‘What happens then if I don’t pay you back?’
Harrison roared with laughter. ‘Simple. We sell your house. We get the ten thousand pounds back. We have had such interest as you may have paid, and the arrangement fee for giving you the
loan in the first place. You may lose, Lord Powerscourt. We cannot. It’s all so simple!’
The cormorant was back in the swell beyond the windows. It seemed to be choking on a fish that looked too big to swallow. The cormorant was doing its best.
‘Do you find it hard, selling off your customers’ assets?’ Powerscourt was sure he knew the answer.
‘No, I do not.’ Harrison laughed again. ‘It is your choice as the customer, not mine. You want the money, you pay the price. And most of our customers repay their loans in the
normal way, without anything having to be sold at all.’
Leopold Harrison sounded as though he preferred the less prudent ones.
Powerscourt thought he would try one last parting shot. He smiled happily at the little man.
‘Just one question about the woman in the feud. Is she still alive?’
The atmosphere changed very suddenly. Powerscourt felt cold even though the sun had come out and Cawsand Bay was bathed in sunlight.
‘She is alive,’ Harrison snarled. ‘I have had enough of your questions. Will you please leave now.’
Harrison rose to his feet and showed Powerscourt the door. As he walked through the narrow streets of the village he wished he had been able to ask one more question. Where was she, this cause
of the Harrison feud? Was she in Germany? Was she in England? Was she – he looked back incredulously at the house he had just left – was she in Cawsand, hiding on the upper floors?
William Burke sat alone at the head of the great table in the boardroom of his bank in Bishopsgate. Another decision had been taken. He and the four colleagues who had just
departed had decided to buy another small bank to increase the spread of their own branches. His bank, he sometimes thought, was like a spider or a squid, tentacles reaching out from the City of
London to wrap themselves over other enterprises right across London and the Home Counties.
William Burke often thanked his God that he belonged to a joint stock bank, owned and run on behalf of its shareholders. The beauty of the joint stock bank, in his view, was that it enjoyed
limited liability, unlike the private bankers where the partners were personally liable for any losses. The old names of the City, the Couttses, the Hoares, the Adams, might sneer at the joint
stock bankers for living on their deposits rather than on their wits. But if a private bank failed, the partners faced financial annihilation – houses, pictures, racehorses, land would all
have to be sold. Cautious, conservative, even boring his bank might be, but its owners could never meet such a fate.
And the joint stock banks had a further advantage in his view. All private banks were plagued by the problem of the succession. It was rather like the monarchy, he felt. A good and prudent heir
could ensure the stability of throne or bank. A bad one, a spendthrift or a fool could bring the whole institution to its knees.
As he waited for his next appointment, Burke glanced round the great boardroom. It was as familiar to him now as his own drawing room at home. The long mahogany table was polished daily till it
was almost a mirror in which he could observe the expressions of his colleagues. The walls were lined with pictures of banks and bankers, counting houses and the Bank of England. Lorenzo de Medici
stared down on his successors, sandwiched between a view of the opening of the Victoria Dock and a reproduction Canaletto of the Thames by Somerset House. Lorenzo had met the same fate in the end
as so many of his successors, imprudent lending with insufficient security, the crime of all crimes in Burke’s private register of banking sins.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Come in, come in,’ Burke called cheerfully.
‘Mr Clarke, Mr Burke.’
The head porter closed the doors carefully behind him. His footsteps faded away in the marble hall outside.
Burke had remembered Powerscourt suggesting the possibility of his infiltrating somebody into Harrison’s Bank. That he had refused to do in case his own position was compromised. Burke had
even considered buying Harrison’s Bank outright but he felt it might bring down his own. So he had asked the senior clerk to find him the brightest, most charming young man his bank employed
in the City. Advancing towards him with a nervous smile was one James Clarke, highly recommended by all who knew him.
‘Clarke,’ said Burke, rising to his feet, ‘come and sit down. You can be a director for fifteen minutes!’ He waved at the well-padded seat beside him. ‘Mr Bagshaw,
our senior clerk, tells me you have been with us for five years.’
