The Thief of Time

by John Boyne

  I shivered. ‘That’s terrible,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Sure is.’

  ‘Has he been caught?’

  ‘Oh, he’s locked up in a city cell even as we speak. But I gotta go, all right? Her funeral’s in about an hour and I’m dog late as it is.’

  I’m not a man who likes to take advantage of another’s misfortune but it occurred to me shortly afterwards how suitable Annette would be for the vacant position. She had several years’ experience working as a postal clerk, which I assumed brought her into contact with a lot of office administration, and over and above that she was an intelligent girl, friendly and helpful, who I believed could be an asset to his firm. By then, she had been staying with me for a few weeks but had managed to land herself a job as a waitress while Tommy was at school. It didn’t pay much and she insisted on giving me a portion of her earnings for her keep, even though I tried to decline, for the pittance she earned could hardly have been divided down any further.

  ‘But I don’t need it, Annette. I should be supplementing you.’

  ‘You are, by allowing us to live here rent free. Please, just take it. It would make me feel better.’

  Although it bothered me, I could see how important it was for her to feel that she was contributing to the household in some way. She had spent all of her son’ s life being self-sufficient, being solely responsible for his upkeep, and she had succeeded brilliantly. Although he was a very quiet child, he was intelligent and likeable; once we got to know each other a little better he became relaxed around me, as I did around him, and I found that I enjoyed returning to my apartment in the evening after wherever my day had taken me and discovering the two of them there, Annette preparing a little dinner for us all, Tommy sitting quietly with a book. Our domestic life quickly settled into an easy, unpressurised routine, and I felt as if they had been there for ever. As for our own relationship, although Annette was an extremely attractive girl, I immediately saw her as how I had described her on our first night – a niece – and our relationship was clear and relaxed.

  Denton agreed to meet with Annette about the job, and she was more than keen to meet with him, having discovered that the joys of waitressing are not enormous, and the interview must have gone well for he offered her the position immediately and she was overjoyed. She thanked me profusely for my help and bought me a new pipe with her first week’s salary.

  ‘I wanted to buy you something that you’d appreciate,’ she said. ‘And I saw your collection of pipes over there. And, although you really should quit for health reasons, I got you one anyway. How long have you been smoking, might I ask?’

  ‘Too long,’ I said, recalling the first time Jack Holby had introduced me to the joys of the pipe. ‘Many, many years now. But look at me: I’m still here.’

  I kept a close eye on the economy. Investments were taking up most of my business life then and I read the newspapers and listened to the analysts carefully. I had a lot of money invested in various enterprises and, while Denton was a great adviser to me, I made sure to keep track of where everything was going myself. I attended a public meeting given by the National Association of Credit Men at a hall in TriBeCa where they warned about the state of the public finances, claiming that the level of investment credit in the country was at its highest in history. Their advice to both businessmen like myself and the banks’ lending institutions was to exercise caution as any credit pinch could, they claimed, have the most devastating consequences.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Denton told me. ‘They’re right in what they say – the level of credit is far too high – but it’s not exactly going to bankrupt the country. Look at Herb, for Chrissakes. He’s got his hand shoved so far up the ass of the Federal Reserve that it would take about ten tonnes of dynamite to shift it.’

  ‘I think I want to liquidise a little,’ I said, charmed as ever by his turn of phrase. ‘Just a few things here and there. Nothing too substantial. I’ve been hearing stories and I don’t much like what I hear. This Florida business for one ...’

  Denton laughed and slammed his hand down so hard on his desk that not only did I jump in surprise, but Annette ran in from the outer office to see what had happened. ‘It’s all right, honey,’ said Denton quickly, smiling across at her warmly. ‘I’m just making my point in my usual boorish manner.’

  She laughed and pointed her pencil at him before leaving the room. ‘You’ll give yourself a heart attack if you’re not careful,’ she said flirtatiously, turning on her heels and closing the door behind her. I turned around – even though she was clearly no longer there -surprised by the intimacy of their brief remarks and, when I turned back, Denton was staring at the closed door with puppy dog eyes.

