The Detection Collection. Simon Brett

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СКАЧАТЬ of Harvard Business School. She had a very good reputation, although people said that when she lost her temper she became quite scary. We hadn’t worked together much before, but she and I got on well that evening. I was enjoying myself. So was Bill, on her other side; the two of them were charming the pants off each other. He’s maybe sixty-two, but he’s quite handsome with his tanned face, black eyebrows and that shock of thick white hair. He had just ditched wife number three.

      Then Bill made his speech. It was only a short one; he basically said two things. Firstly, we would all receive a package of information to study overnight, a ‘case’. We would be divided into three teams of two and would role-play a takeover battle. This was bad news: I was shattered and now a little drunk, not at all in the mood for reading documents late into the night.

      Then came the second announcement. ‘You’ve all come a long way for this weekend,’ he said. ‘I would like to thank you for that. I know you are working on some very important transactions.’ We all tried to look important. ‘But I think it only fair to let you know who it is you have to beat. You all have a chance to make partnership, that’s why you are here, but one of you is in pole position.’

      Suddenly we were all sober. Bill let the moment rest. He had that frustrating, slightly amused look on his face that he wears when he’s playing with you. We glanced around the table. There had been much office gossip about who would be promoted, and frankly I considered myself the favourite, with Manola and a Canadian smooth-talker called Charlie Cameron close behind.

      ‘Harald Utnes,’ Bill said. There was an intake of breath around the table. Eyebrows were raised. I noticed Manola next to me give a little smile. Perhaps she was pleased that my name hadn’t been mentioned. I knew Harald well. We had worked together for a year in London before he moved to New York nine months before. He was a tall Norwegian, a very nice guy, a geologist, totally reliable, but in my opinion he lacked the killer instinct, the ability to close a deal. And in our business, it’s closing deals that makes the money.

      Deflated, we staggered outside and over to our cabins, clutching the sheaf of overnight reading. Scattered lights illuminated the path, but beyond them was the night, the stars, the snow, the millions of trees, the great American wilderness. Four of us peeled off in the same direction, Manola, Harald, Trent Dunston, an Ivy League jock from the New York office, with blue eyes, a turned-up nose, gleaming teeth and a scheming brain, and myself bringing up the rear. We were all a little drunk, but Trent was drunker than the rest of us.

      ‘Good night, Manola,’ he said. ‘Good night, Harald. Sleep well, both of you.’ His words were laced with innuendo.

      Manola stopped in her tracks. ‘Fuck off, Trent,’ she snapped, anger igniting in her voice. ‘If you can’t accept reality, that’s your problem, not ours.’

      Trent looked meaningfully at me and disappeared off to his cabin. Manola noticed my presence and looked confused. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Good night, Harald, Peter.’ And we all retired to our separate cabins. My interest piqued, I dawdled on the way to mine, just to make sure.

      My alarm went off at four, and I got stuck into the case. Two oil companies, one French and one American, were competing to buy drilling rights in the Peruvian rain forest. Harald and I were to play the role of the French company. It was fiendishly complicated. To the usual problems of reliability of reserves, valuation and negotiation strategy, were added an ethical minefield of officials to bribe, public-relations pitfalls and environmental risks.

      I was exhausted. My head throbbed and my eyes hurt, but at least I had the five-hour time difference on my side. At a quarter to six I noticed a tinge of grey around the edges of my curtains and decided to go for a half-hour run to clear my head.

      I set off down to the lake and ran for about a mile along the shore on a path beaten into the snow. The dawn crept pink over the mountains to the east, and I fell into a rhythm, my breath puffing in clouds in front of me like an ancient steam train. All was quiet around the lake, all was peaceful. The first half mile was bitterly cold, but once I warmed up the sharp air was invigorating. As I ran, it suddenly occurred to me that the case was a trap. The smart thing to do was not to bid for the Peruvian oilfield at all: it would cause more public relations headaches than it was worth. I grinned to myself, it was typical of the kind of test Bill Labouchere would set. Well, I would show him that I could step back and see the bigger picture.

      On my return journey I met Trent powering towards me: he had turned left along the lake shore where I had turned right. He slowed up so that we would meet, wished me a good morning and then pulled away. There was no doubt that he was fitter and stronger than me. And, competitive fool that I am, it pissed me off.

      As we ran past the main lodge I saw a grey four-wheel drive speeding down the dirt track towards us. I wondered vaguely who it was arriving so quickly at that time in the morning, but I was too wrapped up in the case to give it much thought. I had a shower in my cabin, and walked back to the lodge for breakfast, my brain buzzing with PR strategies to ambush my American competitors when they bid for the Peruvian oilfield.

      I knew something was wrong as soon as I walked into the dining room. The shock was palpable. The mountainous paraphernalia of an American breakfast buffet was untouched.

      ‘What is it?’ I asked Manola, who was standing, stunned, at the edge of the group, next to a large ham.

      ‘Harald has been killed.’

      ‘What!’

      ‘He was found by the lake, early this morning. He was murdered.’

      ‘No! Oh, my God.’ I looked at Manola. Her bottom lip was shaking: she bit it to keep it still. I touched her arm. ‘I’m sorry.’

      She took a deep breath and fought to compose herself. She succeeded. ‘Peter?’ she said quietly, looking ahead of her, blinking.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘You may have guessed something about me and Harald, I don’t know, you may not have. But if you have, don’t tell anyone, please. I’ll do it, once I’ve figured out how.’

      I looked at her sharply. From Trent’s comments the night before and Manola’s response, I had guessed there was something going on between Harald and her. People abandoned their social life at companies like Labouchere, men and women spent long days, and nights, working together on deals; it was easier to begin a relationship inside the firm than outside it. That kind of thing was heavily frowned upon at Labouchere Associates. I had no doubt that if Bill found out about it, both of them would lose any chance of partnership. But someone had been killed, for God’s sake! Would Manola still try to salvage her partnership hopes in those circumstances?

      She returned my stare. Her dark eyes were moist. ‘Please,’ she mouthed.

      ‘Okay,’ I said.

      The police had been called, including a detective from the nearest town. He didn’t waste much time before interviewing us all, in the manager’s office. I was first.

      The detective’s name was Sergeant O’Leary. He was a middle-aged man with a policeman’s moustache, wearing a brown suit, and I could see the rim of a black sweater under the collar of his white shirt. His tie was brown with grey stripes, right out of the seventies. He was businesslike, and asked pointed questions in a distinctive accent, New Hampshire, presumably. He asked me about my movements, about the details of my run that morning, and about what I knew of Harald and the other candidates. I told him what I could, although I missed out my suspicions about Harald and Manola. It was hard to concentrate on his questions. The reality of the murder hadn’t sunk into my СКАЧАТЬ