The Undomestic Goddess

I search for further items, but that’s the only one I can find. Next I go to the search box and—telling myself I shouldn’t—type in Samantha Sweeting. Immediately a zillion stories about me pop up again on the screen. I don’t feel so freaked out this time, though. The person in these stories doesn’t feel like me anymore.

I scan entry after entry, seeing the same details replayed. After clicking through about five pages I add Third Union Bank to my search, and scan the resulting entries. Then I type in Third Union Bank, BLLC Holdings, then Third Union Bank, Glazerbrooks. Then, with a beat of apprehension, I type in Samantha Sweeting, £50 million, career over, and wait for all the really nasty stories to appear. It’s like watching my own car crash on action replay.

God, Google is addictive. I sit there, totally absorbed, clicking and typing and reading, gorging on endless Web pages, automatically using the Carter Spink password wherever I need to. After an hour I’m slumped in Eddie’s chair like a zombie. My back is aching and my neck is stiff, and the words are all running into one another. I’d forgotten what it was like to sit at a computer. Did I really used to do this all day?

I rub my tired eyes and glance at the Web page open in front of me, wondering how I even got to it. It’s some obscure list of guests at a lunch held earlier this year at the Painters Hall. About halfway down is the name BLLC Holdings, which must have been the link. On autopilot, I move the cursor along the page—and into view comes the name Nicholas Hanford Jones, Director.

Something chimes inside my addled brain. Nicholas Hanford Jones. Why do I know that name? Why am I somehow associating it with Ketterman?

Is BLLC Holdings a client of Ketterman? No. It can’t be. I’d have heard of it before.

I screw my eyes up tight and concentrate as hard as I can. Nicholas Hanford Jones. I can almost see it in my mind’s eye. I’m grasping at an association … an image … come on, think …

This is the trouble with having a nearly photographic memory. People think it must be useful, when in fact all it does is drive you insane.

And then suddenly it comes to me. The swirly writing of a wedding invitation. It was stuck up on the pin board in Ketterman’s office about three years ago. It was there for weeks. I used to see it every time I went in.

Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Savillerequest the pleasure of your companyat the wedding of their daughter Fionato Mr. Nicholas Hanford Jones

Nicholas Hanford Jones is Arnold Saville’s son-in-law? Arnold has a family connection with BLLC Holdings?

I sit up in my chair, totally disconcerted. How come he never mentioned that?

And then another thought strikes me. I was on the BLLC Holdings Companies House page a minute ago. Why wasn’t Nicholas Hanford Jones listed as a director? That’s illegal, for a start.

I rub my brow, then out of curiosity type in Nicholas Hanford Jones. A moment later the screen is full of entries, and I lean forward.

Oh, for God’s sake. The Internet is crap. I’m looking at other Nicholases and other Hanfords and other Joneses, mentioned in all sorts of different contexts. I peer at them in total frustration. Doesn’t Google realize that’s not what I’m interested in? Why would I want to read about some Canadian rowing team list containing a Greg Hanford, a Dave Jones, and a Chip Nicholas?

I’m never going to find anything here.

Even so, I start picking my way down, skimming each chunk of text, clicking onto the next page and the next. And then, just as I’m about to give up, my eye falls on an entry tucked away at the bottom of the page. William Hanford Jones, Finance Director of Glazerbrooks, thanked Nicholas Jenkins for his speech …

This is incredible. The finance director at Glazerbrooks is called Hanford Jones too? Are they from the same family? Feeling like some kind of private detective, I log onto Friends-Reunited, and two minutes later I have my answer. They’re brothers.

I feel a bit dazed. This is a pretty huge connection. The finance director of Glazerbrooks, which went bust owing Third Union Bank £50 million. A director of BLLC Holdings, which lent it £50 million three days before. And Arnold, representing Third Union Bank. All related; all in the same extended family.

I’m almost certain nobody else knows. Arnold’s never mentioned it. No one at Carter Spink has ever mentioned it. Nor have I seen it brought up in any of the reports on the whole affair. Arnold’s kept all of this very quiet.

I rub my shoulders, trying to gather my jumbled thoughts. Isn’t this a potential conflict of interest? Shouldn’t he have disclosed the information straightaway? Why on earth would Arnold keep such an important thing secret? Unless—