‘I have some bad news. Debbie is dead. She was drowned last night.’
The shock of these words hit me hard in the face, leaving my ears singing and my eyes out of focus. I slumped back in my chair. When Hamilton was talking to the police, wild fears of what might have happened to Debbie had run through my mind, but they hadn’t prepared me for this blow. I felt the emptiness of the desk behind me, usually the centre of gossip and laughter, now silent. I only half heard Hamilton continue.
‘Her body was found at six o’clock this morning in the Thames by Millwall Docks. The police will be round this afternoon to talk to us. They asked me to check who was the last to see her last night.’
‘I was,’ I said, or rather I meant to say. What came out of my mouth was just a croak. ‘I was,’ I repeated, more clearly this time.
Hamilton turned to me, his face grim. ‘OK, Paul, they’ll probably want a statement from you.’
Everyone looked at me, enquiringly. ‘I last saw her about half past nine last night,’ I said. ‘We had just had a drink. She was walking along the Embankment. I didn’t see anything else.’ Despite the turmoil inside me, I managed to keep my voice under control.
‘Do they know how it happened?’ asked Rob.
‘Not yet,’ replied Hamilton. ‘They are not ruling anything out, according to the policeman.’
How it happened? She fell in, surely. But how do you just fall into the Thames? That would have to be very difficult, however windy the night. That meant she either jumped, or she was pushed. The dead eyes and thin face of the man who had groped Debbie just before she left the boat, loomed up in front of me. I bet he had something to do with it.
The phones were flashing angrily. Hamilton said, ‘We had better answer those.’
None of us talked to the others. It was difficult to think of anything to say. We each suffered our shock privately. Karen sobbed quietly into a handkerchief. Rob and Gordon stood around, looking for something to occupy themselves with.
I just stared across at Debbie’s desk.
Until last night, I hadn’t realised how close we had become over the last couple of months. I could still see her round cheeks glowing in the soft light of the boat, eyes bubbling with laughter. That was only hours ago, fourteen hours to be precise. How could someone who had so much life in her suddenly not be? Just cease to exist. It didn’t make sense. I could feel my eyes smarting. I put my head in my hands and just sat there.
I don’t know how long it was before I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked up. It was Hamilton.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You were a good team.’
I looked up at him and nodded.
‘Do you want to go home?’ Hamilton asked.
I shook my head.
‘Can I suggest something?’ said Hamilton.
My voice cracked as I said, ‘What?’
‘Pick up the phone and talk to people.’
He was right. I needed to enmesh myself in the safety of the daily routine. Prices, gossip, yields, spreads.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell people about Debbie. But it was not long before word got around the market. The rest of the morning was more difficult as I spent most of it agreeing with everyone what a wonderful, fun-loving person Debbie was and how awful it was that she was dead.
At lunchtime the police came. They spent half an hour with Hamilton. He then called me into the conference room, where two men sat waiting for me. The larger of the two introduced himself as Detective Inspector Powell. He was a stocky man in his mid-thirties with a cheap double-breasted suit hanging open, and a loud tie. He moved quickly as he stood up, his stockiness was muscle, not flab. He looked like a man of action, uncomfortable in the rarefied atmosphere of De Jong’s conference room. His colleague, Detective Constable Jones, merged into the background, pencil at the ready to take notes.
‘Mr McKenzie says that you were the last person here to see Miss Chater alive?’ Powell began. He had a flat London accent, and a tone which made a simple question sound more like an accusation. He oozed impatience.
‘That’s true. We went out for a drink last night.’ I told them all about the previous night. The constable took copious notes. The questioning became closer when I got to the man who had accosted Debbie and disappeared into the night. I answered well under pressure, giving a pretty accurate description, and said I would spend some time with a police artist if necessary. Then Powell’s questions changed tack.
‘Mr McKenzie said that you were the closest to Miss Chater?’
‘Yes, I suppose that that is correct.’
‘Would you say that Miss Chater was depressed lately?’ he asked.
‘No, not really.’
‘No problems with boyfriends?’
‘None that she told me about.’
‘Any problems at work?’
I hesitated. ‘No, not really.’
‘None at all?’ Powell looked me straight in the eye. He had caught my hesitation.
‘Well, she was a little upset recently.’ I told him about Debbie’s disagreements with Hamilton and her conversation with me in Finsbury Circus. ‘But she wasn’t nearly upset enough to commit suicide,’ I said.
‘It’s always difficult to tell that, sir,’ said Powell. ‘It’s surprising how often apparently stable people take their own life because of something that friends or relatives think of as trivial.’
‘No, you don’t understand,’ I said. ‘She was never depressed. In fact, she was always having a laugh. She enjoyed life.’
Powell looked as though he only half heard this. He nodded to his colleague, who closed his notebook, and then said, ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Murray. You will of course be available should we have any more questions?’
I nodded, and with that the two policemen left.
I struggled through the day somehow. At about six, I turned off the machines and went home.
As I was waiting at the lift, I was joined by Hamilton. There was an awkward silence. Small-talk with Hamilton was tough at the best of times. In the present circumstances, I did not have the energy to think of anything bright or interesting to say.
