“My pleasure.”
“Now, something for you.”, the beggar took out a scrap of paper from his pocket and scribbled a few words on it before passing it to Philian, “You see if I’m not right.”
Putting the paper in his pocket after glancing at the unintelligible scrawl on it, Philian shook hands with the beggar and walked slowly away. He stank. That much was unavoidably true, and heaven only knew what that bottle had passed onto him. There was little to love about that beggar and even less to like. But there was something about him. His eyes betrayed his state. He wasn’t your typical waster. Maybe it was just the drink. Maybe it was that and drugs and all manner of other things. But he was more than he seemed at first to be. That’s why the paper was such a shame. He wanted to say something and give something to Philian but the words were gibberish. He sat down on a bench outside his usual tube station and looked intently at the paper trying to understand it. He scanned the image and let his smartphone search for a translation or any sort of interpretation, but none was forthcoming. He so wanted it to mean something. He didn’t want to simply throw the scrap away.
“Now that is just weird, dude.”, he hadn’t noticed the young lad who’d sat down next to him to smoke a crafty fag before his train was due.
“Sorry?”
“That cypher, man.”, the young guy laughed, “I’ve just been studying them all week. You into them as well?”
“To be honest,”, Philian replied, “I haven’t got a clue what it says. A friend gave it to me.”
“Some friend!”, his companion replied, blowing smoke away as he spoke, “That’d cook your brain if you didn’t get what it was. Look, see the *-* at the beginning?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that tells you it’s a Wilkin’s Cypher. I’m guessing you’ve never studied higher maths. It’s a beautiful construction, first used in the Cold War but now more of a maths nerd plaything. Mind you, I can translate it, but I still don’t understand it.”
“What does it say?”, Philian asked expectantly.
“The only decryption I can offer, is something along the lines of PYX. Then some variant of the word ‘acquire’, then ‘short term’. As I say, that’s the translation, but it means nothing to me. You?”
A vague memory slipped into Philian’s mind. It was the sort of memory that comes half-formed but with enough power to make you act. He thanked the young lad and dashed around the corner to the nearest taxi rank. Hang the expense. He needed to check something out and time was of the essence.
As he clambered out of the taxi at the plaza, he looked everywhere for his friend but the only evidence of his having been there were the wrappings that they’d stuffed in an already overfull bin. The office was still buzzing with activity when he entered it; his was a world where the trading never ceased and where money moved in mysterious ways across all time zones. He booted up his computer and pulled out of his waste pile a hefty tome that might provide certain answers for him. Working late would make tomorrow come quicker and he wouldn’t bother to clock in on the dot as the day ahead only offered him one set activity and that was to have a final meeting with Harper. He may as well have a bit of fun beforehand.
It took him an hour or so to do what he had to do. Then it was another cold walk to the station before a long hot bath and a lazy bottle of red to end his final working day. If you were going to go out, it was better to do it with a bang rather than a whimper. The size of that bang though remained a matter of speculation.
Chapter Three
Running a lot later than even he had intended, Philian barely made it to Harper’s office in time for their eleven o’clock meeting. The receptionist eyed him warily as he dashed into the room, gave her his details, refused the seat that she offered and stood tidying himself up in front of a small mirror. This may be the last time he graced these halls of wealth, but he was going to go out with a much dignity as possible. That was why he’d taken his time to get ready this morning, going through several suits, shirts and ties until he was happy with his look. Avoiding the rush hour had been a blessing, offset only by the slight panic that was occasioned by an extremely slow journey. A taxi to the door and a quick jog up the stairs had offset this minor problem and now he stood prepared and resigned to what was happening.
The receptionist picked up the ringing phone and indicated to Philian that he should go through. He knocked firmly on the door and entered with his head held high. This wasn’t a meeting he was looking forward to but it would over soon enough.
“Philian, good to see you.”, Harper rose from his desk. The smile on his face and the correct use of his name disarming his visitor.
“Please, take a seat.”, they shook hands and settled down opposite each other, “Can I get you a drink at all. Coffee, tea? Or maybe an early morning nip?”
Philian declined, choosing instead to take back control of the meeting as he reached into his jacket pocket for the envelope that he passed across the desk.
“I think you’ll find everything in order.”, he said, “Signed, witnessed and a copy lodged with my solicitor.”
“Thank you.”, Harper opened the envelope and scanned the contents, “I appreciate your diligence. However, …”
This was the fly in the ointment that Philian had feared. Legally, the whole thing was always a tad shaky and Harper wasn’t necessarily the first person you’d choose when it came to trust. He waited for the axe to fall.
“There have been certain developments.”, Harper leant across the desk and spoke each word slowly, “Most particularly, your most recent trades. Care to tell me about last night?”
“Nothing to tell.”, Philian’s voice was filled with more confidence than he actually felt, “As an employee of LMBA, I’m charged with a degree of autonomy in my work and I chose to exercise that autonomy last night as I closed off my accounts. Something wrong with that?”
