Down on the pavement I stand disoriented a moment. I have spent the best part of my adult life trying to prove myself to be more than the sum of my inheritance. I have done the eighteen-hour days, and the countless nights in anonymous hotel rooms across the globe. I have neglected my wife and my family. I have — God help me - poured seventeen years of life away in the struggle. And now, what am I? A rich man? But I would have been rich if I’d done nothing but play polo for seventeen years. A happy man? Next question. A good banker? Yes, I would have said so, certainly better than the average. But what does that amount to? I'm successful in a game which brings more and more money and increasing disrespect. Contempt even. Is this what I wanted? Is this the way I meant my life to go?
The river of pedestrians breaks and moves round me. Someone calls my name and I look up. My driver waves from the kerb, and I jostle numbly through the push of humanity to my car.
15
* * *
‘The arrangement’s still in place,’ Sir John says.
Moving past him, I pull my dog-eared copy of the Takeover Code down from the shelf. Stephen Vance has just left us; his meeting with the Meyers was apparently a very sobering affair. If the Parnells bid fails, he thinks David Meyer might even try to sue us for professional negligence.
‘Are we expecting to need some help?’ Sir John enquires.
‘Let’s hope not.’ I mention the names of his cronies on the Takeover Panel and Executive. ‘I’d like them to know our side of the story before Lyle gets to them.’
Sir John nods. This whole business is sliding into the great grey territory of City life, the place where he does his best work. Then he frowns, thinking, as I turn the pages of the Code.
‘Raef, I’m worried about Stephen. That Ryan fellow’s been in to speak with him three times already. People are saying some odd things.’
‘Let them.’
Sir John grimaces, he thinks I’m being pig-headed. Annoying, but over the years I’ve learnt to pay his opinions some heed.
‘Inspector Ryan doesn’t know Vance,’ I said. ‘He’s got the wrong end of the stick. And Stephen’s got enough trouble with the Meyers right now without having us on his back.’
‘I thought I should mention it.’
‘So you’ve mentioned it. Thanks.’
Karen Haldane knocks and puts her head in.
‘Oh, yes,’ Sir John says to me, snapping his fingers, ‘and Penfield called. Wants a chat when you’ve got a minute.’
He goes out past Karen.
‘Penfield?’ she asks me, coming in.
‘Don’t worry. Nothing to do with Mannetti.’ I toss the Takeover code aside. ‘Or our Compliance Department. How were the Meyers?’
‘Thrilled.’
I tell her Vance said she handled herself well at the meeting. She shrugs this off, determined to stand proof against flattery. She really doesn’t mesh with the normal give-and-take of the world: it’s not surprising she's so unpopular.
‘Becky copied some discs the other morning,’ she says. ‘For you.’
‘Ahha.’
‘You might have told me. I’m meant to book things in and out, remember. That’s my department. I’m responsible.’
‘I needed them, Karen. When I called through, you weren’t there.’
She rests her hands on her hips. ‘Needed them for what?’
‘To check. Fair enough?’
‘I’d like them back.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Why?’
She looks at me with real challenge now. It takes an effort, but I control myself.
‘Karen. I’m answerable to a few people, more than I’d like sometimes, but you’re not one of them.’ This rebuff, like the earlier compliment, makes no visible impression. There are times I regret ever hiring Karen Haldane. ‘Okay, I should have told you about the discs. It was an oversight.’ I push some papers around my desk. ‘If you want me to say sorry, Karen, okay, I’m sorry.’
She makes a sound.
‘Christ.’ I gesture to the sofa by the wall. ‘Sit down and have a drink.’
She glares a moment more, but then the anger gradually drains from her. Was that all she was after, my apology? The tension dissipates, we seem to be colleagues again. She goes and sits on the sofa, and I prop myself on the corner of the desk, facing her. This is one very strange lady.
‘I was worried,’ she says. ‘You know, Becky strolls in and gets copies of everything, nobody even questions her.’
