Due Diligence

by Grant Sutherland

  A thin line of blood trickles from one nostril. Hugh picks up the kitchen towels and shoves them into Owen’s stomach.

  ‘The Met,’ Hugh says. ‘Close your eyes, you can pretend you’re in Geneva.’

  Once they’ve gone, I call my father. He’s still with Eric Gifford, they're coming to terms on a final price for Carltons.

  ‘We’ll need your signature too, Raef,’ he says, adding that he’s taking Gifford to the Bankers’ Association function tonight. ‘We should have an agreement in principle ready by then. If you sign it, we’ll make the announcement there.’ He sounds dejected. He doesn’t mention the likely price, and I don’t ask.

  ‘Is Charles with you?’

  ‘Went home ten minutes ago. He’ll be there tonight though.’

  I wish him luck with the negotiations, and ring off. I do not have much time. Running out into the street, I whistle down a passing taxi.

  18

  * * *

  Who wins? The question came to me quite suddenly, right in the midst of Owen Baxter’s cock-eyed explanation. Who wins?

  When my father retired, Charles Aldridge lost out to Sir John in the contest to run Carltons; but now he stands on the brink of the Chairmanship of any merged entity that arises from my father's agreement with Gifford. And that story of Owen’s about checking our systems, far from being implausible, as Hugh imagines, I can see just how it might have occurred. Aldridge thrives in the shadows. Say he approached Owen, wined, dined and flattered him, and then made a suggestion in that confidential way he has. ‘The Board has a problem we think you can help us with. Discreetly.’ Owen, being what he is, would bite. But after a few weeks he would realize something was up, a systems check wouldn’t need to go on that long.

  So then what? Could Aldridge have implied that for convenience’ sake Twintech’s profits might be held in a Swiss bank account? An account controlled by Owen? Or could it be even simpler? Could he have just paid Owen to do what was required? Either way, what did Owen have to lose? If the deals were discovered, he could explain, as he has done, that he thought it was a system-check ordered by Aldridge. Provided the money was still there, and he handed it back, he could gamble on riding out an investigation. He might even have deluded himself that Aldridge would stand by him.

  Or is this all completely crazy? Charles Aldridge? Maybe - possibly - I’ve just been spending too much time with Hugh.

  Aldridge presses the buzzer, and I shoulder his door open and enter.

  ‘In the study, Raef,’ he calls.

  At the far end of the hall, I turn. He beckons me in. He’s at his desk, pen in hand, the phone to his ear, so I stand by the shelves and wait. It’s much like my father’s study at Boddington: leather-bound books, floor to ceiling, a big work desk and a few armchairs. A gentleman's room. Sir Charles finally puts down the phone.

  ‘Gifford’s screwing us on the price,’ he says, and starts to give me a blow by blow account of how negotiations have gone.

  I raise a hand. ‘Owen Baxter’s been taken to see the police.’

  He pauses. ‘Owen who?’

  ‘Baxter. One of our dealers. He’s been up to no good.’

  Charles frowns. He asks me how bad it is.

  ‘Not too bad. And it’s capped. Don’t worry, it won’t scupper the deal with Gifford.’

  He lets out a long breath, and I study him for a moment, my father’s old friend. But that is all I see: Charles Aldridge.

  ‘He’s named you as an accomplice.’

  He lifts his head, startled. But then his surprise seems to turn to amusement. ‘How interesting. And did he name anyone else? Your father perhaps?’

  ‘Just you.’

  ‘Well then.’ He closes a file. ‘What do you suggest? Can he afford to fight a slander action?’

  ‘He’s been taken to see Inspector Ryan. It’s possible Baxter had a hand in Daniel’s murder.’

  ‘One of your own dealers?’

  ‘It’s possible. Ryan'll have to figure it out from here. I just thought I’d let you know. It might help if you get down there and have a word with Ryan before Owen says his piece. Nip the lie in the bud.’

  He agrees that it might be a very good idea. He asks me to give him a moment, he just wants a quick word with Sir John.

  While he calls, I step out into the hall to wait. If Owen had accused me of complicity in the fraud, I wonder how I might have taken the news. Not well, I expect. Not well at all. But then again, Charles Aldridge isn’t me. A minute later he comes out of his study to join me.

