The Money Makers

by Harry Bingham

  George spent his first three weeks buried in the company records. He read the accounts, he tried to understand the business, he went on site tours and interviewed his principal managers. At the end of it he was breathless with excitement. ‘There’s no stopping us, Val,’ he confided to his fiancée. ‘This company’s got bags of potential, and for once it hasn’t mortgaged away its future. The sky’s the limit here.’ Val was pleased for him, of course. She knew that George’s ambitions wanted a bigger arena than Gissings could now provide, and she saw his excitement and encouraged him. But she was pleased for other reasons too. They were soon to be married and there was joy for Val in every detail of the wedding preparations. They were looking round for a new home and had already seen a number of gorgeous houses with room for kids and dogs aplenty. George wanted a big dog: a Labrador perhaps, or a collie. Val wanted something smaller: a spaniel probably or maybe even a terrier. But there was no hurry. They’d choose in their own good time and Val knew she’d get her way.

  And then there was Gissings. They called a board meeting there too, at which George resigned as managing director and appointed Val in his place. Val would have to make do with the meagre salary that George had put up with, but she too was given an incentive. George transferred half of Gissings into her name and - most important of all - wrote out a cheque which completely cancelled Gissings’ debt to David Ballard.

  ‘Congratulations you two. Don’t you lose touch just because of this,’ said Ballard, waving the cheque. ‘I’m not going to retire happy until I’ve seen you, Val, buy out the Aspertons and you, George, notch up your first fifty million profit. I tell you, there’ll be no prouder man in heaven tonight than your late father, George, my lad.’

  George wasn’t sure that Bernard would be too fussed. If he’d managed to barge through the pearly gates at all, he’d be too busy establishing his harp rental business to think about the family he’d left behind. If he had taken it into his head to look, though, he’d have liked George’s new desk ornament. In the centre of George’s impressive desk (a special order from Gissings, of course), there stood a black plastic pedestal bearing a die-cast model of a forklift truck. Like his father, George would sooner have died than sell his shares in the company he now managed.

  Val normally didn’t go in for trifles, but she too had a memento she was reluctant to throw away. It was a fax from David Thurston and Kelly O’Shea. When George had rejected their first offer, they’d reported the news to their Strategy Committee, which was astonished by the rejection. The Committee approved a higher offer, contained in the fax, which valued Gissings at six million pounds exactly. George hadn’t responded despite a series of increasingly frantic phone calls from across the Atlantic, but Val had kept it. Up in heaven, there was another ex-businessman keeping a watchful eye on his former baby. Tom Gissing would have been astonished and proud to know that anybody valued his business as highly as that, and he’d have been equally astonished to see its new managing director. Val was determined to make it worth even more in the future and, free of debt, began to concoct plans for a major overhaul of the ailing plant. Andrew Walters had mentioned his intention to take early retirement and Val chose Darren to take the lead on the plant renovation.

  2

  Matthew was happy too. He’d come home from work one day to find Fiona radiant in one of her rarely seen evening gowns. No sooner had he come through the door than she grabbed him gently between the legs and drew him after her in to their living room. The room was filled with flowers: white ones, lilies, roses, gypsophila, carnations, anthemis, orchids, white lilac; flowers in every vase, jug and bowl the house contained; flowers on every table, every shelf, on the arms of the chairs, on the sofa, on the floor. The air was thick with perfume and Matthew’s nose tickled. On the living-room table was a small box, bearing the signature of Asprey & Garrard, the queen’s jewellers.

  ‘I’m ready, Matthew. I’m finally, genuinely ready,’ she said.

  Matthew took her hand and dropped to his knee.

  ‘Dearest Fiona,’ he said, ‘will you marry me?’

  She didn’t answer him directly, but by the time they were done kissing, a diamond ring had made its way out of the little box on the table and on to Fiona’s ring finger. They were engaged.

