Val went off to eat her sandwiches with a couple of the girls from marketing and admin. They asked her about the girl in the helicopter, but Val said nothing. When she returned to her office, Gissings’ only fax machine held a piece of paper in its out tray. It was a short note from the Aspertons. The paintshop contract would terminate after the stipulated one month’s notice period. Wilmot was an idiot, but these things happened. What was needed now was a Chief Executive with his eye on the ball.
Val knocked on George’s door and walked in.
George was gone. The van he drove was gone from the yard and there was no answer from Val’s phone at home. He had left no indication of where he had gone or where he could be reached.
Val had been brought up never to swear, and years passed when she never once did. But if you had been able to see her lips move as she surveyed George’s empty room, you would have seen her top front teeth briefly touch her bottom lip before her mouth opened once more.
It was a short word, and it rhymes with luck.
13
That day Zack had caught three trout, Lord Hatherleigh just the two. When the fish were grilled and brought to table, Zack laughingly offered to give Hatherleigh a fishing lesson. Hatherleigh took his revenge, imitating Zack’s early attempts at casting a line. Zack claimed Smudge and Bonnie, the spaniel puppies, would make better fishing instructors than Hatherleigh, and proceeded to demonstrate why. The fish disappeared in a torrent of laughter.
For much of the main course Zack had been forced to excuse himself, as he took a phone call to work. A maid brought him a plate of beef to eat while he was talking, and he made it back to table in time for pudding.
The meal ended in a happy confusion of cheese, nuts, coffee, brandy, port and cigars. Only after midnight did the guests disperse. A local taxi firm ferried those who lived nearby back to their homes. The family, Zack, and the other house guests began to move upstairs to their rooms. Sarah walked up with Zack.
‘You were really funny this evening,’ she told him. ‘You and Dad had everyone in stitches. Even me, and I’ve heard it all before.’
Zack found it hard to put all the Sarahs together. The Sarah of tonight, radiant in silk and pearls, easy and vivacious, always the centre of conversation and laughter. The Sarah of a few hours before, filthy and sweating, showing a new stable lad how to muck out a horsebox. The Sarah of London and Coburg’s: professional, hard-working, tidy, self-eff acing. Zack mentally added another Sarah to the list. Sarah unclothed. Sarah in bed with him. The Sarah knitted to him by a million strands of electricity.
‘I love your dad. Your mum, too. I feel more comfortable with your family than I do with my own.’
Sarah stood slightly ahead of Zack on the great marble staircase. A Gainsborough portrait of one of the Hatherleigh viscounts gazed down on the scene impassively. For two centuries, he’d watched people come and go. The fashions changed, but people didn’t. Sarah turned.
‘You’ve changed so much. I can’t believe it.’
Zack could smell Sarah. Not just her perfume, but her.
‘I haven’t changed as much as you might think,’ he said softly.
‘Oh, come on. A few years ago, you’d have wanted to turn Ovenden House into a shopping mall. Now I hear you and Dad discussing the best way to keep poachers out.’
‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘What did you mean?’
Zack was silent, but his body was shouting. Why couldn’t she hear?
‘Oh, Zack. You aren’t going to spoil things, are you? Don’t you remember how much we hurt each other? I promised myself never again. You’ll always be a friend, if you let yourself be.’
He shook his head. That, at least, was impossible.
‘Sarah, I want you. I always have. I’ve never known another woman like you. If I can’t have you, I’ll die a bachelor.’
‘Oh, Zack, you do really mean that, don’t you?’ Damp eyes searched his, but her heart already knew its answer.
‘Dear Zack.’
Her arms were around him, her lips against his, their bodies once again as one.
From the turn in the stairs, the Gainsborough viscount watched the scene in silence. Pretty girls and handsome adventurers. He’d seen it all before. That night, Zack and Sarah made long, passionate and repeated love. And when morning broke in the room that the Duke of Wellington had once graced, it found them fast asleep in each other’s arms.