Eventually the lift came and we both got in. As the lift descended, Hamilton spoke. ‘What are you doing now, Paul?’
‘Nothing. Going home,’ I said.
‘Do you want to stop in for a drink at my place on the way back?’ Hamilton asked.
I didn’t answer at first. I was amazed by the invitation. It was completely unlike Hamilton to invite anyone to do anything socially. A half-hour of difficult conversation with Hamilton was the last thing I felt like right then, but I couldn’t refuse.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said.
Hamilton lived in one of the grey-streaked concrete towers of the Barbican, which guard the northern approaches to the City. It was only a fifteen-minute walk from the office, which we spent almost in silence as we dodged through traffic and commuters. The Barbican is a maze of concrete walkways and towers, which wind round the old walls and churches of the City at about twenty feet above street level. It is so disorienting that yellow lines painted on the walkway guide you to various places you may or may not want to go. A soulless place to live.
We eventually came to Hamilton’s tower and took a lift to the top floor. His flat was small and convenient. Expensive, but unremarkable furniture provided most of the functions that someone needs, to live, but little more. The only pictures were a set of nineteenth-century prints of the abbeys of Scotland. Walls have to have pictures, but it would be difficult to find any greyer than these. I looked curiously through an open door where I could just see a desk.
‘That’s my study,’ said Hamilton. ‘Let me show you.’
We went into the next room. There was indeed a desk facing the window. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with shelves and filing cabinets. Thousands of books and papers were held in that small room. It was a bit like a don’s room at a university, except that it was perfectly tidy. Ev
erything was in its place. The desk was completely bare except for a computer.
I scanned the shelves briefly. The titles of nearly all the books I saw had something to do with finance or economics. Many of them were written in the nineteenth century. There was one set of shelves which aroused my interest. It held titles such as Gleick’s Chaos Theory, Rudé’s The Crowd in History and even Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. There were works on psychology, physics, religion and linguistics.
Hamilton drew up beside me. ‘You should read some of these. It would help you understand our job better.’
I looked at him, puzzled.
‘Markets are about movement of prices, about groups of people interacting, about competition, about information, about fear, greed, belief,’ he went on. ‘All these things are studied in detail by a range of academic disciplines, each of which can give you an insight into why the market behaves the way it does.’
‘Oh, I see,’ I said. Now I understood. In Hamilton’s world the great scholars of matter and the mind had made a significant contribution to financial theory. They did have some use after all.
I pulled out The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. ‘And this?’ I said showing it to Hamilton.
He smiled. ‘Oh, Machiavelli understood power. That book is all about power and how to use it. And so are the financial markets. Money is power, information is power, and analytical ability is power.’
‘But doesn’t he write about how to become a ruthless dictator?’
‘Oh no, that’s much too simplistic. Certainly, he believes the means justifies the ends. But although a successful prince will do whatever is required to achieve his goal, he will always maintain the semblance of virtue. That is vital.’
I looked puzzled.
Hamilton laughed. ‘In the markets that means be smart, be imaginative, but at all costs keep your reputation. Remember that.’
‘I will,’ I said, putting the book back on its shelf.
‘I like this room,’ Hamilton said, relaxed. ‘I spend most of my time here. Look at that view.’
It was indeed a remarkable view, looking out over the offices of the City from St Paul’s to the East End. De Jong’s offices were clearly distinguishable. A source of inspiration for Hamilton whenever he was bogged down in his studies of the markets.
We went back into the living room. ‘Scotch?’ he asked.
‘Yes, please.’
He splashed generous portions into two glasses and added a small amount of water to each. He handed me one and we both sat down.
After a moment’s appreciation of his drink, Hamilton asked, ‘Do you think she committed suicide?’ He studied my face closely.
I sighed. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No matter what the police said, Debbie would never do anything like that.’
‘She was concerned about her job, though, wasn’t she?’ said Hamilton. ‘I don’t know whether she told you, but we did have a slightly difficult discussion about her future not long before she died.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘She did tell me about that conversation and it did upset her for a bit. But she soon forgot it. She was not the kind of person who would allow a little thing like work get in the way of her enjoying life. I am quite sure that is not the reason she died.’
Hamilton relaxed. ‘No, suicide doesn’t seem like her at all,’ he said. ‘It must have been an accident.’
There was silence for a moment.
‘I’m not so sure,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw someone just before she died.’
‘Saw someone? Who?’
‘I don’t know who it was. It’s probably someone who works in the City. Thin. Mid-thirties. Very fit. Mean-looking.’
‘What was he doing? Did you see him do anything to her?’
‘It was just as we were leaving. He just walked up to her, groped her breast, and walked off into the night. A couple of minutes later, she set off as well.’
‘What an extraordinary thing to do! Didn’t you do anything?’
‘Debbie stopped me,’ I said. ‘And she looked frightened. I don’t blame her. There was something very strange about that man.’
‘Have you told the police?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did they think?’
‘Well, they took lots of notes. They didn’t actually say they thought anything. But it looks to me like he must have pushed Debbie into the river. Don’t you think?’
