Due Diligence (3 page)

‘No.’

‘Good.’ He lowers his eyes. ‘Good,’ he repeats faintly. This is even worse than I’d feared. I explain that I'll be giving Vance a hand for a while, but this doesn’t seem to register. ‘Shocking business,’ he murmurs again, and he peers down at the desk. Years ago, Daniel was like a second son to him and he seems to have slipped back there now, to those earlier times before his disappointment with Daniel set 1n.

He served with Daniel’s father during the War, they remained friends, each becoming godfather to the other’s first and — as it turned out - only child. But Daniel’s family lived down in Dorset, and I don’t recall ever seeing Daniel until my third year of prep school. I was an adult, about twenty-five, before my father thought it appropriate to tell me most of the story.

Daniel’s father, after bankrupting the family business, had committed suicide. It was reported in the papers as a shooting accident, and in Daniel’s presence that’s how it was always referred to: your father’s accident. But the life-insurers proved beyond doubt that it was suicide. The family was ruined. My father felt honour-bound to take over responsibility for Daniel’s education. He never explained why this entailed moving Daniel out of his old school, or why Daniel spent so many holidays with us instead of returning to his mother in Dorset.

My own mother came to treat Daniel like a second son. Perhaps my father is remembering both of them now. His shoulders sag.

‘Charles doesn’t seem hopeful,’ I say, gesturing back to the door. A feeble attempt to move us on. To my relief, he grasps this straw. He pushes a list of names across the desk.

‘Tonight’s guest list. A red dot by the refusals.’

The red dots are liberally scattered; everyone of consequence has declined. When I hand the sheet back, he regards it thoughtfully. We both know that just ten years ago, when my grandfather was alive and Carltons was still a real force in the City, there wouldn’t have been a single no-show.

‘There’s no need for you to stay, Raef.’

‘I’m here now.’

‘Have a night in with Theresa.’

‘She’s still down in Hampshire, with Annie.’

He lifts his eyes from the sheet.

'Her father’s quite ill,’ I explain.

He nods without comment. He knows me too well not to have realized over the past few weeks that something is amiss with my marriage; he knows, but tonight all other concerns are dwarfed by the memory of Daniel. He passes a hand over his face. ‘What have the police found?’

‘I haven’t spoken to them.’

‘The whole thing,’ he says quietly, brow furrowed. ‘So bloody pointless.’

We drift into silence again. He stares at the guest list, unseeing. He’s thin and pallid, on the backs of his hands the veins stand up pale blue. We have had our differences — most, though not all, about the bank — but right here and now I want to feel that we’re together in our grief. I want to feel that every one of the walls between us is down. ‘Father. Remember when I told you Daniel was going to blow the whistle on Odin?’ He rises slowly and comes round the desk. He stops by my chair.

‘Let it go, Raef.’

‘The other night—’

‘Let it go.’

A moment later and the door is unlocked and opened, and the sound of chattering guests breaks in. ‘They’re expecting us,’ he says. By the time I turn in my chair he has gone.

Half an hour later, and I regret not leaving while I had the chance. The women all want to discuss the latest Impressionist exhibition at the Royal Academy and their husbands seem fixated on the cricket. England are touring the West Indies; to everyone’s amazement we’ve won the first Test. And every five minutes someone feels it necessary to turn me aside and offer a few discreet words of personal condolence. Inevitably there are questions: Where? Who did it? Why? To all of which my answer is a silent shake of the head and a long blank gaze into my glass.

Charles Aldridge comes over to save me from my current persecutor, a woman I barely know who goes back to discuss Cézanne with her friends. He asks me if I’ve spoken to Gerald Wolsey yet. Wolsey, a big-wig in the DTI, the Department of Trade and Industry. ‘He’s over there with Lyle.’ Charles nods toward the terrace windows, and I freeze. Darren Lyle.

‘What the hell’s he doing here?’

‘Who, Darren?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Lyle.’

‘He’s giving evidence at the Select Committee tomorrow. Edward thought a little courtesy wouldn’t go amiss.’

I make a sound. The idea that courtesy might have any effect on Darren Lyle is faintly absurd.

‘Yes,’ Charles murmurs. ‘Your father does have these notions.’

