by Rod Reynolds
‘I had to work.’
‘Dad said you walked straight out the other morning.’
‘I just stopped by to check she was comfortable.’
‘Can’t you two call a truce, just for a bit? For Mum’s sake.’
‘This is a truce. I had to go to work.’
She took a deep breath and let it out.
‘How is she?’ he said.
‘Her blood pressure went haywire yesterday but they don’t know why.’
‘Are the doctors saying anything? What’s the prognosis?’
‘More tests. They’re doing what they can, but I get the feeling they think it’s a matter of time.’
He swore to himself. ‘They don’t know that.’
‘Come on, Mike, let’s not kid ourselves.’
He looked along the street towards Liverpool Street station, then the other way towards HFB. ‘How’s Ellie?’
‘She’s not sleeping so well. She was awake at half-four this morning, bouncing around the flat. It’s a reaction to what’s going on – kids are so sensitive to stress.’
‘Have you told her about Mum?’
‘She knows grandma’s poorly. I sugar-coat it in a big way, but I’m not going to outright lie to her.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m coping.’
‘Can you put her in for some extra nursery hours? I’ll cover it.’ He thought about Oliver Kent hanging up on him – a cash injection he couldn’t afford to lose, especially with the looming possibility he’d have to disappear for a while to stay alive.
‘It’s not that easy, they’re oversubscribed. Anyway, I don’t want to feel like I’m pushing her away just to suit me.’
‘Anything I can do, just tell me.’
‘Why don’t you come over one evening? I could use a sounding board more than anything. I’ll cook something. Ellie will love it.’
Any explanation he could offer would have to start with why he didn’t even dare go to his own flat. He wasn’t about to dump his troubles on her plate that way. ‘I can’t right now. Work. Maybe later this week.’
‘Okay.’
The phone vibrated in his hand and he snatched a glance at the screen. A reply from Lydia Wright: I’m here. Where are you? He put it back to his ear and moved along the arches separating the walkway from the street. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.’
‘Yeah.’ The word laced with disappointment.
Lydia came up the escalator out of Liverpool Street seeing the City rise in front of her. Broadgate was almost all in shadow; the sun bathed the tops of the office buildings in brilliant white light, but its reach didn’t extend to anywhere near ground level.
Michael’s message was as abrupt as always – We need to talk urgent. Meet me at HFB. Those last three letters just tossed out there, the bait no less tantalising for being unsubtle.
She had no idea what she was doing. Hours since she walked out of the police station, that one image she couldn’t get out of her mind: him standing outside the Tube, as if they’d have to go through him to get to her. Risking his life for her. Whatever he was and whatever he’d done, that had to be worth something. An unfair question crept into her head: would Stephen have done the same thing?
She put on the cheap pair of sunglasses she’d bought in Boots – ridiculous, unnecessary, but some comfort found in putting a barrier between herself and the world. She crossed the concourse in front of the station entrance and turned towards HFB.
‘Lydia.’
She spun at hearing her name.
‘Keep walking.’ Michael drew up next to her and tugged her sleeve to pull her in step with him.
She snatched it away. ‘What the hell are you doing? You scared the shit out of me.’
‘Just keep walking.’
She got her feet going again, the shock levelling out but leaving her at a higher anxiety level, like a boat marooned on a hillside after a flood. ‘What’s going on?’
He guided her up a flight of steps into the shopping parade that ran along the side of the station building, the stone archways that fronted it making her hesitate. Deeper into the shadows with him.
‘I didn’t know if you’d come.’ His eyes were still scouring the street.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Checking you’re not being followed.’
‘Followed by who?’
He looked at her and away again.
She kept watching his face. It looked like he’d been awake for days – bags under his eyes and deep lines in his skin.
‘Come on, I think we’re okay.’ He started walking again.
‘If you’re trying to scare me…’
‘You should be scared already. Been home lately?’
‘No, and that’s exactly what I was going to say – you’re too late. What do you want?’
‘To put our heads together.’
‘You must be kidding.’
He stopped and rubbed his face, then turned to her. ‘This keeps going the same way, we both end up dead.’
She stepped back, recoiling from him and the words she didn’t want to hear. ‘You say things like that to freak me out but you’ve been lying to me from minute one.’
‘That’s in the past now.’
‘You get to just decide that, then?’
‘It’s necessity. They know we’ve been talking.’
‘Who? Who does?’
He stared past her, over her shoulder. It felt like a door was closing and this was her last chance to get out. Just walk away.
‘A client hired me to look into Jamie Tan. I spent months working the job. I was waiting for him at High Barnet that night, because it was time to twist his arm. He never showed, and then I saw you poking around.’
‘What do you mean “twist his arm”?’
‘Just that. To make him compliant for a meeting with the client.’
‘You make it sound like you’re a recruitment consultant. You were there to threaten him.’
‘Not like that.’
‘No? Like what then?’
‘This is white-collar stuff.’
‘Crime. White-collar crime is the phrase.’
