Due Diligence

by Grant Sutherland

  ‘I come back here, twelve o’clock.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The big bowls. I bring them back.’

  The giant glass bowls, I remember them from the party on the boat; full of desserts and fruit. It would be just like Win to take them into his personal charge. I pinch the bridge of my nose. The Inspector is not going to understand this at all.

  ‘And when did you leave here?’

  ‘Maybe fifteen minute.’

  ‘Did Vance see you leave?’

  Win turns his head. ‘My wife. She see me.’ He explains that his wife picked him up from the boat, she helped him bring all the bowls up to the restaurant.

  ‘Win. There isn’t any problem for you then. Your wife was with you the whole time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I could stand here the rest of the day assuring him that he has nothing to fear, and still I might not reach him. I give it one final shot. Taking Ryan’s card from my wallet, I place it on the bench.

  ‘If you don’t call him, he’ll come back anyway. And he’ll keep coming back until you answer his questions, Win. He’s investigating Daniel's murder. That’s his job. That's the law. But if you just tell him the truth there won’t be a problem. And I think you should. I really do.’ His looks harden. I raise my hand. ‘But even if you don’t speak to him, no-one’s going to send you back to the refugee camp. I give you my word, Win. You understand?’

  The chicken joints make a crunching sound as they break. I slide Ryan’s card closer to the cutting board, then I leave.

  7

  * * *

  Hugh digs through the paperwork in the box I’ve just taken down from the shelf. When he arrived, he said he wanted to look through the paperwork on all the Twintech deals, so we’ve come up to the filing room to search. I have borrowed Sandra’s key. I ask Hugh what he’d be doing if he wasn’t doing this.

  ‘Habibi,’ he says. ‘Remember?’

  ‘I mean if you wanted to give up the City. Isn’t there something else you always wanted to do?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nowhere you want to go?’

  He tells me he goes to plenty of places right now. ‘From what I’ve seen,’ he says, ‘the grass isn't much greener. Does this have some mysterious connection with Twintech?’

  Not at all. It has a connection with me, personal doubts, but nothing I wish to discuss. So I take down the last box, and crouch beside him. He’s been referring to a printout on the Twintech deals; now he pushes it across the floor to me.

  ‘The past twelve months,’ he says.

  A surprisingly long list. He asks if anything strikes me.

  ‘There aren’t many big amounts?’

  ‘Correction. There aren’t any.’

  Looking through it again, I see that he’s right. More deals than I expected, but the amounts are small.

  ‘What else?’ he says. ‘See how they’re paired up?’

  ‘A lot are in-and-out the same day.’

  ‘Most, but not all. And not every in-and-out gave Twintech a profit.’ He rummages in the box. ‘Take the paperwork,’ he tells me, nodding to the pile he’s already dug out. ‘Match it up with the deals on the list. Make sure it checks out.’

  ‘Are we looking for a dealer’s name?’

  ‘Fat chance. Whoever this is, he’s no dummy.’

  For the next fifteen minutes we are silent. I match the paperwork with the list of Twintech deals while Hugh rummages through the last box. Here in the quietness, amidst the dusty records, it’s almost possible to forget what’s happening outside: Ryan is looking for a murderer; Vance, the chief suspect, is trying to pull off our biggest deal for years; and Darren Lyle is trying to cripple us. And so far only Darren seems to be having any success. All this, while I sit up here amidst the boxes, turning pages.

  Hugh finishes his search; he stands and stretches, bending from side to side as he asks me how things ended up with Ryan.

  ‘We went for a walk down by the river.’

  ‘A walk?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  Then the door swings open, and the sounds of the back-office come flooding in. Karen Haldane. She looks from the two of us, and down to the open boxes scattered at our feet.

  I turn to Hugh. ‘Are we done here?’

  Yes, he tells me, all done.

  ‘What’s this?’ Karen says.

  But I’m not feeling like a lecture just now. I usher Hugh past her out the door, pausing to give her Sandra’s keys. She glares.

  ‘You could’ve asked me,’ she says.

  Nodding, I pass right on by.

