by Michael Foot
Mark smiled briefly. “No, we’re not journalists though we do know plenty of them who will be eating out of our hands for a lifetime if we give them a scoop like this. No, we’re friends of Jenny who, by the way in case you are in any doubt, will have left by the time you get out of here; and she won’t be calling you again. We are people who –probably quite foolishly – are prepared to sit on these videos –and eventually hand every copy back to you – in return for just one simple thing.”
“Those tapes are fakes” spluttered Jimmy. “No-one will believe you. And, anyway, the first one doesn’t even show anything illegal – if it weren’t a fake, that is.”
Mark smiled quietly again. “The one thing you are right about is that the legality of what’s covered by the first tape is in debate. Though I doubt if your chances of captaining England would last long after its publication. And it might anyway make some of your sponsors think again. But we were thinking we would start with the second tape where there is no doubt about the illegality involved. As for whether it’s real or not, just think about the backing documents we might have to prove its accuracy. Like an affidavit from the Asian gentleman who was with you – that he reluctantly but legally provided in return for our allowing him to get out of England. Jenny might reappear too and talk about some of your other little foibles – like the party drugs you supply to some of your more favoured visitors.
No, I think we can safely say your career will go downhill rapidly as soon as publication happens. And all you have to do, to avoid that – we’re not after your money – is to stand up one day, in a few months when we tell you, in a Press Conference. And all you have to do then is to announce to the world (and your 300,000 social media followers) that you have been looking into the Angels’ plans for the future; and that, you Jimmy, will be voting for the Angels at the coming Election. We’ll write your little speech for you. You won’t even have to go and vote when the time comes. Your announcement will be a 3 day wonder and then the press caravan will move on, having had the effect we need.
Tell you what. Keep the videos with our compliments – we have more copies of course. Think things through quietly and then call the number that’s at the end of the video and tell us your answer. If it’s ‘yes’ then just sit back and wait until we are ready to go live with your ‘coming out’ for the Angels. If it’s ‘no’ just count down the hours you will have left before the shit-storm hits you.”
Andrew hadn’t said anything during this conversation. Now, to his surprise, he found himself rising to his feet and looking down at Jimmy. “Personally, Andrew said “I rather hope you say ‘no’. People like you sicken me.” With that, Andrew and Mark left and returned to the bar, leaving the footballer holding the mobile phone disconsolately in his hand.
From Andrew’s point of view, the evening tailed off pretty quickly. He found Chloe and danced a bit with her and with Hazel. But his mind was whirring over the earlier events and he realised that he was – and would remain – poor company. Chloe seemed to sense this; and by 11 she had said to him “You’ve had enough, I’ll get you home”.
They sat, silently, in the taxi. When they arrived, Chloe declined an invitation to come into his flat. But Andrew did insist on talking with her in the street for a couple of minutes. “You can tell Michael” said Andrew “that the first labour is completed. What I now want him to do is to set up a meeting for me with someone senior who can tell me all about the money side of the Angels. He’ll understand I think.”
And Andrew, by midnight as promised, found himself sitting up in his bed and pondering the night’s events. What Michael had managed to do, he realised, was to expose one aspect of Angel business that Andrew could hardly condone but which – Andrew could see – made a lot of sense, if the ultimate aim was for the Angels to take power. Also, Andrew felt strongly, if such tactics had to be employed, people like Jimmy deserved that – and a whole lot worse. At least, Andrew reflected, he hadn’t been actively involved in anything that could be called illegal – if you ignored the blackmail angle.
13
It took Andrew nearly a week to get the ‘reward’ he wanted for the first ‘labour’. Two days after he had left Chloe on the street, he took a call from a man who introduced himself as Mo – “Most people can’t spell Mohammed in any of its forms” the man said cheerfully. “I understand you want to talk about Angel finances and I’m your man for that. Where would you like to meet up and when?” Andrew knew what he wanted. “I’ll come to you wherever that is; I want to see the financial heart of this empire. And, believe me, I shall have a lot of questions – both about where the money comes from and where it goes.”
“Well” replied Mo. “That makes a nice change. I nearly always have to come up to London to see the money boys. If you’re serious about coming here, you need to get to Northampton – I’ll email you the address and directions. Shall we say around 10, perhaps next Wednesday?” Andrew’s diary, of course, was blank and, after failing to get Mo to bring the day forward, he agreed. Mo rang off, saying helpfully. “We have parking here, if you drive.”
Chloe kept away in the next couple of days. Andrew filled his time with gym work, a little shopping and a day’s visit to his aunt down in Guildford. He didn’t feel particularly close to her and, in fact, they had remarkably little in common. But, when his parents had died, Andrew had promised himself that he would always keep in touch with her, as often as his Army duties and, later, his work commitments allowed. He wanted to have at least a few anchors in the ‘real’ world.
