At the Sharpe End

by Ashton, Hugh

  “Well, what’s happening in the trenches, do you think?” Sharpe asked. For answer, Vishal dashed off a few e-mail messages and sat back.

  “Holy shit!” he said a few minutes later.

  “Uh-huh?” replied Sharpe.

  “I was just sending off messages to six people I used to work with. Four of them have gone to hell and bounced. ‘No account exists at this address for—’ blah blah.”

  “Did your friends jump or were they pushed?” Sharpe asked.

  “Good question,” replied Vishal. “I’ll wait till I hear from the others that didn’t bounce before I start asking questions like that. But it doesn’t look like it is being a good time to be in the banking business.”

  “It’s not a good time to be in the currency exchange business, either,” Sharpe pointed out. “In fact, I would say it’s a bloody awful time to be in any kind of business at all right now.”

  “Hang on,” said Vishal. I’ve just got a couple of replies back. No, things there are really grim right now. We were lucky to get out of there when we did.” He scrolled down the messages. “Meema, you wouldn’t be having a job there now if we’d stayed. Your department’s been completely gutted. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be working there now, either.”

  -o-

  When Kim called, there had been further developments, with the major American financial houses reverting to bank status, UK banks dropping like flies and being propped up by government loans, and even the American government adding its money to support the failed financial system.

  “Well, I think you can guess,” said Sharpe in answer to Kim’s first question. “Since everything is in complete chaos, there’s no way that your son-in-law’s program can help us here. I’m afraid that you’re going to have to wait until the markets calm down a bit before we can really talk about giving you the money you want.”

  “I thought that might be the case,” replied Kim. “And I just want you to know that as long as my capital is safe, you can take your time over getting the profit to me.” Sharpe heaved an internal sigh of relief. The next question down the line, which was one Sharpe had been expecting, was, “What do you think is going to happen next?” Sharpe got this question relatively often from people who knew he worked in banks, oblivious of the fact that he saw himself only as a glorified computer mechanic and really had very little knowledge of the financial businesses conducted by the banks. In Kim’s case, maybe the question had a little more validity.

  However, he gave the same answer that he always did when asked to perform as a prophet. “Well, we may see it get worse before we get better. Give it some time.” As a piece of fortune-telling, Sharpe considered it to be on a par with “the sun will rise tomorrow morning”, but as in this case, it usually calmed people down.

  Kim rang off, and Sharpe felt that he’d just dodged a bullet the size of a cannonball. At least he wouldn’t have to keep watching his back for some large knife-wielding Korean thug, he told himself.

  -oOo-

  Chapter 12: Tokyo

  A week after Kim had called, Meema was sitting at the computer terminal, trying once more to create some order from the chaos of the markets.

  “It’s no good,” she called to Sharpe in the next room. “I’m simulating all the trades, and it’s all I can do to break even. If I let my concentration slip for a second – shit! Just lost a couple of hundred there.”

  By “a couple of hundred”, Sharpe knew that she meant two hundred thousand yen of the simulated money. It wasn’t a fortune, but for someone who had been winning consistently over the past few weeks, it was disconcerting to lose at all.

  The phone rang, and he let Mieko pick it up.

  “Yes? What?” he heard her say in Japanese. “Wait a moment, I’ll get him for you.”

  “Who is it?” he asked, taking the phone from her.

  “One of Kim’s men,” she replied. “Wants to speak to you, and you only.” She sniffed. “Guess that sort of person doesn’t think women are worth talking to.”

  “Hello?” Sharpe said into the phone in Japanese.

  The person at the other end spoke very quickly and in an accent with which Sharpe was unfamiliar, so he asked him to speak more slowly. Even so, there were some words and phrases that he didn’t understand at first, and he motioned to Mieko to pick up the extension.

  “What’s he saying?” he mouthed to her. “It sounds as though Kim’s dead.”

