The Butcherbird (12 page)

But what the market didn’t know, what no one knew except his bankers, was that he was a mortal being, that he was vulnerable, that his entire shareholding in HOA was subject to margin calls and all his other assets, at least according to his accountant who spoke an infuriating language Mac struggled to understand half the time, that these assets were so locked up in trusts and nominee companies and other complex corporate structures that they were difficult to access quickly. And it looked increasingly as if speed might be vital. He’d always relied in previous situations like this, and there had been some, close to the wire, kneeling over the edge, you had to look over the edge sometimes or you weren’t a real man, in those times he’d always just brought funds from Switzerland and held the dogs at bay. But now the authorities were all over that, too. Sniffer dogs they were, scenting every last dollar a man might have worked hard for, trying to grab it just because a bit of tax hadn’t been paid or some currency regulation hadn’t been complied with. And the problem now wasn’t just potential fines; there were criminal sanctions in place. Why they weren’t out catching the hooligans who broke into people’s houses or stole cars or dealt drugs instead of hounding honest citizens was beyond him. Not that they were hounding Mac, or even had a whiff of anything, but they would if he started shifting big lumps of cash around, his cash, the cash he needed to get the bank off his back. He either needed the cash or he needed the share price to rise, it was as simple as that.

And that’s why he woke in the night. And why sitting beside him on a dusty car seat was Maxwell Newsome, CEO of the biggest stockbroker trading in HOA shares, and sitting either side of Jack in the rear were Jason Little of Bankers Trust, who held virtually no shares, and Henry Hurst of UBS Warburg, who earned enormous fees from HOA for handling all its market placements.

A barbecue by the billabong. A Kimberley sunset. Steaks from his own beasts, killed on the old place, cooked by his own hand. The best wine. A gentle word here, a little excitement there. It wouldn’t be enough on its own, but it kept the knots loose. It helped you to discover which string to pull. It’d never failed him in the past.

And then there was Jack. God, he’d held such high hopes for that boy, built him up to the market as if he was a messiah. And they’d bought it for a while; everything was looking great. But now he always sounded like a bloody preacher. It seemed as if Renton Healey had successfully thrown him off the track he’d been on, but even so Mac was uneasy. Suddenly there were these strange items in the paper about Jack. Weird rumours about something to do with the Colonial Club were floating around the business world, suggestions he’d acted unethically in some property deal. It sounded like bullshit to Mac, but it was odd. Mac was the one who might have the real reason to shut him up, but he didn’t poison water. If you wanted to knife someone, you stabbed them in the stomach.

‘You see, just a few stones for the fireplace, a few sticks for the fire and away we go. Did you ever see a sunset like this? Now here’s the wine, but where’s the opener? Still in the truck, I’m afraid.’

Jack stepped forward. ‘I need the exercise after the flight.’ ‘Thanks, Jack. I don’t want to leave the fire at the critical moment. Much appreciated. It’s in the glove box.’

Jack wandered off with a torch, relieved to be walking the half-mile back to the vehicle alone. He always felt better when he saw Mac face to face. It reminded him why he’d taken this job in the first place, apart from the mental challenge. Mac might be a buccaneer, he might be larger than any life most people would want to live, maybe he did cut a few corners here and there, but Jack couldn’t believe he was fundamentally devious or dishonest.

He didn’t make your skin crawl like Laurence Treadmore or Renton Healey. Even if some of Jack’s concerns were proven, maybe Mac didn’t know about those practices. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to detail. Maybe the Pope was wrong and he should just sit down with Mac and ask him about all this.

When he reached the truck it was still light enough to see the eerie silhouettes of the rocky outcrops looming out of the dusk as scarlet splashes turned to magenta then grey then black in the night sky. The stars were suddenly bright in the clear air but there was no moon. He rummaged around in a glove box full of rags, repair bills, vehicle registration papers, rings full of keys. There was no bottle opener, but eventually he found a Swiss Army knife with a small corkscrew in its innards, and he stuffed the other contents back into the compartment. As he did so, the torch shone on the registration paper and a familiar name caught his eye. The truck was registered to a company: Beira Pty Ltd.

Mac and Maxwell Newsome stood by the fire away from the other two, beers in hand, gazing convivially into the flames, as men do and have done since fires were first lit. Things could be said by fires that might not be said elsewhere.

