‘We could inform the Exchange,’ he offers, shaken. ‘We could undo the agreement. Keep the bank.’
‘And lose Boddington?’
He nods.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Let it stand.’
He drops his head. It will take him a long while yet to come to terms with the betrayal by Aldridge. ‘And tonight you told Gifford you’d discovered what he'd been doing?’
‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘And when I told him, he paid up.’
He considers this. ‘Penfield told me they’ve found Daniel's murderer,’ he says.
I am tempted to tell him the whole of it, but he really isn’t strong enough just now. I've done right to withhold this part of the story. Later will be quite soon enough.
‘I heard.’
He drops his head again. Beneath his breath he speaks Charles’ name.
And what comfort can I offer him? An assurance that the fierce pain of the betrayal will settle in time to a dull ache? The hope that something may yet be discovered to prove me wrong? The truth is that nothing I might say now could help him. The blow has fallen, and all he can do is endure; endure and wait for time to carry him on.
I offer to phone Mary Needham, she could meet him in St James’s. He turns his head. He says he’ll see her at Boddington tomorrow. We seem to have reached the end of things, so I bend to pick up my bag.
‘When we first heard Daniel was murdered,’ he says, ‘you thought the Department was involved, didn’t you.’
I stop, very still. I thought we could avoid this; but if we can’t, I’m not going to lie.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘Because of Odin?’
I nod. Because of Odin, I say.
He regards me directly; he suspected, but now he knows. ‘Raef, you told me Daniel was going to blow the whistle on Odin.’
‘Yes.'
He hesitates. ‘Was that true?’
I feel myself sway.
‘No. No, it wasn’t.’
‘You said,’ he goes on warily, ‘you said we might have to do something about him.’
‘Yes.’
His look goes right into me. He seems to be grappling with himself, unsure of how much he wants to know.
‘If I told them down at Westminster. Whitehall,’ he says. ‘In the Ministry. . .’
Again I nod. If he’d told his colleagues the Odin deal was about to come into the open, anything might have happened. An arms contract with the hint of a Defence slush fund in the City, the award of a privatization tender to the bank which did the Odin deal; by the time the media had finished with it, senior Cabinet and Whitehall members might have ended up in court. And what might they have done to defend themselves from that? How far might they have gone?
Now I gird myself. There is one more question to be answered: why? Why did I do it? Why did I tell my father the lie?
The truth; suddenly it seems so very precious.
But the question remains unspoken. My father simply rises and comes and touches my arm. He looks ill.
'It’s over with,’ he says. Not a word of rebuke, but the sorrow in his eyes is deeper than oceans.
Reticence? Wisdom? Or perhaps, somehow, he’s pieced it together. Standing by my bag I listen to his footsteps going slowly, tiredly, down the stairs.
SATURDAY
1
* * *
Boddington, late morning. Horseboxes are arriving down near the Stables, and I stand on the front lawn and watch them unloading. When the hound-lorry comes, the horses whinny and stamp, the hounds bark with excitement. My father, in his scarlet coat, steps from the house with the Master.
‘Can’t change your mind, Raef?’ says the Master, nodding toward the stables.
But I shake my head in reply, and we survey the scene below. Some riders are mounted, the horses turning tight circles, but most stand to one side talking with the followers. Behind us, there's the sound of hoofs on the gravelled drive as more of those hacking up from the village arrive. The Master excuses himself and heads down.
‘Theresa's getting Annie rugged up,’ my father says.
He arrived early this morning, but so far no mention has been made of our conversation last night. Gifford called from New York an hour ago to confirm his board’s acceptance of the price. It seems this whole thing really is over.
Mary Needham comes out with the stirrup cup, my father takes the tray.
‘Coming down?’ she asks me.
‘I’ll wait for Theresa.’
They set off down the hill, two dark trails forming behind them in the wet grass. I wander up past the walled garden to the churchyard. Margie has dressed her husband’s grave, the flowers are garishly bright against the tombstone. When I open the church door, the pigeons flutter then resettle in the belfry. It smells musty and damp, and I pause and touch the stone font. I was christened here; like my father and grandfather before me. And Annie was too. My footsteps sound loud and hollow as I walk down the aisle.
