Bloodline. Сидни Шелдон

kidding. Tod Michaels is your friend. And friends help each other, right? We were talking about you at our meeting this morning. And do you know what the boss said? He said, “Sir Alec’s a good sort. If he hasn’t got the money, I’m sure he’ll think of some other way to take care of us.”’

      Alec frowned. ‘What other way?’

      ‘Well, it’s not hard for a bright chap like you to work something out, is it? You’re running a big drug company, right? You make things like cocaine, for example. Just between you and I, who’d ever know if you happened to accidentally misplace a few shipments here and there?’

      Alec stared at him. ‘You’re insane,’ he said. ‘I – I couldn’t do that.’

      ‘It’s amazing what people can do when they have to,’ Swinton said genially. He rose to his feet. ‘You either have our money for us, or we’ll tell you where to deliver the merchandise.’

      He ground his cigar out on Alec’s butter plate. ‘Give my regards to Vivian, Sir Alec. Ta.’

      And Jon Swinton was gone.

      Sir Alec sat there alone, unseeing, surrounded by all the familiar, comfortable things that were so much a part of his past life, that were now threatened. The only alien thing was the obscene, wet, cigar butt on the plate. How had he ever allowed them to come into his life? He had permitted himself to be manoeuvred into a position where he was in the hands of the underworld. And now he knew that they wanted more than money from him. The money was merely the bait with which they had trapped him. They were after his connections with the drug company. They were going to try to force him to work with them. If it became known he was in their power, the Opposition would not hesitate to make capital of it. His own party would probably ask him to resign. It would be done tactfully and quietly. They would probably exert pressure on him to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds, a post that paid a nominal salary of a hundred pounds a year from the Crown. The one barrier to being an MP was that you could not be in receipt of pay from the Crown or the Government. So Alec would no longer be allowed to serve in Parliament. The reason could not be kept secret, of course. He would be in disgrace. Unless he could come up with a large sum of money. He had talked to Sam Roffe again and again, asking him to let the company go public, to let the shares of stock be marketed.

      ‘Forget it,’ Sam had told him. ‘The minute we let outsiders in, we have a lot of strangers telling us how to run our business. Before you know it, they’ll take over the board, and then the company. What’s the difference to you, Alec? You have a big salary, an unlimited expense account. You don’t need the money.’

      For a moment Alec had been tempted to tell Sam how desperately he needed it. But he knew it would do no good. Sam Roffe was a company man, a man without compassion. If he knew that Alec had in any way compromised Roffe and Sons, he would have dismissed him without a moment’s hesitation. No, Sam Roffe was the last person to whom he could turn.

      Alec was facing ruin.

      The reception porter at White’s walked towards Sir Alec’s table with a man dressed in a messenger’s uniform, carrying a sealed manila envelope.

      ‘Excuse me, Sir Alec,’ the porter apologized, ‘but this man insists that he has instructions to deliver something to you personally.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Sir Alec said. The messenger handed him the envelope, and the porter led him back to the door.

      Alec sat there a long time before he reached for the envelope and opened it. He read the message through three times, then he slowly crumpled the paper in his fist, and his eyes began to fill with tears.

       Chapter Six

       New York Monday, September 7 11 a.m.

      The private Boeing 707–320 was making its final approach to Kennedy Airport, gliding out of the stacked-up traffic pattern. It had been a long, tedious flight and Rhys Williams was exhausted, but he had been unable to sleep during the night. He had ridden in this plane too often with Sam Roffe. His presence still filled it.

      Elizabeth Roffe was expecting him. Rhys had sent her a cable from Istanbul, merely announcing that he would arrive the following day. He could have broken the news of her father’s death over the telephone but she deserved more than that.

      The plane was on the ground now, taxiing towards the terminal. Rhys carried very little luggage, and he was quickly ushered through Customs. Outside, the sky was grey and bleak, a foretaste of the winter to come. A limousine was waiting at the side entrance to drive him to Sam Roffe’s Long Island estate, where Elizabeth would be waiting.

      During the drive Rhys tried to rehearse the words that he would say to her to try to soften the blow, but the moment Elizabeth opened the front door to greet him the words flew out of his head. Each time Rhys saw Elizabeth her beauty caught him by surprise. She had inherited her mother’s looks, the same patrician features, midnight black eyes framed by long, heavy lashes. Her skin was white and soft, her hair a shiny black. Her figure was rich and firm. She was wearing an open-necked, creamy silk blouse and a pleated grey-flannel skirt and fawn-coloured pumps. There was no sign of the awkward little girl Rhys had first met nine years earlier. She had become a woman, intelligent and warm and completely unselfconscious about her beauty. She was smiling at him now, pleased to see him. She took his hand and said, ‘Come in, Rhys,’ and led him into the large oak-panelled library. ‘Did Sam fly in with you?’

      There was no way to break it gently. Rhys took a deep breath and said, ‘Sam had a bad accident, Liz.’ He watched the colour drain from her face. She waited for him to go on. ‘He was killed.’

      She stood there frozen. When she finally spoke, Rhys could barely hear her. ‘What – what happened?’

      ‘We don’t have any of the details yet. He was climbing Mont Blanc. A rope broke. He fell into a crevasse.’

      ‘Did they find –’

      She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them.

      ‘A bottomless crevasse.’

      Her face had turned white. Rhys felt a quick sense of alarm. ‘Are you all right?’

      She smiled brightly, and said, ‘Of course. I’m fine, thank you. Would you like some tea or something to eat?’

      He looked at her in surprise and started to speak, and then he understood. She was in shock. She was rattling on, making no sense, her eyes unnaturally bright, her smile fixed.

      ‘Sam was such a great athlete,’ Elizabeth was saying. ‘You’ve seen his trophies. He always won, didn’t he? Did you know he climbed Mont Blanc before?’

      ‘Liz –’

      ‘Of course you did. You went with him once, didn’t you, Rhys?’

      Rhys let her talk, anaesthetizing herself against the pain, trying to build an armour of words to ward off the moment when she would have to face her own anguish. For an instant, as he listened to her, he was reminded of the vulnerable little girl he had first known, too sensitive and shy to have any protection against brutal reality. She was dangerously wound up now, tense and brittle, and there was a fragility about her that worried Rhys.

      ‘Let me call a doctor,’ he said. ‘He can give you something to –’

      ‘Oh, no. I’m really quite all right. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll lie down for a while. I’m feeling a bit tired.’

      ‘Would you like me to stay?’

      ‘Thank you. That won’t be necessary.’

      She walked him to the door, and as he started to get into the car Elizabeth called, ‘Rhys!’

      He turned.

      ‘Thank you for coming.’