by Neil Rowland
“Bullshit, Pitt. You’re paranoid...envious. He’s a highly creative young man, who conducts himself in a modest and democratic style,” Winchurch claimed. “Despite his enormous resources and his untold influence.”
“This guy tortured me to get information. He has no more respect for democracy or human rights, than he does for the rule of law!”
“Many of these tactics can remain within the law,” Sir Septimus claimed.
“Do we depend so heavily on these guys? Or are we just afraid of them?” Pitt asked.
“Our brokerage may not interest the authorities at all. A big fund like ZNT has to play the game. Welcome to the real financial world, Pitt. You didn’t join your building society after all, did you... as I keep reminding you,” Sep argued.
“There’s nothing enlightened about your self-interest,” Clive said.
“What a tragedy that your attitude didn’t extend to my daughter. You didn’t treat my girl with so much respect. You didn’t show any moral squeamishness about her, did you, Pitt?” he scoffed.
“This reflects the true respect they have for you, Sep. You said that Viktor has to play his game, but he’s aiming to take us all out. Like a bunch of awkward minor officials in his own country. He turned you speechless and knocked you out.”
“Revenge came in the form of my daughter. You humiliated me. But you should know that you can’t break my balls so easily. We’ve been a part of the establishment for centuries. Some callow grammar school kid ... surely you can do the maths there!”
“Now you offer me another job? Can you be as cynical as all that?”
“Are you going to tweet about this?” Winchurch observed. “I do understand that my proposal is strange. This isn’t the normal interview and selection process. Talking of your former position, it is out of the window. I did consider throwing you out of a window, by the way. That would have been a medieval form of justice, would it not?”
“Why don’t you get to the point?” Pitt suggested. This prompted further digs into his ribs from the offended detectives.
“Let me run this idea by you, Pitt. I want to lock you down in the basement, for the rest of your working life... so you can toil for me undisturbed, around the clock.”
“What sort of job do you call that?” Clive snorted.
“Exactly. It’s going to be horrible for you.”
“You can’t be serious,” Clive objected.
“Our business is very abstract, when you analyse it. Wouldn’t you agree with me there? Millions of people around the globe survive on less than a dollar a day...while we print billions of dollars out of thin air...or whichever currency it may be...just to add fiscal stimulus. The Americans have done it, we have done it.”
“Are we heading towards the office now? Are we meeting someone? Di Visu maybe?” Clive said anxiously.
“You’re pulling my leg now, aren’t you? Viktor doesn’t want to speak to you again. He’s sick of the sight of you. You proved a very incommunicative friend. Some help you were to him. You wouldn’t help him with your memory. He can only assume it’s lost altogether. Now you’re lost too.”
Clive noticed that they were back in the square mile, apparently on course for Winchurch Brothers building, as if it was business as usual.
But, as it transpired, further changes were afoot.
44
Sir Septimus chose to remain silent as he accelerated along Queen’s Street. Traffic was sporadic, consisting of speeding postal vans - perhaps one of these had struck Pixie - and early buses, ferrying auxiliary staff.
This was the subterranean life of the City that Pitt rarely observed, and which he was too busy to comprehend even now. The thought of Pixie’s accident continued to trouble him. He thought of her with sadness and loss, as he recalled her way of talking, how her smile tightened the skin around her eyes, her rapid panther way of walking; lost.
“If you’re curious,” Sep remarked, “I thought I’d take you over docklands way. I’d be interested in your reaction. We’re moving HQ out there, you see. A plot became available. Viktor is prepared to sink in extra capital. The ZNT people want something to rival the Arabs over at the Shard. It’s a matter of personal and national pride to Viktor, you see, to erect a ‘scraper here in London. It’s an upheaval for our staff, admittedly, but we have to move with the times.”
“Very interesting, Sep,” Clive agreed. “Then are you implying that I will have a desk in the new building?” Pitt speculated.
“There will be changes with this new board,” Sep agreed. “This has been a turbulent year for the company... back from the brink of bankruptcy after two hundred years in business... working with new clients... adapting to new market conditions. But after the BIP flotation and our partnership with ZNT, we are healthy again,” Sep claimed.
“Thanks for sharing the news with me,” Clive told him.
“I’m confident that you’ll adapt to your new role. My employees’ troubles are my troubles,” Winchurch argued.
The financier peered back between seats, grinning and more generously disposed.
Meanwhile he pressed silkily through the crisp morning air. A route was negotiated between those monstrous iced cakes of the City. Although it was near dark outside, with only a sparkle from Jupiter, artificial lights pierced from interiors.
Overseas labour was busy cleaning. Security staff crossed the trading floors in ritual dawn blessings. Eventually Winchurch’s car sped into the eastern boroughs, as far as Limehouse, and turned on to the East India Dock Road.
Pitt was not familiar with surroundings this far east. Like anyone taken to an unfamiliar terrain he experienced a mix of fear and vague elation, not knowing which was most appropriate. Was this to be a short journey?
“Not far now,” chipped Winchurch.
“I’m not interested,” Clive said.
“Don’t get shirty with us now,” replied his boss.
