An Honorable Surprise (5 page)

“That is so convincing, Mr Henty,” she said half mockingly.
 

“And for God’s sake, stop referring to me as Mr. Henty. It’s Simon. And that’s a client request, ok?”

Tamara was spared continuing the conversation as the rising whine of the jet engines indicated they were about to taxi. A pilot in a white shirt with shoulder flashes sauntered towards them from the cockpit. “Welcome back, sir. We’re cleared for take-off, and we’ll be getting to Italy in three legs, with brief stops at Singapore and Abu Dhabi. The trip looks good, we’re flying above any turbulence so just have yourselves a good time.”

He looked at Tamara quickly before walking back to the cockpit area, and she wondered what kind of ‘good time’ Simon had on other excursions in the Gulfstream.

Within hours they were high above the Pacific. Simon was finding Tamara an enigma. She seemed comfortable with the trappings of wealth, and her simple yet elegant clothes smacked of designer label. He’d also expected her to withdraw into herself during the flight, but while she was a bit reserved, there was no hint of any animosity.
 

In fact, she kept him busy with questions about his business, and he found her enthusiasm intriguing. Normally his female companions were awed by the private jets or helicopter travel, and spent their time surfing the satellite channels or drinking too much.
 

Tamara was different.
 

“So how did you get your first break in business, Simon?”

It was question that he was often asked at business school seminars or industry conventions. Normally he had a practiced reply which avoided specifics, but for some reason he decided to be frank.

“Some people achieve success because they inherit wealth and do something with it,” he said carefully. “In my case, I was forced to be successful.”

Tamara was intrigued. “It sounds like there’s a story behind what you’r saying?”

“Not really. My parents were normal, hard working Australians. We lived in the outback. It was hard. But they scrimped and saved to send me to college. I never realised the sacrifice they made.” Simon paused and
 
gazed at the fleecy clouds below. “They went to town maybe once a fortnight. For some reason they got sucked into a meeting that was taking place hosted by a silver tongued investment broker. He was offering to make people rich. It sounded too good to be true, and, of course, it was. They poured what remained of their life savings into his pocket. He was a crook, of course.”

Tamara glanced away, suddenly aware of an icicle of fear.

“They were snared in a web of deceit, a massive fraud.
 
The guy behind it was called Douglas Ahern. My parents lost everything they had worked for. I had to do something. And I’ve worked ever since to repay their debt.”

“How long ago was that?”
 

“You must have heard of it? The Ahern scandal, about eight years ago. Everyone in Australia knew someone who was affected. The trial was in all the papers. He was found guilty, of course, but couldn’t face the life sentence that was evidently going to be handed down. He committed suicide,” Simon finished bitterly.

“What - what about your parents?”

“Not good. Mum is in care. Dad lives in a secure home. I truly believe their world fell apart when they lost all their money.” He paused for a moment. “So… I had to be successful. I owe it to them.”

Tamara felt sick, inwardly shaking.
 

Simon leaned back in the exquisitely hand stitched pale leather recliner and glanced at Tamara. “Hey, are you alright? You’ve gone very pale!”

“No, no - I just suddenly feel tired,” Tamara lied, her heart hammering, wondering how Simon would react if he knew the daughter of the man who had brought his parents to ruin was sitting opposite him. She had changed her name to avoid the stigma that accompanied being the daughter of a fraudster, but she lived her life under the threat of exposure.

“Time to pack it in, then,” Simon yawned. “We’ve got several time zones to get through anyway. See you in the morning - or evening, whatever it is.”
 

But despite the luxury jet’s opulence, Tamara did not sleep easily even though the passenger seats reclined so far back it was as if she were in a decent sized bed, and she could only doze fitfully as their jet bore them effortlessly toward Italy.

***

Tamara had been dreaming. It was
that
dream
.
She didn’t have the dream so often now, but she still awoke unsettled
 
- and sad.