There are Carltons on both Rolls of Honour by the pulpit, and beneath my feet there’s a stone slab bearing the inscription: LORD BELMONT. HIS USURPED LANDS RETURNED TO HIM ON THE RESTORATION OF THE KING. And then our family motto: LOYAL IN ADVERSITY. Everything here, the church and the house, Boddington, it means so much more to me now than I ever thought it could. Here, without question, I belong. I sit down in the choir stalls, and thumb through the Book of Common Prayer: ‘For Those At Sea’. ‘The Churching Of Women’. Then hearing a sound, I turn to the door. Theresa. She is standing by the font.
‘I saw you come up.’ She gestures back. ‘From the house.’
‘Where’s Annie?’
‘Margie’s taken her down to see the horses.’ She comes down the aisle, studying the corbels and plaques that she’s seen a hundred times before, her gaze wandering everywhere but at me. She’s wearing jeans and wellingtons, and there’s a soft swishing noise as she walks. By the front pew, she stops. And faces me.
‘You got my letter?’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t mean it to affect any decision about the bank, Raef.’
‘I know that.’ Turning my head, I promise her that the sale of the bank wasn’t influenced by the letter. ‘My decision,’ I say.
She looks relieved. She sits then, and we gaze past one another, neither one of us knowing how to start. We have been married more than ten years; we have shared intimate secrets; we have been as close as two people can possibly be; and yet now even the simplest words fail us. All those things I’d planned to say, all those speeches I’d rehearsed in my mind, here in her presence they seem utterly pointless. Is it the same for her? But finally I hold fast to this: I don't want to go back to where we were. Together or apart, we have to get on with our lives.
‘I spoke with Vance this morning,’ I tell her. ‘I asked him if he wanted to leave Carlton Brothers and come and help me set up another bank.’ Theresa faces me. ‘He said he’ll think about it. It won’t be like Carlton Brothers. Something much smaller. A boutique. Just Corporate Finance.’
‘Raef. No one’s trying to stop you.’
‘It’s my life, Theresa.’
‘I know that,’ she says.
Now I look at her. And then I ask her my question. ‘Does that change anything? What you wrote in the letter?’
‘I never wanted you to give it up, Raef .All I wanted was some balance. Time for Annie and me.’
‘I promise.’
‘No.’ She checks herself then. Her eyes glisten. ‘Am I complaining already?’
I shuffle awkwardly out of the choir stall, and Theresa stands as I approach.
Who in this world can claim a past that throws no shadows? We two are in the middle years of our lives now; there have been things done that cannot be put right; but when Theresa takes my arm and leans into me, I feel that for us, and for Annie, there is hope. And in this moment I think of Daniel too. What was it that he asked of his life? What strange and endless yearning did he try - so unsuccessfully -
to fulfil? Not like me, the realization of my grandfather’s dreams for the bank. Not like Theresa, the desperate desire for a child. But there was something, I understand that now, a burning dissatisfaction, a craving for affection and love that brought so much pain in its wake. And for Daniel there will be no second chance. With part of the money I’ve extracted from Gifford, I’ll set up trust for Celia and their sons: though Daniel can’t be brought back, I think he would have appreciated this mercenary revenge. Wherever he’s passed to, I pray that it might help him find peace.
But for now I press my lips to Theresa’s head. I touch her cheek, and I hold her very close.
By the time we get down to the stables, the riders are mounted, the horses milling now, ready for the off. My father notices us standing with the followers, Theresa holding my arm. He smiles and touches his crop to his cap. I pluck Annie from the ground and set her on the stone wall, my arm encircling her waist. She points to the horses.
‘Granda,’ she says.
