‘Yes, help us, Roger. Which loan do you have in mind?’ Gyro purred. He wore the smile of a chef with a jellyfish in his sauté pan.
Sling took a couple of sheets from his briefcase. Ben passed them to Gyro. The letterhead was of a bank in the Netherlands Antilles, not First Improvident. Gyro gave the papers barely a second’s glance before standing to give them a view of his back. When his gaze returned, calmer than ever, he looked at Connie and Ben, barely acknowledging Sling. ‘If you’re guessing there’s a big dirty secret, you’re right. This isn’t it, but let’s start with this.’ He pointed at the sheets of paper.
‘Let me go back to when I arrived at Hampton. A dump, but I knew that. I knew there was the possibility of change. But rapidly I found I was caught in a vicious circle. To make changes, I needed a budget for various things. To get a budget, in the first instance I needed donations.
‘I knew I could raise donations – tens of millions, as you’ve seen, which we might double by the end of today. But no-one wanted to go first. Like any newly appointed CEO, I needed an early win. Well, the college needed it, if it was to fulfil its potential. I’m sure you realise that none of the money raised has been for me personally.
‘I’m a practical man. Give me a problem and I’ll solve it. So I asked my good friend, the chairman of First Improvident, to help me. Lend me one or two million for a couple of years, I said, and I’ll easily raise the money to pay you back.
‘But the money can not come directly to the college. It needs to go to some friends of mine in one of the prestigious strategy firms, McKinsey and the like – that was a world I knew very well – for them to donate to the college through their research institute. Very prestigious, everyone gawped at how a place like Hampton had pulled that off. So now that somebody had finally gone first, much bigger money started coming in.’
Connie interrupted. ‘But a loan personally to you, a director, would show up in First Improvident’s report and accounts, and it doesn’t.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Gyro replied. ‘So the loan came to me from an unconnected bank in the Netherlands Antilles. I needed a bank that would let me commit the college’s reserves as security without a resolution from the governors.’
‘Why would they take that risk?’ Ben asked.
‘The magic of securitisation.’ Gyro picked up one of the sheets of paper and started folding it into a dart. ‘When banks securitise a loan, they take the IOU and make it into a paper dart. In fact, they usually cut the loan into small pieces and make each of those into a paper dart. Then they sell the darts to someone else. Who knows where they go.’ His paper airplane soared, stalled and fell back to the carpet.
‘So the bank in the Netherlands Antilles immediately securitised this loan, and sold it for face value plus a handy profit to First Improvident. Where it has been sitting unnoticed in the bank’s portfolio of trading assets, waiting to fall due. I never borrowed any money from First Improvident.’
Connie looked distinctly sick. ‘None of which will look good if it comes to light, but I suppose it needn’t if the loan is repaid.’
‘Don’t look worried yet; we’re still miles away from the real problem. So yes, the loan falls due at the end of this month. Nine months ago that was not a problem, I would raise the money easily. Trust me, several of the Chinese plutocracy have been consulting clients and friends of mine for many years. But something happened towards the end of last year which you will have heard about – the first run on a British bank which – can any of us remember the name of it?’
‘Northern Rock,’ interjected Ben. Eventually the bank was taken over by the British government.
‘Here’s the big dirty secret: it’s not the bankruptcy of Hampton College we need to worry about, it’s the bankruptcy of the global banking system.’ He folded the second sheet of paper into a dart and threw it. ‘Too many paper darts. Too many loans gone to too many places we don’t know.
‘So six months ago – I need hardly tell you how confidential this is – the board of First Improvident was in very heavy session. We re-do all our predictions. The result is grim. We need to raise more capital, big capital, billions. And we need it urgently, because we’re in the time of Noah. The rains are coming.
‘Banks all over the world are going to go under – famous ones. Go under or be bailed out. Either way, large parts of national economies are going to be under water with the consequences. Imagine one-third of Greece under water. One of our scenarios is a one-third collapse in Greek GDP. Spain could be as bad, Britain not as bad, but still a large part of the country financially under water for years.