Like most who have had dealings with him, Charles is well-acquainted with the more unpleasant aspects of Lyle’s character. Darren Lyle once worked for us at Carlton Brothers. For two years he was Vance’s deputy in Corporate Finance, but it’s since leaving us that his career has really taken off. Through a fierce and ruthless application of his Darren-Lyle-first policy, he’s risen to the Managing Directorship of Sandersons, another independent merchant bank much like ours. As it happens they’re running the Parnells’ defence against the Meyers. I’m not sure how much of Lyle's smiling insincerity I can take tonight.

‘If you want to slip away,’ Charles suggests, ‘now might be the time.’ But just then Darren spots us, and immediately he leads Wolsey across the room.

'Too late,’ Charles murmurs.

‘Raef.' His face fixed into a picture of sympathetic sorrow, Darren Lyle thrusts out his hand. ‘I can’t tell you - I mean Daniel, Jesus, do they know what it’s about?’

‘No.’

‘I heard he was shot, is that right?’

‘Darren,’ I say tightly, freeing my hand, ‘not now.’

He nods, straightening his tie. ‘Right. Right. Unbelievable.’

Charles intervenes, introducing me to Gerald Wolsey, and the conversation turns. Wolsey, it seems, was one of the mandarins behind the push to set up a committee in the City to promote ‘best practice’ standards across the Square Mile. This committee has become one of Lyle’s pet projects. He chairs monthly meetings in the Sandersons’ Boardroom. In tribute to the chef at Sandersons, and the hopelessness of the committee’s task, it's now referred to almost universally as the Best Lunches Group. I wonder if anyone has ever mentioned that to Gerald Wolsey. An earnest-looking man, one of the grey legion that swarms into Whitehall from the suburbs each morning, I have a feeling he would not see the joke. When Charles begins to quiz Wolsey on some internal politicking at the DTI, I take Lyle by the elbow, drawing him aside.

‘Why did you come?’

‘Your old man asked me. Why, what’s the problem? I shouldn't have come?’

He is a picture of innocence; I restrain a sudden impulse to punch him.

‘You’re not welcome.’

‘I'll get you a drink.’ He wanders across to the nearest waiter. Darren Lyle. Amazing, after all these years, how even the sight of him can make my hackles rise. The man exudes vigour, like some cannibal who has devoured more than his fair share of enemies; several years ago he made an attempt on Daniel and me.

Now he chats to the waiter and smiles in my direction.

Daniel was deputy to the Deputy Treasurer then, and I’d been in Corporate Finance for just a year. Lyle, answering to Stephen Vance, was my senior, and he seemed to take me under his wing. Darren. Darren bloody Lyle. He came within an ace of finishing my nascent career. We were working on the defence for Azart Industries at the time, a Midlands manufacturer. Lyle seemed to get cold feet about the price we’d recommended they accept. He made quite a show of it, trailing his doubts in front of me every hour. Eventually he suggested we might ask someone from our Treasury whose discretion we could rely on; someone who could give us a feel for what the market thought. I mentioned Daniel. And the rest, as they say, is history: I broke the rules. With a nudge and a wink from Lyle, I spoke to Daniel about Azarts, and so breached the Chinese Wall between the two departments. I reported Daniel’s thoughts back to Lyle, who surprised me by pointing out that I’d broken the bank’s internal regulations. He played annoyed. And that afternoon the Azarts share price took off. Before close-of-trade Darren was quizzing me on Daniel’s integrity, implying that I’d made an horrendous mistake. The next morning, after a sleepless night, I was confronted by another barrage of questions as the Azart share price continued its ascent. Was I sure, Lyle wanted to know, that Daniel and I weren’t buying for our own accounts? I swore that we weren’t. He told me not to tell Vance, but suggested I have a quiet word with my father, still Carltons’ MD, and have Daniel dismissed. I felt trapped. The world seemed to be caving in.

Then Stephen Vance called me into his office. He’d seen Lyle and me in whispered conference; he’d been watching the Azart share price; and he’d noticed me sitting in distraction at my desk.

Perhaps you might like to tell me, Vance said, exactly what the hell is going on.

And I did. To this day I’m not sure why. When I finished my story, Vance had Daniel come in. Daniel confirmed what he knew, and swore, like me, that he’d spoken to no-one else about Azarts. Vance ordered us to take the rest of the week off while he looked into it. And when we returned to work the next week, Darren Lyle had already resigned and gone to head the Corporate Finance Department at Sandersons. Later, Vance told me what he thought had happened. Darren had his sights set on the MD’s chair at Carltons, but he knew that I’d always be standing in his way. Vance suspected, but could not prove, that Lyle himself had been behind the rising Azarts share price. Had Vance not intervened when he did, Lyle had ready everything he needed to blacken my name for ever. It was a rough awakening to the dirty realities of corporate politics in the City.

