The Money Stones

by Ian St. James

  'Maybe he has, but not with us. Good profits, yes. A fortune, no. Of course over the past year he'd been investing more heavily, using more money. God knows where it came from. Perhaps he made a killing with another broker and switched the bulk of his funds to us afterwards.'

  'He wouldn't be the first to do that.'

  'As we both know,' he chuckled.

  I neither expected nor pressed Richardson to reveal the names of any of Hallsworth's investments, and at three fifteen he looked at his watch and said he must go.

  'It's funny you know,' he said as we got up. 'We've watched him go liquid over the past three months and wondered what he was up to. Seems our loss is your gain, eh?'

  I was planning to take a cab back to Maida Vale and he accepted my offer to drop him on the way. Just before the cab pulled into the forecourt of the Leppard Peplow building, he twisted his bulk in the seat and looked at me.

  'What will you do, Mike?'

  'What would you do?'

  'Christ knows. All I wish is that someone had offered me something like that when I was your age.'

  'You'd have taken it? In preference to the bank?'

  'Spoilt for bloody choice aren't you?' He looked away, turning his gaze outwards to the crowded pavements. The cab stopped at a pedestrian crossing, the meter ticked above the muted street sounds, and I sat watching Richardson. Suddenly his advice seemed terribly important.

  'Waiting for my pronouncement?' he turned back to me, a faint smile on his lips. 'Not on your life. Something as important as this - you make up your own mind. You know what you've got at the Bank. Stay there, and I dare say you'll end up running it one day - if the shareholders have got any bloody sense.' He shrugged. 'Hallsworth? What can I say. I've not heard any bad of him, I can say that. Of course, I've not heard any good of him either - that's the trouble isn't it? But as far as his dealings with us are concerned, he's been straight enough. Meticulous. Pure as the driven snow, as they say.' He thought for a moment and then added, 'But whenever I've thought about him I've put him down as a loner. And loners make difficult partners I've learned.'

  'So you'd turn him down?' I felt disappointed as I said it.

  'I didn't say that.'

  The cab stopped and he heaved his bulk through the door and onto the pavement. He turned, thrust head and shoulders back in again, and slapped a meaty hand into mine. 'Thanks for lunch, Mike. You'll let me know, won't you? When you decide.' And he was gone before I could answer.

  The cab moved off, along the Embankment, up Whitehall and into Trafalgar Square. The earlier greyness had turned to a drizzle, so that sudden gusts of wind dashed squalls of rain against the windows, distorting my view of the world outside. I grunted. A blurred view. It seemed appropriate somehow. Like the one I had of Hallsworth.

  When we turned past the Garrick I remembered my date with Sue and cheered up. If anything would take my mind off Rupert Hallsworth for a few hours she would. Sue was from another world, ignorant of the ways of the city, oblivious even to the very existence of Hallsworth.

  Six

  I arrived at Maida Vale at five past four. Sue's coat was thrown across the chair in the sitting room, her handbag and shoes were in the dining room, and I found her scarf in the kitchen. I was surprised. Not at all the untidiness. Sue could bring total disorder to the house from a range of thirty yards. But that she was there at all. Usually on a Wednesday she arrived at about seven and we had a panic to get changed and into the West End in time for the theatre.

  'Sue?' I shouted from the hall.

  'I'm in the bedroom.'

  'Doing what?'

  'Laying in wait for you.' The words bubbled through laughter, like water boiling in a saucepan. 'Laying I hope being the operative word.'

  Sue Ballantyne had been part of my life for over a year, since her twenty-ninth birthday in fact. Tiny, no more than five foot tall, beautifully proportioned and, as my old man would have said, as bright as a button. She had black hair, so black as to be that almost blue sometimes seen in the plumage of birds, and ever since I'd known her she'd worn it short with a fringe at the front and full at the sides. Slate coloured eyes, cream tinted skin, and a gap between her front teeth as a result of refusing to wear braces as a child.

  I went upstairs. She was in bed, creamy bare shoulders gleaming above the sheets, one arm beckoning.

  'Suppose I'd been a burglar?' I kissed her forehead and narrowly avoided being pulled onto the bed.