  ‘John’ll give himself an ulcer one day,’ he says.

  We go to the front door, but as he steps out I turn back. ‘Left my briefcase. Won’t be a second.’

  And a second is all I have in his study. I scoop up my briefcase from under the chair where I left it, and then I cross to his desk and hit the last-number redial on the phone. The number flashes up in the crystal display. A number I know; but not Sir John’s.

  ‘Raef?’ Charles calls.

  I lift the receiver and replace it gently before hurrying back out to the hall. Charles makes no objection when I tell him he’ll have to make his way down to the Met on his own.

  The taxi driver asks me, ‘Where in Whitehall?’

  ‘The DTI.’

  I give him the address then lean back, continuing to turn it all over. Who wins? Owen, if it all went smoothly, would end up with a nest-egg in Switzerland. But it didn’t go smoothly, instead Daniel was killed. Last Thursday morning, with Inspector Ryan and his crew descending on the bank, and the news of Daniel’s murder filtering out, Owen would have known he was in very serious trouble. And then the dive Hugh and I caused in the CTL paper. No wonder Owen was departing for Switzerland.

  And Charles Aldridge, my father’s friend, the Carlton family’s confidant: how in the world did it take me so long to see?

  I call Becky on the taxi driver’s mobile, and ask her for Johnstone’s number. I’m still on the phone to Johnstone when the taxi stops outside the DTI. At the end of I our conversation I offer Johnstone his job back, and a he accepts. Then I give the driver a tenner and go up to find Gerald Wolsey.

  19

  * * *

  It will all be over very soon. Coming home from Whitehall, it was drizzling, but now the rain drums against my bedroom window like pellets of ice. Hugh called fifteen minutes ago, he’s on his way here. He tells me he has a big surprise.

  Showered and changed, nothing more to put on but my bow tie, I lie on my bed and sip my whisky. Tonight I will sign the papers. Tonight the Carlton family will make its unexpected departure from the City. I can face that now. Leaning across to the bedside drawer, I dig out a framed photograph of Theresa and Annie: it was taken in Annie’s first summer. She is a baby here, cradled in Theresa’s bare arms. The picture propped on my thigh, I study it, and drink my whisky. These days Theresa has more lines, and Annie’s much bigger: she’s a child now, and still changing. But this won’t ever change, what I see now in the picture, the thing I never noticed all that time: Annie has Daniel’s eyes.

  When the doorbell rings, I put the picture aside and go down and let Hugh in.

  ‘Owen’s with Penfield and Ryan,’ he says, watching me fix my bow tie. ‘Penfield says he’ll see you tonight.’

  ‘Is he sending in the Unit?’

  I glance at Hugh’s reflection in the mirror. He turns his head.

  ‘I told him I’d been right through it,’ he says. 'Twintech’s closed out now. That’s it.’

  So with Penfield, at long last, our slate is clean.

  ‘Do you know how lucky you were?’ Hugh sees my twisted smile in the mirror, and laughs. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Really.’ He sits on the arm of the sofa. ‘Your friend Owen would have lined up Twintech for a big one in the end. One big hit, then he’d have been in Rio and you’d have been down the pan.’

  I take a moment with that one. Could Owen have done it? Maybe. He already had our systems accepting Twintech as a legitimate client.
And that, compared with our current disaster, would have been cataclysm. The whole bank could have disappeared into the maelstrom. Nobody in their right mind would have bid 10p a share for us, let alone 210; Boddington would have been sold to cover our borrowings; everything, absolutely everything, would have gone.

  In the mirror I watch Hugh's world-weary smile. My bow tie finished, I face him. ‘What’s the big surprise?’

  He takes some papers from his coat and hands them to me. I take a seat on the sofa.

  ‘We got it wrong,’ he says.

  The pages he’s given me are photocopies: grainy black and white images of photographs. The subject of each is the same, a sleeping body, each picture taken from a different angle. There’s a lot of shadow, and I have to peer to make out the figure. And there’s one close-up of the man’s face, but I don’t recognize him. I lift my eyes.

  ‘Daniel’s murderer,’ Hugh says. ‘I got a friend at the Met to do me some copies.’

