‘They’re doing every Parnell shareholder a favour.’
‘Look, if I bale out of Parnells I'll be underweight in industrials. And what's to buy out there in UK industrials?’
'Come around to the office. Our analysts will be happy to help.’
‘Your bloody analysts wouldn’t know their arse from their elbow,’ he remarks cheerfully.
‘Brian, without the Meyer bid, Parnells is a dog.’
‘Stephen gave me the flim-flam last night, Raef. Save your breath.’ We stare at each other. Carltons wants something, he has it; I can’t walk away. ‘So tell me about precious metals,’ he says. ‘You’ve heard the Central-Banks-building-gold-reserves story?’ I have. We all have. This old chestnut comes by as regularly as Christmas. A story like that doesn’t normally register with a man like McKinnon: he’s trying to tell me something else. So I ask what’s the McKinnon yearly special on gold. He taps the side of his nose significantly and gives me a look. Now I know what he’s after.
‘Remind me, Brian. Did you come to the Crest presentation?’ His eyes open a little. Crest? Had he mentioned Crest? But as I have...
'The African crowd?' he says. 'I dropped in for a wee look. Weren’t too bad.’
‘They were better than that.’
He laughs. ‘You’ve been reading your own PR bullshit.’
‘No, I’ve been reading the subscriptions‘ list. How much are you down for?’
‘None,’ he says.
'None?'
A look of belligerence comes over him. His voice rises. ‘None. Zero. Half of fuck-all.’
I glance across to the other tables, mainly men in suits, talking quietly. In one corner an old woman dressed as a young woman shakes her gold bangles and throws back her head. No one is looking our way.
‘Half of fuck-all,’ I say turning back. ‘That’s not much.’
He smiles now. He tells me good-naturedly that I’m a cunt. We’re on familiar territory here. When a company brings its shares to market the shares are underwritten, pre-float, by a bank or a broker which then places the stock with investors: usually institutional funds managed by the likes of Brian McKinnon. Crest has been an easy sell for Carltons, money for jam, the institutions have been clamouring for the stock. But somehow Brian’s fund has failed to apply for an allocation: it seems we have something he needs.
‘Say someone was interested in a decent-sized parcel,’ he says. 'That’d be useful to you.’
‘We’re oversubscribed.’
‘Say a ten per cent parcel?’
‘Not a hope in hell.’ I remind him of the five per cent limit the Crest vendors have placed on individual subscriptions, they don’t want the shares manipulated post-float. ‘Why the late rush anyway?’
He takes up his glass. He tells me we’ve all got our problems.
If only he knew.
‘We can look at numbers up to five per cent,’ I offer. ‘But that's it.’
He looks over the grey river to the City. ‘Someone might trump the Meyers’ bid.’
‘I don't think so.’ The choice is clear. He either accepts the Meyers’ offer for his parcel of Parnells, and gets an allocation of Crest from us; or he doesn’t accept their offer, in which case he has to buy his Crest shares after flotation, an expensive proposition. ‘Five per cent of Crest’s available today, but don’t expect the full amount tomorrow. By then it’ll be down to four per cent.’ I say. Brian takes this calmly enough, so I add, ‘Three per cent by Thursday.’
He nods, businesslike. We understand one another.
How many hours of my adult life have been spent like this? Sometimes the dance can go on for days and reach no definite conclusion. Days? Sometimes months. I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours. And endless meetings later you discover that you don’t want what the other party has, that the childish scheming has been absolutely futile. At least with Brian McKinnon the whole ritual can be concluded over lunch. Small mercies.
I signal for the bill now, ignoring Brian’s offer to pay.
While we’re waiting, he toys with the cheese-knife. ‘Any idea why your Treasurer was shot?’ he asks me. The question hits me like icy cold water. I make a sound. ‘You looked at your own share price lately?’ he adds, pointing to the floor. ‘Going down. I’ve got seven per cent of Carltons at the moment. I’m starting to wonder why.’
Carltons’ share price has been slipping since last Thursday. I’d thought nothing of it, but McKinnon seems concerned. I ask what he’s heard.
‘I’ve heard all’s not well in the House of Carlton. I’ve heard the murder investigation’s centred on the bank.’ He studies me. ‘True or false?’
‘The Inspector’s been in a few times.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing. He’s been in a few times. What do you expect?’
