The Predator

by Michael Ridpath

  Khalid asked about the Central European high-yield bond market, and Chris answered him as best he could. The problem was that there weren't yet many issues to choose from, and only three that Chris could strongly recommend.

  The sole came, and it was prepared to Khalid's liking. 'But you don't just invest in high yield, do you?' he asked.

  Chris told him about his government bond trades: about the florints, zlotys, korunas, kroons and lats he dealt in every day. Khalid was intrigued, and asked intelligent questions. He, too, had been involved in trading the Continental European bond markets before the euro, and from the sound of it, he was probably quite good at it. As Chris talked, he realized that after a couple of years of thorough immersion, he really did know these markets well.

  They had finished the coffee, and Khalid insisted on paying the bill. 'That was fascinating,' he said. 'And thank you for steering me away from Eureka Telecom.'

  'No problem. I think that's wise, at the moment. I wouldn't trust Bloomfield Weiss an inch on that kind of stuff.'

  'I know what you mean,' said Khalid. 'Do you know Herbie Exler?'

  'I used to work for him.'

  'Ah,' said Khalid carefully.

  'Don't worry. He screwed me.'

  'He screwed me, too,' said Khalid. 'Several times. I think he thinks I'm just a dumb Arab who he can leg over whenever he feels like it. What did he do to you?'

  'Remember that big convergence trade Bloomfield Weiss were involved with a couple of years ago?'

  Khalid nodded. 'How could I forget it?'

  Well, that was me. But when I wanted to get out of it, Herbie wanted to double up. We did, we lost, I got the blame, I was on the street.'

  Khalid watched Chris carefully as he said this, as though trying to judge whether Chris was spinning a convenient cover story. He could probably tell he wasn't. There was no need: Chris had no reason to try to impress him.

  'He's an asshole,' Khalid said matter-of-factly.

  Chris smiled. 'I wouldn't argue with that.' It was late by the time Chris got back to his flat from the office that night. He checked his e-mail before he went to bed. There was one from Marcus.

  You say Alex's drowning was an accident, but I only have your word for that. If you won't trust me by telling me what happened on the boat, then I can't tell you what Lenka told me. I am still worried by her death. I don't think I can trust any of the people who were on the boat that night. So I won't give you my phone number or address.

  Marcus

  Damn! Chris quickly typed out a reply.

  Marcus

  I am flying to America on Sunday. I am going to New York, and Hartford, Connecticut. I would very much like to meet you. You name the time and the place, and I will be there.

  Chris

  He sent the e-mail, and went to bed.

  There was an answer waiting for him the next morning. One word.

  No.

  Chris sighed. Still, Eric was right. It couldn't be that hard to track down someone with a name like Marcus Lubron. He'd never heard the name Lubron before he'd met Alex. He'd allow himself some time while he was in New York to find him. Perhaps Eric could help.

  Chris leaned against the wall by the porter's lodge and watched the children go by. He remembered how infuriated he had been when he was at Oxford to read an article by a graduate about how young all the undergraduates looked to him. Well, twelve years on he knew it was true. Surely, Chris thought, he had never looked quite like these kids?

  Then he saw her, striding across the quad, or whatever they called it in Cambridge, in jeans, jersey and a denim jacket. He was relieved to see that she looked a couple of years older than most of the spotty inhabitants of the college. She brightened when she saw him. He kissed her cheek, already cold in the March air.

  'Hi, it's great to see you,' she said.

  'And you. Thanks for inviting me up here.'

  'It seemed the least I could do after your hospitality last week. Do you mind if we just walk? I'd like to explore the town a bit.'

  'That's fine with me,' said Chris.

  'Do you know Cambridge?' Megan asked. 'You didn't go here, did you?'

  'I went to the other place,' said Chris. 'I spent a couple of drunken evenings here ten years ago seeing friends from school. I'm afraid I don't remember it very clearly.'

