On the Edge

by Michael Ridpath

  It also seemed likely this Olgaç had murdered Jen. Bumped into her on the street, followed her up to her apartment on some pretext or other, hit her over the head, sent a text message to her mother from her mobile phone, pushed her unconscious body out of the window and run off. And he’d done it at the behest of Mykhailo Bodinchuk.

  But it wasn’t the Ukrainian who had tried to kill Calder in Norfolk. Calder hadn’t seen enough of the man to recognize him again. But he had definitely been younger than fifty: he was still able to run pretty fast. And Calder had caught a glimpse of his face: no moustache, bad skin. Old acne scars or some kind of skin disease. Definitely not the Ukrainian, but possibly the same man who had followed him that morning. He would have to keep his eyes open.

  *

  Ray Pohek watched Calder step out of the Wort Hotel from quite a distance. He was concerned that Calder might have spotted him earlier. Pohek was experienced, but it was tricky keeping someone under surveillance in a small town when there was only one of you and the target was suspicious. The cold helped. Pohek had three jackets and a couple of hats which he could switch, and a selection of scarves that were useful for keeping the lower part of his face hidden. This watching was all very well, but he needed to act. It was difficult to do anything in town, but next time Calder left Jackson Pohek would strike. He hoped that at some point Calder would make his way to Martel’s ranch just outside the town. Pohek had scoped the route and he knew what he would do and where he would do it. But until then he would just have to watch and wait for the opportunity.

  Calder paused, looked up and down the street and then strode rapidly towards his hotel. Pohek didn’t follow him directly, but scooted around the block, switching his jacket as he did so. He saw Calder hurry into the parking lot behind the hotel. Pohek rushed back to where his own car was parked, started up and just made it in time to catch Calder’s rented black Bronco as it pulled out on to the street. There was quite a bit of traffic, and so Pohek was able to tag along a few cars behind.

  It soon became clear that Calder was heading north, out of town. Not to Martel’s office as he had expected, but up towards the Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone. Pohek tensed. His opportunity was approaching. He had a hunting rifle in the trunk and a Smith and Wesson in a holster under his arm. He was concerned that Calder’s four-wheel-drive SUV would be better able to deal with the back roads than his own Buick. But there hadn’t been a snowfall for a couple of days, and as long as Calder kept to the ploughed roads it ought to be possible to keep up with him.

  The Bronco continued for several miles along the straight highway, past the wildlife art museum and the airport. There was little traffic now, so Pohek had to hang well back. To his left, the Tetons loomed out of the cloud. Those damn mountains gave him the heebie-jeebies. There was something intimidating about them, like they were giant boulders that were going to roll over the river and crush him or something. Nothing like the mountains they’d got back in Colorado.

  Up ahead, he saw the Bronco turn suddenly off the highway. He accelerated to catch up. The side road was ploughed but they were now into low hills and it was difficult keeping the Bronco in sight. Pohek fumbled with his map to try to gauge where he was. He rounded a bend, just in time to see the Bronco come to a T-junction and turn left. Pohek slowed at the junction and turned that way himself.

  The road ahead twisted downhill through some aspen to a river bed. No Bronco. Puzzled, Pohek slowed for a moment so that he could glance quickly at his map to check if there was a track heading off to left or right. Then he heard the roar of an engine and the blare of a horn and through his peripheral vision the Bronco leapt out of the trees straight towards him. Before he had time to react, it rammed into his car just above the rear wheels, sending it into a spin. For two seconds trees, road, sky and Bronco swirled round in a complete revolution and then his car hit the trunk of an aspen. Instantaneously the airbag exploded, striking him in the face and pressing him back into his seat. He sat there, stunned, as the airbag deflated in front of him. He heard the hiss of his engine wheezing a complaint, and then the sound of the car door being opened and the click of his safety belt being released. A moment later strong arms pulled him outwards, towards the cold air. He didn’t resist, and he was soon slumped on the hard cold road. Hands frisked his jacket and he felt warm steel against his temple.

  He heard a click as his pistol was cocked.