  She looked shocked, but picked up the phone and listened for a minute as Sharpe continued the conversation. She nodded to him, and he lip-read, “Yes, he is.”

  When Sharpe eventually put the phone down, he asked Mieko, “Did I get that right? Kim is dead, and was found last night in his house with a knife stuck in him or something? And the wake’s tomorrow night and the funeral the day after that and I’m expected to be there for at least one of them? They’re going to fax the details of the place to me? Did I get that all right?”

  “You did.” Mieko put her phone down. Her hand was shaking. “Kenneth, are we safe?”

  “I wish I knew, dear,” was all that Sharpe could answer. “Maybe it’s nothing to do with what we’re doing at all. It may just be a gang war, and the people who killed him don’t know anything at all about the North Korean business.”

  “I hope so.” She shivered. “Ken-chan, I’m scared. I mean, Kim was a gangster, and he hurt you, but he seems to be – seemed to be, rather – as reasonable and decent as anyone like that could be. Maybe he was shielding us from all sorts of things he never told us about.”

  “Honestly, I think you’re exaggerating. I mean, I know that it doesn’t sound very much like accidental death, does it? But I really don’t think that necessarily means we’re in danger. We don’t know half of what he was up to, or who his enemies in those fields were.”

  He heard the fax printing out a sheet of paper and went over to pick up the map that had just emerged. Meema and Vishal were in the room, and he explained to them what he had just been told.

  “Oh no,” whispered Meema, who had listened in breathless silence to his story. “Are we safe here?”

  “That’s just what Mieko asked me. The answer is that I don’t know, but I think we are.” Why did everyone suddenly regard him as the fount of all wisdom? Sharpe asked himself as Vishal and Meema followed him into the room where Mieko was sitting.

  “I’ll go to the wake tomorrow evening. I’ve got a white shirt and a black tie somewhere, I’m sure. It all seems a bit quick. Do you think the police have been involved?”

  “I wouldn’t think they care one way or the other,” replied Mieko.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Mieko asked.

  “No, no need. I’ll send your regards to Tomiko and put your name on the kōden bukuro if you want,” referring to the envelope containing a substantial sum of money that is traditionally handed over by guests at Japanese funerals.

  “No, I don’t want that.”

  “And don’t go putting my name or Meema’s name on there, either. Or the company name. We have no idea who’s going to be looking at the guest list,” said Vishal.

  Sharpe considered. It sounded a little paranoid, but he admitted it made sense, if there was any connection at all between the Katsuyama technology and Kim’s murder. “So just my name, so I’m the one they come after?” he asked. He was only half joking. The others seemed to be quite serious in their worries, even if he could laugh them off.

  -o-

  The next evening saw Sharpe dressed up in a formal black suit, white shirt and black tie; the uniform for men attending funerals in Japan. Weddings are traditionally the same, except that the tie is white.

  His pocket held the ceremonial envelope in which the money gift was to be presented at the wake. When he arrived at the point where his map software had located the address, in what Sharpe had always regarded as a somewhat seedy area of Tokyo, it seemed that the building had probably served as Kim’s gang headquarters – at least, that’s what Sharp
e thought it looked like, from the little he knew of such places.

  He was welcomed at the door by two of Kim’s men whom he had previously met on other occasions. When he tried to present the envelope to them, it was politely but firmly replaced in his pocket. Unusually for a Japanese occasion, there was no book for the guests to write their names and addresses. Obviously funerals in this stratum of society were conducted slightly differently to those in other parts of Japan.

  As he entered the room where the funeral was to be held, he noticed that it didn’t seem to have many of the usual Buddhist trappings. He’d never been to a Shinto funeral, but what he knew of Shinto didn’t seem anything like what he was seeing here. In fact, there really didn’t seem to be any religious symbols at all that he could see.

  He went up to the line in front of the open coffin, taking a white flower as he joined the line, and when his time came, laying it reverently on the lid. He looked at Kim, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully. If his violent death had been painful, it didn’t show in his face.

