Part 13 (1/2)
Gaby nodded.
”I just couldnt,” Kerry said, her eyes filling with tears.
”Can we come back to the money?” Charlie prompted. ”So Tim and Francine had a house on Heron Close that was repossessed. . . .”
”Yes. Dan and I support-supported-Francine, still support Tim,” said Kerry. ”Always will.”
”Thats extremely generous,” Charlie said.
”Were family,” Kerry said firmly. ”Not literally, but were all hes got and hes all weve got. And its not as if Dan and I are going to have children.” Her face reddened as she realized what shed said. ”There are . . . pathologies in my biological family that I dont want to risk pa.s.sing on,” she explained.
Interesting.
”Kerry and Dan wouldnt be wealthy if it werent for Tim,” said Gaby, as Kerry brought her mug of tea over to the table. ”Have you heard of Taction?”
Charlie shook her head.
”The Da Vinci surgical robot?” Gaby said it as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
”Not really. Is it what it sounds like? A robot that performs surgery?”
”Yeah, basically-with the help of a surgeon, obviously. At the moment, the Da Vincis the only surgical robot on the market, but there are a couple of companies working on new robot models thatll be cheaper to manufacture and less invasive than the Da Vinci if they can be made to work. Thats a big 'if. There are no guarantees, but if the front-runner compet.i.tor makes the killing it hopes to make, itll be partly thanks to me. My first company, the one I created and sold, invented a tactile fabric.”
”Taction?” Charlie guessed.
Gaby nodded. ”We designed it specifically to be used in the manufacture of tactile feedback gloves. We also designed a prototype glove that doesnt work with the Da Vinci, but another companys incorporated it into the design of a rival surgical platform theyre working on. The glove provides whoevers operating the robot with data that closely simulates what shed feel with the five fingers of her own hand if she were performing manual laparascopic surgery. The Da Vinci doesnt do that, doesnt even come close. The surgeon controlling the Da Vinci cant feel whats going on inside the patients body. Theres no force feedback.”
So . . . Im sitting here talking to some kind of cutting-edge technological genius superstar. Charlie kept the thought to herself; Gaby Struthers didnt appear to be in need of a boost to her confidence.
”So, that was our product,” she said. ”In order to fund its creation and trialing, we needed money. Tim advised me on where to get it from. He brought me investors-all the investors I needed.”
”So Tim was your . . . what, your business partner? Your accountant?” Charlie asked.
”My accountant, eventually. At first, though, he just saw exactly what my business needed, and he got it for me.”
”You mean the money to make your product?” Charlie asked.
”Yes, but not only that. I could have gone to any number of venture capital firms with my business plan and theyd have fallen into my lap,” said Gaby, with what Charlie was starting to recognize as her characteristic modesty and self-effacement. ”Theyd also have wanted control, and theyd have tried to squeeze me out. Thats what these people do. I wasnt having that. It was my company, my expertise going into the product. I knew that if we succeeded, the investors would get the lions share of the money-that was fine, I had no problem with that. But I had a huge problem with the idea of big slick b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in suits wading in and telling me how to run the show because-at the risk of sounding big-headed-I knew what I was doing, better than they ever could.”
”Gabys company sold for nearly fifty million dollars,” said Kerry. ”To Keegan Luxford.”
Charlie nodded. She knew she should say Wow, or something like that. She wondered if Keegan Luxford would be interested in buying anything of hers for fifty million dollars. Simons brain, perhaps. Even that was a non-starter. Removal and delivery would be too complicated. ”So Tim found you investors whod hand over the money but let you do what you wanted with it?”
”Exactly,” said Gaby. ”He asked only people he knew well, who trusted him. He had unwavering confidence in me.” She looked uncertain for a second. ”I never really understood why. He . . . I knew I could make it work, as much as you can ever know with something so high-risk and speculative, but Tim cant have known. He just . . . believed in me, the way devoutly religious people believe in G.o.d. Faith. Somehow, Tim managed to convey that faith to enough of his clients and acquaintances, who all invested. He told them the best thing they could do was let me get on with things in my own way.”
”He knew it was true, and it was,” said Kerry.
