The Yellow Diamond
Andrew Martin
Contents
Title Page
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About the Author
By the Same Author
Copyright
1
John-Paul had begun to think he could actually live in the Coburg Bar of the Connaught Hotel. His friends would be the doorman who gave him an umbrella when he went outside in the rain to smoke, the man in the gents who handed out the linen towels, and the barman who provided the glasses of twenty-five-year Chivas Regal. It would be a male-only set-up. John-Paul had had enough of women for the time being.
From his leather seat by the fireplace, the Coburg was looking so deeply golden: Christmassy, he decided – and that would intensify over the next three months, as actual Christmas approached, not that John-Paul could risk thinking that far ahead. Unfortunately, there was really no excuse to stay, since he had downed the fifth Regal, the bill had come and he had laid out the cash on the silver plate. He checked his phone: nothing from any of the important people. Not that he wanted to hear from the important people. He stood, and met his own reflection in the mysterious antique mirror above the fireplace. He saw a distant, handsome – almost pretty – twenty-eight-year-old man in a coat with a velvet collar. A weak man, he thought, so he was glad of the mirror’s cloudiness.
He looked down at the notes on the table. He added another twenty to the pile, by way of boosting the tip. John-Paul was cash-rich at the moment, having realised a number of assets, and he reasoned that by acts of generosity he might, according to some karmic system, alter his likely fate.
Outside in the rain, his friend the doorman proffered an umbrella. Without a word the doorman made clear that whatever John-Paul planned to do – smoke another cigarette, request a taxi, or just stand watching the silvery haze the rain made above the fountain in Carlos Place – would be fine by him. The fountain was modernistic, a type of infinity pool. It looked always on the brink of overflowing, but it never could overflow, as was being proved in the heavy rain of this Friday evening.
Two minutes later, John-Paul was in a moving taxi, with the driver looking quizzically at him in the rear-view. He was saying, ‘Any idea where you want to go, pal?’
They were in Grosvenor Square. You more or less had to go into Grosvenor Square from Carlos Place, and for all John-Paul knew they might have driven around it three times, the driver adopting a holding pattern while waiting for his passenger to speak.
‘So sorry,’ John-Paul said, ‘Hampstead please.’
He had been absorbed in the disasters besetting him. Broadly speaking they were either women-related or money-related, although a couple might prove to be both. He sometimes felt that his life might be under threat as a result of recent events. Certainly his freedom was threatened, and when the driver had spoken, John-Paul had been thinking about prison.
Exactly one week ago, on Friday 19 September, he had reported himself for insider dealing, which compliance officer Bennett, at Rolling River Capital, had specifically ordered him not to do. John-Paul had left a message on the Market Abuse Hotline of the Financial Conduct Authority. A man with the horribly businesslike name of Ross had called him straight back, which John-Paul had not bargained for, and which had unnerved him, but he held firm to his intention of confessing, offering Ross the top-line details of the trade in question. Ross had then suggested he come in for an interview, and the date for that was set for the coming Tuesday.
John-Paul looked out of the window. Already, they were approaching Camden. There were more English people in Camden than in Mayfair. Of late, the women in John-Paul’s life had been foreign, one of them especially so. He had considered himself a forward-thinking, cosmopolitan person, yet he had been defeated by this foreignness, couldn’t bridge the gap …
‘Anywhere specifically in Hampstead?’ asked the driver.
‘East Heath Road please,’ said John-Paul. ‘Do you know it?’
The driver, it seemed, would not deign to answer such a question. ‘Top or bottom end?’ he said.
‘Top end, please.’
The disastrous trade had originated in the Coburg, which made John-Paul think his affection for the place might be misplaced. He’d gone there with Jack Hayward, so that Hayward could boast about how he’d shown a rough cut of his low-budget horror film at some American film festival, on the strength of which he had secured not only an American distribution deal but also a substantial cash advance. Apparently, most film producers have to beg distributors for a deal, but this one was paying for the privilege. Hayward stressed that there could be no greater endorsement for a film at such an early stage.
Hayward had taken out his laptop and forwarded to John-Paul an online screener. To watch this, he would need a password. John-Paul had feebly said, ‘I can never remember passwords,’ because he knew what was coming, and he’d thought even then that he ought not to be doing business with a garrulous old friend from university like Jack.
Hayward was from a theatrical family, in every sense of the word. At Cambridge, he had been known as Jack Wayward. He would sing opera while punting, or while sitting alone on the top deck of a bus for that matter. But the password was the name of the film and John-Paul could remember that: The Masters. It concerned a chess game between two Grandmasters who were also astronomically rich, and real people corresponded to their pieces. For instance, when White took Black’s bishop, a churchgoer nominated by the millionaire playing as White was killed by a team of assassins retained jointly by the two players. As the endgame approached, you were meant to have sympathy for the two women designated as queens, which John-Paul, when he finally watched the entire film, did not. (He’d lost interest during the interminable killing of all the pawns.) But this was all irrelevant because Hayward had talked John-Paul into buying a hundred thousand shares in Wayward Films before he’d seen a minute of The Masters.
