TYCOONS-2

Business as usual

PATRIC DICKINSON

wonder if you could come down next weekend?'

'I'm in conference all Tuesday.'

'Wednesday, then?'

'I'd be delighted. Could you pick me up at the club?'

'Athenaeum?'

'My dear fellow, no, that Heathrow place. I'll be flying in : conference in Geneva.' 'What flight?'

'My own—I've just got a most interesting new swing-wing.'

Wpm?'

'Hardly—a new method we'll be market- ing quite soon.'

'I'll send a Rolls.'

'How can we contact you?'

'My cars are fully equipped. You just call PRO/PD on your radio—the wavelength is in the international confidential file: I presume you have it?'

'My organisation prints it.'

'Fine, Wednesday then; bring your golf clubs.'

'I'll get a set when I turn up.'

'But, my dear chap, can you manage with- out your own?'

'They'll be my own—vx47 Jackobusters. He designed them for me, now they're on the market.'

The Sussex cottage stood in its owner's grounds, which were not small since he had bought up three surrounding farms to ensure a proper seclusion. The private heliport on what had been the village cricket field was for some reason still resented. As the Rolls crossed the invisible beam the wrought-iron gates slid noiselessly open while the plastic coats of arms which adorned them were dis- creetly illuminated from inside. The Georgian front dated back to at least 1928 and behind it in parts of the house there still were traces of its sixteenth century origins. As Sir Herbert was assisted from the Rolls, the front door was opened. Bunbelly, the travel- ling butler, who always did for Sir William at weekends, bowed comfortably. Sir Herbert was offered a wash. (There was only a rather small and indifferent Picasso in the loo, he noticed.) 'Come in, my dear chap.' • The Correggio over the Adam mantelpiece looked a little odd with a Manet on one side and a Monet on the other, but so did the Manet with a Jackson Pollock beyond it. His eyes travelled round the walls . . . Sutherland, Holman Hunt, Titian, Van Meegeren, Munnings . . . His eyes came to rest.

'Good investment, that.'

'As a matter of fact I commissioned it— one of my own horses, Jolly Jack.'

'Of course. Didn't he come in last my Derby year?'

'You didn't own Dog's Delight, did you?'

'Not exactly, I had a major share in the syndicate . . . still, Munnings is rising in the market.'

'I've plenty in the cellar if you'd care to ?'

'No, thanks all the same, I'm going for Christopher Woods at present.'

'Glad you like my little country collection, my throw-outs really, only worth about half a million.'

'As little as that? Are you sure you're not under-insured, old boy? Now, my man at Sotheby's—' 'Hamish?'

'--Yes.'

'Most dependable, he does me too.'

'He can tell a Rembrandt from a Rubens in the dark ... but I really prefer books and manuscripts. Got rather bored with my Uccellos, they'll be up soon, I expect.'

'As you're interested in books, care for a drink?'

A piece of wall on which hung a small school-of-Botticelli had opened to disclose rows of very beautifully bound books, a complete D. H. Lawrence on the second shelf for instance. The choice was comprehensively 'modern'. Nabokov, Greene, Compton- Burnett, Burroughs, Murdoch, Durrell, even some poets, including the Laureate.

'What magnificent bindings; may I look?'

'Of course, but I should have told you they're not real books. I keep the gin in the Compton-Burnetts—so dependable, don't you think?—now, how about a large Ivy and Greene? A Durrell and Snow? There are various mixtures.'

'I'll have an Ivy and Iris.'

'Most people like a drop of water with that.'

Sir William mixed himself a generous measure of bestsellers and they drank happily.

'When's Gwen coming down?'

'She isn't, gone to Jim.'

'Sorry, old boy.'

'No, delighted. Another drink?'

'I'll try something else this time.'

'May I suggest a large Amis with a dash of Spark?'

, 'I'll have it neat.'

Sir William pressed the third switch from the right.

'Bunbelly, has Mrs Cradock arrived yet?' 'Sir, didn't you hear the helicopter arrive?' 'Must've been one of our new ones, silencer works well. Dinner then, when?' 'After the TV show, sir. Perhaps you can- not quite have recalled that it is going out live from our kitchen tonight.'

'Why isn't it on?'

'Since it was sponsored by Sir Herbert's interests, sir, I thought ...'

Do we get the dinner we see?'

'No, sir, I have arranged otherwise .

The two men juddered to the first tee; it was three o'clock the next afternoon and the gin- and-kiimmel had done its therapy.

'Fifty pounds?' The match, or hole by hole?'

'Both.'

'Sorry, electric buggies don't work here.' 'Not a bit; good to know how they used to manage.'

Two caddies were bowed under enormous bags. One had caddied for fifty years, the other had never been on a golf links before. After a hole or so the expert had fixed the book, he thought, both for himself and the players. Sir Herbert was to win. He was carrying for Sir William but he had got his fellow-donkey fixed. It was at the thirteenth—a blind green over a sandhill- that Sir Herbert holed out for a fantastic 'eagle.' Sir William's pocket receiver picked up most of the exchange between the caddies "from the mini-transmitter fitted in his golf- bag. His sensitised pocket recorder (the same model as Sir Herbert's) also failed to tally with Sir Herbert's oral accountings. Both tacitly agreed that they had reached the last green in five each.

Sir William had to putt first. Here his aged caddy misconstrued his employer's Mind. He offered him a line three feet to the left for a straight putt; and Sir William walked straight up to his ball, aimed where he was told, and holed out from four yards.

'Ten fivers, or five tenners?'

`I'd take a cheque if you'd rather.'

The gloves were off.

Sir Herbert was still smarting when the Tannoy spoke to him in his bath. 'Long- distance sir', murmured Bunbelly. 'You will find the extension behind the soap rack if you press the tile with the . . . well sir, the Pompeii reproductions ..

'Herbert . .. can I speak freely?'

'No.'

'Where are you?'

'In a bath.'

'You're in clover!'

'No. a bath.'

'You're in.'

'Got it. Bye.'

Later, looking more closely at the Cor- reggio, which might be a fake, but was almost as good as his for the bidding if not the asking, he said, 'Bill, old boy, maybe that's why you asked me down, but it's gone the other way . . . I expect you heard . . . Cosmos has won control ...'

The buzzer buzzed.

'Geneva for Sir Herbert, sir.'

`Take it here?'

'Anywhere.' 'Yes? Fifteen, I'd say. Good. Now? Our man's overhead? Yes, I'll be free next week- end—no, not Tuesday, I have a conference. Bye . . . Sorry, Bill, I must get back. The helicopter will be down almost at once.'

'Whose helicopter?' `Yours, I mean mine. No doubt you'll send my things on.'

'Of course. A most enjoyable game . . • No doubt we shall meet again soon.' He went to the Botticelli and selected a book which, like a reviewer, he could not put down.

Everything seemed to go dark.

'Dinner is served, Sir William.'

'Cold?' 'Mrs .Cradock left a swan, sir.' He took up the power-operated carving knife and with a melodramatic gesture waved it near his throat, but nothing happened.

'Bunbelly!'

'Sir?'

'What's happened?' 'There's a power cut, sir. Perhaps a mis- hap to one of the neighbouring high PYlons • , . We must make do with candles,'