Sweet Talking Money Read online

  ‘Come hell or high water.’ It was an easy promise to make. After all, he was certain that it would never be tested, certain that the supposed conflict would remain a part of Cameron’s fantasy life and nothing more.

  ‘Well, then,’ she said. What with the success of the press conference, Mungo’s sabotage, the offer from Altmeyer, she was feeling light-headed – eager to trust this man she thought she was starting to love. She snuggled down into bed and wiggled her hips. ‘My answer will depend on how happy I become over the next half-hour or so.’

  Allen laughed. ‘I have an early meeting,’ he said. ‘Remember?’

  But his underpants came off, his lips got busy, and his chances of making a speedy departure for work tumbled to round about zero.

  TWENTY-ONE

  1

  ‘Bryn?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Bryn was wearing dark glasses to drive. With a lightweight navy jacket over a sky-blue linen shirt, he looked ‘almost fashionable’, as Meg had put it – ‘You can hardly even tell you’re Welsh.’ Cameron too was dressed for the Riviera heat, in a pale-pink shift dress and strappy brown sandals. (‘Absolutely gorgeous, babe, total knockout.’)

  ‘Listen, I’ve got something to tell you. I was going to wait … Only I figure you’d prefer to know sooner rather than later.’

  Bryn stole a glance across at his driving companion. He guessed what she was about to bring up, and he was suddenly, violently anxious about what she might have to say. ‘Yes?’ His voice was hoarse and cracked, and he dropped his speed as a lunatic French driver cut him up at a hundred and thirty kilometres an hour.

  ‘Your father,’ she said gently.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve been taking a good long look at his blood.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Now, you know I’m an immunologist. My doctoring skills in other areas aren’t everything they should be.’

  ‘That’s not what Kati says. That’s not what Rauschenberg says. That’s not what Rick the Beard says.’

  Cameron shook her head. She wasn’t going to argue. ‘I’m getting a pretty clear reading from the samples he gave us.’ Her tone was concerned and careful. ‘He’s a sheep farmer, right?’

  Bryn nodded. ‘Sheep and cows, mostly sheep.’

  ‘Sheep dip and all that?’

  He nodded again, eyes fixed on the dazzling tarmac in front of him.

  Cameron dropped her voice. ‘His blood is swimming in organophosphates. Given his job, that’s not surprising. What matters is whether he’s susceptible. Not everyone is.’

  ‘And he is, right? Susceptible?’

  ‘Yes. He is now. I guess he usen’t to be, or you’d have known about it. Maybe he was over-exposed one day, and that sensitised him. Who knows? The point is, he’s got a serious toxic load, and he won’t get better till that resolves.’

  ‘Is there anything …’ Bryn’s voice croaked out and disappeared. An effort of will brought it back. ‘Is there anything we can do?’

  ‘Uh. You do understand it’s not my area? If you wanted me to refer you to someone, I’d be really happy to locate someone you could trust.’

  ‘I trust you, Cameron. I don’t want anyone else.’

  ‘OK.’ She looked at him with her huge eyes, unblinking like an owl, a beautiful grey-eyed owl. ‘The first thing is to strengthen his own detox pathways in the liver, mostly the cytochrome P450 pathway. I guess there’s no chance of your dad taking an injection? 3cc daily. A one-inch needle right into the backside. He could do it himself if I showed him how. It hurts though, I’m afraid.’

  Bryn shook his head. ‘Never in a million years. It’s not the pain, it’s just … Oh, hell, Cameron, he’s a stubborn old fool. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I thought you’d say that. Look.’ She reached into her bag in the back of the car and dug out a cardboard box which was rattling with pills. As she gave it to him, she placed her hand on his arm, only for a moment, but it was a mark of warmth, solidarity in times of trouble. ‘This is the best I can do with oral supplements. It’s a lot to take, but – well, it’s a serious problem. You can’t just take out the crap. You have to replenish all the good stuff he’s lost.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Bryn took the box on to his lap and opened it. There were half a dozen pill bottles inside, with instructions on how and when to take them pasted to the inside flap.

  ‘He’s treatment-resistant, I know. I’ve really squeezed down hard on supplements. I’d say this was the bare minimum.’ She shrugged. ‘If he even wants to go this route. Not everyone does.’

  Bryn rattled the box. It was a lot of pills. ‘Thanks, anyway.’