Autumn 1999
The leaves are on the turn in Central Park and autumn colours fill the shops. New Yorkers leave the city to spend their weekends upstate, in the Shawangunks and the Catskills, there to watch the forests close down for winter. The leaves are good this year, but prices are high. This is the last autumn of the second millennium and holiday homes are booked solid.
It is 1 October 1999. There are 651 days to go until Bernard Gradley’s deadline.
1
Matthew was worried. Had Cornish gone soft? Had he lost his nerve like the rest of them? Had he given up?
Two months on and still Matthew needed a leap in. the Western Instruments bond price, and still the price was depressed. So far, his paper loss amounted to a million bucks and, so far, the only direction had been down. If Cornish didn’t act soon, Matthew would have a miserable end of year, with no bonus at all and lucky to keep his job. The idea of earning a million pounds, Matthew’s original Plan A, would be laughable; his Plan B quite impossible.
Though anxiety had become his bedfellow, today he had a more immediate reason to worry. That morning Saul Rosenthal had walked across to Matthew’s desk. In itself that was remarkable. If the entire universe shrivelled up, leaving only Rosenthal’s work station, the coffee shop and the john, he likely wouldn’t notice anything amiss till he couldn’t find the synagogue come Friday night. For him, the twelve-yard trip to Matthew’s desk was a half-marathon.
‘Hey, Matthew, you around this evening? We should talk.’
‘Sure,’ said Matthew. ‘You want to talk about anything in particular, or you just want to complain about the Japanese?’
‘Don’t get me started, Matthew. Goddamn yen should be falling, but it’s rising and my learned oriental friends keep jumping in to Uncle Sam’s own glorious bond market. They should put some kind of reservation round it. I’ll call myself a native American bond trader and apply for a subsidy. Stick feathers in my hair and live in a wigwam, if I have to.’
‘Saul, is there anything particular on your mind?’
‘Oh, sure.’ Rosenthal recalled himself. ‘Western Instruments. Management here has noticed you’ve been buying them like there’s no tomorrow. We just wanted to have a chat about the situation.’
‘Is there a problem?’ asked Matthew, his voice rising a little.
‘Is there a problem? We all got problems, Matt. I don’t like wigwams. I’m allergic to feathers. I’ve been on the wrong side of the market for two weeks and you ask if I’ve got a problem.’ Rosenthal tailed off, remembering that Matthew had asked a question. ‘Just show up after the market closes this evening and we’ll have a chat.’
Matthew tried to focus on other things, without much joy. Matters weren’t helped when Fiona Shepperton came by his desk.
‘Can you meet this evening to talk about your position in Western Instruments?’
‘Sure. Saul’s already asked me.’
‘That’s OK then. I thought he might have forgotten what he came for by the time he reached you.’ She paused, then added, ‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but it wouldn’t hurt to think your arguments out in advance.’
Matthew took her hint. In between his other duties that day, he sketched out his thoughts on paper. He remembered his experience on the Euro summit with Pierre d’Avignon in Paris. Keep it short. Keep it clear. And, God, make it convincing. The very last thing he wanted was to be told to give up now.
By the end of a busy day, he had sketched out a six-page presentation and had it copied and bound. Busy with the presentation
and still nervous, he had screwed up a few trades, giving him a daily loss of about sixteen thousand dollars, when he should really have been ahead by the same amount. Damn it. The sooner Cornish rode into town, pistols blazing, the better. Rosenthal had a disputed trade to sort out after the market closed, but by six forty-five he was done and came to get Matthew. They walked off to a meeting room, Rosenthal still muttering about wigwams and General Custer.
When they got there, the room was already mostly full. Fiona Shepperton was there. Al and Rick were there. Somebody else was there too. Someone talking on the phone with his back to Matthew, someone with a Scottish accent and a burly shape. Brian McAllister got off the phone and greeted Matthew.
‘Nice to see you again.’
Matthew said something in response, but watched in alarm as McAllister moved to the door and swung it shut. Brian McAllister, who only closed his door when he fired people. Brian McAllister, whose piercing eyes could squeeze truth from a politician-turned-car salesman.
