Henry then recounts two wild and implausible stories he's been hearing. He keeps looking away, I have the impression I’m not getting the truth. And there seems to be a rather big omission.
‘Daniel was killed last week, Henry. That’s not part of the rumours doing the rounds?’
Henry circles some numbers with his pencil, concentrating hard. It occurs to me that he is trying to spare my feelings.
‘Speak to me, Henry.’
He drops the pencil. ‘They reckon Daniel put some deals in the bottom drawer. The losses got too big, he was gonna be tumbled, so he topped himself.’
‘Suicide?’ I can’t keep the surprise from my voice. ‘That’s ridiculous. Daniel was murdered.’
‘You wanted the rumour.’
So I did. And when I recover from my surprise I turn this one over. Bad deals tucked away in a bottom drawer do not stay hidden for ever: sooner or later they explode. At a stretch, I can see how this suicide theory might have gained currency.
‘And what’s your theory, Henry?’
‘My theory is, theories are crap.’ He picks up his pencil and points to the door. ‘You wanna theory, go see Billy Bullshit.’
12
* * *
In the corridor I meet Sir John. He accompanies me back toward my office, explaining that Matthew Harris has phoned.
‘I'm just going to see him,’ he says.
I jerk my head back towards the Dealing Room. ‘He hasn’t reopened our trading line.’
When I cross to my desk, Sir John stays by the door. ‘He’s asked for a few more hours, Raef. It’s not entirely in his hands.’
‘He’s got till eight tomorrow morning. They open our line and trade with us then, or we drop them in it. Make sure he understands. No extensions. No excuses.’
Sir John disappears down the corridor. Becky puts her head in to tell me that Vance is on his way to see me. ‘And Allen Fenwick from the FT's been trying to get you.’
Great, I think dismally. The press is onto this already. I instruct her that if Femwick calls again, she is to refer him to Gary Leicester.
‘And Mr Johnstone called again,’ she says.
Johnstone, the cock-up, who we fired. I give her a warning look, and she withdraws. I’m not sure I could trust myself with Johnstone just now.
Vance, when he enters, is beaming. ‘Three cheers for young Master Haywood,’ he says dropping into a chair.
I am disoriented for a second, completely lost: this is not the time for good cheer.
‘Ian Parnell took a fall,’ he says. ‘Haywood hacked back to the stables with him.’ The hunt. ‘Pair of them spent the afternoon in the pub apparently. All very chummy.’ Vance pauses for effect. ‘Ian Parnell wants out.’
My smile is forced. Vance thinks I haven’t grasped his point.
‘Raef, Ian Parnell wants to accept the Meyer bid. Haywood’s setting up a private meeting tomorrow. If this comes off, we’re home.’
‘No we're not.’
He looks at me askance. Evidently news of the freeze-out in the Dealing Room has somehow passed him by.
‘Stephen, we’re in trouble here. Maybe serious.’ Then I lay it all out for him, recounting the events of the afternoon. The only interruption he makes is when I tell him about my conversation with Roger Penfield: at this, Vance moans. Concluding the sorry tale, I ask if he has any ideas. He sinks into himself, thinking. To Vance this probably has the makings of an interesting corporate banker’s puzzle. But initially all he can offer is that we need to twist some arms.
‘Sir John’s working on it,’ I say. Vance looks sceptical. He knows nothing of Sir John’s arrangement with the clearer, and I have no intention of enlightening him now. It is just the kind of cosy deal he despises. If he heard of it, I wouldn’t put it past him to resign.
‘Your father would be more useful than Sir John,’ he suggests. ‘Does he know what's happening?’
‘Not yet.’
Vance seems to read what’s in my mind. ‘Something like this, it isn’t your fault, Raef. No-one’s going to blame you. Your father’s got more clout than Sir John. Call him.’
Henry comes in. ‘All done,’ he says, giving Vance a quick nod. ‘Old Lady rolled it over to Monday. Everyone’s gone home except the nightdesk. They've got orders to watch the screens and sit on their hands.’ Then from behind his back, he produces a bottle of champagne. He asks if we’d like to wish him Happy Birthday.
