‘So, Mr Hart, a sad day.’
As an opening ministerial gambit, it strikes me as a little odd.
‘I’m sorry, minister?’
‘You haven’t heard about my predecessor?’
‘Er … no. I don’t think so.’
‘The papers will have it soon if they haven’t got it already. He took his own life last night.’
‘Lord Bigmann? Really?’ No time for subterfuge now. I’m genuinely shocked. A smart old fucker like that should have been able to bounce back from anything.
‘I’m afraid so.’ Then he gives me an oddly meaningful stare. ‘At least we think he did. He jumped off Blackfriars Bridge.’
The canny old sod. I wonder if he knows Bang Bang Lee. I sit back in my chair and have to take a moment to compose myself. ‘A terrible way to go.’
‘Apparently. Of course … he’d been under a lot of pressure.’
All the heads around the table nod in agreement.
‘I agree, minister. A lot of pressure.’
‘Everything seemed to go wrong for him in such a short space of time … just after your meeting with him, Mr Hart.’
I’m not sure where this is going, but I don’t like it. ‘Things sometimes happen like that, minister. And for politicians these days, well, the media expect them to be whiter than white. And Lord Bigmann had … the odd skeleton in his closet.’
Foolish bastard had a whole graveyard full of them. Live dangerously if you must, but don’t go into politics and be careful who you piss off.
The minister clears his throat, raises his eyebrows in a friendly, half-mocking way and looks at me expectantly. ‘So, Mr Hart – you have something you want to say to us?’
This time I do it properly. I emailed Two Livers the bullet points yesterday evening, and overnight she completely rewrote them, reordered them and added half a dozen I hadn’t thought of, but most importantly she offered a financing package from Grossbank.
So I argue persuasively, using her words, for the government to bundle up its real-estate assets, taking them off the balance sheet, moving them into a property company in which it would retain a controlling stake but which it could sell down and privatise whenever it wanted to, and which would capture and harness a whole lot of private sector finance on a scale government never managed to in the past. It’s actually a good piece of advice, soundly argued and in the national interest. Obviously the devil would be in the detail, but it sounds like a runner. The minister looks at me curiously.
‘I can see the fees and the commercial potential, Mr Hart, but what’s really in this for you?’
They’re all listening now. Why did I come back to the Treasury? Why not roll with the punches, walk away and focus on something easier and more interesting than dealing with government?
‘I’m stubborn, minister. And a bad loser.’
He nods. ‘My wife says the same thing about me, Mr Hart. Are you married?’
‘Not yet, minister. I tried it once and it didn’t work. But I haven’t given up. I never do.’
AS A man, what do I have to offer? What does any man have to offer? These days, not a lot. If a woman is beautiful, intelligent and successful, why fuck up her life by involving a man in it? If she wants to get laid, she can do that via the internet the same way we can. If she wants a sperm donor, she can get that too. If she doesn’t need us for the money – and most do – we really don’t serve much purpose.
Get a grip, Hart. I’m super successful, albeit in a criminally devious, insane kind of way. I know my way around London, I understand markets and I can navigate a wine list. I’ve done a lot of things, some of which I could even tell her about. And a woman can feel safe with me – as long as I have my six foot five inch sumo wrestler with me. I’m quite a package.
Of course I won’t be faithful, but who is? And I’ll get pissed and be out of my mind on chemicals from time to time, but that’s normal these days, at least among successful people. Assuming I haven’t suffered damage I don’t know about, I can father children. I can certainly provide for children. Look what I provide for Samantha. It all adds up to a pretty compelling case, and if I wanted a classic Chelsea trophy wife, I could get one.
The problem is I want Two Livers. And I think I want her more than she wants me. If she really wants me at all.
I’m still in this daze when the phone on my desk buzzes. It’s Maria. ‘Mr Hart, I have Mr Lee for you on line two.’
What does Bang Bang want? Our performance figures are great, we’re really motoring, and we’re not due to meet for another month. Probably wants to congratulate me again.
