‘You can’t tell me you don’t miss the markets,’ Tarek said.
‘I suppose I do,’ Calder replied. He was just about to tell Tarek about the little bits of spread-betting he did, but something stopped him. When they had worked together as bond traders they had laughed at ‘dumb retail’, their name for ill-informed individual speculators. Calder didn’t want to admit that that was what he had become. It was only a bit of dabbling anyway. A bit of fun. ‘Thanks for setting this up.’
‘No problem. I’m curious to see what happens. Ah, here’s the man now.’
Tarek stood up and waved, extending his hand. Calder was sitting with his back to the entrance to the dining room. He waited a few seconds and then turned to see Benton Davis striding towards them. The polite smile on Benton’s face froze as he saw Calder.
Tarek shook his hand. ‘Have a seat, Benton. You remember Alex, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Benton said, the smile now gone. He curtly shook Calder’s hand and hesitated. Clearly he had no desire to have breakfast with his former colleague. But although Benton was nominally head of the London office, that was essentially a bureaucratic and ambassadorial role. Tarek was in charge of Fixed Income in Europe, and his group made lots of money. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Tarek’s star was in the ascendant. Benton sat down.
‘I congratulate you on your choice of venue, Tarek,’ he said, looking around the ornate dining room.
Tarek smiled. He raised an eyebrow and the head waiter came over. He ordered his usual complicated mozzarella cheese, bread and olive-oil concoction, Calder went for a full breakfast, and Benton just a bowl of muesli and some fruit. Calder had forgotten how impressive a figure Benton cut, with his tall trim frame, his perfectly tailored suit and his deep authoritative voice. Outside Bloomfield Weiss he didn’t look like the lightweight glad-hander he had appeared to be from the trading floor.
Benton and Tarek made small talk for a few minutes, ignoring Calder, before Benton turned to him. ‘Well, Alex, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’ He was polite and he kept the exasperation he must surely have felt over Tarek setting him up out of his voice. But his eyes were wary.
‘Alex wants to ask you a question,’ Tarek said.
Calder thought he noticed a flicker of relief in Benton’s eyes. He suddenly realized that Benton’s first assumption was probably that Tarek wanted to offer him his old job back, and this breakfast meeting was actually an interview. But a mere question couldn’t be that difficult.
‘Sure,’ Benton said, with a quick smile. ‘Shoot.’
‘Do you remember Martha van Zyl?’
Benton hesitated, taken aback by the course Calder was taking. ‘Yes, I do. She was Cornelius van Zyl’s wife. She was murdered, wasn’t she? In South Africa. Horrible business.’ He shook his head. His concern seemed genuine.
‘Martha’s son, Todd, has some questions that he wants to ask you about the death. I’m a very old friend of his wife, Kim. She asked me to talk to you.’
‘Ah,’ Benton said. ‘I was aware that Todd was trying to speak with me about that.’
‘And you avoided him?’
Benton smiled. ‘Cornelius van Zyl is an important client of the firm. It seemed inappropriate for me to be speaking with his relatives about his wife’s death.’
‘Did you check with him whether you could talk to Todd?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Benton said. ‘Successful men often have complicated families. Martha was Cornelius’s second wife, I believe. He has a third now. And Edwin, the son from his first marriage, works for him. I have no idea what the tensions are in that family, but I know I don’t want to find out. And if I’m not going to discuss these things with Todd van Zyl, I’m certainly not going to discuss them with you.’
Calder had been expecting this. ‘Todd’s in hospital in a coma at the moment. He was involved in an aircraft accident a few days ago. We both were.’
Benton frowned. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he’s going to be OK.’
‘So do I,’ said Calder. ‘But his wife is anxious to get an answer to his questions. Which is why I’m here.’
‘It must be a very trying time for her. But I’m afraid I can’t help.’
Calder took a deep breath. ‘You remember Jennifer Tan?’
Benton sighed. ‘I wondered when this would come up. I’ve discussed the whole business with Sidney. It’s over now. It’s in the past.’
