The City Dealer

by Neil Rowland

  Pitt had been kept in this renovated hospital complex while business had been concluded without him between the buy and sell sides.

  “Which medical conditions are treated here, exactly?” Pixie wondered.

  They stepped out into the burning breeze, and began to traverse the parking lot.

  “People in distress...as it were, suffering from nervous disorders... severe shock and trauma. Patients may be the victims of serious crime, like Emmy, suffering psychological damage. Or they could also even be criminals...yes, certainly, with mental or behavioural disorders, from home or abroad. Never thought I’d be supporting a hospital that would one day treat my own daughter,” Sep observed.

  “Do you mean that it’s a kind of sanatorium?” she suggested.

  “You mean, as they have in Switzerland? No, nothing like that. Not in the old fashioned sense,” he explained testily. He got into his rapid energetic stride, while Pixie politely constrained her step. But he wasn’t his typical cheerful, optimistic and energised self.

  They cut between velvety green lawns, beds of fleshy roses and clouds of late summer flowers. The farm lands and fields were blanched under a shimmering haze. Rows of horse chestnut trees - once a splendid guard to the driveway - were now leafless, as if in the depths of winter. Lines of oak trees were like burnt corpses at the sides of the road.

  A cinder path took the oddly matched pair along a modern outbuilding, housing two new units. These wooden constructions resembled an extended chalet, very much influenced by the Swiss style. She wondered if the architecture was influenced by members of the Geneva based hedge fund.

  They came into a similarly styled reception area, where a group of medical personnel were already waiting for them in a huddle. They immediately recognised Sir Septimus, as their friendly and excited faces exhibited.

  “Good afternoon to you all. Such a pleasure again! This is my visitor, Pixie Wright. This talented young lady is a trader for me, a superb analyst... in market risk and credit...formerly on our China desk. Yes, she’s on a visit this afternoon. Doctor Morran suggested that it would be therapeutic for Emmy to see another girl. So where is the good doctor presently? Attending his daily round?”

  “I paged him,” replied a male nurse. The guy shuffled, coloured and stared at the floor.

  “Then page him again,” Winchurch remarked. He gazed evenly at Pixie as if he found her pleasantly distracting.

  Pixie stood still, statuesque, hiding her nerves, as the situation required. Her loyalties were as divided as chopped wood. She hid her thoughts by fiddling with her Jaeger suit buttons and nudging her lozenge of ash blonde hair. Somehow the ceiling felt oppressively low, the entrance too narrow and out of reach, although objectively the space was proportionate.

  This tense mood was broken when the doctor arrived. This was Doctor Morran, a stork-tall, stooping man, with lank sandy hair to rounded shoulders. His eyes were magnified behind heavy glasses and as melancholy as a hangman’s. He kept his counsel, pink fingers tucked into a regulation white coat. A theatrical stethoscope dangled pink and rubbery from his neck.

  “Doctor! How is my little girl today?” Winchurch enquired.

  “Very much making excellent progress, sir,” Dr Morran answered.

  “Good news. Good news. Is she still in the mood for a visitor? You think she will be able to cope with a new face?”

  The doctor’s lugubrious eyes sharpened with interest as he noticed Pixie. “Charmed! Very charmed to see you, I’m sure. Is this a young lady friend of yours, Sir Septimus?” he leered, with a lick across is long top lip.

  Winchurch was taken aback. “Miss Wright works for me in the City. Do you suspect me of taking out beautiful young ladies? Only once, Morran,” he qualified, “and she became my good lady wife. Oh yes, she and I met as undergraduates at St Andrews in Edinburgh. Did you know that, Pixie?”

  Pixie gripped her favourite handbag and offered a smile at the correct intensity.

  Doctor Morran coughed awkwardly and, painfully, extracted his gaze from the figure of Pixie. “Shall we proceed then, Sir Septimus, and make enquiries as to whether your daughter, and our patient, little Emmy, is ready to converse with this lovely interlocutor?”

