Reaching for the phone, I tell him I’ll catch up with him later.
It’s Charles Aldridge on the line: my father has asked him to call and let me know when they’re meeting at Gifford’s flat to settle terms. I explain that I might be a while.
When I step out of the office, Becky’s frantically answering calls, and putting everyone on hold. In the corridor, clusters of employees have formed to consult, jarred from their late-Friday torpor. They fall silent as I hurry by, spectators at the Changing of the Guard.
Up in Settlements, Hugh has his head down, reading the Evening Standard.
‘So,’ he says, without glancing up, ‘big news.’
A row of empty styrofoam cups sits at his elbow, and a ring of orange peel. His PC screen looks exactly as it did when I left him first thing this morning. Hugh Morgan has had enough.
‘Things moved pretty quickly.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I noticed.’ He closes the paper. ‘Parnells too, eh?. Big day all round.’
There’s an undertone of sarcasm here: Hugh is not at all sure I’ve been straight with him.
‘We only started speaking with Gifford seriously a couple of days ago. We decided to go ahead with it just this afternoon.’
He gives me a dubious look. ‘What now? You retire and take up charitable causes?’
I gesture to the screen. ‘No luck?’
‘Uh-uh.’
The trap remains unsprung, and our time is almost up. I lost Daniel, and now I’ve lost the bank, while this fraudster — Daniel’s possible murderer — remains free. I want him. Gazing at the empty screen the realization steals over me like a physical thing, my cup of sorrow and anger finally brimmed. I want to find this bastard. I need to find him. And when I’ve found him I mean to choke him, and with careful steady blows, I will nail his lifeless body to the wall.
‘I’ve got some questions,’ Hugh says, and right then one of the girls comes and hands Hugh some paperwork. He scans it quickly then passes it back. When he nods towards the coffee machine, and I follow him over. He doesn’t seem in much of a rush, he makes himself a coffee, then we wander over to the corner by the IT room and prop ourselves against an abandoned table. The girls carry on sending faxes and working their keyboards. There are no big bonuses or options packages at stake in Settlements: in here, provided they don’t lose their jobs, nobody gives a damn who owns Carltons.
'I did some ringing round,’ Hugh says. ‘You’ve been buying Carltons in the market, and now you’re getting out?’
'That’s right.’
He asks, very pointedly, if I would care to explain.
It’s over now; we’re at the end. After keeping so much from Hugh, I at least owe him this much. So I tell him what happened. The tale comes out slowly, an elegy for the last days of Carltons, the story of how my father put Boddington on the line, and of how I, at the last, refused the sacrifice. Like an idiot, I begin to feel quite proud of my own good deed.
When I finish, Hugh considers. ‘How well does your father know you, Raef?’
‘Well enough.’
‘Ahh,’ he says.
He finishes his coffee and steps away from the table. I reach over and take his arm. I ask him what he means, 'Ahh.'
He tells me it means nothing, to forget it. But I don’t want to forget it. I ask him again.
‘It’s just a thought,’ he says. ‘But could your father have guessed what you’d do if he put Boddington on the line for you?’
I don’t understand this at first. Then I do. Hugh, instinctively, has run his unsentimental measure over the situation: who wins? My father wanted to keep Boddington, I wanted to keep Carltons: who won? Hugh is suggesting that my father might have manipulated me into surrendering the bank. Suddenly unsteady, I lean back against the table. But then I turn my head: I do not believe it happened like that.
‘Just a thought.’ Then he smiles. ‘Look on the bright side. Once you’ve cashed in your chips, you’ll be able to afford my’ fee.’
He gives me a friendly pat on the shoulder. When he cracks the old joke about even paranoids having enemies, I even manage a weak smile.
Then it happens. From across the room, the sound of a high-pitched beeping. Everyone turns from their work to look. And before I can register what’s happening, Hugh is striding back to his desk. I follow, a few paces behind.
The PC screen flashes wildly, Hugh flicks off the sound and we stare at the monitor. Twintech, it says; and just below this, Desk No. 4.
Hugh asks Sandra if any deal-slips have come up in the past ten minutes. She shakes her head. He punches a key, the beeping stops and the screen goes blank.