‘Corporate intelligence. That’s what I do.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything. Anyway, last time it was your bullshit about working for his wife.’
‘I was trying to protect her. And you.’
‘By buying me off?’
‘By steering you clear.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘My client made a move against me yesterday.’
‘All these oblique terms – just speak in plain English.’
‘He thinks I killed Tan, and he tried to have me killed.’
She threw her arm up and wheeled away from him, turning to lean on the granite balustrade fronting the walkway.
He came and stood a short distance along from her, eyes trained on the street.
‘Why does he think that?’ she said.
‘It’s a misunderstanding.’
‘I can’t believe I’m listening to this. If you’re telling me you killed him by accident, I’m gone. I’ve seen the video…’
‘I was trying to warn Tan off. The client saw me and they put two and two together and got a thousand. They thought I was threatening him, but I had nothing to do with what happened on the Tube that night.’
Lydia looked up at the sky, a white contrail miles above, one end of it clear and sharp, the other fraying to nothing. ‘What’s this got to do with you and me talking?’
‘In their mind it’s all evidence I fucked them over.’
‘So here you are doing it again, and … Shit.’ She looked around, feeling eyes on her. ‘That’s why you’re so jumpy. How do you know they’re not watching you now?’
‘I’m clean. I ditched them yesterday and I’ve stayed out of sight since.’
She kept looking away from him, her gaze fixed on Heron Tower. The new sunglasses were cheap, the lenses staining it a nicotin
e-yellow tone. ‘Who’s your client?’
He leaned into the balustrade and then pushed himself back again. ‘Better you don’t know.’
‘Better for you.’
‘No.’
‘You want my help but it’s always a one-way street with you.’
‘We need the same thing. Getting to the truth about Tan is the only way to protect ourselves. That’s our leverage.’
‘What about the police?’
‘Way out of their league.’
A group at the pub over the road burst into laughter, the sound carrying even over the traffic noise, making both of them look up. Men and women in business suits at a standing table loaded with wine glasses, one of them holding court.
‘They never tried to contact me after Brent Cross,’ Michael said. ‘The cops.’
‘And?’
‘You didn’t tell them about me, did you?’
She looked back at him, not giving an answer.
‘Have you thought about why?’ he said.
‘Maybe I wanted something to hold over you.’
He tilted his head. ‘Okay. It’s a weak hand.’
‘It’s not weak at all.’
‘So how does it play out?’
‘I didn’t tell anyone I was going to be there that night. Now, you and I know you stole my shit and you were at my flat, and you were tailing me for days before that, but the cops don’t have that part of the story. So in their minds, all they see is a man in a suit watching me at the station, who must’ve been working with the other bastards. Accomplice, conspiracy – gives them plenty to throw at you.’
‘You know that’s not why I was there.’
‘I don’t know anything for sure,’ she said.
‘So what do you want then?’
‘The truth.’
‘Everything I’ve said today is gospel.’
‘Then let’s go from the start.’
‘The start is Tan. Who gave you his name?’
‘Why does that matter?’
‘Was it this guy?’ He took his phone out and showed her a picture of Adam Finch in a strip club, a topless woman sitting on his lap. Finch was chatting to the man next to him, both of them grinning.
The skin on her face went taut. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Lucky guess. There’s more.’ He turned the phone around to swipe to a different picture, then showed her again. The image on the screen was Finch with the same dancer, now bent over in front of him, her panties clamped between his teeth. Jamie Tan was on the edge of the shot, laughing and pointing with his bottle of Peroni.
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘What’s Finch’s part?’
‘Nothing. He ID’d Tan for me but now he’s not talking.’
‘I can help with that.’
‘I don’t need your help.’
He hooked his thumb towards the HFB building. ‘Then this should be easy.’
Finch came out of the lift, looking for someone that wasn’t there, Stringer’s message via the receptionists – Jamie Tan is waiting for you downstairs – having the desired effect.
He let Lydia lead the way, following at her shoulder. Finch spotted her coming and his face changed from confusion to anger. He started to turn away but then came right at her.
‘This is harassment.’
‘We need to talk,’ Lydia said.
Finch looked at her, flicking his eyes to Stringer behind. ‘I told you I’ve got nothing to say to—’
Lydia put her finger up to cut him off. ‘You don’t need to say anything, just listen.’
Stringer pulled his phone out and put it in front of Finch. ‘Remember this?’ The picture of Finch with the panties in his teeth was on the screen.
Finch leaned closer to look at it, then glanced up. ‘So what?’
Stringer drew his finger across the screen to bring up the next image. ‘This is one of the other dancers from that place. Jamie Tan took her to a hotel and this is how her night went.’ The picture was of Angie Cross when he’d first met her, her face battered and bloodied.
‘Jesus Christ.’ Finch put his hand in front of it and pushed the phone away.
‘Tan did that,’ Stringer said. ‘That’s the man you’re protecting.’
‘I’m not protecting anyone. I never knew anything about it.’
‘That’s not what she says.’
‘What?’