  'Don't be silly, it's still daylight. You wouldn't be burglarising, you'd be breaking and entering. And I'm looking forward to it.'

  We had met on one of my rare visits to the provinces. The Bank had been owed money by a small engineering business in Winchester. Not a fortune, seventy-eight thousand to be precise, but it was showing all the signs of a loan going sour on us. I went to sort it out. The work took almost a fortnight to complete and I'd stayed at a small hotel on the edge of the City about a mile from the factory. And Sue had been staying there too.

  I unstrapped my watch and put it on the dressing table, remembering the time as I did so. 'You're early. Did you catch an earlier train?'

  'No train today. Car. I had a lift all the way. Door to door.' She looked at me, bright eyes inviting questions. I obliged. 'A young captain,' she said. 'Very dashing. Artillery. All fair hair and blue eyes. Nordic ancestors I should think - really dishy.'

  I began to undress.

  'Sports car too. New one. At least new to him - he thought the gear lever was where my knee was for half the journey.'

  'Which half?' I took a coat hanger from the wardrobe for my suit.

  Oh very droll. Well he turned me on and you'll get the benefit won't you? You should be jolly grateful.'

  'Great. So I'm to be used as a substitute now am I? Some bl-'

  'He'd do as much for you. He said so. If ever my tycoon - that's what he calls you, darling - if ever my tycoon - GOD DARLING, your hands are FREEZING.

  During the first week of my stay in Winchester Sue and I had said little more than good morning and good night to each other. Until the Saturday. I'd finished with my engineers by mid-day and was drinking coffee in the hotel lounge, wondering whether to go back to Belsize Park until Monday, when Sue came in. We made polite talk for a bit and when I discovered that she planned to stay for a few more days, I asked her to have dinner with me that evening.

  It was the first time I'd seen Sue really dressed up, off the shoulder gown, necklace glittering at her throat, the whole works. She looked enchanting, like a tiny Dresden china doll. Perhaps it was a bit much for Winchester, but I hadn't minded. Especially when of all things, it turned out to be her birthday.

  I found out a lot about her that week. Her parents were dead, as were mine, though at least I'd a brother still in Darlington whereas she had no one, except an elderly aunt in Aberystwyth. She wrote books. History books for schools, the income from which supplemented the interest she received on some small investments, combining to provide a comfortable if unspectacular standard of living. And she was staying at the hotel while she looked for a cottage to buy in the area.

  She enquired what I did and I told her, glad to be able to say banker instead of accountant; and she'd asked for some advice on her investments and been touchingly grateful to receive it. I'd probed, delicately but persistently, for some clue of a man in her life, but astonishingly there wasn't one. Not current at least - though I sensed there'd been someone once, a long while back.

  A month later she phoned me at the office. She was due a weekend off from writing and planned to spend it in London, visit the theatre, do a bit of shopping, the usual sort of thing. We spent it together and soon after that it became a regular monthly date, sometimes a whole weekend, sometimes the afternoon train on a Wednesday, just for the evening and overnight.

  I was still at Belsize Park when she started coming down, though Terry had long since gone and the flat was larger than I needed and scruffier than I could have afforded. I suppose I stayed because I
'd grown used to it. I knew the local shops, the best pubs in the neighbourhood, everything was handy and organised. It meant not having to think about anything except work.

  During her first two visits we'd kept to separate bedrooms, but I think we'd both decided by the third that we wanted something more than just sharing an evening together. Neither of us said anything but the atmosphere changed, a sudden pleasurable tension growing between us. I remember returning to the flat, locking the door and guiding her away from the living room. We stopped in the corridor and the kiss left us both breathless and trembling. 'Your place or mine,' I had said, nodding at the bedrooms and guiltily remembering the actress from years before. Sue had given me a long look and for a bad moment I thought she was going to say no. But she had smiled and opened the door to my room, and led the way to the bed.

  'God, darling, I was ready for that.' She stroked my face and even with my eyes closed I could see her slate grey eyes watching me, sad and serious, soft and tender.

  'Better than your soldier?'

  'Better than the whole damned Army!'

