The City Dealer

by Neil Rowland

  “We can do something,” Clive argued. “If we can remember where I’ve stored this data and information. Where in hell did I put it all? Is it possible to retrieve it?”

  “Clive, I keep telling you, that I don’t have the least idea,” Pixie admitted.

  “Or if that info is really lost now forever - in the clouds... if that’s the case then so am I. So are we. I’ve dragged you into this black hole after me,” he apologised.

  Pixie was suddenly drained of breathe and colour. “Sep’s team didn’t know you’d hacked his systems. He was back at work, buzzing around the trading floor as usual, hopping from one desk to another. But in the evening, when many of the guys were leaving, he called me back in. He’d started to worry about the deal, because he wanted to ask further questions.”

  “What did he want? He suspected you?” Pitt asked.

  “Hardly. He was trying to confide his troubles.”

  “Why would he want to do that?” Clive wondered.

  “He needed to speak to someone. I’m the daughter he wished to have. Ironic,” she said, “as my parents disowned me. Anyway that’s how Sep rationalises his fondness for me. That’s how he rationalises his wish to be near me,” she explained.

  “The old bugger. Is that because you are close to me?” he countered.

  “I’m literally a canary in the cage. Anyway he adopted a considerate tone with me. Whatever we may think of him he’s incredibly driven. Of course he is ruthless. It’s ancestral. He had a fixed idea that you want to ruin him. He explained how sensitive, secret files had been copied. This theft had the potential to throw us out of our jobs, he warned.”

  “He surely knew I was the guy responsible,” Pitt argued.

  “Obviously Sep had suspicions about you. Your behaviour pattern was irregular. He heard about your ethical objections...rumours and hunches don’t remain secret. He doubted that you were to be trusted. On consulting with ZNT he decided to employ heavier tactics.”

  “Oh right, so exactly what tactics did they employ?” Pitt enquired, trying to get on top of his nerves.

  “You may remember the thick necks? The guys who tried to teach you a fatal lesson? They rounded on you, in a toilet at the football ground. They caught up with you just before half time, when you popped down for a wee,” she recalled.

  “You’re pulling my leg?” he said. “They worked me over in the toilets, at a footie match? Definitely qualifies as dirty ‘tactics’,” Pitt said, disgusted.

  “A premier football game, I think you told me. You got a pair of complementary tickets...a seat in their hospitality area. I didn’t want to go with you. They kicked and punched you to an inch of your life.”

  “Bloody hell, as bad as that?” he considered.

  “The police and stewards thought you were the random victim of hooligans. You know, rival football fans. If the wrong people found your body, then it could be passed off as murder. But probably your enemies didn’t intend anyone to find you.”

  “This is incredible,” he declared. His stomach was in his mouth, just to hear about this afterwards. “That explains the gouge under my eye, do you see?” he demonstrated.

  “A couple of fans at the game tried to intervene. They managed to save your life. But they were also beaten up... though not as badly. You were in the general hospital for a month. There were stories on the news about this. Because there isn’t mindless thuggery at top games anymore, they argued. But then there aren’t any security cameras in the loos,” she pointed out.

  Clive made an astonished face. “You’re confident that Sep knew about this? That he organised this attack?”

  “I don’t think he organised that. He commented that it was suitable punishment. Probably his powerful friends were behind the assault. He was concerned about media coverage.”

  “He’s a charming old gentleman isn’t he!” Pitt said.

  “He argued that you required a psychiatrist, not a doctor. They said you’d probably suffered a breakdown. Your colleagues claimed you were paranoid. You had a persecution complex.”

  “This beating could explain my memory loss,” Clive observed.

  “That’s definitely a good theory,” Pixie agreed.

  “But there are other theories. Otherwise you wouldn’t be taking a blood sample.”

  “Our colleagues were full of praise for Winchurch... because he agreed to treat you at his private hospital. You were put into the hospital. You stayed there for weeks. Then suddenly you came back to work again.”

  “You are saying that I didn’t lose my job?” Clive asked, amazed.

  “Sep gained credit for retaining you.”

  “I reckon there was already enough scandal... without firing me,” he argued.

  “Sep wanted to keep an eye on you.”

  “But how could he tolerate the risk?” Pitt wondered.

  “Don’t we live with risk... don’t we gamble every day? Don’t we get a buzz out of it? They didn’t want to be another Lehman’s. At other times you sat in our area, staring blankly at your monitors, talking to yourself... refusing to speak to anybody.”

  “You’re painting a lovely picture. I had already suffered a terrible alteration of personality.”

  “One afternoon you got into a heated argument with Spence. Again it was your obsessive hatred for the deal. In the end you put your hands under a desk and threw everything over. There was a terrific rumpus at this stage. A pile of guys jumped on you and tried to restrain you. But you’d somehow got the strength. You were a man possessed... by a sense of outrage I suppose.”

  “Bloody hell,” he murmured. “Just as well I can’t remember this.”

  “Security was called, although you’d fled the building.”

  “They regarded this as my resignation?” Clive suggested.

  “We didn’t see you again until the garden party.”

  “The garden party again,” he commented. “Why would he invite his staff to his country estate? Did he ever ask you before?”