‘When I hold seven per cent of your company,’ he says, ‘I expect to know what’s happening.’
A nasty thought occurs to me. ‘Lyle hasn’t been in touch has he?’
Brian’s eyes stay fixed on mine, unsmiling. Not yet, he tells me.
A cold hand seems to close over my heart. A hard knot forms in the muscles of my stomach. If Lyle were to get hold of McKinnon’s stake in Carltons we could be in very serious trouble.
When the bill arrives, I pay cash.
11
B
ack at the bank, our Finance Director, Gordon Shields, corners me in my office. An accountant by both trade and nature — married, two children and one grandchild, a house in leafy Surrey and golf on the weekend — he’s the butt of every boring-accountant joke they dream up in the Dealing Room. He takes it all with good humour. He knows as well as I do that without his ant-like attention to detail, and his careful diligence, Carlton Brothers would grind to a halt within days. Now he gives me a fifteen-minute lecture on the latest recommendations from the Accountancy Standards Board; he says I should know about this before our audit committee meets next month.
I find my eyes wandering to the phone. Should I call Hugh Morgan now, or wait?
‘Raef?’ Gordon offers to go through it again, but this just isn’t a priority.
I tell him to leave the notes, that I'll have a look at them later. He drops the folder on my desk, asking me who will replace Daniel on the audit committee.
Daniel again. No escape. I mumble something about decisions-pending. Unsatisfied, Gordon leaves, and then as I reach for the phone Becky comes over the intercom: Ryan is here. My hand hovers then hits the button.
‘Send him in.’
He has on the same heavy grey coat he wore earlier, he doesn’t bother now to take it off. Raindrops shine on his shoulders.
‘If you want to see Vance, I think he’s out.’
‘I came to see you.’ Unlike McKinnon, Ryan has no need to follow any long and circuitous rituals: immediately we’re just where he wants us to be. ‘I’ve been to St Bartholomew’s,’ he says.
Bart’s. With every ounce of will I possess, I hold myself steady. The shock leaves me dumb for a moment. He has been to Bart’s. When I recover, all I can manage to say is, ‘Why?’
He waves this aside. ‘You told me you didn’t know of any private problems Stewart had.’
Get up, I think. Get up now, walk out. Contact a lawyer, maybe Aldridge.
But all I do is sit here. I can smell the wards of the hospital.
‘Mr Carlton, how long have you known Stewart was the father of your child?’
12
‘M
r Carlton?’
‘Three months.’
‘Only after she went into hospital?’
I nod, still stunned. I ask him how he found out.
‘My sergeant was checking Stewart’s holiday records,’ he explains. ‘He noticed an overlap with yours.’
‘Who told you Annie was at Bart’s?’
‘No secret was it? What exactly happened at the hospital?’
‘They ran some tests.’
‘That wouldn’t have told you who the father was.’
‘It told me who he wasn't.’ The words escape me with a real bitterness, but the Inspector stays pointedly silent. I rise and go to the window. On the street below, people are going purposefully about their business. That forgotten feeling hovers over me again now. Fear; that was the first thing, fear for Annie. Then the tests and the waiting. At last, knowledge. ‘Do you want me to say I didn’t kill him?’
No answer. When I turn I catch a fleeting glimpse of sympathy in his eyes, but the shutters go up immediately.
‘How did you find out it was Stewart?’
‘My wife. She wasn’t a compatible donor either.’
‘So she told you Stewart was the father?’
I nod.
‘Who told Stewart?’
‘She did.’
‘Was he reluctant to go in for the tests?’
‘No idea.’
There’s a pause. Looking at Ryan I have a sense of deep disconnection. Where am I? Four months ago Daniel was my friend, I loved my wife, and Annie was my daughter. Now a police Inspector sits in my office and wants to know if I have killed Daniel. How did I get to this place?
‘Who else knows about this?’
‘Theresa. The doctors.’
‘What about Stewart’s wife?’
I shake my head. There has never been the slightest hint from Celia that she suspected anything between Daniel and Theresa.
‘Did Stewart actually say he hadn’t told her?’
‘He didn’t actually say much of anything the past three months. Not to me anyway.’
‘You had to work together.’
‘We sat in the same meetings. He got memos from me, I got memos from him.’ Retaking my seat, I tell Ryan, ‘We didn’t seek out each other’s company.’
‘Not an ideal situation.’
