Due Diligence (37 page)

I hit the switch on the squawkbox. ‘Is this price going anywhere?’

‘Nowhere.’ Friday afternoon, and the market is winding down for the weekend. ‘There’s a good-sized bid just behind you,’ the broker says. ‘If he gets tired of waiting, he might pay up. I told Henry.’

And what then? The Carltons share price will hover between 200 and 220, and my family will retain control. The bank, badly weakened, will maintain its short-term independence. And something else: we will not have the funds at our disposal to redeem my father’s pledge, so Boddington will pass out of our hands.

Henry returns. I leave him watching over my bid, and wander down to the Dealing Room where the usual Friday afternoon torpor has taken hold. Half the equities desk has left to celebrate with the Corporate Finance team, and the lads on the proprietary trading desk are getting set to join them. Just days ago, the market shutting us out, it was all so very different. Now the only visible scars remaining from that battle are the two empty chairs on the bond desk. I doubt that even Daniel could have handled it better, a real tribute to Henry. The traders have played no part in the Meyer bid, but it seems to be the only subject of conversation out here, everyone bathing in reflected glory. I pause for a word at the bond desk: they inform me that our name is dirt in the bond market right now, our dumping of CTL has not been appreciated. After completing a circuit of the Room, I go on up to Funds Management.

Here the story is the same, the weekend has already taken hold. Trevor Bailey, our top fund manager, comes over for a word.

‘I’ll tell you the truth,’ he says. ‘I didn’t think Vance could pull it off.’

‘Never in doubt.’

He laughs. ‘So what now for Carltons? Onward and upward?’

He regards me from the corner of his eye. With our share price where it is, we’re vulnerable, and Trevor’s seen these situations too often, he knows the score. We’ve survived an horrendous week, far and away the worst in my career, but it’s still too early to say if the goring we’ve taken, the damage we've sustained, won’t attract predators. By Trevor’s look, I see that he thinks it will.

I tell him not to fret, that he’ll still get his bonus. I ask him if Mannetti is around. Trevor says he hasn’t seen him, and I retreat before he can ask me any more questions.

Hugh sees me through the glass wall as I pass Settlements. He makes a sign with his fingers: nothing.

The bank, this place, it’s been so much of my life, maybe more than it should have been; but walking along the corridor to the Boardroom now, I feel strangely detached. The ties that once held me so firmly have loosened. Inevitably, after all that’s happened this past week, things have changed.

A minute later I circle the Boardroom table and study my grandfather’s portrait. Why have I come in here? To ask myself, What would he do? I used to ask that question quite often, but today it seems faintly absurd. He was a good banker, he had a fine career, a good life; but many years have passed since then, and now his life, and his world, have both gone. Studying the dark picture now, I consider just what it is I really owe, and to whom. I weigh in the balance my obligations, to the living and the dead.

12

‘U
nchanged,’ Henry tells me as I pull up my chair. ‘200—203, your bid.’

I thank him and he heads out to the Dealing Room. Checking the deal-sheet, I find I’ve only two hundred thousand pounds left in hand.

‘Lose my bid,’ I tell the broker. ‘How does that leave you?’

‘195—203. Frankly, Raef, the bid’s not a problem. That offer’s going to be taken any minute.’ The price, he’s saying, is about to rise.

I hit the switch again. ‘Sell fifty thousand at 195.’

‘What?’ He’s astonished. He asks me to repeat my order, he’s not sure if he has heard it correctly.

So I repeat it.

'This guy’ll pay 200,’ he advises. ‘You want me to try him?’

‘Sell at 195. Now!’

I turn and watch the screen. A few seconds later, it happens.

‘You’re done for fifty at 195,’ the broker tells me. On the screen, the 195 winks off, then on again. The deal has gone through. I have triggered the agreement with my father.

I count the seconds. Before I reach ten, my private line beings to ring.

‘Raef, it’s traded at 195. Did you see?’ My father’s‘ voice is tense; slightly broken.

‘I saw.’

‘I’ll call the board, then contact Gifford.’

There is a hesitancy in his voice that I hadn’t expected. As though he’s asking my permission. Head in hand, I agree that what he suggests will probably be best.

‘Raef?’

‘I’m still here.’