‘She’s my secretary.’
‘That’s hardly the point, Raef.’
Her gaze wanders off around the room. ‘When’s Daniel’s funeral?’ she asks.
The question jolts me. I tell her that they haven’t released the body yet, but it might happen next week.’
She nods, but she seems to have something else on her mind. She asks if the drink is still on offer, so I go and mix two gin and tonics. It occurs to me that she’s worrying about that Johnstone business, and I explain that Vance has gone to see Gary Leicester. Together they’re preparing a response for when the accusations start flying from the Parnells camp. We’ve decided on a full and frank confession, the same approach we took with the Takeover Executive. Vance believes we can ride out the storm.
‘Bully for us,’ she says, taking the drink. ‘Becky says the Inspector's been back to question Stephen.’
I will have to speak with Becky later, she can be a little too forthcoming at times.
‘He came to see me again too,’ Karen says.
‘Busy man.’
‘He wanted to know what connection Daniel had with Compliance. I got the impression he’s trying to tie the murder in with Carltons.’
‘He’s just asking questions.’
‘He seemed to know a lot about it.’
‘Our Compliance Department?’
‘No. In general. Treasury procedure. Chinese Walls, and all that.’
Knowledge he no doubt picked up during his work on the Shobai suicide.
‘Basically he wanted to know if Daniel was on the fiddle,’ she says.
When I laugh, she shoots me a sudden caustic look. ‘He wasn’t joking, Raef. He told me if I thought of anything I should let him know.’
‘Like what?’
‘Had Daniel ever tried to override the system, how much access he had to the other departments. You know.’
I tell her not to worry, it’s probably just routine.
‘A couple of weeks ago Daniel asked me some pretty odd questions,’ she says.
I give her a blank look.
‘About our systems,’ she goes on. ‘Where I thought we might have weaknesses.’
‘He designed them with you. Why ask?’
‘It was all pretty casual, he didn’t make a big thing of it. I don’t know, I’d forgotten about it till Ryan poked his nose in.’
‘You mentioned this to Ryan?’
‘No.’ She considers. ‘If Daniel thought someone else was on the fiddle, it makes sense. He would have asked me then, just to check. Maybe he was looking into some deal he didn’t like the look of. Maybe—’
‘Karen, get serious.’
‘If he asked me about it,’ she says, ‘he must have told you too.’
She’s guessing here, but it’s a very good guess.
‘He mustn’t have thought it was that important,’ I tell her.
She studies me a moment over her glass.
‘Were there any weaknesses?’ I ask. ‘In the system?’
‘People.’ She pulls a face. ‘Look at this thing with Becky. Waltzes in, Waltzes out, who knows?’ Her head lolls back against the cushions. ‘I gave the girls a blast. They’ll know better next time.’
With any other woman I’d say the pose was deliberate: head to one side, hair framing the profile, and the grey skirt riding up towards her thighs. But not Karen.
‘Why did you need those copies?’ she asks.
‘Nothing particular.’
‘Mind my own
business?’
I pistol my fingers in her direction and to my surprise she smiles. Then I finish my drink, go round to the other side of my desk and lock all the drawers. I flick off the desk lamp, the heaters and the PC. It is past six o’clock and I’ve had more than my fill of today. Karen takes the hint, she finishes her drink too, and puts down the glass.
‘Listen Karen, if you think Daniel asking questions about our systems has anything to do with his death, then tell the Inspector. If not, then leave it.’
When she joins me by the door, I reach for my coat, my other hand poised over the light switch. ‘You think it does?’
'No.'
I flick off the light. ‘Then leave it.’
16
* * *
No sound from the alarm. When I call the maid’s name down the hall, a voice answers from the drawing room.
‘In here, Raef.’
My heart jumps. Not the maid, but my wife.
She hangs up the phone as I enter. A trick of the mirrors reflects her in an endless receding line.
‘We’ve just come for some things,’ she says.