‘No,’ I agree. ‘It couldn't have gone on much longer.’ I am very far from comfortable, but the initial shock at Ryan’s discovery seems to be wearing off. I smile crookedly. ‘So much for doctor-patient confidentiality.’
Ryan doesn’t bother to apologize. ‘That scuffle by the boat. Stewart didn’t accuse you of an affair with his wife, did he. What was it about? Your wife?’
‘I don’t know. I said something. He said something.’ I truly don’t remember how it started. I look over Ryan’s shoulder now at the books I seem to accumulate but never have time to read. ‘I didn’t kill him.’
Ryan makes no comment on my unsolicited plea. ‘How’s the girl?’ he asks. ‘Annie.’ And right then I feel an almost ungovernable urge to strike him. What right has this stranger to go stumbling through the most private places of my life? But as the angry words rise to my lips I notice Ryan’s eyes: they have changed.
‘You have children?’
‘A daughter,’ he says.
A daughter. Momentarily we aren't adversaries, we are just two fathers, equally hostage to the fate of our children. ‘She’s in remission,’ I say, returning to my desk. ‘The doctors seem hopeful.’
He studies me a moment longer, then rises from his chair. ‘I’ll be speaking with your wife, later.’ At the door he looks back. ‘And in the meantime you might like to consider if there’s any way of verifying that you went straight home from the boat last Wednesday night. It could be helpful.’
Before parting, he nods to me in a very Inspector-like way.
13
W
hen the pressures of work became too much, I would go and talk with Daniel. After my first few years at Carltons I realized the City was changing fast, and that we weren’t keeping up. After my grandfather died it got worse, I had to fight tooth and nail to get even the most necessary changes past the watchful eye of Sir John. Daniel, early on, became my ally in Treasury. Nothing was off-limits between us, a fact that Darren Lyle guessed, then used, when he tried to bring me down. Immediately after Lyle’s resignation, Daniel and I became more circumspect, but we soon drifted back into the old routine: Daniel in my office or - after he became Treasurer - me in his, relaxed and giving voice to frustrations and ambitions we both kept well-buttoned outside. Even with Vance I have never had that kind of freedom.
Now I step out past Becky and glance up and down the corridor undecided. Sir John will be in his office but it’s past three o’clock: his drinks cabinet, I am sure, is already open. Anecdotes about the Old Days do not appeal right now, so I turn and head the other way.
Trust, that’s what I had with Daniel. A trust deep and familiar, its roots in our childhood, a thing unquestioned. At nine years old we cut our thumbs with my pocket knife and pressed the bleeding cuts together. Walking the corridor at Carlton Brothers thirty years later, I nod calmly to the young corporate bankers, while that boyhood memory pierces.
Vance steps from his office in front of me, looking harassed. Immediately he pivots on his heel. ‘I need a word,’ he says, going back in.
Curious, I follow him. Tony Mannetti, the head of Funds Management, stands by Vance’s desk; he looks grim. It seems I have walked into something.
‘There’s been a cock-up,’ Vance says.
‘There was no TV,’ Mannetti tells Vance, apparently restarting the conversation Vance walked out on. ‘No papers. Nothing.’
‘Must have been very pleasant for you.’
Mannetti stabs a finger at Vance. ‘Get a fucking life.’
Now I intervene. ‘Okay. What’s up?’
There’s a knock at the door, Karen Haldane comes in.
‘Just in time for the good news,’ Vance says, turning to Mannetti again. ‘That parcel of Parnells that went through before the bid. Guess who bought them?’
We all look at Mannetti now. He looks at the floor.
‘No,’ Karen says, appalled. ‘You fucking didn’t?’
Mannetti’s head jerks up, he rounds on Vance. ‘This is bullshit.’
Karen speaks over him. ‘You know the rules, Tony. You buy shares, you buy through us.’
She is less than pleased. And so am I. If Mannetti has been insider trading he’ll have to resign or be sacked. Then I notice Vance slowly shaking his head.
‘Tony wasn’t buying for Tony,’ he explains, directing another withering glance at Mannetti. ‘He was buying for us.’
Mannetti passes a hand across his forehead. Karen swears.
‘For Carltons?’ I say, the magnitude of it finally registering. ‘You bought for one of our funds?’
Mannetti screws up his face. ‘Johnstone bought them for the Alpha Fund while I was on holiday last week. He got his wires crossed.’