Meltdown (29 page)

Like hell, thought Andrew. A man learns he’s lost everything and made his family destitute and that very night he drives off alone and smashes his car into a wall!

No witnesses. No one else involved.

An accident? Pull the other one.

The widow sat down among her family at the front and the service began.

Hymns were sung. Several of the ushers spoke their gushing eulogies. There were readings. An acoustic medley of Beatles songs and then, in a surprise change to the order of service, the widow rose to her feet.

The vicar had been on the point of bringing the service to a close and instructing the congregation to repair to the graveyard for the burial when Lizzie interrupted him.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I have something to say.’

Andrew watched intently from the back of the church as she first arranged for a relative to take the children out and then turned to face the congregation.

He studied the bereaved woman with an expert eye. He’d seen a lot of widows in his time; it was part of the territory. Some were genuinely distraught. Some of them had mixed emotions. Some, of course, didn’t give a damn. Glad the bastard was dead. You could see it in their eyes, a cold triumph hiding behind widow’s weeds. Sometimes it was pretty clear to Andrew that the grieving widow had not been entirely unconnected with the circumstances of her husband’s departure. And if the police couldn’t see it he could.

But not one of them, not one widow in his entire experience, was so distraught that they were indifferent to what happened next. No matter how upset they might be, no matter how much they might protest that life was no longer worth living, they would still wonder how they were going to cope now they were on their own. That was Andrew Tanner’s grim worldview. Every widow wanted her policy. They wanted their payout. They wanted their money from Wigan and Wigan.

And they could have it, yes they could. If it
was
their money. If the circumstances of the death fell within the remit of the contract.

And that remit
never
included suicide.

At the front of the church Lizzie raised her veil and looked about her, clearly gathering her thoughts.

‘I had not intended to say anything today,’ she began in a faltering voice that grew in strength as she progressed, ‘and I don’t intend to speak for long. Robbo would never forgive me if I kept you from the drinks! Besides, Henry, Rupert and Jimmy have already said quite enough on the subject of how wonderful a man Robbo was. What an incredible husband, father and friend. How every single person who ever knew him either liked or
loved
him. You all know it’s true. Of course it’s true, all of it. And I have only one further truth to add.’

Lizzie paused for a moment, once more surveying the congregation. Her eyes were dark-ringed with tiredness and bloodshot with grief, but she was not crying now and her exhaustion seemed to have left her. Sitting at the back, Andrew wondered whether it was his imagination or had she looked directly at him?

‘I know what a lot of you have been thinking,’ Lizzie said loudly and firmly. ‘No, don’t look down at your orders of service. Look at me! Look at Lizzie! Robbo’s life partner, the one who knew him best. I know that since the news came through of poor Robbo’s final failed investment everyone has
wondered
. Yes you have! Just a little. I know you have. Despite what you know of Robbo. Why did he die on that specific night, you’ve asked yourselves. The night of his lowest ebb. The night when he must have been desperate.
How
did he die? What was he thinking, all alone at that moment? Well, let me tell you the answer! He died in an accident and he was thinking about getting some cigarettes. He did
not
point his car at that wall in despair at ruining his family!’

Of all the silences that must have descended upon that ancient church in all the centuries in which it had contained the grieving of its flock, the silence that followed Lizzie’s utterly unexpected raising of this dread topic might well have been the deepest.

‘Robbo loved me!’ Lizzie shouted suddenly. ‘Robbo loved his children! Robbo loved his friends! He would never
ever
have deserted us!’

Lizzie’s voice rang out in the beautiful acoustics of the church. People had jumped. Hymnbooks were dropped. As her distraught voice faded into the mellow stonework she went on, quieter now but no less intense.

‘Robbo was many things,’ she said, ‘some of them funny, some of them a little pathetic even. I think perhaps a few of you thought he was a bit of a loser.’

‘Never!’ a voice rang out. It was Jimmy and his voice shook with passion. ‘Bloody never!’

