After decades of state socialism the market economy had acquired a sudden respectability in India, backed by the encouragement of both the Union and State governments.
The permissiveness of the new economic climate could be seen in the policies of the state government of Kerala, ruled alternatively by the Communist Part of India and the Bharatiya Janata Party - the party of Sonia Ghandi, which actively encouraged the development of private medical centres, both conventional and Ayurvedic, often to the detriment of certain services in public hospitals, seen as superfluous with the presence of so many specialised private centres in the state, either existing or planned.
*****
Chapter 88
Kate Ryman and her considerably weakened husband disembarked from their charter flight at Gatwick. It was two in the morning and the temperature was minus three degrees centigrade when Mike was sat in a wheelchair and given a blanket.
The flight had just arrived in London, almost eight hours behind schedule, having left Trivandrum the previous afternoon following a day of total chaos at its small airport. They together with their fellow passengers had been disembarked by a mobile stairway into the freezing night air fifty yards from a provisional medical centre set up in a hanger, far from the main arrivals terminal, specially prepared for passengers disembarking from the infected zone.
Police officers wearing surgical masks pointed the way for the two hundred and seventy weary passengers to a waiting area in the hanger with the crew dispatched to a separate part in the same hanger.
Similar scenes were taking place all over Europe as health authorities took what could have been exaggerated measures to prevent an unlikely pandemic.
Information sheets were passed around reassuring the very weary travellers that the disease was not contagious, if the elementary rules of hygiene were respected, principally the thorough washing of hands and fresh food. A form was to be filled in by each person to be handed to the examining doctor, who questioned each person on their condition, took his or her temperature and made a cursory examination.
Each passenger was instructed to remain at home for at least three days and to call a special number in the case of diarrhoea or any other suspect signs. A medical certificate was provided for their employers and they were then allowed to identify their baggage, which had been deposited in the hanger, and informed it would be held in quarantine for at least one week. A numbered ground transport ticket was given to each family and they were instructed to await their call. In the meantime they were served with hot tea and sandwiches.
The atmosphere in the waiting area was subdued, their holidays had come to a strange and sudden dramatic end. The fear and suspicion that had been ambient during the flight persisted, it was as though each suspected his neighbour of carrying the germ.
When a number was called out the family concerned was seen to a waiting army ambulance and driven directly to their home, where they were instructed to await contact by a local medical visitor. Each person was handed a bag of provisions to see them through the first day. Finally a notice was handed to each individual warning them of prosecution if the instructions issued by the public health authorities were disobeyed.
It was the first operation of its scale affecting public health since the CJD scare ten years previously and the first large scale operation mounted to protect the public at large since the end of the Second World War.
It was six in the morning when Mike and Helen finally arrived at their cold Surbiton semi. Several telephone messages awaited them from their anxious daughters wanting news.
As Kate them made a cup of tea, using the powered milk she found in the provisions given to them at Gatwick, the phone rang. It was the medical visitor to confirm the instruction they remain at home for three days, during which time they would be supplied by a special Meals on Wheels service.
Mike had flopped into his favourite armchair before the television and watched SkyNews. A correspondent stood before the hanger at Gatwick reporting the latest news on the health emergency, it was followed by an announcement from the Minister of Health who reassured the public that the risk was minimal and no special precautions were being taken or were necessary to ensure the safety of the general public. All those travellers from the infected area were being confined to their homes for a precautionary period of three days after which they would be free to go about their normal lives.
The second headline was the crisis in the financial markets and Mike discovered that disasters came in series when he learnt to his great alarm that his savings were frozen for a period of twelve months as West Mercian tottered on the brink of collapse. He said nothing to Kate when she brought him his cup of tea.
The phone rang again, it was Penny, one of their two daughters. Kate reassured her they were in good health and promised she would visit her after what she called the quarantine period.
'Better not Mum, you know for the children,' replied Penny.
It would be several weeks before confidence returned, the Christmas holiday makers who had the misfortune to choose India, the Maldives or Sri Lanka had become pariahs shunned by their friends and neighbours. They were not the only ones, Indians were avoided like the proverbial plague, even Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, whose homelands were far from being on the tourist map with few travellers foolhardy enough to risk a holiday in such countries.
At the same time David and Barbara Parkins went through a similar procedure at Birmingham Airport before being able to return to their home in Smethwick. Amongst the messages awaiting them was one from the head office of the hotel chain inviting David to take paid leave until further notice.
The reaction was the same as that other holiday makers and travellers returning from India were to encounter, they were unwanted by their employers and their colleagues.
Though Barbara was not yet aware of it, her plans to expand her Ayurvedic and yoga classes could be forgotten for a long time to come, the oils and creams she had ordered could be despatched to the rubbish bin, if they managed to pass the customs and sanitary cordon that had been thrown up around Indian goods and more specifically food and medicinal products.
