by Ken Follett
In the circumstances it seemed the only thing to do.
10
Derek Hamilton was met at Waterloo Station by another chauffeur, this time in a Jaguar. The Chairman's Rolls-Royce had gone in the economy drive: sadly, the unions had not appreciated the gesture. The chauffeur touched his cap and held the door, and Hamilton got in without speaking.
As the car pulled away he made a decision. He would not go straight to the office. He said: "Take me to Nathaniel Fett--do you know where it is?"
The chauffeur said: "Yes, sir."
They crossed Waterloo Bridge and turned into the Aldwych, heading for the City. Hamilton and Fett had both gone to Westminster School: Nathaniel Fett senior had known that his son would not suffer for his Jewishness there, and Lord Hamilton had believed that the school would not turn his son into an upper-class twit--his Lordship's phrase.
The two boys had superficially similar backgrounds. Both had wealthy, dynamic fathers and beautiful mothers; both were from intellectual households where politicians came to dinner; both grew up surrounded by good paintings and unlimited books. Yet, as the friendship grew, and the two young men went to Oxford--Fett to Balliol, Hamilton to Magdalen--the Hamilton house had suffered by the comparison. Derek came to see his own father's intellect as shallow. Old man Fett would tolerantly discuss abstract painting, communism, and bebop jazz, then tear them to pieces with surgical accuracy. Lord Hamilton held the same conservative views, but expressed them in the thundering cliche's of a House of Lords speech.
Derek smiled to himself in the back of the car. He had been too hard on his father; perhaps sons always were. Few men had known more about political skirmishing: the old man's cleverness had given him real power, whereas Nathaniel's father had been too wise ever to wield real influence in affairs of state.
Nathaniel had inherited that wisdom and made a career of it. The stockbroking firm which had been owned by six generations of firstborn sons named Nathaniel Fett had been changed, by the seventh, into a merchant bank. People had always gone to Nathaniel for advice, even at school. Now he advised on mergers, share issues, and takeovers.
The car pulled up. Hamilton said: "Wait for me, please."
The offices of Nathaniel Fett were not impressive--the firm had no need to prove itself rich. There was a small nameplate outside a street door near the Bank of England. The entrance was flanked by a sandwich shop on one side and a tobacconist's on the other. A casual observer might have taken it for a small, and none-too-prosperous, insurance or shipping company; but he would not have known how far the premises to either side were occupied by the one firm.
The inside was comfortable, rather than opulent, with air-conditioning, concealed lighting, and carpets which had aged well and stopped short of the walls. The same casual observer might have thought that the paintings hanging on the walls were expensive. He would have been right and wrong: they were expensive, but they were not hanging on the walls. They were set into the brickwork behind armored glass--only the false frames actually hung on top of the wallpaper.
Hamilton was shown straight in to Fett's ground-floor office. Nathaniel was sitting in a club chair reading The Financial Times. He stood up to shake hands.
Hamilton said: "I've never seen you sitting at that desk. Is it just for decoration?"
"Sit down, Derek. Tea, coffee, sherry?"
"A glass of milk, please."
"If you would, Valerie." Fett nodded to his secretary and she went out. "The desk--no, I never use it. Everything I write is dictated; nothing I read is too heavy to hold in my hands; why should I sit at a desk like a clerk in Dickens?"
"So it is for decoration."
"It's been here longer than I. Too big to get out through the door and too valuable to chop up. I think they built the place around it."
Hamilton smiled. Valerie brought in his milk and went out again. He sipped and studied his friend. Fett and his office matched: both were small but not dwarfish, dark but not gloomy, relaxed without being frivolous. The man had heavy-rimmed glasses and brilliantined hair. He wore a club tie, a mark of social acceptability: it was the only Jewish thing about him, Hamilton thought wryly.
He put his glass down and said: "Were you reading about me?"
"Just skimming. A predictable reaction. Ten years ago, results like that from a company like Hamilton would have made waves from audio shares to zinc prices. Today, it's just another conglomerate in trouble. There's a word for it: recession."