He says, ‘Let’s go down.’
We take the fire-stairs at a run. Hugh calls back over his shoulder, asking me who belongs to Desk No. 4.
‘Fourth from the right, far side of the Room,’ I tell him.
‘Proprietary desk?’
I don’t answer. Because I'm picturing the Room, counting along the imaginary desks. And I don’t want to believe it.
Downstairs, we race to the Dealing Room door, and then we pause while I swipe my card. The lock clicks, and when Hugh shoulders the glass door open I tug at his coat-tail.
‘Careful. Take it slow.’
Inside, many of the desks are empty, most of the traders have escaped early for the weekend. Still trailing Hugh, I count the desks right to left as we 1 cross the room. Desk No. 4 is the one I pictured, the one I feared. As we draw near, Hugh glances back to me.
‘Empty,’ he says, dismayed.
But it isn’t empty. When we reach the desk, a face rises I from the far side of the console, smiling.
Hugh turns to me in surprise.
‘Did you bring the champagne?’ says Henry.
Henry. I don’t want it to be him, but it is. As I grip the back of a chair, I ask him if anyone anyone else has been at this desk in the past few minutes.
‘Just me,’ he says. ‘Why?’
Then beneath his hand, I notice a small pile of deal-slips, and I ask him to give them to me. He looks at me uncertainly, so I reach over and take them./p>
'Something wrong?' he says, but I flick through the deal-slips without answering. Twintech. The CTL deal is in the middle of the pile. I pass it to Hugh.
‘Do I get to hear the big secret?’ Henry says, becoming annoyed. ‘What's up?’
Hugh looks at me and nods. Iwintech’s position in CTL has been closed out, the trap is sprung; and here we are, at long last, with Henry. Why?
But before I can ask Henry that question, Henry says, ‘Owen’s gone, if you want to see him.’
‘Owen?’
‘Those deals.’ Henry points to the deal-slips. ‘I just punched them through for him. He left ten minutes ago.’ Henry turns from Hugh back to me. ‘Now do I get to hear the secret, or what?’
‘All those deals were his?’ Hugh asks.
‘Yeah. He was holding the fort on the proprietary desk this afternoon. He just left.’
Hugh glances at me. I can tell that this sounds to him just like it sounds to me; it sounds like the truth.
‘Where to?’ I ask Henry.
But Henry doesn't know where Own has gone. He asks me a second time what’s wrong.
‘Probably nothing. We just need to speak with Owen.’
Henry doesn’t buy that. ‘Anything to do with this merger?’
I wave the question aside. ‘Listen Henry, can you track Owen down? Don’t let him know I’m looking for him, but find out where he is, and come and tell me.’
I head for the door, with Hugh close behind me, and Henry calls out, ‘Where’ll you be?’
Answering over my shoulder, I tell him where we'll be: in the tape room. And I do not wait for any more questions.
14
* * *
Hugh drapes the headphones around his neck. ‘I get the feeling you've had an idea. Care to share it?’
The shelves are stacked with tapes, just like books stacked in a libr
ary, and I run a hand over the spines now, searching. The tapes are shelved chronologically, neatly labelled, and I find the one I’m looking for almost immediately. While I’m loading it into the machine, Hugh asks if I’ve forgotten our agreement.
‘Penfield was going to get the fraudster’s name as soon as we found it,’ he says. ‘And the name’s Owen Baxter, right?’
Putting on my headphones, I push Play. Hugh lifts his own headphones into place.
‘The nightdesk tape,’ I say. ‘From last Wednesday.'
We watch the tape go round. The tapes are voice-activated, and timed: the digital timer ticks over as we listen.
Owen: Check the Sporting Index.
‘Baxter,’ I tell Hugh.
Owen: They’re showing 330-360 for the second innings.
Other voice: Yours, big time.
They laugh. The timer says 11.00 p.m: too early. So I fast-forward to after 1.00 a.m. Then I hit Play again, and turn up the volume.
Jamie: Hello. Carlton Brothers.
‘Jamie,’ I tell Hugh. ‘Graduate trainee.’
