by David Carter
‘Do you want to forget it?’
‘No we bloody don’t,’ said Derek, leaning forward, propping himself on the back of Andy’s seat.
‘Can you be more specific?’ asked Andy.
‘Alcohol, cigarettes, much cheaper than you could buy in the off licence.’
‘Is that it?’
‘I run a supply business. Sometimes, our customers demand products not readily available elsewhere. Supply and demand. I supply.’
‘Bingo!’ said Derek. ‘Drugs! I knew it!’
‘Alcohol and nicotine are drugs,’ said Vimy.
‘Yeah, so’s hot and cold, H and C,’ said Derek.
Vimy didn’t answer. Andy smiled.
‘What’s in it for us?’
‘I told you, six grand a year, a generous commission on everything you sell, a brand new car, and if you work hard you’ll make yourselves a fortune. After a year I’ll give you a territory of your own. So long as you shape up, the sky’s the limit.’
Their faces gleamed like kids who’d opened the best train-set on Christmas morning. Their minds were racing at the thought of their first new set of wheels, no more buggered clapped out Morris Marinas or Hillman Avengers, and a great deal more money in the pocket.
‘Have either of you got a criminal record?’
‘Nope.’
‘No problem. If the boys in blue stop you, you’d probably get off with a caution. Second time you might get a light sentence. If that ever happened you can be sure we’d look after your families, so long as you kept your trap shut. If you squealed, they wouldn’t get a thing... except a load of grief.’
There was a short silence and Andy said, ‘We understand.’
Derek nodded as if he felt the need to be seen in the loop.
‘If you land a caution, we’d move you to another town. Say Southport, or Chester, Rhyl, or Shrewsbury.’
‘Shrewsbury!’ blurted Derek. ‘That’s bloody miles away!’
‘Fifty-eight to be precise, or an hour’s drive in the car I’ll provide. If you’re not prepared to drive an hour to work, perhaps you’re not the men for me.’
‘No!’ interrupted Andy. ‘We are. We bloody are!’
‘When could you start?’ asked Vimy.
‘We’ll have to give a month’s notice or we’ll lose our severance pay,’ said Derek.
‘How much is that?’
‘Three hundred each.’
‘Sod it, just leave; I’ll pay the severance. Are you in or are you out? But before you decide, bear in mind one thing. If you’re in, you are in forever.’
‘I’m in!’ said Andy.
‘Me too,’ said Derek. ‘Deffo!’
‘Great! Good lads. Sort your jobs out on Monday. I’ll pick you up on Thursday, same place at six o’clock, I’ll show you my operation and get you equipped.’
‘As easy as that?’ said Andy.
‘As easy as that,’ confirmed the man they knew as Vig.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE NEXT WEDNESDAY was Presentation day. Vimy glanced at his watch. It was gone five o’clock and there was no sign of Diane. He hadn’t heard a word from her since she’d scuttled away to London and was beginning to wonder if she’d make the deadline.
The staff had gone home when she hustled into the office, flustered, but back. She put her head round Vimy’s door, and smiled down.
‘I’m just going for a quick wash. Won’t be long.’
Vimy nodded and grinned as she dashed away. Ten minutes later, she was back, sitting across the desk from Vimy, a satisfied look on her face. She’d freshened up, re-applied a little perfume, new lipstick, and Vimy was ready. The general office was empty. They were quite alone. He stood and went to the main office front door and locked it.
‘How was your trip?’ he asked, coming back into the room. ‘Worth going? I thought you might have rung.’
One question at a time, mister boss, she thought, as she reached down and opened her bag and pulled out her notepad.
‘I was too busy to ring, too much to do and not enough time.’
She balanced the pad on her crossed knee and turned over several pages and took a big breath, ‘The Soviet Union.’
He leant back in his chair like a child waiting for its goodnight story, and clasped his hands behind his head and smiled, ‘The evil empire.’
