Vance will not be arrested. I keep telling myself that. Because if he is, Henry’s right, the bid could well fall apart. And if the bid falls apart, the cascade of sellers in Carltons will turn into an avalanche. Twelve million pounds won’t save us then.
I think about my father and Boddington. Piece by piece, bid by bid, I’ve committed the estate to this struggle for the bank's salvation. Now, a third of the money gone, a growing doubt comes to me: what right do I have to be doing this? If we open negotiations with Gifford at once, we’ll get a better price for Carltons than if we wait. And Boddington would no longer be at risk. But the bank would go; and I can’t bring myself to surrender it like that.
The broker shouts, ‘Seller at 225.’
Immediately the offer appears on the screen. I watch and wait, but nothing more happens. The minutes pass slowly. We have almost survived the day.
Then I think of Annie; of Annie and my wife. Where are they? Are they safe? I don’t even know that. Here am I, staring at a screen, wringing my hands over the fate of Carlton Brothers, and where they are, and how they are, God only knows. And isn’t this exactly what Theresa told me she hated? Even before Annie came, didn’t she accuse me of allowing my whole life to be devoured by the bank? In December — the month of our personal Somme — she hurled in my face the bitter accusation that by the time she slept with Daniel, she’d already lost me to Stephen Vance. I laughed then, in derision. Staring at the screen now, reflecting on the years of my marriage, that derisive laughter seems very hollow. Because it is true what Theresa said: there really is more than one kind of unfaithfulness.
‘You’re done at 219.’
Leaning forward, I hit the button. ‘Bid 209. Same amount.’
My bid appears on the screen. I fold my arms, and close my eyes for a moment. Just at the edge of sense now, I smell the subtle musk of my wife’s perfume.
18
* * *
Inspector Ryan follows me around the Dealing Room. We stop by a desk, and I enter Twintech’s name into our Dealing System.
‘Hugh’s confident,’ I tell him, and Ryan lifts his mobile phone to his ear and waits for Hugh’s okay.
Apart from Henry and the nightdesk, the dealers and salesmen have all gone home. With many of the trading lines still closed, it’s been a very quiet day for them. My own trading day ended with the 209 bid untouched: the sellers of Carltons are definitely reconsidering. But tomorrow the game starts anew; and with more than half my ammunition spent, I'm not looking forward to the morning.
When Ryan came to see if we were any further on with the fraud, Hugh sent us both down to the Dealing Room. ‘Raef’ll explain the trap,’ Hugh told him. And that's what I do now, quietly, so Henry and the others can’t hear.
‘Once a deal’s done, the trader enters the deal here,’ I say, pointing to the keyboard and screen. Ryan interrupts, his mobile still held to his ear, and gives me Hugh’s message from upstairs. ‘Morgan says, “Okay, next one”.’
I scrub Twintech’s name from the deal-screen and move on to the next desk. Ryan follows.
‘If someone enters Twintech down here, it’ll go through to Hugh’s screen upstairs. All lights and bells. That’s how he’s programmed it.’
‘And then what? You and Morgan come racing down and make a citizen’s arrest?’
‘We contact you.’
‘Naturally.’ He gives me a look. ‘What makes you think he'll trade tomorrow?’
‘The open position in CTL. If the market turns against him, he’ll cut the loss. That’s what he’s always done.’
‘And you’re sure the market will turn against him tomorrow?’
‘Reasonably.’
He doesn’t press the point, as if maybe he knows that he won't like the answer. We test the last two desks, and after getting Hugh’s okay from upstairs Ryan repockets his phone. On our way out the door, Henry calls across the room, asking if we need any help. I raise a hand and call, no thanks.
‘I went up to see Mr Win Doi,’ Ryan says, stepping after me into the lift. ‘Apparently he went home early.’
‘He’s afraid you’re going to send him back to Vietnam.’
Ryan does a double take.
‘Just an idea he got into his head,’ I explain. ‘But it might pay you to reassure him.’
Ryan thanks me for the advice, but I’m not sure that he's not being ironic.
Settlements, like the Dealing Room, is quiet: three girls remain, they stand by the fax machines, chatting. Hugh has installed himself by the door.