‘That’s right, sir.’ James Clarke was a tall slim young man, clean shaven, with a mop of brown curly hair. He had no idea why he had been summoned to the presence, if not of
God, then at least one of his senior partners.
‘And how do you find us? Do you think you will enjoy the business of banking?’
Burke was resolved to take the mettle of the young man for himself rather than rely on the word of his subordinates, however reliable.
‘I do enjoy it, sir,’ James Clarke said, ‘I’ve always liked figures and arithmetic, ever since I was a little boy.’
Burke smiled at the young man with his best uncle’s smile, friendly but a little firm. ‘And what do you think the most important qualities are for a banker? Not necessarily in one of
your age, but a mature banker, a banker of consequence.’
The young man didn’t know it, but on this answer depended the fate of the interview. James Clarke thought of the books he had read, the sections on interest rates, on foreign lending, on
the theory and practice of bookkeeping. He didn’t think the answer lay in their lifeless prose.
‘Well, sir,’ he looked thoughtfully at his superior, ‘I don’t think it has to do with figures, the record keeping and all those things. I mean,’ he hurried forward,
aware that he might have been seen to deny much of his own work in the bank, ‘those things are important but I think it has more to do with judgement. Especially judgement about people so you
don’t put the bank’s money in the wrong place. And discretion, so that people will trust you. And remembering that the money you deal with is not your own.’
Burke clapped him hard on the shoulder. ‘Capital, Clarke, capital! I couldn’t have put it better myself! Now then, I want to ask you to do something for me. I have to tell you that
it does not have directly to do with our bank. It is more of a private matter, but it is of the greatest importance. Before I tell you what it is, I must ask you to promise not to tell a single
soul, not even your own family, about it.’
James Clarke wondered what on earth was going on. Had the old man been losing money on the side? Had he lost his fortune on the Exchange?
Burke sensed the unease coming from the young man. ‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘it is nothing illegal I would have you do. It may seem perfectly innocent at this stage. Nothing may
ever come of it. But I regard it as very important.’
The young man smiled. This could be rather a lark, a private adventure all of his own.
‘Of course I will help, sir. And I promise I won’t tell a single soul. What would you like me to do?’
William Burke rose from his chair and walked quickly to the great window above the street. Below him the hawkers and the telegraph boys, the messengers and the carriages continued the daily
dance of the toiling City.
‘I want you to make friends with somebody of your own age in Harrison’s Bank. Somebody in the same position. You know Harrison’s Bank, of course?’
The young man nodded. Old Mr Harrison’s death, the cynics said, had done what no advertising campaign or publicity spree in the newspapers could have ever achieved. It had made
Harrison’s Bank universally known down to the last costermonger in the City of London.
‘Yes, I know the bank, sir. I don’t know anybody who works there. But I am sure I could manage it. Is that all you want me to do? Just to make a friend of someone who works
there?’
‘It is for the present,’ Burke was going to take things step by step, ‘but when you have got to know this young man, could you let me know at once? At once, I say. It is a
matter of great importance.’
On his journey back to London Powerscourt was wondering about the Harrison feud. Did that hold the key to the mystery?
As his train drew out of Exeter St David’s station, he thought about going away with Lucy when this case was finished. Two or three times a year he took Lucy on a Journey into the Unknown,
as he called them. He would tell her six weeks or more in advance so she could make her plans. But he never told her where they were going. Lady Lucy would use a whole variety of ruses to discover
their destination before they departed. ‘Hot or cold, Francis?’ was the most obvious one to which he always gave some sort of an answer in case their holiday was ruined by Lucy having
the wrong clothes. ‘Should I be reading Balzac or Dante, do you think, Francis?’ ‘Will we be needing any art history books for the journey?’ ‘I just happen to be going
to the milliner’s today, Francis. What sort of hat would be appropriate for the trip?’ And Powerscourt would smile his most enigmatic smile and leave the room.
Eighteen months before, they had gone to Florence. Powerscourt had threatened to blindfold her at the railway stations on the way so she could not read what might be their final destination. He remembered taking her to the cathedral and telling
her about the murder.