‘Once the flood comes, capital will be desperate to come by. So we need to build our ark. But we have to do it very secretly, because that’s how runs on banks start. The minute you think First Improvident might go under … So that means talking to small numbers of people with very large pockets. The Middle East. The Chinese. Some Russians. Some pension funds. The list is quite short. We have some good links with the Chinese and decide that they are our best bet. ’
Connie was the first to get the picture. ‘So your friend the chairman of First Improvident comes to you for a favour. He says you’re on our board, you’ve got excellent contacts but the trump card is you can make several trips to China without anyone suspecting.’
Gyro nodded. He glanced at Ben. ‘Hence nothing in my diary.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Pray God it’s all being signed as we speak. If it is, you’ll see an announcement tonight after the markets close. Do I need to explain that if you do anything with this information in the next few hours, being prosecuted will be the least of your worries. Quite seriously, you could start the end of the world as we know it. And for obvious reasons, although he’s on our guest list, the chairman of First Improvident won’t be showing up tonight.’
For a minute Gyro’s three guests sat in pale silence. They had gone for a walk down a country lane and now one of the horsemen of the apocalypse had thundered by. Gyro gathered up the paper darts and returned them to Sling.
‘So, Roger, we’ve probably taken this as far as we can today, don’t you agree? If things happen the way I’ve described, your bank will be writing off this loan as part of my fee for saving you. And if they don’t, all of us are going to be out of a job very soon. We can fight over who’ll be at the top of the list, but we’ll be bald men fighting over a comb.’
---
The meeting with Sling was shocking but short. Ben consulted Vanessa’s bible. The dining room was closed to prepare for the gala dinner, but he and Connie had time for a quick dose of hot bubbles from one of Hampton’s dispensing machines. Whether the liquid coating the bubbles was tea or coffee was beside the point.
The end of the known world did not feel quite the right topic for verbal respite, so Ben told Connie his next appointment was in 20 minutes with Cardew McCarthy in the tower – a run-through of Wilson Junior’s speech.
‘The tower does look spectacular. Despite everything, I’m really looking forward to this evening.’
‘Me too. What are you wearing?’
‘That’s a surprise! Which reminds me, I’ll pick up the car after this and go over to Frank’s – collect the painting and change.’ Connie clinked the spare keys to Frank’s house in her pocket.
‘Why don’t you leave your stuff locked there? We’ll probably go back there tonight.’
‘Better than a single bed, you mean?’ Connie grinned.
‘He did have a point. Oh! I meant to tell you, but that meeting put it right out of my mind. I bumped into Bakhtin, literally, this morning.’
‘I hope you gave him what for.’
‘What for and then some. He’s such an unbelievable shitbag.’ Ben gave her a quick update on his encounter with Bakhtin. ‘He’s supposed to be at the dinner, but with any luck he’ll have found someone who needs shagging at the Kings Arms.’
Which wa
s how the thought came to Ben that Noah’s Ark was all very well, but time might still be left to teach Bakhtin a thoroughly deserved lesson. As he walked towards the tower he withheld his own number while he dialled the one Vanessa had given him. As befitting the personal number of someone in religious silence, the call went straight through to voicemail.
‘Your lucky night, your Holiness. Three of my finest ladies will be waiting in your suite at the Kings Arms at 11pm tonight. They are totally stunning and discreet, my personal selection. But if you have any problems, I am at your service twenty-four seven. Call me. My name is Alex. And this is my number.’ Alex Bakhtin’s mobile number was one Ben had no difficulty remembering.
MONDAY 9 JULY (LUNCHTIME)
Ben
By the time Connie and I have recounted the meeting with Gyro and Sling (confident that Amelia has already interviewed both of them, probably more than once), it’s lunchtime. I want some fresh air, perhaps to confirm that we really can walk past the doorman back into the outside world. We can, and stride briskly towards Blackfriars.
