Due Diligence (16 page)

Twenty minutes later, on the street outside the Meyers’ offices, Vance thanks me.

‘What for?’

‘You didn’t walk out.’ He pushes his fingers up through his greying hair. ‘That David is a first class pain in the arse.’

The performance over, Vance looks tired again. I ask if he’s heard any more from Inspector Ryan.

‘Jesus,’ he says, laughing. ‘One thing at a time.’ Vance, the corporate banker’s banker, has nothing in his sights but the bid. On the corner he hails a taxi, steps in and gives the address where the Takeover Panel have convened. ‘Coming?’ he says.

I wish I was. Unfortunately my days of thinking about just one deal night and day — in the shower, on a plane, in my bed — are over for ever. My father’s son, I have inherited a place at the table of an altogether lonelier and more uncertain game.

As Vance pulls away in the taxi, I glance at my watch. Hugh Morgan will already be waiting.

3

‘W
e got a break.’ Hugh beckons me in and invites me to pull up a chair. There’s a whiteboard by his desk. On the left side of the board Hugh has copied the details from my fax: the hierarchy of the Carlton Brothers management, from Sir John on down. A maze of arrows and questions marks join the names. On the right side there’s a list of deals in red lettering, and more arrows.

Looking over his shoulder at the screen, I ask him how it looks.

‘Seen worse. Okay, from the top. We dumped miscellaneous, so I churned money-market and forex from the system, looking for patterns. Zero. Too many deals. A few crooked deals a week, they'd just disappear into the statistical noise.’

‘This is a break?’

‘Hang on. Last night I was thinking about that note. You know, from Penfield? It said "over the past twelve months," right?'

I nod, unsure where this is taking us. Something else occurs to Hugh now.

‘First,’ he says, leaning across to tap the list of names on his whiteboard. ‘Anyone above this line joined Carltons in the last year?’

‘Tony Mannetti,’ I tell him. ‘He came across from New York.’

Hugh wants to know more, so I explain how Mannetti came to us. It was a
quid pro quo
, part of the standstill agreement we worked out with American Pacific after they’d built a stake in the bank. Once we’d made it clear to Eric Gifford that we wouldn’t offer him a seat on our board, he quickly lowered his sights. He suggested we pool some resources in selected businesses. As it happened, American Pacific had built one of the strongest funds management teams in the US while our own efforts in that department were foundering. He offered to send us one of American Pacific’s rising stars for a short time. Mannetti came. Two months later, both the head and deputy of our funds management team left for greener pastures. When Mannetti offered to stay, we cleared it with Eric Gifford, then accepted. Until the past few days the arrangement has worked out well.

‘Until the past few days?’ Hugh echoes. It will become public knowledge anyway, so I tell Hugh about the cock-up. ‘We’re in front of the Takeover Panel right now.’

‘Ah,’ he says. ‘So Mr Mannetti’s not flavour-of-the-month. What’s he like?’

‘American. A bit flashy. Not exactly my taste. You can rule him out on this fraud thing.’ Hugh asks me why. I nod to the screen. ‘He’s funds management, ninth floor; he doesn’t even have access to the Dealing Room. And the cock-up happened while he was on holiday.’

‘No access at all?’

‘None.’ It comes out in a tone of regret. I’ve worked with Mannetti for the past several months, but unlike with everyone else above the line on Hugh’s whiteboard — Vance, Sir John, Henry Wardell and half a dozen others — I’ve developed no real liking for the man. It would be convenient if he was the fraudster, but he isn’t.

Hugh doodles some more with his pen. ‘Okay, the note. Last night I started wondering why whoever it was only sent it now. I mean, if he’s known this stuff's been going on for a year, why wait till now before he sends the note?’

‘Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he just found out.’

‘One possibility. But what if something else triggered it?’

‘Like?’

‘Like a deal,’ Hugh says. ‘A crooked one that just got done. One the note-sender didn’t want to happen.’ I’m no expert, but this suggestion seems like a rather wild guess, and I say so. Hugh isn’t troubled. ‘Then allow some time for the note-sender to turn things over, or for something else to occur—’

‘Daniel’s murder?’

‘I checked with the Post Office,’ he says. ‘The note could have been sent just before, or just after, Daniel died.’ He types then, telling me he’s narrowed the field even further. ‘I concentrated on forex: there was a big surge in deals late December.’ In late December, I recall, the French Franc collapsed, there was pandemonium in the Dealing Room. Our settlements staff had to work shifts to stay on top of the volume. ‘If someone wanted to hide a deal, this’d be the place. There were two big days, the twenty-seventh and -eighth. I’ve done a search and scan on all the Franc deals your lot did both days.’ He hits one final key. ‘Hey, presto.’