  ‘Denton,’ I said cautiously, trying to redirect his attention. ‘Denton, we were talking about Florida.’

  He looked at me as if he wasn’t sure either who I was or what I was doing there before shaking his head, as a wet dog might do to dislodge the rain, and returning to the conversation. ‘Florida, Florida, Florida,’ he said, lost in a daydream as he tried to recall what the word meant, and then: ‘Florida).’ he roared for no apparent reason. ‘I told you don’t worry about Florida. You know, what’s happened down there is about the biggest financial bust in the history of the so-called sunshine state and up here in New York City, where the real money is, you know who gives a damn?’

  ‘Who?’ I asked, although I knew what he was going to say even before he said it.

  ‘Jack F. Squat,’ he said. ‘That’s who. No one at all. Not a soul.’

  I frowned. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I still hear talk about the same thing happening here.’ I wasn’t prepared just to let the matter drop when my entire future financial stability could be at stake.

  ‘Look, Matthieu,’ he said slowly, rubbing his eyes as if he was dealing with a child. One of the things I liked about Denton was his absolute belief in himself and the completely arrogant manner with which he dismissed anyone who questioned him. ‘You wanna know what went on down there in Florida? I’ll tell you what went on. ‘Cos I don’t know what your sources are or where you’re getting your information from but I do know that they’re probably all screwed up. Down there in Florida the last few years have been like a re-enactment of the Oklahoma land rush. Anyone with ten cents down there has been buying up land like it’s been going out of style. You want to know something, and this is top secret ‘cos I got this from a guy I know in Washington and I think we both know who I mean so there’s no going outside of this room and talking about it, but the fact is that over the last few years investors have staked out more house lots in Florida than there are families in the entire [U-nited States of America. What do you think of that?’

  I laughed. ‘You’re kidding me,’ I said. Even I hadn’t heard that fact, and wasn’t entirely convinced of its veracity.

  ‘It’s the case, my friend,’ he said. ‘Florida is one of the most underdeveloped states in the union and people have been just cottoning on to that fact over the last ten years or so. But they’ve sold and sold and sold and sold until there wasn’t anything left to sell. So then you know what they did? They sold it all over again. Millions upon millions of house sites sold that there isn’t even the room for, but worse, not even the people in the whole Goddam country to fill, even if you could get everybody to relocate to Florida which -’ here he snorted and bounced back in his chair – ‘is even less likely. Do you know that if every man, woman and child in America was to suddenly descend on Florida the earth would be thrown off balance and we’d all go floating off into outer space?’

  I hesitated and my eyes flickered from side to side nervously. ‘No, Denton,’ I said. ‘No, I was not aware of that.’

  ‘And! And!’ he shouted, hitting the desk again in excitement. ‘I’ll tell you something else too. If everyone in China jumped up at the same moment, the same thing would happen. The whole axis or whatever it is would just break down, gravity would stop, we’d all go flyin
g off to Mars. So, if you ask me, China could be the most powerful country in the world if only they’d think about it. They could hold the entire planet to ransom, just by threatening to jump up a few centimetres. Think about that!’

  I thought about it and hoped that he was finished. ‘That’s all very interesting, Denton,’ I said, stating his name with some firmness to make it clear that we were finished discussing China’s global strategies for world domination. ‘But I think we’re getting off the subject somewhat. I just think it’s important to do a little liquidising and I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel.’

  ‘Hey, it’s your money,’ said Denton, leaning back with a smile. ‘I’m just here to serve you,’ he added graciously.

  ‘Well,’ I said, unable to prevent a laugh from escaping my mouth. ‘Let’s get on to it then. A little here and a little there, that’s all. Let’s not go crazy. Just come up with some ideas and let me know.’

