The Marketmaker

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘Actually, I knew nothing about it.’

  ‘Oh. I rather assumed you were responsible. You must have made a good impression at any rate. So, how are things going there?’

  ‘Well, they’re not.’ I tried not to let my voice sound sulky, but I couldn’t help it. ‘I’ve left. You said I should give you a call if I decided the City wasn’t for me.’

  Russell was full of enthusiasm. ‘Well, now we might be able to find something for you here. We haven’t thrashed out the details of the sponsorship deal yet but perhaps you could take up some sort of liaison role.’

  I stopped him. ‘Wait a second, Russell. I’m not sure that would work. Dekker and I didn’t see eye to eye when I left.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What would be useful for me is if we could carry on our conversation about openings at other universities. And I’d like to use you as a referee, if I may.’

  It clicked. Russell’s voice became more cautious. ‘OK. Let’s have a chat.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘All right. Say eleven? See you then.’

  I was nervous as I knocked on Russell’s half-opened door; as nervous as I had been the first time I met him for that interview five years before.

  ‘Come in.’

  I could see that Russell had spoken to Dekker as soon as I entered. Neat, with thinning grey hair, he usually greeted me with a beam. This time he rose awkwardly from his desk and shook my hand, not meeting my eyes.

  ‘Oh, hallo, Nick. Have a seat.’

  It was almost as though he wasn’t expecting me. I perched on the small chair crammed against his desk. I recognized much of the debris that cluttered it. Most of it was under the School of Russian Studies headed memo paper. Admin. Piles of it. There was not a single page of Cyrillic script to be seen.

  He removed his glasses, and wiped them, frowning. ‘Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?’

  ‘I need a job. I wondered if you knew of anything?’

  ‘I haven’t heard of much since you left here. I think the post at Sheffield might still be open. There’s a chance something might come up soon at the University of Surrey. Apart from that, not much.’

  This was my mentor, almost my friend over the last five years. The man who had gone out on a limb for me, despite my lack of formal qualifications in Russian. He could do better than that.

  I had to know. ‘You will be able to provide me with a reference, won’t you?’

  A reference from Russell was crucial. He was well respected in the academic community in the UK. Worldwide, for that matter. Without a good one, I had no chance of getting a job.

  The glasses came off again for another polish.

  ‘That might be difficult,’ said Russell. ‘I can provide you with something, of course. But it will be difficult for me to make it enthusiastic.’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong? What have they said to you?’

  ‘Mr Ross at Dekker Ward explained to me the circumstances under which you left their firm.’

  ‘Which Mr Ross?’

  Russell hesitated. ‘I think he said it was Eduardo Ross. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Oh, yes. And what did he say?’

  Russell shifted in his chair. ‘He told me that you had been caught bribing the authorities in Brazil over a transaction there, that this had become public knowledge, and that they’d had to let you go.’

  ‘That’s bullshit!’

  ‘I’ve seen the newspaper article, Nick.’ He pulled out a photocopy of the article from Bocci’s newspaper.

  ‘But Dekker Ward planted that. I can show you another article that says the opposite!’

  ‘Ross told me you had gone to the press behind their backs as well.’ Russell’s demeanour had changed. He was leaning forward, his jaw jutting out, ready for confrontation.

  ‘But don’t you want to hear my side of the story?’

  ‘OK. Fire away.’

  So I tried to explain. It was difficult without going into too much detail, but I thought I did a pretty good job of it. But Russell wasn’t listening. He didn’t hear; he didn’t want to hear.

  When I had finished, he tapped his pencil on his desk. ‘Basically, Nick, it’s your word against Dekker’s, and the Rio press.’ He tapped the Bocci article in front of him. ‘And at this moment Dekker Ward are crucial to this institution’s future. I can’t afford to doubt them.’

  I’d had enough. ‘Russell! You’re being bought!’

  ‘That’s an absurd accusation!’