Hugh bends forward, listening. The reel-to-reel hisses softly.
Other voice: Jurgen?
Jamie: He’s not here. Owen’s on tonight.
Other voice: Who’s that?
Jamie: Jamie here. Owen’ll be back in a minute.
There’s a pause.
Other voice: Dollar/Yen?
Jamie: Who’s this speaking?
Other voice: Chris Yeoh, Bank Bunara, KL. What’s your Dollar/Yen?
Jamie: Just a sec.
Other voice: Haven’t got all day, lah.
Jamie: Can you call back later?
Other voice: Call back, bu’shit! I ask for Dollar/Yen, you give me a price, lah. Look in Dealer’s Handbook.
Another pause. Hugh turns to me and mutters, ‘Pleasant guy.’
Jamie: Can you show a side?
Other voice: Dollar/Yen.
Jamie: Sec . . . We offer five dollars at sixty- two.
Other voice: Fuck off. 55-60 I make you, Dollar/Yen. 55-60, my price. Hit me.
Jamie: Nothing there. Thanks.
Other voice: Off Yen! . . . You show me now. Dollar/Yen two-way price. Hey!
Jamie: 52-62.
Other voice: Very funny. I show you 55- 60, you show me 52-62. You good dealer. Very quick, lah.
The tone is suddenly more friendly. I have an awful feeling that I know what is about to happen.
Jamie: Yeah.
Jamie actually laughs. A nervous laugh of relief; he thinks it’s all over.
Other voice: Ten point spread, should be good for a hundred dollars, lah. Should be.
Now the dealer from Bank Bunara laughs, and Jamie, completely lulled, joins in.
Jamie: Yeah.
Other voice: Hundred yours! . . . I send you the fax.
There is a click, and then silence; it really is over now, so I stop the tape.
Hugh removes his headphones, he turns to me. ‘It was a stitch-up,’ he says.
I nod. Owen Baxter’s unusual lapse last Wednesday night is now explained. As Jamie tried to tell me later, when I was too busy to listen, it wasn't Owen’s fault. It was Jamie who made the mistake.
Hugh asks if we lost much on the deal.
‘That’s not what worries me.’ I tap the timer: 1.24 a.m. Then I rewind the tape till I find the last time Owen speaks: 1.03 a.m. Next I wind forward, past 1.24 a.m., searching for the next time his voice comes. Finally I locate it.
Owen: Brad? Owen. Put me on your box. I need to see everything you get in Dollar/ Yen.
Owen's voice has a desperate edge. He’s speaking to a New York broker, getting ready to trade out of the 100 million dollar position young Jamie has landed him with.
Hugh lowers his headphones. ‘So now Owen’s back.’
Taking off my headphones, I point to the timer again: 1.47 a.m.
‘He’s back,’ I agree. ‘But where the hell has he been?’
15
* * *
Jamie sits quietly, one hand on his headphones, and listens. As the tape plays, we watch his face turn red. When the timer hits 1.24 a.m., I stop the tape. For a while Jamie just sits there, then at last he peels off the headphones. ‘Am I fired?’
‘Where was Owen while this was going on?’
Jamie tells us it wasn’t Owen’s fault. I repeat my question.
‘He said he was going for a leak. We couldn’t find him.’
‘What happened after they stuffed you?’ Hugh asks.
‘Dollar/Yen tanked. Those bastards dumped it everywhere, it really wasn’t Owen's fault.’
‘Who went to look for Owen?’
‘Me.’
‘Where did you look?’
‘The toilets.’ Jamie gestures to the door. ‘All along here. The offices. Up in the restaurant.’
‘You couldn’t find him?’
‘No. I went back to the desk, it was pretty crazy.’
Hugh asks how long it was before Owen finally showed up again.
‘Ten minutes?’ Jamie says. ‘Not long, anyway. It felt like hours.’ He studies his hands. This is, without doubt, the worst moment of Jamie’s short career.
Hugh looks at me over Jamie’s head. Silently he mouths the question, ‘Where’s Owen now?’ So I ask Jamie that.
‘I don’t know. I think he said he was going skiing somewhere for a few days.’