  Matthew had lost his million and lost his claim on his father’s wealth. He regretted this, but not excessively. He was glad beyond words not to have to deal with Belial any more, glad too that he had no secrets from Fiona or from Madison, glad to have proved something in the process. He would earn more bonuses. He was a good trader and now that his attention was focused entirely on the bank’s business, he’d do better yet. In time, he hoped to become a managing director alongside Fiona and they’d have money enough to bathe in. In time, he expected Josephine to relent. She’d give him back his million and maybe even some of her shares, in which case they’d have enough to swim in. Time would tell. Matthew wasn’t in a hurry.

  3

  Then there was Zack. He didn’t travel back up to London after the final climactic scene at the solicitor’s. He got into his car and drove round the country trying to make sense of what had happened. He thought about Sarah and the calamitous state of Hatherleigh Pacific. He thought about Weinstein Lukes, about Dixon Banderman, and about the quarter of a million pounds which he owed and didn’t have. He thought about Robert Leighton and Hal Gillingham. He thought about his sister, brothers, father and mother. He drove randomly until nightfall, finding himself finally a short distance north of Oxford. He drove there, banging on his old tutor’s door at half-past ten.

  Ichabod Bell opened the door to his former star pupil, and welcomed him in. Bell lived alone with his books and was glad to see Zack. Zack told his story, not quite truthfully but almost, and listened to Bell’s quiet commentary. Bell didn’t pass judgement, but didn’t conceal his opinions either. He was a good listener.

  Zack and the philosopher talked till half-past four that morning. Then at nine, Zack got up, climbed into his car and began to nose out of Oxford on the Wiltshire road, heading for Devon to face the wrath of his ruined wife and father-in-law. But before he got on to the main road proper, force of habit made him dial into his voice mail at work.

  There were two messages. The first was from Banderman:

  ‘Call me immediately you get this.’ The partner left a few phone numbers where he could be reached, but didn’t once insult Zack. A bad sign. He surely couldn’t want his quarter of a million back already, could he?

  But the other message was worse; far, far worse. It was from Arabella Queensferry of all people. As an old friend of Zack’s and a college acquaintance of Sarah’s, she had been at Sarah’s party the evening before. Her message ran as follows: ‘Zack, it’s me, Arabella. At the party last night, I heard Sarah talking about your father’s will and about how you’d asked her for the money to make up your million pounds. That’s when it clicked. That’s when I remembered who you were with that night at the ball. I asked Sarah who Robert Leighton was and she told me the whole story, about how she was engaged to him, then broke it off because of that incident. So I told her everything. I had to. I would never have done what you’d asked if I’d known you could be so low. I mean, I knew you were low, but not that low. Sarah was furious, beyond furious really. If you’ve got anything to say in your defence, you’d better start saying it now. As for me, I’d sooner not hear from you again. I’m sorry, Zack. Bye.’

  Zack sat frozen, forgetting to turn the phone off, not hearing the ‘End of messages’ announcement repeat every few seconds. He was like an ardent football fan, needing only a draw from an important game, watching ninety minutes go by goalless and tame - and then, an error, a slip, a moment’s inattention, hardly noticeable in the ordinary run of play. Yet almost without build-up, without preparation, before you’ve got your bearings, the ball is crashing against the back of the net, the wrong net, the net’s ballooning out, the scorer’s breaking away with arms aloft, and the game’s lost, t
he final whistle now only seconds away. The first emotion is disbelief. But there, already lurking beneath the denial, is the knowledge that the very worst thing has happened, the one thing which had not to happen, has really taken place. The images are simultaneously vivid and disconnected - the flash of the ball, the goalie’s dive, the billowing white of the net, the roar of opposing fans - but everything points to the one terrible and irrevocable truth.

  Somewhere, Zack knew all this. Losing his father’s money had been bad, but this was shattering. For the last three years his life had been two things only: work and Sarah. The work had been for nothing and now Sarah - what would she think? How could she possibly do anything but turn her back on him for ever? If Zack had all the money in all the world clipped neatly into a billfold, he’d have tossed it aside without a second thought for the chance to undo his wife’s terrible discovery.

  In shock as he was, his agony was still numb. He moved mechanically. He dialled Banderman first.

