Maybe the Horse Will Talk Read online

  ‘Maserov, where are things now with these . . . alleged incidents?’

  ‘Well, Mr Torrent, progress is slow when one is careful, I’m sure you’ll agree, but we’re definitely making some.’

  ‘Some what?’

  ‘Progress.’

  Maserov had written and rehearsed that line in his bathroom in the shower and then while shaving. He had been struggling to satisfy the various and often conflicting demands of Betga, Eleanor, Carla, Bradley Messenger in Human Resources and his two small children and, in truth, there was little progress on the sexual harassment cases to report. Tracking down the other side’s lawyer and commencing negotiations would not sound very impressive. And it would be hard to explain to Malcolm Torrent how he’d come to deliver a daughter to the smooth-talking yet pining lawyer on the other side, thus winning the other man’s gratitude for life. Even if he had been able to convey the story in its entirety to Torrent, replete with the weight of Betga’s paternal longing, Maserov knew that Torrent would ask what Betga’s gratitude was worth to Torrent Industries in this instance. He didn’t know the answer to this so he led by promising that the progress he’d made thus far was limited. Then it was time to bait and switch.

  ‘I’ve got someone outside I’d like you to meet,’ he told the construction tycoon.

  ‘Who is he?’ Malcolm Torrent asked, never considering that it might be a woman. It wasn’t. Not yet.

  ‘Well, he’s a . . . good man. I think he’s going to be a considerable help.’

  ‘In the sexual harassment cases?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You want to engage him?’

  ‘Yes, I think it’s a good idea.’

  ‘Who is he? What does he do and why do I have to meet him?’

  These were all excellent questions and Maserov’s answers didn’t really match them for quality. Sensing this, the recently arrived Betga bounded into the room, saying to Malcolm Torrent’s exasperated private secretary behind him, Joan Henshaw, ‘Don’t worry, he’s expecting me. I’m with Maserov.’

  ‘Mr Torrent,’ said Betga, reaching over to shake the CEO’s hand. ‘A.A. Betga. Your man Maserov has filled me in on the cases. I understand you’re keen to make them go away, to settle, not to litigate, and I think that’s definitely the way to go.’

  ‘You are?’ said Malcolm Torrent, looking at the hand of his that Betga shook as though to confirm nothing about it had changed.

  ‘Betga, A.A. Betga.’

  ‘And what do you do, Mr Betga?’

  ‘I’m a private investigator, among other things,’ said Betga handing over a card that read ‘A.A. Betga, Private Investigator’.

  ‘Among other things?’

  ‘Yes, I’m also a lawyer, which puts me ahead of the competition.’

  ‘The competition? Who or what’s the competition?’

  ‘Other private investigators you might be considering hiring.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware I was considering hiring a private investigator.’

  ‘Well, Maserov considers it essential to the resolution of these sexual harassment allegations and that’s why I’m here. Without putting too fine a point on it, Mr Torrent, you’re going to find me indispensable and sooner or later you’re going to want to meet me so, since I might be on a stake-out at the very moment you decide you need to meet me, I thought I’d show you the cut of my jib right from the outset and then I can report to you directly or, if your schedule doesn’t permit it, I can report directly to Maserov.’

  Malcolm Torrent took a moment to fix the squint he employed to convey scepticism as he scanned the private investigator–lawyer, who was dressed from head to toe in the style of a forties romantic lead. It was said he had put himself through law school as a cruise ship’s entertainment director. Maserov wanted to kill him.

  ‘Indispensable, Maserov?’

  ‘Extremely useful, Mr Torrent, yes.’

  ‘Why do we need a private investigator? Isn’t this simply a legal matter?’

  ‘For your share price and the general public and investor perception of your organisation, you obviously want to settle these cases, right?’ Betga asked, sitting himself down in a chair beside Maserov, who was trying to hide his fury behind a fixed expression that was meant to suggest the meeting was going according to plan when in fact he had no idea what Betga was doing.