  ‘No, it’s not. If I had come to you from a faceless City institution and said I wanted to go back into academia you wouldn’t have asked any questions. It’s only because these people are promising to pay you money that you’re listening.’

  ‘I can’t give you a reference in good faith when I know you’ve been involved in bribing government officials.’

  ‘You know no such thing. All you have is Eduardo Ross’s word, that’s all. This sponsorship comes with strings, and the first string is to ditch me. Your first commercial sponsorship deal, and within a day you’re letting it compromise your independence!’

  Russell held up his hands. ‘Now, calm down, Nick. Let’s talk about this Surrey post, shall we?’

  ‘Forget it!’ I said, and stormed out.

  I pedalled back to Primrose Hill in record time, ignoring the pain in my aching back and leg. Russell’s reaction was all too predictable but nonetheless severely disappointing. Since he had become head of the department three years ago, he had made commercial sponsorship the central plank of his strategy for preserving the funding base of the department. Until now, he’d had little concrete success. His position internally within the School was not yet secure. And he was ambitious. So why give it all up for some promising Russian lecturer who still hadn’t got his Ph.D. under his belt?

  Because that would have been the right thing to do. Because he was my friend and supporter. Because the School of Russian Studies wasn’t Dekker Ward.

  Bastard!

  So why had Dekker done it? Was I really that important to them that they wanted to shell out a million or two to keep me out of work? I supposed it was an intelligent move on some level. The School of Russian Studies did have good contacts and knowledge of Russia that Ricardo could tap. And, of course, all Russell had at the moment was promises. Dekker would have plenty of opportunity to back out before they actually put up hard cash.

  I stopped at the pub just round the corner from my flat, and bought a pint and a ham sandwich. I thought practicalities. It would be very hard to get a job teaching Russian in a university now. And I probably couldn’t get another job in the City even if I wanted it. I still had six months or so to go on my Ph.D., not including the three or four months it would take just to get me back to where I’d left it. I should probably get my head down and finish that. I had three thousand pounds in my bank account, mostly the residue from the money Ricardo had lent me for clothes. I would try to live on that.

  The mortgage payments on my flat were once again going to be impossible to meet. There was still no chance of selling it for more than the amount of the loan. I would have to let it and try to find somewhere cheap to live. Very cheap. Like a squat or something. I looked at the ham sandwich in front of me. I wouldn’t be able to eat out like this in future.

  And what future? I looked towards it with an almost total lack of interest. If Isabel were around, or even if I knew she were alive, things would be different. But the uncertainty surrounding her disappearance weighed on me, dragging me down into a sort of pessimistic apathy. I was losing the ability to believe in her survival and, without that, the future looked unbearably grey.

  I went back to the flat. It was almost tidy now. Workmen had put up a temporary door where the french windows had been. They would install something more permanent in the afternoon. Luckily the insurance covered that.

  I paced through the four small rooms: kitchen, sitting room, bathroom and bedroom. It would be a shame to leave. When Joanna had fir
st bought it, the flat had seemed extravagant, and then it had become a millstone. But there were all those bookshelves that I had spent hours, no, days putting up, shelves that ingeniously held two thousand books. There was the tiny garden: I knew every plant, every weed.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, a rush of anger swept through me. I was losing my flat because of Dekker. I had screwed up my career because of them. They had arranged to have me beaten up. Who the hell did these people think they were? Couldn’t I do something to stop them? Or at least something to hurt them? I wanted revenge, and I wanted it right then.

  But what? Exposing Ricardo’s manipulation of Bocci had hurt them, but not enough. They would recover soon. I wanted to do something that would cause them permanent harm.

  But what could I do? One unemployed investment banker with two months’ experience. I’d have loved to have been able to blow this money-laundering thing up in their faces. But it would require an extensive international investigation to uncover more, and it didn’t look like the DEA were about to start one, at least not into Dekker itself. I believed Dave when he talked about the indifference of the authorities.

  I hated the feeling of powerlessness. There had to be something I could do.