‘No, Jimmy,’ Lizzie said, and for a moment there was a tiny smile, ‘not you. I know that. But some people did. But Robbo wasn’t a loser!’ Her voice was rising again now. ‘And I’ll tell you something else! He wasn’t a coward either! He would have faced the consequences of what he had done like the man he was. He would have risen above it! He would have lifted
me
above it.
We
would have risen above it. As a family! So understand this, all of you. Put that terrible, unworthy thought from your minds. My husband, my friend, my children’s beloved father, did
not
kill himself. All right! He died in the silliest of accidents on the stupidest of nights racing to get some cigarettes, wondering how he was going to explain to me that he’d been royally ripped off by some
bastard
on Wall Street! All right? Got it? Now let’s bury the best man I ever knew and then go and get pissed!’

People cheered. People hugged. The widow herself collapsed into her pew and sobbed and sobbed.

At the back of the church Andrew Tanner rose quietly and left.

She believed it. Andrew was sure of that. But the fact that she believed it did not make it true.

Of course she believed it, who wouldn’t? What wife would want to admit that a beloved husband would rather die than face the prospect of telling her the truth? What wife could ever accept that someone in whom they had invested so much, personally and socially, couldn’t bring himself to stagger through the rest of his life in her company. Would rather accelerate his car into a wall than face her in the morning.

The very idea was a personal affront.

Of course she couldn’t believe it. No widow ever could. Because what would it say about them? Deep down, Andrew thought, Freud was right, everything comes down to ego in the end, even grief.

Giving money away

Over breakfast on the day that he lost his job at Mason Jervis, Jimmy was feeling pretty chipper. He was used to beginning the day in a sunny and confident mood, he’d been doing it for his entire adult life, but it had to be said that in recent months that mood had started to evaporate.

A slight sense of foreboding had begun to hang over Jimmy’s breakfast fruit salad (followed by a couple of chocolate croissants), as there had over the breakfasts of many previously confident and bullish businessmen in the grim autumn of 2008. The financial crisis which had engulfed the world so brutally and unexpectedly was deepening by the day and nobody could remember a time when share prices and lending rates had been the number-one story on the morning news for so long. The shocking collapse of a couple of major investment banks had shaken everyone. When well-known firms suddenly fold and you see guys very similar to yourself wandering out into Canary Wharf holding cardboard boxes with their staplers, family photos and the remains of last year’s Christmas hampers in them, you know that an unfamiliarly chill wind has begun to blow.

Everyone at Mason Jervis knew someone who had lost their job and Jimmy knew several. Career mortality was definitely on the agenda and lately Jimmy had been scanning the morning news each day, anxiously wondering who was going to be next. On this particular morning, however, he had his old sense of sunny stability and comfortable well-being. In fact he was feeling pretty good about himself.

Virtuous, even.

The Bloomberg’s Business Channel that was being broadcast on both the vast wall-mounted flat-screens in the family room (and backwards, reflected in the fish tank) was telling Jimmy that overnight he might, had he taken the opportunity, have become as much as
two hundred grand
richer. That was a sizeable piece of change even for a Street Owning Man like Jimmy. Yet he had let the chance pass.

On moral grounds, of all things.

Jimmy smiled to himself as he punched up his beautiful shiny cappuccino machine and listened to its satisfyingly throaty gurgle. Moral grounds, for God’s sake. Things really were changing.

Once more Rupert was to have been the tooth fairy, slipping coins under Jimmy’s pillow while he slept. He had tipped Jimmy off over lunch the day before. Just another of his nod-and-wink little heads-ups which he had occasionally gifted to Jimmy over the years.

‘The fortunes of the corporate yo-yo that is Caledonian Granite are about to change again, old boy. And big time. That stock you dumped as it went down is about to bounce like a pair of rubber bollocks.’

Rupert explained that the stricken bank was about to receive its long-awaited visit from the Seventh Cavalry. After months of to-ing and fro-ing, and horror stories in the press about queues forming round blocks and grannies fearful for the future of the little bit they’d put by, the government had finally acted.