  8

  * * *

  Back in my office, Hugh and I go through the paperwork together. As he expected, our search throws up no particular name.

  ‘So what does that tell us? There’s more than one person involved in Twintech?’

  ''Tain’t necessarily so.’ Hugh rocks back in his chair. ‘Say someone does a deal, forgets to do the ticket. He’s out at lunch when he remembers. What does he do?’

  ‘Rings in.’

  ‘Right. Whose signature goes on that ticket?’

  I pull a face. If the dealers didn’t do each other favours, the whole operation would grind to a standstill. In the normal give-and-take of things, it wouldn't be at all difficult to get an unsuspecting innocent to sign off a deal. I push both hands up through my hair.

  ‘Same everywhere,’ Hugh consoles me.

  He opens his briefcase: more paper. He’s says he’s done some analysis on the Twintech deals, the losing deals are marked in red ink; beside these, the highs and lows in the market that day. I study the numbers awhile. Then I notice something.

  ‘None of the losses are in-and-out the same day.’

  'That’s right. We’ll make an investigator out of you yet.’

  I tell him that he'll have to spell it out for me, exactly what this seemingly inconsequential fact means.

  ‘Okay,’ he says, 'try this. The fraudster sees some price diving, so he writes himself a deal against Carltons. Then either A, for some reason he can't get the other deal written, the close-out; or, B, he thinks it’s going lower so he lets it run. But when he comes in the next day, the market’s tinned against him. He cuts the loss.’

  I examine the numbers again. It makes sense.

  ‘He kept dealing in small amounts,’ Hugh speculates, ‘because he didn’t want to trigger a credit-check from your back-office. As long as he didn’t get greedy, odds were you wouldn’t notice him.’

  This, too, makes sense. We have hundreds of corporate customers, there’s no way we can keep tabs on all of them. We generally rely on the ratings agencies, Moody’s, or Standard and Poors; but with many of our smaller clients it’s easier to simply set low dealing limits, and if they don’t exceed these, and they pay their bills on time, we tend not to ask too many questions.

  ‘He was right,’ Hugh says. ‘You didn’t notice him. He's pulled nearly two million out of the bank without anyone seeing it.’

  ‘You’ve traced the money?’

  ‘Destination Switzerland, by the look. He probably churns it through half a dozen places after that. Liechtenstein, the Caymans, it could be anywhere. Frankly, Raef, unless you find who’s behind Twintech, the money’s gone.’

  I should be relieved - the amount is paltry - but what I am is angry. For less than two million pounds, the bank has been put in jeopardy; for less than two million pounds, Daniel might well have been murdered. I feel now what any decent man would have felt from the start: a deep burning rage.

  ‘But see this?’ Hugh points to Twintech’s recent deals, his fingers resting on the last one. ‘See the date?’

  Last week. Two days before Daniel died. Twintech, it seems, bought into the CTL bond issue. When I smile, Hugh asks me what's up, and so I explain about the CTL paper that Carltons got left with. ‘Nice to know our friend here got caught out too.’ Then I notice something else: there’s no close- out on Twintech’s CTL deal. 'Twintech’s pos
ition is still open?’

  ‘That’s how it looks,’ Hugh confirms.

  Switching on the Reuters, I flick around till I find the price on the CTL bond. After the immediate sharp move downward post-issue, it’s now holding steady.

  ‘So,’ I say. ‘He’s sitting on a loss.’

  ‘You’re assuming he’s still alive.’

  This again. Hugh, after turning it all over, has decided that Daniel was at very least a partner in Twintech. His theory is that one of the other partners had him killed. Hugh's friends down at the Met are still saying that Daniel’s murder was a professional hit.

  Yes, I tell him now. I’m assuming that the fraudster is alive.

  He considers a moment. ‘Raef,' he says. 'I’ve got an idea.’

