And the reality? I was date-raped.
At least that’s what I’m calling it. Date-raped and set up with a supply of heroin. Whoever that woman was, she was bad news. Not only that, but the papers have got hold of things remarkably quickly, and I’m the day’s breaking story: ‘Banker in drugs bust’ isn’t the kind of headline I’m used to.
And then there’s the girl. She wasn’t American. She was Russian. When she straddled me, she leant close and whispered ‘Bolshoi …’ in my ear. No, we weren’t doing ballet moves. In Russian it means big or grand, and when a girl whispers it in your ear as you slide inside her, it’s a compliment. So she was Russian, and I’m betting she was a professional. I was set up. I try to remember what happened next, but that’s when everything went fuzzy.
Someone called the hotel staff, who called the police, who called an ambulance, and I ended up here, where the Silver Fox called me. Meanwhile journalists have been calling as if nothing else worth reporting is going on in the whole of Frankfurt, which, given how dull the place is, could quite well be true.
I’m shivering and shaking and I have a monstrous headache. It’s not just my muscles that are aching, but my bones. Twice now I’ve had to use the bowl beside the bed to vomit. The bitch filled my arm with a shot of heroin, and left enough behind to supply half the trading floor at Grossbank. I’m in full-blown cold turkey, barely able to function, and for once it isn’t my fault.
‘Dave, have you seen the share price?’
‘That’s the last thing on my mind. What’s happening?’
‘It’s off twenty per cent. Dave, the news of this … incident has hammered Grossbank. The market sees you as being Grossbank, Dave. Without you, there’s nothing there. People may not always like you – ’ Really? It’s the first time I’ve heard him say that. ‘ – but they respect what you’ve achieved at the firm. Without you, in these markets, they see the place going into a tailspin.’
I sigh weakly. ‘OK, I understand. Look, we need to issue a denial of any wrongdoing – I’m clearly innocent. I’ve been set up, and our legal team need to organise bail. As soon as I can I’m coming back to London.’
When he hangs up I lean back on the pillow, exhausted. Beside me my mobile phone bleeps to indicate receipt of a text message. I reach over and check it. ‘Ho Ho Ho.’ It’s Bang Bang. What kind of message is that?
FOR THE first time in my life I feel hounded. It’s taken a couple of days to sort things out in Frankfurt and get permission to leave the country and fly home. Meanwhile the story’s grown in the telling and the media are on my case relentlessly. Tom’s driving me in from Heathrow, and there are paparazzi on motorbikes trailing us. I’m half tempted to take the wheel myself and splash a few on the way in to the office, but I have things to do when I get there. The story of the day is still the Hart heroin scandal, and it has nothing to do with my courage. More importantly, Grossbank is seen as being on the verge of failure, and Dave Hart has no friends to help him.
All I can do is keep my faith in Rom and Bang Bang, my lifeline to the future, and when it’s all over hope that Kim Clark tells my story the way the Silver Fox has fed it to her. If only I’d had more time. Time to get to know her better. Time to make her see things my way. Maybe even time to mend my fence with Two Livers. But this whole heroin thing has compressed the timetable. I need to move fast.
This time there’s no triumphal entry to the Grossbank trading floor. It’s quieter these days, and less crowded now there are fewer people around, even though they’re under instructions to hang their jackets on the backs of the empty chairs all around them. Nobody catches my eye as I head to my office.
Two Livers is ‘out of town’ and Paul Ryan is ‘in a client meeting – will join asap’. Yeah, right. And there’s a message on my desk that an emergency meeting of the supervisory board is happening in Frankfurt, and they want to schedule a conference call in a couple of hours’ time.
Meanwhile Grossbank’s shares are down fifty per cent on the day, and more than eighty per cent since the start of the week, and no one wants to deal with us. They all think we’re the next dead bank, and because they all think it, it’s going to happen. Nothing I can say or do will stop it, and the more I try, the worse it will get.
So naturally I’m going to try.