The horses’ bits jangle, they toss their heads, snorting steam into the cold morning air. And then the huntsman lifts his horn and blows: he blows long and hard, and the pure sound of an English winter goes pealing out across the valley. Theresa’s grip on my arm tightens, the hunt moves off. As the horses canter by, I look at Annie. Her mouth is open, she is spellbound by the world opening before her. And she laughs. It will never be the same, I know that. It will never be as it was. Sometimes, I suppose, I’ll forget, and for a few fleeting moments she’ll be mine again, utterly. But not always. For the rest of the time I imagine it will be just like this: though I’ll love her with all my heart, she’ll remain both mine and his. And yet somehow that no longer seems an insufferable burden. Life is strange. My daughter, my beautiful daughter, she turns and looks up at me now, her eyes shining, lit with wonder and delight. Who could deny her? I will never deny her. All too late for Daniel, I forgive.
Afterword
Other works by Grant Sutherland
can be found at grantsutherland.net
Table of Contents
Title Information
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
Afterword
Due Diligence
By Grant Sutherland
Publisher: Grant Sutherland
Copyright: © Grant Sutherland
ISBN: 978-0-9571622-5-9
grantsutherland.net
THURSDAY
1
* * *
The rain falls in sheets, the wind blows, and the world is grey: it is winter in the City. I get to work early, and passing his office I put my head round his door.
‘Daniel?’
Nobody there.
In my own office I hang my jacket over the chair. The floor-to-ceiling window gives me a view of the Thames, and for a moment I watch the dim light move slowly up the river. Then I glance at the Reuters screen and flick through the paperwork on my desk, a sheaf of documents and memos, the litter of the previous day’s problems that filters up to me each morning. There’s one long memo from Stephen Vance, our Finance Director, about the Meyer Group’s bid for Parnells. This is the big one.
For two years now our Corporate Finance Department has been strangely becalmed. The bread-and-butter work, the underwritings and flotations, have kept coming in, but the big deals that Vance once pulled off so regularly, the takeovers and defences, have dried up. The fees and bonuses have gone elsewhere. The simmering discontent in the department had begun to break into open revolt before the Meyer deal came along: three of our best employees walked. Vance promises me the Meyer deal will mark the beginning of our renaissance, but reading his memo now I’m not at all reassured. The Meyer brothers don’t want to raise the bid. If they don’t raise their bid they won’t get Parnells, and if they don’t get Parnells we won’t get our success fee. No success fee, no bonuses, and a full-scale meltdown in our Corporate Finance Department will follow. Then everyone worth keeping will walk.
Rubbing my eyes, I put the memo aside. I came in to work early to escape the heart-numbing silence that I wake to each morning these days. My daughter no longer stumbles sleepily into our room and crawls into bed between us; my wife no longer turns on the radio and listens to the morning prayer. They have left me. Theresa has taken our daughter Annie, and gone. I came in to escape, and now this. Looking down at Vance’s memo, I try very hard not to contemplate what might happen to the bank should the Meyer bid fail. Troubles, they come not single spies.
Coffee. I need a mug of coffee, black and strong.
The Corporate Finance offices are still empty, but inside the Dealing Room alcove I surprise a dealer from the nightdesk blowing smoke-rings into the steam from the urn. He’s young, twenty-two or -three perhaps.
‘Morning,’ he says, pushing away from the bench.
‘Busy night?’ I ask, and he shakes his head. ‘Jimmie, isn’t it?’
‘Jamie,’ he says. But he doesn’t seem troubled by my mistake. And I remember him now, one of last year’s graduate intake, a first in Medieval French History. As I get myself a coffee, I ask what the US dollar did overnight.
‘Down a bit.’ He stubs out his cigarette. ‘Big-figure on the Mark.’
Someone calls to him from the Dealing Room and he hurries away. Stirring my coffee, I sip a little, and then follow. Including Jamie, there are three of them down on the nightdesk, they sit in a small pool of light at the far end of the Room. The other desks are in darkness, all empty. Very early. I glance at my wrist, but there’s only a bruise where my watch should be.