“It just seems strange,”, Harper replied, “given the situation we are in here. What prompted you to come back? It’s not as if you made sure you were first on the doorstep this morning. I need to know more about that trade. What was behind it?”
This was a question that Philian had been half prepared for. He was confident that he could justify himself and hopefully, not mess up the settlement agreement.
“I had a hunch.”, he began, “No, that’s probably not the best way to describe it. I’ve been working on a new algorithm lately, in a bid to get my performance up, and there were certain loose ends that I couldn’t reconcile. On my way home, I felt a surge of inspiration and something clicked about one of the companies I’d been studying. I came back, I made the trade and that’s about it. I’m guessing something went awry?”
“Something certainly happened.”, Harper replied cryptically, “And yes, it changes the complexion of our meeting today. What was it about Paragon Young that you saw? They weren’t on anyone else’s radar.”
“Like I say, it was one of the companies that I used a new algorithm on. I traded within my parameters and limited exposure to only a couple of clients who I was authorised to trade for on spur-of-the-moment opportunities. PYX was a sound investment, by all measures. What’s the big concern?”
“Early this morning,”, Harper rose and stood to look out of the office window, “Paragon Young unveiled a new programme that they have been working on in secret. A programme that is likely to move the world closer to a permanent cure for cancer. Within minutes of that announcement, a majority holding in Paragon Young was acquired by a Chinese private equity company. The effect of which is that your trade yielded a 200% return. Your system automatically completed the transactions and the three individuals who you borrowed the money from are now sitting on a net gain of half-a-million each.”
“So, not a bad result then?”
“No,”, Harper turned back and laughed, “not a bad result at all. In fact, one of the best results we’ve ever
seen in such a short space of time.”
“I guess it’s nice to go out on a high.”, Philian replied, “If only it had always been like that.”
“Which leads me to our current situation.”, Harper sat back down, lifting the signed settlement agreement before continuing, “And it invalidates this. Somewhere in there, you and I both know there are clauses and sub-clauses that either of us could invoke to make it null and void, but we don’t need to argue semantics on it. It was a document that required trust on both our parts. A trust that last night’s shenanigans have put a cloud over.”
“In what way?”
“Either,”, Harper explained, “you chose to make a point by gambling with some important client’s money, or, your years in LMBA have left you better equipped than you are letting on and this is just a smoke-screen to see you pocket a payoff from us before joining a competitor with a golden handshake. Which is it?”
This was the Harper that had always scared, and would always scare Philian. It was the same Harper who had chewed him up at that first interview and it was the Harper who proved why he was rising through the ranks and almost deserved to reach the top.
“It’s neither.”, Philian replied calmly, or as calmly as was possible in the circumstances, “Firstly, it wasn’t a gamble. Every agency had PYX as being undervalued and their shares have always been backed-up by substantial assets. They might have fallen. That’s the nature of what we do. But they would always be a solid and safe long-term haven for any portfolio.”
“Go on.”
“Secondly, there is no other interested party. After the way that I’ve been treated by LMBA, having giving you my working life, you think I want to stay in this game? No, I’m leaving here, downsizing and looking for a less stressful way of making a living. Maybe even one where I feel valued. If anything, that’s why I made the trade. I wanted to show that I still had something to offer and at least prove to myself that my learning here hadn’t all been wasted. This whole business is glorified gambling. I just played the odds and read the cards. I’m glad it worked out well for the clients.”
“You know, Philian,”, Harper’s words came only after a very long and extremely uncomfortable pause, “you’ve almost convinced me.”
“It’s the truth…”
“No, let me finish. Like I say, I’m almost convinced. I’ve put a few feelers out and it does seem that your name is off the radar amongst the competitors that I’ve spoken to. And yes, PYX was always a safe bet. We should have put more into them, but you know how it is, safe isn’t always as glamorous as some other trades we do. But you saw through that. I’m impressed. And because of that, the reason I don’t want to go with the settlement is that we want to keep you on board.”
“Based on one trade?”
“Based on a little more than that, in fact,”, the change in Harper’s demeanour was disorienting, “and based on my own admission as well, that I might have been a little presumptuous in my desire to see you leave. Fifteen years is a lot to give a company, maybe, you deserve to be cut a bit of slack.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Yes, I know,”, Harper visibly relaxed and offered Philian a smile that he could only read as being genuine, “an apology from Sheridan Harper is a rare thing indeed. Bank it. But also, please accept it.”
“Accepted.”
“Good. But this isn’t all about me. That trade alone will pay your salary for months. It also takes a lot of pressure off me from the Board. And, I have to tell you that your timing couldn’t have been any better. I’m due to lunch with Bob Dexter today. The same Bob Dexter whose vast wealth you helped make even vaster with your PYX scoop. He rang me earlier. Wants you to join us. So, you see, it would have been awkward if I’d had to tell him we’d let you go. Onwards and upwards?”