  They walked. Chris hadn't been back to Oxford for years, and he was surprised by how different Cambridge felt from the way he remembered university. There were few tourists around at this time of year. People were walking to and fro with quiet purpose. Although he knew, because he could remember, that students had their own problems, their own worries, their own crises, the atmosphere seemed to be one of calm serenity. Traffic had been banished from the centre of Cambridge and at times the loudest noise he could hear was the sound of footsteps around him, or the rattle of an old bicycle. He felt like a grubby outsider from the materialistic bustle of another world, from the world of pay cheques, commuting on the underground, suits, mortgages.

  'What's the University of Chicago like?' he asked Megan.

  'Nothing like this,' she said. 'At least, not physically. The oldest buildings are only about a hundred years old. But it's a good school. There are some good historians there: people even these guys respect.'

  'I'm sure you're one of them,' Chris said.

  Megan smiled. 'We'll see. What I really like about Cambridge is that it seems like a place where history happens. My kind of history.'

  'You mean all the old buildings?'

  'Yes, but it's more than that. You can imagine people studying here for centuries, reading and writing Latin, arguing about theology. It somehow makes the study of, I don't know, manuscript illumination in the tenth century, more real. In Chicago, I felt as if I was on a different planet. In fact, Mars seemed to be closer and more real than St Dunstan and his friends.'

  'It seems an awfully long time ago to me.'

  'Not to me,' said Megan. 'I remember the first time I became interested in all this stuff. I was an exchange student at a high school in France, in Orléans. The girl I was staying with couldn't care about anything that happened before about nineteen seventy, but her father was fascinated by history. He took me to this tiny little church in a place called Germigny-des-Prés. There was a blind curate who showed us round. Most of it was standard grey gothic, but one part of it, the apse at one end, was decorated with the most gorgeous frescos. I can still remember the curate describing them from memory. I couldn't believe that something so beautiful could have been created a thousand years ago, in the so-called "dark ages". Ever since then, I've been trying to understand what it was like to live then, how mysterious and dangerous the world must have seemed, and how people tried to make sense of it.'

  'And I thought all they did in Chicago was trade pork-bellies.'

  Megan smiled. 'I know. I must sound pretty weird to you.'

  'No,' said Chris. 'Not at all. You must show me some of this stuff.'

  'I'll take you to see The Benedictional of St Aethelwold in the British Library. It's completely beautiful.'

  'Do that.'

  'All right,' Megan smiled. 'I will.' She pointed down a narrow alley. 'Shall we try this way?'

  They wandered down the small road. Along one side was a row of cottages washed in varying shades of pink and grey, along the other was the back of a college, Chris had no idea which one. He was lost.

  'The funeral was pretty grim, wasn't it?' he said.

  Megan shuddered. 'Yes. But I'm glad I went.'

  'I'm sorry we didn't talk much.'

  'It was difficult with Duncan there. Did you get a chance to speak to him?'

  'Yes, I did,' said Chris.

  'And?'

  'Although he wouldn't admit it at first, he did say Marcus had been to see him. Apparently, you were right: Lenka did tell Marcus what really happened on the boat. Marcus asked Duncan whether this was all true, and threatened him.'

  'Threatened him?' said Megan in alarm.


  'Yes. Nothing specific. But it seemed to rattle Duncan.'

  'So why didn't he mention this to you before?'

  'He said he didn't want to admit that he'd given away what really happened, after all we'd done to keep it quiet.'

  'Yeah, right,' said Megan.

  'I believe him,' said Chris.

  'Did you ask him where he was the day Lenka was killed?'

  'No, I didn't.'

  'Why not?'

  Chris took a deep breath. 'It was the day of her funeral. He was upset. I'm sure that was genuine. I think he would have been pretty angry if I'd suggested he was responsible.'

  Megan looked at Chris disapprovingly.

  'He's my friend. I know him,' said Chris. 'And I'm sure he didn't kill Lenka.'

  They had reached the river, swollen by the recent rain. Wisps of fog still hung eerily over the fields towards Grantchester. A solitary, cold-looking student was propelling a punt downstream.

  'What a stupid way to drive a boat,' said Megan. 'Can you do that?'

  'Not in March,' Chris said, shivering.