  I look down, then straight up. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Axel Dortmund. And not is. Was. German. Now deceased.’ Hugh points to the pictures. ‘The arrest went a little bit wrong.’

  I study the pictures more closely. Axel Dortmund, I see now, isn’t sleeping, he is dead. And what I mistook for shadow is actually blood. An unbelievable quantity.

  ‘A professional bad guy from Berlin,’ Hugh says. ‘Ryan was tipped off that he’d been in the country for a flying visit. Less than a day. The visit happened to coincide with Daniel’s murder.’

  ‘What about Owen?’

  ‘He didn't pull the trigger. I tell you what, though. If Ryan hadn't found this guy, things wouldn’t have been looking too bright for Mr Baxter at all.’

  I ask how Ryan can be sure it was Dortmund.

  ‘Ballistics match up. They dug a bullet out of St Paul's Walk. Fired from the same gun Dortmund was using on the German police when he was killed this morning.’ He glances down.

  'This Dortmund was a professional killer?’

  ‘He was a dope,’ Hugh says. ‘A thug. The police were trying to arrest him on some racketeering charge.’

  ‘Ryan thinks he was paid to kill Daniel?’

  Hugh tells me Ryan was pursuing that line of inquiry with Owen just now when he left them. ‘None of my business now,’ he says. ‘Thank God.’

  We inspect the pictures again. Daniel’s murderer. The man who pulled the trigger. Hugh makes a macabre comment on the German police force’s interview technique; but I don’t feel much like smiling just now. Because now, for the first time, I see the whole thing complete.

  Hugh stands to go, he looks exhausted.

  ‘I haven't thanked you yet,’ I say.

  He waves it off. When I rise he places a hand on my shoulder. ‘I think this leaves us all square with favours, Raef. The next time you’ve got a problem, deal me out.’

  He means it too. He’s not looking quite as young as he did a week ago. Going to the door he tells me what he saw of Owen’s interview with Ryan. But he has none of his usual enthusiasm. He seems to be winding back, withdrawing himself emotionally from the whole affair. He’s done what I asked, cracked Twintech, and now all he wants to do is go home.

  ‘I promised Ryan I’d get back there tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Make sure Owen’s statement adds up.’

  Out on the pavement, I offer him a lift but he’s not going towards the City. My driver opens the car door, for me. I shake Hugh’s hand.

  ‘Anything you need, Hugh.’

  He smiles. Hugh Morgan has heard this kind of promise too many times before. Then as I am stepping into the car, he touches my ‘I’m sorry you lost the bank,’ he says. ‘I really am.’

  He’s still standing there on the pavement as we pull away. My head falls back in the seat and I close my eyes.

  I am sure that I have done right not to compromise him. This time, I’m sure, there really was no need to tell Hugh Morgan the truth.

  20

  * * *

  The noise from the party is a steady hum, the City’s big-hitters at play. While I'm waiting for the coat-check girl to return with my token, Roger Penfield appears at my side. He looks smug.

  ‘Quite a story,’ he says. ‘Mr Morgan certainly knows his business.’

  I ask him if he’s seen my father.

  ‘They’re waiting for your signature before they make the announcement. He’s with Gifford.’ Then he lowers his voice. ‘I've kept this Owen Baxter thing quiet. I thought it could wait till after the announcement.’ By which he means that he doesn't want the merger derailed. ‘No objections, I trust?’

  No, I tell him. No objections.

  Then the girl hands me my token and Roger leads me inside.

  It’s one of the livery halls, the coat-of-arms and other paraphemalia of the company are draped from the walls. Gothic carving sprouts everywhere; three giant chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The champagne has been flowing for some time, and conversation is loud.

  Roger plucks two glasses from a passing tray. ‘To a successful conclusion to the day,’ he says.

  Mercifully, someone catches at his elbow, and before Roger can free himself I slip away into the crowd. The City worthies really have turned out in force tonight. I see Sir John locked in conversation with two clearing-bank chairmen, and at the far side of the room Vance and Darren Lyle are sharing a private word: the transition at Parnells, I expect. Neither one of them is smiling. As I make my way through the crush I’m stopped three or four times and asked if the rumour is true: will there be an announcement tonight on the terms of the American Pacific—Carltons merger? I tell them they’ll have to wait and see.

