“Kind of. It’s just that there’s a paper here on risk analysis of unbalanced portfolios in closed-end funds, and right below it are some notes on delta hedging using a basket of European style options. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“I agree. It makes absolutely no sense,” grimaced Ben.
Jo continued on with her search. A few minutes later, Ben exclaimed, “Sweet! I’ve been wanting one of these, they just came out. They get the best signal strength in remote places.”
Jo looked up and was surprised to see Ben holding a phone.
“That’s strange,” said Jo, “Becky told me he still didn’t have a cell phone”.
“Maybe he just didn’t want to give her the number.”
Jo walked over to the desk. “Or maybe he only just got it,” she said holding up the packaging for the phone.
Jo turned over the box and discovered a handwritten note taped to the back, “Daddy, I know you like to escape sometimes, but please use this to make the distance between us seem small no matter where on this earth we find ourselves. Kisses from your adoring Isabella.”
“There’s no passcode on it, let’s check the call log,” said Ben eagerly, already pushing buttons. Jo felt like they were intruding, but didn’t stop him.
Ben scrolled through the calls listed, while Jo peered over his shoulder. There were only about a dozen calls made and received, and all but one recorded was the same number that had been programmed in as Isabella. The last call received was from a different number. It had been answered at 9.18 a.m. the previous morning, the day of the accident. The number appeared to be that of another cell phone. Jo memorized it.
They spent a further ten minutes in the Professor’s study, Jo continuing her search and Ben generally just probing around with a journalist’s inquisitiveness. Neither uncovered anything more of interest.
After locking the study, Jo and Ben made their way back to Becky’s office to return the keys. Becky had stopped crying, and had used her time to reapply her make-up, liberal attention having been paid to her blue eye shadow and the arresting shade of fuchsia on her lips. Jo asked Becky if she would mind calling a taxi for them, which she happily did, while never taking her eyes off Ben.
Ben sprawled out on the back seat of the cab. “Where are we going?’ he asked. “To the pub I hope.”
“I’m sure the sailing club has a bar,” replied Jo as she instructed the taxi driver to take them out to Grafham Water. It was starting to rain.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Forty minutes later they arrived at the home of the Cambridge University Cruising Club. Radcliff had been an active member, competing in races for the University and teaching club members. He had also kept his own sailing dinghy there.
Jo and Ben situated themselves in the lounge area. The damp smell reminded Jo of the old cross channel ferries she had taken when on school trips to France. They snacked on some wilting sandwiches, a couple of bags of chips and weak, milky tea.
The sailing club was practically deserted, given that it was a midweek in November and raining. Jo and Ben were alone in the bar save for the bored server who was flicking through a local paper. He was shaken from his apathy when Jo approached him to say they were friends of Henry Radcliff.
The barman was suspicious. “You’re not from the press are you?” he asked. “We’ve been instructed to keep quiet, for now.”
“No, as I said, just friends of his.”
He continued to eye Ben with caution, but seemed unable to place the face. Jo surreptitiously shooed Ben, who headed for a timely bathroom break.
“Can you tell me what happened?” pressed Jo, smoothing back her hair and leaning a little toward the bartender. Her guiles proved futile.
“Sorry love. I mean I’m sorry about the Professor. He was a good bloke and we’ll miss him around here. Sorry I can’t help you either. It was my day off yesterday.”
Jo leaned back and crossed her arms.
“You might want to ask Kevin though,” he said pointing through the window. “The young lad cleaning the dinghies down there. I think he was the last one here to see the Professor.”
Jo left with an abrupt thank-you and retrieved Ben, who was jabbing the buttons on a vending machine coaxing it to dispense some hot chocolate. Jo yanked him away.
“Steady on,” protested Ben. “Can’t be any worse than the tea.”
Jo wasn’t in the mood. She marched down to the shoreline scanning the scene for the young Kevin. They found a teenager halfheartedly wiping a cloth over the hull of a small vessel. The gesture struck Jo as particularly futile given that the rain was now falling steadily.
