‘We wanted to buy a bank, not a casino. Can we walk away?’
Zack paused. He hadn’t expected this.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You’re not allowed to drop your bid. If South China had revealed some huge hole in its accounts, it would be a different matter. But the authorities won’t let you abandon your bid, just because the target company had made unexpectedly large profits. That would be unheard of.’
Hatherleigh drummed his fingers softly on the lacquer coffee table. It was the only sign of excitement in his whole lean, thoughtful body.
‘How do you feel about running casinos, Scottie?’
Scottie laughed, a laugh that was more like a bark.
‘I just do what you tell me, boss. You tell me to run a casino, I’ll run a casino. You tell me to run a brothel, I’ll run a brothel.’
‘We can close the gambling rooms as soon as we get control, right?’
Zack nodded. ‘Yes.’
Hatherleigh drummed his fingers and pondered. He and his family owned thirty percent of Hatherleigh Pacific. Zack had married Sarah, who owned a big chunk of it herself. Just for once, here was a banker with almost as much to lose from a wrong decision as the company executives themselves. Hatherleigh had an old-fashioned distrust of financial speculation, and steered clear of it wherever he could. But this was a short-term thing, wasn’t it? And all the fundamental reasons for buying the company were still intact.
‘OK. We’ll compromise. We’ll put out a document blasting away at these new profit numbers. Make it as strong as you can, right, Zack? And we’ll add just $1 to the bid price. We’ll go with $46. That’s our final offer. Make that clear. I don’t want to overpay just because some young fool with stripy braces has made a couple of good bets.’
Zack nodded. ‘OK.’ Hatherleigh looked at him approvingly. God, what a good son-in-law he was. He was proud as hell of Zack’s performance right through this whole bid. Zack would produce a document so scathing of South China’s new profit forecasts, the company would feel shamefaced for making them.
Zack’s calm nod concealed tension, though. Thanks to him, Hatherleigh Pacific was winning the shouting match, but in the end money counted more than words. They would be cutting it fine, very fine. The bid was wide open now. His forty million dollar fee was wide open. His partnership prospects and his key to his father’s millions. Zack was gripped with anxiety.
Scottie and Phyllis signed off from Hong Kong, and the phone went silent.
‘Good luck,’ said Hatherleigh to Zack.
‘Yes, likewise, Jack,’ said Zack.
They were more than chairman and banker now. They were father and son. Roped together by Sarah, the wedding, their family company, the shared ordeal of the bid. If this were a movie, they’d have hugged.
9
It’s accountants who run hospitals these days, but even if the place had been run by a choir of angels, the doctor would have been forced to question the value of continuing.
‘I’m not sure that our recent progress really justifies us in carrying on,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the patient makes further gains once they’re completely removed from a hospital environment.’
Helen’s chart had been flat for a year or more. Speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy had all brought about some early improvement - then nothing. Josie could see the chart, but she didn’t need it to know the truth.
‘If you mean we should stop coming, then I agree,’ she said.
‘I think we should continue with medications aimed at treatment of anxiety and depression,’ said the doctor.
‘Particularly if you feel your mother continues to suffer from lifestyle stress.’
It was a bizarre phrase to use. Nursed by her daughter every evening and weekend, looked after by care assist ants at all other times, you could hardly call Helen a victim of classical stress. On the other hand, the doctor was right. Bernard Gradley’s will had laid a curse over the family, and Helen was its principal victim. Her sons were fighting each other for money, her daughter struggled with scant resources of time and income, while the fortune that Helen coveted seemed likely to disappear for ever. She was anxious; and anxiety made her prefer the shelter of a muddled head to the clear and cold realities of a difficult world.
‘Say goodbye to the nice doctor, Mum,’ said Josephine.
‘We shan’t be coming here any more.’
Helen scowled in concentration, forcing her lips to pluck words from the babble. Eventually they came, slow but perfectly distinct.
‘Thank God for that.’
Winter 2000-2001
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat. If you haven’t got a penny, a million will do. If you haven’t got a million, then who needs you?
