“Did you know Klipra, Mr. Walters?”
“I wouldn’t put it that strongly. We met at several board meetings and he called me a couple of times.” Walters put on some sunglasses. “That was all.”
“Called you a couple of times? Isn’t Phuridell a pretty big company?”
“More than eight hundred employees.”
“You’re the boss here, and you hardly spoke to the owner of the company you work for?”
“Welcome to the world of business.” Walters surveyed the road and city as though all the rest was nothing that concerned him.
“He invested quite a lot of money into Phuridell. Are you trying to say he didn’t care?”
“He obviously didn’t have any objections to the way the company was being run.”
“Do you know anything about a company called Ellem Ltd?”
“I’ve seen the name on the list of shareholders. We’ve had other matters on our minds lately.”
“Like how to solve the problem of the dollar debt?”
Walters turned to Harry again. He saw a distorted version of himself in the sunglasses.
“What do you know about that?”
“I know that your company needs refinancing if you’re going to keep going. You have no obligation to give any information as you’re not listed on the stock exchange anymore, so you can hide your problems from the outside world for a while, hoping a savior will appear with new capital. It would be frustrating to throw in the towel now that you’re in a position to get more contracts from BERTS, wouldn’t it?”
Walters signaled to the engineers that they could take a break.
“My guess is that this savior is going to turn up,” Harry continued. “He’ll buy the company for a song and will probably become very wealthy when the contracts start rolling in. How many people know about the company’s plight?”
“Listen here, mate—”
“Hole. The board, of course. Anyone else?”
“We inform all the owners. Apart from that, we see no reason to tell everyone about affairs that don’t concern them.”
“Who do you think is going to buy the company, Mr. Walters?”
“I’m the administrative director,” Walters snapped. “I’m employed by shareholders. I don’t get mixed up in owner issues.”
“Even if it might mean the sack for you and eight hundred others? Even if you won’t be allowed to continue with this any longer?” Harry nodded toward the concrete disappearing into the mist.
Walters didn’t answer.
“Actually, maybe it’s more like the Yellow Brick Road. In The Wizard of Oz, you know?”
George Walters nodded slowly.
“Listen, Mr. Walters, I’ve called Klipra’s solicitor and a couple of the returning small-time shareholders. In the last few days Ellem Ltd has bought up your shares in Phuridell. None of the others would be able to refinance Phuridell, so they’re just happy they’ve left a company but haven’t lost all of their investment. You say you’re not interested in the owners, Mr. Walters, but you look like a responsible man. And Ellem is your new owner.”
Walters took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Will you tell me who’s behind Ellem Ltd, Mr. Walters?”
The drills started again, and Harry had to move closer to him to hear.
Harry nodded. “I just wanted to hear you say that,” he shouted back.
47
Friday, January 24
Ivar Løken knew it was over. Not a fiber in his body had given up, but it was over. The panic came in waves, washed over him and retreated. And all the time he knew he was going to die. It was a wholly intellectual conclusion, but the certainty trickled through him like ice melting. The time he had walked into the booby trap at My Lai and stood there with a bamboo stake stinking of shit through his thigh and another through his foot up to the knee he hadn’t for one second thought he was going to die. When he lay shaking with fever in Japan and they said his foot would have to be amputated he had said he would rather die, but he knew that death was not an alternative, it was impossible. When they had brought an anesthetic, he had knocked the syringe out of the nurse’s hand.
Idiotic. Then they had let him keep his foot. As long as there’s pain there’s life he had scratched into the wall above the bed. He had been at the hospital in Okabe for almost a year before he won his fight against his own infected blood.
He told himself he had lived a long life. Long. That was something after all. And he had seen others who had gone through worse. So why resist? His body said no, the way he had said no all his life. Had said no to crossing the line when desire was driving him, said no to letting them crack him when the military dismissed him, said no to feeling sorry for himself when humiliation lashed him and reopened sores. Primarily, though, he had said no to closing his eyes. For that reason he had absorbed everything: wars, suffering, brutality, courage and humanity. So much that he could say without fear of contradiction that he had lived a long life. Not even now did he close his eyes; he barely blinked. Løken knew he was going to die. If he’d had tears he would have cried.