The screen goes blank for a second, and then three deals appear. Alongside each deal, there’s a name; and though I’m staring straight at it, I can’t believe what I see.

‘Shobai,’I say.

But it isn’t Shobai I’m looking at, and nor is Hugh. He points to the second name.

‘Odin. You know them?’

What now? Christ Almighty, I think, what now? I shake my head. To give myself time, I point to the third name, Twintech. ‘Who’s that?’

But Hugh won’t be put off, the Twintech and Shobai deals aren’t a fifth the size of the Odin transaction.

‘Get this,’ he says. ‘Someone scrubbed Odin off the main file. My software picked up the gap, and I traced the transaction number. I cross-checked the counter-party code and turned up these guys, Odin Investments.’ He gives me more details, proud of his work, and of what he’s found.

I ask about Shobai and Twintech, but Hugh is dismissive.

‘Small fry. Probably statistical anomalies. Odin’s the one.’

He’s wrong. I know it, but how do I tell him? The Odin deal was a one-off; it can’t possibly be part of the fraudulent trading referred to in Penfield’s note. But how do I explain that to Hugh?

‘Concentrate on Shobai,’ I say.

‘Have you been listening?’ Then he speaks slowly, word by word, as if to an idiot. ‘Someone scrubbed Odin off the main file. Your problem is Odin Investments. Are you reading me?’

‘You’ve done good work.’

‘That’s not what your face says, Raef. What the hell is this?’

‘Forget Odin.’

He gives a snort of choked laughter. ‘I’m doing you a favour here. Now it’s forget it? No way.’

‘Hugh-’

‘No way.’

He is becoming angry. Up at Oxford, when he got his teeth into a problem, he simply would not let go; and that Petrie case, the same thing. And now? I choose my words carefully.

‘Hugh, it’s not necessary to investigate the Odin deal.’

He searches my eyes, and asks me to repeat what I have just said. So I do.

‘Fuck,’ he says quietly.

‘Listen—’

‘No,’ he says, stabbing a finger at me, ‘you listen. You already knew about this Odin deal?’

I try to speak, but he cuts me off.

‘Well thanks for the information. I was up half the bloody night working this out. Consideration or what?’

He stands suddenly, his chair slides back, crashing into the wall. Then he stalks to the window and looks out.

‘I couldn’t tell you, Hugh. I would’ve, but I couldn’t.’

‘You didn’t.’ He faces me again. ‘Look, if you were running your own investigation at the bank, why not just say?’

His misapprehension, and the depth of it, catches me out; and I hesitate. Already suspicious, he sees.

‘You are running an investigation?’ he asks, looking straight at me. If I lie now, and he catches me in the lie, he’ll dump me. And with just three and a half days before Penfield’s team moves in, I cannot afford that.

‘Odin isn’t a problem.’

‘Oh yes it is,’ he says. ‘Because if you don’t tell me what this is about, I’m all finished. You wanted to find a deal that smells, I’ve found one. I did what you asked, and you’ve changed the goal posts. I haven’t got any shortage of work here, Raef. I'm in the world’s biggest fucking growth industry. Now you tell me what this Odin’s about, or that's it. You’re on your own.’

‘I can’t.’

He shrugs. ‘Fine.’ Then he goes back to his desk. ‘Your choice.’ He starts shuffling papers around, and wiping away invisible dust. ‘Do you want your discs back?’

I am being dismissed. But without revealing the truth, what more is there for me to say? I tell him to keep the discs, that I’ll pick them up later. He makes no comment. Perhaps he sees what’s in my mind: later I might have to return cap in hand to him. Later, once I’ve had time to think, I might decide that I have no choice but to answer Hugh Morgan’s incisive questions.

As I open the door, he says, ‘Raef?’ and I turn. ‘That Odin file,’ he says, ‘you wouldn’t know who scrubbed it?’

Our eyes meet, he looks at me long and hard.

‘No.’

He nods to himself, unsatisfied. ‘You know where I am,’ he says, and when he bows his head over the paperwork, I back out the door.

4

T
he Dealing Room is chaos: dealers yelling, people tapping at keyboards, the squawkboxes rattling out endless strings of numbers. Henry is nowhere in sight. As I walk across the Room it occurs to me that Hugh Morgan would have made a good dealer, he is someone who would never let himself pay too high. At the Spot Dollar/Mark desk, I pause. Owen Baxter’s running the show here, he’s come across from the proprietary desk to fill in. There’s a female dealer on one side of him, and on his other side that young trainee, Jamie. Owen hits a button and barks, ‘Dollar/Mark?’