  ‘Dixon, it’s Zack.’

  ‘I want you to come in to the office at once.’ Banderman hadn’t insulted Zack. His tone was awry.

  Somewhere Zack registered these facts, but his mind wasn’t working.

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘There is, yes.’ Banderman was grim. ‘We’re being sued by Hatherleigh Pacific. They’re claiming our salesmanship of RosEs to South China didn’t meet due standards of responsible marketing. They’re trying to shift the losses on to us.’

  Zack’s mind lagged a long way behind.

  ‘What? Hatherleigh Pacific? Can they do that?’

  ‘Don’t know. Our lawyers say they may have a case. I’ve been going through the marketing materials you put together, and there’s not a word about responsible salesmanship. That isn’t going to help us. We’ll probably need you to appear in court.’

  Zack’s wife had found him out for a cheat of the worst sort. His father-in-law was suing his employers. His employers would soon find out, if they didn’t already know, that Zack hadn’t spent a single minute encouraging responsible salesmanship. Zack promised to come in right away and rang off. He was in a mounting daze. Sarah. He had to speak to Sarah. He wouldn’t even mind her anger, he wouldn’t mind anything so long as he could speak to her. He dialled her number.

  The number was unobtainable. He redialled carefully.

  Unobtainable. The long whining signal told him what he didn’t want to know. Sarah had changed their phone number. He called directory enquiries. The new number was ex-directory. Zack’s numbness spread through his body, but his mind still clicked forwards. If she’d bothered to change the number, chances were she was still in London and hadn’t gone down to Devon.

  Zack turned the car round and drove east into London.

  The Saab must have guided itself down the M40 because though Zack was at the wheel, it wasn’t him making the decisions. He drove, not to Weinstein Lukes, but to his flat - Sarah’s flat - their flat, their home. He tried his key, but he already knew what he would find. The lock had been changed. He thought of dialling Ovenden House, but he hadn’t the nerve to speak to anyone there.

  A piece of paper caught his eye. Paper addressed to him. He opened it and read the familiar handwriting. Handwriting which should have said something ordinary, something to do with popping out, lunch in the fridge, see you later. It didn’t say that. The note told Zack that Sarah was having his possessions packed up and moved into storage. The location and the key would be mailed to him at Weinstein Lukes. He should not try to contact her, now or ever.

  There was nothing to do. Zack believed Sarah was inside the flat, but she wouldn’t answer his knock, wouldn’t answer him if he called. He waited a moment. He was suddenly sure that she was standing on the other side of the door listening, knowing he was there. He wondered whether he should say something, but what would he say? ‘It’s true. I married you for your money, and now I’ve lost your money, my money, my father’s and your family’s. I can’t even pay my boss what I owe.’ Or should he just say what was in his heart. ‘I love you, I adore you and I’ve found out too late’?

  He hesitated in front of the door, arm raised, ready to knock. For fully a minute, he stood there motionless. Then he stepped back and dropped his arm.

  ‘I’m sorry, my love,’ he whispered, so quietly the sound barely carried, then he turned and left the building.

  His daze carried him to Weinstein Lukes. Banderman was in command of a huge legal operation, which snowballed by the hour. Lawyers came and went. Papers mounted up. Legal secretaries filed and indexed each new document. Mounds of paper were copied and dis­ patched by courier to Hong Kong, Singapore, New York; cost no object. Never in its history had the firm been forced to defend such a costly action.

  ‘Come in,’ said Banderman. ‘We’ve work to do.’

  For one week, Zack stood at the centre of the whirl­ wind. Legal strategies were explored, debated, refined. Documents corroborating each individual point were located, scrutinised and reinterpreted. To the thousand bucks an hour suits, this was playtime, and despite the fundamental truth of Hatherleigh’s complaint, Weinstein Lukes grew increasingly confident of total success. Zack’s numbness wore off and his pain mounted.

  At the end of the week, he left the office at lunch time and walked briskly to Pall Mall. At Hatherleigh Pacific’s offices, he asked to see the chairman. After a brief wait, he was shown up to the viscount’s room. Zack, feeling lower than the mould which feeds off gutter slime, walked in.

