15
Later that afternoon, in Gloucester, Jonas Bannister’s day was about to take a decided turn for the worse, and it began with the unusual occurrence of his PA’s unannounced entry to his office.
Usually, Olivia Keane always checked with him via the intercom first whenever she needed to see him, so her unheralded knock on his door, followed by her slipping inside without even waiting for him to bid her to come in, took him by surprise.
A middle-aged, well-educated and normally unflappable woman, her high colour and troubled expression instantly put him on alert.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, Mr Bannister, but there’s a young man here to see you,’ she began without any preamble.
‘I don’t believe there are any appointments scheduled in my diary for this morning,’ Jonas interrupted her, frowning, but his PA was already shaking her neatly coiffured head.
‘No, sir. He has none. But he’s adamant that he needs to see you.
He says it’s urgent and imperative, and that the matter is personal.
He’s young and badly dressed and has a sort of knowing, supercilious way about him that .
. . Well, I think he means to cause trouble, sir.
He’s refused to leave the outer office. Perhaps you should send someone up from security to escort him out? ’
‘Did he give a name?’
‘Yes, sir – I’m sorry I forgot to say!’ she apologised, clearly flustered. ‘His name is Flynn. Mr Jack Flynn.’
Jonas drew his breath in with a hiss, further alarming his already out-of-sorts PA. ‘I see. I believe it might be best if I see him after all. I have an idea . . . Once you’ve shown him in, please ask Mr Gorman to come up here and send him in right away. Tell him to be as quick as he can.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Miss Keane said, not sure whether to feel relieved or even more concerned, but departing hurriedly. A few moments later the door opened and a man in his early twenties swaggered in.
He was lean and wiry, not very tall, with bad skin and teeth. He was dressed in ragged jeans and a grubby grey T-shirt. But it was the expression on his face that instantly caught and kept Jonas’ attention. As Olivia Keane said, he had a smug, almost gleeful smile that oozed confidence.
Just one look at him, and Jonas felt his mouth go dry. For a moment he quailed, but then he sat up straighter in his chair, and reached for an expensive Parker pen lying on his desk, which he made a show of casually fiddling in his hand.
‘I don’t believe we’ve met, Mr, er, Flynn, was it?
’ he asked curtly. He knew he needed to take control and take it quickly.
Once you gave a man like this the idea that he could lord it over you, you were sunk.
‘I’m afraid I don’t have much time to spare, but my PA said the matter was urgent? ’ He gave him his best imperial glare.
In response, Jack Flynn sauntered over and sat in the chair opposite his desk, looking unhurried and unconcerned. ‘No, we never met. But I reckon your dad and my great-nan had a lot to do with each other, once upon a time.’
Jonas felt his stomach lurch but hoped that he managed to keep his face blank. ‘Really?’ he asked, putting as much scepticism into his voice as he could manage. ‘What on earth makes you think that?’
‘One of the accounts ledgers that my great-nan kept, for one thing,’ Jack said with a knowing grin.
‘Deborah Simmonds, her name was. I’m sure that name rings a bell, don’t it, Mr Bannister?
’ he asked, crossing his skinny arms happily across his chest. He looked around and nodded.
‘Nice office. Nice business. I dare say you live in a nice house, too, right?’
Jonas’ lips tightened. ‘I don’t see how that . . .’
‘Been doing all right for yourself, ain’t yah?
’ Jack continued, nodding. ‘Nice company you’ve got here – I been looking you up online.
Plenty of big fancy ads saying how green-minded you are, and how you’re all up for helping to save the planet.
All that guff about how much you’re doing to help others meet government targets, and keep to green policies and all that shit.
Selling yourselves as some sort of corporate super-hero good guys.
Be a pity if the public finds out that it was all built on money your dad stole from some charity, wouldn’t it?
’ he asked, still nodding in that annoying way.
‘Wouldn’t be so popular then, would yuh? ’
He glanced out of the window at the expensive Cotswold-stone buildings lining the streets opposite.
‘Fancy area, this. Nice. But I reckon your stock shares would hit the pan pretty quick, if that got out. You wouldn’t be able to afford to work around here then, right?
And you’d probably be voted off the board, quick as a flash, yeah? ’
He leaned back and lifted his booted feet to rest them on the edge of Jonas’ pristine desk.
