Dave Hart Omnibus II

by David Charters

  All eyes were on Barnes as the fateful time approached. At ten to five he lit a cigar and started pacing nervously up and down. There were big sweat patches under his arms. The mood on the trading floor was quiet and sombre. They tried to avoid catching Barnes’ eye. He felt hot and loosened his tie further. He tried to think how serious this was. Their losses on paper were more than their capital base could stand. But he knew he was right. He had to be right. Intech was a real company with a real business, not one of these all puff-and-air dotcom bullshitters. They made things, for fuck’s sake!

  ‘It’s coming now. Here it is!’

  One of the young trading assistants was looking at the screen. Barnes pushed him aside. Suddenly the screen was filled with text. Barnes stared at it.

  ‘It’s in fucking German! Who speaks fucking German?!’ he roared.

  ‘No, over here boss, there’s an English version coming out now.’

  Barnes ran over to read it for himself. The trader who had first seen it turned away, his eyes closed.

  ‘Oh Jesus Christ, no. No, no, no. I do not fucking believe it!’

  Dade walked over to the screen.

  ‘So that’s it. The fucking stock’s suspended. It is a dud. They’re scrapping the whole super-chip programme, reporting a loss of over three billion, and they’re in talks with the Japanese about being taken over.’

  Barnes looked at Dade. It was over. The whole thing was over. In a few days’ time when they had to cover their borrowings and close their positions, the firm would die. Even before then, he should tell the Stock Exchange. His shoulders sagged and he seemed older, shorter and frailer than the traders had ever seen him. It had been their greatest day, but it was also their last.

  ‘Just how much did you fucking know?’

  He was angry now, and his anger centred on Dade. Dade, like the others, looked dejected, a broken man, as he stared in disbelief at the screen carrying the announcement that had ended it all. He ignored Barnes, who wandered slowly back to his office.

  He closed the door and sat down behind his massive oak desk, wondering how something that seemed so solid and unshakeable could come to such a sudden end. He turned to the computer screens beside him. Price feeds from the trading floor were designed to give him an instant overview of the firm’s positions. Today the screens were all red, drowned in blood from the Intech disaster. On one screen flashing stop-loss alerts blinked on and off as the computer tried to tell him to stop this madness.

  ‘It’s over.’

  It was Dade, standing in the doorway, his jacket over his shoulder, his briefcase packed.

  ‘Fuck you. You’re an arsehole, Dade. And you’ll be lucky not to go down for this.’

  Dade sauntered into the room and sat sideways on the desk, looking down at Barnes. He turned to look out at the trading floor, which was unusually quiet as it slowly emptied.

  ‘Boss, I won’t be in trouble with anyone over this. And the reason is that I’m smart.’

  ‘The hell you are! I know what you did when you were off the floor. You weren’t taking a piss or snorting nose candy. You were making fucking calls. You didn’t want to do it from the trading floor because the calls are all recorded. You think you’re so fucking smart! Do you know what insider trading is? It’s what you get sent to prison for, that’s what! And how about market manipulation – creating false markets by spreading rumours? You set up those dumb day-traders on the Internet and you did it deliberately!’

  Dade laughed, unperturbed by his boss’s anger.

  ‘Okay. So tell me this. Who do you think fucking Gold-miner is? Who do you think got those day-traders stampeding? Did you check out the other websites? Did you check out Bear-baiter and Bull-man? Well guess who the registered user is behind those nicknames? It ain’t fucking Martin Dade, boss. No fucking way. It’s Ronald fucking Barnes, that’s who it is!’

  He got up and turned to leave, as Barnes stared at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘Good luck, boss. No-one deserves a break more than you.’ He laughed again. ‘Because when all your friends hear about this, they’ll really want to rush and help you, won’t they? Good luck, boss.’

  2 HOT

  ‘IALWAYS LIKE a large one.’

  She said the words slowly, provocatively, looking the barman up and down, her eyes lingering on his broad shoulders. He blushed. She nearly giggled, but it would have been wrong at this stage.

