Final Venture Page 11

  I was worried about her. I had known Frank's death would fall very hard on her, and I had done my best to give her all the support I could. But work was getting at her as well. The timing was terrible. She seemed to be almost physically ill – tired, with headaches, and that dreadful look of despair. She had completely overreacted to the toaster burning her muffin. And it had been unlike Lisa to fly off the handle when I had told her about the take-over. It made no sense to blame me. But with all the pressure she was under, her outburst was hardly surprising. Perhaps she just felt that she had to blame someone for everything that was happening to her, and I was the easiest and safest choice.

  Until now, when things had gone wrong, we had been able to rely on each other for support. Of course, nothing had tested us quite like the events of the past week, but I had hoped we would be able to deal with Frank's death together. It now looked as if things might not work out that way.

  Well, Lisa needed me more than ever now. I would try to do everything I could to help her, and just put up with any moodiness on her part.

  'Hey, slow down, Simon!' Kieran called behind me. 'I had a heavy night last night.'

  'Sorry,' I shouted back. I had sped up without realizing it, so I reduced my pace to a more sedate thirty strokes per minute or so. 'That better?'

  'That's fine. We'll win the Olympics next weekend, if that's OK with you.'

  We glided along steadily, sliding underneath the graceful bridges spanning the Charles.

  'Simon?' he called.

  'Yes?'

  'A bunch of the boys are getting together on Tuesday at the Red Hat. Do you want to come along?'

  'I don't know. There's a lot going on at home.'

  'Oh, come on. It'll be good for you.'

  He was probably right. 'OK,' I said. 'I'll be there.'

  But as we turned and headed for home, one other worry nagged me all the way back to the boathouse. Would Lisa tell Henry Chan about the BioOne take-over? Although I'd told her it was confidential, she hadn't acknowledged me. But I could trust Lisa. Couldn't I?

  She arrived home at about five, looking exhausted.

  'Hi, Simon.' She smiled and kissed me.

  'Hi. How are you?'

  'Tired. Very tired.' She took off her coat, and threw herself on to the sofa. She closed her eyes for a moment.

  'I brought you some flowers.' I went into the kitchen and brought out some irises I had picked up on the way back from the river. She liked irises.

  'Thank you,' she said, giving me a quick kiss. She disappeared into the kitchen, and returned with the flowers arranged in a tall vase, which she placed on her desk. 'Simon?'

  'Yes?'

  'I'm sorry I was so horrible to you yesterday.'

  'That's OK.'

  'No, it's not. I don't want us to become one of those snappy couples. I don't know why I did it, but I'm sorry.'

  'You're under a lot of pressure,' I said. 'I understand.'

  'I guess that must be it.' She sighed. 'I just feel hollow inside, like I'm empty. And then suddenly something seems to boil up somewhere in here,' she put her hand on her chest, 'and I feel like I want to shout and scream, or else just cry and cry. I have to work really hard to keep it all in. I've never felt like this before.'

  'Something like this has never happened to you before,' I said. 'And I hope it won't happen again.'

  She smiled up at me. 'Will you forgive me?'

  'Of course.'

  She looked at her watch. 'If we go now, do you think we might get into Olive's?'

  I smiled. 'We could try.'

  'Come on, then.'

  Olive's was an Italian restaurant in Charlestown. It didn't take reservations, but we made it before the six o'clock rush, and were seated at a corner of one of the large wooden tables. As always, it was crowded, with lots of noise, warmth and excellent food.

  We ordered, and surveyed the commotion around us.

  'Remember the first time we came here?' said Lisa.

  'Of course I do.'

  'Do you remember how much we talked? They kept on trying to throw us out, so they could give the table to someone else, and we wouldn't go.'

  'I do. And we missed the first half of that Truffaut film.'

  'Which was crap anyway.'

  I laughed. 'I'm glad you admit that now!'

  I suddenly realized Lisa was staring at me. 'I'm so glad I met you,' she said.

  It was the right thing to say. I smiled at her. 'And I'm really glad I met you.'

  'You're nuts,' she said.

  'No I'm not. You've done so much for me since we've been together.'

  'Like what?'