  He took a seat beside two large men who appeared, from the way they were being treated by Kim’s men, as though they had come from another gang, and who viewed him curiously. He was, after all, the only Westerner in the place. As the room filled up, he noticed Tomiko enter, looking as stunning as he remembered, in formal mourning wear. Come to think of it, he’d only seen her in black. First for her husband, and now for her father. Hardly surprisingly, she didn’t seem to notice him as she walked to the front, laid her flower by the coffin, and took her place in the front row.

  The funeral service, if you could call it that, seemed to consist of a series of eulogies by assorted dignitaries from the underworld, if appearances were anything to go by. Some appeared surprised, and even embarrassed, if truth be told, when they were tapped on the shoulder and invited to speak. Sharpe was thankful that no-one asked him to say a few words.

  After the last speaker, the congregation, if that’s what it was, filed past the coffin to pay their final respects to the dead man and to his family. As Sharpe turned away from the coffin, his eyes met Tomiko’s, who flashed a glance in his direction as she bowed deeply. It was something he didn’t want to deal with, but he bowed in return.

  Declining the beer and snacks that were offered to the mourners, he escaped to the outside world.

  As he walked back towards the station, he became aware that he was being followed, and he stopped to adjust his shoes. His follower made no attempt to stop or to hide his presence, which was meant to be what happened in all the best detective stories, and instead he felt a hand grab his elbow in a painful grip.

  -o-

  “Where the bloody hell have you been all this time?” asked Jon. He stepped into the light, and Sharpe noticed that he was dressed in the same way as Sharpe himself – black suit and tie with a white shirt. Sharpe couldn’t remember seeing him at the funeral, though.

  “Trying to keep out of your way, and that of Major Tim Barclay, that’s where,” replied Sharpe. His arm was still being held in a painful grip that he didn’t feel inclined to wriggle out of.

  “Not very friendly,” said Jon. He grinned. “I think it’s time we had another of our little chats.” He said this in a voice that didn’t seem to leave any room for argument, and Sharpe felt he had no choice but to agree. “Let’s walk, shall we? It’s a beautiful night for a stroll.”

  Sharpe assumed he was speaking metaphorically. It seemed like an average Tokyo night to him.

  “So, how’s the Lehman collapse affecting you?” Jon asked. The question seemed casual, but Sharpe had the impression that there was more to the question than met the ear.

  “Not too great.”

  “Meaning? You’re not getting the contracts you used to from the banks?”

  “Right.”

  “Bullshit!” Jon exploded. “I know what you and your slimy little Indian friends have been up to over the past few weeks.”

  “Can we have less of the personal insults, please?” Sharpe was angry, and it took all his self-control to stop himself taking a swing at the other.

  “All right then, I know what you and your esteemed and worthy colleagues have been up to for the past month or so. Better?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like using the Katsuyama technology to make lots of money. Lots and lots.” Jon licked his lips.

  Sharpe was shaken. He had had no idea that anyone else was aware of the currency-trading aspect of Katsuyama’s work.

  “I told you that I was friendly with Tomiko,” said Jon, seemingly enjoying Sharpe’s confusion.

  “I see.” There really didn’t seem to be much else to say.

  “And what are you all doing now? Making lots of money for Tomiko?”

  Sharpe wasn’t in the least sure what he should be saying to Jon. How close was his relationship to the Kim clan right now?

  “Shall we simply say that the market’s in a difficult situation right now?”

  “No, we won’t simply say that,” replied Jon. “I think you’re going to have to be a little more explicit than that.”

  “OK, the market is in fucking chaos. We really don’t have a clue what’s going to happen next, and with the best will in the world, there’s no way we can use the Katsuyama gadget to make money right now. Is that explicit enough for you?”