‘Hey! How was the party?’ Owen Baxter, the loud braying voice is unmistakable. ‘Big night?’ he bellows. He’s a senior dealer, usually on the proprietary trading desk, and depending on your point of view either the team-joker or the biggest bore out here in Treasury. He trades like the rest of us breathe. When the real markets fall quiet he gets involved in those quirky parallel markets that ripple across the City from time to time: Christmas trees at Christmas; at Easter, chocolate Easter eggs. Last week it was bananas. Owen bid too high, and a barrowload of rotting fruit was subsequently dumped at the Carlton Brothers reception. Daniel, our treasurer, was not impressed. As a punishment for the misdemeanour, Owen is now in temporary exile on the nightdesk.
‘Not bad,’ I answer, approaching down the aisle. Overhead, on the big wall-screen, the closing numbers from Tokyo glow in the darkness. Endless lines of numbers go flickering across the Reuters screens, and the PCs hum quietly, unattended. The dragon sleeps.
‘Becky go?’
Becky, my secretary, falsely rumoured to be sleeping her way towards a trial as a trainee dealer.
‘Didn’t notice,’ I say, and Owen smiles while the two younger men avoid my eyes. I really don’t need this. They’ve been watching over the bank’s currency exposure, and now I ask how it went. Owen reaches across and gives me the deal-sheet. There’s one big number buried there, a Yen trade. I look up. ‘Who gave you the ton?’ One hundred million US.
‘Bunara,’ he says, and I wince. Bank Bunara, a heavyweight from the Far East, the rogue‘ elephant of the currency markets. ‘Dumped it quick as I could,’ he adds unhappily. ‘Bloody pricks.’
‘Expensive?’ When he shakes his head, I ask him what the Profit and Loss was for the night.
‘Even, pretty much. Ten grand up,’ he says.
But without the disastrous Yen deal they’d be up two hundred thousand. Expensive enough, and I’m surprised he’s been caught like this. I hand back the deal-sheet. Owen keeps his eyes lowered, telling me now about some revised growth figures due out later, and then he gives me a quick summary of some statement the German Chancellor made at a conference in Beijing. Owen’s second offsider plays with a Gameboy; watching him play, my mind drifts. I see moonlight on the Thames; hear laughter
and the clink of a glass.
‘Raef?’
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I ask if Bunara were trying to stuff us.
Owen turns to the other pair. ‘Sure they were trying to stuff us, right?’
The one with the Gameboy mutters, ‘Dollar—Yen just dived.’ Jamie continues ticking off deals, checking them against the slips in his hand.
I tell Owen to leave it with me, that I’ll have a word with Daniel. The big glass doors swing open, and the first few of the day-shift come in. Suddenly the electronic ping from the Gameboy turns musical. The lad whoops and pushes the toy up near Owen’s face. He calls Owen a loser.
Owen swears. He grabs the Gameboy and smashes it on the desk, the thing bursts into a shower of shattered plastic. Jamie keeps his head down, but the other lad stares at the mess in disbelief. ‘What the fuck?’ he murmurs.
A smile rises to Owen's lips. ‘Unlucky bounce,’ he says.
Now I push away from the desk and head for the door. Around the room the squawkboxes, the speakers that sit in rows on each desk, are coming to life. The brokers at the far end of the lines are putting together the first bids and offers of the day. The Dealing Room is two floors deep, and up on the next level, through the glass wall of the bank’s in-house restaurant, a cleaner waves down. I nod in return. When I hit the switches by the door, the whole Dealing Room is awash with light, and Owen cheers as more of the day shift arrives.
Back in my office I sip my coffee and glance at Vance’s memo again. I must get a grip. I tell myself this quite firmly. Pull yourself together; snap out of it . . . all the clichés. Zero hour is approaching for the bank, and I’m only half here. My ship is drifting towards the rocks, and I — the man with his hand on the tiller — I am still gazing astern, looking backwards, stricken by the sun. Get a grip. I sit down, take a breath, and gather myself. Then I draw a jotting pad near and pick up a pen. The desk calendar, six hours late, ticks over. Thursday morning, and for me, the Honourable Raef Carlton, Deputy Managing Director of Carlton Brothers, the phoney war is over. Alone at my desk it comes to me quite clearly: the real battle at the bank has now begun.
Due Diligence Page 34