‘Gordon’s going to buy it out. Well, at least take a majority holding,’ Rupert whispered over his salmon and Pinot Grigio. ‘Can you believe it? New Labour bringing a bank under state control? Anyone would think they were socialists! Of course they had to do it. I told them so myself at the last Select Committee. You can’t have banks collapsing. It scares the grey vote, which is the only vote that
does
vote these days. Upsets everyone, as a matter of fact. I’ve even had some arse from
Newsnight
trying to doorstep me about how the Royal Lancashire’s dealing with its sub-prime.
None of your fucking beeswax, mate
, is the answer to that. Anyway, the point is the dear old Granite is about to get shifted from basket case to gilt-edged, Triple A status, government-owned safe haven, so I’m here to tell you, Jim lad, if you want to do yourself a favour, I’d grab your shares back and then some.’

Jimmy had almost done it too. Who wouldn’t?

If a professional trainer were to tip you off about a runner in the National you’d take the tip. Of course you would. And it was the same with shares and members of financial Select Committees. Jimmy had actually called his broker from a Starbucks on his way back to the office and begun the deal while ordering a strawberry and cream Frappuccino. The Caledonian Granite price was not quite at the level of worthlessness to which it had sunk on the morning after Jimmy had sold his shares. At that point the institution had been within minutes of collapse and surely would have done so had the Chancellor not gone on morning TV and guaranteed people’s savings. Since that grim day for British financial credibility, the price had risen but not by much. It was still deep in the doldrums.

‘I want you to grab me fifty thousand shares in Caledonian Granite,’ Jimmy said into his mobile as the gap-year euro student working behind the counter poured various sugary syrups into enormous paper cups.

‘Fifty thousand?’ his broker replied in some surprise. ‘In
Caledonian Granite
? Do you know something I don’t know, Jim?’

It was that question that turned Jimmy round.

Do you know something I don’t know?

Of course he did.

Something he had no right to know.

Jimmy recalled the conversation he’d had with Monica those few months before, when he’d saved himself a bundle on the basis of another of Rupert’s Caledonian tips. She’d said it was insider trading. She’d made him give the money away to charity and he’d bunged it on next year’s Alabama Derby. She’d been right.

‘You know what, mate?’ Jimmy said. ‘You’re right. Stupid hunch, that was all. Been drinking. Forget it, will you?’

‘Sure. OK,’ the broker replied, a little surprised. ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘Yeah. Sorry to have bothered you.’

‘That’s all right. Never trade pissed, eh?’

‘Gotta be the rule,’ Jimmy said and hung up before he could change his mind.

As he left the café with his drink he had felt rather strange about walking away from so much money. Slightly sick, in fact, although that may have had something to do with the sugary Frappuccino. The following morning, however, as he steeled himself to tuck into Jessica’s fruit salad and watched the news of the government bailout send Caledonian sky high, he felt proud of himself.

Proud and a little cocky. He was the sort of guy who could walk away from a serious wad.
On moral grounds!

Not only did he have the principles to do it. Much more importantly, he could
afford
to do it.

‘I’ve just walked away from a couple of hundred grand,’ Jimmy whispered in Monica’s ear so as not to be overheard. Jodie was on a bean bag with Cressida, helping the child stick pasta to a collage. ‘Rupert gave me a tip and I ignored it, babes. Did it for you.’

Jodie, ultra-brilliant as always, clearly sensed that Jimmy wanted privacy and got to her feet, scooping up Cressida as she did so.

‘Come on, rock chick,’ she said. ‘Let’s go and see if Hell Man Tobes has brushed his teeth yet.’

After she had gone Monica turned to Jimmy, looking suitably impressed.

‘Wow. That is amazing.’ She giggled. ‘Well done.’

‘Self-regulation, babes,’ Jimmy crowed. ‘It’s what the City’s all about.’

‘Bloody Rupert always knows, doesn’t he?’

‘Well, he’s virtually in the Cabinet these days so I
hope
he knows. Someone has to run the country for those arsehole politicians.’

They smiled at each other and he clinked his coffee cup against her peppermint tea, then, carefully avoiding her sore breasts, he gave her a big hug.