I make a series of calls to those heads of major banks who still take my calls, asking – no, begging – for help. They’re only a small group and it doesn’t take long, but word spreads like wildfire. Grossbank is desperate. Hart the newly humble is on his knees. Our stock falls further, wiping yet more billions off the value of the firm, and I call Rom.
‘How are you, Dave?’ His voice is monotone, machine-like, so much so that I wonder if he really is a machine, with dead flesh covering a metal skeleton and the whole thing stored in a freezer until needed.
‘I’m fine, Rom. Well, under the circumstances. How are you?’
It’s code, of course. He tells me he’s very well indeed, we mutter a few further banalities and then we hang up. Amateur hour, I know, but when you’re under this much pressure you can’t get too cute, especially on a mobile phone, all of which are monitored by at least one interested party all of the time, and generally by several.
I’d like to call Bang Bang, particularly after his text message, but supposedly he’s in Bangkok, so I don’t bother.
My door opens and I look up. It’s Paul Ryan and Two Livers.
I ignore Paul and address Two Livers. ‘I thought you were out of town?’
‘I came back.’
‘You did? For me?’ I can’t hide the schoolboy glee in my voice. In my darkest hour she’s returned.
‘Sort of. But not how you think.’
She sounds too matter of fact. What does she mean by that?
Paul Ryan steps forward and sits on the edge of my desk, so that he’s looking down on me. What the hell does he think he’s doing?
‘Dave, there’s been a call with the supervisory board …’
‘No, there hasn’t.’ I glance at my watch. ‘It’s in a couple of hours. And you aren’t invited.’
The supervisory board are the only ones who can pull the plug on an out-of-control chairman. It’s rarely happened in corporate history, but they have the power and the responsibility to do it if it’s in the best interests of shareholders. Until then, as long as he doesn’t break the law, the man in charge of an investment bank is God. Within the firm, he has the power to hire, fire and crucify anyone he wants. Including these two.
‘So I think you might want to hold off on whatever it is you were planning to say until after the grown-ups have talked things through. Don’t you?’
‘No, Dave.’ Two Livers’ voice is deep and husky and I just want to grab her and kiss her passionately, but I can’t. She’s giving me a look that puts a ten-foot-wide reinforced concrete barrier between us. It’s so unfair. She used to have a thing for me. What happened?
I know what happened. I blew it. I blew it the way I blow everything good in my life. The way I’m about to blow all of this.
‘Dave, the supervisory board already had their call. With Paul and me. They’ve asked us to take over the running of the bank.’ She has an envelope in her hand and slides it across the desk towards me. ‘Here, read this. It’s official. Your services are no longer required.’
In her position I might have said this last bit with sarcasm, but instead she looks at me with what might be pity. Ugh. I hate pity. Especially when other people are pitying me.
I leave the letter unopened on the desk. ‘My services are no longer required? Are you kidding? I built this place.’
Paul snorts with derision. ‘No, you didn’t, Dave. We did. You drank and snorted and screwed and we built this place. You just about tore it down again these past few months, along with half the industry by way of collateral damage, and now we’re taking your train set away from you. Under us, there might just be a chance to save the firm. Under you, the firm would be dead within twenty
-four hours. Mainlining heroin was a step too far, even for you. The supervisory board had no choice.’
I stare at him, genuinely surprised by the venom. ‘But I helped you. You’d be nothing without me.’
‘Oh, come on, Dave. Don’t expect gratitude. If any gratitude is due, it’s from you to us. We carried you. Oh, and before you ask, don’t expect loyalty either. Who was it who said, if you want loyalty, hire a cocker spaniel?’
He’s revelling in it, and I’d like to punch him. But I can’t. He doesn’t know it, but I still need him.
Two Livers at least has the good grace to look slightly uncomfortable while he rants. I give her one long final look up and down.
‘Truly, you are the most wonderful, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. One of a kind. If only …’
She looks away, a blank expression on her face once more.