  9

  * * *

  After leaving Hugh with our IT people, I do a quick tour of the bank: in Settlements, half the girls are reading magazines, and over in Funds Management the usual atmosphere of inertia prevails. Putting my head in at the Dealing Room downstairs, I see that matters stand just as they were. So I withdraw and move on to Corporate Finance. Even here the feeling is subdued. I sense the faces turning my way, searching for a sign; they are wondering if they should hang on for the half-yearly bonus, or cut their losses and jump ship now. Finding Cawley, the young MBA, I take him aside. He gives me a rundown on the state of play in the bid. Vance has gone to give a presentation at one of the big pension funds, trying to shake their Parnells shares free.

  ‘Haywood reckons Ian Parnell’s in the bag,’ Cawley says.

  In the bag: the kind of optimistic phrase I used quite often myself when I started out in Corporate Finance. If the bid succeeds, it will boost our credibility in the market, but it won’t stop Penfield. Vance, I know, would be cock-a-hoop, but all I get when I think about it is an arid rush of spite: I would dearly love to see Darren Lyle take a fall.

  I’m already halfway back to my office when I lift my head and see Gerald Wolsey coming towards me. I look around for Lyle, but it seems he hasn’t come. When Wolsey offers me his hand I ignore it and walk straight past. He follows me into my office. He seems ill at ease; not much of a consolation to me after what he’s put us through. I ask him what he wants.

  ‘I wouldn’t have bothered you, but I couldn’t seem to get through to your father. Rather busy.’ He waits, but I remain silent. ‘I think there’s been a misunderstanding.’

  ‘Misunderstanding? Is that what you call it?’

  ‘Raef—’

  ‘Mr Carlton,’ I say coldly. He looks surprised. He seems only now to have noticed how angry I am. His cheeks flush pink.

  ‘I can well understand that you might be upset—’

  ‘Who sent you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not that difficult a question. Who sent you?’

  ‘If you’ll just hear me out—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear you out. I heard Mr Skinner out, your flunky from the DTI.’ I come round my desk and I hold a finger very close to his face. ‘You’re a worm.’ He blinks. I feel myself losing control but I don’t care enough to hold back. ‘This bank employs a lot of people, and most of them can’t afford to lose their jobs. This isn’t Whitehall. We don’t sit on our fat arses for twenty years waiting for a pension. Even me’ - I jerk a thumb to my chest - ‘I work too. Like my father and my grandfather did. That's what we do. We don’t do it for the good of our health, I admit that. But I tell you what: we don’t stand back and watch the lot get brought down by some bureaucratic arsehole like you.’ Wolsey flinches. I point to the door. ‘Show yourself out.’

  The pink flush on his face deepens. ‘Mr Skinner’s been suspended.’

  ‘What for? Not digging the dirt fast enough?’

  Wolsey tells me, frostily, that I am labouring under a misapprehension.

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘I had no prior knowledge that Skinner was coming here.’

  ‘When I need a lesson in how to be economical with the truth, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘That isn’t fair.’

  ‘And I suppose it is fair for you to join forces with Lyle and try to screw us?’

  ‘Darren?’

  ‘Oh, please. Spare me.’

  As I go back to my desk, he tries again.

  ‘My investigators acted prematurely. I’ve taken disciplinary action against Skinner, and I came here intending to apologize. Perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered.’

  Pretending to be amused rather than infuriated by this farce, I shuffle the papers on my desk.

  ‘Carlton Brothers does have a case to answer,’ he says, and when I make no response, he finally he goes to the door. He offers a parting shot over his shoulder. ‘And if you want to start blaming someone, I suggest you look a little closer to home.’

  I restrain the impulse to hurl my paperweight after him. Whitehall. How do my father and Aldridge put up with these people?

  Immediately I phone my father to tell him about Wolsey’s visit, but he dismisses this impatiently. He asks if I’ve been watching our share price. I flick on the screen: another 5p down.

  ‘Gifford’s concerned,’ he says.

  Gifford isn’t the only one. If the fall continues, my father and I could be in dire financial trouble. Half our twenty per cent holding in Carltons is financed by a loan, and that loan is secured by the ten per cent of Carltons we own outright. Leverage: it cuts both ways. We need to stop the endless fall.

  ‘I think we should put in a bid ourselves,’ I tell him. “Account personal”.’