‘Good news,’ he says as we approach. ‘Nothing got put through in Twintech’s name this afternoon. The position's still open.’
Ryan props himself against Hugh’s desk and tells me that Penfield is talking like Carltons might be in grave trouble.
I glance warily over my shoulder; but the girls, I decide thankfully, can’t hear us.
‘I’m not a banker,’ Ryan goes on, ‘but if the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England's concerned, I’d say there’s genuine cause.’
‘We’ll survive.’
‘Whether you survive or not isn’t my worry, Mr Carlton. I’d like to know what, if anything, Daniel Stewart’s murder has to do with your problems.’
‘It hasn’t helped.’
‘Meaning?’
I turn to Hugh. This seems to be the time to mention the Twintech note that I found among Daniel’s papers. But Hugh’s look checks me.
‘Listen,’ I say, facing Ryan again. ‘It’s not only Daniel. We’ve had the DTI onto us, trading problems, this fraud note, it builds up. We’ve fallen out of favour. Daniel’s murder’s become a useful peg for the market to hang every rumour on.’ I repeat with more hope than conviction, ‘We’ll survive.’
Ryan gestures to Hugh’s PC and wonders aloud if there is really much chance of this trap coming off.
‘If the market moves against him,’ Hugh says. ‘Sure.’
Ryan’s mobile rings, he steps away and holds a brief conversation, voice lowered. Hugh taps impatiently at his desk. I get the impression that he wants to speak with me alone.
Ryan’s conversation ends. ‘The moment you get anything on this,’ he points his mobile at the PC, ‘I want to be told.’
‘Was that about Stewart?’ Hugh asks, referring to the call.
‘Someone known to us left the country in a hurry last Thursday morning,’ Ryan says. ‘It’s possibile it's connected with Stewart.'
‘Who?’
‘Known to us, the police, Mr Carlton. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ He hurries out to the lifts.
‘Known to us?’ I turn to Hugh. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Not our problem.’ Hugh watches Ryan through the glass wall. Ryan disappears into the lift. ‘I’m having second thoughts on that Twintech list of Stewart’s. Have you got it here?’
I take it from my pocket and hand it to him. He examines it, thoughtfully.
‘You said there was some kind of note on Odin too,’ he says.
Odin. Again. I thought we had settled this. ‘I don’t know why Daniel was murdered, Hugh, but it wasn’t because of Odin. All right?’
‘Have you still got that note?’
‘Hugh, it’s not part of this.’
He regards me steadily. He will not let this go.
19
* * *
I take Daniel’s Odin note from the drawer of my desk. Coming out of my office, note in hand, eyes down, I walk straight into Vance. He hurries by me, talking over his shoulder as he goes into his own office.
‘Ian Parnell’s staying the night in town. I’ve offered him a room on Carltons.’
Vance is already on the phone, dialling, when I put my head round his door.
‘He accepted?’
Vance grins. ‘He's not likely to win any IQ awards, I can tell you that. He seems to think Haywood's his new best friend.’
‘Is he going to sell?’
‘We’ll put the thumbscrews on him tonight. The Sav
oy. You free?’
Tonight I’ll be dealing with wider concerns than young Ian Parnell. But I wish Vance good luck. If he can shake Ian Parnell’s holding free, the Parnells defence will fall apart, the Meyers will win the bid, and Carltons, after a calamitous week, will begin to look like a bank again. Hope abounding.
Upstairs, I hand Daniel’s note about Odin to Hugh. Hugh places the yellow Odin page side-by-side with the yellow Twintech page that I found among Daniel’s papers. The layout of the two pages is identical.
‘You said Daniel would have told you about Twintech if he wasn’t involved in some way,’ Hugh reminds me. ‘You were sure if he’d come across it accidentally, he would have brought it to you.’
‘I’m sure he would have.’
‘What if it wasn’t accidental?’
I look up, uncertain what he is getting at.
‘What if he was doing what we’ve been doing?’ Hugh says. He touches the Odin page. ‘He did it once before, didn’t he?’
‘An investigation?’
‘Ahha.’
‘He would have told me.’