‘Where? The Continent?’
‘Yeah. I think he said Switzerland.’
Hugh swears softly. Jamie repeats his earlier confession, that the mistake was his fault, not Owen’s.
‘I don’t want to get him in trouble,’ he says.
I tell him not to repeat a word of this to anyone. He’s still apologizing for his mistake as I show him out the door.
‘Lad should consider a career change,’ Hugh remarks, when I come back in. 'Too pleasant for this business.’
‘Switzerland,’ I say.
‘Owen’s on the proprietary desk, isn’t he? e could dabble wherever he liked from there. And he gave Henry the Twintech slip just now. And he went missing at the same time Daniel was murdered.’
I slap my forehead. ‘That night. Hell. Wednesday night, he was only looking after the nightdesk because Daniel put him there.’
‘So?’
‘Daniel said it was punishment for something else, some stupid deal Owen’d done.’ I groan, seeing at last what I’ve been missing all along. ‘If Daniel suspected Owen was involved with Twintech, if he thought Owen was my patsy in the Dealing Room, what else would he do? He couldn’t sack him, that would've alerted me.’
Now Hugh sees what I’m getting at. ‘So Daniel shoved Owen onto the nightdesk to keep a better eye on him?’
‘Owen was isolated there. He wouldn’t have any chance to do what he just did with Henry. He couldn’t cover his tracks.’
Hugh ponders a moment.‘If Owen guessed Daniel was onto him, then Owen had a motive as well.’
We look at one another. Then Henry comes in, knocking at the open door.
‘They think Owen went home.’ He hands me a slip of paper. ‘That’s his number and address.’
The address is in Notting Hill Gate. Henry’s still waiting for an explanation as we rush past him out the door.
16
* * *
‘Flat battery,’ Hugh says, switching off his mobile’.‘We can’t wait, Raef.'
Sliding open the glass partition, I hand Owen’s address through to my driver. We will just have to tell Ryan later.
We go up the Strand, and Piccadilly, to Hyde Park Corner, then up to Marble Arch. Then passing Lancaster Gate, Hugh suddenly asks me what Owen Baxter is like.
‘A good trader. Not someone I’d have over for dinner.’
‘Violent?’
‘You mean can I imagine him shooting Daniel?’
He turns his head; not what he meant at all. ‘Did I ever give you my Couchet arrest story?’ he says. ‘It was in Paris. I ferreted away at
Monsieur Couchet’s accounts for six months, I thought I’d finally nailed him. When we got the order for his arrest, I tagged along with the gendarmerie.’ He screws up his face at the memory. ‘They didn’t want me there. They thought I was up to something with Couchet. They told me that later. It was “quelle dommage’ and “beaucoup apologies’ later.’
‘What happened?’
‘We went trooping up to his flat, me and three gendarmes. They knocked on his door. Couchet invites us in. Old man, over seventy, the first time I met him he was charming. Next time he had a lawyer and an accountant with him, and after that it was all downhill. Anyway, the gendarmerie told Couchet why they were there.’
'To arrest him.’
'Right. He'd ripped off some pretty big fish. He knew his number was up. But when they told him he was under arrest he just looked like “no problem”. He asked if he could get a few things first.’ Hugh repeats it to himself. ‘A few things.’
‘Like what?’
‘A gun,’ Hugh says. ‘When he came back out of his study, he tried to shoot me.’
I look at Hugh. The memory has turned him white. He is not joking.
‘You weren’t hit?’
‘Not me. One of the gendarmes was. In the spine.’ Hugh turns and looks out at the traffic rushing by. A light perspiration beads on his brow. ‘Seven years ago. And he’s still in a wheelchair.’
We turn up by Queensway, and the remainder of our journey passes in a sober and thoughtful silence.
17
* * *
Owen’s house is a Victorian terrace at the end of a row.
Crossing the street, Hugh suggests that I stay out of sight for a moment. ‘If he sees you on the security camera, he might not open the door.’
He points to the neighbouring doorway, and I go and stand there. Hugh rings Owen’s bell, he presses it twice before Owen answers on the intercom.
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