Bad news never came alone. On checking their bank account David discovered that the new tenant for their first BTL had not paid his rent and the second the prospective tenant had backed out.
Up and down the country BTL owners were discovering that business was difficult with a fall in rental yield and increasing signs that more and more investors were struggling and falling behind with their mortgage repayments.
At the height of the BTL market boom almost one thousand mortgages were taken out each day with the total number of BTL mortgages passing the one million mark, compared to only thirty thousand a decade before, an extraordinary transformation of the property rental market.
It was as though every Barbara and David had been piling into the market with more BTL loans approved during the previous six months than ever before, in spite of the much broadcast house price crash the press had announced as being imminent and the highly visible collapse of the Northern Rock.
*****
Chapter 89
As Barton and Emma visited Delhi's tourist sights, Karen together with her sister and their children lazed on the beach in Goa. Their men were making the rounds of the travel agents in town trying to renegotiate their return tickets. They were completely oblivious to the drama that had been played out in Kovalam, their main concern was having their flight bookings put back to the end of the month and the excuses they would have to make up to justifying their girls missing out on school. Little did they know that their problem had been settled for them.
They had left Kovalam before the travel restrictions had been put into place, taking a train from Trivandrum to Goa, a journey of thirty six hours in first class, which could have not been described as comfortable, though it was infinitely better than the conditions ordinary Indian rail travellers were used to. They had read their books, slowly, they were not fas
t readers, as to papers they had little time for news, in any case there were no English papers available and Malayalam, Marathi or Hindi were of course incomprehensible to them.
They had no difficulty in finding a hotel close to the beach in Goa, it seemed different to Kovalam, there were few if any tourists about. However, they were not curious, they were locked into their family world, though it was unlike most people's idea of family, but they were happy, taking life as it came.
It was estimated that three thousand foreigners, mostly Britons, had bought properties in Goa. Destinations like Spain had become too expensive, in Croatia they were confronted by the language barrier, but India was vaguely familiar and English was the country's lingua franca.
In spite of the influx of tourists to Goa with more than eight hundred charter flights a year, it was not the safe place described in the tourist brochures, it was crime infested, corrupt and dangerous. Each year many Britons died there, forty in the first weeks of the year, by accident, drowning, illness, disease, overdose and murder. Drugs abounded in the small state, including ketamine, marijuana, ecstasy and MDMA.
Despite the rampant corruption, crime and other dangers, Britons, many of whom were retired, were attracted by the low prices, with a two-bedroom apartments going for as little as ?25,000. A couple could live comfortably in the state for less than ?500 a month, including food, electricity, taxes, the luxury of a chauffeur driven car and first class medical facilities on hand at affordable prices.
Goa and Kovalam had many things in common, not only tourism but also a property market for foreigners buyers, in spite of the strict regulations concerning foreign ownership of property.
Besides nationals, only non-resident Indians and persons of Indian origin were legally allowed to own property in India. However, this restriction could be circumvented by the formation of a company, which could acquire a property, or by establishing residency with a continuous presence of more than six months in the country.
Once a property owner and a resident, a foreigner soon became the target of corrupt officials, in a multitude of every day dealings, with the constant threat of expulsion and losing their property hanging over him.
*****
Chapter 90
It seemed so strange to Emma, only three days before she had been enjoying a break from her life in London, a life that had become so routine she had taken everything for granted. Suddenly she was alone, stranded in India, a widow, without a friend, at least a friend she knew. She thanked God that Tom Barton and Ryan had appeared.
She had to face up to the formalities in a world she in reality knew absolutely nothing about, faced with a journey to Delhi and the painful formalities at the British Embassy. She would also have to inform Parkly's family, her own family, and of course West Mercian Finance.
She felt emptied of all emotion as she stood staring at the sea through a window in Barton's suite. On the beach in the distance she saw the local fishermen hauling in their heavy nets, just a few days ago she like other tourists had photographed their meagre catch, not even stopping to consider how they lived, taking them for part of the scenery, shutting their misery out of her mind. They were Indians, poor Indians, in an almost desperate daily struggle scratching for a living. If things had gone as planned she would have already returned to London and be showing the photographs of beach fishermen to her friends, nothing more than a few picturesque memories of the New Year in Kovalam.
Fate had decided otherwise, her previous life had come to a full stop, it now seemed meaningless: fashion, diner parties, shows, weekends in the country, the famous, it meant nothing, she now knew life could be taken away in an instant.
'What are you thinking? asked Tom.
'I don't know?just things will never be the same again.'
He stepped forward and taking her in his arms. He too realised how life could play tricks. They sat down and stared at each other, unseeingly and lost in their thoughts.
'There are some things that have to be settled,' he said after a moment.