  The viscount nodded, but didn’t offer his hand.

  ‘Well?’

  Zack swallowed. He had rehearsed something before coming, but he couldn’t remember a word of it. He shook himself and began.

  ‘I won’t apologise, because there isn’t an apology in the world that’s big enough. All I came to say is that I think there’s merit in your action against Weinstein Lukes. But you won’t win the case by yourself. They’ve got too many defences. You need an insider, someone at the centre of the whole RosEs thing, someone who knows their legal strategy. I know I’m the last person on earth you must want to work with, but I think I can save Hatherleigh Pacific.’

  ‘You’ll not get Sarah back.’

  ‘I know. I know I’ve lost her and I’m afraid she’s better off without me. But at least I can save something from the wreckage - Hatherleigh Pacific, I mean. If you’ll allow me.’

  The viscount allowed him. Zack quickly inserted him­ self at the heart of the Hatherleigh litigation. He knew which witnesses should be called, what questions to ask them, what documents to demand. He tore up one set of arguments and rewrote them. He developed entire lines of questioning for key witnesses. Eminent barristers sat meekly as Zack took charge. The case as Zack presented it would be witheringly destructive - and at the heart of it all would be Zack’s own evidence: how he personally, the inventor and organiser of the whole RosEs effort, had never for a moment considered his clients’ best interests.

  There were some personal costs in all of this for Zack. He lost his job, of course. He had been forced to tell Banderman that he couldn’t repay his quarter of a million, and personal bankruptcy seemed assured as Banderman opened proceedings against him. What’s more, to fight the case, Weinstein Lukes needed a tax expert to rely on. With Zack gone, that only left Hal Gillingham, who agreed to offer his services as a consultant. As Gillingham began to master the details of the case, he discovered, inevitably, that the tax scam at the heart of it all was his own idea. Right away, he told Banderman, who looked quizzical initially, but when Gillingham managed to produce some notes and doodles from that evening long ago when he’d had his brainwave, Banderman was convinced. Weinstein Lukes’ busy lawyers began to take time out to explore whether they could sue Zack to recover the bonus they’d paid him when under the impression that RosEs had been his idea.

  But none of this Zack minded. He had lost Sarah and all the money in the world wouldn’t make good her loss. Just two days after getting the terrible
news, he’d written to her, confessing everything, apologising and wishing her the very best for her life from now on. He had enclosed his wedding ring and promised that he would do everything to facilitate a divorce the moment she was ready. His relations with Lord Hatherleigh, meantime, were strictly businesslike.

  The case settled out of court. Hatherleigh Pacific didn’t get everything it wanted, but the settlement was as good as they’d hoped. The company’s shares resumed trading on the Hong Kong exchange, battered by the experience, but not crippled. The Hatherleigh Pacific board meetings once again focused on the future, and Scottie could once again turn his attentions to fixing up South China.

  By this time, Zack was legally bankrupt. If Josephine, one day, condescended to give him his million back, he’d have to hand it over to Banderman and Weinstein Lukes. He didn’t mind. They were welcome to it. He was back in Oxford now, living in a freezing attic on the Cowley Road, once more living for philosophy. He had resurrected his old thesis, which had more life in it than he’d thought. He was excited by its potential and hoped to have it ready quickly, then maybe develop his ideas further, write a book perhaps. Ichabod Bell was encouraging.

  In all this time, Zack had neither seen nor spoken to Sarah, but on his desk he had a huge photo of her in her wedding dress, and some snapshots of her on his mantelpiece. Apart from heaps of philosophy books on every surface, there was no other decoration in his single-room flat. He wasn’t happy, in fact, his misery could scarcely have been more intense, but with Sarah gone, philosophy seemed the only thing worth living for. And then one day, eight months or so after the whole hideous tragedy had unfolded, there was a ring at his door. He pressed the buzzer to let his visitor up and, a moment later, there in his doorway stood Sarah, heavily pregnant.

  The blood dropped from Zack’s face.