  They walked on. 'At least we now know what Lenka told Marcus,' Megan said.

  'Yes,' said Chris. Then he stopped in his tracks. Wait a moment!'

  'What is it?'

  'We don't know what Lenka was going to tell Marcus. We don't know at all.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Well, we know Marcus came to see Lenka on the Tuesday. We also know, because Duncan told us, that that is when Lenka told him that Duncan knocked Alex into the sea. Marcus went straight off to wait for Duncan coming out of work that afternoon.'

  'OK.'

  'But the e-mail Lenka sent to Marcus was written twenty-four hours later.'

  'Are you sure?'

  'Yes. Hang on, let me check.' Chris dug the e-mail out of the breast pocket of his leather jacket. 'Yes, here it is. It was sent on Wednesday the sixteenth of February.'

  'That doesn't make sense,' Megan said.

  'It does. It means that there was something else that Marcus had a right to know.'

  'Something else?'

  'Must be.'

  'But what?'

  'I've no idea.'

  They crossed the river and walked along towards the Backs.

  'There is one possibility,' Megan said. 'Did you hear Alex was in trouble over drugs?'

  'No,' said Chris. He furrowed his brow. 'I don't remember anything like that.'

  'Oh, yes. He was very worried about it. There had been some kind of sneaky random drug test and he'd been caught with traces of cocaine in his sample. It was a big deal. Bloomfield Weiss was threatening to make an example of him.'

  'A random drug test? I don't remember a random drug test.' Chris thought hard. 'Oh, yes. I think there was some kind of medical for the American trainees after the final examination. The rest of us were allowed to leave. That must have been it.' He shook his head. 'Wow. He kept that quiet.'

  'Yes. Eric knew, of course, and therefore so did I. But you can imagine it's not the sort of thing he wanted to broadcast.'

  'I didn't realize Alex did drugs.'

  'A lot of people did back then,' said Megan.

  Chris grunted. 'I'm a complete innocent when it comes to drugs. You read in the press that it's going on all round you, but I've hardly ever seen any. Although I did catch Ian once.' He remembered Tamara barging into Ian's bedroom, and the look of embarrassment on Ian's face as he looked up from the white line of coke. But then he remembered his own discomfort when Tamara had taken some. 'Ian was very lucky he wasn't tested.'

  'Perhaps Lenka knew about Alex getting caught,' Megan said. 'Perhaps that's what she wanted to tell Marcus.'

  'But why? I hardly think that it was something Marcus had a "right to know".'

  Megan shook her head. 'I suppose not. But it's another reason to look for him. Have you heard any more from him?'

  'He's scared,' said Chris. 'He won't give me his address. He doesn't want me to find him.'

  Megan looked at Chris. 'That's worrying.'

  For the first time, Chris wondered whether Marcus had reason to be scared. And if so, whether he should be scared also.

  They walked miles that afternoon, criss-crossing the town and its parks and meadows. They were dawdling by the river, surrounded by waterlogged stretches of grass, when darkness crept in around them. They made their way through the gloom to a pub, the Fort St George, standing alone by the bank of the river, and ate in front of a glowing fire.

  Later, they walked back to Megan's college. Chris had intended to drive back to London that evening, but she invited him back to her room for a cup of coffee. They cut through two courtyards, past an ancient tree, a tangle of bare branches looming out of the darkness, to her building. Her room was warm and cosy, and it was cold and damp outside. He and Megan talked late into the night, and Chris didn't want the evening to end. Neither did Megan.

  He stayed.

  9

  Chris tried to edge his left elbow on to the armrest beside him, but the large man reading a computer magazine wouldn't have any of it. On Chris's other side, a much smaller, skinny boy was playing a frantic game of cards with his brother. The research piece on macroeconomic adjustment in the Baltic States that lay on his lap was not making any sense. Chris cursed himself for travelling Economy. Lenka refused to do it, and became quite upset if Chris ever tried to travel that way. But with Carpathian in so much difficulty, Chris had felt guilty about shelling out the enormous fare for Business Class. Stupid. A thousand pounds here or there would make no difference to whether Carpathian survived. In any case, he had had to buy an expensive open ticket. The trip out to Hartford to see Rudy Moss should be straightforward. But he didn't know how long it would take him to find Marcus Lubron, or to discover more about Alex's drug problem.

