Carver - By Tom Cain Page 0,15

a shake of his head. ‘As if he could possibly appreciate cricket.’

‘Well, who cares about cricket, anyway?’ Ginger laughed, getting her own back. She smiled again at Carver, trying to make him complicit in her gentle mockery of Shafik, doing what she could to draw him again into some kind of relationship. ‘The crucial day is this coming Friday, 1 July. That’s when Zorn will formally launch his fund with a reception at the Goldsmiths’ Hall, in the heart of the City of London, for a very exclusive selection of guests – his investors, senior politicians and bankers.’

‘Including the men who want him dead?’

‘Possibly,’ she admitted.

‘And you wonder why I’m cynical?’

‘There will also be a number of figures from the media and entertainment industries,’ said Shafik. ‘Zorn is not foolish. He knows they will attract more attention than any number of middle-aged, unattractive male billionaires.’

‘But you do want Zorn to make it to his own party?’

‘Indeed not.’

Carver drank some more beer. He put the glass down and said, ‘So you’re looking for an unfortunate accident?’

‘Precisely – the tragic end to a brilliant career. And it must be visible: Zorn must be seen to die.’

‘To send a message?’

‘I’d prefer to say: to encourage any other independent operators not to be so greedy,’ Shafik suggested. ‘In any case, you can be sure that my clients will attend the funeral and send many magnificent wreaths.’

‘Well, then they’d better hope I don’t decide to pay my respects as well. I don’t have any views about this Malachi Zorn one way or another. But I’m taking a serious dislike to your clients.’

8

* * *

Brick Lane, London E1

THE PACKAGE WAS addressed to Brynmor Gryffud at the office of his graphic design agency, Sharpeville Images. The company specialized in branding and website design for charities and pressure groups involved in controversial fields, such as minority and animal rights, environmental activism and anti-war campaigning. Gryffud was a tall, thickset, heavily bearded Welshman who looked and sounded as though he should be farming sheep, playing rugby and drinking a dozen pints a night – all of which he had done in his time. As he liked to tell clients in a rich, musical voice made for lyrical speeches, ‘Whatever the Daily Mail is against, that is what we are for.’

In addition to his design work, Gryffud ran a small, but vociferous, group of his own, the Forces of Gaia. It specialized in stunts that drew attention to what Gryffud and his supporters viewed as unacceptable assaults on the environment. Inspired by the fathers’ rights campaigners, who had attracted global coverage simply by appearing at high-visibility, high-security locations such as Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace dressed up as superheroes, Gryffud had relied on wit and imagination to make his point. His actions had given him a high profile, and even brought in new clients for his business, but he’d long since accepted that they hadn’t made a damn bit of difference to the environment.

The screensavers on his office computer were pictures he had taken of the Welsh hills where he had been raised, and to which he still returned whenever possible. Gryffud’s connection to that landscape and, through it, to the planet as a whole was part of his very soul. His certainty that man’s abuse of all the bounty that nature had bestowed on him was leading to the inevitable desecration, even destruction, of the planet caused him intense pain. Now his patience had run out. Recently, Gryffud had been listening to angrier, more radical voices. He had been persuaded that it was time for a total change of tactics.

He was looking at a standard white postal packing box, 180 mm long by 100 mm wide and 50 mm deep. Inside it were four clear plastic packets, each containing ten fat marker pens, along with a delivery notice stating that each packet cost £4.99, plus £7.75 post and packaging, making a total of £27.71, paid through PayPal. Two of the packets contained blue pens, the other two red ones.

It was an everyday transaction for a company like Sharpeville Images, one that had attracted no official attention whatsoever on its way through the postal system. In the choking atmosphere of state-sanctioned paranoia that pervaded early twenty-first-century life, any phone call or email was liable to interception. But old-fashioned snail mail was a much more secure means of sending covert messages and goods: provided, of course, that the postal service was up to delivering them.

When he had opened the box and