Jo introduced herself, while Ben huddled in the background, his hooded top pulled around his face. The precaution was probably unnecessary. Kevin didn’t strike either of them as a typical aficionado on current affairs. He appeared grateful for the interruption.
“Yeah, Henry, the Professor I mean – well he wants, I mean wanted us to call him Henry – came down yesterday just before lunch. He’d called me earlier, sounding pretty excited. Said there was some extra money for me if I would clean up his boat in a bit of a hurry. Well we’re only supposed to work on the club boats during our shift, otherwise the boss gets a bit …”
“What time did he arrive?” interrupted Jo.
“I don’t know. About eleven thirty I suppose. Told me he was going to meet a buyer for his dinghy. He’s been looking to upgrade to a faster model for a while now, but wanted to sell his old one first.”
This was the first time Jo had heard mention of another party involved in Radcliff’s outing the previous day. She peppered Kevin with questions.
“Who was he meeting?” What time did they arrive? What did the other person look like? Did they go out sailing together?”
Kevin shrugged. “I never saw anyone turn up. Not even the Professor. He must have come while I was on lunch. I came back and found a twenty stuffed in my coat pocket over there, but no sign of Henry or his dinghy.”
“And what about the other person? The one who wanted to buy the boat?”
“Like I said, I didn’t see no one. They didn’t recover the, well you know, the body, until after I’d gone home. But there wasn’t anyone else on the boat, so I suppose the person didn’t show and Henry went out on his own anyway.”
Jo struggled to think of more questions, reluctant to part company with one of the last people to speak with Radcliff.
“Was there anyone else here while you were at lunch?”
Kevin looked around. “As you can see it’s not a busy time of year. I’m pretty much it during the day.”
“What time exactly did the Professor – Henry – call you?”
“I don’t know exactly. About nine thirty I suppose.”
Jo noted that it was soon after the call registered on Radcliff’s cell phone. They stood in silence for a minute, looking out at the steel water devoid of any sailors.
“Do you mind if I go inside now?” asked Kevin.
Jo noticed that they were both soaking, their hair plastered to their faces. Kevin was shivering. “Yes, I’m sorry,” she said.
“That’s alright.” He paused. “It doesn’t make sense does it? I mean he was such a good sailor and all.”
Jo shook her head, the mirroring of her own thoughts offering little solace. She thanked Kevin and he scuttled toward the clubhouse.
Jo was disappointed, even though she was not sure what she had expected to find out. Ben called the taxi company to book the return ride to Cambridge.
As they wandered out to the parking lot to wait, Jo recognized Radcliff’s old, dented Peugeot 205. The car had been a standing joke among those close to the Professor, as it contrasted so sharply with the prestige and funding that Radcliff’s Department attracted. Radcliff himself had always lived unpretentiously on his professor’s salary. He had consistently donated his share of book royalties and speaking engagement fees to the humanitarian causes supported by himself and his daughter. Ra
dcliff’s one extravagance had been his investment in his boat and sailing.
Jo walked over to the car, which she presumed had also been left there for his family to claim. Jo tried the driver’s door and it opened. Ben came over to inspect and nodded knowingly.
“Coat hanger job,” he concluded. “Had it done enough times to my car in Chelsea.”
But why would anyone break in to his car? Isn’t the timing a bit suspicious?”
“Possibly,” conceded Ben. “But London doesn’t have a monopoly on bored delinquents.”
Jo climbed into the vehicle. The car mirrored the Professor’s study. It was littered with old styrofoam cups, windbreakers, sailing logs, students’ assignments to be graded, and various pieces of paper covered in Radcliff’s scrawl. There was no sign of the envelopes Jo so coveted, or anything to do with Bray’s model.
By the time Jo and Ben arrived back in Cambridge, the rain had stopped but the air had turned icy. It was eight thirty and fog hovered beneath the street lights. They decided to head to a pub on the River Cam for dinner, pouncing on a table by the crackling fire.