‘Bang Bang. How are you?’
‘I’m not good, Dave. Not good at all. We need to talk.’ There’s no friendliness, no banter, just a coded reference to a pre-agreed time and place where we can meet. He hangs up.
Shit. What just happened? I look out at the trading floor and Dan Harriman catches my eye. I still haven’t fired him. It’s eleven in the morning and he’s pissed. He looks up and raises a bottle in my direction. It’s Krug. He’s drinking Krug from the bottle at eleven in the morning. Normally it wouldn’t bother me. Normally I might even go and join him, but today I have a bad feeling. Dan’s always hanging around, and I still can’t work out what he does. He shouldn’t really need to come in at all, except for board meetings. Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Some fucking chairman he turned out to be.
IT’S 6 p.m. and Bang Bang is sitting in a private booth in a wine bar off Fleet Street. When I first come in, I think it must be doing fantastic trade with the Chinese. The guys behind the bar are Chinese, the customers sitting and standing at the bar all seem to be Chinese, the people in the booths are Chinese. And they’re all youngish men of a similar age, wearing smart business suits, white shirts, dark ties and sunglasses. Absolutely no women at all. For a moment I wonder if Bang Bang’s brought me to a Chinese gay bar. Some places do get a reputation as a cool place for particular nationalities to hang out, but as I look around the penny drops. Everyone here works for Bang Bang. They’re all his guys. Normally that would make me feel secure, but tonight it troubles me.
When I sit down he stares impassively at me. He’s distant, not hostile, but there’s certainly no warmth in the air tonight. Where’s the love, Bang Bang? Where’s the friendship? Where’s a drink? We’re in a fucking bar, for Christ’s sake.
‘Dave, we have a problem.’
‘Problem? Bang Bang, the only problem we have is that we’re too successful. We’re up forty per cent on paper and, at this rate, give me a few months and we’ll double our money. We’ll double your money. We’re doing well, Bang Bang. Very well indeed. Show me anyone else whose performance is even close to ours.’
‘Dave, someone in our organisation has attracted the attention of … certain government departments. People we don’t want looking into our business are now doing so.’
I’m stunned. This isn’t what I was expecting at all. ‘Impossible. Everyone on the team is vetted. Between us we know all of them and they’re all reliable. What you’re saying just doesn’t stack up.’
‘Dave, some things I know. I don’t know who … yet. But someone on the team is not reliable.’ He shrugs. ‘Perhaps we should just kill them all.’
What? My team? My boys? I try not to sound desperate. ‘Bang Bang, they’re good guys. Trust me on this. I know them, I like them, I’m sure we can count on them.’
‘All of them?’
‘All of them.’
‘Dave, I hope you’re not becoming sentimental. In business, you can’t become too attached to people. Sometimes it’s good to change … to upgrade or refresh the team.’
‘Upgrade or refresh? Bang Bang you’re talking black bagging. You want to get rid of them.’
He shrugs. ‘If black bagging is what investment bankers do, we can put them in black bags. Afterwards.’
‘No, you don’t understand. I meant firing them. Not with guns. Telling them to clear their desks and put
their personal possessions in a black bag.’
‘That’s not what I had in mind, Dave.’ Oh, Christ. This is starting to feel like defeat from the jaws of victory. I have to make one final plea. ‘Not this team, Bang Bang. Trust me on this. They’re really good. I love them, and we work really well together.’
He frowns. ‘Dave, I’m going to take some steps to find out how much of what we’re doing has leaked to people who really don’t need to know about it. And who is the source of the leak. And then, Dave … we have to take decisive action.’
HOW DID it come to this? All I wanted to do was make a few more billion, turn the global economy around and get the girl. And, if I’m honest – which I rarely am and least of all when I start a sentence by mentioning it – I’d forget about the rest if I could just have the girl.
