THE
CORPORATE EXECUTIONER
A novel by
NICOLAS TRAVERS
CHAPTER ONE: A CHURCH FETE
There is always something rather sad about the sight of a leaf drifting down from a tree on a damp late summer day. It signals approaching autumn, and the end of the good days. Harry Chapman watched through a parish hall window as the fragment of oak spiralled lower and lower, sensing a metaphor for his own prospective ageing in the leaf’s descent. He was running into his late fifties, and considered that life was selling him short. Granted, his circumstances were good, and he possessed plenty of material benefits, but his emotional existence was predictable and dull, and lacked excitement.
He sighed. It was a Saturday afternoon in September, and he had agreed – much against his better judgement - to help Anne, his wife, run a stall at their parish church fete. But Anne had abandoned him. Well, she had gone off to speak to someone or other, leaving him on his own, and he was bored, guarding a table laden with Anne’s cast-offs. This was not the way a prosperous City financier, a man with a big house in a country village, a London flat, and a second home on the Riviera, should be spending his spare time.
A pair of teenage girls strolled past, and he eyed them speculatively, but both tossed their heads. Wealth often attracts women, but he was in the wrong place for flaunting. He thought about the weekend ahead, and closed his eyes. Anne had invited three couples to dinner, so he would have a social evening, and - if the evening prospers - possibly sex on Sunday morning, because social success tended to hone Anne’s libido. But no bells would ring, because Anne regards sex as a form of female empowerment, and their encounters were generally one-sided. Then they would both potter through Sunday, and he would work on a project nearing fruition. But he would be waiting for Monday.
Mondays were good days in Harry’s life, when life woke from sleeping. Mondays were working days when plans needed preparing, and decisions had to be reached. Mondays opened weeks when he could escape from Anne and bury himself in his computer, amassing and assessing facts and figures, before staging big coups, because Harry was a hunter, and liked to stalk carefully, and set clever ambushes, and clean up in spades. Mondays were action days, and sometimes action evenings, if he had to stay overnight at his flat in Canary Wharf, because he could then call up Sylvia, a well-groomed solicitor who made a second living on the side by being nice to rich men. Harry came to life on Mondays.
The two girls returned, hovering in front of his stall, and he looked up. The elder of the two twinkled at him. She might be eighteen, perhaps, or nineteen, slim in jeans and a pale blue hooded top that matched her blue eyes, with her flaxen hair pinned up in a ponytail, and she had all the freshness that teenagers possess when sex is still an adventure.
‘You live in the big house, don’t you?’
Her companion giggled, standing back a little, ready to flee. Harry sensed a provocation. Or perhaps a challenge. He nodded cautiously – the girl plainly knew him by sight.
‘Are you rich?’
Harry shrugged. Richness was what you made of it. He was certainly very comfortable in material terms: he and Anne owned a Queen Anne manor house looking out over a village green in a charming dormitory village close to London, the Canary Wharf flat – which was spacious and modern, and a second home not quite an hour’s drive from Nice airport. He drove a top of the range S-class Mercedes when he needed wheels, or had Anthony, his butler, drive him, but generally travelled mostly by train, whilst Anne had a big four-wheel-drive Chrysler. They kept a second Mercedes in France, along with a Mercedes V-class people carrier to handle shopping and visitors, and changed all four vehicles every two years. Sometimes they splashed out on helicopter rides when either of them wanted to be somewhere in a hurry. The manor house in Britain and second home in France were both carefully furnished with good antiques – Canary Wharf was wholly modern – and Harry was proud of his silver and pictures, with a Boucher taking pride of place. Money was absolutely no problem at all.
‘I suppose I am.’ He preened himself for a moment. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I’d like to have a rich sugar daddy.’ The girl’s voice was soft and conversational. She might have been telling him that she wanted an ice cream.
Harry stared at her. He was not a man to surprise easily, for he moved in circles where surprises ranked as commonplaces, and intrigue shaped many actions. The girl was pretty, and her boldness was tempting. It was plain that she has often been admired. He judged that she had long shed her virginity.
The second girl had vanished, melted away in a barrage of smirks. He hesitated. He was tempted, but he was also right on his own doorstep. Anne would give him hell if she caught him flirting with a village girl.
‘I’m much older than you.’
