BooksBarbecue
Back Limelight
Chapters (49)
  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Also by Graham Hurley
  4. LIMELIGHT
  5. Copyright
  6. Dedication
  7. Epigraph
  8. ONE
  9. TWO
  10. THREE
  11. FOUR
  12. FIVE
  13. SIX
  14. SEVEN
  15. EIGHT
  16. NINE
  17. TEN
  18. ELEVEN
  19. TWELVE
  20. THIRTEEN
  21. FOURTEEN
  22. FIFTEEN
  23. SIXTEEN
  24. SEVENTEEN
  25. EIGHTEEN
  26. NINETEEN
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. TWENTY-NINE
  37. THIRTY
  38. THIRTY-ONE
  39. THIRTY-TWO
  40. THIRTY-THREE
  41. THIRTY-FOUR
  42. THIRTY-FIVE
  43. THIRTY-SIX
  44. THIRTY-SEVEN
  45. THIRTY-EIGHT
  46. THIRTY-NINE
  47. FORTY
  48. FORTY-ONE
  49. AFTERWARDS

‘By you. You had to hook him in the first place and this guy isn’t an easy sell. He happens to be rich now, very rich, but he still takes a lot of convincing.’

I can see my son searching his memory for a name from the half dozen faces we took on the voyage.

‘Amit someone,’ he says at last. ‘Indian guy. Has to be him. It was family money and he was big into themed restaurants. He was tight as fuck as well but there was a journalist on board, a woman he fancied, so he came along in the end, although she blew him out. He had a little office off the Tottenham Court Road. Bit of an arsehole, if you want the truth.’

‘His name’s Iyengar,’ Sylvester says. ‘And you’re right, the man’s a monster, but that’s why he’s rich, just like the rest of them.’

‘He’s a client of yours?’ I enquire.

‘A prospect. The way these things work, you put together a bunch of names and then make individual approaches. These people love the personal touch. In fact, they insist on it. Iyengar has a wife he cheats on every day of the week, and a bunch of spoiled kids he’s sending to all the right schools. Business is baked into his genes and these last couple of years he’s diversified into lifestyle projects, most of which have come good. He’s the kind of guy who plans for every eventuality, except the one that’s really going to matter, and I’m told that makes him very nervous indeed. He has a super yacht already, but he knows it’s not up to the job. Bottom line, he’s a family man. They all have to survive.’

‘You’ve talked to him?’

‘Only on the phone. That’s when he mentioned your son.’

Both Malo and I are beginning to realize exactly why Sylvester Penny has tracked us down. This wasn’t a neighbourly errand on behalf of the lovely Sir William, far from it. He’s knocked on my door to lay hands on my son. And here we all are.

In these situations, Pavel always counselled what he termed ‘full frontal’. Tell it like you think it is, and then see what happens.

‘Have you come with some kind of proposition?’ I ask Sylvester.

‘Of course I have.’ He checks his watch, and then looks up at Malo. ‘Working with me. Selling top-end survival. How does that sound?’

NINE