  ‘One large vodka on the rocks, coming up!’

  He was young, fresh-faced and cheerful, with dark curly hair, and the faintest hint of a country accent. And he had clearly never met anyone like her before. He smiled nervously and turned to attend to her drink. If she had been a cat, she would have purred. This was her sort of place. A quiet country pub, a real fire, half a dozen elderly locals and a barman with the body of a Greek god.

  She saw herself as a predator. Her weeks were crazy, stress-filled and exhausting, but no one was better than her at what she did and she was well rewarded. And from time to time on ‘special’ weekends she dressed in her tight-fitting Gucci mini-dress, dripping with jewellery, and went on the prowl. This was her way of unwinding, far from the City. It was a very sexual thing, and she had to be in charge. The one who made the running.

  The barman had been clearing away glasses from the tables outside when she had driven past. He had stopped and stared as the bright red Ferrari cruised slowly past with its personalised number plate, 2 HOT. She had turned the car around a few hundred yards up the road and returned to make a gravel-crunching entrance.

  She was not conventionally pretty, as befitted a swot who had been picked on at school and bullied mercilessly. She had intense pale blue eyes and very short blonde hair, and a pale, freckled complexion. She was petite and had always felt herself to be awkward and unattractive. But while nature had been sparing with its gifts to her physically, mentally it had been extravagant in its generosity.

  Clara had been the most brilliant mathematician her teachers had ever known. It had come so easily to her that she never really valued her ability. When she won a scholarship to Oxford she had begun to realise that perhaps she was on to something. And when one academic glory after another fell into her lap – prizes, a senior scholarship, ultimately the highest First for eleven years – it went some way towards compensating for all the other areas of life where she felt deficient.

  Her parents were never affectionate and had not really wanted children. She was a late accident who briefly interrupted her mother’s career as a barrister. At boarding school she was lonely, unhappy and always hankered after something that she never really identified and which was always beyond her grasp.

  Lacking direction on graduation, she had drifted into investment banking almost by accident via the recruiting ‘milk round’ of the top universities. A big US bank had been seeking mathematicians for its London-based operation and the pay had seemed astonishingly good. On joining, she had been assigned to the swaps team, a group of highly numerate – and to some extent equally deficient – financial engineers. They ranged from her super-cool, ponytailed, Armani-suited boss to a bunch of spotty geeks who sat in front of computer screens all day and got nervous, spilling coffee whenever she went near them. She found their work almost ridiculously easy. In mathematics she had always been a lateral thinker, jumping around problems, turning them upside down and playing until the solution became obvious. Within a few months the firm’s top management had recognised a special talent. In a year she was a star. Now, nearly three years on, the ponytail was gone and she ran the desk. At twenty-six she was the youngest managing director in the firm and her last bonus had taken her through the million dollar barrier.

  The ponytail had been her first lover, if that was the right term, after seizing his chance at the team Christmas party. She had found it especially pleasing to make him her first victim on taking over the team: ‘Paul, I’m firing you because your dick’s too small and you’ve no idea how to make love to a woman’ – it still made her
laugh. She had been briefly engaged to Jason, the head of the Convertible desk, but after three months he had tearfully confessed to being secretly gay. She was incredulous. A few months later he had left ‘for personal reasons’. Rumours swept the firm, and subsequently she learnt that he had been diagnosed as HIV positive. She was almost physically sick with fear, even after her own blood test had proved negative. Since then, she had drawn a strict line between work and play, and remained totally in control. Because she could not sustain a lasting relationship – for reasons that escaped her – her love life was best described as episodic: weekends in the country, short exotic holidays, the occasional stay-over after a business trip. But nothing permanent or even, really, satisfying – and afterwards, when it was over, she always loathed and resented the men she used.

  The Greek god placed her drink on the bar in front of her. Their fingers touched briefly as she took the glass and their eyes met. She smiled as she sipped her drink.

  ‘Perfect.’