  Cameron paused. ‘That’s only half of it. The other part is he has to avoid all OPs from now on. Completely. New exposure could push him down to a new level.’

  Bryn nodded again. He’d take the box and explain things to his dad, who’d ignore it, like he ignored anything he didn’t want to hear. And who could blame him, in a way? Mervyn Hughes was a sheep farmer, like his father and like his grandfather. He’d go on farming, and go on sickening, till he couldn’t go on any more. Maybe that wasn’t the worst thing. Everyone had to die. Perhaps dying in your own way, in your own pig-headed fashion, was as good as you could expect. ‘Thanks, Cameron. You’re a total star.’

  ‘It’s nothing, really.’

  ‘I’m sorry your patient’s such a difficult so-and-so.’

  ‘That’s OK. I’m difficult myself. I’ve even known you to be a tad difficult on occasion.’

  Their eyes met, smiled, and looked away.

  2

  The launch skimmed across the harbour and out on to the sparkling sea. Veering right in a long sweep of foam, they headed down the coast to Altmeyer’s yacht, the Sally Jane. Its gleaming white walls climbed from the sea like a castle in a fairy-tale, and its proud proprietor, dressed in a blue blazer and open-necked shirt, was at the rail to greet them.

  ‘Bryn Hughes? Dr Wilde? I’m Max Altmeyer. Welcome aboard.’

  Altmeyer had a pudgy, cherubic face and the suffering pink complexion of an Englishman on holiday. He pumped their hands and led them to a mahogany-panelled seating area sunk into the main deck beneath a white canvas awning. Cushioned benches let them see north into the dusty clutter of Cannes, or south across the dazzling ocean itself.

  ‘Drinks? What can I get you? I’m on gin myself.’

  Altmeyer waved a huge tumbler of gin and tonic at them.

  ‘Thanks, no, just lemonade,’ said Bryn, wondering if his host always did business on a float of forty per cent alcohol. Then, after Cameron had echoed his request and a steward had disappeared into the cool interior for the drinks, he added, ‘Nice boat, this. Have you had her long?’

  ‘The Sally Jane? She’s the first yacht I’ve had that’s outlasted my marriage. Usually, I get a wife, get a yacht, then, pouf. The wife goes and I have to sell the yacht to pay the wife. But I’ve improved my technique now.’

  ‘Uh?’ grunted Bryn, unwilling to show interest but not wanting to offend.

  ‘You want to know what I do now? Evening before the wedding, I send my lovely bride a gift. Something nice, car, diamond, whatever. Along with it I send a pre-nup. Divorce – bang – half a million quid, get out of my life. They can sign the agreement, or they can call up their mum and dad and all their friends and tell them the wedding’s off. Tried it out with Sally Jane, wife number three, got the pre-nup back no problems, big thank you for the diamond. Two years later divorce – bang – here’s your cheque, now sod off. And here’s the yacht to prove me right.’

  ‘So I see,’ said Bryn.

  The Berger Scholes notes had commented, ‘Not sensitive to issues of gender/culture diversity. Likely to give offence to minority groups and women. Takes significant pride in financial and commercial achievements.’ Bryn might have phrased it differently, but he didn’t have to like Altmeyer, just his money.

  ‘Right, right,’ said the host. ‘Now, what about you? Br
yn, you have a business I’m pretty interested in. Immune Reprogramming, eh?’

  ‘That’s correct. We –’

  ‘Love the name. Blind ’em with science, eh? Medicine without drugs. About as interesting as alcohol-free beer, but if people are dumb enough to pay for it … Right?’

  ‘No, no. Not at all,’ said Bryn. ‘We totally believe in our medicine. As Professor Hass mentioned in his report –’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, of course,’ said Altmeyer. The steward had brought a bowl of salted pistachios with the drinks, and Altmeyer’s hand was closed over the bowl, spooning the nuts into his mouth. ‘Whatever. It’s all in the set-up, right, Cameron love?’

  ‘I’m sorry? The set-up?’

