Dave Hart Omnibus II

by David Charters

  From the podium, Jones announced the time: ‘Gentlemen, the clock starts ticking now. Good luck and good hunting!’

  There was a crash as someone knocked over a chair in the race to leave the hall and rush for the grounds. When the final competitor had left the hall, Jones stepped down from the stage and approached a small group who had remained seated. He called over to a couple of individuals who had also stayed at the back of the hall.

  They reluctantly made their way forward and sat with the others. Jones looked at them.

  ‘Is there anyone else who’s not here, who’s decided not to take part in today’s events?’

  Mike Pearson replied, ‘Sure – Nick Moran, who covers Australia, went off to call some clients. And Richard Morse went for a kip.’

  Jones nodded.

  ‘Okay, well could I ask you to do me a favour and have them called down here to join us? And order some coffee while you’re at it.’

  For an instant it looked as if Pearson might simply refuse, but something about the bullet-headed marine with his close-cropped grey hair persuaded him to get up and head off towards reception. The rest sat in uneasy silence until coffee was served and the others had joined them.

  Jones stood in front of them, looking at each in turn, trying to weigh them up.

  ‘So… gentlemen. Do I take it you disapprove of my methods, or have you just worked out you don’t have a chance and given up?’

  No one was in a hurry to answer. A few of them stared out of the window, not bothering to hide their boredom. One or two developed a sudden interest in their nails or their shoes, and several stared directly at Jones, not bothering to conceal their hostility.

  ‘Have you lost your tongues?’

  He was looking angry, eyeing them each in turn, as if looking for someone to attack.

  ‘Well…’ It was Nick Moran, managing to look characteristically relaxed, while at the same time conveying an air of insolence bordering on surliness. ‘I guess some of us might just think that being a good investment banker doesn’t necessarily involve chasing round the grounds of a stately home trying to solve riddles. Some of us might just think that executive games like that are bollocks invented by idiots who’ve never done a real investment banking deal in their lives.’

  Jones stared directly at him.

  ‘Most of your colleagues don’t agree with you – they’re out there now, endeavouring to justify their positions in this department.’

  Moran snorted.

  ‘Most of my colleagues need to – they wouldn’t get a job at another investment bank in a month of Sundays.’

  Jones raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  ‘Do you always stab your colleagues in the back?’

  Before Moran could answer, Mike Pearson intervened.

  ‘No – Nick normally stabs them in the front, though only when they deserve it. If people can’t take criticism, they’re never going to learn anything.’

  Jones was not put off.

  ‘So does that mean that you gentlemen don’t have anything to learn? Am I looking at the department’s closed minds, the ones who aren’t prepared to take a chance on trying something new?’

  ‘Not at all.’ It was Charles Egerton, eager to speak up alongside his friend. ‘If you look around the group in front of you, we probably account for seventy per cent of the department’s revenues. But we don’t get paid a quarter of the department’s bonus pool. Part of the crisis in this department is because Sir Oliver knows we’ll almost all be out of here as soon as the bonus is paid – because we’re the people who can leave. And by the way, we’ll mostly take our teams with us too.’

  Several of the others looked uncomfortable at Egerton’s candour, but none denied what he had said. Jones sighed and sat back into a leather armchair.

  ‘So, you gentlemen are the stars, is that right? You’re so smart that you do most of the business but don’t get rewarded for it. If that’s really true, why haven’t you left before now?’

  ‘Loyalty.’ It was Richard Morse, one of the youngest corporate finance directors, someone who in other circumstances might have been groomed to succeed Sir Oliver. ‘It may seem odd to you, coming from Wall Street, but most of us are pretty fond of this firm. We choose to stay here, we don’t have to. Most of those guys,’ he gestured towards the door, through which the shouts of their colleagues could be heard coming from the grounds, ‘Most of those guys don’t have a choice. That’s why they’re running around the grounds making arses of themselves, pretending to love it.’

  When Jones replied he sounded angrier, indeed almost out of control.