  'Oh, I don't know. You've pulled me out of myself, encouraged me to show my feelings, made me happy.'

  'You were a tight-assed Brit when I met you,' she conceded.

  It was true. And to some extent I probably still was. But Lisa had helped me escape from my old life in England, from parents who hated each other and wanted me out of the way, and from the ever-present traditions of Marlborough, Cambridge and the Life Guards, with their inescapable rules of how you should behave, how you should think, how you should feel.

  'And I'm really sorry I've been such a pain,' she said.

  'Forget it. You've had a really bad week.'

  'It's funny. It sort of comes in waves. Thinking about Dad. One moment I'm fine and the next I feel awful. Like right now I . . . ' She paused, and a tear ran down her cheek. She tried to smile. 'I was going to say I feel fine now, but look at me.' She sniffed. 'I'm sorry, Simon. I'm just a mess.'

  I reached over and touched her hand. Despite the crowd, no one seemed to notice Lisa's distress. There was something about the barrage of noise in the restaurant that seemed to create walls around us, giving us our own little space of privacy.

  She blew her nose, and the tears stopped. 'I wonder who killed him,' she said.

  'Some burglar, probably. The house is pretty isolated. Maybe he thought he could get away with it in broad daylight and Frank surprised him.'

  'I guess the police haven't got anywhere yet, or we'd have heard.'

  'Oh, I didn't get a chance to tell you. Sergeant Mahoney came to see me a couple of days ago at the office.'

  'What did he say?'

  'He just asked me some questions about where I went after I left your father. Apparently your father spoke to John on the phone when I was walking on the beach. Mahoney wanted to try to confirm I was where I said I was.'

  'Could you?'

  'He hasn't found anyone who saw me. But I didn't get the impression he had made much progress in any direction. I think I'm still his number-one suspect.'

  'Oh, Simon.' She squeezed my hand.

  'Did you tell him about Helen's legal case?'

  'Yes, I did. Why? Did he ask you about it?'

  'Yes. He implied that it was convenient Frank had died, that now we can afford to fight the appeal. It makes me sick just thinking about it.'

  'I'm sorry, Simon. He asked about money and whether we'd had any financial disagreements with Dad. I thought I should tell him the truth.'

  I smiled at her. 'That's OK. I suspect it is best to tell the truth. Otherwise he'll catch us out, and it'll be even worse.'

  'Don't worry, Simon. They haven't got any evidence.'

  'Not hard evidence, no,' I said. 'But I have to admit, I am a bit worried.' The waiter brought a bottle of Chianti, and I poured us both a glass. 'Mahoney definitely has his sights on me. I wonder if it's because I'm British. Or rather because I served in Northern Ireland.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'He asked whether I had ever killed anyone. I said I had, in Ireland.'

  Lisa shrugged. 'It's possible. He's obviously Irish. And even after the peace agreement, there must still be some strong pro-IRA feelings in this town.'

  I sighed.

  Lisa stole me a quick glance. 'Eddie thinks you did it.'

  'No!' I was about to mutter something about what I thought of Eddie, and stopped myself just in ti
me. In Lisa's eyes, Eddie could do no wrong. She had probably been reluctant to admit his suspicions to me. 'Well, he's wrong, isn't he?'

  'Yes,' said Lisa. 'I know he is.' She looked at me, embarrassed. 'But I have to say in my darkest moments these last couple of days, I've wondered. You were there, you did have an argument with Dad, you do know how to use a gun, I'm going to inherit a lot of money. And the last person to see a murder victim alive is often the murderer.'

  'Who says?'

  'Eddie.'

  Once again, I resisted telling Lisa what I thought of Eddie's idiotic theories. She didn't want to believe Eddie, she wanted to believe me. She was asking me for a reason.

  'Lisa, you saw me when I came back from seeing Frank. Did I look like I'd just killed him?'

  'No. No, of course not.' She smiled. 'Don't worry, Simon. I know you had nothing to do with it. Eddie's wrong, and I'm sorry I doubted you.'

  Bloody Eddie. No doubt he felt guilty that he had got on with his father so badly in the years before he died. No doubt this self-recrimination had encouraged that basic human instinct to blame someone for his father's death, someone real, someone he knew and mistrusted. Me. Since the police seemed to be considering the possibility, and since I fitted into his half-baked ideas of criminology, I was the perfect candidate.