  'The Colonel's daughter didn't oughta -'

  'Oh shut up!'

  We should have got up then but we didn't, and consequently we arrived five minutes late at the theatre. Afterwards I took her to dinner at Au Savarin in Charlotte Street and found myself telling her about the decision I had to make. About staying at the Bank or joining Hallsworth.

  'Can't you ask the Bank for an extension of time? Then, when this man gets back from New York you can have another meeting and decide then.'

  I tried to explain. 'Darling, the Bank was founded in seventeen eighty-eight, by the three richest families in England. Their descendants have controlled it ever since. Now, for the first time in history, they invite an outsider to join the board, and what happens? They're asked to wait! Some of the present Board must regret the offer and their ancestors must be spinning in their graves.' I shook my head. 'No - more time is out of the question.'

  'Exceptional men merit exceptional treatment.' She sounded severe but her eyes betrayed her. 'I'd better give them a list of your finer points.'

  'Physical attributes don't count.'

  She pretended to be shocked. 'If you're implying that that I only come to see you for your body - well, it's not true. I mean I do quite like talking to you as well. In between times. She giggled. 'While you're resting.'

  I pulled a face and started telling her about my meetings with Mr Poignton and Tommy Richardson. And my visit to the Bank.

  'You mean you've got a million pounds? In cash?'

  I think everyone in Au Savarin heard her. Heads swivelled, women eyed me through narrowed lids, men laughed and made remarks about someone shooting a corny line. To make amends she became serious and we talked sensibly for the next half hour. On balance I think she favoured me leaving the Bank. Certainly the flow of her argument began to run in that direction. But I still hesitated, and we sat in silence for a while, turning it over in our minds.

  'Look, darling,' she reached for my hand across the table. 'This man must be reachable. New York's on the phone for Heaven's sake. Why not find out where he's staying and phone him? It's his problem too, remember. He caused it by rushing off like that. Why not make a list of the things that are worrying you and ring him up? Just say - now look here Mr - what's his name?'

  'Hallsworth,' I said, thinking about the idea and wondering how many of my queries could be resolved over the telephone. 'Rupert Hallsworth.'

  'Now look here Mr Hallsworth -' She stopped and took her hand away. For a moment I paid no attention, busy tracing lines on the tablecloth with a teaspoon, and wondering if Durbeville's would know Hallsworth's whereabouts. When I looked up, her face was as white as paper.

  'What on earth? Darling, are you all right?' I reached across, putting a hand on the crook of her arm, alarmed that she was about to faint. 'Sue, you're not ill are you? What's the matter?'

  'Rupert Hallsworth,' she said, dazed and looking straight through me. As if he was standing behind me and she was being introduced. 'After all those years.'

  'You know him?' I couldn't believe it. I'd searched London to find someone who could tell me something about the man - and Sue knew him.

  'I once knew a man of that name.' Her normally expressive face was blank, shocked, and still empty of colour. 'A long while ago.'

  'When? What was he like? I mean, can you describe him?'

  She took more than a sip of brandy and held it in her mouth, swallowing a drop at a time, taking an age to answer. 'Oh yes, I can describe him.'

  She did. It was unmistakably the same man. As she finished she shivered as if someone had walked on her grave.

  'When did you know him?' I asked.

  She looked around the restaurant, people leaving, collecting their coats, another party arriving, waiters hurrying, clearing crockery, preparing tables afresh.

  'Mike, can we go home?'

  We'd finished anyway, and were just waiting for the bill.

  'Of course. But Hallsworth?'

  'Married my best friend. Pamela. Pamela Johnstone.'

  Seven

  We returned to Maida Vale. At around midnight it doesn't take long, about fifteen minutes by cab. I had a kitchen full of electronic gadgets, one of which switched the percolator on in advance, so we always arrived to the welcoming smell of coffee. I'd dim the lights, play soft music, pour drinks and we'd sit together, content that bed was waiting and not wanting to spoil it by hurrying.

  But that night Sue spoke as soon as we were inside the front door. 'Mike, let's go straight up. Please.'