Hamilton sat for a moment, gently touching his chin, in his habitual thinking pose. ‘It certainly looks like it, doesn’t it. But who is he? And why would he do it?’ We sat in silence for a minute, each wrapped in our own thoughts. Hamilton was no doubt trying to figure the problem out; I was missing Debbie. It had been a long day.
I gulped my whisky. ‘Let me get you another,’ said Hamilton.
With another glass safely in my hand, I changed the subject. ‘How long have you lived here?’ I asked.
‘Oh, about five years,’ Hamilton answered. ‘Since my divorce. It’s very convenient for the office.’
‘I didn’t know you were divorced.’ I said, tentatively. I wasn’t sure how personal Hamilton would allow the conversation to become. But I was curious. No one at the office knew anything of Hamilton’s life outside it, but it was something about which we all speculated.
‘Didn’t you? I suppose you wouldn’t. I don’t talk about it much. But I have a son, Alasdair.’ He pointed to a photograph of a smiling seven- or eight-year old boy kicking a football. I hadn’t noticed it before. The boy looked a lot like Hamilton, but without the gloom.
‘Do you see him much?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes, every other weekend,’ he said. ‘I have a cottage in Perthshire near where his mother lives. It’s very useful. And it’s much better for him to be up there than in this dreadful city. It’s lovely up there. You can get up on to the hills and forget all this.’ He gestured out of the window.
I told him about Barthwaite and my own childhood there roving over the moors. Hamilton listened. It was strange to be talking to Hamilton about something like that, but he seemed interested, and as I talked on I began to relax. It was good to talk about a place hundreds of miles and ten years away rather than about today, here.
‘I sometimes wish I had stayed in Edinburgh,’ Hamilton said. ‘I could have had a nice easy job up there, managing a few hundred million for one of those insurance companies.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ I asked.
‘Well, I tried it for a bit, but it didn’t suit me,’ he said. ‘Those Scottish funds are good, but they have no sense of adventure. I needed to be down here. At the sharp end.’ He looked into his whisky glass. ‘Of course Moira didn’t like it. She didn’t understand the hours I worked. She thought I could do my job properly between nine and five and spend the rest of my time at home. But this job requires a lot more than that and she just didn’t believe me. So we split up.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. And I was sorry for him. He was a lonely man, and cut off from his wife and son, he must be lonelier still. Of course it was his own decision; he had put his work squarely before his marriage. None the less I sympathised. I could see myself in the same situation in ten years’ time. I shuddered. I remembered my conversation with Debbie. I was beginning to think she was right.
Hamilton looked up from his whisky. ‘So how are you finding De Jong, now you have been here six months? Enjoying it?’
‘Yes, I am. Very much. I am very pleased I joined the firm.’
‘How do you find trading?’
‘I love it. I just wish I was better at it. Sometimes I think that I am getting the hang of it, and then it all goes wrong. I wonder if it isn’t just all about luck.’
Hamilton laughed. ‘You shouldn’t ever think that, laddie. Of course it’s all about luck, or at least each individual trade is. But if you discipline yourself to trade only when the odds are in your favour, in the long run you will certainly come out ahead. It’s b
asic statistics.’
Hamilton saw my expression and laughed again. ‘No, you are right, it’s not quite that easy. The trick is to work out when the odds are in your favour, and that can take years of experience. But don’t worry. You are on the right track. Just persevere, keep thinking about what you are doing and why, learn from your mistakes, and you will turn out very well. We will make a good team.’
I hoped so. I felt a surge of excitement. Hamilton wouldn’t say something like that unless he meant it. I was determined to keep trying, and to do all he said.
‘I remember seeing you run,’ Hamilton said.
‘Oh, I didn’t know you watched athletics.’
‘Well, everyone watches the Olympics, even me. And I do like athletics. Something about the sport appeals. I watched you a number of times, but what I really remember is the final, when you pushed yourself into the lead. The television had a close-up on your face. Total determination, and pain. I thought you were going to win, and then that Kenyan and Spaniard drifted past you.’
‘Irishman,’ I mumbled.
‘What?’
‘Irishman. It was an Irishman, not a Spaniard.’ I said. ‘A very fast Irishman.’
Hamilton laughed. ‘Well, I’m very glad you are working for me now. I think together we can really make something of De Jong.’
‘I would like that very much,’ I said. Very much indeed.
Debbie’s funeral was in a quiet churchyard in a small village in Kent. I was there, representing the office. It was a gorgeous day, the sun beating down on the mourners. I was hot in my suit, and I could feel the sweat trickling down my back. A group of rooks cawed half-heartedly in a small copse by the gate to the churchyard. The noise complemented the silence rather than disrupting it. The perfect accompaniment to a small country funeral.
The vicar did his best to relieve the sadness of the occasion by saying that Debbie would have wanted her mourners to smile, and that we should give thanks for the time she spent with us. Or something like that. I didn’t quite follow his logic, and anyway it didn’t work. There is something heart-rendingly sad about the death of any young person; nothing you can say can change that. That it was Debbie who had been taken so early from a life she had enjoyed so much, did not make it any better.
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