  ‘Yeah. There was this dumb-ass German migraine product, stupid name, Keraplek. The thing was going nowhere. I arrive. Buy up the rights. Cost nothing. The product was shite and everyone knew it. Time for some science. Hired some scientists to run some tests. If I liked the results, I said I’d buy them each a top of the range Mercedes with the glove box stuffed with fifty-pound notes. Big glove compartments, too. You know, Bryn. Those E-class Mercs. Big sods. Anyway. Scientists trot off to their labs. Ran some tests. Totally independent, impartial science, blah blah. What d’you know? Pills were amazing. Best migraine product on the market. Outperform this, that, blah, blah, all the rest of it. Mercs all round, ladies. Then I get going. Salesmanship. If in doubt, make it up. Ad campaign. Freebies. Telesales. Boom. Product through the roof. Sales out of sight. Poor sods in Germany ringing up and asking for a cut of royalties. Piss off, Fritz. Donner und blitzen. No chance.’

  Altmeyer stopped for applause. Bryn and Cameron stared open-mouthed, hardly able to believe their ears. Bryn was first to recover.

  ‘Cameron, why don’t you do your bit? Run through the science. We can have a look at the business plan numbers later.’ Cameron had brought her laptop, and she swivelled the screen so Altmeyer could see it. She began to run through her lecture. The importance of the immune system. The role of peptides and Immune Reprogramming. Experience with rats. The clinic. The clinic’s success rates. Hopes for the future. She said nothing about Corinth, nothing about Anita Morris, nothing about the HIV peptides they had patented by the skin of their teeth, and only thanks to Mungo’s trickery.

  It was a masterful lecture by one of the world’s great scientists, but Altmeyer wasn’t interested. He yawned frequently, gazed out to sea, went inside to fetch himself another tumbler of gin.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, cutting in. ‘Cameron, sweetheart,’ he said, reaching out to pat her hand, ‘I’m sure you’re very brainy and I can see you’re very pretty, but I want to talk business with Bryn here. Boring money stuff. Maybe you’d like to lie out on the sundeck and get yourself a tan, eh? No need for a bikini. The boat crew won’t ogle you.’ Altmeyer’s mouth worked hard, eyes soliciting Bryn’s applause as he spat out his punchline: ‘They know they’ve got to leave that to me.’

  Cameron gasped, momentarily at a loss for a reply violent enough. Bryn was faster, leaping out of his seat.

  ‘Max, that’s completely inappropriate and you know it. Do that again, and we’re out of here.’

  ‘OK, OK. It was a joke.’ If Altmeyer was abashed, you wouldn’t have guessed it from his face.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Cameron to Bryn. ‘Get his money, then get out.’

  Bryn sat back down, only half-pacified. He pulled management accounts from his case and passed them over.

  Altmeyer seized the numbers and devoured them greedily. He was offensive, he was childish, and, given the way he was getting through gin, he ought to be drunk as well. But you don’t make as many millions as Max Altmeyer had unless you’ve got something sliding around your brain pan, and Bryn could quickly tell that his eye for business was excellent.

  With a brisk snapping fire, he directed questions at Bryn, the right ones, the ones Bryn would have asked if the roles had been reversed. They moved from a discussion about the clinic to the business plan for the research wing. The heat and the sun caused Bryn to feel muzzy, but he easily handled Altmeyer’s interrogation. At Berger Scholes, Bryn had overseen transactions worth more than a hundred billion dollars. He’d been a heavy hitter in the biggest leagues of all, and there was no way he was going to let some pre-schooler spoil his game. After a couple of hours, Altmeyer pushed back the papers.

  ‘These are only internal accounts, right? You’ve got nothing audited?’

  ‘Correct. Naturally, you’ll want audited accounts –’

  ‘Using my auditors, not yours. Set a thief to catch a thief, eh?’

  ‘Use whoever you want, but I –’

  ‘Plus I’ll need to inspect the building freehold, qualifications of medical personnel, ownership of intellectual property, an audit of patient records, tax returns, articles of association, and all other company documents.’

  ‘Of course. Some of that material I have with me. For the rest, we’ll need –’

  ‘What’s the price, Bryn? What are you asking?’

  ‘I’m selling forty per cent of the company for twenty million pounds.’

  ‘That’s a lot for a company I don’t control.’

  ‘That’s cheap for a stake in the future of medicine.’

  Altmeyer paused, scrutinising Bryn through narrow eyes. ‘Twenty mill is fine, but I’m going to need fifty-one per cent.’

  ‘Get real, Max.’

