Free to Trade (16 page)

'And were the police right? Was it a brothel?'

Denny hesitated. 'The evidence submitted by the police would suggest it was, but that evidence was not admissible.'

'So it was a brothel,' I said. 'Did Piper know what was going on?'

'He spent very little time in this country. Had it been proved by the police that Bladenham Hall was a brothel, I would have then shown that my client knew nothing about it.'

This was exasperating. Denny's evasiveness goaded me into being more direct. 'Is Piper a crook?'

'From what I learned during that trial, I wouldn't accept him as a client again,' said Denny. His strongest reply so far.

I thought for a moment. 'If this was brought to the attention of the Nevada Gaming Commission, would it cause Piper to lose his licence?' And the Tahiti, I thought.

Denny touched his fingertips together and tapped his chin. 'It's difficult to say. I know very little of Nevada law specifically. Piper was never found guilty, so he would not automatically be disqualified. It would depend on how much discretion the Commission has to judge good character, and how they choose to use it. But it obviously wouldn't help an application.'

I rose from my chair. 'Thank you, Mr Denny. You've been very helpful.'

'Not at all. Any time.' We shook hands and I walked towards the door.

Before I got there, Denny called after me. 'Oh, Paul.'

I turned round.

'I don't know what you meant when you said that this might have something to do with Debbie's death,' he continued. 'I caught a glimpse of how Piper operates. For all his gentlemanly affectations, he is dangerous. I liked Debbie. I am very sorry she died. If you need any more help, give me a ring.'

'Thank you,' I said.

'Be careful.' Denny's words followed me as I left the room.

It rained that evening, but I went for a run anyway. In the warm July evening the rain kept me cool as it seeped through my running vest and shorts. I came back to my flat wet, tired but refreshed.

As the effect of the endorphins wore off, my finger began to throb. I carefully peeled off the bandage and looked at the wound. It was deep, but because the knife was so sharp, the incision had been a narrow one and already the skin looked like it was joining back together. I leapt into the bath before I had a chance to get cold, dropped my finger underwater for a good soak, and let my muscles relax.

The phone rang. I cursed softly to myself and just lay there. It didn't stop. Reluctantly I hauled myself out of the bath and dripped over to my bedroom. 'Hallo.'

'I told you not to interfere.' The drops of hot water suddenly chilled on my skin. It was the flat tones of Joe Finlay.

I grabbed for words. He had a point there. He had told me not to interfere. Why on earth had I? My mind went blank. Finally I said, 'How did you get my number?'

'How did you get mine?'

Good question. It would be easy for him to have got my number off Cash, as I had his. In which case, he probably had my address. My skin felt colder. I picked up the duvet from my bed and wrapped it round myself.

'I told you not to interfere,' Joe repeated. 'I have had two lots of policemen round here in the last twenty-four hours. First there was a police tart asking about me and Sally. Sally didn't tell her anything. And she's not going to. She knows what would happen to her.' Menacing words delivered in a dull monotone. 'Then there was a plod detective asking me questions about that slut's death. Well, he didn't get anywhere either. But it got me annoyed. Very annoyed. You were lucky not to lose your finger. You will lose more than that unless you back off. Do you understand me?'

I was scared. Why had I got mixed up with him? Because I thought he had killed Debbie, I reminded myself. Well, if the police were already talking to him about it, then perhaps I could leave it all to them. 'I understand you,' I said.

Joe's voice lowered an octave, which somehow added a touch of extra menace. 'Look, Murray, I don't want to hear anything more about the slut. And if you go anywhere near my wife again, or talk to anyone about her, you are dead.'

I was frightened, but I didn't want him to know it. I was determined not to be intimidated. 'If you just treat her properly, then no one will bother you,' I said. 'Threatening me won't help now.' With that I hung up. I dried myself off, and rang Powell at the home number which he had given me. I was curious to find out what Joe had told him about Debbie.

'Powell.' His voice was gruff, irritated at being disturbed.

'It's Paul Murray here.'

'Yes, Mr Murray?'

'I just had a phone call from Joe Finlay. He says you have been in touch with him.'