Sidney Stahl was Bloomfield Weiss’s chairman. To Calder’s disappointment, he hadn’t fired Benton after Jen’s death.
‘It’s not in the past though, is it, Benton? There isn’t a week goes by that I don’t think about her.’
Benton glanced at Calder quickly. Calder knew he had hit a nerve. Benton might have been misguided, callous even, in the way he had treated Jen, but Calder didn’t believe he had intentionally driven her to her death. Whatever his protestations, however well he covered his arse, Benton knew he shouldn’t have suspended her when she brought the sexual harassment suit against her previous boss. The boss in question was a jerk, everyone knew that, he was just a jerk who made the firm a hundred million dollars a year. So when one of them had to go, Benton had made damn sure it was Jen.
‘The answer to my question is important to me, and it’s important to people I care for. I really would appreciate a reply.’
Benton shifted in his chair. Calder waited. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘As long as this doesn’t get back to Cornelius. What’s the question?’
Calder described the letter that was found in Todd’s grandmother’s papers, and its mention of Benton. Benton listened intently. ‘So. What was it that Martha wanted you to tell her mother?’ Calder asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Benton. ‘I really don’t know. The old woman came to see me right after Martha died. It was a shock, Martha’s death. I didn’t know her well, I’d only met her once or twice, but to die like that. Ugh.’ He scowled. ‘South Africa was a sick, sick country. Still is, probably. I won’t go back there.’
‘What did you tell her?’
‘I told her I didn’t know what Martha meant. I wracked my brains. My only guess was it was something I let slip when we were having dinner in Cape Town. I was sent down there shortly before she died to do some due diligence on Zyl News’s South African newspapers. The plan was to sell them off or close them. I found South Africa a loathsome place and she took pity on me. I guess I implied, probably not much more than that, that Zyl News was running out of cash. I think Martha assumed Cornelius’s businesses were worth tens of millions. Well, they were, of course, but then so was his debt. He was finding it tight meeting the interest payments. The acquisition of the Herald, bringing with it yet more debt, was a brave move. I guess when a rich man’s wife discovers that her husband’s net worth is close to negative, it comes as a bit of a shock.’
Calder stared hard at Benton. ‘Was that all?’
Benton shrugged. ‘It’s all that I could think of.’
‘What was Martha’s mother’s reaction?’
‘She was disappointed. I think she expected more.’
‘Did she ask about a diary?’
Benton frowned. ‘It was a while ago. She might have done. I really don’t remember.’
‘You didn’t see a diary anywhere? Martha didn’t give you a diary to look after?’
Benton snorted. ‘I really didn’t know her that well. I liked her, but I have no idea if she kept a diary and she certainly wouldn’t have shown it to me if she did.’
‘And finally, does the word “Laagerbond” mean anything to you?’
Benton shook his head. He drained his coffee and put his napkin on the table. ‘If that’s all, I need to get on to the office.’
‘Thank you, Benton,’ Calder said.
‘That’s OK. Just make sure Todd or his wife don’t tell Cornelius that I spoke with you. And I hope Todd recovers soon.’
Calder and Tarek watched Benton stride out of the dining room. ‘Did you
get what you wanted?’ Tarek asked.
‘I asked the question. He answered it,’ Calder said.
‘Do you believe him?’
Calder glanced at his friend. ‘Don’t know. Do you?’
Tarek shrugged. ‘Actually, I’m not sure. But I think that’s the best answer you are going to get.’
‘Was Zyl News in trouble back in 1988?’ Calder asked. ‘This was all way before my time.’
‘And mine,’ said Tarek. ‘If you’ve got a moment we could talk to Cash Callaghan. I’m pretty sure he was selling junk bonds back then.’