The very last thing I feel like, but it would be churlish to refuse. So I go and fetch the glasses. Henry pops the cork, and the three of us kick back for a minute with the champagne. We discuss the events of the afternoon, crossing and recrossing the same ground: what happened, when and why. Finally it’s Vance who says what’s on all our minds.
‘It has to be connected with Daniel.’
Henry, loyal to the memory of the man who watched over his career, remarks that the rumours of Daniel hiding deals are just bullshit. I stare into my glass, thinking about that fraud note. Neither one of these two knows. Then Henry remembers something else.
‘Sandersons were turning us down yesterday.’
‘They’re too small,’ I say. ‘This is the whole market.’
Vance sets his glass aside. ‘Lyle?’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘No,’ Vance agrees. ‘But he sounds to me like the number one candidate for stirring this up. And if it is him, I’ll wring his bloody neck.’
The truth is I’ve had the same uneasy suspicion myself. But suspicion isn’t certainty, and I tell them both not to go off half-cocked.
‘So, what?’ Henry interjects. ‘We let them screw us?’
‘Leave it to me,’ I say. ‘There’ll be some trading lines open in the morning.’ He doesn’t seem convinced. He swigs the last of his drink, then rises as I tell him that I’m sorry about ruining his party.
‘I’m gettin’ too old for that shit anyway. You did me a favour.’
Once Henry has gone, Vance and I sit silent a moment, reflecting on our troubles. Then he says, ‘You know this isn’t a maybe, Raef. This has got to be Lyle. He’ll use it to save Parnells.’
‘This is a Dealing Room problem.’
'Tell that to Lyle’s PR people.’ Vance waves a hand. ‘By the time they’ve finished with it, we’ll all look like monkeys.’
Chewing his lip, he goes over and flicks on the screen, calling up the closing price on Carltons. I see the name but not the number, so I ask him how much we're down.
'35p on the day. Last deal a sell.’ When I remark that it could have been worse, Vance flicks off the screen and watches till the shrinking star of light disappears. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘By tomorrow morning, it will be.’
13
* * *
‘The things I’m hearing, Jesus, who wants to use the phone?’ Keith Trevalyn, hands in his pockets, leans into the cold wind as we talk. We are at St Katharine’s Dock, close by his office. ‘I thought Carltons was meant to be having a good year,’ he says.
‘We are.’
He grunts. There’s a metallic jangling from the yachts moored in the artificial lagoon; the wind whistles in the masts, and the stays hum. We pass into darkness nearer the river. ‘By the way,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry about Daniel.’
I nod a cursory acknowledgement. But when he asks after Celia, I remind him that he said he had something to tell me.
‘Yeah.’ He stops at the river-wall and looks out over the dark water. ‘You won’t like it.’
‘Try me.’
‘We’re not having such a great year ourselves,’ he says. ‘I tell you, the way it's looking I’m not worried about my bonus these days. More my job.’
His job. Now I see where this is going. I ask him if it’s really that bad.
‘Reuters. Electronic dealing systems.’ Still gazing over the river, he pronounces his verdict. ‘We’re history. Ancient history.’
‘It’s possible we'll need another senior dealer at Carltons soon
. If we do, Keith, you’re top of the list.’
He nods without enthusiasm. ‘When you called up, I thought, “Here’s my chance”. Then I do the ring-round. Jesus.’
‘I’ll help you if I can.’
‘The way I hear it, Raef, that's a fucking big “if”.’
A horn blasts somewhere down-river, we both turn. When I look back to him he’s staring across at the far bank again.
‘Okay,’ he says, ‘this is what I hear. The big rumour is Daniel. He was hiding deals and they blew up in his face. Suicide.’ He pauses. ‘That’s bullshit, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well that won’t stop our knuckleheads from spreading it. No-one else either. I picked up about four variations on the theme in half an hour.’ He looks at me. ‘There’s another story too. One that’s real enough to get your line pulled everywhere.’
‘Ahha?’
‘You really don’t have a clue, do you.’
‘Keith-’
‘The story is you reneged on a payment.’
I sway back. ‘We what?’
‘Some deal done last Friday,’ he says, ‘payment due yesterday: it didn’t reach the counterparty’s account.’