It always began the same way: Tamara was a small girl again, playing with her parents. She was in the living room at home, and she felt indescribably happy. Her mother was laughing, and her Daddy was stroking her hair, and calling her his special little girl. She had the intense feeling that the moment would never end, that she would be happy for ever after, like the endings of the bedtime stories which her father read to her when he got home from work.

But then, the dream changed: she was elsewhere, and she had grown up. Everything was different now. She was dreaming that she was alone, standing in the vastness of the Australian outback. She was desperately searching for something, but Tamara didn’t know what it was she was looking for. She knew only that she had lost something so precious that she might never be fully herself again until she found it.

And then, just when she realised that she was never going to discover her goal, the dream ended. She would wake up, knowing she wouldn’t get back to sleep again.

It was the same when she woke up on the flight feeling thirsty and dehydrated..
 

Tamara ordered
 
black coffee, and sat disconsolately gazing into the darkness as the Gulfstream cruised high above Asia.

It had been the same when her mother had telephoned. Tamara was getting dressed when the phone rang. She’d known instinctively before she heard her mother’s voice that something must be wrong, but she couldn’t believe any more disaster could strike her family. But to be called at this hour meant that there was another crisis.
 

“Darling? I don’t know how to - “

“Mum? What is it? What’s wrong?” Then, “Is it Dad?”

“Darling -” And her mother had burst into tears.
 

“What’s happened? What’s going on? MUM?”
 

Douglas Ahern had been found dead in his apartment. He had taken an overdose.
 

The newspaper headlines screamed at her from every news kiosk as Tamara walked to work next day. “Disgraced Finance Chief Found Dead!” “Multi-Million Fraudster Commits Suicide!” “Trial To Be Adjourned.”

The next few weeks were nightmarish. Journalists were door stepping he mother’s house; Tamara disconnected her landline but they somehow found her cell phone number.
 

“Miss Ahern ? Will you be giving the money back? What about the pensioners? How do you feel?”
 

How could you, Dad? How could you have put us through this? You bastard….. Oh, Daddy……..

And then she wept, crying for the father she realised she had never known, grieving for the loss of all that she had believed rock solid.

The enormity of her father’s embezzlement unravelled as the trial had progressed. The lifestyle she never thought of questioning because it had been the backdrop of her life since she could remember, turned out to be built on lies and deception.
 

At first she joined her mother in the courtroom, requesting compassionate leave from work. But the weeks dragged by, with endless details of intricate financial arrangements and descriptions of fake invoices - it was more than Tamara could take.
 

She hardly glanced at her father, sitting between his lawyers. He never made eye contact with her, and seemed to concentrate on scribbling notes or staring fixedly in front of him.

He committed suicide before being sentenced - but the nightmare was only just beginning because Tamara and her mother discovered that they owned nothing. They were hounded from their home.
 
They were penniless.

“Are you sure you’re OK, Mum?” Tamara had asked on that fateful evening when she phoned, as she did every week.

“Yes, darling, I’m fine. Don’t you worry about me. Take care of yourself.”

Mum always said that: ‘Take care of yourself.’ But she aged terribly after Dad’s death, and Tamara wished she could scoop her up in her arms. Then
 
they could both disappear to an exotic island and escape the aftermath of the family disintegration. Tamara managed to find a housing association who had a tiny apartment for her mother, and it was the caretaker who had phoned saying that Mrs Ahern wasn’t answering her calls.

A year to the day, Tamara’s mother had followed her husband’s suicide, her life drowned by the ever rising tide of threatened class action litigation, the trauma of the discovery of her husband’s crimes, and the shame at losing everything that she had thought was secure.

Tamara was on her own.

Chapter 6

 
“What are you reading Simon?”

He had been buried in financial spreadsheets for the last hour, and had only picked at the exotic seafood salad that was served. Tamara noticed Simon worked throughout the journey, either using the plane’s on board internet link, or disappearing to the rear of the aircraft where there was a boardroom and he could talk to his staff.
 