They were in Hampstead now. All the big houses seemed to be hiding behind the big trees, and all the people hiding inside the houses. The world was retreating from John-Paul.
And yet the car behind was too close. A BMW 4 Series, as far as John-Paul could tell, in the dark and the rain. He tried to ignore it in favour of a thought experiment he’d conducted many times in recent days.
John-Paul set before himself an imaginary barrister. Had he known that Wayward Films was a publicly quoted company, listed on the Alternative Investment Market? Yes. Had he known that the distribution deal was the ‘game changer’ for the company? That was self-evidently the case. Had he known the deal had not yet been publicly announced? At this, he would beg the court’s indulgence: ‘I am trying my best to recollect, but on that point I’m a little hazy.’ He did feel that deniability was available to him here, whereas compliance officer Bennett had urged him to deny
something more fundamental, namely the entire meeting with Hayward at the Connaught. Having learnt that John-Paul had paid for the drinks in cash, Bennett had informed him point-blank that the meeting had not occurred. That’s what Bennett sought in place of morality: deniability. Why else were traders advised to use disposable mobiles when seeking out ‘intelligence’? But John-Paul had ignored Bennett and contacted the FCA – possibly too late. If he’d called as soon as the news of the distribution deal had come through on the RNS news feed, he would have a stronger case. But he had waited another week after that.
The 4 Series was still close behind. John-Paul would have been reassured to see women and children in there, but it wasn’t that kind of car, and two men in suits sat on the front seats. They came and went behind the swishing of the wipers and tinted glass. Neither was compliance officer Bennett, and he had not seen either man at Rolling River. John-Paul noticed that the taxi driver was looking at him in the rear-view. In glancing that way, John-Paul had caught sight of his own reflection.
He looked haggard. But what would he look like after seven years in prison? That was the maximum sentence for insider trading, and the fines could run into millions. But surely it wouldn’t come to that. He had turned himself in. Ross of the FCA would protect him as long as he came clean. But there would be trouble either way for Rolling River … withdrawal of accreditations if not prosecutions.
‘Do you think that car behind is following us?’ John-Paul asked the taxi driver.
‘It’s following us,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t mean it’s tailing us.’
The taxi driver spoke like a man who had a lot of experience of being both followed and tailed; and he was now looking at John-Paul with curiosity.
On graduating, John-Paul had gone into private equity, which is where he should have stayed. For a while in that job, he had felt like what is commonly called a ‘people person’, building bridges between the partners of Relay Management and one firm in particular they’d acquired: a confectioners’ in Manchester. He had been the desk officer in London, fielding the monitoring reports from Manchester, where the targets were not being hit. He’d asked to be sent north, and he’d clicked with everyone up there, turned the whole takeover around. He’d brought the last members of the old chocolate-making dynasty – two antiquated brothers called Drummond – on side, making them non-executive directors, and he had often strolled with them in the beautifully laid-out grounds of their factory, which had been built for the benefit of the workers. There were rather fewer of those workers by the time Relay had sold up. But the gardens, the business and the Drummond name had been saved, with most of the production kept in the UK … and a £200,000 ‘carry’ for John-Paul.
He looked behind: BMW still there.
Having made a lot of money, John-Paul naturally wanted to make even more money, which could be done in a hedge fund, hence the role as analyst at Rolling River Capital. It was the standard progression. Up or out. But – and let nobody say he was in denial about this – John-Paul wasn’t suited to the work. He was alone with a trading screen. His people skills were not brought into play, and his trades lacked flare. He heard himself piping up in the Friday brainstorms: ‘Inflation’s coming back; we should go long on gilts.’ He could see Eugene Crawford, the Texan senior partner, looking at him with contempt, hands behind the back of his head, cowboy-booted feet up on his desk. Once, when Crawford had been walking past John-Paul’s desk with an unlit cigar in his mouth, he’d drawled out, ‘Mornin’,’ and John-Paul had realised only belatedly that he was being addressed. ‘Don’t go glazed on me, boy,’ Crawford had said, without taking the cigar out of his mouth. If anyone was to blame for the fatal trade with Hayward, it was Eugene Crawford. John-Paul had been trying to impress him by going long on an obscure piece of art.
The taxi driver half-turned towards John-Paul: ‘Are you a marked man, or something?’ One of the two BMW men was now speaking into a phone. They were on Rosslyn Hill.
Were the BMW men police? Fraud squad? They would be in plain clothes, and possibly in a BMW. But it was surely too late in the day for the police, and too early in the case. He hadn’t yet told his story to Ross of the FCA.
‘Want me to lose it?’ said the driver.
John-Paul looked behind. ‘You could try,’ he said, and he was nearly thrown off the seat as the taxi swerved right. They were now going fast along Downshire Hill – as was the BMW.
‘Interesting,’ said the taxi driver.