It is 15 December 2000. There are 210 days to go, and for the first time, each of the brothers is hopeful.
1
Matthew tapped at Fiona’s door.
‘Coming,’ she called, and a moment later stepped out into the hall.
She was wearing a full-length cashmere overcoat with a woollen scarf at the neck. Matthew noticed she had touched up her make-up for the evening instead of removing it completely as she usually did. They walked to the lift together and rode down to the joyless lobby. They were still living in their pair of serviced flats in Blenheim Court. They were stuck, no longer because work took up too much time, but because they simply didn’t know where else to go. Matthew wanted to live with Fiona. Properly live with. One front door. One living room. One bedroom. But he was worried that asking Fiona to live with him would push her away, and that would be unthinkable. And, though Josephine was keen for him to move back to his mum’s house in Kilburn, nothing could appeal to him less. After a long day’s work, coming home to find your disabled mother sitting up in the dilapidated front room of her shabby little house and feeding her mashed up food when she was unable to feed herself? No thank you.
Fiona, for her part, liked their current arrangements. She still needed space. She still needed to be able to ask Matthew to leave the bed after sex, even though she seldom did now. He didn’t have a key to her apartment and she still occasionally needed whole weekends, even weeks, of separation from him. But despite her reflexive need for an escape route, Matthew knew she needed him as much as he did her.
The bank’s admin department had tried hard to get them to find their own accommodation. Fiona had stalled them, gaily using her managing director’s prerogatives to get her way. But even an MD can’t stall for ever. The bank would stop paying the rent on 31 December and after that they were on their own. Fiona said she’d stay on in her impersonal little suite and pay the outrageous rent herself. This wasn’t an option for Matthew, though, and he had pondered the alternatives long and gloomily.
They walked out of the lobby on to the chilly street. It was a frosty night and above the neon glow, a caffeine stay-awake for the elderly city, stars glittered. They walked a couple of blocks to Gianfranco’s, their favourite restaurant and a fashionable haunt of the affluent residents of South Kensington.
Although they ate there often, tonight was special. The EPAS system had ground through another annual cycle and bonuses were announced this week. Matthew’s boss was, of course, Fiona, and it was her duty to break the news. They had agreed to do it away from the bank, and tonight was the night. In her pocket was an envelope. Inside the envelope, a couple of short lines would tell him salary and bonus. This year there was no blot on his copybook, no repeat of the Western Instruments fiasco. The group had made a stackload of money and Matthew had contributed fully to the achievement. McAllister was pleased. The bank was pleased. Matthew was giddy with anticipation.
At Gianfranco’s, in front of the cloakroom tended by a succession of young Italian women of plentiful bosoms and limited English, Matthew helped Fiona off with her coat. It slid off to reveal her in a red evening dress, which Matthew had never seen before. She kissed him.
‘Surprise,’ she said.
>
It was a surprise. Matthew had never see her wear anything but office clothes or casual outfits. Everything was always excellent quality and well chosen-but it was relentlessly unsexy. At work, she was professional. At home, she was comfortable. Short skirts and extravagant dresses were unknown to her wardrobe.
‘You look wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I never imagined I was going out with a beautiful woman,’ said Matthew.
She pinched him lightly for his cheek.
‘What’s the special occasion? I thought you said bonuses weren’t all that important.’
She shrugged. Her shoulders lifted the dress and let it drop back again. The fabric moved and fell as only very expensive, very well tailored fabrics do.
‘Bonuses aren’t,’ she said. ‘You are. Very. I sometimes worry I don’t tell you that enough. This has been a wonderful year for me.’
Matthew nodded.
‘For me too. At least,’ he added, crassly joking through nervousness, ‘I think it has. It depends what’s in that envelope.’
‘Idiot,’ she said. She was hurt that Matthew ended the moment with a needless reference to money. He was obsessed by it. She always told him to relax, but he never did. With a gesture of annoyance, she picked the envelope from her coat pocket and walked on into the restaurant.
