a-wink stuff, but they might decide not to investigate exactly how this coup was arrived at.  They might simply accept the gift in the spirit in which it was apparently offered.'

'Hmm.  Of course, the person doing the presenting might be watched rather carefully in future by the others, in case he got up to any more mischievous schemes.'

'A small price to pay for basically getting away with the crime, even if not actually benefiting from it.  The alternative is much worse.  Frankly, if I were a fellow Board member I might think about making a very terminal example of somebody who had betrayed my trust so comprehensively.'