Читать книгу A Scandalous Man - Gavin Esler - Страница 5

Father was murdered today. Or it might have been yesterday. He might even have tried to kill himself. No one can say for certain, and that is typical of father, slippery and devious to the end. The television news said he is not dead yet, or not quite. He was found in a pool of blood on the floor of his cottage, clinging to life. My first thought was that I hoped he survived long enough to suffer.

I heard the news late because I had my mobile phone switched off all day, working, and because I had a row with my client. This never happens. I am too polite for that kind of thing, but he was an up-himself New York corporate lawyer for a private equity firm that was trying to buy up half of eastern Europe, and I was helping them. I’m not particularly proud of it, but there you are. Not many people in London speak fluent Czech, and they paid me five times my normal fee for a bit of translation and a bit of interpreting, and probably would have paid me twenty times if I’d had the nerve to ask. The New York lawyer and I finished going through the paperwork enabling his company to buy a sizeable slice of the Czech economy which he told me he intended to ‘remodel’. He signed the contract as I spoke to his opposite number in Prague confirming the deal. At the same time he talked to his office in Manhattan. I could hear him gloating.

‘Get Karl and the boys down from Frankfurt,’ he told New York. ‘Pink slip everything that breathes and flatten everything that doesn’t. Terminate all contracts. We need everybody out of all sites and everything levelled with immediate effect. We need this turned by the end of the year.’

I was at the other end of the room but could still hear him yakking. He told me to give him the thumbs up the moment I had confirmation the contract was signed in Prague. When I did so, he told New York, ‘It’s done,’ and then put the phone down. He was beaming, as if he had just had sex. Maybe at that point he needed someone to boast to and I was the only one in the room. Whatever the reason he turned to me and said that in that one instant, in that one stroke of a pen, his company had made more than seven hundred million dollars. He personally had pocketed around thirteen million, and was going to find a club and what he called some ‘broadminded women’ to celebrate with. I ran off at the mouth.

‘You’re celebrating putting thousands of Czech workers out of a job?’

He looked as if I had just hit him, then he laughed and started putting his papers into his attaché case.

‘Interpret this, Harry: Welcome to globalization. Welcome to the world where you make dust or you eat dust. Welcome to the twenty-first century.’

Then he handed me my cheque with all the good grace of a client stuffing money into the bra of a lap dancer.

‘Your interpreting fee. A thousand. Don’t spend it all at once.’

I wanted to hit him. He waved a finger at me.

‘You wanna know why people like you don’t like Americans, Harry? Because we’re so goddamn successful in every field of human endeavour.’

That angered me even more. It had nothing to do with his nationality. It had everything to do with his behaviour.

‘I do like Americans,’ I protested. ‘Most of them. But some of you don’t travel so well. The ones who have no values except what you can pay for. People like you.’

‘Well, fuck you too, Harry,’ he called out with another laugh as he stepped out of the door. ‘When people say they don’t care about money it’s usually because they don’t have any. G’bye now. I’ll be thinking of you.’

When I cooled down, I went home and switched on the TV news, only because I wanted to hear if Blair had finally got round to calling the General Election. And he had. But there was also a big surprise. Father’s picture suddenly appeared on the screen as he crawled towards his footnote in history.

‘A reminder of today’s top stories: the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has given the go ahead for a General Election to be held on May 5th. He’s bidding to win an unprecedented third term for Labour, an achievement which would match that of Mrs Thatcher … And one other piece of political news this hour: the former Conservative Cabinet Minister Robin Burnett – credited with being one of the chief architects of Thatcherism – has been found close to death at his home in Gloucestershire. Police refused to confirm local speculation that Mr Burnett had been attacked and stabbed. For more on this we can go over to our political editor Tom Agnew at Westminster. Tom.’

An affable looking man in glasses standing in Downing Street started to speak. He was talking about my father. He appeared to know him better than I did.

‘… Robin Burnett, nicknamed by the tabloids “Big-Brain Burnett”, was one of the intellectual fathers of modern Conservatism. A formidably clever economist, he was once tipped to succeed Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister until the scandal which toppled him caused devastation at the heart of the Conservative party. It still rankles even today …’

Then there was an interruption. The man in glasses held his earpiece with his index finger.

‘And I am just hearing that the Vice President of the United States, David Hickox, who is on an official visit to Europe and who met Robin Burnett in London earlier this week, is about to pay tribute to his friend. Let’s go live to the Élysée Palace …’

They cut to pictures of Vice President Hickox, a thickset man with the build of an American footballer, standing next to a bemused French President Jacques Chirac.

‘Let me just say that Robin Burnett is a friend of freedom, a friend of the United States and a good friend of mine,’ Hickox was saying. ‘He understood the need for Britain and the United States to stand shoulder to shoulder in a difficult and dangerous world. The Robin Burnett I have known for years is a brave man and a fighter – and I pray that he’ll pull through. My thoughts are with him and his family at this time.’

Then the Vice President put an arm round President Chirac and they walked inside. The affable reporter started to speak again.

‘Publicly neither the Labour party nor the Conservatives are saying much about Robin Burnett, but privately Labour cannot believe their luck. On the day Tony Blair has called a General Election, here we have a reminder of all the sleaze once associated with the Conservative party and attached to the scandal involving Robin Burnett.’

He paused for a second to deliver his punchline.

‘In politics, of course, as in stand-up comedy, timing is everything. Now back to the studio.’

Oh, god, I thought. It’s starting again. All over again. And there is nothing I can do to stop it. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Could this day possibly get worse? Another deep breath. Perhaps I should introduce myself properly. My name is Harry Burnett. I am a full-time translator and part-time interpreter. Despite what the New York lawyer said, I do a lot of work for American clients, most of whom I like, and I only very rarely lose my temper. I am also the estranged son of the former British Cabinet minister Robin Burnett. And he is a scandalous man.