”Or he was in love with me and that was all he cared about,” Gaby fired back at her. ”Maybe he didnt care if his clients and friends lost all their money as long as he got to impress me and be the one who solved all my problems.”
”Gaby, stop.” Charlie heard authority in Kerrys voice for the first time since shed arrived at the Dower House. ”Poor Tim. Youre not being fair and you know it.”
Poor Tim? Poor wife-smothering Tim? Charlie felt as if shed been cast adrift on waves of oddness, without a map or a pair of oars. Or even a boat.
”Im sorry. Sorry, Kerry.” Gaby sounded as if she meant it. She covered her face with her hands for a few seconds. ”Ignore me. I had no sleep last night. Youre right, Tim would never have advised his clients to act against their own best interests. I dont know why I said that.” She sighed. ”All along, he claimed to know Id succeed, that there was no risk at all, only an enormous profit to be made by all involved. I knew no such thing, but he knew. I just find it hard to believe sometimes, thats all. How can he have known?”
”We knew too,” Kerry told her, squeezing her arm. ”Tims confidence in you was so powerful, we didnt doubt him for a second, him or you. And you did pretty much know, Gaby-youre being modest. Why else would you have spent all that money on the whole Swiss-”
”Thats nothing to do with anything,” Gaby cut her off abruptly.
Charlie felt her inner antennae twitch as the mood in the room changed.
”Im just saying, you must have known there was a very good chance-”
”Kerry, for f.u.c.ks sake, can we drop it?”
This role reversal was unexpected: suddenly Gaby was the cagey one and Kerry the big-mouth. The whole Swiss . . . what? Tax avoidance was all Charlie could think of.
”Tim wasnt as honest with you and Dan about your investment as you think he was,” Gaby muttered into her cup of tea.
”You and Dan invested in Gabys business?” Charlie asked Kerry.
”Three hundred thousand pounds,” said Gaby.
”Everything we had,” Kerry confirmed. ”Aside from our earnings from work, which werent much. Dan was an accountant, so he had what seemed like a decent salary at the time. I was earning peanuts as a care a.s.sistant.”
”You invested all your savings, the lot?” Charlie allowed her incredulity to be obvious.
Kerry looked at Gaby as if she wanted her to take over the telling of the story.
”Dans mother died, left him the money in her will,” Gaby said. ”He didnt want it. He and his mother hadnt spoken for years before she died. She was a b.i.t.c.h-always threatening to cut him out of her will.”
”She threatened to do it when he wanted to marry me,” Kerry contributed. ”We both thought she had. Thats the last time Dan spoke to her, just before we got engaged. She refused to come to the wedding. I wasnt good enough for her precious son, I was just a home carer. From tainted stock.” Kerry started to cry, wiping the tears away discreetly as if she imagined she could hide them.
A look from Gaby warned Charlie not to ask. ”Nice woman,” Charlie said. To say nothing would have seemed heartless.
”So then she dies, and Dan finds out hes got all this money,” Gaby picked up the story again. ”But its hers, the same money that was used to bribe and blackmail him for most of his life, so he doesnt want it. Kerry didnt see it that way.”
”No, I didnt. What kind of fool gives away three hundred thousand pounds on principle? We argued about it. Endlessly.” Kerry shuddered. ”Its the only time weve ever come to blows about anything. I couldnt bear for Dan to give the money away, wherever it came from, but he wouldnt listen. He said we were fine as we were, and how could he live with himself if he accepted an inheritance from Pu-” A deep flush spread across Kerrys face. ”From his mother,” she corrected herself.
Gaby grinned. ”I forgot you used to call her Pue. PUE,” she told Charlie. ”Pure Undiluted Evil. Didnt Tim coin that one?”
Kerry nodded.
Charlie sipped her tea. ”So when Tim came along suggesting you invest the three hundred thousand in Gabys company . . .”
”It was the perfect solution.” Kerrys eyes lit up, as if shed just this second worked it out. ”We could give away the money-all of it-and the money wed get back wouldnt be hers. Itd be different money, money from whichever company bought up Gabys. Keegan Luxford, as it turned out.”