'Yes. I have to inform everybody, then the Embassy I imagine.'
'I think so?formalities.'
'Thank you Tom, I don't know what I would have done without your help. What are your plans?' she said pulling herself together.
'I have no particular plans for the moment, I came here to get away from London. If you need help?'
Emma realised she could not manage by herself. The last forty eight hours had seemed like an eternity, in that time Tom had become a trusted friend, and besides her difficulties were far from over.
'Yes, I would like that.'
They both sensed they had sealed an unwritten pact in which they had agreed to see, together, the drama through to its conclusion.
*****
Chapter 91
After a catastrophic end to her winter holiday Nicole was back home, her money was safe thanks to Ryan's swift action and to top it all she was bursting with pride. Her son was a national hero and his photograph figured on the front pages of tabloids and television channels vied to interview him.
Her reward was a first class ticket home for Ryan, who by that time had had enough of samosas, pani puri, bhel puri, the smell of curry, not to mind the heat and dust to last him for the rest of his life. All he was looking forward to was a good steak with a glass of red wine in his favourite Chelsea restaurant.
Back in the UK others were following Barton's decision to walk away from trouble, it was becoming a habit, as more and more borrowers handed the keys of the house to the bank, many of which were facing substantial losses due to subprime related difficulties with repossessions rocketing.
In the past borrowers had felt responsible and trapped in situations they did not understand, but things had changed and many borrowers knew full well what they had got themselves into, having significantly exaggerated earnings by falsely declaring their incomes to mortgage lenders, it was a bet they had lost, from the outset many knew they had nothing to lose and everything to gain, if by some miracle things worked out.
When Barton had started his brokerage, it was normal for home buyers to arrive with a down payment of fifteen or twenty percent, which represented several years of hard earned savings, and which in turn made any idea of walking away in the event of financial difficulties unthinkable, the price of their property would have to fall by the same amount, plus repayments, to leave them with zero equity.
With government approval and the financial industry's willingness to expand into new and unknown territory by offering easy loans, sometimes requiring no down payment at all, the mortgage market was completely transformed. Some lenders even offered interest only mortgages, and to top it all it equity withdrawal was invented, though initially for home extensions, theoretically building up the value of an asset, which formed a guarantee in case of difficult times, but finally it was used to finance cars, holidays and even face lifts.
Many people knew exactly what they were doing, simply treating the house they lived in as though they rented it, but without a landlord to bother them. If at the end of the day they went into voluntary liquidation they would be blacklisted by credit companies, but for a limited time, in the meantime they lived comfortably, the days of bankruptcy, debtors prison and shame were so long gone they had been totally erased from living memory.
Lenders had overlooked the kind of scenario whereby borrowers would simply hand in the door key and disappear, they had assumed people would pay no matter what happened, and had never imagined they would one day find themselves with thousands of empty homes on their books in a shrinking housing market. Many had suddenly woken up to the nasty surprise of finding themselves in the position of having to renegotiate more favourable conditions for the borrowers or accepting substantial losses.
Those who tried to talk up the market, putting out the idea that Britain was an overcrowded island lacking sufficient housing, ignored property collapses in densely populated countries such as Japan, Taiwan or Hong Kong, countri
es that had never recovered from the bursting of their huge property bubbles at the end of the 1980s. Nearby Ireland had just entered the correction phase with Dublin property prices falling almost ten percent in less than a year and the repossession of homes in the USA ballooning in an alarming fashion.
Back in Britain the experts belatedly estimated that the majority of all home loans made over the previous two years had been either subprime, risky BTLs, or based on some other over extended financial arrangement.
*****
Chapter 92
After the drama Barton found himself in a quandary, the tourists had fled and he was one of the few foreigners who remained. He would have liked to leave, but to go where? A week later the epidemic was declared under control by the Kerala and Union authorities and travel to and from other parts of India returned to normal, allowing Emma, accompanied by Barton, to travel to Delhi to complete the formalities relating her husband's death.
They had thanked Ryan and wished him goodbye two days before. He had played a key role in informing the UK authorities of the situation thanks to Francis's satellite link and there was no longer any need for his presence in India.
Little did he know that the press at home was waiting to offer him a hero's welcome, the prompt action of the English doctor had alerted the international health authorities and his efforts had ensured the health and safety of thousands of tourists with their mass evacuation from Kovalam. Four foreigners had died, Stephen Parkly, a Russian and two Swedes. How many Indians had died was unknown, but hundreds had been infected in the surrounding villages.
Barton's situation was different, though internal travel restrictions in India had been lifted, many neighbouring and nearby countries were still refusing its travellers, that is other than their own nationals returning home, which meant that the only destination open to him was the UK, and he was not about to walk into the lions den.
Death of a Financier Page 25