  He greets my suggestion with silence. An attempt to support the Carlton share price will take serious money, and we both know that the one asset we could use as collateral — the only one that might make a difference — is Boddington. He asks if there’s any hope the slide might stop of its own accord.

  ‘It won’t stop unless someone starts bidding.’

  ‘I’ll come over to see you at three,’ he says.

  Outside my window a gull soars, drifting high above the river. Carlton Brothers or Boddington: my father or me. One of us is about to have a gaping hole punched clean through his life.

  When I turn back to the screen, our shares have dropped another 4p.

  10

  * * *

  Karen Haldane missed her vocation, she should be down at the Met with Ryan. She badgered Becky so much that Becky finally came in to beg me to go upstairs. ‘Please Raef,’ Becky said. ‘She’s been on my back for an hour.’ Now I take the fire steps two- by-two, mentally rehearsing the sharp little speech I will make. I have enough problems without being forced to run around at Karen Haldane’s beck and call.

  But Karen doesn’t give me the chance to say a word. When I enter her office she says, ‘Just a moment,’ and walks straight out the door. I step back and watch her stroll down the corridor to Funds Management. Unbelievable. I wait in her office, brooding darkly.

  She returns with a young West Indian woman in tow.

  ‘Pauline does administration on the Alpha Fund,’ Karen says, closing the door. The Alpha Fund: where the cock-up occurred. 'Tellll Mr Carlton what you told me.’

  Pauline looks lost. ‘Which part?’

  ‘Well, start with the instructions Mr Mannetti left when he went on holiday.’

  ‘When Mr Mannetti left, I was with Mr Johnstone then — he did Mr Mannetti’s job on the Alpha Fund.’

  ‘The instructions?’ Karen interrupts.

  ‘Yeah, well he said he left them with some brokers.’

  I ask her what kind of instructions.

  ‘He said Mr Johnstone was just temporary, he didn’t want him messing up the book. Mr Mannetti said he’d take care of all the nominee business when he got back, I should just book it through.’

  Karen says, ‘Mannetti left orders with some brokers before he went on holiday. Is that right?’

  ‘Ahha,’ Pauline says.

  ‘And Johnstone didn’t know?’

  Pauline shakes her head. She explains that t
he shares passed into a small nominee account; she did the paperwork herself.

  ‘But you must’ve known Parnells were in the Red Book.’

  ‘Yeah. But when I rung Mr Mannetti he said just put it through, he’d be back in a few days. If there was problems he’d sort it out.’

  ‘You rang him?’

  ‘Ahha.’

  Karen tells me she has the number.

  Pauline shifts her weight from foot to foot. ‘I just did what he said.’

  I get the impression I’m missing something here. I ask why she didn’t speak up earlier, back when Johnstone was fired. Pauline stares at her feet.

  ‘She was afraid,’ Karen says.

  Pauline lifts her head. ‘I was just doing what Tony told me.’

  Karen directs a withering glance Pauline’s way. Opening the door, she reminds Pauline not to speak with anyone about this, including Mannetti. Pauline bobs her head and leaves us.

  I face Karen. ‘Tony?’

  She goes to the far side of her desk. ‘Okay, he was sleeping with her.’

  ‘And now he’s dumped her and she wants her revenge?’

  ‘He’s dumped her and she’s decided to tell the truth.’

  ‘I can't believe you’ve brought me up here for this.’

  ‘Mannetti’s been lying,’ Karen says.

  She opens a folder and begins to show me the paperwork. Begrudgingly I run an eye over it. On first view it seems to support Pauline’s story. Odd. I ask Karen about that phone number.

  ‘Fiji,’ she says. ‘When I tried it, I got some resort manager. He gave me the two-minute spiel on holidays in the sun.’

  So about the Pacific island, at least, Mannetti was telling the truth. He wasn’t in England. And if he wasn’t in England, he couldn’t have been at St Paul’s Walk last Wednesday night. I turn the whole business this way and that, trying to see it from every angle; but after a moment I give up. Whatever happened, we’ve taken our lumps over this Alpha Fund business already: I can sort it out with Mannetti later. With Carlton Brothers dissolving by the hour, I have greater and more immediate concerns.