Hugh taps the Odin sheet. ‘After this? Put yourself in his shoes. He found the Odin deal, he thought he‘d uncovered a big problem, and took it straight to you. What did he get? A pat on the back? Well done, Daniel, you’ve just saved the bank several million quid?’
‘I told him I was aware of the situation.’
‘Anything else?’
There was; and remembering it now, I see what Hugh’s getting at. It feels like curtains being drawn back, and light pouring in.
‘I told him I didn’t need his help. I told him to stay out of it.’
‘You told him to stay out of it.’ Hugh echoes. ‘And he was your Treasurer.’
In fact I told Daniel rather more than this: I warned him that he'd already done quite enough meddling in my affairs. My affairs. And if Daniel found Twintech after that?
‘So let’s say Stewart still didn’t like the look of the Odin deals even after you told him to lay off,’ Hugh says. ‘Then he thinks to himself, if Odin got through the system, could there be any others? He does a trawl, just like I did. That’d be reasonable, wouldn’t it? He was Treasurer, he had responsibilities.’ Hugh raises one yellow page. ‘Bingo. He finds Twintech.’
Which would explain why Daniel was asking Karen about weaknesses in our system: not to exploit them, as we’d supposed, but to plug the gaps. And the disorder in the folders up in the filing room: knowing Daniel’s talents in that direction, how hard would he have found it to get hold of Sandra’s key for a few hours?
‘Who was he going to tell?’ Hugh says. ‘You? Uh-uh. You’d already warned him off Odin.’
‘That was different.’
‘Maybe from where you’re sitting.’
Hugh puts the pages side-by-side again and we inspect them. I think of Daniel at home in his study during the last weeks of his life, inspecting the same pages. He didn’t want to rob Carltons, but he thought someone else was doing that. But who could he tell? If he told Sir John or Vance, it would come back to me. And if he told Karen Haldane, he’d have known she couldn’t resist confronting me directly. Finally I figure it out, why Daniel couldn’t tell me.
‘I was Daniel's number one suspect? He thought I was Twintech?’
‘At a guess,’ Hugh says. ‘At least he thought you were part of it. 'Like with Odin.’
‘And that note Penfield got? From Daniel?’
Hugh puzzles things out as he speaks. ‘He’d have tried to nail Twintech down. Only he’d have had one big advantage over us. The Dealing Room. He knew the place inside out. And say he uncovered the person or persons behind Twintech.’ He looks at me. ‘Now what happens?’
‘The fraudster killed him?’
‘It’s over a million pounds, Raef. Maybe not much to you, but you’ve got plenty down there in Treasury who wouldn’t be on a hundred thousand a year. Someone thought the stakes were big enough for a murder or it wouldn’t have happened.’
We are silent a moment; pensive. Daniel's murder is the one incontrovertible fact in all this, the one wrong that can’t be glossed over or put right. And he died trying to help Carltons.
‘Thanks, Hugh.’
‘For?’
‘You could have done your speculating while Ryan was here.’ I pick up Daniel’s Twintech sheet. ‘I don’t think I could have explained why Daniel didn't bring this to me.’
‘I’m sure you'll think of something,’ he says, reaching for his jacket.
‘Hugh, we agreed Odin was private.’
He points to the sheet. ‘That’s not Odin. And this is just a reprieve. If we haven’t cracked this by tomorrow night, Ryan gets told.’
Friday night. We get this sorted out or it blows up in my face tomorrow night. I bite my tongue. I pick up the Odin page, folding it into the Twintech page, then I pocket them both. Hugh flicks off his PC, and at the far side of the room, a fax whirrs quietly into life.
20
* * *
‘You want to sell the CTL paper?’ Vance says.
‘I don’t just want to Stephen. I am.’
Ten minutes ago I instructed Henry to start selling tomorrow morning. Evidently Henry thought Vance should be informed, and now they’ve come to oppose me together.
‘Why?’ Vance asks. ‘Stephen, it has to be sold. No arguments.’
‘A lot of people bought that paper in good faith. What do we say to them when they see us baling out?’