Jo was drained and finally owned up that she didn’t have anything exclusive to share with Ben for his story. However, they spent half an hour during which Jo honestly answered Ben’s questions to give his story more color and weight. Ben chose not to press her too hard, and Jo offered the anecdote concerning the analysts’ quiz night and the envelopes of cash, which Ben conceded would fit his capitalist greed angle nicely.
With neither of them particularly motivated to discuss the intricacies of the day to day goings on at Butterfly, they lapsed into silence, while nursing the last of a bottle of red wine that Ben had ordered with their meal.
“I’ve been giving it some thought, you know,” Ben began after a couple of minutes.
“What, about how to make an escape?” suggested Jo.
“Well, yes that too,” smiled Ben. “But also about what you’ve been telling me for the past few weeks. Maybe I’m just tired, and this Pinot is too good, but I’m beginning to buy into the idea that there’s something not quite right going on at Butterfly.”
Jo didn’t say anything, wary of jinxing Ben’s tentative support.
“Anyway, when I get back to London I thought I would do a little digging. Maybe try to get a hold of that whistleblower guy at that bank you talked about. What was the name, Money Troubles or something?”
“Money Trust,” smiled Jo.
“See, I told you this wine is damn good. It even revived your face muscles.” Ben reached over and put his hand over hers. Jo noticed it was rough, but warm compared to hers.
“Listen, I’ve been here before,” he ventured, “wanting answers, I mean. A friend of mine, when we were in college, he was a really great rower. Thought it would be a lark to try and walk from the boathouse to the other side of the river when it froze one winter. Anyway, he made it halfway across and then fell through the ice. Pulled under the surface by the current. There was nothing anyone could do.”
Jo withdrew her hand. “I’m not sure I see the connection.”
“Well I spent the next month or so trying to figure out exactly what had happened. He was a really strong bloke, and you’d think he could have stopped falling all the way through, or punched another hole in the ice from underneath. I even began to have thoughts about someone else being involved, or somebody seeing he was in trouble and not helping. In a way it was the start of my career. I doggedly pursued that story for weeks. But eventually I had to concede it was just a horrible accident.”
Jo stared at him, emotionless.
“What I’m saying is that I’ll start asking some questions around those companies Butterfly traded in with uncannily good timing. Try and talk to the guy who spilled the beans at that Money Trust place. But the thing that happened to Professor Radcliff,” Ben paused, “it’s unthinkably tragic, but it doesn’t mean it’s related.”
Jo forced herself to focus on the fact that Ben was willing to get involved at all. “Thank-you. We’ll see.”
Outside the pub, they realized they had missed the last train back to London. Jo called her parents to let them know that she wouldn’t be home that night.
“Aren’t you going to call Purdy?” asked Jo after she had hung up.
“Doesn’t seem much point. She’s off in Italy promoting her latest book and doing culinary research. I haven’t been able to get hold of her for the past couple of days. Apparently international coverage doesn’t extend to the wilds of Umbria.”
Jo led the way through the empty streets to a bland chain hotel that contrasted sharply with its centuries’ old surroundings. On entering the lobby, Jo decided that, for the moment, she was a fan of bland.
She slumped into a lobby sofa upholstered in a craze of geometric patterns peculiar to hotel furniture, while Ben went to book their rooms.
“It appears that this is a big week for nuclear particle physicists,” he informed Jo on his return.
“Fascinating, I’m sure,” yawned Jo, “but can’t the discussions on Neils Bohr wait until morning?”
“What I’m trying to say is that a big science convention has booked all of the rooms, except one. A king one.”
Neither of them spoke, trying to gauge the other’s reaction. Jo’s exhaustion caused her to be the first one to crack.
“Well how’s your journalistic impartiality feeling right now?” she asked.
“Definitely a little compromised.”
“Well then I promise to keep it intact.”