Her eyes are dull, she looks drawn and tired, and at first I think ‘Good’, but in the next moment I’m ashamed of my pettiness.
‘We were up at the hospital.’
‘Where’s Annie?’
‘They’re getting some clothes.’ She glances upward and now I hear the movement in Annie’s room. The nanny must be with her.
I ask Theresa if she’s heard from Ryan.
‘Ryan who?’ she says.
Not so very long ago I’d have driven this into her like a knife - but not now. I explain quickly, avoiding her eyes. Ryan, the police Inspector, knows.
There’s a long silence, then she asks, bewildered, ‘Who told him?’
‘He knew about the tumour. He went to Bart’s.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, look’ - I slice the air with my hand — ‘it’s happened, he knows, now he wants to see you.’
‘Me?’ She seems startled. ‘Why?’
A burst of laughter comes from upstairs, we both look up. Then I cross to the side-table and flick through the mail, separating Theresa’s letters from mine.
‘See what he asks,’ I advise her, ‘but I wouldn’t tell him any lies.’
When I hand her letters over, she drops them into her lap. She tells me that Annie isn’t sleeping well. A retort rises to my lips but I manage to quell it before it escapes. I really can't trust myself yet. Turning my back, I go out to the hall and lean against the banister, breathing steadily. How much longer this can go on? How much more can I take?
Upstairs, I surprise the nanny coming out of Annie’s room, the zip on her bag is open and a white-laced sleeve hangs free. We hold a quick whispered conference by the door. She assures me that Annie’s just fine. Then inside the room, I find Annie in the corner, kneeling and digging through a low drawer.
‘A blue one for the blue,’ she says with childish earnestness. ‘The red one, that’s for red.’ Innocent and clear, her voice shines into my heart like light. But it’s not as it used to be, nowadays the light casts a shadow. She reaches into the drawer, almost topples in, then cocks a leg, ready to climb.
‘Hey,’ I say gently, and she turns, one hand holding fast to the drawer. ‘Remember me?’
She presses her chin on her neck; her shoulders rock back and forth. I ask if she’s been good. She nods in that same way again, stretching her neck forward to open her mouth. ‘Ah-ah-ah,’ she says.
When I kneel and reach, she shrieks with laughter and swerves clear. It’s a game to her. She’s still laughing as she runs to the door. I make a mock- grab and she shrieks again and disappears into the hall.
I move to close the drawer. Inside there are two mop-haired dolls; one red and one blue. The blue doll rests on a blue shirt, the red doll on a red. Annie. She has brought order to one small part of the world.
Downstairs, Theresa sits just where I left her. But she’s smoking now, a habit she gave up soon after we married. Standing in the doorway a moment unnoticed, the usual questions assail me. What went wrong? How did we, a gilded couple with the world at our feet, beneficiaries of every kind of material blessing, how did we manage to fall so desperately far? And Daniel. Why Daniel? With the passing months the questions have lost their first brutal power, now they merely fall on me in dreary and remorseless strokes.
This is where we were when she told me. She was in that same armchair and I was over by the window, every detail of that awful moment remains etched on my memory. We’d just come back from the hospital, the day after the tests, the doctors had taken her aside for a private word.
I have to tell you something, she said.
Can it wait?
No.
I’ll just call Stephen.
Raef—
And then it happened, she started to cry. A quiet weeping that racked her whole body, I went and put my arms round her shoulders.
Don’t worry, I said. Annie's in good hands, they’ll look alter her there.
Theresa pushed me away, wiping her eyes. She looked at the floor.
They want to test Daniel.
It didn’t register. My world had just broken in two and I didn’t understand.
He might be compatible, she said. Then somehow she found the strength to raise her eyes to meet mine, the tears coursed down her cheeks. Compatible, she said, with Annie.
Compatible with Annie, so simple, just three words and I knew. From knowledge, no remission; implacable it went into my soul. I stood, turned my back and walked out. Tears. So many idle tears.
