They stood in the doorway of a small side room off the main conference suite and Paul closed the door. The large windows allowed shafts of light to flash across the floor. They could see the tiny lake from here.
‘Come on, Sandy is speaking in ten minutes. Angie will call back,’ Paul assured him. ‘And nobody misses Sandy’s presentations.’
Sandy Cooper was a fifty-year-old woman who wore her history on her face. Both men were scared of her. Like all good scientists, Sandy didn’t practise what she preached but she added legitimacy to their product. Sandy’s word meant something in the industry.
After all, the guarantee of efficacy was more important than delivery. People just had to believe it.
Sponsorship was flying in and the main shareholders in the holdings of Hampton-Dent Corporation would be getting very good news indeed come next Monday when the value of the deal was realised by the markets in New York.
Everybody was happy.
Except Jamie.
He was at saturation point and Sandy Cooper knew it.
The true numbers of litigation cases against Hampton-Dent for personal injury and even death simply disappeared, and Sandy smoothed the way.
The supplement business was as dirty as the arms trade.
Product was brokered, sold, and then signed off. Fallout was considered collateral damage. The promise of profit was everything. Competitors clamoured over one another to sell their chemicals to hide inside the colourful packets of powders, potions and sachets of poison they convinced health freaks to consume, and billionaires like the owners of Hampton-Dent got richer. Paul left.
Jamie bit his lip.
Something was wrong; he could smell it. He thought about driving to the guesthouse but it was a good half hour away along winding roads. That had been the whole point; she was hidden.
He went over in his mind who knew Angie was here in the Lakes. He’d taken her to a remote hotel, one with a bone-chilling legend that made Angie laugh. Jamie didn’t believe a word of it, but Angie said she wanted to paint the pretty bridge there.
His sister was a fine artist, and her talent blew his mind.
He’d paid off the guesthouse owner, triple locked the door, left her with strict contact instructions, hidden the suitcase and given her a secure phone. They’d been to the caves, and she’d showed him a watertight hiding place for the file.
He’d thought of everything.
He left the hotel and wandered down to the lake on his own.
A few media types hovered around him but soon got the message that he was trying to make an important phone call and disappeared. He had the lakeside to himself. Sandy’s keynote speech would be starting soon and sycophants took their places early.
The hotel was set in stunning surroundings. Which was the whole point. Nobody would suspect that deep in the heart of the Lake District National Park, a salesman was plotting the downfall of one of the most lucrative and successful Big Pharma global corporations which turned over more than fifty billion a year.
He had enough to bring them to their knees.
He wasn’t a hero. And he wasn’t a stoic. He hadn’t suffered a crisis of conscience after suddenly discovering that the shit they sold was killing people. He didn’t suffer from guilt. Nor did he seek revenge.
He saw Sandy come out of the hotel and saunter confidently down to the lake. She liked to cut things fine and wouldn’t have made notes.
He heard frolics from across the water and saw people in the distance enjoying their summer. The days when he’d beencarefree like that were long gone now. He couldn’t imagine enjoying himself like that ever again.
Sandy was the type of woman who gave somebody one chance to speak and if they bored her then she switched off and turned away. Losing Sandy Cooper’s attention could cost a career. Gaining it could cost a life. Jamie smiled broadly and flirted with his eyes. Sandy reciprocated and lit a cigarette.
‘They’ll kill you one day. You should know better,’ he said.
‘Fuck off, Jamie. Don’t lecture me. We of all people know that everything we get told is bad for us is actually the opposite. I’m never giving up my nicotine. It cures cancer.’ She winked and he laughed.
It was their favourite pastime, to discuss conspiracy theories and how with their insider knowledge they could probably prove 99 per cent of them true. Cancer was just one example. Jamie believed he could prove that Big Pharma had been sitting on the cure for sixty years but to admit it would lose them money, and what business wanted that? Same with diabetes, atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s. The cures were simple. The ancients knew it. The scientists knew it. Spiritualists knew it. Big money knew it.
Hampton-Dent wanted customers not cures.
Jamie threw his arm around Sandy’s shoulders. He could perform when necessary. All good salesmen did.