I get up, put my jacket on, pack up my briefcase and try to muster whatever dignity I have left as I leave the office. Maria stares at me, saying nothing, guessing everything, afraid to give voice to whatever thoughts are in her head. The traders out on the floor can smell the blood, and have probably worked out what must have happened, but stare at their screens, heads down, not wanting to risk a comment or a glance. I feel like I’ve become the invisible man as I leave the building. The last humiliation is when my corporate ID card doesn’t swipe through the barrier on the ground floor – already deactivated, probably by Paul Ryan in a final act of spite. I’ve done it myself to other people a dozen or more times and always laughed. It’s true what they say: what goes around comes around.
A security guard materialises beside me, obviously tipped off to be ready, and lets me through.
Tom is standing in the lobby, the Bentley parked outside.
‘Let’s go, Tom.’
He looks awkward, embarrassed, and doesn’t move.
‘What’s up?’
Finally he looks at me, and I could swear he’s misty-eyed. He nods to someone coming across the lobby behind me. ‘I’m sorry, sir. My passenger’s coming now.’
I turn and it’s Two Livers, carrying a briefcase, glancing at her watch. She ignores me.
‘OK, Tom, let’s go. I need to get to the Bank of England sharpish. And then back here for a call with the Bundesbank.’ She looks at me disdainfully. I can’t bear it. ‘Someone needs to see if they can save this firm.’
And so I’m left literally standing in the rain on the pavement outside the Grossbank building. It’s just after six, already dark, and I start walking, alone with my thoughts. I think back on the extraordinary times I’ve been through, the things I’ve done – not all of which I care to remember – the places I’ve been, the women I’ve loved. Well, shagged. I think about the life I might have lived with Two Livers if only things had turned out differently. And I think about Samantha, and try to picture her when she grows up.
I don’t have an overcoat or umbrella – why would I, with Tom always ready to take me everywhere? I’m soon soaked through. There are few pedestrians around, but I bump carelessly into people as I start to cross Blackfriars Bridge. I look at my watch. It’s 6.20 p.m. exactly. One of the people I bump into, a young woman, stares at me as I fling my briefcase over the side of the bridge into the Thames. Then I take my soaking wet jacket off and stand by the parapet to throw that in too.
‘Wh–what are you doing?’ She’s young, red-headed, probably mid twenties, wearing a raincoat and a headscarf. Probably someone’s secretary.
‘It’s over. My life’s over. I’m finished.’
I climb up on to the side and stand precariously facing down into the inky black waters below. The rain is heavier than ever, and as I look back along the bridge I imagine I can see a Bentley making its way slowly towards me. Is it Two Livers? Has she come back for me? The redhead has stepped back, moving away from me, wide-eyed and frightened. In the distance a couple of men are staring, wondering if it’s a drunken prank or whether I’m for real.
I turn to the redhead. ‘Will you do something for me?’
‘Y–yes.’
‘Laura MacKay, Grossbank – tell her I love her. Tell her I always did. She was the only one.’ The redhead nods stupidly, and I find myself wondering if redheads are possibly as stupid as blondes as I look down briefly at the freezing water and finally step off into the darkness.
It’s over.
EPILOGUE
I LAND with a bump. They’ve got mattresses spread out all over the deck of the barge, because they couldn’t be sure exactly where I’d land, but even so I twist my ankle and it’s damned painful.
Not as painful as landing in the water. At this time of year I’d have been dead long before the alarm could be raised and the river police could find me.
‘Congratulations, Mr Hart.’ I hear a familiar voice in the darkness, and as strong hands help me up I see Bang Bang Lee standing by the guardrail of the barge as we pick up steam and head south towards Greenwich and eventually the English Channel.
‘Rom sends his regards. He was reluctant to be present. He thought that when I explained that the idea of the girl with the heroin was his, you might do something radical.’
Bastard. So it was him. The final straw that pushed the supervisory board to act was his idea. Even they couldn’t be idle with the chairman mainlining heroin and stashing enough of it to supply most of Germany.
‘Before you become emotional, Mr Hart, let me show you something.’
His bodyguard is with him and helps me hobble down the side of the barge into a small cabin. He closes the door, turns the light on and we sit on a couch together. Behind us in the distance I can hear sirens. The alarm’s been raised and a fruitless search is about to begin. When the skipper of this barge is asked what he saw, he’ll naturally deny anything.