‘Jamie paid her to hush it up – twenty grand.’ Stringer clocked Lydia twisting her neck to peer at him as he spoke. ‘She says you were the one arranged it.’
‘Bullshit. That’s fucking bullshit, I’ve never even—’
‘Never what? Had her knickers for dinner? It would take five seconds for me to dress this up, Adam.’
‘Who are you?’ He looked at Lydia. ‘Who the fuck is he?’
Stringer crowded him. ‘The police might let you off with a slap on the wrists, but the FCA will take your licence in a heartbeat. That’s you done for good in the City. Can you afford to never work again?’
‘This is—’ Finch cut himself off, checking who was in earshot. He drifted away, looking lost, but turned down a short corridor on the far side of the lifts, flicking his head for them to follow. He stood behind a column that meant he couldn’t be seen from reception.
‘This is a fucking joke,’ Finch said when they got there. The corridor was empty apart from the three of them.
‘What was Jamie Tan into that got him killed?’ Lydia said.
‘Jesus Christ, I should’ve never sent you that message.’
‘Then why did you?’ Lydia said.
He looked at his shoes, grimacing and waving the question off.
‘Do you know his wife?’ Stringer said.
‘Not really.’
‘What do you know?’
‘I’ve only met her twice.’
‘Where would she go? Have they got a house abroad, anything like that?’
‘No idea.’
‘Family? Friends? The name of her fucking gym?’
‘No idea.’
Stringer clocked Lydia shooting him a look in his peripheral vision, and he knew he’d been too insistent. But then she looked away again and took up the thread. ‘You told me you were friendly with him, this doesn’t sound like it.’
‘He was my boss. We’d have a drink after work with the boys, we weren’t tight.’
Lydia planted her hand on the wall. ‘What was he doing, Adam?’
He screwed his eyes shut like he was wishing himself away.
‘Just give us the outline. We’ll do the rest.’
‘I don’t know the rest. He kept it all close.’
‘Start with what you do know.’
‘It got him killed, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Then help us get the people responsible.’
Finch raked his fingers through his hair, leaving a tuft sticking up at the front. ‘Jamie ran the desk. Most guys when they get to that level, they pass the day-to-day stuff over. It’s client relations and managing the team and dealing with all the internal bullshit. But Jamie was still running his own book.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘He had his own positions in the market. He was still trading – day-to-day stuff, beneath his pay grade. I don’t know the ins and outs and I don’t know anything for definite, but I saw enough.’
‘To know what?’ Stringer said.
Finch pounded the wall lightly with the palm of his hand. ‘I swear to you this is all I know. I don’t want anything to do with this after.’
‘Say it and we’re gone.’
Finch slumped against the column, his brown hair splaying against the plasterwork as he lolled his head. ‘Mirror trades. Look up mirror trades.’
CHAPTER 43
They sat opposite each other in the basement of a Starbucks behind Liverpool Street. Lydia had her phone in her hand, skim-reading as she scrolled the Google results past her eyes like the wheels on a fruit machine.
&nb
sp; The first few hits for ‘mirror trades’ were companies offering amateur investors the chance to automatically copy trades made by their pros. No relevance there. She glanced up at Michael but his eyes were locked on his phone too. She scrolled on. Further down, a news article by Bloomberg, the financial information provider, from January 2017 – ‘How Mirror Trades Moved Billions from Russia’. She stopped the page and tapped the link.
Michael clocked the suddenness of the movement. ‘What?’
She ignored him to keep reading, ripping through the article. The numbers were astronomical: $10 billion laundered, more than $600 million in fines. At the heart of it, Deutsche Bank – Germany’s biggest, and HFB’s main rival.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘I’m still reading. Add Deutsche Bank to your search.’
He went back to his phone and Lydia finished the article. She jumped back to the results and scrolled further down, finding others from the FT and Reuters. It took her a couple of minutes to scan through but they only regurgitated the same details.
‘I don’t understand,’ Michael said.
‘It’s money laundering, on a ridiculous scale. Moving money out of Russia into the western financial system without it being detected.’ She kept reading as she talked, picking out key points. ‘Deutsche Bank were allowing clients to buy shares in roubles through their Moscow desk, and sell the same shares, at the same time, for dollars in London. The trades are notionally done for different clients, because they hide the ownership behind offshore shell companies, but ultimately it’s the same client buying and selling to himself.’
‘Go back, I’m not following.’
‘So company A in Moscow buys a hundred shares in Crime Inc. – in roubles. At the same time, company B in London places an order to sell a hundred shares in Crime Inc. – in dollars. If the same person secretly owns company A and company B, all they’re really doing is taking their money out of one pocket and putting it back in the other. But on the way, the dirty roubles in Moscow turn into clean dollars in London. And once the money’s in the western banking system, it can disappear offshore and none of the authorities are any the wiser.’
Michael nodded his head once, processing it. ‘But that was at Deutsche. Tan was at HFB while all of this was happening.’
She held her finger up to tell him to wait. She was skimming a longer article, this time in The New York Times. Two lines jumped out at her. She read the first: