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‘The founder.’
Her friend flushed again and Lara’s mouth opened.
‘Wait a minute. That’s him, isn’t it?’ she said, pointing at Sandrine. ‘Eduardo is your mystery man!’
Sandrine was laughing now.
‘Just come,’ she smiled. ‘You can meet him. He’s pretty incredible.’
Lara had been telling the truth: the Felix Tait case had left her feeling battered and bruised, but she had to admit that she was intrigued how this collective, and Eduardo, had managed to win Sandrine’s heart.
‘So tempt me, what are you working on?’
Sandrine gave a casual shrug, her way of avoiding the subject.
‘At least give me a clue,’ pressed Lara. Sandrine hesitated, as Lara watched her eyes dart left and right. The Engineer wasn’t a hack pub, but this was a well-connected part of London. For all she knew, the cute guy in the dungarees might be the son of a rival newspaper editor.
‘Jonathon Meyer,’ said Sandrine finally, her voice soft and low.
Lara knew the name – of course she did, Meyer’s mysterious death had been the source of endless speculation a couple of weeks previously. A connected, multi-millionaire financier famous for throwing glamorous parties on his yacht in Monaco, Meyer had died after a violent mugging in the City. His death had triggered the usual conspiracy theories: claims he’d been mixed up with the mafia, the Russians, even the CIA. It was the sort of story that, in a slow news week, could have run and run, but it had coincided with a sex scandal connected to the England football team that had grabbed all the headlines, followed by a tell-all interview by the Queen’s butler. Overnight, Jonathon Meyer had been forgotten.
‘I didn’t think there was any real story there,’ said Lara. ‘Was there?’
Sandrine raised a manicured brow.
‘Let’s just say I don’t think he was killed by a random thug.’
It was Lara’s turn to look surprised.
‘You think he was murdered?’
Sandrine played with the shiny bird pendant around her neck, a gift from Lara many years earlier.
‘He was not a good man, and he was not involved with good people,’ she said finally. ‘Anything is possible.’
Conspiracy theories were journalism’s equivalent of explorers searching for El Dorado. The newsroom loved them, of course, but as Alex liked to say, ‘ghosts don’t print well,’ meaning rumours and speculation were too flimsy for a headline and trying to pin them down in the absence of hard evidence was always a waste of time. But still, Lara had a sixth sense when it came to a story and she could tell her friend had something – and despite herself, she wanted to know what. It was one of the reasons she got into journalism in the first place: to know things other people didn’t.
‘So what was Meyer involved in?’
Sandrine hesitated.
‘Trafficking,’ she said in a whisper.
‘Trafficking?’
Sandrine waved a hand, indicating that was all she was prepared to say.
‘You can’t tell me a highly connected financier was murdered because he was involved in trafficking and expect me to go to the bar to top up our olives. Come on, tell me. Is it drugs? Or people?’
Her friend paused and looked at her over the rim of her glass.
‘Look, I’m due to share the details with a few of the collective guys at the conference on Monday. Join us and you can find out.’
Lara shook her head smiling.
‘You’re a wily old bird, you know that?’
‘Less of the old…’