  “Well he was not thrilled to see you. We all know what took place in the woods after that,” Pixie said.

  “What is alleged to have happened,” Clive reminded her.

  “Something happened. Emmy and you are the only people who know the truth...unless there was somebody else lurking about there.”

  “Right. Is that possible?” he said. “Do you think it was a set up?”

  “But I should go into the office as normal. There I will try to meet with Sep about this. Gauge his attitude to the whole affair, at this point,” she offered.

  “Did you say I was sent to his private hospital?”

  “You may have escaped from the hospital, when I saw you last.”

  “On Friday afternoon, do you mean?” he said.

  “But I can visit Emmy and talk to her about you. So that we can get her version of events. It’s the only way forward,” she argued.

  “You can’t be late for the office today,” he remarked.

  “No, but first of all I want some of your blood.”

  Clive gave a jump. “Now we’re talking.”

  PART TWO

  22

  Pixie scrutinised her monitors all morning; secretly distracted, edgy; trying to maintain her trained composure. Her nerves flickered and shunted along with the figures across her multiple screens.

  The idea of visiting Sep’s daughter proved difficult to achieve. She felt intimidated by the usual hustling atmosphere; as if colleagues knew she was back in touch with Pitt.

  Septimus Winchurch himself kept secluded in his office suite for much of the morning, which was not typical. She could picture him in conference with managers and shareholders around the world, picking at the details of the takeover again; or the potential evidence. She saw him in efforts to manage the crisis
of Pitt’s shocking reappearance; as well as to calculate consequences and limit damage. Most likely he glimpsed his own potential financial end game and wanted to freeze Clive in his tracks.

  Later the boss resumed his active habits and looked apparently buoyant. Sep dashed across the room, conferring with staff around their work stations, gripping reports (harmless ones) as was his alarming custom. Following the successful issue last year, which had protected the firm’s viability, he was freshly enthused by work; the markets were stabilised, liquidity restored. Somehow the year’s ugly confrontations with Pitt, and the nasty side-effects on his private life, hadn’t interfered with a renewed hunger for professional life. He hadn’t lost his appetite for money. The whole point was to make millions in profit, as a pub wishes to sell beer.

  Pixie kept a wary eye on him, but it was difficult to find a moment to approach. Wouldn’t any leading questions arouse the boss’ suspicion? What was her motive for visiting Emmy in hospital now, after weeks had passed? It was common knowledge that Pitt had surfaced again, threatening collateral damage. The man’s character had been assassinated, multiple times, yet he came back for more; he was a topic of contempt, ridicule and even fear. Rumours and gossip would start up about her too, Pixie Wright, the head and shoulders girl, even though there was little to go on. Her colleagues would misconstrue the little information they possessed about Pitt and she together, like an unfounded profits warning.

  However, it was Sep himself who approached and requested to speak to her confidentially. He came out of his suite and placed himself shiftily at her desk: “Can I ask for a chat with you Miss Wright?” he said. He maintained his paternal smile for everybody, but his eyes dashed around the floor. Sep felt other eyes on him and was concerned about the impression, nothing went unnoticed.

  In a shy but peremptory way he gestured her towards his sanctum. Once she’d gathered her bag, a cardigan and even her coat - as if stalling -she followed his portly form and looked about anxiously herself. She told herself not to worry, arguing that it wasn’t such a big deal to be invited to the boss’ office? She had to consult with him regularly, like everybody else, as this was his style.

  Once she turned up at his office, past a high security PA, Sep invited her to sit in front of him. The visitors’ couch offered any half recumbent guest impressive, satanic vistas across the city, directly over the boss’ shoulder. This put the visitor at a nervous disadvantage, because at this angle Septimus was in partial darkness and silhouette. Such apparent luxury and generosity disadvantaged rivals. Indeed this position had views right across the square mile below, stretching towards Wren’s monument, that lofty marker to a re-born London. The impression was that the whole area was largely owned by Sir Septimus and his peers or cronies, yet this was as illusory as a British owned chocolate bar.

  “Forgive me for calling you away,” he began. “How do the markets look today?” he asked, making small talk. Then a change of tack: “I fear that your sighting of that dreadful Yorkshire man continues to plague my mind. You did, Pixie, didn’t you, inform our detectives about everything you learnt that day. You gave them all the information you have about that arrogant chap, when they interviewed you again?”

  Septimus rested his emollient, eager brown eyes on her. This zeal reflected in the glass table top, as his diminutive stature produced a low posture in a plump leather swing chair. There was a pair of half-moon spectacles on a pile of paperwork, but he only wore them to read or study. His glance was equal to hers only because of the seating. He resembled a pampered schoolboy with premature ageing, with a wavy silver quiff; in possession of brilliant and tragic talents.

  “I informed the team of everything I know,” she assured him. “I didn’t withhold anything in my knowledge. I was open with them about all available facts. Why should I be secretive? A man like that can mean nothing to me.”

  The financier leaned short sharp elbows on the expansive glass top. He thought carefully, then compressed his soft skinned, wrinkled face and smiled paternally at the young woman. “Certainly that’s good sense. There’s no-one who wouldn’t strangle Pitt now, to stop him. He can have few hiding places left, I imagine. Nobody is willing to hide that deviant scoundrel, unless they are entirely ignorant of the whole affair.”