Hamilton sighed. "Why do we do it, Nathaniel?"
"I beg your pardon?" Fett was startled.
He shrugged. "Why do we overwork, lose sleep, risk fortunes?"
"And get ulcers." Fett smiled, but a subtle change had come over his demeanor. His eyes narrowed behind the pebble-lensed spectacles, and he smoothed the bristly hair at the back of his head in a gesture Hamilton recognized to be defensive. Fett was retreating into his role as a careful advisor, a friendly counsel with an objective viewpoint. But his reply was measuredly casual. "To make money. What else?"
Hamilton shook his head. His friend always had to be beckoned twice before stepping into deeper water. "Sixth-form economics," he said derisively. "I would have made more profit if I'd sold my inheritance and put it into the Post Office. Most people who own large businesses could live very comfortably for the rest of their lives by doing that. Why do we conserve our fortunes, and try to enlarge them? Is it greed, or power, or adventure? Are we all compulsive gamblers?"
Fett said: "I suppose Ellen has been saying this kind of thing to you."
Hamilton laughed. "You're right, but it pains me that you think I'm incapable of such ponderings on my own."
"Oh, I don't doubt you mean it. It's just that Ellen has a way of saying what you are thinking. All the same, you wouldn't be repeating these things to me if they hadn't struck a chord." He paused. "Derek, be careful not to lose Ellen."
They stared at one another for a moment; then they both looked away. There was silence. They had reached the limit of intimacy permitted by their friendship.
Eventually Fett said: "We might get a cheeky bid in the next few days."
Hamilton was surprised. "Why?"
"Someone might think he can pick you up at a bargain price, while you're depressed and panicked by the interim results."
"What would your advice be, then?" Hamilton asked thoughtfully.
"It depends on the offer. But I'd probably say 'Wait.' We should know today whether you've won the oil field license."
"Shield."
"Yes. Win that, and your shares will strengthen."
"We're still a poor prospect for profits."
"But ideal material for an asset stripper."
"Interesting," Hamilton mused. "A gambler would make the bid today, before the Minister's announcement. An opportunist would do it tomorrow, if we win the license. A genuine investor would wait until next week."
"And a wise man would say no to all of them." Hamilton smiled. "Money isn't everything, Nathaniel."
"Good Lord!"
"Is that so heretical?"
"Not at all." Fett was amused, and his eyes sparkled behind the spectacles. "I've known it for years. What surprises me is that you should say it."
"It surprises me, too." Hamilton paused. "A matter of curiosity: do you think we'll get the license?"
"Can't say." Suddenly the broker's face was unreadable again. "Depends whether the Minister believes it should go to an already-profitable company as a bonus, or to an ailing one as a life belt."
"Hm. Neither, I suspect. Remember, we only head the syndicate: it's the total package that counts. The Hamilton section, in control, provides City contacts and management expertise. We'll raise the development money, rather than supply it out of our own pocket. Others in the team offer engineering skills, oil experience, marketing facilities, and so on."
"So you've a good chance."
Hamilton smiled again. "Socrates."
"Why?"
"He always made
people answer their own questions." Hamilton lifted his heavy frame out of the chair. "I must go."
Fett walked to the door with him. "Derek, about Ellen--I hope you don't mind my saying . . ."
"No." They shook hands. "I value your judgment."
Fett nodded, and opened the door. "Whatever you do, don't panic."
"Okey-dokey." As he went out, Hamilton realized that he had not used that expression for thirty years.
11
Two motorcycle police parked their machines on either side of the rear entrance to the bank. One of them produced an identity card and held it flat against the small window beside the door. The man inside read the card carefully, then picked up a red telephone and spoke into it.
A black van without markings drove between the motorcycles and stopped with its nose to the door. The side windows of its cab were fitted with wire mesh internally, and the two men inside wore police-type uniforms with crash helmets and transparent visors. The body of the van had no windows, despite the fact that there was a third man in there.
Two more police bikes drew up behind the van, completing the convoy.