  My brooding was interrupted by the phone.

  ‘Nick? It’s Kate. I heard the terrible news. I was just phoning to see how you were.’

  ‘Which terrible news?’

  I caught the hesitation on the other end of the phone. ‘Well, both things, I suppose. Isabel. And then you losing your job. It must be awful.’

  ‘It is. And I’ve been broken into and beaten up.’

  ‘Oh, God! When?’

  ‘The night before last.’

  ‘Were you badly hurt?’

  ‘I was knocked out. My head still hurts. And my back. And leg,’ I said, moving my stiff leg into a more comfortable position.

  ‘What are you doing now?’

  ‘Thinking about renting out the flat.’

  ‘Can’t you get another job?’

  ‘No. Dekker Ward have suddenly decided to sponsor the School of Russian Studies. My continued unemployment is the condition.’

  ‘Oh, no! Where are you going to live?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll find a squat somewhere. Camden’s a good area for that sort of thing, I believe.’ I could tell my voice must sound weary, low.

  Kate was silent for a moment. Then she said, ‘Well, stop moping. Pack a suitcase and come round here now. You can stay with us until you find the squat of your dreams. You need people around, even if it is only me and Oliver.’

  Suddenly there was nothing I wanted more than to do what Kate suggested.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you this evening.’

  I took my bike, weighed down with saddlebags, on to the train, and arrived at the station at eight o’clock. It was on the edge of an old market town thirty miles from London, which had lost the battle to avoid becoming a dormitory community. Jamie and Kate’s house was three miles from the station, on the outskirts of the village of Bodenham.

  It was still light as I rode along the narrow lanes. Chestnut trees were everywhere, bedecked with white candles. It wasn’t quiet, the birds were making a racket, and farm machinery was returning to base for the evening. I plunged down a steep hill into Bodenham and swerved left at the bottom by the duck pond, narrowly avoiding a mallard strutting importantly across the road. Even here cyclists didn’t get proper respect.

  Their house was at the end of a straight half-mile stretch of lane. I didn’t hear the car until a loud horn sounded a couple of feet behind me and almost sent me out of my seat. I turned to see Jamie’s Jaguar XJS whispering along in my slipstream. He tried to overtake, but I slowed to walking pace and weaved across the road in front of him. Some people just don’t grow up.

  They lived in Dockenbush Farm, an old farmhouse that was still surrounded by working buildings used by a neighbouring farmer. It had half an acre of garden, an appealing mess of unkempt roses and shrubs. On one side was a small orchard with a purple and green carpet of uncut grass and bluebells. A confused yellow rose scrambled across the front of the house, and I had to duck as I walked in at the front door to avoid a heavy branch of thorns and flowers.

  ‘I must tie that back,’ said Jamie. ‘Although at least it keeps out lanky gits like you.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘In fact, I might give the whole place a good haircut.’

  They had moved in two years before, just after Jamie had joined Dekker. The house had seemed to me absurdly large for the two of them plus small child, especially since I was used to seeing them in a cramped one-bedroomed flat in Chiswick. It reminded me a little of the house Jamie had grown up in, which I had seen on my first couple of visits to his family before his father had been forced to sell it. That was no coincidence, of course. I also suspected that it was no coincidence that Ricardo, too, had a nice house in the country.

  Kate came through and stepped up on her bare toes to give me a kiss. ‘Hallo. Supper’s almost ready. It’s only stew, I’m afraid.’

  The large old kitchen was warmed by an Aga, and pleasingly cluttered with toys and iron pots and pans. The stew was delicious. We downed a bottle of Chilean red between the three of us and talked and laughed. Then, over a spread of French cheeses, Jamie touched on the subject we had all been avoiding. ‘Ricardo talked about you this morning.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Yes. He gave us a little speech. He told us why you’d left. He said that he didn’t mind people disagreeing with the Dekker ethos, and that he had given you a chance to resign, which you hadn’t taken. He wouldn’t tolerate any member of the team betraying the rest of us. He said you’d never work again, not in the City, nor in a university.’