The girl smiled scornfully. ‘I’m not proposing to you: you’d just have to fancy me.’ She glanced quickly to either side of her. The church hall was now almost deserted, for it had begun to rain quite hard. A few stallholders sat hunched up behind their tables, but the last trickle of customers had all gone home. There was a hidden space at the end of Harry’s stall, where the wall made an angle and a shield from prying eyes. The girl stepped into the space and took the edge of her hooded top in her hands, lifting it for a split second to show small rounded breasts. ‘That’s how I’m made. Do you want me?’
Harry stared at her, wholly dumbfounded.
The girl smiled at him, blue eyes direct in their frankness.
‘Think about it. I’ll come back soon.’
Harry was still thinking when Anne returned. His mind framed the girl’s smile, and a pair of small rounded bosoms, wholly self-possessed in their pert uplifting. He was a financier, and an analyst, and he balanced opportunities, lust against danger.
‘How are you doing, dear?’ Anne’s voice was bright, in a stiff upper lip sort of way. She was a good-looking woman, with chestnut hair and greeny-brown eyes, and the slim sleek elegance that betokens a good dress sense and a good hairdresser. She has dressed down for the fete in jeans, thick cotton shirt and a good sweater, but she was still tanned from a couple of weeks on the Riviera, and shone with good living. But the fete has nothing good about it at all. Rain had kept potential buyers away and was still falling steadily, and it was a judgement from heaven. She was not a religious woman, more of a hatch, match, and despatch worshipper. But she still felt the deity should have dealt the church fete a rather better hand.
Harry held up his cash tin gloomily. It was empty but for a handful of small change with which Anne has seeded it hopefully and a couple of fivers. He had sold a little, but he had not sold much. ‘I’m doing nothing at all.’ He thought of the girl again, and knew that lust was building in his mind, and fast besting danger. ‘Can we pack up?’
‘I don’t know, dear.’ Anne was doubtful. She liked to picture herself as a lady of the manor, and felt that she had a duty to do good works, at least from time to time, providing they were not too much of a burden. ‘I’ll go and ask Hilary.’
Harry scowled. Hilary Harriman was the vicar’s wife, a dull and bossy woman. The word surrender had no place in her vocabulary. Not often, anyway. He steeled himself to another half hour of standing doing nothing. Perhaps he could drift away a little towards the next stall, offering books and a few tatty long playing records, minded by a man and a woman he judged to be pensioners. He was not particularly a bookish man, but he did read from time to time on long-haul flights to the States, as a break from his laptop. Right now he was prepared to read quite the dullest book in the world.
Somebody stopped in front of his stall and he looked up. It was the fairhaired girl again. He eyed her in alarm. Lust was struggling to vanquish good sense, but it had certainly not yet reached a point where it could hoist a victory banner.
‘Don’t look so scared.’ The girl twinkled at him anew, and he could feel himself waver. ‘I won’t do it again.’ Her hands cupped under her breasts for a split second, and he swallowed. ‘I’ll give you a little time to think it over, and then I’ll catch you again.’
Then she was gone, and Anne stood in her place. ‘Making eyes at teenagers instead of selling?’ Her voice was arch. Harry was a solid, reliable man, no man to cause trouble. A man who thought, dreamed and lived business. Sometimes Anne wondered, with a twinge of jealousy, whether he might not care more for his computer than his wife. But she quickly pushed this errant thought from her mind. Harry brought home big money, and she lived a good life. He could watch his computer screen around the clock for all she really cared.
‘What did Hilary say?’
Anne started, switching out of introspection. She seemed to search for words, but then looked away into the middle distance. ‘Ask her yourself – she’s coming this way.’
Hilary arrived wreathed in smiles. ‘Oh, poor Mr. Chapman, you must be quite out of your mind with boredom.’ She was a long, thin woman, with watery eyes and bony features, hair piled loosely into an untidy bun perched precariously on the top of her head. Her cardigan had clearly seen better days, and her blouse looked as though it might well have benefited from a good wash. She was also dressed in a grubby tweed skirt and sensible shoes. ‘Anne tells me that you want to pack up and go home.’
Harry nodded cautiously. He disliked Hilary, and was not going to start playing games. She might be voicing his wishes, but she showed no sign of closing the fete and sending him homewards.
Her smile grew saccharine. ‘Perhaps you could stay just a wee bit longer?’ Her voice climbed half an octave in her pleading, and Harry noted that the bookstall couple, who had momentarily risen to their feet, were now slumped back in their parish hall chairs. ‘Maybe just ten minutes?’ Two damp brown eyes stare at him out of a bony face, doggy in their pleading. ‘George thinks Palestine such an important issue.’