The door hadn’t been closed long when two more people entered. They introduced themselves as David Seymour and Jane Stalwitz from compliance.
Compliance officers are the policemen of modem banks. Their job is to make sure that all employees abide by the tangle of rules and regulations which bind the industry. Their job is to prevent insider trading; to prevent leaks of confidential information; to prevent breaches of rules so obscure that even the regulators can’t make them out - to ensure, in a word, that the bank is free of sin. In a world where their colleagues earn salaries which sound like phone numbers, compliance officers earn salaries which sound like salaries. The job of a compliance officer is to say ‘no’ a hundred times a day, to be screamed at, abused, and then to say ‘no’ again. If your children want to make a career in compliance, dissuade them.
Matthew shook hands and sounded friendly, but his brain was working fast. The way he saw it, the presentation he’d found on the plane contained pricesensitive information: that is, information which, if publicly known, would be likely to affect the prices of the company’s bonds and shares. By reading the presentation and then dealing on the basis of what he’d read, Matthew hadn’t just committed a breach of etiquette, he’d committed a crime, the crime of insider trading. That’s why the compliance officers were there. Matthew repeated his golden rules to himself. Keep it short. Keep it clear. And, God, make it convincing. He turned down the cup of coffee offered by Saul Rosenthal and spoke to the room.
‘How can I help?’
It was Rosenthal who answered.
‘It’s Western Instruments, Matthew. It’s a dog. It’s worse than a dog, it’s a skunk. You’re not stupid, Matthew. You must see that. But something’s persuaded you to spend twenty-five million bucks of the firm’s money on Western, while the poor old bank’s gotta pay its heating bills, clean all these goddamn windows and hopefully find a nickel or two to reward its longest serving employees. We just wanted to know how come you’ve gotten so interested in canine protection.’
‘Sure,’ said Matthew uncertainly, and stared at the two people from compliance. They had lined yellow notepads and two biros each. They nodded and smiled at Matthew, but their hands were busily writing down everything that happened. Were they policemen on a routine patrol? Or policemen on the point of making an arrest? Matthew couldn’t tell.
Jane Stalwitz, the senior compliance officer, set her pen down.
‘You look like you’re wondering why we’re here. That’s fair enough. We’ve been monitoring your activity and detected an abnormality. Usually you buy and sell on behalf of clients and do whatever you need to do in the market to meet their needs. You hardly ever speculate on prices, and when you do it’s only for a few days at a time. Yet all of a sudden, you’re making a giant-sized bet on a single company’s bonds, you keep the bet standing not for days but for months, and even when the price goes against you, you hold steady. We’re sure there’s a good explanation. We want to hear it. That’s all.’
Matthew licked his lips. It was as if he were a bank robber confronted by a ring of policemen saying, ‘We notice that you have a smoking sawn-off shotgun in your left hand and a large number of loose bank notes stuffed into an unmarked brown sack in your right hand. We’re sure there’s a good explanation. We just want to hear it.’
Keep cool. Matthew handed out his presentation booklet.
‘Great. This is a helpful opportunity to talk through my ideas. I realise that the trade hasn’t yet worked out, but I believe in it. But there’s a huge wealth of knowledge and experience at this table and I’d welcome everyone’s input.’
Matthew started to talk through his presentation. He told the group that he had been looking for a way to add value to his normal trading routine and decided to do some deep research on a few selected companies in his bond portfolio: In the course of his research, which he outlined, he came to the conclusion that Western Instruments’ bonds were likely to rise sharply as a result of a takeover, and he wanted to place a bet accordingly. That simple. Matthew had estimated it would take him six minutes to make his pitch, but he was nervous and repetitive and it took him eight.
Rosenthal and McAllister had a number of technical questions, which Matthew answered. As far as he could tell, his answers were sensible. Fiona stayed silent.
Eventually, Rosenthal said, ‘OK. To begin with, I thought you must be delusional, but at least you’ve thought about it. More than most of our esteemed colleagues ever think about anything, ‘cept maybe how to spend their bonus. But I gotta tell you, I don’t like the trade any better now than I did before. The company stinks, Matthew, and all the analysis in the world won’t take away the smell.’
