Whirligig Read Online Free Page A

fact?’
    â€˜Er… yeah.’
    â€˜Right-oh…’ Peregrine’s incomprehension was not reduced. ‘I have a mobile telephone, of course. But – and call me a Luddite if you must – I want it to… well, be a phone. Not another blasted computer!’ Peregrine chuckled.
    Claypole beheld the older man, eyeing him intensely. Here was the grinning MacGilp of MacGilp (for what possible reason could a man need the same name twice?), completely contented, and utterly comfortable.Clearly he had been given the best that being British can offer. White, male and probably Protestant, yes. But also extremely privileged, classically educated, landed and moneyed, with the teeth of an Arab stallion. He seemed to be oblivious to modernity and more or less indifferent to the opinion of others. You couldn’t learn to be like that, thought Claypole. You had to be born in the right place at the right time, and to the right people.
    â€˜Anyway,’ Claypole concluded. ‘Brr. I sold the company a month ago.’
    â€˜So you’re free?’ asked Peregrine.
    Claypole sat back in his chair, and did his best Cheshire Cat.
    â€˜Well done,’ said Peregrine, in a matter-of-fact way. ‘I had a job in the City once, but I didn’t understand it. Ballsed it up. If I hadn’t inherited a fair chunk of lolly, God knows where I’d be.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ muttered Claypole, chewing his jaw.
    â€˜Shall I talk a little about my proposition?’ asked Peregrine freshly.
    â€˜Sure,’ said Claypole. ‘It’s… er, making electricity from wind, right?’ He watched the midget in the mess jacket glide past and regretted that he had not ordered a plate of cakes, or a pie. Peregrine leaned forward and explained the history of wind farming at Loch Garvach.
    Two years previously, a company called Aeolectricity had paid Peregrine a small amount of money in the expectation that when the wind farm received approval from the planning authorities and was subsequently built and generating electricity, they would pay him a handsome annual rent. The gamble for Aeolectricity was that if planning permission were not granted,they would lose their investment. On the other hand, if successful, it would make them many millions over the twenty-five-year life of the wind farm. But Aeolectricity had gone bust even though almost all the work had been done, and the whole project now belonged to Peregrine. This had all happened in the last couple of months, and the planning committee of the local council was now due to make its decision on whether the wind farm could go ahead or not.
    â€˜It’s madness,’ began Peregrine in conclusion. ‘Why they leave it to the little people to make these decisions, I really don’t know. This and that sub-committee of Mr and Mrs McIdiot. They haven’t got a clue about how to plan a power station. Why would they? They’re not experts in anything very much, and they’re certainly not experts in this.’
    Peregrine finished his monologue and his grey eyes flashed at Claypole. ‘Still. Pretty golden, eh?’
    â€˜Right, yeah,’ said Claypole, looking across at the man in the light-blue blazer, who appeared to be falling asleep in front of his avocado mess. ‘So you need money?’
    â€˜We need, more than anything else, a backer.’ Peregrine smiled. ‘A serious person. An homme d’affaires , if you like. Unpaid for the moment, but heavily rewarded if we’re successful.’
    This evasion, Claypole knew instantly, spelled danger. Everyone needed money.
    â€˜How much do you need?’ asked Claypole, in as bald a manner as he could manage.
    â€˜As I say, it’s not so much the money…’
    â€˜Yeah,’ said Claypole, closing his eyes with irritation in the manner he had seen done by business hotshots on television when faced with yet another common-or-gardenmendacious