  “Why are you continually obsessing about him?” Pixie remarked.

  There was an ironical twinkle as he absorbed her idea. “He’s still at large, isn’t he? He remains an unpredictable danger.”

  “Didn’t you say that he has nowhere to hide?” She feigned naïve ambiguity.

  “We need to draw a line under this affair,” he stated. He couldn’t avoid a readjustment of his seating position, whenever he raised his tongued brogues from the floor. “We’ve been complacent.”

  “Then what have you got to be afraid of?” she replied lightly.

  “I want to ensure you aren’t omitting something...that you don’t think is important... but which may be... in helping us to locate and eliminate... his potential influence,” Winchurch argued. Wide lips raised into a dry smile, to reveal blocked teeth for a moment. His large clasped hands knocked the table top in punctuation.

  “There are no conscious gaps in my account,” Pixie insisted. She kept her knees primly crossed and gazed at him with a sweetly neutral expression. She had perfected this with Madame Briest in Geneva, whenever she had slipped out illegally to meet local friends in the old town; including her forbidden lover.

  “You’re not feeling under any form of pressure are you Miss Wright?”

  “Nothing but the tension of sitting in my boss’ office,” she replied.

  “Hah, indeed.” Sep relaxed his shoulders and laughed reassuringly. “You sometimes have such a charming way of responding,” he said. “But you’ll tell me if you feel any danger from Pitt himself?” he pressed. “We shan’t let him get at you!”

  “Not from Pitt. Absolutely not,” she said. “I told your private detectives everything I knew last Friday.”

  This alerted the shrewd Winchurch and suspicion rippled over his brow. His head was large for his body with a forehead shaped like an anvil. “Who could have imagined Pitt turning up here again last week? Apparently he may have been sneaking about the City for weeks...or months. Where on earth did he disappear to? After he evaded us? Do you have any ideas?”

  “I’ve no idea where he might have been,” Pixie replied.

  “Do you imagine the scoundrel was doing consultancy work for a rival of ours?” he considered.

  The cunning, penetrating eyes settled on her confidingly again, above that violent ripple of curls; the ears pushing through, quite large and fleshy, but trim as pound signs. His gaze was forced on her by his lack of height; there was just a fat knot of silk tie between his chin and the glass top. Yet he had trained himself to look dominantly upwards, rather than to incline backwards, as could be the world view for many shorter men.

  “Did you ever expect to see Pitt again? What a nasty surprise for you.”

  “No. I don’t suppose that I did,” she admitted.

  “You thought he was already dead?” he pressed, as if shocked.

  “I thought that, most likely, you would have him arrested. I expected to see a charge, a court appearance and conviction. If we ever saw him again, it would literally be in prison... a secure unit.”

  “Patience, my dear. Are you saying you’d actually visit him in prison?” he replied.

  “But if I was convinced by circumstances, then I would have no motive to see Clive again,” she explained. She tried not to be distracted by the outside vistas, which led her eye as far as the Shard.

  “Are you certain he didn’t betray any clues? About his current activities? Or concerning his present whereabouts?” Sep toyed with an arm of his spectacles.

  “Only that he disappeared along the street,” she said.

  “Thank
s for the directions, Miss Wright,” he commented. “We first lost him after that atrocity against my family, you understand. Then on Friday he reveals himself, for no apparent reason. He escaped again in the middle of treatment, and then showed right outside this building,” he fumed. “We thought we had him safely under lock and key.”

  A ring of curiosity rippled her tone. “Is that so?”

  “Our colleagues at ZNT lost him somewhere on Friday evening apparently. Yes indeed. Try to rack your brains, Miss Wright. What could he be up to? Was there something about his appearance? His look? Any single clue may be vital,” Sep told her.

  “Clive seemed unaware of taking any risk. He appeared disorientated... or oblivious to past happenings. Literally like an innocent man.”

  But Pixie took the new information that ZNT agents were trying to find Clive.

  “Miss Wright, fanciful speculations are of little value,” he objected.

  Pixie’s eyes narrowed against her will. “Can you dismiss these ideas, after he was beaten to within an inch of his life?”

  “What should you care? How do you know?” Sep wondered. “Do you imagine that sanctimonious traitor deserves even an inch of his life?”

  Pixie fought to stifle a reaction. “Blows to the head may have affected his judgement, not to mention his behaviour. How can you be sure he was in control of himself?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him to deny everything,” Sep remarked, shuffling. “He is smart enough to offer us some elaborate plot...to justify himself.”

  “Even the judge and jury would listen to his side of the story,” Pixie said.

  “Pitt destroyed the life of a beautiful young girl in the process. My daughter, I mean... that’s who we are talking about,” he added bitterly. “Emmy had her whole life in front of her. She’s missed all her exams this year. He is guilty of the terrible offence we accuse him of... this outrage against my family. You should know better, if you want to let him get away with it. Not even in his own twisted mind.”

  The financier’s cheeks and eyes puffed with rising blood, as he see-sawed on his padded chair.