  ‘BULLSHIT!’ He stood and towered over Morse. ‘Those guys out there are doing what they’re told. I’m their boss and they’re doing what I told them. You guys, you’re… you’re… well!’ He was lost for words and threw his hands up in the air.

  ‘We’re trying.’ It was Pearson. ‘We don’t know you, other than by reputation, but by having this conversation at all we’re trying.’ He lent forward, desperate to get his point across to the older man. ‘We won’t go running round the grounds playing executive games. We won’t take part in role-playing exercises or self-analysis sessions. We won’t do yoga or run over assault courses. But we will do business! We know how to market to our clients, we know how to poach other firms’ clients. We know how to motivate the young guys. And we care about our people and the firm, even today after all that’s happened. No one here likes what’s happened over the past few years. The department’s accumulated too much dead wood, the market’s more and more competitive and we’re finding it harder to win business and to attract and keep the talent that we need. We care. But you can only bang your head against a brick wall for so long. That’s what Charles was saying to you. The great thing about banging your head against a brick wall is that it’s nice when you stop.’

  Jones sat down again and let out a long sigh. Then he reached inside his jacket pocket and got out a list of names. It was the personnel list for the division, sorted alphabetically by rank.

  ‘Gentlemen, kindly do me a favour and circle your names on the attached list.’ He handed it to Mike Pearson.

  Pearson took the list, got out a pen and looked around at the others. Jones caught the look and lent forward.

  ‘Please don’t be tempted to do anything stupid. Circle your own names, gentlemen.’

  Pearson circled his name, then handed the list to Charles Egerton, who did the same. He passed the list around until they had all identified themselves.

  Jones took the list, folded it and placed it back in his jacket pocket.

  ‘Thank you. Gentlemen, I’m sure you know what this means. Your actions today, the things you’ve said, simply confirm my own views about this department. You leave me no choice.’

  They looked around at each other glumly. They could sense what was coming.

  ‘I have no choice at all, except to fire…’ He was interrupted by the crashing of the outer door as the first teams to complete the exercise ran back into the hall, jostling with each other to be first back. They were red-faced, panting, sweating, several had mud stains on their trousers. They were all smiling, ingratiating, eager as puppies to be noticed. MacDonald pushed his way to the front, beaming and panting.

  ‘We’ve finished!’ he grinned, casting a malicious look at the seated group whom Jones was evidently confronting.

  ‘As I was saying,’ Jones continued, ‘you gentlemen leave me no choice but to fire…’ he paused and looked at the growing group of bankers crowding back into the hall, ‘… all of those useless, spineless, overpaid sycophants.’ He stood and turned to face the returning groups.

  ‘Gentlemen, all of you have successfully shown your mettle. Please go through to the dining hall, where personnel are waiting to process you.’ He looked at MacDonald, who was staring, speechless at what he had just heard. ‘Starting with you!’ He turned back to the group seated around him. ‘Those guys have it easy. You gentlemen don’t get off so lightly. The
rest of the weekend is going to be devoted to how we turn this department around. You –’ he pointed to Pearson, ‘– you will be my chief operating officer, with immediate effect. You –’ he pointed to Nick Moran, ‘– you will be my head of client coverage, with immediate effect. And you –’ he pointed to Charles Egerton, ‘– you will be head of industry sector coverage, with immediate effect. Gentlemen, welcome to the brave new world. And you’d better be as good as you damned well think you are!’

  Lawsuit

  SHE WALKED INTO his office, closing the door after her, and put his coffee on the desk in front of him. He barely acknowledged her presence, but carried on staring at the screen in front of him. Then she screamed. She screamed so loud that people heard her in all the offices nearby. He leapt to his feet, ran around the desk and held her by the shoulders.

  ‘Good God, what’s wrong? Calm down! CALM DOWN!’

  She carried on screaming.

  The door burst open and several people rushed in, two of them secretaries from next door, one a graduate trainee who just happened to be passing, and worst of all, his boss, the head of the compliance department. Others were peering round the door, anxious to know what had happened.