  Chris gave up on the Baltic States, leaned back, closed his eyes, and thought of Megan. He had said goodbye to her in Cambridge before driving back to London to get his stuff ready for America. It had been a great day, a great night. He remembered her smell, the softness of her skin, her hair against his face. She had awakened something in him that he had not experienced for a long time. Since Tamara. No, it was different from the way he had felt with Tamara. It was something new, something much better. There was so much more he wanted to know about her, and yet he felt he knew her well already. Spending time with her seemed so natural. He hoped that he would see a lot more of her; he was determined that he would see a lot more of her.

  He thought about her and Eric, and wondered for a moment how he and Eric compared. But only for a moment. Rivalry with Eric was pointless: Eric was always a winner at everything, and it was best just to accept that as a fact of life. He winced at the only stupid remark he could remember making during the night. Sometime in the small hours, after they had made love for the second time, he had mentioned Eric. She had stiffened, and then asked him whether no one had ever told him not to discuss old lovers with new ones. He thought of Duncan and Pippa and felt like an idiot. His transgression had soon been forgotten, but it was clear that Eric was a taboo subject with Megan.

  He smiled as he thought about seeing her again. Then the kid on his right whacked him in the ribs with a sharp elbow.

  Rudy Moss's arrogance had matured. He used to be cocky or sycophantic, depending on whom he was with. Ten years had given him a certain authority. His pudginess had transformed into prematurely middle-aged flab. He used his long nose to great effect, holding his head at exactly the right angle to be able to look down it at whomever he was talking to. He was an expert too at the weighty silence, the pause that implied that he alone knew the right answer and was debating whether to divulge it. Chris couldn't stand him.

  But he had to sit there and beg, a process that he found very difficult, but that Rudy seemed to be enjoying greatly.

  The meeting started off promisingly.

  'I got a call from Eric Astle about you last week,' Rudy began. 'He was quite complimentary.'

  'G
ood,' said Chris.

  'Yeah. He's done well,' said Rudy. 'Did you see that piece in Business Week a couple of months back? "Dealmakers of the Twenty-first Century" it was called. Something like that.'

  'No, I didn't.'

  'It seems that Eric is quite the M&A star.'

  'It does.'

  'It's a shame he couldn't do quite as well as me on the programme,' Rudy said, with a smile.

  Chris's recollection was that Eric had just pipped Rudy for top place at the end, but he let it rest. Chris looked around Rudy's office. Small, but at least he had his own. He had a nice view of other tall buildings housing insurance companies. Amalgamated Veterans Life was a respected institution, and Rudy obviously had some responsibility. But he was hardly 'dealmaker of the twenty-first century'. Chris smiled to himself.

  Mistake. Rudy saw him and frowned. He was probably all too aware that he hadn't fulfilled the promise of the training programme.

  'I'm impressed by what Eric says, but I need to make up my own mind on this. I told you the reservations I have now you've lost Lenka. Why should I keep my funds with you?'

  Chris launched into an explanation of the opportunities for Central Europe, of the rapid integration of the countries there into the European economy, and of how the hiccups on the way provided opportunities for the fund to trade its way to a stronger return. He focused on how he proposed to recruit a high-yield bond expert to replace Lenka. Chris convinced himself. He didn't know about Rudy.

  'What do you think about Latvia?' Rudy asked. 'Do you think it will make the second wave of candidates for the European Union?'

  Typical of Rudy to ask a technical question out of the blue that he had probably mugged up beforehand. But Chris knew his stuff, and, aided by what he had read on the plane, gave a convincing answer.

  It seemed to satisfy Rudy. 'Do you have a current valuation for the fund?' he asked.

  This was it. The moment Chris had been dreading, but that he couldn't avoid. He handed Rudy the February revaluation. Rudy scanned it.