The steel door to the building lifted smoothly and noiselessly, and the van pulled in. It was in a short tunnel, brightly lit by fluorescent tubes. Its way was blocked by another door identical with the first. The van stopped and the door behind closed. The police motorcyclists remained in the street.
The van driver wound his window down and spoke through the wire mesh into a microphone on a stand. "Morning," he said cheerfully.
There was a large plate-glass window in one wall of the tunnel. Behind the window, which was bullet-proof, a bright-eyed man in shirtsleeves spoke into another microphone. His amplified words resonated in the confined space. "Code word, please."
The driver, whose name was Ron Biggins, said: "Obadiah." The Controller who had set up today's run was a deacon in a Baptist church.
The shirtsleeved man pressed a large red button in the white-painted wall behind him, and the second steel door slid upward. Ron Biggins muttered: "Miserable sod," and eased the van forward. Again the steel door closed behind it.
It was now in a windowless room in the bowels of the building. Most of the floor space was occupied by a turntable. The room was otherwise empty. Ron steered carefully onto the marked tracks and switched off his engine. The turntable jerked, and the van moved slowly through 180 degrees, then stopped.
The rear doors were now opposite the elevator in the far wall. As Ron watched in his wing mirror, the elevator doors parted and a bespectacled man in a black jacket and striped trousers emerged. He carried a key, holding it out in front of him as if it were a torch or a gun. He unlocked the van's rear doors; then they were opened from the inside. The third guard got out.
Two more men came out of the elevator, carrying between them a formidable metal box the size of a suitcase. They loaded it into the van and went back for more.
Ron looked around. The room was bare, apart from its two entrances, three parallel lines of fluorescent lights, and a vent for the air-conditioning. It was small, and not quite rectangular. Ron guessed that few of the people who worked at the bank would know it was there at all. The elevator presumably went only to the vault, and the steel door to the street had no apparent connection with the main entrance around the corner.
The guard who had been inside, Stephen Younger, came around to the left-hand side of the van; and Ron's codriver, Max Fitch, lowered his window. Stephen said: "Big one today."
"Makes no difference to us," Ron said sourly. He looked back at his mirror. The loading was finished.
Stephen said to Max: "The gaffer here likes Westerns."
"Yeah?" Max was interested. He had not been here before, and the clerk in striped trousers did not look like a John Wayne fan. "How do you know?" he asked.
"Watch. Here he comes."
The clerk came to Ron's window and said: "Move 'em out!"
Max spluttered and tried to cover his laughter. Stephen went around to the back of the van and got in. The clerk locked him in.
The three bank employees disappeared into the elevator. Nothing happened for two or three minutes; then the steel door lifted. Ron fired the engine and drove into the tunnel. They waited for the inner door to close and the outer one to open. Just before they pulled away, Max said into the microphone: "So long, Laughing Boy."
The van emerged into the street.
The motorcycle escort was ready. They took up their positions, two in front and two behind, and the convoy headed east.
At a large road junction in East London, the van turned onto the A11. It was watched by a large man in a gray coat with a velvet collar, who immediately went into a phone booth.
Max Fitch said: "Guess who I just saw."
"No idea."
"Tony Cox."
Ron's expression was blank. "Who's he when he's at home?"
"Used to be a boxer. Good, he was. I saw him knock out Kid Vittorio at Bethnal Green Baths, it must be ten year ago. Hell of a boy."
Max really wanted to be a detective, but he had failed the police force intelligence test and gone into security. He read a great deal of crime fiction, and consequently labored under the delusion that the CID's most potent weapon was logical deduction. At home he did things like finding a lipstick-smeared cigarette butt in the ashtray and announcing grandly that he had reason to believe that Mrs. Ashford from next door had been in the house.
He shifted restlessly in his seat. "Them cases are what they keep old notes in, aren't they?"
"Yes," Ron said.
"So we must be going to the destruction plant in Essex," Max said proudly. "Right, Ron?"