Harry feels sourness mount inside him. This damn witch was keeping him from thinking about the fairhaired girl, perhaps even keeping the fairhaired girl at bay. ‘Perhaps I could make up the difference.’
Hilary beamed. She knew money when she saw it. ‘I knew you’d stand by the church.’ She simpered. ‘I’ll send George to talk to you.’
Harry swore to himself under his breath. He had a feeling he had been mousetrapped. The bookstall couple were now trying to catch his eye. Perhaps they thought three voices would be stronger than one. But he ignored them, preparing for the worst. He disliked George Harriman, the vicar, even more than he disliked his wife. But George was already upon him.
‘Harry, isn’t it a disaster?’ George was a tall, angular man in a shabby grey suit, with a clerical collar and a shabby grey shirtfront, a halo of wiry hair, and the same liquid brown eyes as his wife. Perhaps they went with the job. He also sported a neatly trimmed beard. Someone had once told Harry never to trust a man with a beard, men hiding behind body hair. Harry was unsure whether George had much to conceal.
‘How’s it going?’ The beard wobbled in attempted jocularity. ‘Taken a fortune?’
Harry scowled. ‘I want to go home.’
George nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s all a bit of a tragedy. We didn’t expect rain – people don’t like to get wet.’ He sighed, staring down at Harry’s table. ‘The cause was good, but the heavens have conspired against us.’ Another sigh. ‘Poor Anne, she must have pinned such hopes on making some money for us.’ He reached to pick up a cup and saucer, turning the cup over deftly. ‘Ah, Crown Derby, rather nice. And a trio, I see.’ He eyed the price label. ‘A fiver? Ah.’ He put the trio neatly back in place. ‘A fiver would have come in so very handy for those poor, poor orphans in Palestine.’
Harry’s eyes narrowed. He knew nothing about orphans, but he understood all about money. ‘Would she pack up for a score?’
‘Harry, that’s generous.’ The beard wobbled indecisively. George seemed to be waiting.
Harry shook his head, and reached for his wallet. He believed in never carrying a great deal of cash, because cash could be a temptation. He levered two ten pound notes out carefully, holding them up. ‘Do you think you can swing it?’
George reached to take the money, but he pulled his hand back. ‘Don’t blessings follow from good deeds?’
George gave him a strange look that for a moment was most unpriestly in its hardness. ‘I’ll talk to her.’
Harry looked around, in the hope that the fairhaired girl might return, but now the hall really was empty. Five tables, staffed by a dozen parish stalwarts, right-thinking souls with good intent, but not a customer in sight.
Hilary came back, with Anne in tow. But now dogginess was demanding. ‘George thinks we should pack up, but we’ve only taken a hundred and ten pounds for our poor orphans, and we usually count on sending them at least a hundred and fifty. Sometimes we take much more. Once we took two hundred on a wet day, just like this.’ Her eyes moistened. ‘Think of them starving out in the Holy Land. It’s so sad.’ Her voice trembled a little, ending on a nicely judged quaver.
Harry’s eyes were impassive. He could see Anne standing at Hilary’s shoulder, staring at him meaningfully, but he refused to have his arm twisted.
‘The other helpers are making tea for us all.’ Hilary’s voice edged upwards again.
He waited.
George appears at her shoulder, four doggy eyes begging.
Harry reached for his wallet, adding a blue twenty pound note to the two orange tenners. He might take Hilary up to her hundred and fifty, but no higher, and he made it clear in the hardness of his eyes that two hundred was totally over the top.
Hilary reached out to take the banknotes, but he shook his head imperceptibly, and watery eyes understood quite completely.
‘Oh, Mr. Chapman, how very, very generous of you.’ For a moment Hilary’s mouth puckered, as though she might be trembling on the verge of tears, and then she took a firm hold of herself. ‘You really are a Christian at heart.’
Harry sniffed. He was no Christian at all, and baptism as a babe in arms committed him to nothing.
He also stepped back, lest Hilary try to kiss him into belief. He held a fairhaired girl in his mind, and wondered where she had gone. He knew that he should have accepted her invitation without question. Lust can be managed, when sexual intercourse was offered as a commodity, and Harry was a very good manager indeed.