We pass an EAT, a Pret, an expense-account wine bar and a café where the ready-to-microwave spaghetti and English factory sausages may, like its décor, date from the 1970s. I shake my head. Instead we buy day-old cheese-and-tomato and egg mayo sandwiches on the Thames river bus. The catamaran hits 28 knots during its 20-minute journey to Canary Wharf, and the noise from the twin engines is particularly loud by the outdoor seats at the stern. So Connie and I sit there. We’re still shocked at having heard Frank’s voice and want to talk without eavesdroppers.
Connie is agitated. In the next session she will have to talk about what happened when she went back to Frank’s house to change. ‘When I agreed to do this I didn’t know they had the place bugged,’ she says.
‘So whatever you’re worried about they already know,’ I point out. ‘Of course it’s not an enjoyable experience, but I don’t see anything to stress about.’ A thought occurs to me. ‘Look, I’ll say we want them to play the audio recording at the beginning. It’s upsetting to hear Frank’s voice, and now there’s no point in Amelia playing the game of pretending not to have a recording. Anyway, we should challenge her a bit. Throw her off her stride. We’re not toys for her to play with.’ Watching Connie’s expression I add, ‘Without making her angry. Just push back a bit.’
‘A bit would be good,’ Connie agrees, but she remains agitated until we have changed boats in front of the skyscrapers at Canary Wharf. She grabs my arm suddenly and hisses, ‘They haven’t got an audio recording of the afternoon.’
‘Of course they have – what are you thinking?’
‘That’s what I’ve been doing – thinking. If they had bugged Frank’s house in the afternoon, they would have realised that either he hadn’t left by noon or that he had got back in. And they would have heard about the battery. They would have had enough warning to stop the whole thing. And they would have arrested me.’
I am silent. The afternoon has turned sunny and the catamaran is packed with French teenagers returning from the O2 millennium dome. You’re exaggerating; I want to say that so desperately. But she’s right about being arrested.
A crew member announces, ‘London Bridge pier, passengers will disembark from the front of the boat.’ A few minutes later Blackfriars and Wren’s cathedral building at St Paul’s come back into view.
I glance at my watch. We will have taken quarter of an hour longer than we had agreed; maybe Amelia will think we’ve absconded. But if she has Connie and Frank on tape, Amelia knows we’ll return. We need the immunity from prosecution.
In the room with Amelia I start the push-back. I say, ‘You’re pretty picky with your words. You didn’t tell me when we were reviewing security on Wednesday that you were going to arrest students the next day.’
‘I’m paid to be pretty picky and not just with words,’ replies Amelia. ‘We reviewed the college’s lists of who would be on site. I told you that we would make appropriate inquiries and that’s what we did. In the case of three students and one member of the catering team, those inquiries were made using our powers under anti-terrorism legislation. Everyone was released by Saturday.’
‘Implying they should be grateful that you didn’t hold them for twenty-eight days?’
Amelia looks me in the eye. ‘Implying that I took the precautions I considered appropriate. Precautions which, at the end of the day, were not enough. Shall we get on? Connie’s Thursday afternoon rendezvous with Frank is one of the things we most need to understand better.’
Connie says, ‘“Rendezvous” makes it sound arranged, but I had no idea Frank was going to be there. As far as I was concerned, I was picking up a painting and changing my clothes in an empty house.’
Amelia apologises. ‘I didn’t mean to imply anything different. The arranging was all Frank’s.’
I lay out for Amelia the approach that Connie and I have discussed. ‘We want you to play the audio recording first, then Connie will answer questions. What you did this morning wasn’t very friendly.’
‘If this is the time for embarrassing secrets,’ Amelia says, ‘here’s mine. We don’t have any recordings from Thursday afternoon.’ She’s not surprised by our disbelief. ‘Call it a combination of my threat assessment and an administrative bungle. Greg kept bending my ear that all hell would break loose at the tower opening, but I had to look at the facts. Frank was a lone operator with no suspicious track record or connections.