“In working for you, I mean.”
Silence was enforced until the ride was over. The BMW came to a halt with a gentle post-coital deflation. The smooth efficiency and calm power of this car was meant to casually intimidate, as well as to shield. This was impressive technology designed to carry either saints or tyrants - no questions asked. All they had to do was to hand over sufficient cash; this was a universal principle. If we are travelling to environmental collapse then we may as well go in style.
“All right everybody. You can all get out now,” Sep ordered, genially.
Pitt was grappled by the investigators, who made sure not to let him free for an instant. They shook him out, more or less, with his feet and legs dragging, cutting grooves through dried mud and sand. From there they all four traversed a parking area, in the direction of a wire-link perimeter fence.
There was the usual material and machinery of a large scale building project; now in the final stages. The breeze was fresh and immediate, at this hour, with a tang in the air, suggesting the proximity of the Thames. Their probable destination loomed in front - a spanking new building, reaching up thousands of feet, designed in a post-modern style - or styles. Not far west the Shard rose into the high clouds, as Clive gazed upwards. The new Winchurch Building, as it had become, strained every architectural sinew to beat the record height for a ‘scraper in London.
“This must be setting Viktor back a few notes?” Clive said, awed.
“Don’t worry Pitt, you’re not paying,” Winchurch replied.
“Only a few tax pounds, any roads,” Clive suggested.
“God knows you young rascals must owe me a few millions,” he protested jokily. “Throwing good money after bad. Gambling away my family inheritance.”
“Who was running the show anyway?” Pitt objected.
“Tony didn’t want us to kill his golden goose, did he? Then there was poor old Gordon, ta
mpering with the pension funds.”
“Not if they wanted to avoid becoming a banana republic,” Pitt countered.
“Stuff and nonsense Pitt. If it hadn’t been for oil and finance, cheap labour and deregulation, this country would have been third class decades ago.”
Winchurch unlocked padlocks, releasing heavy gates. He began to grow animated and bounced ahead. They had to crane their necks to get a view of the building’s magnitude. Winchurch’s undersized buoyancy was annoying to Pitt, as was that beam of self-satisfaction and the pride of ownership; even if he was really no more than a rent paying tenant.
“What a magnificent edifice!” Sep called back. His voice was thin in the air. “This is to be our new headquarters.”
“Thanks to the ZNT bankroll,” Pitt remarked.
Sep assumed the vanguard, paying no heed when he nearly tripped, hampered by his higher than normal heels. “Look at the architecture here - magnificent! The twenty first century personified.”
“Hubris and squandering of resources,” Clive said.
“You stick in the mud, stubborn Yorkshireman. You can’t recognise ambition, the drive for something impressive and better than ever before!”
Finally Sep waited for the other three to catch up; Clive pinned between those two beefy detectives. The latter pair tended to gape in the direction of the new ‘ZNT Winchurch Tower’, but with a detached uncomprehending expression, as if the first stone hadn’t yet been laid.
“This is a complete folly, mate! Do you think this can save you, once the details emerge?” Clive remonstrated.
Sir Septimus laughed dismissively. “What do you know of the subject?”
The diminutive financier stood arms akimbo, waved silver hair flying loose. He checked back on their progress, while tossing up his glance, with a slight groan of discomfort, to the very pinnacle of the new skyscraper.
“Don’t tell me. Viktor Di Visu helped towards the design,” Clive guessed.
“You’re a cynic if you are nothing, Pitt,” he said.
“Now you’re going to make people work here? Did you even manage to half fill all this extra office space?”
“I’d advise you to get a feel for the place. In a few years every square metre will be occupied...as has been proved before. The basement is reserved for you,” Sep added, with a leer.
“I should tell you this is a classic second-hand hit. You want to cover for him? Do the dirty work? A man of your standing? Don’t you feel any shame about that?” he complained.
Septimus snickered darkly. “This is a pleasure for me. This is justice for my little girl. What does a monster like you understand? Don’t worry about that. Your memory, along with our history, completely erased. You are obsolete. You don’t pose any risk,” Sep growled.
“These goons are only protecting Viktor. Life is cheap for those ZNT guys...they snub out their enemies over coffee break... but Viktor still needs to protect himself in regard to the deal. So they have to involve you too. Are you proud of your consultancy? You feel like doing time for those guys? While Viktor designs his frocks and tests his chichi perfume?” Clive said.
“You’re a paranoid chap,” Sep said. “You fully deserve this extra bonus. I want you to take a symbolic role.”
The rays of an aggressive sun, emerging from the water, spilt around his restless silhouette.
The breeze ruffled Clive’s fringe, which was stuck together with blood and sweat in parts. He could barely stand on his own feet. “How symbolic?” he wondered.
“Honorary, if you prefer. I have to consider everybody’s feelings. Including Esmeralda’s. Although I agree she presently has no role, until she graduates with a first class business degree, when she agrees to enrol. Her doctors are fully confident about her full recovery. I’m sure she can turn the corner.”
“You still hope she’s going to be your ideal candidate? Will she meet the same fate as Pixie, if she fails to impress?” Pitt scorned.
