tension. She had come a long way since Oxford, a long, long way.
Simon Herries was the first to speak. Pepper let him shake her hand and give her his practised smile, a judicious blend of male appreciation, sincerity and seriousness. He had filled out since she had last seen him, and it suited him. He looked what he was—a prosperous and successful man. The others followed suit. Miles French was the only one to look directly into her eyes, trying to put her at a disadvantage, she acknowledged, her heart thumping unpleasantly fast as she met the recognition in his smile.
That was something she hadn’t anticipated. None of the others had recognised her, and that he should have done so threw her slightly off guard.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering why I asked you to come here.” Her smile was professional and tempting, promising that none of them would be disappointed in their anticipation. She had already unlocked the drawer that held their files, and now she reached down with one smooth practised movement and removed them.
“I suggest that it might facilitate things if you were all to read these.” The files held only copies, of course. Duplicates of them were safely deposited with her bank. Pepper had no intention of seeing almost ten years of work torn up in front of her eyes.
While she poured the tea she waited to see how long it took for the secure, self-satisfied smiles to disappear.
Richard Howell’s went first. She saw his eyes narrow and then leave the papers he was studying to stare at her.
“Milk, Mr Howell?” she asked him sweetly.
Each of those files held a secret that if made public could destroy their professional lives for ever. Each of them had thought that secret so deeply buried that it would never be uncovered. Each of them had been wrong!
Richard Howell was now a highly respected and respectable merchant banker; but once he had simply been a younger and much poorer relative in the banking empire run by his uncle David.
It had taken a lot of digging to discover how he had got the money that enabled him to secretly buy up enough shares to challenge and eventually overthrow his uncle’s control of the family business. It had taken Pepper months of painstaking work to discover that he had first started buying up shares while he was working in the safe deposit department of the bank.
For many people their safety deposit boxes are simply a place where they leave their valuables to prevent them from being stolen. There are, however, those who find that safety deposit boxes are excellent places to conceal funds—or other items—gained by other and often illegal means: tax evasion, fraud and sometimes outright theft.
It had been Richard Howell’s good fortune during the time he was in charge of the safe deposit department to come across a man who fell into this last category. In addition, since it was a rule of the bank that they should hold duplicate keys for their safety deposit boxes, he was able, by carefully choosing his moment, to unlock it and discover for himself exactly what was inside—but that had only come later, following the death from a heart attack of the man who called himself William Law.
“William Law” had had his heart attack in the street, half a mile away from the bank’s premises. The evening papers had carried his photograph and a small paragraph on his death, only his name hadn’t been William Law but Frank Prentiss, and he had at one time been a member of a gang who had been suspected of carrying out several wages snatches involving hundreds of thousands of pounds. The police had never been able to get enough evidence to convict Frank Prentiss and the other members of the gang, and when three months went by without either the police or the bank connecting Frank Prentiss with William Law, Richard Howell went painstakingly through the records, and then when he was sure that no one would ever know, he removed from William Law’s safety deposit box everything but a couple of hundred pounds.
He had no fears about the money being traced back to him—a man as clever as Frank Prentiss must surely have had the stolen notes laundered, and if the police did make the connection between William Law and Frank Prentiss, and find the safety deposit box, then they would just assume that Frank had spent the money.
There was now two hundred and forty-five thousand pounds in Richard Howell’s private account with Lloyds Bank, and by the time his uncle decided to query where on earth the money had come from it was already too late—Richard was the new majority shareholder of Howell’s bank, having used that original £245,000 as the basis of a fund which through clever and informed dealing on the Stock Exchange he very quickly managed to turn into a very large sum indeed.
Pepper smiled gently at him as she handed him the cup of tea. It amused and exhilarated her to see the panic in his eyes. No doubt he had thought himself safe and invincible—now he knew better.
And what of Simon Herries, the up-and-coming politician; the upholder of decency and family life; the closet homosexual who got his real sex thrills with young boys—the younger the better! When he was at Oxford he had been the ringleader of a select group, all bound to secrecy, who had dabbled in black magic among other things.
Pepper smiled dulcetly into the furious blue eyes that glittered dangerously across the width of her desk.
Alex Barnett had also been a member of that select group—if only briefly. Still, it was long enough to prevent any adoption agency from ever allowing him on their books. Pepper knew all about Julia Barnett’s desperate need to have a child, and she also knew how much Alex loved his wife.
And so, on to Miles French. He had disappointed her. It was true that he had a highly active sex life, but he was very selective when it came to choosing his partners and faithful to them while the relationship lasted. Pepper had waited a long time to get something sufficiently damning on Miles, but at last her patience had been satisfied.
Three months ago, the eighteen-year-old daughter of a friend had been smuggling cocaine into the country. She should have been caught. Pepper’s information was that she had got on a plane in Rio de Janeiro, carrying the illicit drug disguised some way in her back pack. But somehow when she arrived at Heathrow the cocaine had gone.
Her flight had put down briefly in Paris. Miles French had also been in Paris at the time, and the pair of them had returned to London together. Somehow Miles had managed to persuade the girl to give him the cocaine, Pepper was convinced of it, even though as yet she had no conclusive proof. Even without proof, though, there was enough on her file to irrevocably destroy both his career and his reputation. A potential High Court judge involved in a drugs scandal—he would be de-barred at the very least.
She waited until they had all finished reading. Only Miles French was still smiling. He had far more control than the others, she acknowledged, but she wasn’t deceived.
Simon Herries spoke first, flinging down the file and demanding savagely, “Just what the hell is all this about?”
Pepper didn’t allow herself to be affected by his rage.
“All of you will now have read your files, so all of you will, I’m sure, realise the precarious position you’re in. In those files is information which if it became public could adversely affect your reputation and careers.”
“So that’s it!” Simon Herries sneered. “Blackmail!”
Pepper froze him with an icy look.
“No, not blackmail,” she told him softly, “retribution.”
She had their attention now. All of them were staring at her, watching her without comprehension—all of them