  ‘Well, yes. We don’t want these cases going to court.’

  ‘And you want to settle on a confidential basis, expeditiously, but without throwing money away needlessly, am I right?’

  ‘Well, yes, Mister . . .’

  ‘Betga, A.A. Betga,’ said Betga, smiling and pointing to the card, a gesture that challenged Maserov’s restraint more than anything he would later try to remember. ‘So what do you think is going to cause these women to settle?’ Betga continued.

  ‘A healthy offer, I’d say.’

  ‘Yes, the bigger the offer, the faster the women will settle. That’s true,’ said Betga. ‘That’s unless you have something on them, something incriminating or at least embarrassing. The more you can make these women dread the litigation process the less you have to offer them to make the whole thing go away.’

  ‘So that’s why I need a private investigator. Okay, I see that. But why should I choose you. Mister . . .?’

  ‘Betga, A.A. Betga. As you can see from my card, I’m not only a member of the Association of Investigators and Security Professionals, I’m also a lawyer. I’m a lawyer with a history of working on these cases from the plaintiff’s side. I can get inside the minds, not only of the alleged victims, but even their lawyer.’

  Maserov winced involuntarily.

  ‘Anyone can have something printed on a card, Mr Betga,’ Malcolm Torrent advised.

  ‘That’s right, Mr Torrent, but if I came in to your office without a card you’d no doubt ask for one or be troubled by my failure to have one, so I give you my card, for what it’s worth, which as you very rightly point out, is not very much. What is worth a lot is a relationship, a relationship that generates trust and mutual respect. You can’t buy that. We have only just met but I do have a longstanding professional relationship with your Mr Maserov. You’re trusting him and he, obviously, trusts me, otherwise he wouldn’t have called me in here to take up your time like this.’

  The fingers of Maserov’s right hand gently caressed his forehead in an unconscious effort to ward off an aneurism.

  ‘You trust him, Maserov?’

  ‘Wait, before he even answers that,’ said Betga, ‘I’m going to throw in the proverbial steak knives. Don’t yet take me on for this. Wait. Give me ten days. In ten days I will make this go away. This is . . .’ Betga reached into his inside jacket pocket. ‘This is a copy of the statement of claim of one of the plaintiffs. She’s a Ms Jane Ode. In ten days I or Mr Maserov will show you a Notice of Discontinuance with her name on it. I will make it go away and I won’t charge for this.’

  ‘How are you going to do that without making an offer?’

  ‘Mr Torrent, a man in your position – and there aren’t many of them – can’t be too careful.’ Betga looked around the room conspiratorially and Maserov looked deep within the crevices of his right hand.

  ‘What I propose, Mr Torrent, is that I don’t tell you anything about that, that I don’t ever tell you anything about that and that you never again ask me anything about that. If I succeed as I intend, you should agree to have me work on these cases for the life of the cases, after which we can revisit my role in your organisation, should you decide that I should have one. If I successfully deliver Ms Ode’s Notice of Discontinuance within ten days I will receive no compensation for it but thereafter I will be in the employ not of Torrent Industries, nor of its CEO in any private capacity, but of Mr Stephen Maserov. My remuneration will be equal, to the dollar, to the bonus you might wish to give him simply for finding me. It’s nobody’s business how or why one gives one’s associate a bonus. I’ve always felt that governments and the tax office
should show some decorum in this area, as befits a civilised society.

  ‘If ever we need to speak directly before these sexual harassment cases have been resolved, you can simply arrange it via Maserov. There need be no record of you contacting me, employing me or associating with me unless or until you decide otherwise. I’m simply a private investigator and a qualified and experienced lawyer that Mr Maserov knows and is talking to on or about the time your problems are going away.’

  There was silence until the voice of Malcolm Torrent’s private secretary came through the speaker on his phone. ‘Mr Torrent, I’ve got Beijing for you.’

  Malcolm Torrent briefly closed his eyes and nodded at Betga before saying, ‘I need to take this.’