But now unspecified government departments are looking into my operation, someone on the team can’t be trusted and Bang Bang’s talking about killing people. Investment banking was never meant to be like this. In the past I took it for granted that no one on any of my teams could ever be trusted – we were bankers, and that really said it all. But there’s something about criminals that’s so much more honourable. Guys like Happy and Nob and Sly and Timur know their place in the hierarchy, stick to their word and sometimes take great risks. Holding someone by his ankles from the top of a skyscraper in Dubai requires nerve. What if you slipped and dropped them by mistake? But they didn’t. These guys are good, and I like being around them. I feel … tribal about them in a way I never could about investment banking colleagues.
I need to talk to someone, which is weird. I never need to talk to anyone. Why would I? No one else is Dave Hart, so how could anyone else ever have insights and suggestions that compare with mine? But this time there is someone.
I call Two Livers, and for once I get straight through and she agrees to meet at the Dorchester. It’s the launch event for MileHigh TV’s new joint venture with Sir Neil Moreland – a whole range of new channels aimed at track and field events, swimming, sailing, cycling and a bunch of other things I never do.
When I get there she’s got a quiet table in the bar where we can speak without being overheard. She has a bottle of Cristal on ice, two glasses, and she’s wearing a pink satin mini dress by Dolce and Gabbana with gladiator sandals that always make me wish she wasn’t wearing anything else.
‘You’re late. I’m on the second bottle.’
How does she do it and still look beautiful? I apologise and lean forward, strangely uncertain how to kiss her.
‘Come here, stupid,’ she says and puts her hand on the side of my face to steer my lips firmly towards hers. I sit down and a waiter appears to pour me a glass of champagne. I can smell her scent, I can almost taste her, and I totally, utterly want her. I want to possess her body, to run my hands and lips and tongue all over it, and then I want to make love to her. Lust? Base instinct? Crude physical vulgarity? Sure. All of the above.
‘So what’s up, Dave?’
She’s the one woman in the world who merits total honesty. All the rest I’d lie to. It’s not that I put her in a different moral category, simply that she’d see through me in an instant, so what’s the point?
‘I’m in the shit.’
‘I know.’
‘You know? How?’
‘Why else would you call me like this? How bad is it?’
‘Really bad. There’s something you should know …
And so I tell her. Everything. She listens, nods, takes it in, asks the odd smart question, but on the whole doesn’t interrupt or even seem unduly shocked. Is she really a woman? If I didn’t know it before, I know it now. I’ve truly struck gold with this girl.
‘Dave, it’s Dan Harriman.’
‘What? What do you mean?’
‘Dan’s been in trouble. I don’t know what kind, but trouble. When he moved into private banking, it wasn’t because he fancied a career change. Hardman Stoney finally got fed up with him – he went too far with the drink or the drugs or the hookers, or more likely something really serious that they don’t allow for in the employee code of conduct.’
‘But … Dan was senior. And a big producer. The employee code of conduct isn’t for senior people.’
‘This time it was. He did something really bad.’
‘Donkeys? Children? Arms smuggling? Is he a terrorist?’
‘I’ve no idea. But there was talk that he could have been looking at something much more serious than getting fired. There were rumours of criminal charges. Serious ones. And then … nothing happened. Nothing at all. Dan shows up as a private banker catering to all kinds of dodgy clients in interesting parts of the world. Private bankers are meant to be discreet, but everyone has their price. Perhaps Dan’s price was his freedom.’
‘You mean … he’s a snitch?’
She throws her head back and laughs. ‘That’s exactly what I mean. Not the word I was going to use, but yes. I tried to warn you …
‘I know. And I made him chairman. The team love him. He gets pissed with them every day, he’s in touch with some amazing dealers and he knows every club in town. He knows places I’d never even heard of.’
‘But he’s your leak. Don’t be surprised if the size and success of the Salvation Fund attracted too much attention and the whole thing with Dan was a set-up.’
‘You mean the police could do that?’
‘Are you kidding?’ She laughs again. ‘No. This is someone else. Someone a little more serious.’