  ‘Will do,’ he said. I stood up to leave, shook his hand and made for the door. ‘One last thing, Matthieu,’ he said suddenly before I could open it. ‘And then I’ll let you go.’ I smiled and raised an eyebrow as if to say yes? ‘That Florida thing. You know it wasn’t the overspeculation that blew them out, don’t you?’

  ‘It wasn’t?’ I asked, surprised because that was what I had assumed had caused their troubles. ‘What did then?’

  ‘The hurricane,’ he said. ‘It’s that simple. One son-of-a-bitch hurricane came flying through Florida late last year and caused millions of dollars’ worth of damage. When it was all counted the truth about the overspeculating came out. Wasn’t for that they’d still be doing it today. It was all the hurricane’s fault. And I can’t see any hurricanes coming down Fifth Avenue, can you?’ I shrugged, unsure. ‘And you know what the moral of the story is, don’t you?’ he asked as I opened the door and prepared to leave.

  ‘Go on,’ I said, glad that I had paid for an hour’s entertainment if nothing else. ‘Tell me. What’s the moral of the story?’

  ‘The moral of the story’, he repeated, leaning forward and placing his hands flat on the desk in front of him, ‘is that every so often a natural disaster comes along, an act of God, and it blows all the dust away and when it does people can see that whatever’s left underneath ain’t so pretty. You get it?’

  Denton Irving was Old Money. Although his own father had inherited the firm from his father-in-law, the money on that side went back generations, almost to Pilgrim days. And despite the fact that his father’s stroke meant that he could no longer compete in the day to day world of the firm, he pulled a lot of strings from the sidelines, watching most of his son’s moves carefully and commenting on them in about the most ungracious manner possible.

  I knew that Denton lived both in awe and in terror of his father. A giant of a man who had worked out in his private gym every day of his life – and this was long before such things were fashionable – I knew that he had been a strict father by the way Denton sat up straight in his chair or got a look of tension across his face whenever he phoned.

  As 1929 went on, I continued to liquidise a lot of my portfolio, just as Denton himself buried his firm deeper and deeper into options which he claimed could never go wrong for him – solid firms like Union Pacific or Goodrich. As summer approached, the economy slipped as industrial production and prices began to fall. President Hoover forced the Federal Reserve to raise its discount rates in order to discourage speculation in the stock market, but nothing that he did seemed to work. The amount of money being poured into the stock market simply rose and rose until it was near to reaching saturation point. To calm nerves, both Hoover and the New York governor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, declared their optimism in the Stock Exchange, Hoover himself referring to ‘The Great Society’ which could never be overcome; whether he was referring to the country or Wall Street I wasn’t so sure.

  At the same time, I became aware of a romance which had developed between Denton and Annette. She would often return home late from work in a flurry of excitement after he had taken her out to dinner or dancing. She seemed happy and excited by this new relationship and I encouraged it, for I was fond of Denton and he could certainly afford to give her and her son a happy lifestyle if things developed that far.

  ‘I little expected to be playing matchmaker,’ I told her one evening as we sat in my home, a rare evening when Denton was not with us. I was reading the new Hemingway novel, A Farewell To Arms, which had just been published, while she sat sewing new buttons on to some of Tommy’s shirts. T thought I was just setting you up with a job, not a husband.’

  She laughed. ‘I don’t know how far it will go,’ she admitted, ‘although I am very fond of him. I know he blusters around a lot and tries to make everyone think that he’s so in control, but inside he’s a lot quieter.’

  ‘Really,’ I said, finding it hard to imagine.

  ‘It’s true. That father of his ...’ She shook her head and looked back down at her work. ‘I really shouldn’t speak of this,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Whatever you prefer,’ I said, ‘but remember you’re not involved with his father, just himself

  ‘He interferes, you see,’ she continued, clearly wanting to talk about it anyway. ‘He breathes down poor Denton’s neck every minute of the day. You’d think he was still running the place.’

  ‘He has a lot of money tied up there,’ I said, playing devil’s advocate. ‘And a lifetime of work too. It’s only natural that he would -’

  ‘Yes, but he asked Denton to take over the firm. When he had his stroke. And it’s not as if he doesn’t know what he’s doing. My God, he’s worked in the firm since he was seventeen.’