In the pause that follows I hear him breathing. ‘I never wanted this Raef. I’m sorry.’ He rings off, and I hang up the phone.

Once Gifford buys us we’ll have the cash to redeem the loan against Boddington; the family estate will stay in our hands. But not Carlton Brothers. Not the bank. I watch the screen: the bid has already risen to 200.

More than a century and a half after our arrival, the time has come for the Carlton family to make its unceremonious exit from the City.

13

T
rading in Carltons is suspended. ‘Pending further announcements on merger talks between Carlton Brothers and American Pacific,’ the Reuters newsflash says. I just had time to warn Sir John before the calls started coming in: journalists, competitors, clients, some to question and some to gloat; but the general reaction is one of regret. It seems I am not the only one who thinks something of value is being lost. Several of the older callers mention my grandfather.

When I told Sir John, he took the news surprisingly well. His first concern seemed to be that I might not be given the chance to run the merged business, a possibility that had also occurred to me. He enquired about the possible sale price too: his options in Carlton Brothers have taken a sudden turn for the better. I left him fielding calls in his office.

In my own office now, I do the same. There's one, naturally, from Penfield.

‘This doesn’t change my mind,’ he says. ‘The Unit still goes in tonight.’

All charm. I assure him that thwarting him wasn’t the purpose of the proposed deal, then I add the usual cant phrases about this being a good deal for both parties.

‘Next thing I know, Raef, you'll be telling me it’s a merger, not a takeover.’

‘Would you like to see Gifford?’

'He’s booked in here for a courtesy call at five,’ Penfield informs me. ‘He might not be too pleased to find a fraud investigation underway at Carltons. I take it he doesn’t know yet?’

‘Not from me.’

‘Would you rather he heard it from us?’

Roger Penfield wants the merger to go ahead smoothly. Any problems we have in the Dealing Room will be more easily absorbed into a larger capital base; and being completely cynical about Penfield’s motives, American Pacific’s involvement will now blur the supervisory lines of responsibility: the Bank of England, at worst, will be able to spread the blame.

‘That might help,’ I say. ‘I’d appreciate it if my name didn’t come up.’

Penfield seems pleased with how this is all turning out. He tells me to leave it to him.

The phones are still pealing when Vance comes in. He smiles crookedly, I can see he’s tipsy, but he isn’t drunk. Celebrating the Parnells victory with his team, I suppose; that, and drowning his private sorrows over Karen.

‘I don’t know if I should be angry you didn’t tell me,’ he says, ‘or pleased with how well I taught you to keep your mouth shut.’ He regards me askance. ‘Is it congratulations?’

‘Ask me again this time next year.’

‘Ah,’ he says nodding. ‘Like that.’

But he offers me his hand anyway, and we shake. Last night at the Savoy seems a long time ago. Like Sir John, Vance has a stack of options in Carlton Brothers, and this merger will enable him to cash them in early. I ask what he’s going to do with himself now that he’s rich.

‘Retire and play golf with Gordon,’ he says.

‘No chance.’

‘No, maybe not,’ he agrees smiling. ‘What about you?’

What about me indeed? Where do I go now? Do I really want to stay on, waving the Carlton family flag over territory no longer our own? And if I did that, how long would it be before colleagues and clients began pointing me out to each other as the man that was, yesterday’s banker, the last of the Carltons, kept on as living relic by Gifford’s good favour? I could sail, I’ve always said I wished I had the time for a long trip. But after two or three months, what then? I can’t retire down to Boddington, I’m too young. Besides, where I want to be is here, right here in the City, and what I want to be doing is the work I was bred for: banking, it’s too much a part of what I am.

‘You don’t have a bloody clue,’ Vance says. ‘Do you.’

We both laugh. Then I ask him if he’ll do me a favour and speak to his people in Corporate Finance.

‘American Pacific’s got nothing in Europe,’ I say. ‘There won’t be any jobs on the line here.’

Vance says he’ll pass on the good news. When my private line starts ringing, Vance heads for the door.

‘One other thing Stephen.’ He looks back. ‘Hand on heart, did you ever really think Lyle had anything to do with Daniel’s murder?’

Rather shamefaced, he turns his head from side to side.

‘Pointing Ryan away from Karen?’ I speculate aloud.