  Conversation came easily despite the obvious curiosity and sideways glances of the regulars. Three vodkas later it was almost closing time. Clara looked at her watch and gasped in mock surprise.

  ‘Christ – look at the time! And I’m way over the limit for the driving. Where the hell can I stay?’

  He grinned, half-sheepish, half-knowing.

  ‘My place is half a mile down the road. I’ve got a room in a cottage. I’ll drive the car if you like.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Have you ever driven a Ferrari?’

  He grinned back.

  ‘No – but there’s always a first time! Mind you, we’ll probably wake everyone up with a motor like that.’

  ‘So let’s make an entrance!’

  When she awoke she was cold and uncomfortable. The bed was too small and it was lumpy and smelly. She wondered when he had last changed the sheets or pillowcases. As a lover she rated him average. He was strong and eager, but not artful. She had been relieved when it was over and he fell asleep. The alcohol had worked its usual magic for her and she too had drifted off to sleep. Now as she fumbled for her watch she wondered what it was that had woken her. It was just after four. And then she heard it again – a cockerel crowing somewhere nearby. Damn, she thought to herself, doesn’t the stupid thing know it isn’t dawn yet? She found her handbag beside the bed and lit a cigarette. He turned over and started snoring softly. Damn, she thought, bloody yokel!

  And as she lay there listening to him snoring, a mischievous thought sprang to mind.

  She got up, dressed quickly in the semi-darkness, picked up her car-keys and handbag and took out a lipstick from her bag. She wrote carefully in bright red lipstick on the mirror above the small dressing table. When she had finished, she looked at what she had written, chuckled to herself and slipped out of the door.

  He stirred briefly when the powerful engine roared, but did not wake up. She drove off towards the main road, intent on finding a motel or guesthouse where she could shower and freshen up. As she drove along in the increasing light her mood softened and her conscience started to trouble her. She had done a silly, spiteful thing. He was not a bad man. How would he react? At lunchtime her conscience got the better of her and she called directory enquiries for the number of the pub and rang him.

  It was just after 1:30pm, normally a quiet time on the roads, particularly on a Sunday. One of the patrolmen was eating a packet of crisps as they sat in the car, concealed in a lay-by off the dual carriageway.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘What is it?’ He looked up from the competition on the back of the crisp packet. ‘Fucking hell!’

  A red Ferrari had appeared out of nowhere. They briefly caught it on the traffic monitor, and for a fraction of a second it registered at 160 mph.

  ‘Let’s get him!’

  Their engine roared as they started up and raced down the slip-road onto the dual carriageway. The Ferrari was already dwindling into the distance.

  ‘Floor it! I’ll call Control – it’s probably a record!’

  ‘It’s certainly a nutter, that’s for sure.’

  The siren was wailing as they crested a low hill and saw the Ferrari in the distance. It was coming up fast behind a big Mercedes sitting in the outside lane. The Ferrari’s tail-lights came on briefly, then it flicked into the inside lane and overtook the Merc on the wrong side before accelerating away. The Mercedes slowed and pulled over to the left-hand lane as the driver spotted the flashing blue lights in his mirror and heard the wail of the siren. The Ferrari disappeared round another curve in the road.

  ‘We’ve no chance. We’re flat out and he’s losing us. Let’s see which way he goes.’

  They were pushing 130 mph as they rounded the curve towards the spot where the dual carriageway divided. Even above the noise of the engine and the wail of the siren they heard a metallic crump and saw a small cloud of black smoke rising into the air. As they rounded the curve they saw the smoking remains of what had once been the Ferrari. A massive concrete pillar supported the bridge over the dual carriageway and divided the road in two. The Ferrari had ignored the road markings and gone straight into the concrete pillar at full speed. Parts of it, unrecognisable any longer as a car, were burning at the base of the pillar. Other parts were scattered over the carriageway.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’

  They slowed and stopped, blocking the carriageway, and one of them activated warning lights to stop the traffic in both directions. They summoned other units, as well as the fire brigade and, at least for the record, an ambulance. When one of them found a badly burnt number plate lying by the side of the road, he kicked it and muttered to himself, ‘Too bloody hot by half.’