  I nodded. She was probably right; I barely knew Magnus Irving at all, having only met him once or twice and even then he was only a shadow of the man that I knew he must have once been. But shortly afterwards, on Saturday 5 October, a great party was held at the Irving estate and when all the guests were assembled – everyone who was anyone in the New York financial world as well as a great many friends and relations – the engagement between my friend and my niece was announced. I was delighted for them both, for they looked deliriously happy, and congratulated them warmly.

  ‘Good job my last secretary was murdered, eh?’ he said to me, his face falling the moment he uttered the words. ‘My God,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘That came out completely wrong. I meant that if it hadn’t been for -’

  ‘It’s all right, Denton,’ I said suspiciously. ‘I know what you meant. Fate. Chance. All those sorts of things, I expect.’

  ‘Exactly.’ He looked across at Annette who was holding court on the dance floor with a succession of bankers. ‘Just look at her, eh?’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief at his own good fortune. ‘I can’t believe she said yes. I can’t believe my own luck.’

  I noticed Magnus Irving dressed in a regulation tuxedo, sitting in his wheelchair at one of the tables, and nodded towards him. ‘Your father,’ I said, ‘what does he make of the match? Does he approve?’

  Denton bit his lip and looked momentarily angry, but composed himself quickly, not wishing to let anything spoil his evening. ‘He’s a bit concerned about the boy,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Tommy?’ I said in surprise. ‘Why? What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong with him,’ he replied quickly. ‘We get along fine. I’ve been getting to know him quite well recently in point of fact. No, I think that my father feels that, what with Annette having been married before, and having a child – I mean I hope you don’t mind me saying this, with you being family of hers and everything, but -’

  ‘He thinks she’s a gold-digger,’ I said simply.

  ‘Well, in a word. He’s just concerned that -’

  ‘Well, it’s simply not the case,’ I said, stopping him in his tracks, determined to stand up for my niece-in-law’s honour. ‘My God, when she first got here she wouldn’t even let me -’

  ‘Matthieu, Matthieu, relax,�
� said Denton, placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘I don’t think that’s the case for even a moment. I love her, you see. And she loves me. I know she does. Everything’s fine.’

  I nodded and did relax, for I could see by the smile on his face that he was telling the truth. I also knew from my conversations with Annette how strongly she felt towards him. ‘Good,’ I said eventually. ‘That’s all right then.’

  ‘And what about you?’ he asked me. ‘When are we going to fix you up with some charming young thing, eh? You’ve never remarried, have you?’ he asked, believing Constance to have been my first wife.

  ‘Several times,’ I said. ‘Marriage and I don’t seem to agree.’

  ‘Well, plenty of time,’ he laughed, with the self-congratulatory arrogance of one who has found the love of his life. ‘You’re a young man still’

  Now it was my turn to laugh.

  By the middle of October, I had very few stock options left on the books of CartellCo., and my relationship with Denton had changed from being a business one to a purely friendly one. I still called on him for lunch, enjoying our debates about the economy, the stock market, politics; we began to criticise Herb for never contacting us any more, although I suppose he had a lot more important things on his mind than the injured feelings of a couple of old friends. I liked my association with this happy couple and Tommy, enjoying the idea of playing the benevolent uncle in their lives. On 23 October, however, things started to go awry.

  Although the market had closed on the upside for the previous few days, there was a sudden spate of selling on the 23rd that appeared to come out of nowhere. By the following day, Black Thursday, prices had all crashed to their lowest levels and did not appear to show any sign of improving. I was in Wall Street, in the stock exchange itself that afternoon with Denton, and watched as the traders on the floor screamed at each other, trying to make sales, their very hysteria helping the market to fall lower and lower. Denton was beside himself with anguish, unsure of what he could do to help matters, when a most extraordinary incident occurred.