‘Honestly, Francis,’ she had laughed at him, ‘do you have to bring your occupation away with you on holiday? Could you have solved the murder easily?’
He had led her up to the front of Florence’s cathedral, the inside bigger than a football pitch. ‘Imagine it, Lucy,’ he whispered, taking her arm and holding her tight.
‘It is Sunday, 26th April 1478. It is High Mass, the most sacred point of the week. Up there near the altar are the Archbishop and the priests. The smell of the incense is very thick. The
candles are gleaming on the altar. All around us are the Florentines. Imagine they have walked out of the frescoes in the churches of the city and make up the worshippers today, the bent old men,
the sober bankers, the dashing young blades, the pious wives. There was trouble brewing in the city, Lucy.’
Bankers, money and murder, he said to himself, the same lethal cocktail that I am investigating today. He told her how the Medici had done something almost unheard of; they had refused the Pope
a loan, perhaps because he owed them so much already. A rival Florentine family, the Pazzi, had lent the Pontiff what he wanted. The Pazzi were trying to replace the Medici as the most powerful
family in Florence.
‘Nobody knows exactly when the murderers struck. Sometimes they killed people in churches when they bent their heads in prayer, giving a better target for the sword or the knife. On this
Sunday some say the attack was triggered by the ringing of the Sanctus bell, others that it was during the Agnus Dei, others again that it was the words
Ite missa est
. The conspirators
stabbed Lorenzo de Medici’s brother Giuliano to death. They tried to make a start on Lorenzo but he jumped over the wooden rail into the choir and made his escape.’
‘How long did it take Francesco di Powerscorto to find the assassins?’ said Lady Lucy, gazing up at her husband.
‘I don’t think Francesco was ever summoned to investigate.’ Powerscourt smiled. ‘By the next day the Pazzi conspirators were hanging from the windows of the Palazzo
Vecchio in the main square down the street. They say the crowds were very taken by the red stockings of Archbishop Salviati kicking in the air before he passed on.’
Lady Lucy shuddered. He remembered the two of them drinking coffee on the terrace of their hotel as evening turned into night over Florence. In front of them the muddy waters of the Arno gurgled
noisily on their tortuous route to the sea. On the far side the Palazzo Pitti loomed large against the dark sky and San Miniato del Monte sat perfectly still, white and green and ghostly, on its
hilltop above the city. Behind, not immediately visible from where they sat, the domes of San Lorenzo and the cathedral kept guard over the treasures beneath them.
Lady Lucy was talking about the two Davids they had seen on their visit.
‘I don’t think there is any comparison, Francis, I really don’t. One is black and one is white – well, it was white when it was created. Donatello’s is life-size in
its black marble, Michelangelo’s is huge, a Colossus in marble.
‘Did you look closely at the Donatello, Francis, or were you still thinking about assassins? It was so beautiful, so graceful, so much a tribute to the glory of the male form. If you had
leant forward to touch the skin – I almost wanted to stroke it – I’m sure it would have felt warm. Maybe the boy David would have smiled. I’m sure he would have liked people
stroking him. And the face, it’s almost the face of a girl, it’s so beautiful.’
‘Do I take it, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt, looking solemnly into those blue eyes, ‘that you prefer it to the Michelangelo?’
‘I do, I do.’ Lady Lucy was passionate. ‘Of course the Michelangelo is impressive, it’s so big. But it’s much more about politics than about male beauty, I’m
sure. It was commissioned by the city fathers to give glory to their little state. So Michelangelo made them this enormous thing, symbolizing the victory of Republican Florence over her latest
batch of enemies, whoever they were at the time. Michelangelo’s David is about the victory of Republican virtue over tyranny. Donatello’s is about the victory of beauty over ugliness,
youth over age – that slain Goliath looks about twenty years older, down at the bottom of the statue – maybe even of art over time. Did Donatello think that people would come to look at
what he had done four hundred and fifty years later? I don’t know, I just think he wanted to create the most exquisite young man in the world. Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty, four centuries
before Keats.’
She stopped. A wandering owl hooted over the rooftops of Florence. The bridges over the river looked mysterious in the dark.