They ordered without needing to look at the menu.
The waiter brought them a basket of warm ciabatta and a dish of olive oil and Fiona began to dunk the bread in the oil. Matthew normally joined in, but not tonight. She sighed.
‘I guess we’d better cut to the chase or you’ll ruin the evening.’
She put the envelope down on the table, but with both hands on it. She looked even lovelier by candlelight than she had done beneath the overhead lights in the hall. Matthew’s eyes, though, rested not on her, but on the envelope. She noticed and was saddened:
She pushed the envelope across the table.
‘You’re a very good trader. You work very hard. You’ve made a lot of money for the bank. Here’s your reward. Congratulations.’
Matthew ignored the bitterness in her voice. He ripped open the envelope.
His salary had been increased to sixty-five thousand pounds. He was promoted to vice president, another of the bank’s meaningless titles. His bonus was three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.
Matthew calculated rapidly. That was getting on for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. A quarter of a million pounds. Earned honestly, through talent and hard work.
Oh, boy. Through his insider trading, Matthew had grown his first bonus to a grand total of three hundred and four thousand pounds. With this bonus on top, Matthew was worth close to five-fifty. In eight months’ of insider trading, Matthew had grown his paltry sixty thousand pounds by five times. All he needed to do now, in the seven months remaining to him, was to double what he had. That was a piece of cake. And now he was enjoying the fatter returns from investing in shares instead of bonds, he’d get there even quicker. He wouldn’t try to get more than the million, though.
As time went by, he had become more nervous, not less. He hated Belial’s crooked, self-satisfied chuckle. He hated the fear and deception and the criminality. He hated the little square garden with the benches under the tree. He hated the fact that he was scared of Brian McAllister and of everything around him. He wanted out.
‘That’s great. That’s absolutely great,’ said Matthew. ‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me. Thank EPAS,’ she replied automatically. ‘Do you want to know all your strengths and weaknesses and all that kind of stuff?’
‘Yes, I suppose. But not now. Not tonight.’
Matthew looked again at Fiona. She was radiant and he was blissful, and the combination made her irresistible.
‘Has my bonus obsession been annoying you?’ he asked.
‘I swore I’d never wear a nice dress again unless you looked at me properly. You did, but only with about a minute to spare.’
‘I’m sorry. I promise you that I won’t be like this next year,’ he said, then broke off. It had been an unwritten rule of their relationship that they never spoke of the future more than about a month ahead. Fiona was so quick to feel suffocated, it worked better to keep things low-key. ‘You do look fantastic,’ he added. ‘I’ve never seen you look better.’
Fiona smiled a half-smile. It was her way of telling him that she’d noticed his reference to next year, but that it was OK. She wouldn’t freak out and start behaving like she didn’t know him.
‘Thanks,’ she whispered.
Matthew paused. He had an envelope in his pocket too. He hadn’t been sure whether to hand it over. But he decided to chance it.
‘Fi, you realise that in a few weeks we’re not going to be living next door to each other any more, don’t you?’ She nodded, but she was already tensing up.
‘Aren’t you going to miss that?’
She nodded again.
‘Wouldn’t you like to do something about it? Take some positive action?’
Fiona waited, saying nothing. On the trading floor, she was decisive, swift and level-headed. In anything to do with the relationship, she was almost incapable of action.
‘Fiona, my love, I’d like to live with you. Share a house with you.’ Fiona’s tension visibly mounted, and Matthew was quick to throw her the lifeline she needed.
‘I know you need your own space. I know there will be times when you need to be able to live separately from me. But take a look at this and tell me it’s not perfect.’ He tossed his envelope to her across the table. She reached for it and opened it.