On the Wednesday, Andrew drove through North London early, though that still meant doing only about 19 miles in the first hour. Around 8.30 he pulled into the service station just south of Northampton on the M1 and enjoyed – well, perhaps that was too strong a word – ‘took’ an English breakfast with extra toast and coffee. Just after 10, he found The Foundation office he had been given directions to, though he drove past it the first time round, it was so small and unobtrusive; on a small industrial estate mostly given over to small company warehousing and retail outlets. The parking was directly outside the building. Andrew parked and went in.
There was no Receptionist. Instead, a phone and a message saying ‘Please buzz if you need us’, which Andrew duly did. About 30 seconds later, a smart but casually dressed man pushed open the door opposite the phone. The man – short, slim and bespectacled, maybe 40 – walked out. “Hello” he said cheerfully. “I’m Mo. You must be Andrew. Come in and make yourself at home. Would you like some coffee, though I warn you now it’s not brilliant?” Andrew declined politely and they went through into a small open area with 5 or 6 rooms or offices running off it. There was a single table and a handful of supposedly easy chairs around, all of which looked like they had been bought in a job lot for perhaps £100 from a local clearance firm. Virtually nothing on the walls. The Angels certainly didn’t go in for the luxury that Andrew now almost took for granted after his time in the City.
The office Mo led him into was similarly spartan, though perfectly functional. The one thing that looked expensive was the computer array on the desk. But, even here, there were none of the Reuters screens or any other components of a typical London dealing room to be seen. Whatever went on here did not involve money management or market activity on any scale.
Andrew looked round, slightly surprised and Mo, watching him, smiled. “Yes, I’m sure this isn’t what you had expected, Andrew. But I promise you that this one floor – there are 7 of us who work here – is not just the hub of The Foundation’s money machine, it IS The Foundation’s money machine.” Andrew, for his part, was prepared to listen but he found Mo’s statement hard to believe.
“I think I’d better explain a bit” said Mo. “The Angels have three basic sources of income. The first and primary source is from the dividends we get from the shareholding we have in Baldens, more on that in a minute. The second, quite modest, never more than 10%, is the revenue fr
om the various clubs and activities we run. Trouble there, from a money point of view, is that Michael is much better at thinking up new social initiatives than he is at getting any money out of them. The third, and the only one for which we take any credit, is what one could call the ‘exceptional items’. They are very few and far between. Again, more on that in a minute.
The point I want to emphasise though is that the money from Baldens requires no work or initiative from us – we just log the quarterly dividend payments. The second, the revenue flow, is primarily the responsibility of the Activities Division – all the grunt work and paper trail is done there. We just collect the net revenue in, if there is any and, from time to time, decide if the external auditors (who, of course, are London-based) need to conduct any checks for us or for the Charities Commission. Hardly labour-intensive for us.
The third source is, well, the result of very occasional and sizeable bets by us on markets. We’ve only done two of those in my 3 years here. The first was a long-running play we had on Bitcoin – bought before my time at around 20$ a time and sold early 2018 for thousands each. The second was when we built up a large long position in oil, when it fell to around $30 a barrel. We got out, about 18 months later at an average of about $65. Both of those operations basically required just two decisions by Michael, 1 to buy and 1 to sell. And the oil required action by the London firm we use for what little trading we do. Hence, this lean but not mean operation you see here.
To make it even simpler, our assets are held only in top quality safe form, mostly government bonds which we buy and hold, not trade. The nearest thing I have to a paper chase involving human involvement is the regular forecasting of our cash position. But, even here, Michael insists we hold £25 million in liquid form with the banks so that, even if we get things horribly wrong, there is a huge safety-net. If you don’t have to profit-maximise, it’s amazing what just a couple of people can do. Four of the seven of us here are competent in each of the areas we cover, providing back-up and incidentally checking on each other, seeing that everything is above board. We have no need to be registered with the financial regulators or anyone else. Hence we can manage with a tiny staff in a cheap, out of London, office – which is what you see.”
Andrew thought for a moment. “Let’s talk about each of these separately. Tell me about Baldens first.” Mo came back immediately with a potted history he had obviously given many times before. “The two Balden brothers began the supermarket business about 15 years ago. Michael I believe has known them for almost that long; but certainly, from near the outset, Michael supported their business. Even now, despite how big they’ve grown, you’d be amazed how much of the business that they see comes from Angels and their families. Almost at the beginning, while they were still a private company and in return for some much-needed finance, the brothers gave a 30% stake to the Angels, who at that time were hardly seen or known about. As the Balden business grew, so did our income; and, when the business went public, our shareholding became worth a good deal, a worth that we could cash in any time. They now make about £1.5 billion a year net profit from their 400 or so stores, and pay out 2/3rds of that in dividends. Michael decided about four years ago that we needed to reduce our holding because it was a case of just too many eggs in one basket. So, we made a public offer of a third of our shares – and that’s the money we used to buy the oil. The gambles of course were punts but ones which frankly were no brainers – little downside risk and lots of possible upside. Our share of the Baldens’ dividend is around £200 million a year. We have piles of cash in the bank from the share sale and we have never borrowed a penny. So, even now that Michael is cranking up the spending machine like crazy, there’s still plenty to go round, at least for now.”