  ‘He…he…touched me,’ she blubbed, tears starting to run down her cheeks.

  ‘What?!’ He stared at her, incredulous. ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘George, let me handle this.’ Martin Wadham, the group head of compliance, stepped forward and took George by the arm. ‘Go and wait in my office, please, old chap.’

  He turned to the still crying secretary, who was being comforted by her friends. She was a pretty black girl, probably in her mid-twenties. He had often seen her around the office, but could not recall her name.

  ‘Why don’t you take her to the sick room? I’ll get my secretary to call a doctor.’

  George was crying.

  ‘I don’t believe it. I just do not believe it. She can’t be saying that. It’s just not true. Three years she’s been working for me. Three years! I’ve always been fair. I may not be very communicative, but I’m a lawyer, and you know as well as I do that compliance is a pretty dry old subject.’

  Wadham looked at him thoughtfully from behind his desk. ‘George, we’ve known each other for ten years, and I believe you and trust your judgement. But George, I have to ask you one thing, and I understand if you prefer to have a solicitor present, but… well, dammit, we’re friends, George, and I need to know. Did you do or say anything that might have been misconstrued?’

  George looked at him, speechless. And then he broke down, sobbing and holding his head in his hands.

  It was worse when he got home. He and his wife had never been as physically close as he would have liked, and that side of their relationship had died altogether once it was apparent that they could not have children. They were formal, almost distant with one another.

  ‘George, these things don’t just happen! She isn’t stupid. I know that much from when I’ve called your office. She’s sharp and she’s always seemed very level-headed. What exactly did you do?’

  He was speechless. He stared at her, incredulous. And then he started to cry again, and in a fit of rage he hurled his whisky glass across the room, so that it smashed against the far wall.

  ‘That does it. George Mallows, I’m calling the police. You’re unstable. I’m not staying in this house with a lunatic.’

  He took another glass from the cabinet and poured himself an enormous whisky.

  ‘Do what you want,’ he said, slumping into an armchair. His expression was utterly desolate, and for a moment she almost softened, but then she looked at the smashed glass, and the whisky soaking into the carpet, and she strode from the room for the hall phone.

  ‘Christ, George, you look a mess. Where are you staying?’

  ‘I’m still at home, but Diane’s moved out. She’s gone to her sister. God, this is grim. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.’

  The two of them were sitting in the directors’ dining room. It was unusually quiet, and none of their colleagues had joined them.

  ‘How’s Wadham been?’

  ‘Supportive up to a point. He’s taken most of my workload off me. To be frank, I’d rather be busier. I just don’t know what I’m going to do next.’

  ‘Is she suing?’

  ‘Yes, she’s got some hot-shot employment lawyer on the case – sexual harassment, sex discrimination, racial discrimination, the whole thing. She was keeping a diary, and she’s handed it over to the lawyers. It’s all made up, of course, but who will they believe? I just don’t know any more.’

  After lunch he returned to his office. Two technicians were at his desk, with Wadham. They had plugged something into the back of his computer and were busy downloading something into a laptop.

  Wadham looked up almost guiltily.

  ‘Oh, George, I’m sorry to trouble you with this, but we need to double-check one or two things. It’s just a formality, of course, but we have to be certain, you understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t understand.’

  He turned to one of the technicians. ‘What are you doing?’

  The technician looked at him curiously, unsure what to say. He looked at Wadham, who nodded.

  ‘We’re checking your Internet access. Compliance doesn’t operate within the normal firewall, you have unrestricted Internet access. We’re checking which sites you’ve visited.’

  ‘Good God! Get out of here now, all of you. Go on, out! OUT NOW!’

  They were stunned by the ferocity of his response.

  Wadham stepped forward.

  ‘Look, steady on, George, we have to do this. We don’t have a choice. The bank has to protect its own position.’

  ‘I don’t care about the bank. I don’t care about you. Just get the hell out of my office!’

  When they had gone, he sat at his desk and stared out of the window. There was a discreet tap at the door.