  “Why certainly doctor, lead the way... whatever you say,” the banker offered, spreading his arms.

  “Your daughter has been put under gentle sedation. For her own benefit you should understand,” Morran said, heading towards an initial corridor. “Her standard nightmares persist as she continues to relive bad experiences. These nightmares happen, and her psyche then attempts to process negative images. To assimilate these traumas within her socialised ego, as well as to reconstruct a stable idea of selfhood.”

  “For sure, your work is most impressive. You are the master of your specialism. I’m very proud to lend my name here. A close relationship with this hospital is one positive outcome from my daughter’s ordeal. I have full confidence that you will mend her, and she’ll come out like a new girl.”

  “Indeed, that’s positive, because after her ordeal, shock and negative consequences were to be expected,” Morran said. He carefully led the way, picking off the antiseptic tiles with his grasshopper legs. “There are malign, negative and unhelpful thought patterns in this child, which we see through the scanner, lighting up those affected areas of her neo cortex.”

  “Impressive, although I don’t think these effects are going to wear off quickly,” said Winchurch, almost skipping along between them.

  “Anger, recrimination, hostility, upset. Mental disturbances of the frontal lobes, yes indeed, difficult to expunge. At this clinic we offer radical therapies, revolutionary treatments.”

  “All very impressive research. These breakthroughs are exactly what we fund you... to achieve,” Sep replied.

  “Yet conversely we do not shy away from pharmaceutical intervention. Especially as BIP is the world’s leading producer of psychiatric drugs. We possess a growing chemical arsenal in fact, to combat the range of traumas and mental conflicts... yes, suffered either personally or socially,” he explained, monotonously.

  “Quite so, very interesting doctor. Follow along, Pixie.”

  “At the Sir Septimus Winchurch we are able to test many of the new products that come from BIP laboratories. Nature’s healing has never been so enhanced... or so revolutionised. Without these radical innovations, as one can say, in mental health care... well, then your daughter, for instance, would not, I stress not, recover as you should expect ...or as efficaciously,” Dr Morran insisted.

  “No doubt you are performing miracles, doctor,” the banker concurred.

  “We have the resources to discover the human brain, as explorers of past centuries discovered continents and then planets,” Dr Morran explained.

  “I notice that the majority of your patients are young. And there seem to be a number of women,” Pixie remarked.

  “How did you notice this?” Winchurch replied, not suspiciously.

  “In passing I looked into rooms and wards,” she admitted. “Don’t you care for any older people at the institution?”

  “Your observation is perfect, Miss,” responded the doctor. “But it is pure coincidence.”

  “Indeed Pixie is a very perceptive young lady,” Winchurch agreed, keeping up.

  “The majority of our guests are indeed young. They are also living, which is no more relevant. Many of them by chance are female. We don’t treat inmates differently according to age or gender. Only conditions or syndromes vary. It follows rationally that categories are admitted for treatment, according to procedures conducted here... at the ZNT Sir Septimus Winchurch Hospital,” he said proudly.

  “So older people don’t suffer from mental illness, according to this logic?” Pixie guessed.

  “Well, we do not age select, young woman. There are men of all ages in L
Section. Or the subject of mental conditions, as a result of damaging experiences, leading into criminal, deviant or degenerate behaviour... or actions,” he explained.

  “That description covers your former boyfriend,” Sep remarked.

  “You once had him here as a patient, didn’t you? Don’t you remember that name? A certain Mr Pitt, you surely know,” she persisted.

  “Pixie, my dear girl, this is hardly the time. Dr Morran would not remember Pitt,” insisted her boss. “He was quickly patched up and sent off again. Why should my doctors waste treatment on that clog-town radical?”

  “What sort of patch do they apply at this hospital?” Pixie dared.

  “What exactly are you referring to?” the banker returned, turning up his eyes challengingly.

  “No, indeed we would not remember him,” said Dr Morran.