Andrew then asked a few questions about the two other revenue sources but it quickly became apparent that even the £60 million or so they had got back on an initial outlay of around half that, on the oil venture, was small beer overall. The rest of the morning was spent going through The Foundation’s returns to the Charity Commission, the external auditors’ written reports and the limited private bank and dealing accounts that The Foundation chose to have. Andrew could see very quickly that – although the visit had been eminently useful – there was little here for him.
Andrew met a couple of the other workers and succeeded in persuading Mo to go out for a long (and actually quite good) late lunch at a local Indian restaurant. Mo seemed relaxed and was clearly enjoying the departure from his normal daily routine. Over lunch, Andrew raised obliquely the two issues that he still felt unclear about. “These Balden brothers must be great believers in what Michael stands for” he said reflectively, taking a long draft of Kingfisher beer. Mo, who was drinking Diet Coke, smiled “Yes, that’s right. Of course, once Michael had the shareholding, he was pretty safe – the brothers had committed. Word around is that, in addition to the finance that Michael drummed up for them in the early days, some of the early Angel girls were, how shall I say, very solicitous to the brothers. But, to all intents and purposes that has long passed – if it ever happened at all. The Balden brothers live as recluses abroad now and have left all the hard work for years to a professional management that so far have done a great job. We are at risk from a downturn in the retail food market; but people have to eat and we are with one of the best supermarket operators there is.”
Andrew then took the conversation on to Mo himself. “You’ve told me a bit about yourself, Mo. But how did you come to be doing this job? What brought you to the Angels?” Mo leant back in his chair. “It’s no secret. I got involved with what are now the Muslim Angels about 3 years ago; and then came the whole issue of the Muslim and non-Muslim bits getting together. Don’t get me wrong. I’m an Angel through and through. But you could regard my being here as part of the merger deal – so that Jibril and the people I report to under him could be sure that the cash side was OK. I’d had about 10 years’ experience in the City. This job, with its complete change of pace, appealed; and I had a CV that normally would have merited a couple of hundred thousand basic from any self-respecting investment bank. So I took a pay cut and have seen a huge improvement in my quality of life – I’ve even settled down and married a non-Muslim Angel. And Michael got a quality resource for a fraction of the normal price – which is kind of par for his course.”
With that, and with a good deal to think over, Andrew climbed back into his car after lunch. He could hope to beat the worst of the London evening rush hour but not all of it. The day had not produced what he had expected.
14
Within 24 hours, Chloe had got in touch again. “Michael says he hopes you got what you wanted at The Foundation. He’s got another little job for you; I’d better come round and explain.” Which she did.
She refused his offer of coffee or something stronger. Andrew was getting used to her rather off-hand matter, though he was happy enough just to have here there; either she did just lift his mood when he saw her, or she did genuinely light up wherever she was. But it was good just to have her around.
Without much preamble, Chloe passed on the message for Andrew. “Michael says he’d like you to help at one of the places we maintain for people who really need our help. They may have been uncontrollably into drink and drugs. We often take people, especially girls, who need to rebuild their self-confidence, often by way of a long detox with a bit of cosmetic surgery, often major weight loss and a dress make-over. I’ve been a patient in one of those courses, Andrew” her voice faltered momentarily “I’d touched a bottom in my life from which I thought there was no way up. And anything I have today is thanks to the three months or so I spent on that course. No” she held up her hand, forestalling a remark or question from Andrew. “Maybe another time I’ll tell you but not now.
These make-overs are expensive – when you add in all the cost of the places, the surgery, image make-overs and the rest. And nearly every penny gets paid for by the An
gels. The results? A pretty tough and gruelling experience for those on the programme. But we’re careful who we choose and about 80% of the men and mostly women who start a course finish it, though maybe not always as far forward on the road to recovery as we and they would like. Lots of the women Angels came to the ranks after experiencing this; once I had benefitted and got out, I committed my life to Michael the very next time I saw him because he had given me back a worthwhile life. And of course, though I don’t suppose it’ll get mentioned, quite a few of the men and women who will voluntarily be ‘coming out’ to back the Angels in the next few months will have had experiences very similar to mine.”
“Fine” said Andrew “But what am I supposed to be doing?” “Well” Chloe replied “Michael wants you to understand that sometimes a committed Angel has to do things they would rather not do – like Jenny with the footballer. In your case, Michael wants you to go down to our hide-away near Aldershot where the next survivors of the latest course come up for breath this weekend. What typically happens is that one or two are marked as the people who have made the most of their course and effectively ‘won’. For the women, that usually involves a complete new free wardrobe, lots of alcohol if they want (which they won’t have seen for months) and at least 1 desirable man. That’s going to be you and they DO usually expect that. He wants you to be the main women’s prize for a couple of nights at the end of this course. In that way, he wants you to understand that – if you were ever to be an Angel in the Inner Circle – you will sometimes have to do things you’d really rather not do. Like, in this case, having two very ‘active’ nights with a couple of women you’ve never met before. These girls can be a bit wild – I know I was when I got out – you have to ‘ride the storm’ if that’s not too unfortunate a way of putting it.”