John-Paul thought: I have become a target. Last night someone had ‘keyed’ the Audi, scratched a line right down the flank.
They stopped at the junction with East Heath Road. The BMW pulled up behind.
‘Top end … so left?’ asked the driver.
John-Paul nodded into the rear-view.
The driver turned left, and the BMW turned right.
‘Panic over,’ said the driver.
So there had been nothing in it after all, the apparent pursuit a function of his paranoia. John-Paul was beginning to agree with some recent suggestions that he might need therapy. Certainly he was depressed, and he should go to his doctor.
John-Paul asked the driver to stop on the junction of East Heath Road and Well Walk.
‘Good luck, mate,’ the driver said, immediately before departing.
John-Paul turned into Well Walk, and there was the Audi, with the scratch along the flank … but at least no new scratch on the other flank. It could easily have been a random attack. A lot of people would be jealous of any car parked on Well Walk. The houses were pretty Georgian villas set back from the road by long, dreamy gardens. John-Paul’s aim had been to upgrade from his flat into one of these.
Well Walk was deserted. It always seemed to be deserted. John-Paul lit a cigarette, and began walking back towards East Heath Road, and East Heath Mansions, which comprised three blocks. John-Paul’s was called Fitzroy. The front door faced onto East Heath Street, while the back door overlooked the garden and the Heath. John-Paul’s flat was on the ground floor at the back, so he would usually skirt around the building on the muddy track that cut through nettles and brambles. He would unlock the back gate, which was set into a brick arch of the wall bounding the garden; then he would unlock the back door of Fitzroy. He waited on the road for any sign of the returning BMW. He stood in the light spilling from the front door of the block, because he wanted to be in the light if it did come back. But the BMW had gone for good, so he turned towards the darkness of the Heath.
The Heath smelt of mouldering leaves and wood smoke. The rain clattered noisily on the treetops. The entrance to the block was by key card, so John-Paul threw down his cigarette, and took out his wallet. You had to watch out for dog dirt on this track, especially if you were walking over it in brand-new Church’s loafers. Looking up, he saw a figure in the gloom by the gate – a figure like a small concierge, somehow caped. But the back gate was not supposed to be attended; there wasn’t even a porter in the block. The figure approached John-Paul too rapidly; and then something impossible happened to his eye.
2
The detective who took down Hayley’s statement about what she had seen in St James’s Park on Thursday 4 December had of course given his name when he arrived at her flat. He’d also given it before, when he’d called to say that a female liaison officer could be present if Hayley liked, and when he’d suggested that she might feel more relaxed if the interview took place at her flat rather than in the police station at Charing Cross.
‘Do you like coffee?’ he’d asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Well you wouldn’t like ours.’
He was trying to put her at her ease with humour, and sort of succeeding. She liked his voice. There he was, a detective in the Metropolitan Police, the London police, and yet he was northern. When he’d turned up at Hayley’s flat in Maida Vale – which was actually her mother’s flat – she’d quite liked the look of him too. But when they’d sat down in the kitchen, and he’d passed over
to her the sheet of paper that said if she lied in her statement she was liable to seven years’ imprisonment … well, then his name had gone clean out of her head.
Hayley had no intention of telling any lies. Her main anxiety was that she might tell an untruth accidentally, or break down in tears at the recollection of what she’d seen in St James’s Park. Another anxiety was her mother. Hayley had declined the liaison officer, and so her mother had wanted to ‘sit in’ – ‘just in case you get upset, dear.’ She’d bought two boxes of tissues and put them on the kitchen table, all ready for Hayley to get upset. When her mother was out of the room for a minute, brewing the expensive coffee she’d bought specially, Hayley had said to the detective, ‘Do you mind if my mother sits in?’ He hesitated, so she added, ‘It’s her flat, you see?’
That was a signal from Hayley to the detective. She was telling him she didn’t want her mother to sit in, but had no choice about asking.
‘That’s … fine,’ he said, in a way that told Hayley he understood. When Hayley’s mother came back with the coffee, the detective said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Buckingham,’ and Hayley’s mother said, ‘Please, it’s Patricia,’ which was ominous, Hayley thought.
At first, the detective didn’t write down what Hayley said, but she knew he was listening closely, as the bright Maida Vale morning gave way to the horrible scene in her memory …
‘Well, it was early evening,’ she said, ‘and just getting dark. I was with Christophe. He’s my … Well, we were sort of on a date.’
‘Your second date with him, wasn’t it, dear?’ her mother put in.
‘Yes,’ said Hayley, and she looked at the detective. ‘We both work in Mayfair, so St James’s Park seemed like a good place for a walk before dinner.’
The detective said, ‘Do you know what time you entered the park?’ and she was glad he’d asked that, because she was able to say, ‘It was exactly five-fifty.’
Christophe had taken a call on his mobile just then, and she remembered looking at her own phone to check the time when that happened … because she’d been pissed off. But of course she didn’t say that to the detective.
The Yellow Diamond Page 1