  Altmeyer’s mouth stopped working briefly, its cargo of mashed-up pistachio pouched away in a cheek. His eyes were suddenly malevolent. If he was a child, he was the sort to cut legs off frogs and set fire to mice. Feeling woozy, Bryn ordered himself to remain in control. He shifted in his seat to get further into the shade and took another long drink to keep himself hydrated.

  ‘I’ll go up to twenty-five mill. Thirty. Forty. Double your money.’

  ‘Forget it, Max. No chance.’

  Altmeyer sucked his lip. Gobbets of greenish pistachio gunk adorned the corners of his mouth. ‘I’d still need to have my people go over the business. Strip search, knickers down, fingers in the naughty bits.’

  Altmeyer paused, his greedy little eyes roving, mouth busy with the pistachios he hadn’t bothered to offer his guests. Bryn, on the other hand, sat like a statue, waiting. This was the moment of truth. The sun burned fiercely on to the awning above. A mild breeze barely stirred the papers on the table. Distant seagulls fought over invisible prizes. The world fell still.

  Then Altmeyer stretched out his hand. ‘It’s a deal,’ he said.

  3

  That was it for the day. Bryn could take no more. Altmeyer handed over a draft investment contract, and Bryn promised to review it overnight before returning to negotiate it the next day. As they stood on the gangway leading down to the launch, Altmeyer was suddenly struck by a thought.

  ‘What about the clinic, Bryn? Cameron tells me the twenty mill’s all going on research. Where does that leave the clinic itself, the patients?’

  Bryn glanced at Cameron. It was a critical question. He was burning with impatience to expand the clinic. At present, they had patients travelling from Scotland, even America, just to see Rauschenberg and his team. Their market research had told them that there was strong demand for satellite clinics in Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester – and even overseas, in Paris and Amsterdam, Frankfurt and New York. On the other hand, however profitable it might become, any expansion would need money to get it going. But it was Cameron’s call.

  She shook her head. ‘I need every dime of that twenty million. The more I look at my research strategy, the more I figure I need.’

  ‘You can have more. Fifty-one per cent is all I ask.’

  ‘Forget it, Max.’

  Altmeyer paused, clutching a document to his heart like a miser with his last gold coin. At last he relented, and unglued the document from his chest.

  ‘Let’s do both,’ he said. ‘Fund the research and build the clinic.’

  ‘It’s a nice idea, Max. I’d lo
ve to, but –’

  ‘But nothing.’ Altmeyer flipped the document over and handed it to Bryn, who looked at it, startled. ‘This is a loan agreement. I’ll lend you the money. Ten million quid. If you need more, I’ll find it.’

  4

  In the launch going back to Cannes, Bryn and Cameron let the ocean breeze sweep over them, finding the air refreshing in the last heat of the afternoon.

  ‘Another few hours with Max and I’d’ve been thumping him instead of negotiating.’

  ‘Another few hours, and you’d have been too soused to thump him.’

  ‘Soused? I didn’t drink a drop. He was the one –’

  ‘Drinking the gin-free gin and tonics, right. You were the one guzzling the spiked lemonade.’

  ‘Bloody hell, I do feel muzzy. Little runt.’ Bryn dipped his hands into the racing water and rinsed his face in the stinging brine. He remembered that Cameron hadn’t touched her lemonade after the first few sips. ‘Thanks for warning me.’

  She shrugged. ‘I assumed you knew. Jerk like Altmeyer, what do you expect?’ She paused as the launch rocked heavily over a particularly full swell, before its motion evened out once again. ‘You did fine, anyway … Strange though, him offering to lend us money. It almost looked generous, and he didn’t strike me as the generous type.’

  Bryn shook his head. ‘It surprised me, till I took a peek at his interest rate. Four per cent over base. It’s criminal, really, but we’ll probably take it.’

  Back at the hotel, they showered and regrouped, sitting out in a little courtyard at the back of the hotel on rickety white metal chairs which screeched every time they scraped across the cobbles. In the centre of the stone yard, a couple of aged orange trees struggled to grow upright, while somewhere in the rooms above an argument between a couple of hundred-and-fifty-year-old neighbours ricocheted around the old walls. But it was a golden evening, and they were in the mood to relax. They agreed to work for a couple of hours – Bryn on the two agreements, Cameron on her new twenty million pound research plan – before breaking for dinner. Two hours stretched to three, then three to three and a half, but eventually, at around nine in the evening, Bryn was finished.