‘Quite so. The Soviet Union is selling larger than usual quantities of gas, but they’re not just selling and pumping it into Warsaw Pact countries. They have signed a huge contract to supply West Germany as well. That’s well documented, there’s nothing new there. It’s in the public domain. But they have also signed a contract to supply Finland and Sweden, and are rumoured to be on the brink of negotiating a big deal with the Chinese. Johnny Chinaman’s short of fuel big time and he’s come a-buying. If the Russians do that they will double their output, and more relevantly, double their hard currency earnings. It’s going to create a vast cash pile.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I have a friend; he’s a futures trader at Technical Trading, his name’s Ricky Glavin. They specialise in graph analysis and trade solely on the strength of trend lines. My guess is the Russians are undercutting Shell’s prices, probably making inroads into their traditional markets. Someone at Shell is probably catching a cold, especially if they didn’t see it coming, and I’m almost certain they couldn’t have done. All the western oil companies must be mighty nervous. Running scared, if you ask me.’
Vimy thought of Laura and wondered if she was catching the cold.
‘But get this,’ Diane continued, ‘the Soviets have also been selling gold and diamonds.’
‘Ricky Glavin again?’
‘Yep,’ she nodded, and grinned. ‘It’s amazing how much information can be obtained through two bottles of good red wine and a little kiss in the right place, the cost of which, incidentally, is on my expenses.’
Vimy guffawed, he couldn’t care less about the cost, he was wondering where the right place might be.
‘A kiss, and no more?’
‘No chance! It was a little kiss, and he was lucky to get that. He’s fat and sweats a lot. Get the picture?’
Vimy saw the image well enough and muttered, ‘They are building a cash pile.’
‘Clearly. The question is, what for?’ She paused for effect and sucked the end of her pen.
‘I think that was the object of the exercise.’
‘Just a minute, just a minute, I haven’t finished. The official Soviet stats say their wheat harvest has risen every year for the past eleven years, that’s on file, and yet we are pretty sure those figs are bunk. They have been exporting wheat; that is true, there’s tonnes of the stuff in the silos at Birkenhead, but it has become a tradition for them to cover up shortages by exporting. They’ve always done that, going back to Stalin’s time, even if their own people have to starve.’
‘Bluster?’ he said, ‘they are blustering.’
‘Could be,’ she nodded. ‘If you analyse the figures, you will see those exported tonnages have been sharply decreasing, despite the recent cargo that arrived in the Mersey.’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘I’m saying, they are running out of wheat!’
Vimy whistled through his teeth.
‘That’s a hell of a conclusion.’
‘I rang the Soviet Embassy in London. I said I was from the Times newspaper and I was writing an article about the huge and consistent success of the Russian wheat harvest, and I pretended I represented interests who wanted to know the secrets of their success in order to duplicate their model and methods, blah, blah, blah. Lots of buttering up and servitude, they like all that.’ She glanced back at her notes. ‘Here it is, I spoke to a Yuri Chuikov, he’s the press liaison officer at the embassy. He was extraordinarily helpful and began parroting all the government stats and official Soviet speak: Success through workers solidarity proving once again the superiority of the Soviet system over imperialist lacke
ys mumbo jumbo, all that cod shite and crap. I let him monopolise the conversation for what seemed like ten minutes and he relaxed as I pretended to take notes. Then I hit him with: So can you comment on reports that last year’s wheat harvest was a total disaster? There was a deathly silence and the guy went mental. He began screaming at me, threatened to cut off further access for Times’ journalists if we printed such lies. He called me a liar and a wrecker and had taken advantage of his goodwill. He threatened to speak to my superiors at the Times and began yelling in Russian, swearing, I’d guess. Then he hung up. When I rang back, and I did so three times, they told me Mr Chuikov had gone on holiday.’
Vimy smiled across at her. He couldn’t fail to be impressed. The girl was super-capable, and he wondered why he hadn’t noticed her talents before.
‘You hit a nerve?’
‘I sure did. Bang on!’
‘I wonder if he rang the Times.’
‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Just one thing: Freight rates are rising. Not by much, but there is a noticeable creeping towards higher prices. Ships are in demand, big ships.’
‘Someone’s managing this particularly carefully.’
‘Looks that way, I think it’s them, booking up ships in secret. Freight’s going to get real scarce.’
‘And your conclusion?’
‘My conclusion is they are poised to buy the knickers off the market. They have probably already started. They have cash stockpiled to pay for it, they’ve got big boats contracted and waiting, they’re poised and ready to go. I think you should be buying the market too.’
He pursed his lips and scratched his chin.
‘Wheat, maize, soya, what?’
‘The bloody lot! I think it’s wheat they’re really after, but if one goes, they’ll all go. I’m convinced the markets are about to skyrocket.’
Vimy agreed.
‘I’ve started in a small way, just a little feeling I had. You have to be careful not to alert the big operators. If they detect anything going on they’ll mark prices higher and make smaller quantities available, and on top of that, they’ll start analysing where the strength is coming from. They might come up with the correct answer, and we wouldn’t see anything for dust. Timing is critical.’
‘I can see that,’ she muttered, sucking the pen.
Vimy glanced at the clock. They went through it all again and by the time they’d finished it was a quarter to eight.
‘You’ve done well, Shearston. Can I buy you dinner?’
She collected her things together and nodded. ‘You can.’
HE TOOK HER TO CHURCHILL’S restaurant and bought her the best dinner in the city. They shared a lobster and a chateaubriand, and between them emptied a bottle of white burgundy and an ancient claret that cost a small fortune. After that, they dawdled down to the taxi rank by the Atlantic Tower Hotel where he saw her into a cab, but not before they’d kissed goodnight, a deep passionate kiss the intensity of which surprised them both, any inhibitions banished by alcohol.
Later, before he fell asleep, he lay on his back, his hands behind his head, as he wondered whether it was the same throwaway kiss that had persuaded Ricky Glavin to tell her everything he knew. The kiss had meant nothing to him. How could it now that Laura and he were lovers? And how could it have meant anything to her when she was in the middle of a torrid affair with that rugby goon? He thought of Laura and looked forward to seeing her again, but it was the classical beauty of Diane Shearston that remained in his mind, long after he had drifted into alcohol induced sleep.
IN THE MORNING IN THE office they spoke as if nothing had happened. They were boss and employee, polite, cheerful, respectful, and distant. It had been a goodnight kiss through drink and nothing more.
He stepped up his buying programme, and she watched as purchase contracts flowed across her desk, ever conscious they were bought on her recommendation. She was desperate to be right, but the markets stubbornly refused to move, not a penny, not a cent.
The buying continued and by the end of the week Vimy had salted away over a 100,000 tonnes of mixed corn for forward delivery. It was a massive commitment for anyone, never mind a small firm like his. It was a gamble, there was no other word for it, and the odd thing was, he didn’t worry about it for a second.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
PEGASUS TRADING RENTED a brand new state-of-the-art warehouse off the Chester High Road in Neston, midway between Caldy and Chester. The company boasted an impressive board of directors, eight fine men and true.
No one but Vimy knew that four of those men had passed on to a better place, their names and birth dates culled from Caldy churchyard. Two more had never existed, being a figment of his fecund imagination, while the other two honourables had been poached from the pages of the Daily Telegraph’s court pages. They resided in, or near London, more than two hundred miles away, and had certainly never heard of Pegasus Trading, though they were listed as drawing substantial benefits.
The company was owned by Vimy Ridge and yet not a sheet of paper existed proving his ownership, or even a remote connection to Pegasus. He rarely went to the warehouse and never during the day. When the company approached a Dutch-based bank to open an account, the bank was wary of taking on new business from people they didn’t know. When they were presented with details of the impressive Board of Directors, they were happier. When they were promised an initial seed capital deposit of a quarter of a million pounds they were ecstatic, particularly when it dumped into the account the day after the facility opened.