  Betga and Maserov stood up and as Betga was walking out the door Maserov added, ‘Mr Torrent, there’s still one thing I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘Can you wait ten minutes? My secretary will get you a coffee. This won’t take long.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Torrent.’

  Outside Malcolm Torrent’s office Maserov, once he could see that the inscrutable Joan Henshaw was occupied by both the telephone and her computer screen and very unlikely to be able to hear him, opened fire on Betga.

  ‘What the fuck was that, bursting in and offering your services as a private investigator?’ Maserov whispered in white hot fury.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’d say it went very well.’

  ‘Went well? Are you out of your mind? How can you be a private investigator and the lawyer on the other side at the same time?’

  ‘I admit it’s a novel way.’

  ‘A novel way to what?’

  ‘To earn his trust?’

  ‘By misrepresenting yourself?’

  ‘Hey, I didn’t utter a single untrue proposition. I am a member of the Association of Investigators and Security Professionals and I’m also a lawyer.’

  ‘You’re the lawyer acting against him. How can you be helping him?’

  ‘You’re seeing this as all adversarial. I’m being very creative here. It’s a postmodern kind of alternative dispute resolution.’

  ‘Betga, how the hell can you be a private investigator and the lawyer on the other side at the same time?’

  ‘Maserov, listen to me,’ Betga almost whispered. ‘Sooner or later you or your replacement or someone from Torrent Industries is going to hire a private investigator to look for dirt in the private lives of these women so that entirely healthy, normal, human behaviour can be used to threaten or publicly shame them. Carla being a single mother, for example, will be used to send zeros flying off the page of any settlement document with her name on it. So it’s better if there’s a tame PI on the case who won’t find anything, won’t even look.’

  ‘Betga, it’s misleading and deceptive. We’re adversaries. You represent the plaintiffs. I represent his company. You’re suing his company.’ Maserov said this with his hand literally covering his mouth as Malcolm Torrent’s private secretary, Joan Henshaw, walked past to get herself a coffee. Then she started to double back and Maserov broke into a tiny imperceptible sweat suspecting she had heard something that would ultimately but soon lead to his unemployment and the end of all hope of reconciling with his wife.

  ‘Can I get you gentlemen a coffee, water, anything?’

  ‘That’s kind but no thank you. I’m fine and he’s going,’ Maserov answered, leaving her to walk away to get a beverage for herself. Once she’d moved on, Betga’s defence continued.

  ‘Look, we’re going to wrap this up very quickly to everybody’s satisfaction, right?’ Betga offered. ‘He’s going to be happy, my clients will be happy; well, as happy as victims of sexual harassment can be, and we’re going to end up happy. But before the whole thing is resolved I wanted to meet him, get him to trust me and show him I can be indispensable to him. I’m already looking to the post-settlement future and, frankly, if you don’t mind my saying, Maserov, you should be too.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything about doing this.’

  ‘You would have been unnecessarily uptight, I know you, seeing problems that aren’t really there.’

  ‘Problems that aren’t really there! That’s another thing. Who the hell is Jane Ode? That’s not the name of any of the women alleging sexual harassment. There is no Jane Ode and what are you doing bringing her statement of claim into that meeting?’

  ‘So you have been paying attention. That’s good. No, she’s a new one. I made her up. Ode is an anagram of Doe, Jane Doe, get it?’

  ‘You made her up? Why did you invent another plaintiff? There are already four real ones, all of whom are really, genuinely your clients, even though only one of them admits it.’

  ‘Relax, Maserov. You’re very upset. Look, I don’t know about you but I can’t always control my real clients so I made this one up to bargain with. I’ve promised to bring Mr Torrent a Notice of Discontinuance within ten days and just in case it takes longer to convince my real clients to settle, I needed to have a fake one up my sleeve, one who I can guarantee will settle.’

  ‘Because she’s not real.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But weren’t you afraid he’d catch you out? What if he’d read your new fictional statement of claim and your fictional client’s fictional affidavits? He’d see your name as the lawyer on the other side.’

