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He put on a serious face. 'Hmm.' His gaze flickered all over me.
'Come to any conclusions?'
He shrugged. 'How about you?'
I sat closer, leaning into the fragrant vapours rising from my coffee. 'There
was something hidden in there.'
'In the plant?'
'Yes. Ideal place, when you think about it. Chip factories have brilliant
security anyway. You know how much chips are worth: more than their weight in
gold. So the places are really well guarded. Then there's the whole
prophylactic rigmarole you have to go through to get into the production
facilities; all that changing and delay. Impossible to just charge in.
Giving people inside time to hide stuff, if you know somebody who might ask
awkward questions is coming in. Plus there are all those deeply noxious
chemicals they use, the etching fluids, the solvents and washes; really nasty
chemical-warfare stuff any rational person would keep well away from. So as
well as all the usual security paraphernalia, the guards and walls and cameras
and so on, and the sheer difficulty of accessing the place quickly, you've got
a serious health disincentive to go there in the first place. It's perfect,
the ideal place to hide whatever. I
took a look round three or four weeks ago, but I couldn't find anything.'
Poudenhaut was nodding thoughtfully. 'Yes, well, that's what occurred to us,
too. So, what do you think it was? Or is?'
'Oh, it's gone now, but I think they had another assembly line going in
there.'
He blinked. 'Chips?'
'What else would you build in a chip plant?'
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'Hmm,' he said, smiling briefly. 'I see.' He pursed his lips and nodded,
staring at the table where the bill had just appeared.
'I'll get this,' I said, picking up the check.
He reached out too late. 'No, please. This is mine.'
'That's okay, I got it.' I reached down for my handbag.
He snatched the bill out of my fingers. 'Male prerogative,' he said, grinning.
I hid behind my best chilly smile and thought, Suddenly you're far too full of
beans, my lad. He fished his company card out of his wallet. 'So, who do you
think was cheating on us, who was behind it? The management at the plant?
Ligence? They're our partners there, right?'
'That's right. Obviously the upper management must have known: you couldn't
do it without them. But I
think it was somebody in the Business.'
He looked alarmed. 'Really? Oh dear. That's bad. Any ideas? What level?'
'Your level, Adrian.'
He paused, blinking again, his card poised half-way to the plate the check had
arrived on. 'My level?'
'Level Two,' I said reasonably, spreading my hands.
'Oh, yes.' The plate was taken away again.
'So, did you find out anything? Does Mr Hazleton have any ideas?'
He made a clicking noise with his mouth. 'We have our suspicions, but it would
be wrong to say anything at this point in time, Kathryn.'
I waited until he was signing the card slip before I said, 'Of course, it
could be a Level One conspiracy. Somebody at Mr Hazleton's level.'
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His Mont Blanc hesitated over the tip line. He added a round number that was
a little on the mean side and signed. 'Mr Hazleton has considered that
possibility,' he said smoothly. He nodded at the maître d'
and stood. 'Shall we?'
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'Grips like nothing else. Just listen to that engine. Isn't that wonderful?
I think you hear it better in a cabriolet, even with the top up.'
'Mm-hmm,' I said. I'd been reading the handbook; I put it back in the
glove-box with the spare set of keys and the purchase paperwork.
Poudenhaut was a poor driver; even allowing for the fact that he was trying to
be kind to the engine, he changed up too early and still didn't seem entirely
to have the hang of the car's open gate. His cornering was awful, too, and
the fact the car was right-hand-drive was no excuse either: he seemed to think
hitting the apex meant driving into the depths of the bend then jerking the
wheel round in roughly the correct direction, seeing where he was heading now,
then making any necessary corrections (repeat as required until the road
straightens). We zoomed and dived along some wonderfully winding, empty
mountain roads in one of the best sports cars in the world, but I was getting
heartily sick of the experience. He wouldn't even put the top down because
clouds had moved in from the west and there had been a few flakes of snow.
'I'd love a shot,' I said between corners. 'Would you let me drive? Just for
a bit.'
'Well, I don't know. There's the insurance& ' It was the most worried he'd
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