After that they never looked at the credibility of Pegasus Trading again. They might have been puzzled as to why the listed directors refused to be taken to dinner, or to the races at Chester, but some business people liked to keep themselves to themselves. Ultimately, the bank respected their wishes, for they had the money.
Arthur Harkin ran Pegasus Trading with ruthless efficiency. Vimy had met Arthur years before as a fifteen-year-old kid. They had been office juniors together, though Vimy was never an office boy in the true sense of the term, for he was the boss’s son. Arthur Harkin was homosexual. In the sixties the word gay had yet to evolve into its current meaning, while the phrase Nancy Boy didn’t describe Arthur at all. He was quite capable of looking after himself. No one would dare call him Nancy to his face, not if they were alone.
Vimy realised Arthur leant that way within minutes of meeting him, and once they had agreed that Vimy wasn’t interested, the two became firm friends. Arthur was eighteen months older, yet it was Vimy who looked out for his pal, as much as the other way round. Vimy had everything. Money, a position, good looks, prestige, an education, a guaranteed future career, and was well liked by everyone. If his voice hadn’t properly broken, that was another of his charms. Vimy Ridge was the boyish mythological God-like David that Arthur had always dreamt of.
In contrast, Arthur had nothing. No father, few friends and many tormentors, who would gladly punch him in the face whenever they had the opportunity, just as they had one evening when they’d caught him alone, hurrying into the lift in the Corn Exchange Building. They’d summoned the necessary courage to launch their attack because they outnumbered him four to one.
‘Take that, queer boy! Bum basher! Pervert!’
‘What happened to you?’ quizzed Vimy.
‘I fell off my mate’s motorbike.’
Vim didn’t believe that for a second and they never spoke of it again.
Arthur worked for an ancient grain merchant called Dodgsons, and like all the other kids he harboured dreams of becoming top dog, the best trader the city had ever seen. But Arthur’s problem was he possessed zero trading talent. They’d meet in Cousin’s coffee house in Lord Street for a quick lunch of salmon rolls and milky coffee, and discuss nothing but markets.
Vimy’s eyes would light up and describe the morning’s price movements as if it was some new Nicene Creed. But Arthur’s eyes would remai
n dead. He’d end the conversation with, ‘So where do you think the market’s heading now?’
‘Up, stupid, certain to!’
A quizzical look would flood across Arthur’s face.
‘How do you know?’
‘You just do, you either understand it, or you don’t.’
Arthur didn’t, and slowly the penny slipped in the slot that he would never become the best trader the world had ever seen. Vimy might, but Arthur wouldn’t. He would never grace a trading desk in his life. He was hopeless, and he knew it, and it was just as well, because if he had ever been given the responsibility of buying and selling, God alone knows the mess he would have made, and the money he would have lost.
But he possessed one saving grace.
Arthur Harkin was a brilliant administrator.
His writing was impeccable, girlish perhaps, but tidy, and he could write faster than anyone Vimy had ever seen, and the standard of neatness never deteriorated. His filing skills were second to none. If a Dodgson’s trader needed a vital document in a hurry relating to any deal from the previous ten years, Arthur could produce it, as if by magic, within a few seconds. If he couldn’t, he took it as a personal insult and would stay late; checking his files to ensure the heinous error was never repeated.
Every good trader needs efficient staff to administer contracts. Arthur Harkin made it his business to be the best back-up man the commodity markets had ever known.
Dodgsons recognised and valued his skills. They gave him a modest pay increase; and noted his burgeoning friendship with the Ridge boy, and the last thing they wanted was Arthur moving across to them, taking their secrets to Norman Ridge & Son. They cherished him in a modest kind of way, and Arthur believed he had found his natural home.
But Arthur had another weakness. A self-destruct button, and it wasn’t long before he unwittingly pressed it. One day, all Dodgson’s staff enjoyed a long boozy lunch. On returning to work Arthur found himself in the Gents’ toilets alone with Tony Dodgson. Tony was the grandson of the boss, the coming force, part of the family who owned the business, and a young man you kept on the right side of.