But Lyle, in the years since, has prospered. He now has his coveted Managing Directorship, and access to some of the best boardrooms in the country. As he returns across the room now with the champagne, I notice that he’s put on a good deal of weight lately. His flat, broad face and squat build give him the look of a prizefighter gone to seed.

‘So,’ he says, handing me a glass, ‘who gets Daniel’s job?’

‘You think I’d tell you?’

‘You might.’

I gaze past him. Have I ever really had anything to say to Darren Lyle?

‘Quin’s going to blow Vance out of the water,’ he remarks. Quin is Vance’s opposite number at Sandersons, the man working on the Parnells defence. ‘You want money on it?’

‘No.’

‘Lost faith in Vance, eh?’

‘Darren. You’re a prick.’

For a second his look turns icy. Then it softens, and his eyes narrow. He raises his glass and smiles up at me. "To Daniel,’ he says.

FRIDAY

1

T
he first thing next morning, I find Becky placing a vase of flowers on the bookshelf by my desk. ‘I thought it’d brighten the place up,’ she explains. ‘You know.’

With an effort I try to return her smile.

‘We had to give statements,’ she tells me as she arranges the flowers. ‘The police came. Just us from the boat.’ The boat down by Blackfriars she means, where the party was held. I go and sit at my desk. The paperwork, as usual, is inches deep. When Becky faces me there are tears in her eyes. ‘Who would want to shoot him, Raef? Why would they?’

But what can I say? Fate? Was it the stumble of a blind and senseless universe? Or dare I tell her the unpleasant truth, that Daniel might actually have deserved it?

‘I don’t know, Becky.’

Frowning, she returns her attention to the flowers. Sir John appears in the doorway. ‘One of the Inspectors is here,’ he says. ‘If you're free, he’d like a word.’

When I enter the Boardroom, the Inspector is over by the rear wall studying my grandfather’s portrait. He pivots, and then drops his hand from his chin. ‘Mr Carlton?’ Shaking hands, he tells me his own name: Ryan. ‘Strong family resemblance,’ he says, glancing back to the portrait.

When I explain that I don’t have much time, he gestures to a chair, and in a moment we sit facing each other across a corner of the table. ‘I understand you and the deceased were friends.’

‘Do you want some kind of statement?’

'That shouldn’t be necessary.’ He raises a brow. ‘Unless you want to give one, of course.’

I tell him, no, not particularly.

‘I need to know a bit more about Stewart,’ he says, and it jars to hear Daniel’s name like this from a stranger; but Ryan seems to expect a response, so I nod. ‘Anything that might give us some inkling why he was shot.’ He pauses. ‘You did know he was shot?’

‘Yes, I spoke with his wife.’

Ryan takes out a notepad. Pencil poised, he asks, ‘When did you last see him?’

‘At the party, on the boat.’

He" jots this down. ‘Didn’t say or do anything out of the ordinary? Didn’t seem worried?’ He glances up. ‘This isn’t a statement, Mr Carlton. Just a few notes to aid a bad memory. Don't let it put you off.' He repeats his questions.

‘I'm not sure,’ I tell him. ‘I didn’t get much chance to speak with him.’

‘Was he drunk?’

‘He’d had a few, but he wasn’t drunk. Who said he was?’

The Inspector smiles. ‘It was just a question. I understand his position here was quite important.’

‘He was Head of Treasury.’

‘Which entails what?’

‘Haven’t you got this already?’

He taps his pencil on his notepad. ‘Bear with me,’ he says.

I want this over with, so I give the Inspector a brief description of Daniel’s responsibilities as Treasurer. He was in charge of Carltons’ whole trading operation, responsible for a daily turnover of several hundred million pounds. Foreign exchange, gilts, bonds and equities, he oversaw them all, both interbank and on the international exchanges. A major position at the bank. Ryan listens, but writes none of it down.

‘And he answered to you,’ he says when I finish.

'That’s right.’

‘His position was likely to make him enemies, I understand.’

I remark that any position is likely to make a man enemies. Ryan takes a moment with that. ‘Not just here,’ he says. ‘Among the other banks. And your clients, possibly?’