A broker’s voice bursts from the squawkbox. ‘25- 30.’ Then a pause. ‘30 paid.’

Owen makes the broker an offer. Jamie asks if he should put the offer on the dealing screen.

Owen looks aggrieved. ‘Did I say that?’ He nods toward the urn. ‘Don’t be a cunt all your life. Go make some coffees.’

Jamie, an Oxbridge graduate with a first in Medieval French History, goes to fetch the cups. Not for the first time lately, I wonder just what kind of contribution Carltons is actually making to the civilization of the world.

‘30—22, your offer,’ the broker says.

Owen shouts this time. ‘Don’t tell me, you little prick, tell the market.’

"Ten mine!’ the broker shouts back.

Owen hits the button. "Ten done. What’s the name?’ He starts punching the deal into the system while the woman writes the deal-slip: 10 million US dollars sold at 1.32 against the Deutschmark.

Then the broker’s voice comes from the box again. ‘SocGen. And for that Sandersons deal at 19, five dollars, your name’s Barclays.’

I lean forward. ‘What’s up with Sandersons?’

Limit problems, Owen says. Apparently they’ve turned us down twice.

Barclays is switching the deal for us, writing retrospective back-to-back deals with Carltons and Sandersons to get us over the problem. This kind of thing is tit-for-tat, every bank gets caught out sometime, and switching deals for friends is like oiling the wheels of trade. The deal remains done, but now Carltons and Sandersons both have Barclays as the counterparty rather than each other. But people talk. And if Sandersons keep turning us down, the brokers will start to wonder why. Worse, so will the other dealers in the market.

‘Anyone else turned us down?’ I ask. ‘Or just Sandersons?’

Just Sandersons, Owen tells me.

Jamie returns with the coffees, and I drift over to the Forwards desks where William, Billy Bullshit, is giving an impromptu lecture on Eliot Wave Theory. The senior dealer is yawning. Drawing him aside, I ask about Sandersons: I wonder if they have they been turning us down here.

‘Matter of fact they have. No drama?’

Just checking, I say.

For the next ten minutes I amble around the other desks making the same casual enquiry, and everywhere, to my consternation, the answer’s the same. Since early this morning Sandersons have turned us down across the board, we haven’t completed one single deal with them. By the time I reach the Equities desks, Henry has reappeared.

‘Give me a second, Raef,’ he says.

While I was up seeing Hugh, Vance took the expected slap on the wrists from the Takeover Panel. The news is out, they have accepted that it was a genuine mistake on our part; the Panel has given its approval for us to continue with the bid. Looking over Henry’s shoulder, I see the announcement on the Reuters. Henry, over the squawkbox, is talking to the broker, I can see that he’ll be a minute yet.

So propping myself on an unused desk, I survey the Room. Out here, the memories of Daniel are strong. He was a part of all this in a way that I will never be, completely devoted to the daily cry of the markets. Devoted. It’s been quite a while since I had a thought about Daniel that wasn't tainted with rancour and pain, and I let this one linger a moment.

In my mind’s eye, I see him passing through the maze of desks as I have just done; but smiling, stopping to share a joke, laughing even. They liked him, the dealers; I think it made them feel secure to know he was looking after their interests through me. And his disagreements with Vance did Daniel no harm out here. They were loyal to him too. I never realized quite how loyal until Celia rang me at the office late one night, asking after him. When I said that I hadn’t seen Daniel she expressed surprise: one of the dealers, she told me, was sure he was in my office. After I’d hung up I went out to the nightdesk. Had someone taken a call from Daniel's wife? The senior dealer admitted that he had. And had he told her that Daniel was with me? He shrugged it off, he said he’d thought he’d seen us together. It didn’t seem important, so I let it drop. But looking back later I saw it was the first hint to reach me of Daniel's infidelity. He’d been married to Celia three years, they already had one son, and they seemed happy enough. But something had gone wrong, and the first to know of it were the dealers. My own enlightenment came by accident, a glimpse of Daniel, an arm around one of our Settlements girls, that I caught through the window of a City pub. I didn’t confront him at first. But there were other women: his affairs became an open secret at the bank. And it also became clear that Celia knew, and that the knowledge was crushing her. I chose a quiet moment in his office one evening, staff all gone, just Daniel and me, ties loosened, sharing a drink; a rare relaxed moment, and I finally built up the courage to ask him what, in God’s name, he thought he was playing at.