  ‘Come.’

  A young man entered, probably in his early twenties, fair-haired, dressed in a suit and tie.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Mallows. I’m Shane Willis. I’m your temporary secretary while things are.. er… up in the air.’

  George’s scream echoed down the hallway. He picked his computer up and threw it across the room. Then he tipped the desk over and pulled over his filing cabinet, showering papers everywhere. He picked up armfuls of files labelled ‘Confidential Personnel Records – Compliance’ and went to the window. He opened it, threw the files out into the air, and watched them fall the seven floors to the street below. The young man ran from the room, calling ‘Mister Wadham! Mister Wadham!’

  ‘What can we do about George?’

  Wadham sat uneasily at the big conference table in the chairman’s office. Sir Oliver was fixing him with an icy stare.

  ‘Well, sir, it’s very tricky. If we go to an employment tribunal we shall almost certainly lose. The odds are always stacked against us, and in this case they’ll play the race card as well as sexual harassment. Apparently she’s even considering criminal charges as well.’

  ‘Good God.’ Sir Oliver got up and went to stand in front of the giant picture window, looking out over the City.

  ‘How long has George been with us?’

  ‘Seventeen years. He’s fifty-two. He’s not a high-flyer, but he’s been a good, solid performer. Until this happened, I would have said he was completely reliable.’

  ‘Is there anything else I should know?’

  ‘Well, there is one thing, Sir Oliver.’ Wadham hesitated.

  ‘What is it? Speak up, man!’

  Wadham sighed. ‘This is difficult. We got the IT department to check his Internet access. We can’t say for sure that this was him, you understand – he says he leaves his terminal on all the time, even when he’s not in his office – but someone has been accessing some pretty tasteless websites from his terminal.’

  ‘Oh dear. That doesn’t look very good, does it?’
/>   ‘It doesn’t. He denies everything, of course.’

  ‘Well he would, wouldn’t he? This is a tricky one. What’s his mental state like?’

  ‘Pretty bad. His wife’s left him. I’ve sent him home on longterm gardening leave. He’s seeing his doctor for depression. I visited him at home to see for myself, and he’s in an awful state. The place is a mess and he’d been drinking heavily when I saw him. I think he’s very nearly lost the plot altogether.’

  Sir Oliver turned back from the window.

  ‘All right. We’ll settle. We don’t need any more publicity like this. Instruct our lawyers to find out what it’ll cost us. What about George?’

  ‘Well, he’s three years short of retirement. We could offer him early retirement. We could make a financial settlement, pay him out on his stock options, a generous package for loss of bonus, we could come up with something that would work.’

  ‘Make it generous. I don’t want any of this to get out.’

  George stood by the front door, smiling.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said, handing the keys to the young couple. ‘I hope you’ll be as happy here as I was.’

  They turned to see a car pulling into the drive.

  ‘Ah, that’s my lift. I must be going. Good luck, I hope you’re really happy here.’

  He took his suitcase and put it in the boot of the car. Then he got into the passenger seat. The driver was a young black woman.

  George waved as the car pulled away, and turned to the driver.

  ‘How are you, darling?’

  He leant across and patted her stomach.

  ‘And how’s my son?’

  She smiled.

  ‘He’s doing fine. And if he’s as cool an operator as his mum and dad, he’ll go a long way.’

  Words

  THE HEADLINE IN the Evening Standard read, ‘Barton’s Fat Cats Purr.’ The firm had had a monster year, and over a hundred ‘top performers’ had received bonuses that broke the magical million-pound barrier. On the equity trading side, the firm had for once not been ‘long and wrong’ – owning shares in a falling market – but on the contrary had somehow done everything right. Their profits in a constantly rising market had been so great that the firm had even tried to massage the numbers down by writing off bad debts and bringing forward expend iture on such essentials as a new corporate jet and the refur bish ment of the top floor, where the chairman and the board had their offices. Just before Christmas, the senior traders had been called in to the head of the equity division one by one to receive the sort of bonus which even they found hard to complain about.