  Then I spot Eric Gifford and my father. They seem relaxed, slightly detached from the crowd, they haven’t seen me yet. As I move towards them, a hand shoots out and takes my arm.

  ‘Is it congratulations,’ Brian McKinnon says, ‘or do I shed a wee tear?’

  ‘I did warn you not to bale out.’

  He swears at me good-humouredly. Then drifting back into the crowd, he tells me we’ll talk later.

  When I emerge from the ruck, Eric Gifford greets me, hand extended. My father, peering past me, asks if I’ve seen Charles. I shake my head.

  ‘Well,’ he says, indicating a rear door, ‘let’s get this done then, shall we?’

  The room we enter is like a private ante-chapel to the main hall. It has a table, chairs, a large empty fireplace and yet more Gothic carving. A French clock ticks on the mantelpiece. My father takes out some papers and places them on the table.

  ‘We’ve come up with something in principle. Read it through, Raef. See what you think.’

  Gifford offers to leave for a minute. My father tells him that won’t be necessary.

  But as I reach for the papers I say, ‘If you wait outside, Mr Gifford, we’ll call you in when we’re ready.’

  Gifford is surprised, but goes without demur.

  ‘Raef,’ my father says, suddenly concerned, ‘you “agreed to this.’

  ‘How much is he offering for Carltons?’

  ‘It’s on the last page.’

  But instead of pawing through the papers, I wait for an answer.

  ‘Two shares in American Pacific for every one in Carltons,’ he says.

  ‘Cash value?’

  ‘At today’s rates, 218.’ Two hundred and eighteen pence a share for Carlton Brothers. And just days ago we were trading well over 300. ‘The way things stand, Raef, it’s a fair price.’

  ‘Does Charles think so too?’

  ‘His recommendation’s there.’ He points to the papers. ‘The first page.’

  Now I read A1dridge’s recommendation. It’s hedged round with provisos and qualifications, but the general thrust is unmistakable: sell immediately at 218. I turn the page and read the conditions on the general agreement: my father’s withdrawal from all the bank's affairs is to be effective immediately, Aldridge will take over as interim chairman. Sir John, too, will step down. And I must resign within a month
. My finger pauses on the name of Carltons’ Managing-Director-in-waiting.

  ‘You saw this?’

  He looks over my shoulder. ‘Evidently Gifford thinks more of him than you thought.’

  Yes, I murmur. Evidently.

  The Managing-Director-in-waiting is Tony Mannetti. Suddenly the golden boy, Gifford’s anointed. I spend a minute on the final page, the price, and Gifford’s agreement to make a general offer in the market at Monday's opening. Below this are the empty places for the signatures: me, my father, Gifford and two witnesses. Everything is impeccably prepared.

  I put the agreement aside. ‘I’d like a word with Gifford.’

  ‘You will sign it, Raef?’

  Will I? I suppose even now I could stop it going through. But I don’t want to. Not now. When I nod, my father rests a hand on my shoulder. I suggest that maybe Vance and Penfield could be the witnesses, and he goes out to find them. Immediately Gifford comes back in, he must have been waiting outside the door. He crosses to the table and sits opposite me, tugging at his shirt cuffs beneath his dinner-jacket. The hum of the party seems quite distant.

  ‘Not an ideal situation,’ he remarks. ‘Your father's a persuasive man, though. Aldridge, too.’

  ‘Charles Aldridge is with the police.’

  Gifford pauses. ‘Somebody in trouble?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Charles.’

  He draws back.

  ‘He’s been accused of involvement in a fraud. Apparently it's been going on for some time.’

  ‘Accused by whom?’

  ‘One of our dealers. Owen Baxter.’

  Gifford looks perturbed. He asks if I’m taking the accusation seriously.

  ‘Baxter’s been using a dummy company to rake money out of our Dealing Room. About one and a half million pounds. Yes. I’m taking it seriously.’

  ‘Are the losses capped?’

  ‘Funny,’ I say. ‘I was about to ask you the same thing.’

  There’s not even a flicker. As a liar, he’s in a different league to the likes of Darren Lyle.