  ‘Maserov, he’s a big-picture man. He doesn’t read the fine print. That’s what he pays people like you for.’

  ‘Are you out of your mind? You just took a huge fucking risk.’

  ‘A calculated risk, yes. Just like you did back at Freely Savage.’

  ‘But you took a huge fucking risk with my standing with him. You’ve got me vouching for you.’

  ‘You do vouch for me, don’t you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have if I’d known you were going to pull a stunt like that.’ Malcolm Torrent’s private secretary was returning to her office walking briskly with a single cup of black coffee in one hand.

  ‘My dear Maserov. You need to trust me,’ implored Betga very quietly. ‘I would never do anything to harm you. You’ve given me a child!’

  The rhythm of Joan Henshaw’s walking altered dramatically enough for some of the coffee to leap up and lick the exterior wall of the cup. She looked up at them and Maserov smiled at her reassuringly. There was a brief silence and she resumed her walk back to her desk in her office. Maserov was wincing, imagining what she was going to tell Malcolm Torrent. When he allowed his vision to return to normal he saw Jessica getting out of the elevator and begin walking towards them.

  II

  Maserov realised he was going to have to introduce her to Betga. As Jessica, smiling the smile of someone starting their big day, got closer, it occurred to Maserov that her meeting Betga was a bad idea for a number of reasons, some of which he could feel but not yet articulate.

  ‘Jessica Annand, this is A.A. Betga.’

  ‘Very pleased to meet you, Ms Annand, Jessica, is it?’ said Betga, holding her hand instead of shaking it and looking at her as though she were lunch.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Maserov.

  ‘Think about what?’ asked Betga ingenuously.

  ‘Are you working on the sexual harassment, Mr Betga?’ said Jessica, withdrawing her hand.

  ‘For all he’s worth,’ said Maserov.

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘In what capacity?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Betga considers himself a ladies’ man. He’s incorrigible. Just ignore him,’ Maserov tried quickly to commandeer the conversation, to head it off at the pass.

  ‘Well, I have a few capacities,’ said Betga, ignoring Maserov. ‘Lawyer, life coach. Today I’m here in my capacity as a private investigator.’

  ‘Yeah, which was totally news to me,’ said Maserov, still fuming quietly.

  ‘You need to relax, Maserov. Everything’s going well. You’re a very tense man. Do you find him tense, Jessica?’

  ‘Betga, I need you to get out of
here,’ Maserov whispered.

  ‘Out of respect I’m going to adhere to your request but we will talk later, possibly with Ms Annand present if we’re lucky, and you’ll see everything is going to be fine. Good day to you, Ms Annand,’ said Betga, reaching for her hand before Maserov pushed Betga’s hand away from Jessica.

  ‘He’s overwrought,’ said Betga, turning to go. ‘More wrought than he should be. “Should” not in a moral sense but in the sense of a warrant for wellbeing and for the situation,’ he added, heading towards the elevator.

  ‘Who’s Betga?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘I’ll explain later. Torrent’s going to call me back in when he gets off this call —’

  ‘Why does he dress like it’s 1946?’ Jessica said, looking down the hallway to where Betga was just entering the elevator. There was no denying he made an impression, especially on women. No one but Betga could carry off Betga quite so well.

  ‘Betga? I told you, ignore him. Torrent’s going to call me back in when he finishes with this call and then I’m going to broach the topic, the topic of changing the culture.’

  ‘You haven’t talked to him about it yet?’

  ‘I’ve been heading towards it . . . in the general direction.’

  ‘Does he know I’m here . . . to see him?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Have you mentioned me?’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  ‘Stephen!’

  ‘I’m going to do it now. I had to make sure Betga didn’t blow us all up. I’ll go back in and . . . I’ll talk to him, tell him I need you . . . to work with me on this . . . when he gets off the . . .’ Maserov’s mouth was dry but under his arms and along the ridges of his spine were thin beads of water mixed with ammonia, sugar, salt and urea.