Kane and Abel Read online

  ‘It’s nothing compared with what I’d do if I couldn’t count on your support, sir.’

  ‘I don’t think your father would have approved of threats, William,’ said Alan as he watched William sink his putt from fourteen feet.

  ‘The only thing my father would not have approved of is Henry Osborne,’ retorted William. Lloyd missed his putt from two feet.

  ‘In any case, Mr Lloyd, you must be well aware that my father had a clause inserted in the trust deed that money invested by the trustees should always be a private matter, and the beneficiary should not be made aware that the Kane family was personally involved. It was a rule he never broke in his life as a banker. That way he could always be certain there was no conflict of interest between the bank’s investments and those of the family trust.’

  ‘Perhaps your mother feels that the rule can be broken for a member of the family.’

  ‘Henry Osborne is not a member of my family, and when I control the trust it will be a rule that I, like my father, will never break.’

  ‘You may live to regret taking such a rigid stance, William. Perhaps you should consider for a moment the consequences of your mother finding out about Mrs Preston and your stepfather.’

  ‘My mother has already lost five hundred thousand dollars of her own money, sir. Isn’t that enough for one husband? Why do I have to lose five hundred thousand of mine as well?’

  ‘We don’t know that to be the case, William. The investment may yield an excellent return; I haven’t yet had a chance to look carefully into Henry’s books.’

  William winced when Lloyd called his stepfather Henry.

  ‘I can assure you, sir, he’s blown nearly every penny of my mother’s money. To be exact, he has thirty-three thousand four hundred and twelve dollars left in his account. I suggest you take very little notice of Osborne’s books and check a little more thoroughly into his background, past business record and associates. Not to mention the fact that he gambles - heavily.’

  On the eighth tee, Alan hit his ball into the same lake on the way back. Once again he conceded the hole.

  ‘How did you come by this information?’ asked Alan, fairly certain it had been through Thomas Cohen’s office.

  ‘I prefer not to say, sir.’

  Alan kept his own counsel; he might need to keep that particular ace up his sleeve to play a little later in William’s life.

  ‘If all you claim turns out to be accurate, William, naturally I would have to advise your mother against any investment in Henry’s company, and it would also be my duty to discuss the matter frankly with Henry.’

  ‘So be it, sir.’

  Alan hit a better shot, but he knew it was too late to recover.

  William continued, ‘It may also interest you to know that Osborne needs the five hundred thousand from my trust not for the hospital contract, but to clear a long-standing debt in Chicago. I take it you were not aware of that, sir?’

  Alan said nothing; he certainly had not been aware of it. William won the hole.

  By the time they reached the eighteenth, Alan was eight holes down, and was about to complete the worst round he cared to remember. He had a five-foot putt that would at least enable him to halve the final hole.

  ‘Do you have any more bombshells for me?’ he asked.

  ‘Before or after you take your putt, sir?’

  Alan laughed and decided to call his bluff. ‘Before, William,’ he said, leaning on his club.

  ‘Osborne won’t be awarded the hospital contract. It’s thought by those who matter that he’s been bribing a junior councillor on the planning committee. Nothing will be made public, but his company has already been removed from the shortlist. The contract will be awarded to Kirkbride and Carter. That last piece of information, sir, is confidential. Even Kirkbride and Carter will not be informed until a week on Thursday, so I’d be obliged if you would keep it to yourself.’

  Alan missed his putt. William holed his, walked over and shook Lloyd warmly by the hand.

  ‘Thank you for the game, sir. I think you’ll find you owe me ninety dollars.’

  Lloyd took out his wallet and handed over a hundred-dollar bill. ‘William, I think the time has come for you to stop calling me “sir”. My name, as you well know, is Alan.’

  ‘Thank you, Alan.’ William handed him ten dollars.

  19

  WHEN WLADEK came to, he found himself on a bed in a small room with three men in long white coats studying him carefully, speaking a tongue he had never heard before. How many languages were there in the world?

  He tried to sit up, but the oldest of the three men, with a thin, lined face and a goatee beard, pushed him firmly back down. He addressed Wladek in the strange tongue. Wladek shook his head. The man then tried Russian. Wladek shook his head again - that would be the quickest way back to where he had come from. The next language the doctor tried was German, and Wladek realized that his command of the language was greater than his inquisitor’s.

  ‘Ah, so you’re not Russian then?’ said the inquisitor.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What were you doing in Russia?’

  ‘Trying to escape.’

  ‘Ah.’ The man turned to his companions and seemed to report the conversation in their own tongue. The three left the room.

  A nurse came in and scrubbed Wladek clean, taking little interest in his cries of pain. She didn’t like dirty objects in her hospital. She finally covered his legs in a thick brown ointment and left him to sleep again. When he awoke for the second time, he was alone. He stared up at the white ceiling, thinking about his next move.

  He climbed out of the bed and crossed the room to the window. It looked out onto a marketplace, not unlike the one in Odessa, except that the men wore long white robes and had darker skins. They also wore colourful objects on their heads that looked like small, upside-down red flowerpots, and had open sandals on their feet. The women were all in black; even their faces were covered. All he could see were their black eyes. Wladek watched the bustle in the marketplace as the women bargained for their daily food; that seemed to be one thing that was international.

  It was several minutes before he noticed that running down the side of the building was an iron fire escape that reached the ground. He walked cautiously to the door, opened it and peered into the corridor. People were walking up and down, but none of them showed any interest in him. He closed the door gently, searched for his belongings, which he found in a closet in the corner of the room, and dressed quickly. His clothes were still black with coal dust, and felt gritty on his clean skin. He returned to the window, eased it open, clambered out onto the fire escape and started to climb down towards freedom. The first thing that hit him was the heat. He wished he wasn’t wearing the heavy overcoat.

  Once his feet touched the ground he tried to run, but his legs were so weak that he could only walk slowly. How he prayed he would wake up one day and his limp would somehow have miraculously disappeared. He did not look back at the hospital until he was lost in the throng of the marketplace.

  The stalls were piled high with tempting food, and he decided to buy an orange and some nuts. He reached into the lining in his suit, but his money was no longer there. Far worse, he realized that the silver band had also gone. The men in the white coats must have stolen his possessions. He thought about going back to the hospital to retrieve them, but decided against it until he’d had something to eat. Perhaps there were still come coins in the large overcoat pockets. He searched around, and immediately found the three 50-rouble notes and some coins. They were wrapped together with the doctor’s map and the silver band. Wladek was overjoyed. He slipped on the silver band, and pushed it above his elbow.

  He chose the largest orange he could see, and a handful of nuts. The stall keeper said something to him that he could not understand. Wladek felt the easiest way around the language barrier was to hand over some money. The stall keeper looked at the 50-rouble note, laughed and threw his arms in the