  Perhaps because everything about her is so impish, her height, her provocative teasing looks, her sometimes salty sense of humour, whenever I picture Sue, she's laughing. So any other expression is set in sharp contrast and more startling as a consequence. At that moment she looked desperately sad. Too sad to even cry. As if drained of tears a long time ago.

  We went silently to bed. My mind teemed with questions. Things I wanted to know. Answers she could give me about Hallsworth. But she was so obviously distressed that I cursed my earlier clumsiness and stayed silent. I cradled her in my arms and as the minutes passed her breathing became regular and measured, so that eventually, judging her asleep, I edged from the bed and fumbled my way across the darkened room to my dressing gown.

  'Where are you going?' Her voice caught me at the door.

  'Downstairs. I thought I'd have a night cap.' It was true, but most of all I wanted to think through the latest development. Though through to where I wasn't sure. 'Did I wake you?'

  'I wasn't asleep. Not really.' Her voice was as low as a whisper. 'I'm sorry, Mike.'

  'Don't be daft. Get some sleep. You'll feel better in the morning.'

  'No I won't. Not unless I tell you. It wouldn't be fair. Not now.'

  I hesitated, torn, wanting to know everything, but not if it meant causing her more pain. 'You don't have to, Sue. Really.'

  She laughed and I was surprised at the bitterness in the sound. 'That's just it,' she said. 'I do. If things are ever to be the same, can ever be the same. Between us.'

  'It's nothing to do with us.'

  She didn't answer. Instead, seconds later, she said, 'Darling, if you're getting a brandy get me one too.'

  I padded downstairs and returned five minutes later with brandy and glasses, cigarettes and ashtrays. She insisted that the lights remained out which made pouring drinks difficult, but I managed eventually.

  'You remind me of my father,' she said. 'When I was small, he'd sit in the dark telling me stories until I fell asleep.'

  'Now it's your story. And I promise to stay awake.'

  'Yes,'she whispered.

  I settled in the only chair, close enough to touch her, and sat watching the pale half moon of her face in the glow of the cigarette.

  Suddenly she burst out with: 'Dear God, Mike, you'd think an old maid of thirty would have a cupboard full of secrets, wouldn't you? Instead of one. One
that I'm ashamed of. Would rather no one knew about. You of all people.'

  After a very long pause she spoke again, this time so softly that I found myself leaning forward to catch her words. 'Pamela's family were Army, like mine. Our fathers were great friends. Same school - Sandhurst together - you know the sort of thing - more like brothers in a way. And Pamela and I were very close too. Both only children; born in India within a month of each other. We grew up together - out there to start with before being sent home to school. Term time and holidays together, sharing everything and happy to do so. And we were like that until we left school.'

  She sipped her brandy and sounded a shade more cheerful when she resumed. 'My family moved around a bit. The way they do in the Army. Quite a while in India, a spell in Germany. Then out to Singapore. That's where they were when I left school. I'd never been there of course and they wanted me to go out for a bit, so I did. Singapore was marvellous then. Oh Mike, you've no idea. Daddy had just been made up to full colonel and was a big shot locally. The social life was fabulous, and well, I had a great time of it I can tell you.'

  I couldn't see her face but I knew she was smiling. She stubbed her cigarette out and said, 'Pamela and I always kept in touch. A monthly letter, birthday cards, that kind of thing. She was having a gay old time in London. Her parents gave her a proper coming out, the whole works, just the kind of thing she loved. Then - I'd been in Singapore two and a half years I think - she wrote to say she was getting married. I'd have loved to have gone to the wedding. But - well, Singapore to London and then back out again - it wasn't really on. But she sent me photographs, and I had a couple of letters afterwards, and she seemed happy enough.'

  I didn't even move in the chair for fear of interrupting her. After a pause she said, 'Not long after that the troubles started in Singapore. Riots, killings, street bombings. Senseless and horrible. Then, one day, I'd gone to play tennis with some friends, and when I got back our house had been blown up. It was - indescribable. Rubble. Debris. Still smoking when I got there. My parents were killed outright. Both of them. And there was a young man. He and I - well I suppose we might have married eventually - he was very badly injured. Two days later he died. In hospital. He - he never even regained consciousness.'