name.
“I’ll have a legal team here within the hour. They’ll give you thirty minutes to read through the contract, to sign everything over to me, forgoing all further rights of ownership and entitlements. Upon completion, two million euros will be deposited into a bank account of your choosing. Good morning, Mr. Duvall.”
I move towards the exit. He beats me to the door, shouldering me to his left.
“This is what you came here for, isn’t it? To buy me out, to show everyone what a big shot you are—buying the chateau for your poor mother. The prodigal son returns and all that.” He laughs in my face. “You’re more like me than you care to admit.”
I manage a smile. “You’re wrong. My intentions aren’t that devious.” I reach for the door handle. “You forget, I don’t have your blood in my veins. I don’t think like you and I will never be like you, in business, as a son and certainly not as a father.” I lean in to him. “For the last time, take a look at these eyes, and tell me what you see.”
“I see your mother,” he confesses, raising his chin. “The woman I once loved.”
“Then consider yourself lucky that I’m her son and not yours, or you’d be as desperate as she was when you fucked her over.” I hold my ground. “I suggest you return to your chair toute suite. You don’t want to be out of the office when my legal team arrives.”
Aggrieved by my suggestion, he returns to his chair. When I turn for one last look, he’s leaning forward with his head in his hands. It gives me no pleasure to see anyone down on their knees, but of all the people who might suffer the indignation of imprisonment and insolvency, he’s the one I have the least sympathy for. I’ve done the honourable thing—given him back the money he has invested; now things are as they should be, and I can sleep soundly in my bed at night.
Not six feet from the door, Pendleton confronts me. “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Stone,” he says with a wry smile.
I respond to his smile with a snigger. “I gave him more than he deserves.”
“Yes, but I doubt even two million euros will be sufficient to cover the costs of a good lawyer. The courts here are ready to throw the book at him, and once his two friends come clean and start singing like canaries—as you said—he’ll be lucky to get out before his seventieth birthday.”
“Then so be it.” He walks me back to the sliding glass panel. “Do you have a phone I could use? I can’t get an outside line on mine. I need to get some paperwork emailed over to an office in town. They’ll appoint a lawyer for him and organise what we discussed. He’ll tell them where to send the money so they can set it up as a defence fund. Oh, and maybe could get him a clean shirt. He smells of fear.” I stand patiently, waiting for the lift door to open.
“As well he might.” He tips his head in agreement. “I can do that. Please follow me, there’s an office you can make use of on the upper floor.”
We step out onto a kind of atrium. A matter of yards along, he stops outside a green door with a number four upon it. “Before you leave, would you mind telling me how Monsieur Duvall knew where your wife was? You did a first class job of hiding her.”
He doesn’t need to know everything.
“From what I can gather, someone saw her returning to the boat from the villa in Cannes and tipped them off.” I shrug my shoulders. “She’s hard to miss.”
He nods, not believing a word of it. “She certainly is, Mr. Stone. I’m glad this business has had a positive outcome. I’ll leave you to make your call. Press nine for an outside line.”
“Thank you, and by the way, make sure you check out what Marie Claire had under her fingernails. The insurgent I met in Cannes had some nasty scratches on his left cheek.” I shrug my shoulders. “It’s just an idea I had when I was on my way over here.”
He reaches out to shake my hand and smiles appreciatively. “Thank you. Forensics already has it down on their to-do list.”
“I thought they might.”
He leaves me alone in the office. I slump down in the comfortable office chair and contemplate my next