The two years since Calder had left Bloomfield Weiss was long enough for him to feel a sense of nostalgia as he followed Tarek into the familiar dealing room on the second floor of their Broadgate offices. There were many faces he knew who smiled and nodded to him, but there were just as many he didn’t. Young, fresh-faced, intense-looking men and women, sucked into the Bloomfield Weiss machine to replace those that had been spat out or tempted away by six-figure guaranteed bonuses from other firms. As he caught glimpses of the screens crammed with rows and columns of figures, Calder couldn’t repress a surge of excitement, a tingle of curiosity. What was going up? What was going down? What was happening out there in the markets? And in here in the Bloomfield Weiss trading room? Who was making money, who was losing it, who was riding the big positions, who was sitting on the big losses? And the biggest question: was it really possible for him to walk away from all this for ever?
They threaded their way through the maze of desks, computer equipment, chairs and bodies to the Fixed Income sales desk and paused next to an overweight American in his fifties leaning back and talking. Talking fast.
‘OK, Josie, you’ve got close to five hundred million in asset-backeds, right?’ The man was in full spiel. ‘You switch those into five hundred million Treasuries. You give up yield but you get convexity, right? Oodles of convexity. The markets bounce the way you’re telling me they’re gonna and you got yourself a rocket-fuelled portfolio. I mean you’re going to the moon, Josie. Top-quartile performance, investment manager of the year, promotion, big bonus, new car, new Jimmy Choos. Think of the Jimmy Choos, Josie.’
Calder and Tarek could hear the female laughter on the other end of the line.
‘OK, you think about it,’ the man said. ‘But think fast. ’Cos if you think about it for a week, that’s not thinking, that’s sleeping, know what I mean?’
He put down the phone and turned to Calder. ‘Hey, Zero, my man! How are you doing?’ He leaped to his feet and held out his hand. Calder took it.
‘I’m very well, Mr Callaghan. What was all that about convexity?’
‘It’s Josie’s new word for the week. Every now and then your clients learn a new word and you gotta pay attention. She’s a nice kid, but I doubt she’s seen her first bond mature. You still out in the boonies playing with model airplanes?’
‘More or less.’
‘You getting him back to work for us, Tarek?’
‘I tried,’ Tarek said. ‘He’s a tough nut to crack.’
‘Come on, Zero. We need you here. We need a guy with balls.’ He looked contemptuously towards the parallel row of desks where the traders were seated. Cash Callaghan was a salesman, the most successful in Bloomfield Weiss’s London office. He had been around a long time, but he hadn’t lost any of his energy. Despite appearances, he was well known for his memory. Bonds might come and go, but Cash would remember them all, who issued them, who bought them, who sold them, what happened to them.
‘Actually, he wanted to ask you about one of our favourite junk-bond issuers,’ Tarek said. ‘Zyl News.’
‘Ah, yes. So is there something in the rumours they’re taking a run at The Times?’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ Calder said. ‘I want to ask you about 1988.’
‘Hmm … 1988.’ Cash thought a moment. ‘I remember. The Herald takeover. Two hundred million dollar issue, thirteen and a half per cent coupon, maturity two thousand, boy was that difficult to get away. It was less than a year after the October ’87 crash and the junk market was just opening up again to good issuers. Zyl News was not a good issuer.’
‘What was the problem?’
‘There were rumours they were in trouble. Their cash flow was barely covering their interest costs. We’d backed Cornelius van Zyl all through the eighties. He bought all kinds of papers in the states – the Philadelphia Intelligencer was the biggest, but there were many more, including a couple of major metros in Indiana and Ohio. And he did a great job turning them around, cutting costs, jacking up advertising rates, that kind of thing. But he kept paying up to make these acquisitions and borrowing from the banks and the junk market to do it. It was all great as long as we could keep lending him the money to feed the machine. In ’86 he tried a start-up in the Los Angeles market against the LA Times – that was an expensive disaster. Then in October ’87 the stock market melted down and it looked like the junk-bond market was history. Guys like van Zyl were in big trouble. Without the junk market they couldn’t do any more deals, and without new deals they were left struggling to meet the interest payments on the old ones. The only way out of the bind was to buy a larger company and use its cash flow to service the debt. So the Herald acquisition was an important one. Make or break.’
‘Was anyone else interested in the Herald?’