‘Suspicions about explosives had been tested and found wrong. And Frank was going to be off-site by noon, with the place crawling with police all afternoon. So Frank’s house was being recorded but on a morning-after basis. That means conversations are scanned by computer at the time of recording for trigger words, threat words. This is reviewed in the morning by a specialist analyst with a fast-forward button. The analyst decides whether to continue, upgrade the surveillance or let it lapse. We simply don’t have the manpower to listen to everybody in real time.
‘The dinner on Wednesday evening didn’t include any threat words – none of you joked about bombs or al-Qaeda. The morning after, an analyst should have picked up Frank persuading you to come back to the house in the afternoon, on the pretext of having wrapped up the painting you wanted. Bearing in mind that it was now the day of the opening, a higher level of surveillance would have been justified. We should have had live ears in Frank’s house all Thursday afternoon.
But on Thursday morning two of the team called in sick and we bungled our procedures. No-one listened to the dinner conversation, and the monitoring lapsed at noon.’ Amelia gives a thin smile. ‘You can imagine what explaining that to the Prime Minister was like.’
‘So that’s why we’re here, with these immunities and everything. If you had everything on tape, you wouldn’t need us.’
‘In part,’ Amelia agrees. ‘But as I said, even if we had it all on tape, we would still want to learn everything we can. Especially about the Thursday afternoon meeting. Because it’s not about the painting, is it?’
‘No it isn’t,’ Connie agrees. She sits up and pulls her shoulders back, and I have no idea which way she’s going to jump.
---
Connie
Sometimes you jump the way you jump because you just do, which makes it sound like chance. It’s the opposite of chance, it’s the deepest possible intent, but coming from a place beyond any ability to explain. That’s what happened when Frank asked me the question, and it’s what happens right now, long before the questions come which I will answer with a lie.
I jump now because unless I tell the whole story in a certain way, my lie is going to stall on my tongue at the moment when I need the words to take wing. I don’t lie well. If the lie is too much of a stretch then the image I’m projecting out there – the celluloid of my self-belief – snaps.
I’m thinking about the turquoise clip-on earrings that I bought on
e Saturday when I was nine. I bought them with a five-pound note stolen from my father’s wallet. He had gone down the pub to watch rugby so he was sound asleep by mid-afternoon. The downside was that his wallet was as light as air; the crumpled five pounds was the only banknote in it.
For seven months Alisha had let me look at the earrings in her shop, but again and again my father wouldn’t hear of me having them. Once Alisha had let me try them on. They were £7.99 until one day they were in clearance at £3.99. I was petrified that someone would buy them; Alisha was keeping an eye on them for me but sometimes her cousin minded the shop.
Afterwards, my father created a commotion because he thought he was missing some money. He said he was going to call the police, but I knew he had drunk too much to be sure. Of course I could never wear the earrings, my father would have hit the roof, but I kept them safe. For about a year I took them out every few weeks to admire under the bed-covers. That’s what I’m doing now. I’m focussing on another time when I absolutely had to lie convincingly, and I succeeded.
I explain to Amelia that since the meeting with the bank manager had finished early, it may have been about a quarter to three when I parked outside Frank’s house and let myself in with the spare key. The four-wheel drive had gone. All the curtains were drawn. The hallway and living room should have been bare, maybe with sacks of rubbish. Instead, they were unchanged from dinner. The only visible packing was the painting, swaddled in plain-brown wrapping paper and heavy tape.
‘I was confused. It was a bit spooky. I called out a couple of times, but there was no answer. The front door had a clothes hook, and I was carrying my evening gown on a hanger in a long plastic zip-bag. So I hung it up and carried the painting to the car. Then I screamed “Frank!” and ran up the stairs.’
Amelia says, ‘Take your time.’
‘For a moment it came to me that he had committed suicide. Everything about the whole dinner, the way he had called it “the last supper”, the not packing. But he was waiting in the bedroom, in a T-shirt and sweatpants, as calm as anything. I went into the bathroom to throw up, but nothing doing. I remember noticing that he’d shaved his arms.
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