He gives me the details. The story is that Carlton Brothers has refused to pay a legitimate obligation of some two million pounds; not a large sum, but were it true, a betrayal of trust that would make our name dirt everywhere. If we’ve reneged on one payment, the reasoning goes, what’s to stop us from reneging on another?
‘That's rubbish,’ I say. ‘A bloody lie.’
Keith tells me not to shoot the messenger.
‘And people believe it? They don’t ask me — no-one’s asked me - they just believe it?’ I slap the river wall. I thought I’d seen the worst of the City, but this craven shrinking back from Carltons because of a lie, it plumbs new depths. I swear. Loudly.
Keith looks embarrassed. Like everyone else, apparently, he’d assumed the story was true. ‘You’ve been badly stitched up,’ he decides.
I thank him, ironically, for his belated vote of confidence. ‘Where’s the story coming from?’
He takes out a handkerchief. ‘All over the place. Look, I can ask till I’m blue in the face, but that’s it, I won’t get any more.’ He blows his nose.
I have a feeling that I already know the answer to my next question, but I ask it anyway. ‘Who are we meant to have reneged on?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Keith, you hauled me out here because you didn’t want to speak on the phone. It’s cold, and I don’t have the time.’
He repockets his handkerchief, looking glum. After what he’s discovered this afternoon, the attractions of rejoining Carlton Brothers have paled: he doesn’t. want to be the last passenger to board the Titanic. He leans against the wall and studies the light on the water. ‘They reckon you owe two million to Sandersons,’ he says.
14
* * *
‘We can forget about Shobai,’ Hugh tells me. ‘Their Treasurer opened the books for me.’ He’s been waiting for me to get off the phone ever since the maid let him in. She’s gone now, and we're alone in the drawing room.
‘He showed you?’
‘I spent weeks with this guy, remember. The suicide? I tell you, he doesn’t want any more trouble. He showed me the lot.’
I slump into the sofa. Our best lead on this fraud thing has suddenly disappeared. I ask Hugh if he’s sure.
‘Raef, he went through the paperwork with me. Anyone who’d signed anything, we called in. Front and back office. I talked to a dozen of them.’ He drops into an armchair. ‘Nothing.’
His laptop sits alongside a folder on the coffee table; I stare at it bleakly. I’ve just hung up on Sir John, he hasn’t had a decision from Matthew Harris yet; and Henry rang earlier to say that he’d tried trading into Sydney and Tokyo — no luck. My father, too, I've spoken with. The prognosis is grim.
‘We kept looking for Shobai so we kept finding it,’ Hugh explains.
‘Where does Ryan fit in?’
‘Okay, take Ryan. He was on the Shobai suicide. Shobai was City, Stewart’s murder looks like City, so Ryan gets the case. When we see him, we jump to a conclusion.’
I remind him that the Shobai deal came up in his computer search.
‘I loosened the parameters for the Shobai deals. Same again. I was looking for Shobai, so I found it.’
We look at each other. We have two days left, and as of this moment we are nowhere.
While I get up to fix us both a drink, Hugh gives me a brief recap on the meeting he’s just had with Penfield. ‘What did you do? Poke him with a stick? He almost chewed my head off.’ Hugh turns in his chair. ‘And what’s this he’s saying about some other big problems at Carltons?’
I tell him to concentrate on the fraud note, to leave these other problems to me.
‘You don’t get it, Raef. The way Penfield’s telling it, you’re hanging on by the skin of your teeth. I can help, but I need the full picture. I swallowed your fancy Odin deal, but frankly, you can’t afford to dick me around like that again. So,’ he says. ‘Let’s hear it.’
I take his drink across and place it on the side- table. ‘You must be sorry I ever came knocking at your door.’
‘Yep,’ he says. And he isn’t smiling.
Returning to my chair, I put aside my drink. What’s the point of hiding it from Hugh? After everything that’s happened, I’m getting a queasy feeling that I am not fighting isolated problems here. And if there’s anyone who might be able to pick his way through the maze, it’s Hugh. So as directly and as openly as I can, I tell him the whole story: the Mannetti cock-up; the squeeze in the Dealing Room; our difficulties in the Parnell takeover; Darren Lyle; I even mention Ryan’s interviews with Vance. At first Hugh stops me every few minutes to ask a question, but gradually he falls quiet and when I finally end my story he hasn’t spoken for a quarter of an hour. The only information I hold back is about Annie; that, and Sir John’s 'arrangement' with the clearer.