And now here we are again in this place together three months later. It seems life just will not let us go.
Theresa taps her cigarette on the ash-tray now.
‘What did the hospital say?’ I ask, going in.
She looks up, and when she speaks, there is smoke. ‘Keep coming for the check-ups. It might be a full remission.’ She draws on the cigarette again. ‘God,’ she says, ‘they don’t know.’
‘Does she need anything?’
‘A father.’
My whole body goes rigid, the blood rushes to my face. A father. Annie needs a father. Like a depth charge, it sinks deep then explodes.
‘Don’t push it, Theresa.’
‘Raef—’
‘Don’t fucking push it!’
Silence. Even Annie’s laughter from the kitchen now falls still. But Theresa doesn’t take her eyes off mine.
‘Do you want to divorce me?’ she says.
My heart lurches again. Here it is. After all the shouting and recriminations in the months since we found out, here it is. This is the first time either of us has mentioned the possibility of divorce, and I find to my surprise that I can’t face it, not directly. I mumble something inane about needing more time; I say we’ll have to wait and see.
Annie comes in and wraps an arm around my leg. But when I touch her silky, white hair she releases me and goes to her mother. She arches her back against the chair.
‘We can’t pretend for ever,’ Theresa says, pulling at the frills of Annie’s dress. ‘Your father rang to see if I was going down for the hunt.’ The hunt this coming Saturday, at Boddington. ‘I said I was. He wants to see Annie.’
‘Fine.’
‘I can’t cancel it, Raef.’
‘Daddy,’ Annie says. ‘Where’s granda?’
Crouching, I explain that granda is working right now but that she’ll see him on the weekend. Annie comes over and presses her little fist against my stubbled cheek. Then the nanny calls from the hallway: everything is packed, she’s ready to go. Annie runs out to join her.
‘Will you be there?’ Theresa asks me.
‘Probably.’
As she steps by me, she lowers her voice so that the nanny won’t hear.
‘It can’t go on like this. I need to know one way or the other. You can tell me on Saturday at Boddington.’
Once th
ey’re gone, I pour myself a drink and go through to my study. And there, for two or three hours, I pretend to work.
17
* * *
‘Suspicions among thoughts are like bats among birds, they ever fly by twilight.’ So says Francis Bacon. When I turned twenty-one my father gave me a leather-bound copy of Bacon’s Essays, I still take it down occasionally from the library shelf at Boddington. It has these phrases that stick, and it’s this one about bats and suspicion that comes to mind as I sit with my father in his flat, going through the family accounts.
It’s 11.00 p.m. He’s spent the whole day’ down at Abbey Wood, the Defence Procurements complex just outside Bristol, but the travel and work seem to have taken little toll on him. He sits at his desk, reading the numbers. Every so often he asks me a question. Shoes off, feet on the sofa, open file resting on my knees, I give my opinions full rein. For once Charles Aldridge isn’t here. Our family assets fall into three main divisions: Carlton Brothers shares, Boddington, and ‘other’. ‘Other’ is the smallest division, negligible really: we deal with that quickly then move on to Boddington. The land agent’s report for the quarter has just come in, we’re received another embarrassingly large payment from Brussels. My father remarks that Adam Smith must be turning in his grave. The agent has advised us to buy a new harvester, I tell my father I agree: he jots a note. Another twenty minutes and we move on to Carlton Brothers.
I close my file. My father studies the latest list of Carltons’ major shareholders.
‘If you’re looking for Sandersons,’ I say ‘they're not there.’
He continues scanning the list. He took the news of today’s disaster at the bank remarkably well, but perhaps that’s because he thinks we have even more serious problems on our hands. He asks who’s been selling Carltons down. I give him some names.
‘There’s no big bale-out,’ I assure him. ‘McKinnon and the rest are just covering their bets.’
‘Charles seems quite certain we’ve got a problem with Sandersons.’
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