'Yes, that's right. We interviewed him today.'

'How did it go?'

'A dead end. Finlay says he shared a taxi with the two people he had been drinking with immediately after they all left the boat. They both corroborate his story. None of them says they saw Debbie after they left her with you.'

I protested. 'That can't be right. Have you found the taxi-driver?'

Powell's sigh echoed down the phone. 'No, Mr Murray, we have not. That would be next to impossible without major publicity. But unless you think all three of them did it together, I think we can rule Finlay out.'

'But, you can't. You should have seen him. I'm sure he must have killed her. Have you checked into his relationship with her?'

'We have spoken to Felicity Wilson. It's clear Finlay is a nasty piece of work, but there is no evidence at all that he murdered Debbie Chater. In fact there is no evidence she was murdered at all. And if she was, you were the last person seen with her before she died.'

'You don't think I killed her?'

'No, Mr Murray, I don't think you killed her either,' said Powell, his voice long-suffering. 'Personally, I think it was suicide, but there is precious little evidence of that either. The inquest is tomorrow and I wouldn't be surprised if an open verdict was returned. They don't like classifying cases as suicide unless they are sure, it causes unnecessary grief for the relatives. Now, thank you for all your help in this inquiry, Mr Murray. Good night.'

'Good night,' I said, and put the phone down. So somehow Joe had got himself ruled out. I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it one bit.

I poured myself a large whisky, and tried to get to sleep. The nursery rhyme 'Three blind mice' ran through my mind as I finally dozed off. I dreamed of a thin farmer's wife running around brandishing a carving-knife.

Cash picked me up on Saturday morning. He was dressed in his Henley gear; blazer, white trousers, and a garish purple, gold and silver striped tie. He drove a grey 1960s Aston Martin. I am no expert on classic sports cars, but it looked to me to be the same model as appeared in the James Bond film. I couldn't hide my admiration for the vehicle. I almost expected to see the controls for the machine-guns and the ejector-seat.

Cash saw my reaction and grinned. 'Like it?' he asked. 'I'm a sucker for old cars. I've got an old Mercedes and two Jaguars back in the States. I just love to drive around in the Merc on the weekends in the summer with the roof down.'

'Grey old London must be a bit of a change,' I said.

'Oh yes. But I like it here. Mind you, it takes a bit of time to get used to Europeans, especially the Brits.'

'What do you mean?'

'When you first meet them, they all seem unfriendly. You feel like you are breaking some social taboo just by saying hallo. Once you get to know them, they are good guys. No offence meant.'

'None taken. I think I know what you mean. People here are wary of dealing with people they don't know.' I could imagine the most aloof of Cash's clients being horrified by him when they first met him, and then falling gradually under his spell.

'You're telling me. At first they feed you some bull about how cautious and conservative they are. They make it sound like buying a T-bill was the most adventurous thing they have ever done in their lives. But after a little coaxing they just gobble up those bonds. I've been over here a year now, and I have already done some sweet trades.'

We were at a traffic-light. He paused to concentrate on accelerating away from it as fast as possible, leaving the Porsche in the next lane standing. As he wove between the traffic he continued, 'Some of these guys in London don't know what selling bonds is about. They think if they stuff some Swiss gnome with a million dollars of some issue, they are selling bonds. They don't know nothing. Selling bonds is about moving big blocks of money around the world. It's about making one part of the world finance another. Know what I'm saying?'

I nodded, cowering in my seat as we sped up the wrong side of the road to get by a particularly congested stretch.

Cash seemed unconcerned by the horns blowing around him. 'I'll tell you something about moving money round. I once had a guy in Boston who wanted to put five hundred million dollars into the eurobond market. So we launched three new issues, and gave him half of each issue. Three months later we own five hundred million of mortgage-backed bonds we can't get rid of. Triple sales credits on those. So, I make this guy in Boston realise he didn't want eurobonds after all, he wanted mortgages. He sells his eurobonds, and buys our mortgage-backed bonds.