Inside the envelope was an estate agent’s blurb describing a mews house set in a tiny dead-end road in the heart of Chelsea. Surrounded by imposing four-storey houses, the least of them worth very well upwards of a million, the mews houses stood at a lowly two storeys, like the stables they once were. Number 11 stood at the end. The main house comprised a couple of bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, a small kitchen-cum-dining room, and a large and delightful living room. At the back was a tiny brick-paved courtyard, with a fountain in the middle and a hundred terracotta pots which overflowed with scent and flowers in summer. But the real jewel, the feature which first attracted Matthew’s interest, stood at the back of the courtyard. A long, low building had been converted from an artist’s studio to a self-contained flat. Anyone living there would have no need of the main house - not even for access to the street, which was available through a gate in the courtyard.
Fiona looked through the blurb, quickly at first, then, once she had understood Matthew’s intentions, more slowly.
‘We’d buy the house together, but the flat would be yours. I wouldn’t have a key to it. I wouldn’t even set foot in it. You could have your own phone. Your own bed. Whatever clothes you wanted. It would be Fortress Fiona, there for whenever you needed.’
She nodded. Though they had been going out for eighteen months, every step forward still seemed sudden to her. Dangerously rushed. But she knew herself well enough now to do battle with her first impulses. She gave a brave smile.
‘It does look interesting. Perhaps we should take a look at it. Some weekend soon. I’d like that.’
She was trying her hardest. Matthew smiled at her.
‘I’ve already looked round. It’s beautiful. You’ll love it.’
Matthew paused. Fiona was swallowing, trying to master her fear. The next bit would be the hardest.
‘Well, perhaps we should think about making an offer,’ she said. ‘Just to hold off other buyers, till I’ve had a chance to see it.’
Matthew nodded and leaned forward.
‘I’ve put in an offer. It’s been accepted. Of course you need to see it, but we can do that any time. We can do that tomorrow lunch time. I know we’re busy,’ he added quickly, forestalling objection, ‘but we’re always busy. We could make excuses until someone else has bought the house. But let’s not. Let’s really try to buy it.’
Fiona
took a deep breath. She looked at Matthew, then down again at the photos of the house.
‘This is very sudden.’
‘Yes. But it’s no easier for you when you have more warning. You just have longer to think up reasons to say no.’
Fiona hesitated. She sat very still. The only movement visible carne from the candlelight flickering over her arms and shoulders. Then she sighed and nodded.
‘OK, let’s look tomorrow. If it’s nice, we’ll go ahead. And I won’t raise problems where there aren’t any. And thanks. It’s a great idea.’
Her words were brave, but she was shivery with fear.
Living with somebody was as scary as it could get. Though her past had grown less terrible with distance, she was its prisoner still. She bit her lip.
‘Remember. Fortress Fiona will be yours, and only yours. You won’t need to see me for months on end if you don’t want to.’
She squeezed his hand across the table.
‘Thank you. Don’t ever ever let me down. I wouldn’t be able to bear it.’
‘It’s OK. I won’t.’ Easy to say. He knew he wouldn’t be unfaithful. He wouldn’t drink too much or beat her up or stop loving her. But what if he were sent to jail for insider trading right under her nose? It would destroy her. Another reason not to get caught.
They kissed and talked more about the house. The price was six hundred thousand pounds which should have been exorbitant, but this was Chelsea. Fiona insisted that she would pay for Fortress Fiona by herself, while they would go halves on the house itself. They decided that that meant Fiona paying four hundred thousand, while Matthew would put up the balance. She would pay cash, of course. If you’ve been in banking for ten years, as Fiona had, you certainly don’t need a mort gage. Matthew, naturally, would borrow to make up his share. He certainly wasn’t going to dip into his funds at Switzerland International.
As they talked, Fiona felt a surge of nervous relief. She laughed lots, drank plenty and flirted outrageously. She looked gorgeous and knew it. Matthew was mesmerised by her, as he had been once on the Jamaican sands, as he had been in Vermont and as he had been so often this year. He couldn’t wait to get home to fulfil the passionate promise of her eyes. She saw his impatience and teased him. She ate her pudding slowly, then wanted coffee, then more coffee, then got deep into conversation with the waiter about his family back in Genoa. All the while her eyes darted fire at Matthew and her leg nuzzled his beneath the table.
The Money Makers Page 43