  ‘Jamie! Didn’t you say anything?’ Kate protested.

  Jamie shrugged.

  ‘He couldn’t,’ I said. ‘Ricardo isn’t that sort of person.’ Then I asked Jamie, ‘What do the others think?’

  Jamie sighed. ‘It’s impossible to tell. Everyone’s a bit down after Isabel. And this Mexican deal is becoming a real problem. They know I’m a good friend of yours, so they wouldn’t talk to me about it anyway. But I suspect they’ll keep quiet. The message from Ricardo is clear. Stick with me and I’ll look after you. Leave and you’re in trouble.’

  Kate looked at Jamie with concern. Jamie avoided her glance, and studied the debris of cheese and crumbs on his plate.

  ‘I thought it was a bit extreme sponsoring the School of Russian Studies just to keep me out of a job,’ I said.

  ‘It was. And that’s why it was effective. It’s a warning to the rest of us of how far Ricardo will go to punish people whom he thinks have betrayed him. But also it’s a good idea. We’ll need information and contacts to get into Russia. Your old place can provide us with useful introductions.’

  ‘And beating me up? Wrecking my flat? Did Ricardo tell everyone about that too?’

  ‘I doubt he even knows. That has all the marks of Eduardo.’

  ‘Jamie, you’ve got to get out of there!’ said Kate. ‘Especially after what they did to Nick. You should leave before it’s too late.’

  Jamie sighed. ‘It is too late. Especially now. Ricardo will be watching me for signs of disloyalty.’

  ‘Screw him!’ said Kate. ‘Just leave.’

  ‘It’s not that easy,’ said Jamie. ‘This house needs to be paid for. I’ll need two years’ good bonuses to make a dent in the mortgage. And if I leave, what will I do then? Ricardo isn’t a good man to have as an enemy. The Latin American market is small: everyone knows everyone else.’

  ‘You could work for Bloomfield Weiss,’ said Kate. ‘They’d have you like a shot.’

  ‘Yeah, and if they lose their war with Dekker, which it looks like they will, they won’t need me any more and I’ll be out on the street.’

  ‘Oh, Jamie!’ growled Kate in frustration. She threw down her napkin and left the table.

  The two of us sat
in awkward silence. Finally Jamie broke it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m free to screw up my own career. There’s no need for you to screw yours up in solidarity. You’ve got Kate to look after, and Oliver.’ And your ambition, I thought. That was the real problem, and both Jamie and I knew it. He was doing well at Dekker, and if he kept his head down he could be making millions in a few years’ time. That was something he desperately wanted to do.

  But he was an old friend of mine. I didn’t want him to give up his ambitions on my account.

  I helped Jamie wash up, and went to bed. I didn’t see any more of Kate that evening.

  I spoke to her the next day. Jamie had gone to work, and she had taken Oliver to school. The weather was glorious, sunny with a gentle breeze. We sat in the back garden drinking mugs of coffee.

  ‘Did you know your godson has a girlfriend?’ Kate said.

  ‘Really? He’s a bit young, isn’t he?’

  ‘I think they’re quite keen on the opposite sex at this age, and then they go off them when they get older.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Jessica.’

  ‘Is she pretty?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Oliver. She looks a bit dumpy to me. But she plays rockets with him, so I don’t think he minds. He asked me if she could come round to play. He was terribly shy about it. It was quite sweet.’

  ‘Well, I look forward to a formal introduction.’

  We lapsed into silence, sipping our coffee. Something disturbed the rooks in a nearby copse, and they rose in a complaining black swirl, before eventually settling down again.

  ‘Do you think they’ll find her?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Isabel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I do. I have to believe that they will.’

  ‘She seemed very nice.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘But I hate women with figures like that. They look good in anything.’

  I smiled. I remembered how she looked, how she felt, her scent, her voice. She had to be alive. She just had to be.