“Uh? Oh - company stuff. Boring I’m afraid. Sorry, I’m not being very good company, am I?”

Tamara was determined to show an interest in his business and wanted him to explain the key role hedge funds played in modern financial systems, and how his company had made such strides in global dominance. “We were in the right place with the right product,” he finished. “That’s probably the root of every business success. I wish I could take more credit for it.”

“But hedge funds such as yours earn ridiculous amounts of money for, well, for what? Financial companies don’t get a good press, do they?” Tamara asked.

Simon frowned at her. “Listen, Tamara. Let’s get one thing clear. My work is not sleazy. I’m not a crook. I work damn hard and if I earn a lot of money, well, my clients earn a helluva lot more than I do.”

Tamara looked across the table at him quizzically. “How can you say that?”

Simon sighed. “OK, let me give you a Hedge Fund 101 introductory course. Let’s pretend you’re my client, right?”

“Fine,” Tamara said disinterestedly.

“Right. Let’s say you’ve made your fortune and you’re not satisfied. You want to make more, but you can’t do it yourself. You go out and you hire someone. You hire me.” Simon reached across and took two cookies from the plate that lay between them. “Now, I know you’re going to be a demanding client. Every day when I wake up and go to the office, my purpose is to put your money to work, because the more I make for you, the more I get to take home.
 
So I make a deal with you. I say to you, ‘Look, you’re trusting me with your money. It’s a risk. But let’s try and sweeten that risk, ok?”

Simon took the cookie and broke it into pieces. “So, this cookie represents your money. Let’s pretend it’s a hundred million dollars. Whatever happens, you get to keep the first 4% of whatever I make for you. So - here’s your original investment,” said Simon, sliding one of the cookies across the table to Tamara’s side. Then he broke a small piece off the second piece and handed it to her as well. “And that’s 4% of the profit I’m making for you. I’m going to pretend I do really well - and look, I often do! - And I double your investment. I’ve already given you 4% of your 100% profit, which leads 96% - that’s ninety-six million - to be split between us. The deal we agreed is I get 25% and you get 75%.”
 

Tamara watched as Simon carefully crumbled the rest of the cookie into two unequal parts, giving her the larger one. “OK, there you are. The net result is I walk away with 24 million dollars, and you get the 4 million as well as the 72 million which was the split we agreed. Which gives you a grand total of 76 million dollars.”

He leaned back and looked at her. “Now - what are you going to read in the newspapers about our deal?”

Tamara looked at him uncertainly, wondering how he had made something she had never managed to understand, so simple. “I don’t know,” she said. Then, “So that’s the way the cookie crumbles?” she said trying to make a joke.

“That’s facetious,” he said sharply. “I’ll tell you what the papers will say. The news headlines are going to say, ‘Hedge fund manager earns 24 million dollars.’ Yet they won’t tell you I earned my investors $76 million. And it scales up. If I were managing $10 billion, my compensation would have been $2.4 billion and I will have made my investors $7.6 billion. But what do you read? Article after article and blog after blog about how I was earning ridiculous amounts of money. Not once will you read about the massive payday I deliver to those people who entrust me with their money.”

And then he had excused himself, and returned to his reading.
 

Tamara couldn’t but be impressed by the sincerity in his voice, and the passion with which Simon explained his work. She opened her e-reader but couldn’t concentrate. Instead, she found herself glancing across the cabin aisle to where he was sitting .

Simon was wholly absorbed in his work.
 
He had taken off his dark blue cashmere and rolled up his white cotton shirt sleeves so that she could see his muscular arms and the way the bright sunlight caught his dark
 
wavy hair.
 

He had an extraordinary ability to become suddenly animated and infectiously energetic, and then suddenly switch off, oblivious to anything around him.

I wonder if there is anything other than business in his life?

But Tamara’s thoughts were interrupted by a soft touch on her shoulder.
 
The graceful stewardess who had joined them when they refuelled at Abu Dhabi told her they would be landing in Italy in an hour.