‘So, I know you love fishing, Max. Are you up for an early start?’

‘Absolutely, Mac. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I love it up here, you know that.’

Mac did know that. Maxwell Newsome saw himself as the financial market’s Ernest Hemingway, without the writing. He’d never read the stories, but he’d read everything there was to read about the man’s life and loved it all—the hunting, the African adventures, the drinking, the women—maybe not the end. Maxwell had a wardrobe full of khaki clothes with strange patches and pockets and zippers which detached parts of them. He could never look at these garments without wanting to fill them with bullets or compasses or folding knives, since he also had a drawer full of these. But he could never figure out which pocket was for what. And besides, he feared he might look faintly ridiculous. Indeed he was concerned there could be a touch of the ridiculous about him now as he stood, legs apart, in a pair of brand-new safari pants and a shirt with a leopard embroidered in green silk on the pocket. He’d shot a leopard. It wasn’t something he was proud of, not something he’d tell Mac, not even by the fire. Especially since he hadn’t killed it. The white hunter had told him, ‘Don’t shoot unless you’re sure you can kill. A wounded leopard is the most dangerous animal in Africa and I’ll have to hunt it.’ But his hands had been shaking more than he thought, even though they were in a hide with a kill placed in the fork of a nearby tree. The hunter had given him the option of ‘a real hunt’ or ‘the tourist method’, obviously trying to shame him into a hunt in the open on foot, but he’d come to kill an animal, not be killed, paid a great deal of money to kill a leopard, so he could say he’d killed a leopard. But he’d never been able to say that, not even that he’d shot at one, because of the shame, not of the poor shot, but of the fact that when the hunter had asked him to come with him to track and kill the wounded animal—the animal he’d wounded so he could tell people in the living rooms of the Darling Point harbourside mansions how he’d killed the leopard and hear their gasps at meeting not just a corporate killer, which he was, but a real killer, which he wanted to be—he’d told the hunter he’d stay in the hide. He’d never forget the look of distaste on the man’s face as he walked off into the shadowy light with a torch strapped to the barrel of his rifle.

In order to regain his sense of control, away from these demeaning thoughts, he turned to Mac. ‘So, my friend, the market’s been a little unkind to you lately.’

Mac, who with a couple of beers under his belt and the thought of rare steak and Grange Hermitage in close proximity was just drifting into a state of semi-euphoria, jerked up as if slapped in the face. ‘Yeah, well, you know better than anyone, Max—markets come and go, we just run the company as best we can.’

‘Yes.’ Max Newsome swallowed a long draught of beer. ‘Still, I think there’s some work to be done, Mac. You don’t want things to drift too far off course, do you?’

Mac was locked in now, antennae picking up static all around. ‘No way, Max. But the business is in great shape, that’s what I don’t understand. What’s happening out there? Why aren’t people buying the stock? We’re doing as well as we ever were.’

He felt Max’s hand on his arm and was suddenly even more concerned. ‘You shouldn’t worry too much, Mac, there’s just a lot of confusion around. Some of it to do with your new CEO.’

Mac tried to read his expression in the flickering light but the long face was turned away from him. ‘Worried? I’m not worried by a few analysts who haven’t bought their first pair of long trousers yet. But what’s this about Jack? You don’t mean all that gossipy stuff in the press, surely?’

Max laughed. ‘No, the market doesn’t care who he sleeps with.

They’re probably all jealous, truth be told. Although that rumour about the club’s a bit odd, isn’t it? But no, it’s more that people don’t understand the HOA strategy anymore. You’re a growth stock, Mac, that’s always been your story. Not a defensive play like the banks. Growth. You’ve sold that very successfully and, for the most part, delivered. Now Jack’s sending out different signals.’

Mac knew it was true. Despite all his coaching and cajoling, he couldn’t convince Jack to stop talking about ‘profitable growth’, about insurance as a ‘concept of mutual protection’. All that stuff about making neighbourhoods safe and plotting flood areas and God knows what was fine on Sunday, in church, but it sank like a stone in the river of commerce. The market wanted growth, Max was right. And that’s what they’d get.

‘So a little good news wouldn’t go astray, Mac. You see what I mean. We’ve a lot of our clients’ money invested in HOA stock based on your growth story—I don’t have any reason to change that, do I? Not that you can give me any information that’s not generally available to the market. Nor do I want any. But a small dose of good news—that’s the tonic.’