McAllister nodded, but he didn’t move his eyes off Matthew. Fiona Shepperton could have been a statue. Then Jane Stalwitz leaned forward.
‘I don’t understand all this technical stuff but you seem pretty well researched. Let me ask you this. How many companies did you need to research before you hit on Western?’
Jesus, that was a toughie.
‘A few, I guess,’ said Matthew. ‘But I was lucky. I hit on Western pretty early.’
‘Did you use this bank’s research facilities?’
‘Yeah, sure. I tried down the road at Merrill Lynch, but they wouldn’t let me in.’ It was a thin joke and nobody laughed.
‘And over what period of time did you conduct your research?’
‘A few weeks, I suppose.’
Matthew remembered reading somewhere that successful liars didn’t lie, they just evaded, and when they couldn’t evade, they gave the most imprecise answers they could. Most liars didn’t have to sit a yard and a half away from Brian McAllister.
‘Starting when and finishing when?’
Stalwitz was relentless, and her pen and her colleague’s pen never stopped moving across their yellow pads.
‘Well, I remember the night I really got excited about Western. That would have been the eighth of August. I’d probably been working seriously about four weeks by then, maybe four and a half.’
The pens scratched down the answer.
‘And what companies did you rule out before you decided to run with Western?’
Matthew named a few random names from his bond portfolio, sensible names that anyone would research. The biros scratched out his answers.
‘And what research tools did you use?’
Matthew stared blankly for a moment. What was the point of these questions? Why would anyone care?
Then he realised. You needed your swipe pass to enter the library. You needed a user identification number to access the data terminals. If you wanted help from the research staff, you needed to fill out a request slip. All these things left fingerprints. With the bank’s huge data storage capacity, it was probably possible to crosscheck every inch of Matthew’s story. But he couldn’t back down now. Instead, he tried to evade.
‘Oh, the usual stuff, I suppose,’ said Matthew vaguely. Annual reports, press cuttings, publi
shed research.’
‘Did you request the annual reports from the library or did you call them up on-line?’
Stalwitz was remorseless. Two biros stood ready for Matthew’s answer. Damned in duplicate, he would be.
‘On-line or from the library? I’m not sure . . .’ Matthew tailed off. He had graduated first from Wall Street’s toughest training programme. He had assembled a formidable battery of arguments on Western Instruments. Nobody in the room was going to believe he couldn’t remember how he got his annual reports. ‘Uh, on-line, I guess.’
Stalwitz continued. The brokers’ reports? Which ones? How many? What times had he used the library? The yellow pads filled with an ocean of detail, mapped out in pedantic blue ballpoint. Detail enough to drown Matthew. The questions continued. Which cuttings service? Which research system? How many requests did he file through the research staff?
Matthew was beginning to choke. He couldn’t tell the truth. But every word he spoke took him further into the realm of the easily disprovable. When they came to check, all they’d find was a record of Matthew Gradley bursting into the bank at ten o’clock one Sunday evening, and buying twenty-five million dollars’ worth of Western Instruments bonds right away afterwards. Nothing, nothing on earth, could look less like the result of a well-disciplined and systematic research programme. Matthew could forget his father’s millions. Right now he’d have swapped it all for a Get out of Jail card.
For the first time, McAllister’s burning blue eyes moved off Matthew and faded out into the middle distance. He had made up his mind about something. Whatever it was, it could hardly be good news. ‘You, Matthew, have used up your mistake.’ Then a miracle happened.
Fiona Shepperton cleared her throat.
‘Excuse me for cutting in, Jane, but perhaps I can speed things up. Matthew mentioned his intention to pursue this research to me and I encouraged him. Traders ought to know more about the bonds they’re dealing in. I helped funnel a lot of the research stuff to him, using my head of group authorisation code. I doubt if you’ll find most of the research requests listed under his name.’
The Money Makers Page 26