Читать книгу City of the Lost - Will Adams - Страница 20

Iain and Karin chose a restaurant close to the hotel, too weary to explore further. They sat upstairs on an open roof terrace of polished terracotta tiles hedged by potted cypresses. Few tables were taken; the atmosphere was subdued. Every so often voices would be raised in anger, not only against the bombers, but also against the perceived feebleness of the government’s response. Everyone seemed agreed that someone new was needed to take up the fight; someone with the stomach to do whatever was necessary to restore order. And everyone seemed keen to take part in Friday’s Day of Action.

They ordered beers that arrived already poured into miniature brass tankards, to protect the sensibilities of their more devout customers. They clinked them together in a dull toast then tried some small talk, but it proved hard work and Karin soon fell into an introspective silence.

‘Tell me about him,’ prompted Iain.

‘About who?’

‘Your boss. His assistant. Whichever one it is you’re thinking of.’

Karin shook her head. ‘I really didn’t know Rick all that well.’

‘Nathan, then. What was he like?’

‘He was fine. He was nice. He was rich.’ She gave a sad smile. ‘I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s simply that some people have so much money it becomes part of who they are. You can’t describe them without it.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I don’t know. I guess I used to think of money as something you bought stuff with. That the more money you had, the more stuff you could buy. But it’s not like that, not when you’re born into an oil dynasty, as Nathan was. At that level, it’s more like a force. Like gravity. It shapes the world and everyone bends to it, whether they want to or not.’

Iain looked curiously at her. ‘Including you?’ he asked.

‘You know us Dutch?’ she said. ‘How tolerant we are. Live and let live, all that shit? Well, my family isn’t like that. Not one bit. My parents are very Calvinist. They raised us to think a certain way: that money was slightly disgusting, that hard work should be its own reward. And so I worked hard. I studied history at Leiden. I got a good degree, good enough that I was offered the chance to go study at the University of Texas in Austin. They had an excellent programme there, right in my area. I was offered a partial scholarship too, so that at least my tuition was paid for. But it’s still an expensive business, being a student in America. I had to take on a crazy amount of debt, which my parents were not happy about, let me tell you. Anyway, I got to know Nathan while I was there, because he was the one sponsoring the programme. It was on the Homeric Question, you see, which was his thing too. And he saw how stretched I was with my studying and my bar-jobs, so he hired me as a sort of PA to help him manage his collection and deal with museums on his behalf, that kind of thing. But the work was pretty light and really it was another way for him to support my research, you know?’

‘Yes.’

‘So eventually I got my doctorate and then Leiden offered me a job. It wasn’t exactly what I’d wanted but it was a start, a foot in the door. For some reason, however, Nathan decided he wanted me to stay and work for him full-time. He offered me twice what Leiden were. I said no. So he offered me quadruple.’

‘He must have thought highly of you.’

‘Yes. But I think also he wanted to demonstrate something. I’d been so pleased at the Leiden job, you see. And my attitude towards money always amused him. The rectitude of it. All that hard work bravely done shit. This will sound awful, but I think he wanted to corrupt me a little. And he had so much money that my salary was effectively meaningless to him. Like filling a thimble from his lake. So he kept offering me more and more until finally I said yes. It was all that student debt; suddenly I could pay it off.’ She sat back in her chair as their main course arrived: succulent charred lamb kebabs garnished with yoghurt, onions, tomatoes and eye-watering peppers. ‘But the thing about a big salary is that you start taking it for granted. You think it’s what you’re worth. So instead of paying down your debt, you rent yourself a nice apartment, you lease a car, you fly home four times a year. Which was stupid, because no one else would ever have paid me half what Nathan did. I was his friend as much as his employee. I was his escort for openings and family events. It got so that people began to talk. I tried to ignore all that. I mean, Christ, he was as old as my grandmother. Literally.’ She took a deep breath, looked defiantly at Iain. ‘Last Christmas, he asked me to marry him.’

Iain nodded. He’d guessed something of the sort. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said no. I told him I was fond of him, but not like that. He kept at it. It seemed almost like a game to him. He kept making exploratory little advances. Like he’d buy me gifts small enough that I’d have been churlish to refuse them. But then the next gift would be a little bigger, so how could I fuss about that after accepting the one before. Or he’d touch my elbow in public. Then my shoulder and my back. Or he’d tease me and call me pet names. That kind of thing. And whenever I tried to draw a line for him, he’d joke about my salary, only not altogether a joke, you know. Once you’ve grown used to a good income, the prospect of losing it is a bit like vertigo.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Anyway, it got so that everyone took it for granted that we were secretly engaged. You should have seen the looks his children used to dart at me. Like they hated me.’

‘Ah,’ said Iain. ‘That dickhead on the phone earlier.’

‘Julian. Nathan’s eldest son. It’s hard to blame him too much. Even by his own telling, Nathan must have been a truly shitty father. He whored around until his wife finally had had enough and walked out on him, taking the kids with her. They grew up angry with him, as you can imagine; justice matters so much when you’re young. But then they grew older and realized where the money was.’

‘So they came crawling back?’

‘And he despised them for it, I think. Even though he’d inherited the company himself. And, God, he could be cruel. He’d get them to tell stories against themselves and against their mother, that kind of thing. Muse aloud about leaving everything to some absurd charity or other, or marrying again and starting a new family.’

‘But now they’ll get to inherit after all,’ observed Iain. ‘No wonder Julian sounded like he was off to pop some corks. After all that worry.’

‘Yes.’

Iain allowed himself the faintest of smiles. ‘You don’t suppose he could have been worried enough to have had his father killed, do you?’