  “There you are Pixie, this guy was nothing out of the usual.”

  “We focus on self-victims and international volunteers. Anyway I am a psychiatrist and neurologist, not an admissions assistant, Miss.”

  “You promote yourselves as a psychiatric hospital, even as a research institute. You told me that you’re at the edge of medical research. Yet you seriously claim that you don’t keep full patient records,” concluded Pixie. “You erase them from your database as soon as they depart?”

  Her legs wobbled as she risked these questions. The momentum of their bustling group helped to keep her upright. They reached the end of one corridor and turned into yet another.

  “We maintain a comprehensive individual record on every patient checked in,” the doctor retorted. “They are accessible to all senior staff here.”

  “Pitt was never a patient here in the conventional sense,” Sep argued.

  “Really? But he was subjected to treatment,” she replied. “Were you trying to help him? What exactly did you do to him?”

  “What do you care?” Sep shot back.

  “I care about what really happened to him here.”

  The financier was not willing to answer her questions. “May I remind you about the purpose of today’s visit?” he told her.

  “Your daughter has always been a troublesome patient, sir,” Morran commented. “We shall need your signature again before you leave.”

  “Trouble has been my daughter’s middle name,” Sep remarked.

  “Emmy has problems of control, in the private and public spheres, especially when she isn’t medicated. She definitely has a mind of her own. For instance she continually enquires about all medicines and treatments, that she receives here. So there are issues of trust and obedience. She’s a bit of a tomboy, if I may say so, as a matter of fact,” Morran argued.

  “All right, but a tough and resilient personality will help her to recover,” Pixie argued.

  “Let’s hope that you are right,” said her father. “She needs to wake up her ideas, if she wants a happy and successful future.”

  Pixie was unimpressed. “Wouldn’t she be better off at home with family and friends?”

  “She deserves special treatment,” the financier argued.

  “Maybe you should have second thoughts then, for her sake.”

  “Young lady let’s pause here for a while. Let’s sit on the couch here, shall we? That’s right, make yourself comfortable. Be my guest. Stay here with us, Doctor Morran. Let us explain and go through a few points, with Pixie here.”

  “I prefer a vigilant and considered posture,” the doctor replied.

  “As you will, my brilliant friend... but simply listen to my analysis.”

  “All right, Pixie, let’s cast our minds back, shall we? Don’t you remember that fateful evening clearly?” Sep asked, settling on the seat next to her.

  She was huddled, with hands on her knees. “But it would depend on what you mean by ‘clearly’,” Pixie replied.

  The doctor stood about, icy and gloating, flanked by two impatient psychiatric nurses.

  “What were your feelings or impressions of that day?” Sep persisted.

  “I was shocked. I remember Emmy running back to the house. After that my memory is hazy. My thoughts were shooting in every direction.”

  “That’s understandable, Pix,” Sep commented. He patted her arm reassuringly. “All my guests had gone back into the house. Best place for them. We were missing my daughter. Then you returned distraught and explained how you’d seen Pitt going off with her. I should have sent out an alert immediately. I didn’t expect Pitt to show up at our party and behave like that?”

  “Security was light. Why was that?” she replied.

  “But it was too late. Pitt had apparently vanished. The only other guy in the vicinity was my head gardener. He’d be too occupied with horse manure to intervene. We could only sip our drinks politely, knowing something dreadful had happened, yet hoping for the best. Then, as we gazed out over the patio, my wife and I noticed a naked figure running across the lawn... tripping over the knot garden...and gradually we recognised our Emmy. She was crying, her hair wild, and her torso bloody... she was like some horrible ghost, some dread come back to haunt me. Imagine my horror at seeing our child in that state. How do you feel about Clive Pitt in that regard?” he wondered.

  Pixie was disconcerted. “It’s a painful memory.” She kept her gaze on the blankness of that highly fired floor surface.

  “When the ambulance finally arrived I directed the medics to take her here, to the ZNT hospital, named after me,” Sep explained.