  “Not the answer that I wanted to hear, and I’m bloody sure it’s not the answer that Tomiko wants to hear either. On the other hand, it does sound reasonably honest, and the truth is always a joy to me in my old age.”

  “Glad to be of some use.”

  “You’d be a lot more use if you were to give her the money, I tell you that for free. She’s going to need a fair amount of ready cash, and it seems that her old man sending his life savings to you left the piggy-bank pretty empty.”

  “Why does she need cash?”

  “Taking over the family business. She’s going to need money to pay her way. Grease palms, pay people off, buy loyalty, that sort of thing.”

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do right now. I told you, the market’s a right mess at the moment, and there’s no way we can get the money to her.”

  “Is that including Kim’s original investment?” Sharpe, not trusting himself to speak, half-nodded. “She’s not going to be happy about that.”

  “Tough. You’re going to have to tell her?”

  “I’m going to have to tell her something, I guess.”

  “Then I wish you joy.” Despite Jon’s protests, Sharpe disengaged himself and set off into the night, aiming for the station. As he turned the corner, he noticed Jon walking back the way he had come, presumably in his capacity as the bearer of bad news to Tomiko.

  -oOo-

  Chapter 13: Tokyo

  The next afternoon, Sharpe called the other three together at the office and told them of his conversation with Jon the previous night.

  Meema was dismissive, pointing out that they could just about scrape together enough money to pay Kim’s original stake back to Tomiko, even paying interest if she demanded. Although Sharpe pointed out that this could leave them with insufficient money to pay for Vishal’s sister’s operation, this didn’t seem to make any impression on her. Sharpe wondered if her pregnancy was affecting her more than she wanted to admit.

  Certainly she’d been acting strangely since the Lehman crash, and spent hours in front of the computer screen, watching the predicted lines from the Katsuyama program and the real lines from the data feeds. They were still far from matching up, and Meema seemed to be frustrated, using words that she didn’t normally use (and totally incomprehensible to Sharpe in many cases – he had no idea what language she was swearing in). She was also constantly biting her nails down to the quick, a habit that Sharpe had never noticed before.

  Despite the care that Vishal and Sharpe had taken to set up the kitchen in her trading office, she had hardly used it, except to make the endless pots of Japanese green tea that she had been drinking all the
time she had been trading. Once, after a particularly short and successful trading session, Vishal had had the temerity to propose that she make a curry for them, and had nearly had his head bitten off for the suggestion.

  Other than that incident, Vishal didn’t seem to have noticed that there was any problem in the area of Meema’s temperament, at least in public. He was busy trying to look inside the Katsuyama code, to improve it to take account of the new conditions, but although he was generally a kind and considerate husband, like so many geeks, once his mind was wrapped up in a computer problem, it seemed impossible for him to take any notice of anything else.

  Sharpe felt that it wasn’t his place to interfere between man and wife, especially when he regarded them equally as friends, but it was a source of worry to him whenever he noticed Meema’s raw finger ends.

  Although Sharpe was expecting it, the phone call from Tomiko Katsuyama was still a shock when it arrived at 2 o’clock the day after the funeral.

  “So how much money have you made? Jon Campbell told me that you lost it all,” in English. Sharpe was somewhat surprised, considering that she had spoken nothing but Japanese to him on his previous meeting, but given that she had lived in California while her husband was researching at Stanford, and possibly before that, when Kim lived in America, perhaps on balance it wasn’t that surprising.

  “We might be able to pay you back some of the money that your father gave us.” Sharpe was as evasive as he could be.

  “But I understand you haven’t made the profits my father wanted and was expecting you to make?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “What do you mean, ‘of course’?” The tone seemed icy cold. It was hard for him to reconcile the voice, which seemed to come from the depths of an icy heart, with the gorgeous appearance of the speaker as he had seen her last.

  “I take it you’ve been following the financial news?” Sharpe let any warmth drain from his voice. The temperature of the telephone lines carrying the conversation was now approximately zero.