“How did you find that out?” Amy asks.
“I took Nelson’s SIM card from his phone while he was bleeding on me,” says Steve. “Rob Kenna and I have been having quite the chat. I’ve told him I need to see him about a couple of troublesome rivals, and he’s invited me for a round of golf.”
“So you think Rob Kenna hired Eddie too?” asks Amy.
“No idea,” says Steve. “But he hired Kevin to kill you, and he hired Nelson to kill you, so you’d have to guess so. Who else would have hired him?”
“There’s no possibility, I suppose, Jeff,” says Rosie, “that Eddie has been sent to kill me? By Vasiliy Karpin? He just shot at Amy to get her out of the way?”
Jeff weighs this up. “Let me try to get in touch with Vasiliy.”
“I mean, if you would,” says Rosie. “I don’t mean to be a fusspot, but somebody might be trying to kill me, and I think I’m still paying you.”
“And we think that Rob Kenna is working for Loubet?” Amy asks.
“Correct,” says Jeff. “And Loubet is working with Henk.”
“And Loubet is working with Jeff,” says Henk. “It has to be one of us.”
“Oh, this is a bit of fun,” says Rosie.
If Steve is completely honest with himself, he threw away another point when he’d insisted that Lily Savage had taken over from Terry Wogan as the host of Blankety Blank. That will be keeping him awake tonight. Forgetting that it was Les Dawson in between. But for now he must concentrate—back to the business at hand. Time to let Jeff Nolan and Henk van Veen know what he’s found out.
“Neither of you is working with Loubet,” says Steve.
Even Trouble turns to look at him.
“Because anybody with any real skill in investigation would have spotted something else in your files.”
“Susan Knox?” says Henk.
“Who?” says Tony.
“Their head of HR,” says Amy. “Has access to everything.”
“Not Susan Knox,” says Steve. “Someone far more interesting.”
Steve takes Henk’s envelope from a coffee table.
“You see, Jeff certainly signed off on all these clients. Thirty-five times. But something else happened thirty-five times, according to the files that Susan Knox sent us.”
“What?” asks Rosie.
“On all thirty-five occasions, an introduction fee of ten thousand pounds is paid to Max Highfield.”
The room is silent in amazement.
“Max Highfield recruited every single one of them,” says Steve.
Jeff laughs.
“No way,” says Jeff. “Max Highfield is working for François Loubet? I don’t buy it.”
“Hell of a coincidence, then,” says Steve. “He introduced each and every one of these influencers to the company. A payment of ten grand to him for each one. Anyone here believe in coincidences?”
Jeff shakes his head. “Max doesn’t have the brains, Steve. And I mean he really doesn’t have the brains.”
“And how would Max have got Loubet’s email address?” says Henk. “It’s in one file, a classified one.”
“And we’re still not addressing the most important point,” says Rosie. “Why did they choose Felicity’s company? It can’t just be random. Why do your business through a small TV agent in Hertfordshire? That’s the weak link, that’s where we can unravel all this.”
“She’s a medium-sized TV agent,” says Tony. “Not small.”
“I agree with Rosie,” says Henk. “Sorry, Steve, I’m sure you used to be a perfectly adequate detective, but I think Max Highfield actually is just a coincidence.”
Felicity walks back in with a pot of tea and some mugs on a tray.
“Max Highfield?” she says. “Oh, I could tell you some stories about him.”
“Stories?” Amy asks. All eyes are now turned to Felicity Woollaston.
She smiles. “Only nice ones. I was his very first agent. Got him the Hollyoaks job.”
“Max Highfield was your client?” says Steve.
“Always knew he’d go far,” says Felicity, beaming proudly.
77