“Who says it was ever in any real danger?” Ben walked off to make the reservation before Jo could retort.
Once in the room, they talked little. Jo edged under the covers in her shirt and underwear, while Ben slept on top, fully clothed. Jo dozed fitfully and woke a few hours later to find Ben’s arm draped over her as he gently snored. After that, she slept soundly until their 5.30 a.m. alarm call.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
As the train pulled out of the station in the morning darkness, Jo nursed a cup of coffee that managed to be both bitter and bland. She had no desire to return to London, and judging from Ben’s brooding silence, she sensed an absence of enthusiasm on his part too. Jo surmised, however, that Ben’s reluctance was related to more personal matters. They parted at their destination with few words spoken.
Jo arrived back at her parents’ apartment a little after 7.30 a.m. still dressed in her office clothes from the previous day.
“Another all-nighter,” she muttered to her parents in passing.
“It’s just not healthy,” tutted her mother, “your firm should at least provide a place where employees can rejuvenate when working such absurd hours. A meditation room perhaps.”
“You’re forgetting that Butterfly Investments was conceived as the antithesis of Zen, Mother.”
“You’d be surprised, dear. These ideas are becoming hot topics. Only yesterday there was an article in your father’s Financial Times with Feng Shui tips for the office.”
“Well when I’m senior enough to warrant a plant, I’ll ask you where to place it,” said Jo giving her mother a hug. “Right now, I’m off for some hydrotherapy treatment in the shower.”
Now dressed for work, Jo was still no clearer about what she should do. She was already late and to call in sick seemed like the most appealing option.
Her mind lurched like a see-saw from one way of thinking to another. In one scenario, the Butterfly trades she had discovered were not illegal and Radcliff’s death was an accident, and in the opposite version, the firm had profited from insider knowledge, and Radcliff had been silenced based on the information that Jo had taken to him. Eventually Jo’s thoughts converged on a stationary central point. She decided that, no matter what the interpretation of events, her position was stronger if she remained on the inside. She would be the girl inside.
Practicing the calming breathing exercises her mother taught, Jo returned to the office. With the aim of gathering more evide
nce while she still had the opportunity, Jo attempted to access the Money Trust files again. She wanted to examine the trade analysis document which was meant to provide the theoretical basis for the trade.
Jo quickly discovered that her access privileges to the directory had been revoked. She contemplated calling Adam to find out the reason, but still felt awkward about their date incident.
Jo looked out of her office. Bray’s secretary, Amanda was inside Bray’s office rearranging papers on his desk. Bray himself was nowhere to be seen. Jo strolled over and knocked on the door which was ajar. The sound startled Amanda, who cursed without apology. Her composure recovered, Amanda informed Jo that Bray was in a meeting at the lawyers’ offices and would be there the whole day. Trying not to let her eyes repeatedly dart to the coveted volume, Jo said that she thought she had left a file in Bray’s office.
Amanda spread out her hands, “Be my guest, but try not to touch.”
With the ginger actions of a forensic expert at a crime scene, Jo mimed at searching Bray’s enclave. The area was fastidiously tidy and the pretense of finding a wayward file could not be kept up for long. Thankfully, after a couple of minutes, the shrill ring of Amanda’s desk phone sent the secretary scurrying. Jo seized her chance and grabbed the model from Bray’s bookshelf, spreading out the flanking volumes to mask the gap.
Jo moved quickly. Hiding the volume underneath her winter coat, she strode from the building and made her way to a copy shop on London Wall. Inside, she purchased a prepaid card and set to work. Business was slow and the sales clerk came and offered to complete the copying for her. Jo’s refusal was vehement and the clerk kept a wary distance.
Jo was back within twenty minutes. Amanda was still working in Bray’s office and Jo waited for the phone to interrupt the secretary’s task again before darting in and replacing the model. Jo checked to gauge Amanda’s reaction to her clandestine movements, but the secretary’s suspicion obviously didn’t match Jo’s guilt.
The Girl Inside Page 15