  ‘Keep still,’ growled a voice in some kind of British accent. Scottish, he guessed.

  He kept still.

  Who are you?’

  Pohek said nothing. Just swallowed. Lying with his cheek pressed against the tarmac facing the tyre of his own car, he couldn’t see his interrogator.

  ‘Wallet.’ Pohek did nothing. The barrel of the gun jabbed into his temple. ‘Pass me your wallet.’

  He reached with his right hand to his pants pocket and pulled it out, holding it away from his body and to the side. It was snatched from his fingers. ‘Well, well. Ray Pohek. Or is it Ron Daly? Two identities. Three credit cards to one plus a firearms licence says it’s Ray Pohek of Denver. Occupation: private investigator. Very interesting. Don’t I recognize you, Ray?’

  Pohek kept quiet.

  ‘Haven’t you been on vacation to England recently? I’d recognize that lovely complexion anywhere. I should shoot you now, just like you tried to shoot me then, shouldn’t I? But first, a couple of questions. Will you answer a couple of questions?’

  Pohek tried to keep his silence, but he could feel the sweat breaking out all over his body, despite the cold.

  ‘Talk to me, Ray Pohek. Are you going to answer some questions? Or do I just press the trigger now?’

  ‘OK, OK,’ Pohek said.

  ‘That’s better. Now. Who are you working for?’

  ‘John-Luke Martel,’ Pohek mumbled.

  ‘Speak up! I can’t hear you.’

  ‘John-Luke Martel,’ Pohek repeated, louder.

  ‘And Mr Martel wanted you to kill me?’

  ‘Indirectly.’

  ‘What do you mean, indirectly?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah he wanted you killed.’

  ‘I see. Ever heard of someone called Mykhailo Bodinchuk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. Yes!’

  ‘What about Esat Olgaç?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perumal Thiagajaran?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Jennifer Tan?’

  ‘What is this? I don’t know none of these people. Just John-Luke Martel. That’s all.’

  ‘OK.’ He could feel the pressure of the gun relaxing slightly against his temple. ‘I’ve got a problem,’ said Calder.

  Pohek decided not to interrupt the other man’s train of thought.

  ‘See, I can’t turn you in to the sheriff because you haven’t done anything illegal here yet. I can’t let you go because you’ll just try to kill me again. So all I can do is pull the trigger now.’ Again the pressure of the barrel on his temple.

  Pohek lost it. He felt a warm wet patch spread across the front of his pants, pressed against the surface of the road. His bowels would go next. ‘Please, no. Don’t do it, Mr Calder! I won’t go nowhere near you. I won’t touch you, I swear to it. Don’t kill me. Just don’t kill me!’ He felt the sobs come. What a way to die, weeping in a pool of your own piss, but he couldn’t help himself.

  He closed his eyes.

  Nothing.

  Then Calder spoke. ‘OK, here’s what we do. I’ve got your details, I know who you are. I’ll lodge them somewhere safe. If I’m killed, the police here and in the UK will be informed that you were responsible. You’ll end up in jail or the chair. Unless you leave the country, change your identity … How much is Martel paying you?’

  ‘A hundred grand.’

  ‘That’s not enough to give up everything and risk the death penalty, is it? You stay well clear of me. I’ll take the gun, by the way. And your mobile phone. Just stay ly
ing there face down until you hear my car leave. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ Pohek replied. With a surge of relief, he felt the pressure removed from his temple. He lay there trembling for five whole minutes after he had heard Calder drive off, the damp patch around his groin becoming noticeably colder. As he pulled himself to his feet and began the long trek back to the main highway to call for a tow truck, he decided Calder was right. It wasn’t worth it. He had had enough of being Luigi. From now on it was back to snooping on cheating spouses.

  30

  Calder drove straight back to his hotel, hoping he had done enough to put off Ray Pohek. Rationally, it would have made sense to shoot him. There was some justification after all: Pohek had tried before to kill Calder and might well try again. While in the RAF, Calder had accepted that he might be called upon to kill other people for his country. He had been trained to do it. But in this case he just hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. He was a civilian now, and he couldn’t end someone else’s life unless his own was directly under threat. That was all there was to it.