‘If Bang Bang finds out about Dan, he’ll kill him.’
‘Dave, if I’m right about this, you might kill him yourself.’
I’m staring across the table at her and once again we have this amazing eye contact thing going – staring at each other, observing the tiniest movements, a kind of exquisite prelude to actual physical foreplay – when someone shouts across the bar. I turn and look. Fuck. It’s Neil Moreland.
‘Dave, Laura – how are you both? Dave, I had no idea you were coming tonight. Your office said you couldn’t make it.’
Make it? Me? I’m not sure if I’ll make it either. But I’ll bloody well try.
ALL INVESTMENT bankers are paranoid. It’s the combination of high risk and high reward, coupled with short-time horizons and intense peer group rivalry. It’s been said that it cruelly exposes the fault lines in human nature. There are a lot of fault lines running through the Square Mile.
But my natural paranoia is even worse now. I keep imagining – or are they real? – people following me wherever I go. I fancy that I can hear clicks on my telephone in the office, and I no longer trust my mobile or my email. I’ve started looking at people differently, wondering if the guy who sells me my newspaper is talking into a hidden microphone tucked behind his lapel, or if my ‘therapist’ at the high-end massage parlour I sometimes pop out to during the day has a hidden camera behind the shelves of aromatherapy oils that she so skilfully works into the more delicate parts of my body. It saps the will, and it’s not sustainable.
I also look differently at Dan Harriman, and I think he can tell. I’m a heartbeat away from firing him, and only thoughts of old times get in the way. I no longer let him into my office without someone else present, and I don’t tell him anything about the business, even though he’s chairman. On reflection, that’s probably a good way of dealing with all chairmen. Maybe I should have started sooner.
And then, of course, I have to push my luck. I have an idea. A really good idea. I want to buy farmland in Africa. Forget the Gulf states and their food security agenda. Think Europe and America in the face of changing consumption patterns in China, India and elsewhere in Asia. We could soon need our own food security strategy. And it would sell well to investors, because we could dress it up in aid and development clothing, liberally sprinkled with the historical ties of the Commonwealth. I’m sure it’s a winner, and I need to look some stuff up, write it down and collect my thoughts.
So although it’s two in
the morning I take a cab to the office. The lights are on and the alarm hasn’t been set, but there’s nothing strange in that. Probably some of the team are up here drinking or shagging or doing other stuff they shouldn’t.
So when the lift doors open and I step out into the dealing room I’m a little shocked to see half a dozen guys I don’t recognise wearing dark clothing and carrying toolkits. They’ve taken apart some of the computers and the telephones and various techie bits and pieces are all over the desks and the floor. They don’t even pause, just carry on working, ignoring me. Why aren’t they scared? Whoever was on lookout duty seems to have fucked up. I turn to the lift doors and jam my foot in between them before they can close, and then reach out for the fire alarm. Fuck this. Whoever these guys are, they can explain to the fire brigade.
But then a fat, chubby hand grabs my wrist, and I turn to see a face I do recognise.
‘Dan, you fat wanker. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
He’s sweating, and his lips are wet and he smells of stale alcohol as he steps uncomfortably close to me.
‘I’m saving my skin. And yours if you’re smart.’
‘You bastard. Who are these people?’
‘Let’s just say … they work for the government.’
‘Government? Which government? Ours? How do you know?’
The other guys in the room are still working, silently going about their tasks with focussed concentration, as if we’re not actually here.
‘Mr Hart. We heard you were on your way. We were waiting for you.’
It’s a commanding, very British voice, with a slight air of contempt. Contempt? For me? You must be kidding, pal. I bet I make more in a week than you make in a year.
A tall, fair-haired man in a pair of black overalls comes out of my office – my office! – and walks across to us. He removes a black leather glove and holds his hand out. ‘A pleasure finally to meet you, Mr Hart.’
The Ego's Nest (Dave Hart 5) Page 15