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‘Apparently, Jon turned the boy’s maths around in three months – typical, really. The Sachs’s were so grateful, Mr. Sachs got Jon a job at one of the banks. Jonathon didn’t stay long with them, but it was how he got his break, how he got into finance.’
Lara had assumed that the ‘Mike’ from the Pandora was a current business associate, she hadn’t considered it might be someone from his past. In fact, if the whole thing hinged on ‘you owe me’, then a debt from the start of Meyer’s career would make perfect sense.
‘What was the favour? Do you know?’
Lara looked down at the empty olive bowl.
‘I don’t know. Not yet.’
Simon looked at her with cynical grey eyes.
‘Nothing?’
Lara didn’t want to tell him – didn’t want to be the one to undermine Simon’s memory of his brother – but if she stood any chance of getting Simon’s help in going through Jonathon’s paperwork, he needed to know what was going on. Slowly, she began to tell him about the Inner Circle syndicate and the allegation about the Kanjomo mine. Simon’s face clouded.
‘You’re suggesting that Jon was trying to cover up child labour?’
‘No, I’m saying that someone may have asked him to. As far as we know, Jonathon is entirely innocent.’
‘As far as we know’, repeated Simon, his face beginning to colour. ‘And yet you are already insinuating some wrong-doing here, based on a barely-heard conversation.’
Immediately, Lara knew she had made mistake telling him so much.
‘Simon, I’m just trying to help you.’
‘No Lara, you are not,’ he replied. ‘You are helping yourself. You are trying to write a headline-grabbing story.’
‘Story? I don’t even work for the Chronicle anymore.’
‘Even so, your approach is to put together a narrative, is it not? Good guys, bad guys, heroes and villains. And my brother is being cast as a villain.’
She began to object, but Simon put up his hand like a stop-sign.
‘I said I would help you look into Jonathon’s death in good faith. If his mugging wasn’t a random attack, I want to know that too – perhaps even look for justice. But not at any price. Not if it means my brother’s reputation is destroyed in the process.’
‘Even if the allegations are true?’
Simon Meyer fell quiet, then looked at his watch.
‘I think you’d better go,’ he said finally. ‘My client should be here any minute.’
‘Simon, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
He looked at her with an even gaze.
‘And yet, Miss Stone, that is exactly what you have done.’
Standing out in Dover Street, Lara pulled out her phone and tapped Michael Sachs into the search bar. Her eyes opened wide: Simon hadn’t been joking. Michael Sachs’s picture was everywhere. And true to Simon’s description, Sachs was a handsome, silver-haired man with a wide smile. Just Stella’s type. Lara scanned the headlines on the Sachses:
‘New York philanthropist opens arts centre’
‘Sachses donate dialysis machine to children’s hospital’
‘Queen of the fundraisers pays tribute to her husband’
She clicked onto the business sites:
‘Sachs Capital invests in green energy site’