‘I seen some of them slick American shows, yah know the ones I mean, where the rich financial whizz kids live it up to begin with, then suddenly get it in the neck and go to jail for that insider trading stuff they’re always banging on about.
Mind you, they’re all the same – bending the rules and robbing people blind – only they get away with it, ’cause they’re rich, right?
Until they don’t,’ he added with a sly, wide grin.
‘Yeah, I like them kinda shows. Never thought I’d get to star in my own real-life version though. ’
By now Jonas could feel himself sweating, and he almost moaned with relief when the intercom buzzed, and Olivia’s voice informed him that Mr Gorman had arrived.
Ian came in quietly, shot Jonas an assessing look, and then quickly turned his attention to the young man in the chair.
He recognised him at once, for he’d already begun his inquiries into Jack Flynn, and one of his men had already emailed him a photograph.
He also knew the boy was not long out of a prison term – which was hardly his first. His eyes flickered disgustedly over the mud-caked boots on the desk, and then back to Jonas, elevating his eyebrows questioningly.
Feeling sick, Jonas attempted a brave smile. He could just flick a finger and know that Ian would eject Flynn like the piece of rubbish he was. But that would hardly solve the problem he now represented.
‘Ah, Ian, glad you could make it. This is Mr Flynn. He seems to be something of a fantasist. I think he believes he . . . Well, what is it exactly that you do believe, Mr Flynn? You haven’t been very clear, you know. Something about a distant relative’s ledgers, was it?’
He was feeling braver now that his security chief was with him. And once he was sure about the exact nature of whatever evidence this verminous creature thought he had on him, surely Ian would be able to help deal with him.
‘Oh, I know what I have all right,’ Jack Flynn said, glancing at the newcomer with wary eyes.
The bloke was older than him, and didn’t seem to have much muscle on him, but he was giving off a vibe that he didn’t like.
Ex-copper, maybe? ‘I got this phone call, see, from this writer woman,’ he carried on, turning back to face his mark.
‘She wanted to know if I had any papers belonging to a Deborah Simmonds – that would be my nan’s mum.
Turns out I did, see. And very interesting they were too.
Diaries, and shit like that. But then I found these account ledgers.
For this charity some dead rock groupie had set up.
Money my great-nan very neatly nabbed for herself. ’
He grinned. ‘Typical of our family, you see. Crooks, the lot of us. And you gotta admire the old bird, right? She’d hit the jackpot by the looks of it.
Well, she had, until your old man cottoned on to what she was doing, and muscled his way in,’ Jack added, nodding in an almost friendly way at Jonas.
‘Seems your family wasn’t short on crooks either, was it? ’
Jonas swallowed hard – not at the slur on his family, but in disbelief that Flynn could have what he claimed to have.
Was it really possible? Surely the Simmonds woman would have gone out of her way to destroy the evidence of her own wrongdoing, wouldn’t she?
It stood to reason; she wouldn’t want to leave any proof lying around as to what she’d done, especially since, back then, it would have meant a lengthy prison term.
Not like nowadays, when fraudsters could get away with almost anything and walk out after a few months’ jail time.
When his father retired from the business after getting dementia, his mental state had slowly deteriorated to the point where he’d started to mumble on about things he’d previously kept very quiet.
But Jonas had listened all right, and some of the things Robert Bannister had said had curdled Jonas’ blood.
Not least, how he’d come by enough money to start the business in the first place.
The courts had finally awarded Glen’s parents and each of his siblings equal shares from his estate, with Glen’s parents simply putting their share in the bank and living comfortably off it for the rest of their lives.
His older uncle had done much the same thing, but with the occasional added splurge, such as buying a boat and a fancy car.
His aunt, when she reached the age of eighteen, had used it to go to art college and then, in later life, as top-up money for when her canvases didn’t sell so well.
But his father had founded his own company, which, when Jonas came to really consider it later, must have needed far more in start-up funds than just Glen’s legacy alone.
The company, for its first twenty years, had been privately run and owned, so there had been no shareholders’ investments to bolster it, but it had always had a very healthy bank account nevertheless, and right from the start.
It was only after they got too big to stay private that his father had finally gone public.
So where had all that initial investment come from?