‘It’ll dump,’ Henry remarks. ‘Through the floor.’ Exactly what’s needed to spring Hugh’s trap. But Stephen and Henry have very good reasons to try and stop it from happening. Our customers, the ones who bought CTL, will be furious. We told them the CTL bond was good value. ‘Buy,’ we said. And now, a very short while later, we’re getting set to offload. Some of them will be looking for blood.
Now I walk around my office, hitting switches. ‘We made a mistake. Let’s cut the loss and get out.’
‘Cut the loss?’ Vance sounds appalled. ‘We won’t be cutting a loss, we'll be cutting our own throats. How long do you think it’ll be before we can shift any paper again?’
‘Dump CTL tomorrow and we won’t make budget in Treasury this month,’ Henry says. ‘No way.’
I turn out the last light and they follow me into the corridor, still pressing their case. I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t something more to their pleas than conscientious concern for the bank. Someone killed Daniel. And if Hugh’s latest guess is right, it wasn’t because Daniel was involved in Twintech, but because he found someone else who was. The way the Twintech deals have been spread across a number of markets, Hugh is quite sure it must be someone senior. A junior trader just wouldn’t have the opportunity to deal that widely. Henry? Vance? I step into the lift, then turn to face them.
‘The debate’s over. Tomorrow morning the CTL paper gets sold.’
They look at one another dismayed. The lift door closes.
Daniel, I think; why didn’t you just tell me? All this time I’ve not quite been able to accept him as the fraudster, he wasn’t like that. Not dishonest with money. But I never expected this. He was investigating the whole thing, and he never breathed a word of it to me? Those last few months of his life, what must it have been like for him? He suspected me, but he couldn’t be sure. And so he worked on alone, unaided, to try to get to the bottom of Twintech. Now I lean back against the wall of the lift, clutching my briefcase. I wanted him to suffer. I hated him, and I wanted him to suffer. Revenge. That’s what I wanted. Not for my family, not even for Annie, but for me. And now this. All that time, those weeks that I nursed my hatred and plotted revenge, what was Daniel doing? He was working for the good of the bank.
The bell rings, the lift doors open, and I stand here gazing across the empty foyer. Daniel, though he did not know it, was struggling to help me. And was he murdered because of that?
21
* * *
At eight o’clock
I arrive at Eric Gifford’s flat in the Barbican. Charles Aldridge, my father and Gifford: all three of them are here. There’s a pall hanging over the room: talks, apparently, have not gone well. While Gifford takes a call in the adjoining room, my father brings me up to date.
‘Gifford’s not convinced. He wants some assurance he won’t be investing in a bottomless pit.’
‘He wants to drive down the price, you mean,’ Sir Charles observes.
I ask if any price has been mentioned. My father mumbles something about preliminary figures. I don’t like the sound of that, so I repeat my question.
‘We're not in a position to dictate terms, Raef. The way things stand, 220’s a reasonable number.’
‘220?’ I look at him in disbelief. ‘Last year he was floating 350 past us. 220?’
‘The situation’s changed, you must see that.’
‘We approached him,’ Aldridge reminds me.
And that, of course, is the problem. Gifford holds the whip hand. It doesn’t matter that Carltons has the same staff as a year ago, or that in nearly every material particular, we are unchanged. What matters now are the indefinables, confidence and trust: without these, we are nothing. A bank only in name. We're not beating off Sandersons as I feared last weekend; we’re imploring American Pacific, anyone, to say they still want us.
Gifford reappears. The three of them take up their interrupted conversation, and my father tries to draw me in, but I find the whole business too depressing. Instead I go and stand at the full-length windows and look out over the City lights. So this is it, I think. More than two hundred years after our first move into banking, the Carlton family is preparing to withdraw. If our share price stays over 195 tomorrow, the withdrawal won’t happen immediately; but with Gifford’s urbane East Coast voice droning behind me, the City spread out below, it comes to me quite clearly that Carltons has reached some kind of natural turning. I stare out. I sip my drink. My grandfather’s ambitions for Carltons will never be realized. Not Sir John’s fault, or my father’s, I see that now. It’s just that the world has moved on, and away, from our kind of banking. London is no longer the financial world's centre of gravity. I was born a few generations too late. I hear Charles Aldridge asking Gifford to look at the figures once more. This really is too dismal for words.
Due Diligence Page 59