  In the pub a crowd of young men, mostly farm labourers and gamekeepers, were standing by the bar, listening to the barman’s story of his latest escapade. They were unsure whether to believe it or whether it was all another of his outrageous made-up tales, but several of the older customers were vouching for the existence of the beautiful girl in the red sports car.

  ‘So did you believe what she’d written? I’d have been scared shitless.’

  ‘Nah – I didn’t believe it for a second. No-one who really had it would write it like that – “Welcome to the AIDS club” in bright red letters on the mirror. Stupid cow. When she rang me, I said no problem, told her I’d been HIV positive for years, and I understood all about it. Told her not to worry her silly head, ’cos I never took precautions either. Even told her I liked boys and did she have a brother?’

  They roared.

  ‘What a stupid cow!’

  Playing the Game

  ‘WELCOME TO CHORLEY Manor! Over the next two days the managing directors of the corporate finance department will be assessed in a variety of different situations. Some will be straightforward, others less so. By the time we leave here, I expect to know which of you will form part of the slimmed-down department going forward, and which of you will be asked to leave.’

  The silence in the great hall was palpable. A hundred pairs of eyes stared at the imposing figure on stage, the new head of corporate finance, brought in by Sir Oliver Barton to introduce sweeping changes into a department that had lost its direction, not to mention its profitability.

  Ryan Jones had started his career in the US Marine Corps, before going to Harvard, then on to Schleppenheimer in New York, where he eventually headed the Mergers and Acquisitions department. He was known for his brutal management style, his ruthlessness and the uncompromising manner in which he drove his employees. And now he had been brought in to troubleshoot an old, established British merchant bank.

  Mike Pearson nudged his neighbour. ‘Do you think this is a real exercise, or does he already have his list?’

  His neighbour, Charles Egerton, the head of the department’s mining industry team, shrugged. ‘Beats me. I guess it gives us a chance to impress him – if we want to.’

  ‘Of course we want to,’ hissed a voice behind them.

&nb
sp; They turned to look into the beady blue eyes of Angus MacDonald, his weasel pale face framed by his ginger curls. MacDonald was the department’s arch politician, a man who made sycophancy a high art form. There was no love lost between him and Egerton.

  Egerton smiled and nodded at MacDonald and lent back conspiratorially to whisper something to him. MacDonald lent forward, turning his ear to catch Egerton’s words.

  ‘Go fuck yourself.’

  MacDonald recoiled, his lips pressed tightly together, and glared venomously at Egerton’s back as he turned back towards the podium.

  Jones was speaking again.

  ‘The first exercise which we will undertake this morning is a team-builder, intended to identify those team players best able to co-operate with one another in a competitive environment. In a moment I’ll ask you to divide yourselves into teams of five. You will be given maps of the grounds of Chorley Manor. Attached to the maps you will find a list of riddles. You need to solve the riddles in order to identify locations around the grounds. There are twenty in total. At each location an empty film capsule has been hidden, and in each film capsule is a rolled-up $50 bill. The team that collects the most money wins. Gentlemen,’ he paused to look at his watch, ‘you will have two hours, and the clock starts ticking in fifteen minutes.’

  There was a scramble as the massed ranks of managing directors sought to divide themselves up. Within a few minutes half the department had formed themselves into teams. Some were self-selecting, based on existing team relationships or old friendships, others were more cynical, as weaker players sought to attach themselves to the sharper, more intellectual types, or to senior colleagues who were thought unlikely to be fired in any re-shuffle. MacDonald quickly surrounded himself with his chosen acolytes. A few frantic individuals found themselves left out of teams, alone, and clubbed together out of necessity, one or two of them almost tearful in the face of some of their colleagues’ sneers. A very small number remained seated or left to return to their rooms.