Bang Bang unfolds some sheets of paper and spreads them out on his lap. ‘Our dealing records. This is where we started shorting bank stocks generally, as you suggested, and here you see the profits when we started shorting Grossbank. Our timing, naturally enough, was perfect. The column on the right is our net profit after all costs, and your share is one third, as agreed. It was a brilliant plan, Mr Hart, and it paid off better than any of us could have dreamed.’ He looks up at me admiringly. ‘You’re a very rich man, Mr Hart. Very rich indeed. Congratulations. Someone had to profit from this turmoil, so why not us? It will take a little time to move your share of the profits through the banking system to get it to your various nominated accounts, but I think it’s fair to say that you will never need to work again.’
I look at the numbers. Wow. Even I couldn’t spend that much in a lifetime. After this, I could buy myself a small country. Come to think of it, that’s not a bad idea. Never let it be said that financial crises are bad for everyone.
Bang Bang’s bodyguard appears with a bottle of Krug in an ice bucket and two glasses. We toast the future and smile, sitting listening to the throbbing of the engines, and I feel a huge sense of release. There’s a radio in the cabin, and as we drink and celebrate and head towards the Channel we listen to reports of the suspected suicide of Dave Hart, one of the City’s most colourful and flamboyant characters, until recently one of its great success stories, and the impending closure of the bank, whose caretaker management are struggling, apparently vainly, to pull together a rescue package. The unthinkable has happened. Grossbank has fallen.
Tomorrow they’ll go through my desk and find the sealed envelope in my drawer with my final words, carefully scripted for Kim Clark’s future bestselling biography. It’s been sitting there for a couple of weeks, just in case, so that I’d be ready if things got out of hand and I had to move fast. Not many people get to write their own epitaph, but mine is all you’d expect:
If you are reading this note, it’s because I’ve taken the ultimate step in assuming responsibility for the failure of the firm. I helped to build Grossbank into a financial powerhouse and had the privilege of working with some of the most talented individuals in the in
dustry. I am proud of what we all achieved, just as I am pained by the most recent developments in world markets. I alone take responsibility for the failure of the bank. Seeing the firm that I loved and the people I loved brought down by these terrible events is too painful to bear. I should have foreseen what has happened, and provided the wisdom and leadership expected of me. I feel that I have let everyone down, and under these awful circumstances there is only one honourable way out. Tell my daughter Samantha that I love her and will always watch over her, and ask her to understand. I wasn’t perfect, but I did my best. Forgive me and God bless you.
Dave Hart
How about that? Humility rocks. Little people might slide out the back door with an obscene pay-off for failure, the way they normally do in the bad world of big corporates, but Dave Hart was a man of honour. He played by his own set of standards and when he failed he willingly paid the price. As if.
I take another sip of champagne. Bang Bang reaches inside his jacket pocket and I have a horrible premonition that he’s getting out a gun to shoot me. But he’s a man of his word and instead holds out a fistful of passports, different colours and sizes, all with my photograph inside. ‘Pick one, Mr Hart. Any one you want. Today is the first day of your new life. Why don’t you choose who you want to be next?’
THE EGO’S NEST
DAVID CHARTERS
For unreasonable men and women everywhere.
Author’s note
HE HAD to come back. Why is it that bad people are so resilient? And, I suppose he had to try to get the girl. Not just any girl, but The Girl. As investment bankers go, Dave Hart is now operating not at the 30,000 feet altitude of the senior manager, but at 90,000 feet, as only he can. Helping me get him there have been a number of people, who made suggestions, read and re-read, and gave me thoughts and ideas, and I remain grateful to them as ever. In particular, Adam Shutkever, Joanna Rice, my son Mark and daughter Anna, and of course Jane, all deserve special mention, as well as Lorne, Olivia and the team at Elliott and Thompson. And for the inspiration for Dave Hart, my thanks to the men and women who work in the Square Mile and the West End, in particular my friends in the hedge fund industry.
Dave Hart Omnibus II Page 15