‘Yeah. Evelyn Gill. No one had heard of him back then. He’d made his money in commodities and he owned a small magazine publisher. Then he suddenly decided he wanted to use his cash to buy a newspaper. It was his first deal. He ended up offering a higher price than Zyl News, but the Herald went to Zyl anyway. Gill was pissed. He and van Zyl have been big enemies ever since. Of course, Gill has bought a whole bunch of other titles since then, including the New York Globe and the Mercury.’
‘But you say it was difficult to get the Zyl deal away?’
‘Oh yeah. They had to jack the coupon up, I think they started at twelve per cent and had to raise it to thirteen and a half. I was worried about it, to be honest. You hate to sell something to your customers that’s gonna blow up in their face.’
‘So you didn’t sell any yourself?’
Cash grinned. ‘They doubled the sales credit, I had to rethink my priorities. I sold forty million in Europe. The guys in New York loved me.’
Calder rolled his eyes.
‘Hey!’ Cash said. ‘I’ve dug you out of a hole on more than one occasion.’
‘That’s true.’ Calder had made use of Cash’s sales skills to get rid of troublesome positions that the rest of the market didn’t want. Calder had had to put up with a certain amount of stick from him, but Cash had been able to sell the bonds. Cash was always able to sell the bonds. ‘How’s Zyl News been since then?’
‘Well, they did a good job. They turned the Herald around and met all their interest payments, and although they’ve done more deals – some regional papers in this country, a couple in Australia and Canada, some more in the US – they’ve learned their lesson. They’ve only got one bond issue outstanding at the moment and that’s trading well.’
‘Thanks, Cash.’
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve got to figure out what I’m gonna do with those five hundred million asset-backeds if Josie does sell them.’
As Calder left the Bloomfield Weiss building his mobile phone rang. It was Kim. She sounded agitated.
‘What is it?’ Calder asked.
‘When are you getting back?’
‘I was planning to fly up this afternoon. Why? What’s up?’
‘Well, hurry up. I’ve just been talking to the police. I was right, I knew I was right. The plane crash wasn’t an accident. It was sabotage.’
8
July 11, 1988
Went to a board meeting of the Project today, the Guguletu Literacy Project. Nimrod drove me: I don’t like driving there by myself since the riots of a couple of years ago. In fact, we’ve only gone back to holding the b
oard meetings in the township in the last few months; until recently the place was a no-go area for whites. Guguletu doesn’t exist in the mind of white South Africa. It isn’t even on the map, despite the fact that a couple of hundred thousand people must live there. It’s a sprawling warren of single-room shacks made of wood and corrugated iron, each one crammed with people taking up every inch of floor space to sleep on. For some reason the dominant color seems to be pistachio green. But the township is teeming with life: children running around everywhere, chickens scratching about, even the odd cow, which still retains its importance as a symbol of wealth. There are smells of cooking and of filth, sounds of chatter, children’s laughter and everywhere the beat of “location music,” the same stuff that Finneas picks out on his harmonica at home.
Miriam Masote founded the Project ten years ago to try to teach adults to read and write. Her father has been in jail on Robben Island for nearly thirty years now. Her view is that when enough black South Africans can read they will develop a voice that the rest of the world will have to hear. I hope she is right. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of inhabitants of the township who can now read thanks to her. She does an amazing amount with very little money. That’s where I can help, not just by giving them some of our money, but by raising funds from the States. Mom does a good job with the churches in Minnesota.
Libby Wiseman was on excellent form. That woman is a hoot. God knows, you need a sense of humor in a place like Guguletu. She is pretty outspoken about the regime, and I think she’s been arrested a couple of times, but she seems to have avoided a banning order somehow. She gets very upset about greedy capitalists in South Africa, without ever actually mentioning Neels by name. Perhaps she’s a communist? I wonder if there are any of the SACP left in South Africa, or whether they are all in jail or in exile. She and I get on well, though: she’s one of the few South African women who I can call a friend. I can’t imagine her putting Neels and me on any execution list, although presumably that’s decided by the leaders in exile.
See No Evil Page 8