  Lisa's closeness to her brother wasn't really surprising. He had always looked after her, and helped her through difficult times. I was grateful to him for having supported the woman I loved, but what I couldn't tolerate was him trying to turn Lisa against me.

  The food came, and the conversation moved on. We didn't talk about Frank or Boston Peptides or BioOne for the rest of the evening. For a couple of hours we were as we had been before Frank's death. Eventually, they threw us out, and we decided to walk up the hill behind the restaurant to the Bunker Hill monument.

  It was a warm evening for October, and we sat down under the tall obelisk, neatly hemmed in by black railings and crisply mown grass. We looked out over the Charles to the lights of Boston.

  'I like it here,' I said.

  'That's strange, considering it's where so many of the evil redcoats met their final destiny.'

  'At the hands of a bunch of violent tax-dodgers.'

  'Not paying taxes is a fine American tradition,' Lisa said, 'and one that our wealthiest citizens are proud to follow.'

  'Anyway, wasn't the battle fought a few hundred yards from here?'

  'Smart-ass.'

  I smiled. I lay on my back, and looked up at the obelisk, tapering upwards into the night. 'No, seriously, things happened here hundreds of years ago. Wherever you walk in Boston you feel that. You can imagine the townspeople grazing their cows on the Common, or the clippers sailing into Boston Harbor. So many places in America have no history. Whatever was there before the latest strip mall was put up is obliterated, forgotten. But not here. As I said, I like it.'

  Lisa kissed me. 'So do I'.

  11

  Lynette Mauer sat next to Gil, watching him through her large glasses with an expression close to awe, lapping up everything he was saying. This was a Monday morning meeting with a difference. The firm's largest investor was present.

  It was also the first Monday morning meeting since Frank had died – the previous week's had been cancelled. The chair opposite Gil, Frank's chair, was empty. I could almost see him now, relaxed, cracking a joke, one long leg crooked over the other. His tenseness over the week before he died was forgotten. The old Frank, the relaxed, amiable but remarkably shrewd venture capitalist, would be the person we would all remember.

  The meeting wasn't exactly rigged, and to be fair to Gil he had never told us to behave differently when an investor was present. But troubled investments were skated over rather than dissected, any disagreement was polite and swiftly resolved, and we talked a lot about BioOne.

  This was good news for me, because I didn't have to talk much about Net Cop. It was good news for Art because he was allowed to expound upon his favourite subject. As usual, an open can of Diet Dr Pepper rested on the table in front of him, the dark purple liquid bubbling mysteriously in a glass. I had tasted Diet Dr Pepper once. It brought back memories of a particularly unpleasant chemical cherryade from my childhood. Art guzzled it all day.

  'The Street can't get enough of BioOne stock,' he was saying. 'The price is up to forty-five. Now that's not quite the sixty dollars we were at a couple of months ago, but the whole sector's been trashed.'

  'OK, and at forty-five dollars a share, what's the value of Revere's holdings?' asked Gil, for Mauer's benefit.

  Art paused as though he hadn't really thought about the question before. 'I'd say just shy of three hundred million.'

  'Good. And we hold, right?'

  Art smiled. 'We hold. Harrison Brothers is confident that the stock will be back up to sixty by year end. And we haven't gone wrong holding BioOne stock yet.'

  'Good. Now I think you'll all agree that we had a very interesting meeting with Jerry and Dr Enever last week. The Boston Peptides acquisition will be a useful addition to the BioOne drugs portfolio. Can I take it we support the deal?'

  There were nods around the table. It was pointless me protesting. This was just a formality, and anyway I wasn't a partner. I didn't get a vote.

  'Excellent,' said Gil. 'Do you have any questions for Art, Lynette?'

  Lynette Mauer glanced quickly up at Gil, fluttered a little, and then spoke. 'I enjoyed the meeting as well. It does seem to be a very successful investment, Art. Well done. I see you have been looking after our money well.'

  Art beamed.