Ron was staring at the outriders in front of the van and frowning. As the senior member of the team, he was the only one who got told where they were going. But he was not thinking of the route, or the job, or even Tony Cox the ex-boxer. He was trying to figure out why his eldest daughter had fallen in love with a hippie.
12
Felix Laski's office in Poultry did not display his name anywhere. It was an old building, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with two others of different design. Had he been able to get planning permission to knock it down and build a skyscraper, he could have made millions. Instead it stood as an example of the way his wealth was locked up. But he reckoned that, in the long term, sheer pressure would blow the lid off planning restrictions; and he was a patient man where business was concerned.
Almost all of the building was sublet. Most of the tenants were minor foreign banks who needed an address near Threadneedle Street, and their names were well displayed. People tended to assume that Laski had interests in the banks, and he encouraged this error in every way short of outright lying. Besides, he did own one of the banks.
The furnishings inside were adequate but cheap: solid old typewriters, shop-soiled filing cabinets, secondhand desks, and the threadbare minimum of carpet. Like every successful man in middle age, Laski liked to explain his achievement in aphorisms: a favorite was "I never spend money. I invest." It was truer than most dicta of its kind. His one home, a small mansion in Kent, had been rising in value since he bought it shortly after the war; his meals were often expense-account affairs with business prospects; and even the paintings he owned--kept in a safe, not hung on walls--had been bought because his art dealer said they would appreciate. To him, money was like the toy banknotes in Monopoly: he wanted it, not for what it could buy, but because it was needed to play the game.
Still, his lifestyle was not uncomfortable. A primary-school teacher, or the wife of an agricultural laborer, would have thought he lived in unpardonable luxury.
The room he used as his own office was small. There was a desk bearing three telephones, a swivel chair behind it, two more chairs for callers, and a long, upholstered couch against the wall. The bookshelf beside the wall safe held scores of weighty volumes on taxation and company law. It was a room without a personality: no photographs of loved ones on the desk, no picture
s on the walls, no foolish plastic penholder given by a well-meaning grandchild, no ashtray brought home from Clovelly or stolen from the Hilton.
Laski's secretary was an efficient overweight girl who wore her skirts too short. He often told people: "When they were giving out sex appeal, Carol was elsewhere getting extra rations of brains." That was a good joke, an English joke, the kind directors told each other in the executive canteen. Carol had arrived at nine twenty-five to find her boss's "out" tray full of work which had not been there last night. Laski liked to do things like that: it impressed the staff and helped to counteract envy. Carol had not touched the papers until she had made him coffee. He liked that, too.
He was sitting on the couch, hidden behind The Times, with the coffee near him on the arm of the chair, when Ellen Hamilton came in.
She closed the door silently and tiptoed across the carpet, so that he did not see her until she pushed the newspaper down and looked at him over it. The sudden rustle made him jump with shock.
She said: "Mr. Laski."
He said: "Mrs. Hamilton!"
She lifted her skirt to her waist and said: "Kiss me good morning."
Under the skirt she wore old-fashioned stockings with no panties. Laski leaned forward and rubbed his face in the crisp, sweet-smelling pubic hair. His heart beat a little faster, and he felt delightfully wicked, the way he had the first time he kissed a woman's vulva.
He sat back and looked up at her. "What I like about you is the way you manage to make sex seem dirty," he said. He folded the newspaper and dropped it to the floor.
She lowered her skirt and said: "Sometimes I just get the hots."
He smiled knowingly, and let his eyes roam her body. She was about fifty, and very slender, with small, pointed breasts. Her aging complexion was saved by a deep suntan which she nourished all winter under an ultraviolet lamp. Her hair was black, straight, and well cut; and the gray hairs which appeared from time to time were swiftly obliterated in an expensive Knights-bridge salon. She wore a cream-colored outfit: very elegant, very expensive, and very English. He ran his hand up the inside of her thigh, under the perfectly tailored skirt. With intimate insolence his fingers probed between her buttocks. He wondered whether anyone would believe that the demure wife of the Hon. Derek Hamilton went around with no panties on just so that Felix Laski could feel her arse anytime he wanted to.