His glass is empty now; he considers it thoughtfully. ‘Jesus,’ he says.
‘Penfield didn’t tell you any of this?’
‘Not likely. He wanted the same as you: pick my brains and keep me in the dark.’
When I mumble a few words of apology, Hugh shrugs it off.
‘Not the best few days of your life,’ he remarks.
‘Do you think it ties in? The fraud note with everything else?’
‘I’m not a psychic, Raef, but sure, I’d say so.’ He pauses. ‘We’ve knocked Shobai out, okay? And Odin. That leaves just one name from those three I turned up. Twintech.’
‘You said Twintech was too small.’
‘Look, we can’t go back and start again. It’s either Twintech or I’ve run out of ideas. I didn’t give Penfield the name, if it’s any consolation.’
‘He agreed to stay out of it?’
‘Only till Friday night. After that he'll turn Carltons upside down.’ Hugh flicks his glass. ‘The only reason he’s not putting the cleaners through you now is it’ll look bad for him. He made his big mistake when he let you put me onto this instead of his own team. Now he’s just hanging on and hoping.’ Confirmation, if I needed it, that Penfield fears for his job. ‘Unhappy man,’ Hugh says.
I offer to fix him another drink, but he declines. He flips open the folder and takes out a sheet. After studying it a moment, he remarks that Twintech has made less than two million pounds out of its dealings with Carltons. ‘Not much.’
I make a sound.
‘I mean not big enough for someone to get killed over,’ he says. ‘That’s what we’re discussing here, isn't it?’
‘It’s a possible fraud.’
‘It’s definitely trouble with Darren Lyle from what you’re saying.’
I consider this. I ask if he thinks Ryan should be told.
‘He’s investigating a murder, Raef, of course he should know.’ He looks as if he can’t believe I�
�ve asked the question. Dropping his eyes, he adds, ‘He called for a chat this afternoon.’
Ryan called Hugh? This bombshell leaves me floundering. Our investigation is being filtered through to Ryan by Penfield; and Penfield assured me that Ryan need not know who the investigators were. If Ryan finds out I’m involved, he will erupt.
‘How did Ryan hear you're working on this?’
‘He hasn’t. He just wants me to run my eyes over something. My guess is, the reports he’s got from Penfield.’ Our reports. And not knowing where they’ve originated, Ryan has approached Hugh for a second opinion. Hugh smiles, the irony amusing him. ‘I told him I was tied up.’ Then he scans the Twintech sheet again. ‘I need a dumpdown on this lot,’ he says.
Now I lead him through to my study. After logging on and keying in the password, I give him a quick tour through our system. He leans over my shoulder asking questions. Ten minutes of instruction and he says he has the general idea. I tell him I have to make some calls, that I’ll be in the drawing room if he needs me. He doesn’t reply. He slides into the chair, fingers on the keyboard, eyes fixed on the screen. For the moment, at least, I have lost him.
For the next three hours I’m on the phone, making calls. My father, from his flat, is doing the same. Influence. Pressure. There are credits in the City that pass unrecorded in any balance sheet, and now we’re calling our favours in. Most of those I speak to are wary: not one of them asks me about the deal we are supposed to have reneged on. When I mention it, they sound as if I’ve just jogged their memories. Yes; there was some story they'd heard. No, of course they wouldn’t pull our trading line because of a rumour. ‘It’s a lie,’ I tell them. ‘It's not a rumour, it’s a lie.’ Then I remind each of them of the particular favour he owes us. But in the space of three hours, I manage to extract just two promises to reopen the trading lines; the rest fob me off. And I can’t plead. To be phoning like this already shows signs of weakness. So I thank each of them with whatever courtesy I can raise, a dwindling supply as the night wears on.
In the middle of it all, Hugh appears from the study. He sees I’m on the phone, so he holds up a disc for me to see. He points to himself, then the door. ‘See you in the morning,’ he whispers.
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