  'I do have one question. It's something I saw in the paper at the weekend about Alzheimer's. After the meeting, it kind of jumped out of the page at me.' She smiled sweetly at Gil, who returned her smile encouragingly. 'Where is it?' She shuffled through her papers, and pulled out a piece of torn-out newspaper bearing the New York Times typeface. 'Ah, here.' She scanned it quickly. Art fidgeted with impatience.

  'Yes. It's something about galantamine,' she pronounced this word awkwardly, 'which is some kind of drug extracted from narcissi bulbs. It's supposed to be a more effective treatment for Alzheimer's than what's on the market at the moment. Do you think this might be a threat to neuroxil-5 ?'

  'Ah, no, not at all,' replied Art quickly.

  'Why not?'

  Art replied slowly, as if addressing a child. 'Neuroxil-5 prevents the build up of beta-amyloid in the brain of an Alzheimer's affected patient. It is this beta-amyloid that eventually kills the brain cells. No other treatment has succeeded in attacking this beta-amyloid in the way neuroxil-5 does.'

  'I understand that,' said Mauer. 'But it says here that this drug galantamine inhibits cholinesterase, which is what kills brain cells. So which is it?'

  'Which is what?' asked Art carefully.

  'Which is it that kills the brain cells? The beta-amyloid stuff or the cholinesterase stuff?' Mauer looked at Art ever so sweetly, as though she was completely confident he would be able to answer.

  Art was stumped. He didn't have a clue. He was just about to open his mouth, when Ravi jumped in.

  'As you know Ms Mauer, Art is our BioOne expert,' he began. 'But I did happen to catch that article about galantamine too.' He had all our attention. Ravi's approach to these meetings was usually to keep quiet until he was spoken to. But now, as he addressed Mauer over his half-moon glasses, he spoke quietly and with authority. 'I think the truth is that Alzheimer's involves a complex tangle of different biochemical reactions in the brain. It is difficult to separate cause from effect. It seems likely that drugs like galantamine delay the onset of Alzheimer's. But, as Dr Enever explained last week, BioOne believes that neuroxil-5 neutralizes a gene that is behind all these processes, including the production of beta-amyloid and cholinesterase, and a lot of others as well. We won't know for sure until the Phase Three clinical trials are complete, when we can look at the effect of the drug on over a thousand patients rather than just the hundred or so test
ed so far.'

  Mauer smiled at Ravi. 'OK, I understand, thank you very much. I'll watch this one with interest.'

  I felt as much as saw Daniel suppress a snigger next to me. Art was trying to smile. But he was furious. His neck was reddening as though any minute his head would begin to boil. Ravi had been hired as a biotech partner after Revere had invested in BioOne. Art had made it clear that he should stay clear of BioOne, and Ravi had scrupulously done just that. Until now. The trouble was, Ravi knew a lot about biotech, and Art didn't. We all understood that and now Lynette Mauer did too.

  We moved on to new deals, of which the most interesting was Tetracom. Diane was an excellent presenter. She fed her audience information in such a way that they jumped to positive conclusions before she did. I knew there were still plenty of questions to be asked, but listening to her, it seemed that we should sign up on the spot. She finished her description with a note of caution, saying that she and I would be in Cincinnati the following week to clear up some detailed points. Mauer was impressed. We all were.

  We came to the end of the meeting. Gil clearly thought it had gone well. He finished up by turning to Mauer.

  'Lynette, perhaps you could tell us something about the Bieber Foundation's plans. As you know, we're raising a new fund next year. We look forward to welcoming you into it.'

  Lynette smiled all round. 'Yes, there is something I'd like to say to all of you.' Gil stiffened first. This wasn't in the script. The rest of us looked on, our interest quickened.

  'I'd like to thank all of you for the work you've done for us over the last few years. As you know, the Bieber Foundation has invested in your funds since the beginning. And your returns have been good, thanks in large part to BioOne.' A nice smile for Art. And of course to Frank Cook, who was responsible for so many successful investments.' She paused, out of deference to his memory.

  There was a but. We were all waiting for the but.

  'But we have had a recent change of policy. In future the Foundation will consolidate its investment in venture capital into two or maybe three firms. We will be reviewing all our venture capital investments, including Revere.'