  He scribbled out some hasty notes about Pohek and Martel, looked up the address of a law office in Jackson in the Yellow Pages in his hotel room, and walked the three blocks. For a suitable fee, a lawyer agreed to keep one copy of the notes safe and show them to the Sheriff’s Office if anything happened to Calder. Calder asked the lawyer to Fed Ex another copy to his sister, sealed, with a note that this was a kind of will, only to be opened in the event of his death. He didn’t want to scare her unnecessarily.

  The evidence was building against Martel, but it was all circumstantial or unverifiable. Tessa wouldn’t testify to the police and neither would Carr-Jones, he was sure. There was no proof that the Ukrainian at the Wort Hotel had been following Perumal or that he was, in fact, Ukrainian. Even Perumal’s body was somewhere deep down under the snow, away from the authorities’ scrutiny. Calder had to shake things up a bit. He needed to talk to Martel. Whether Martel would say anything of any use, he didn’t know. The only way to find out was to ask him.

  The Teton Fund offices were perched on a hill just outside town, facing the mountain range. The building was made of logs, but there was nothing primitive about it. In the lobby, a stream ran down inside a glass-encased wall of rocks. A red-haired woman with a pretty smile asked him to wait in one of the sturdy log and leather armchairs beneath a large photograph of the Grand Teton itself. Calder was beginning to realize that not only did the majestic mountain dominate Jackson Hole from the outside, its image reached into the interior of nearly every building in the town. He waited. And waited.

  After an hour and a half, he heard the thump of heavy footsteps on the wooden staircase behind him. He turned to see a giant of a man bounding towards him. Calder scrambled to his feet and looked up at Jean-Luc Martel, who smiled and pumped his hand, his free arm waving a dramatic gesture of welcome.

  ‘Ah, Alex Calder, the great bond trader of Bloomfield Weiss. Your reputation precedes you. I apologize for keeping you waiting, it’s frantic back there.’ He nodded to the mysterious domain up the stairs.

  Calder examined Martel. Tanned, assured, self-confident, enthusiastic, he looked every inch the successful hedge-fund manager. But was he a murderer? Calder realized he didn’t know what a murderer looked like. But he did know this man had employed someone to kill him.

  ‘Not at all,’ Calder said, summoning a polite smile. ‘Thank you for taking the time to see me. And I don’t work for Bloomfield Weiss any more. I’ve given up on the markets.’

  ‘Oh really? Well, we’re always on the lookout for new talent. You might find the quality of life in Jackson Hole suits you better than London. Or New York.’

  ‘I might well.’ Calder smiled again. ‘Do you have time for a quick word?’

  Martel looked at his watch. ‘Actually, I am very busy right now. The markets, you understand. But I would like to speak with you very much. What shall we do?’ Martel tapped his chin as if lost in thought. ‘I know. I am taking the afternoon off to go skiing tomorrow. Why don’t you come to my ranch for lunch and then we can spend a couple of hours on the slopes together? It is rare that another aficionado of the markets comes to Jackson Hole, and it would be a pleasure for me to have the chance to discuss things with you. Have you been skiing in Jackson Hole yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Calder.

  ‘We have the best snow in the world. It will be an honour for me to show it to you. Get hold of some boots and skis and I’ll see you at my ranch at one o’clock tomorrow.’

  ‘I shall look forward to it,’ said Calder, and before he knew it he was ushered out on to the street.

  He had expected Martel to be evasive. He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or suspicious that Martel wanted to spend so much time with him. On balance, he felt suspicious.

  Martel stood by an upstairs window in the corridor and watched Calder get into his car. He smiled. He had known Calder would seek him out eventually. Calder was a trader and Martel understood traders. They took risks. Well, Calder had just taken one risk too many. Martel had given up on Luigi, and Bodinchuk didn’t want to know, so he would have to deal with this problem himself. If all went according to plan, Calder wouldn’t be a problem for much longer.