Mac smiled. ‘You know the story, Max. No news is good news. If there was a problem I’d tell you. And, without breaking any goddamn stock exchange rules, I’d also tell you if there wasn’t good news coming.’

He felt the hand on his arm again. ‘Excellent. You always perform, Mac, that’s what we love. And the fishing and the fire and the excellent wine. Speaking of which, here comes your man with the opener. Maybe a quiet word, eh?’

It was exactly the sort of function Mac hated. Why in heaven’s name had he come? There were the flamingos tapping and preening all over the room in a display dance of social pretension that turned his stomach. And he was part of it, he’d joined in the polka without being dragged, which made it worse.

When Archie Speyne had ushered him into the partly finished gallery and directed his eyes upward with a dramatic flourish of his velvet-clad arm, Mac knew he was in for an evening of relentless agony. There, high on the rough plastered wall in discreetly stuck-on lettering, were the words THE BIDDULPH GALLERY. He was unable to stifle a groan, which clearly was not the reaction Archie was seeking.

‘But Mac, it would fit so well. A new home for our masterpieces and the Matisse we’re bidding for, if only, if only we can get it, and you, Mac, you, you’re the one, you’re the only one who fits it all so perfectly. Homes, Matisse—you see it, you must see it.’

Archie Speyne had a curious habit of repeating phrases when he was excited. It was one of many curious habits, several of which were gossiped about in the bars of Oxford Street and Potts Points and none of which, other than the repetition of phrases, would be on show this evening. There was a touch of desperation in the air around Archie. He’d made promises he couldn’t keep and his whole career, his carefully manicured reputation as the darling of the art world, threatened to erupt over him in a flood of molten lava. He could end up like one of those frozen bodies in Pompeii, trapped in a river of disaster and found centuries later, fossilised, featuring on a little stand on the desk of some future director of this very museum. On the other hand, there were some things in Pompeii he wouldn’t mind being trapped with … Archie recovered to renew his assault on Mac, who had wandered out of the half-finished extension to where the drinks were being served. It wasn’t fair, not fair at all. When Archie had made the commitment for the works, when he’d assured the trustees he had the money, the money was there. Rudolph Steinmann had promised it, shaken hands on it, delighted to see THE STEINMANN GALLERY on the wall. It was only when the contract had been drawn up for the gift that things had come unstuck.

‘What is this, Mr Speyne? Twenty-five years? For twenty-five years you put my name on the gallery, then somebody else’s name? Is that what you say? You rub my family name away like so much chalk on a blackboard?’

Archie had grovelled and knelt and bent every which way, explained it was the policy of the museum never to grant naming rights in perpetuity, a policy of the trustees, not his policy, but the crotchety old bastard wouldn’t budge.

‘No. You want two million dollars of my money. I want immortality. That’s a bit longer than twenty-five years. You can’t deliver, someone else will.’

And they had, and the money was in their bank account, and the Steinmann name was on their wall. And Archie was up shit creek without a paddle. He hated crude expressions like that, but he was. So there. He hurried after Mac into the main gallery where one long table for twenty-five guests glittered with glass and silver and tiny candles placed next to tiny vases, each holding a single chrysanthemum placed precisely by Archie’s own hand. Attention to detail was everything, especially when you were asking people for money.

By the time the guests were seated, Archie had regained his composure, if he could be said to possess composure, and was ready to perform his much-loved party trick of introducing everyone at the table with a brief, flattering but amusing pastiche of their social significance.

‘Friends—because that’s what we all are, friends of this marvellous museum, friends of art, friends of our beautiful city and just wonderful friends, because we like you all, we don’t invite anyone to special functions like this that we don’t enjoy—we are gathered here for a very special purpose that I and Arnold Shaw from London will speak about a little later. But I feel I must pique your interest even at this early hour with a name.’ He paused and looked archly around as if an indiscretion of some bizarre nature was about to be revealed. ‘Matisse.’ Another coy pause was made available for the intaking of breath, which did not in fact come. ‘Yes, a name to conjure with. The painters’ painter. We’ve all seen the great works in the Centre Pompidou or the Tate. Can we ever expect to see one in our wonderful extension next door?’