  “The perfect institution,” Dr Morran remarked, with a modest smirk.

  “The worst night of my life,” Winchurch insisted.

  “You plan to keep Emmy here indefinitely?” Pixie interjected.

  “Only until she feels much better.”

  “As soon as intervention records a measurable improvement,” Morran confirmed.

  “When she’s able to resume her normal life,” her father clarified.

  “You are not going to talk to the police... even now?” Pixie concluded.

  “I have explained my reasons, for not involving the police,” Sep reminded her.

  “Isn’t that irregular?” she asked. She heard the echo of her voice stifled along the long brittle corridor.

  “Do you think your old love, Mr Pitt, always sticks to the rules?”

  “All right, but I’m surprised that you trust so much in private security companies,” she replied.

  “Why? I’ve got the very best people for the job,” he insisted. “Even our friend Viktor needs to protect himself. He’s a high profile figure, not least in the world of fashion. He’s terrified of meeting the same end as Versace, you know. He may be well connected... informed about personal security...but he’s still a bit paranoid. Don’t tell him that I said that. He’s a rather strange fellow, all round, but these artistic guys are different to us, you know.” The banker entwined his large hands.

  “This ZNT manager is telling you not to involve the authorities?” she said.

  “No, but I’ve told you... my reasons for protecting my daughter and our family.”

  “Maybe secrecy isn’t the best option,” she persisted gently.

  “You remind me of my wife’s logic, in so many ways...particularly when she was younger. In some regards you do. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to follow your advice either,” Sep quipped.

  “I don’t want to add another level of deception to this affair,” Pixie said. “How much longer are we going to sit here?”

  “We’ll go then... if you’re restless... and finally say hello to my daughter. I assume you are still interested to see her?”

  “I would be delighted,” she said.

  “Off we go then.”

  Pixie was busy with the sequence of past events, as they rose again and clipped off the corridor. Clive w
as admitted after he was nearly beaten to death at a football match. This assault had come immediately following his hacking activities. Clive had been incarcerated until ZNT completed their acquisition of BIP. Then Clive had been put back into circulation again. His head wasn’t in the same place.

  Pitt was team leader on the valuation and flotation of BIP. He’d also been in close consultation with ZNT throughout, sometimes face to face. He’d also been in there alongside Sir Septimus, when the financier presented, in person, a fraudulent valuation and share offer to a conference of BIP shareholders in Birmingham. They travelled up to ‘Brum’ together, to address investors, as well as to speak at a mass meeting of workers and officials.

  Therefore when Pitt was let out, he was powerless. He only had the strength to turn whistleblower. Despite suicidal implications, Pitt, at some point, had decided to pull the pin. At this stage he retained his faculties, although he had suffered head injuries at the match; as well as unknown treatment afterwards.

  Pixie was taken deeper into the hospital complex. She struggled to get her own confused thoughts into shape.

  Emmy went off freely with Clive that day, she considered. What if Emmy had gone with him intending to have sex? Of course she was entitled to change her mind. Or maybe she had sex with him and then had regrets. She wanted to shock her father, but she was afraid of his possible reaction. That wouldn’t be a unique scenario. Emmy risked adding a new scandal to the old. She knew that there was quite an assembly of VIPs, corporate heads, diplomats and politicians.

  Her father had initiated a man-hunt for Pitt, orchestrated by his own security staff, then joined by ZNT agents and, plainly speaking, their corporate thugs.

  Sep couldn’t accept the idea of Clive, that company traitor, seducing his daughter. The biggest consequence of that alleged sex attack was to destroy Clive’s case against the takeover. Therefore it was crucial that Pitt rediscovered his memory - lost in the cloud.

  “Here we are,” Doctor Morran announced. “This is Esmeralda’s deluxe room. She was browsing a learned book when I left her. I am sure she will enjoy this charming visitor. But may I remind you that her medication leaves her under partial sedation. You may find her subdued and not especially talkative.”