  Martel strode into his dealing room. If only Calder were his only problem. The atmosphere in the room was painful. There was virtually no activity and there hadn’t been for about a week. All the Teton Fund’s resources were concentrated on the one trade: Japan. They were up to their limits with every broker they dealt with, they had sold every liquid security to raise cash to cover their losses, there was nothing to do but watch and wait. Martel had no idea what his traders discussed when he wasn’t in the room. When he was there, they kept quiet, staring ahead at their screens or making pointless phone calls. Anything to avoid meeting his eye and his anger.

  The Nikkei had ticked up two hundred points during the previous couple of days to six thousand seven hundred. This was still well short of the average level of eight thousand at which Martel had put on his bet. The two hundred points had released a little cash, which was welcome. But not nearly enough to meet the almost inevitable demands that were coming.

  Today was Wednesday. The last day of the month was the following Monday. On that day Bloomfield Weiss would revalue the JUSTICE notes. Unless the market was much higher, the revaluation would show a massive loss. Since Bloomfield Weiss had lent money to the Teton Fund to buy the notes in the first place, they would demand extra cash to make up for the fall in the value of their collateral. Five hundred million dollars’ worth, at least. Unless Martel had that cash ready, the Teton Fund would unravel within days. The consequences would be catastrophic for Martel. And not just for him; his positions were big enough that they could rock the whole financial system. The Japanese stock market would be hammered as Martel’s brokers scrambled to sell his positions to raise cash. This would only make the situation worse, the markets would panic and the Teton Fund’s losses would soon far exceed its capital. The brokers would lose hundreds of millions too. A bloodbath.

  Martel smiled wryly to himself. Maybe he would be remembered in history as the man who broke more than the euro. He could put a serious dent in the whole financial system.

  Five days. Vikram was on his way back from London and New York, but from what he had told Martel over the phone, there was no chance of doing any more derivatives with Bloomfield Weiss or anyone else. Two things could still happen to bail Martel out. Firstly, the Nikkei could rally a thousand points or so. Unlikely, but just possible. Or he could get enough money in the fund to meet Bloomfield Weiss’s demands for cash. That meant the Artsdalen Foundation had to come through with their promised three hundred million investment. If the market moved up a bit further, that might just cover it.

  Martel took a deep breath and called Freddie Langhauser in Zurich.

  ‘Jean-Luc. How’s it going?’ Langhauser had abandoned French and decided to treat Martel in the more informal American manne
r.

  ‘Great, Freddie, great. We’re winding up for a huge month next month. If you can get your guy in now, it would be perfect timing.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ said Freddie. ‘But as you know, they like to take their time.’

  ‘I really think we can hit twenty per cent next month,’ said Martel. ‘And that would be a terrific start.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Langhauser. ‘I do have one concern, though.’ He sounded hesitant. Martel closed his eyes. He knew what was coming. ‘There are some rumours going round the market.’

  ‘Rumours?’

  ‘Yes. That the Teton Fund has a massive position in Japanese equities. And that you are sitting on large losses.’

  Martel forced a laugh. ‘There are always rumours about us, you know that. People are jealous.’

  ‘So there’s nothing in these rumours, then?’

  ‘Well, I don’t deny we have a big position. That’s how we’re going to make the big returns next month. And it’s true that the Japanese market has gone down. But it’s becoming more volatile by the day, and high volatility is good for us. Many of our trades involve options and, as you know, when volatility goes up the price of options goes up. That’s exactly where the hidden value in the fund is.’

  ‘I see,’ said Langhauser.

  Freddie Langhauser wasn’t an options trader, but a private banker. Options theory scared the hell out of most bankers, with its Greek alphabet, its calculus and its impenetrable jargon. Martel was confident that the fact that high volatility was bad for the JUSTICE notes would escape him.

  ‘There’s still time,’ said Martel. ‘If your client can commit to the funds by Monday, we’ll let them in at the month-end price.’

  It would be tight, but it should be just possible to get the Artsdalen money to Bloomfield Weiss in time.