Fatal Error Read Free Page B

voice contrasted strangely with his size and the words he was saying. ‘He doesn’t give a shit about either of us. Never has. Never will.’
    He must have seen my surprise at the sudden vehemenceof the response. ‘I used to worship him. So did Guy. Then he walked out on us. Left us with that bitch of a mother. Never saw us, never asked for us. When we did go to stay with him in France he still ignored us. Especially me. And when I saw that slut he left us for, I couldn’t believe it. You know she was a slut,’ he said.
    I could feel myself going red.
    Owen noticed and smiled to himself. ‘After all that screwing around in France I knew he was a total waste of space. It’s taken Guy a bit longer to figure that out. You know, I think Dad’s scared of him?’
    ‘Scared of Guy? That doesn’t make any sense.’
    ‘It does to Dad. Guy represents everything he used to think he was good at. Chasing women, making money. Dad needs to prove to himself he can still do all that. That’s why he screws women half his age. That’s why he’s screwing Ninetyminutes now.’
    ‘But he’s made much more money than Guy.’
    ‘He did when he was young, yes. But that was a long time ago. I know for a fact he’s made some bad investments these last few years. It’s not surprising – he doesn’t concentrate on them. But it, like, bugs him. I can tell it bugs him. Now he wants to prove he hasn’t lost his touch.’ Owen’s eyes glowed with a black fire deep beneath his brows. ‘He’s a selfish pig, my dad. He hates us. Both of us. So I’m not at all surprised he wants to destroy Ninetyminutes.’
    The strength of all this bitterness took me aback. ‘Where’s Guy?’ I asked.
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Owen. He had shared a flat with Guy in Wapping, but once Ninetyminutes had established itself he had moved out and found himself his own place somewhere in Camden.
    ‘Will he be coming in today?’
    ‘No idea.’

    ‘Do you think he’ll change his mind?’
    ‘No point. I told you. Now, I got a line of code here I need to fix.’
    I left Owen to it, reflecting that I had had just about my longest conversation ever with him. And it hadn’t changed my opinion of him one jot.
    He was strange. Very strange.
    There was no sign of Guy on Wednesday, either, and I didn’t even try to ask Owen about him. Ingrid and I worked till half past eight in the evening, and took the tube to Knightsbridge. She was more confident than I, bristling with arguments and justifications to win Tony over before the next morning’s deadline. I was going to try, but I was much more sceptical of our chances of success. Funnily enough it wasn’t Guy’s defeatism that worried me most, it was the unalloyed certainty of Owen’s hatred for his father. This was not a family about to forgive and forget.
    Clutching an A to Z , I led Ingrid through a maze of small streets just to the north of Harrods to where Tony’s flat should be. I paused under a streetlamp to check the map. I was pretty sure I was in the right place, a narrow one-way mews. I looked around for a street sign. A century ago the houses had been inhabited by horses. Now they were inhabited by humans who probably paid at least a million quid for the privilege.
    I saw the sign obscured by a car on the other side of the street. I moved a couple of yards down the road to get a better view. I was in the right place. There was a man in the car who caught my eye for a second and then looked away. I wondered briefly what he was doing sitting in a car in the dark. Waiting for someone, presumably. Then I looked for Tony’s flat, which turned out to be the top floor of one of the mews houses.

    We rang the bell. Tony answered.
    ‘Ah, the deputation,’ he said. ‘Come in. I’m afraid you can’t stay long; I’m meeting some friends for dinner in half an hour.’
    We sat on pale leather armchairs in his expensively decorated living room. There was no sign of anyone else in the flat. I suppose I