‘Not one of my brighter ideas,’ he confesses.

Reaching for the phone, I tell him I’ll catch up with him later.

It’s Charles Aldridge on the line: my father has asked him to call and let me know when they’re meeting at Gifford’s flat to settle terms. I explain that I might be a while.

When I step out of the office, Becky’s frantically answering calls, and putting everyone on hold. In the corridor, clusters of employees have formed to consult, jarred from their late-Friday torpor. They fall silent as I hurry by, spectators at the Changing of the Guard.

Up in Settlements, Hugh has his head down, reading the
Evening Standard
.

‘So,’ he says, without glancing up, ‘big news.’

A row of empty styrofoam cups sits at his elbow, and a ring of orange peel. His PC screen looks exactly as it did when I left him first thing this morning. Hugh Morgan has had enough.

‘Things moved pretty quickly.’

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I noticed.’ He closes the paper. ‘Parnells too, eh?. Big day all round.’

There’s an undertone of sarcasm here: Hugh is not at all sure I’ve been straight with him.

‘We only started speaking with Gifford seriously a couple of days ago. We decided to go ahead with it just this afternoon.’

He gives me a dubious look. ‘What now? You retire and take up charitable causes?’

I gesture to the screen. ‘No luck?’

‘Uh-uh.’

The trap remains unsprung, and our time is almost up. I lost Daniel, and now I’ve lost the bank, while this fraudster — Daniel’s possible murderer — remains free. I want him. Gazing at the empty screen the realization steals over me like a physical thing, my cup of sorrow and anger finally brimmed. I want to find this bastard. I need to find him. And when I’ve found him I mean to choke him, and with careful steady blows, I will nail his lifeless body to the wall.

‘I’ve got some questions,’ Hugh says, and right then one of the girls comes and hands Hugh some paperwork. He scans it quickly then passes it back. When he nods towards the coffee machine, and I follow him over. He doesn’t seem in much of a rush, he makes himself a coffee, then we wander over to the corner by the IT room and prop ourselves against an abandoned table. The girls carry on sending faxes and working their keyboards. There are no big bonuses or options packages at stake in Settlements: in here, provided they don’t lose their jobs, nobody gives a damn who owns Carltons.

'I did some ringing round,’ Hugh says. ‘You’ve been buying Carltons in the market, and now you’re getting out?’

'That’s right.’

He asks, very pointedly, if I would care to explain.

It’s over now; we’re at the end. After keeping so much from Hugh, I at least owe him this much. So I tell him what happened. The tale comes out slowly, an elegy for the last days of Carltons, the story of how my father put Boddington on the line, and of how I, at the last, refused the sacrifice. Like an idiot, I begin to feel quite proud of my own good deed.

When I finish, Hugh considers. ‘How well does your father know you, Raef?’

‘Well enough.’

‘Ahh,’ he says.

He finishes his coffee and steps away from the table. I reach over and take his arm. I ask him what he means, 'Ahh.'

He tells me it means nothing, to forget it. But I don’t want to forget it. I ask him again.

‘It’s just a thought,’ he says. ‘But could your father have guessed what you’d do if he put Boddington on the line for you?’

I don’t understand this at first. Then I do. Hugh, instinctively, has run his unsentimental measure over the situation: who wins? My father wanted to keep Boddington, I wanted to keep Carltons: who won? Hugh is suggesting that my father might have manipulated me into surrendering the bank. Suddenly unsteady, I lean back against the table. But then I turn my head: I do not believe it happened like that.

‘Just a thought.’ Then he smiles. ‘Look on the bright side. Once you’ve cashed in your chips, you’ll be able to afford my’ fee.’

He gives me a friendly pat on the shoulder. When he cracks the old joke about even paranoids having enemies, I even manage a weak smile.

Then it happens. From across the room, the sound of a high-pitched beeping. Everyone turns from their work to look. And before I can register what’s happening, Hugh is striding back to his desk. I follow, a few paces behind.

The PC screen flashes wildly, Hugh flicks off the sound and we stare at the monitor. Twintech, it says; and just below this, Desk No. 4.

Hugh asks Sandra if any deal-slips have come up in the past ten minutes. She shakes her head. He punches a key, the beeping stops and the screen goes blank.