All the while that he was speaking, Philian was weighing up his options. Were he a stronger man, he might have played this one a bit longer. Demanded a salary increase, perhaps? Maybe, even told Harper where to stick his offer and stormed out of the room. But that was the stuff of Hollywood drama. Real life was about playing a game and when it all went back in the box at the end such personal stands rarely caused more than a temporary ripple. And there was another reason to accept the offer to carry on. That trade had been a one-off for Philian based on the most bizarre and unusual circumstances. If he could achieve that sort of return overnight, what else could he do? Which reminded him, after lunch and before the start of the long weekend he was going to give himself, he needed to track down a friend and thank him.
That thank you happened as soon as they returned to the plaza around the office. The lunch had gone surprisingly well, given that Philian always felt something of a fish out of water at such events. Dexter was a self-made man, American, larger than life and a very good host. Harper had been on best behaviour and had stepped in to help Philian any time he floundered. And the food and the accompanying wine had been stunning. When Dexter apologised that he had to head away to another meeting, the three of them felt that they had helped secure a certain degree of friendship between themselves. A professional friendship, but very human nonetheless.
“You need anything at all,”, Dexter had told Philian as he’d handed him his business card, “you just call me. And if you get another hot feeling like PYX, don’t hold back on my contribution. You bet the bank!”
Harper went straight back into another round of meetings, leaving Philian free to do whatever he wanted before returning back to work next Tuesday. It was mid-afternoon already and the wine was beginning to tell on Philian but that didn’t stop him buying everything he needed from the kiosk and heading over to where the beggar lay huddled under a blanket, only his eyes peering out. He wanted to thank the man for his help. That was a given. But he also wanted to find out a little bit more about him and at least get a name from him. He still wasn’t sure whether the politically correct term was beggar, homeless person, mendicant, tramp or any number of other suitable descriptions. All of those were generic and impersonal. He wanted to thank his saviour by name.
As he handed the food and drink over, Philian settled himself on the low wall that ran beside the narrow space that had been made semi-waterproof with some tarpaulins and which retained some warmth thanks to numerous layers of cardboard scattered on the floor. To say that he was outside his comfort zone would be to very much underestimate the position he was in. Philian had led a sheltered life when it came to those who could best be described as ‘other’. He could take racial difference in his stride. His generation was the first to be comfortable with different skin colours and the first to be truly colour-blind. He was also comfortable with talk of gender fluidity. But that was the limit of Philian’s inclusiveness. He struggled with disabled people, not because he was prejudiced, simply because he felt uncomfortable about how to act with them. Wheelchair users were right in saying that people saw the chair more than the person. It was a difference that, for those who had little experience of it, caused a degree of challenge to how best to address the person in the chair. It wasn’t rational. It just was. He would have been the same with those who might have needed intimate care from him, never having been part of a family that was close enough to discuss things that doctors were better equipped to address. Nappy changing was something that had put him off having children. And the homeless had to be scooped up in all this illogical prejudice as well.
It took him a few minutes to acclimatise himself to the practical challenges that now faced him. The man who lay huddled by his feet was filthy, stank of Heaven knows what and was clearly somebody whom alcohol had ravaged over the years. No social worker, Philian understood this immediately. Some gave in to drugs, some gave in to other self-destructive behaviours and some didn’t even give in to anything, but simply gave in and took themselves away from this life. The man before him didn’t have the ghostly pallor of the drug addict, nor did what little was visib
le of him show signs of cuts or bruises. No, his weapon of choice was alcohol. He smoked as well, but hey, let’s not be too harsh on the guy.
“I bought you a present.”, Philian said as he opened his briefcase and took out the half-bottle of whisky, the buying of which had been another reason for his lateness at the office this morning, “I hope it’s okay. My name’s Philian, by the way, and thank you for the tip yesterday. You saved my bacon.”
“Nathan.”, the reply was grunted and had to be repeated several times until Philian understood it. That was the difficulty with doing what he was doing. He wanted to reach out to the guy but he knew from previous episodes that their shared language might just as well have been two different ones, given the slurring, the muttering and the helplessness with which the other spoke. Over time, they would get to understand each other a lot more clearly. For now, all Philian could do was make best-guess attempts and seek to clarify things without sounding patriarchal or judgemental.
With a name in place, Philian’s next objective would be to try and understand a little of the circumstances that had put Nathan where he was today. He may have descended to a position some felt was lower than that of a stray dog, but he hadn’t always been like that. As a schoolboy, what would the photographs have shown? As a young adult, what sort of history did he have? He was clearly an educated person. The cypher that he had handed Philian the day before was mathematically complicated and amazingly astute as a financial tip-off. Which begged the biggest question of them all. What had happened to put this man called Nathan on the streets, escaping into the alcoholic daze of oblivion and destined to die unknown and unloved?
“Can I get you anything else?”, Philian asked.
“No, I’m good.”, the reply was accompanied by a long draw on the bottle that was once again offered to Philian and which he took a small sip out of.
“You don’t mind me sitting here?”, Philian asked, “It’s just that I need to tell you that your tip-off helped me keep my job. I don’t really understand what’s going on here, but I do owe my job to you.”
Philian Gregory Page 3