'The firm has solved one problem. Trouble is, we now have five hundred million eurobonds nobody wants. So I wait a week. The trader gets desperate, he can't sell his eurobonds. Then they put the sales credits up to triple again. So then I decide to ring another friend of mine at a Californian insurance company, who has a billion dollars in cash which he wants to invest and doesn't know what to buy. It so happens I have the ideal investment for him.' Cash laughed as he recounted this.

'You want to know why they call me Cash? You ever heard the saying "Cash is King"? Well, I'm the king of cash. I control it. These portfolio managers think that they control the cash in their funds. But they don't, I do. It's guys like me that move cash around the system, and I'm the best of them. And every time it moves, some of this cash rubs off on me. Any idea how much the commission is on a five-hundred-million-dollar trade on triple sales credit? Think about it.'

I thought about it. Different houses have different formulae, but my calculations made it just under a million dollars. I began to see how Cash could afford his expensive toys.

'But I can see you are different from the others, kid,' he continued. 'You're not afraid to take risks. You are prepared to bet big money when the opportunity is there. I think you and me are going to do some good business together.'

Here was a man who really was at the centre of the bond markets. This was the world that I had left my staid old bank to see. Certainly I could become a big player in the market. Cash and I together would make fools of the rest of the crowd.

Then I snapped out of it. Cash probably talked to all his customers like this. Not that he was making it up. Cash's reputation preceded him. But I couldn't help wondering whether when Cash was driving his Boston customer around in his Mercedes convertible he wouldn't talk about his clients in London in such a disdainful way.

'Do you still talk to any of your American customers?'

'Only the one on a regular basis. I have what you might call a "special relationship" with him. But if I ever wanted to renew the relationship with any of the others, all I would have to do would be pick up the phone. People don't forget me.'

We drove up the ramp on to the M4. There was a lot of traffic, but it was flowing steadily. Cash moved the Aston Martin into the outside lane, and worked his way through the cars in front, flashing his headlights to intimidate them out of the way.

'How did you get into the business?' I asked.

'I met a man in a bar. He was Irish. We came from the same part of the Bronx, only I hadn't seen him before. We got on great. We got drunk together. The only difference between us was that I was twenty and in jeans and he was fifty and in an expensive suit. He had had a bad day. I was sympathetic. He asked me what job I did. I told him I worked in a hardware store. He asked me whether I would like to work in his store for a while. So I did. I started in the mail room and worked my way up from there. It was a ball all the way.'

'What was it like in the Bronx, then? Wasn't it dangerous?' I asked.

'Sure it was dangerous, but only for people from a different neighbourhood. In your own neighbourhood you were safe. Everyone would protect you. Of course it's all different now, now that there is crack all over the streets. Before, there was violence, but there was always a reason for it. Now there can be violence for no reason. It makes me sick.' I looked at Cash and saw his jaw clenched and the colour beginning to rise in his cheeks. He was angry.

'Some of the greatest people in the world live in my neighbourhood,' Cash continued. 'But we are all ignored by the rest of the country. I never forgot what that guy in the bar did for me. Did I tell you I bought my own bar?'

'No,' I said.

'Yeah. It was a great little place right by my neighbourhood. I had to close it down a few years ago. With crack, things were getting just too wild. But I put thirty kids on Wall Street. Some of them are doing real well.'

Cash looked at me and smiled. There was no doubt that he was proud of what he had achieved, and also what he had helped others achieve. And I thought he had a right to be proud.

Henley was just as bad as I feared. It was a typical July day in England. A blustery wind, and rain showers which were more on than off. All pretence of watching the rowing was forgotten. About a hundred people, employees of Bloomfield Weiss and their clients, were crammed into the tent, gobbling down cold salmon and champagne. The air was damp and oppressive, it was difficult to breathe in the clammy atmosphere. There was a constant din of rain drumming on the roof of the tent, caterers clanking plates and fifty people talking at once, interspersed with the hysterical cackle of champagne-induced laughter. A great day out.

Over the heads of the crowd I saw the tall figure of Cathy talking to a group of Japanese. She caught my eye, extricated herself and slowly made her way through the crowd over to me. Oh God, here we go.