“We spent a lot of money on our Emmy. She is undoubtedly a clever and pretty girl. Who needs an eldest son in this day and age? What kind of father would allow her to go astray? What a future we can promise her these days. Now you can play your small part too, Pitt.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Clive suggested. “Do Viktor’s cheap hit.”
“Don’t give up. You sound resigned. That’s what I told my bright young quants straight out of university...when they were losing me millions every hour, a few years ago. Never lose hope, raise the stakes, when your next hunch could be your winning bet!”
“I was never a loser in this firm,” Clive reminded him. “You made me a key holder...you promoted me.”
“I trusted you, sonny boy,” Winchurch agreed. “I put my balls on the block.”
“You involved me with the BIP sale...you appointed me head of the team.”
“Bring him up gentlemen!” Sep urged, with a raised note.
Clive resisted again but the detectives were able to comply.
“What marvellous entrance steps,” Sep observed, jogging up. “Senatorial in grandeur.”
“I demand to be taken to Bishopsgate police station,” Clive said.
“Do you really? You want to talk to the filth?” Sep satirised. “Anyway they’re not interested in your case. How coherent is it likely to be?”
“You don’t know that,” Pitt insisted.
“Try to retain your dignity.”
Clive was drowning in cold sweat, given an icy surface by the waterside. Usually, before the oven heat of another late summer day, this breeze would have refreshed. This morning, he considered, it felt more like a frosty breath prefiguring eternal flames.
Clive was dragged to the top of three flights of marble steps. At the summit the diminutive, black-clad figure of Winchurch awaited. The financier was rummaging in his pockets for something; then he brought out a key. He soon managed with the chunky contractor’s lock and gestured for them all enter the building’s lobby.
As the group moved into the dusk of a cavernous lobby, the hefty investigators shoved Clive ahead. The place was empty except for bare carpentry and other finishing materials. Shafts of sunlight punctured surrounding dirty glass. The vast internal atmosphere glittered with a nebula of concrete dust.
“Witness my success...while confronting your own failure,” Sep suggested.
His voice, usually baritone in his beer barrel chest, echoed flatly.
“That’s where your promises lead,” Clive commented.
“You see where your arrogance got you?” Sir Septimus invited.
“That’s fine coming from you, isn’t it?”
“If only you knew where your quibbles would lead.”
“I should have wised up,” Clive replied.
“But you can still play your part in our triumph... even if your memory has to perish with you.”
“It has to be somewhere. Aren’t you afraid it will turn up?” Clive said.
“In the event of your death, do you mean?” Sep glinted, with a curl of his top lip.
“I begin to see what you have in mind,” Clive stated.
“What took you so long to figure that out... a chap with such a head for figures?”
“What brilliant cover for Viktor,” Clive said. “Gets you to behave like a cheap gangster. How does it feel?”
“Feels wonderful, if you’re interested,” Sep retorted. “Adjust yourself to your unpaid situation. Consider this a personal compliment. Not every social deviant deserves such an end. What a way to enjoy the new office. What an honour to have you,” Winchurch declared. “Better than a plaque at the entrance, wouldn’t you say?”
The henchmen took Clive further inside, as their boss dashed ahead. There were lofty half completed vaults above their heads. The men stopped before a huge hole
in the ground, ready for a central supporting column.
“Take a look down, Pitt. There’s your new desk,” Septimus told him. “Can you see?”
“What are you talking about?” Pitt replied, suddenly vertiginous.
“Not such a high climber now. But at least it’s a start... with every chance of promotion,” he joked. “Throw him down gentlemen. Time is money, Pitt.”
“Get your mitts off me, you apes!”
“No, I’m not going to shoot Pitt, as suggested. Viktor told me to shoot you in the back of the head, you see. That isn’t my way, you know. Viktor should understand... I’m not an assassin. I’m not some SS henchman, you know. Let Pitt feel every bump as he tumbles. Let him suffer as much as possible. Remember what happened to my daughter.”
“You really intend to throw me down there?” Clive shouted.
“This is the end of the line for you, Pitt.”
“You’re a complete monster.”
“That’s quite something coming from you,” Sep said. His hilarity ricocheted.
Pitt’s terrified outrage rang around the cavern. Yet the detectives got the better of Clive. They dangled him out over an abyss.
Their boss observed satisfied, with arms crossed, steeled against the noise, beaming with malevolent satisfaction.
Sep then reached forward with his petite weapon. He placed the chilly nozzle of the pistol into the nap of Clive’s neck. But this was merely symbolic and his finger was off the trigger. Clive should fall down and sense his bones breaking as he bounced around the vault.
“Are you having fun, Pitt? You want to take the long view? Well, I think this is the time to sell, sell, sell.”
“You’re doing their dirty laundry, yet again,” Clive said; finding calm as he contemplated destiny.
“Please mind the gap, will you?” Sep replied. There was a mad gleam in those hard crinkled eyes.
The detectives dangled Clive, giving him a perfect view. Without any more to do, they let him go.
Clive fell and fell and fell.
Until his mind span out of consciousness and succumbed to oblivion.