First Horseman, The (3 page)

‘No, thanks,’ said Jim. ‘It’s not worth my time. I’ve got way too much already, I don’t want to think about more.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Davas.

They crossed a corridor of ancient red tiles and went into Jim’s study.

Jim plonked himself in a mottled brown leather armchair by the empty fireplace. Davas took his case. He opened it, pulled out a file and handed it to Jim.

Jim flipped through its contents and sighed. It was what he’d expected, a collection of currency and bond charts with a large blank area representing the future for him to fill in with his prediction. He dropped the papers on the floor by his feet.

‘So, what do you think?’ Davas wondered.

‘I told you last time I wouldn’t read charts for you any more. I meant it.’ He looked at Davas, whose right hand was in the case, holding something. Any second he was going to break into a rant. He was going to say that Jim had a God-given talent to read the future of financial markets and that gift was to help the world, more particularly Max Davas, by manipulating the bond markets so that the US could continue to control the global economy by the dominance of the dollar. The US was bust, but in fiddling the bond market and the connected currencies, Davas kept the US all powerful and, by implication, safe.

Davas had used Jim’s predictions to crush the euro to the edge of collapse so that the US could fund its overwhelming debt; the dollar had staggered on as the global currency. Davas would say Jim was turning his back on God by not using his gift, that he was inviting the barbarians to pillage the West if he didn’t help Davas and the US Treasury. Only he could see the possible future, and with Jim’s vision, Davas could mould a favourable outcome, crafted for the good of all.

Jim had resolved that he was not going to participate in Davas’s schemes. A fat American in Ohio was counterbalanced by a starving kid in India. One man’s barbarian was another man’s hero. Why couldn’t the United States simply live within its means?

Davas pulled a metal frame from the bag and unfolded it. It was a chair of sorts, a fold-out stool with an X-frame and a seat made of a thick piece of fawn leather. ‘What do you think?’ He stood up and gazed down at it.

‘What is it?’ said Jim, knowing it was a seat.

‘A Roman camp chair.’

‘Wow.’ Jim got up and crouched beside it. The leather was evidently new but the iron of the frame was ancient. Jim had a warehouse full of Roman pieces he had bought indiscriminately around Europe. Over months of studying the results of his feverish collecting, he had learnt what was real and what had been turned out in some resourceful faker’s studio. ‘Where did it come from?’

‘Germany,’ said Davas. ‘I thought I might pay you for your help in precious Roman artefacts.’

‘Nice,’ said Jim, peering at it closely, ‘but no dice.’

‘It belonged to Marcus Aurelius,’ said Davas.

‘What?’ said Jim. ‘The Emperor?’ He smirked. ‘Yeah, right, of course it did.’

Davas was holding something towards him. It was a large gold ring with a carved stone in it. ‘Oh,’ said Jim, taking it, ‘that’s nice too.’

‘It was found buried with the chair,’ said Davas.

‘That’s got to be Augustus,’ said Jim, marvelling at the superb carving as he turned it in the light. ‘But you’re having me on about Marcus Aurelius, right?’ He studied the sculpted carnelian. The artistry was stunning.

‘Not imperial enough for you?’ Now Davas held out a golden mask. ‘Have a look at this. Do you know what it is?’

‘Kind of,’ said Jim.

‘It was found over the ring, on the frame of the chair.’

‘It’s a gold battle mask.’

‘Well, you know who wore one in Roman times.’

The mask was exquisitely fashioned and the face hammered out on it was the official portrait of Marcus Aurelius, the last emperor of a truly great Rome. It was surely the battle mask of the Philosopher King.

‘You should donate it to a museum,’ said Jim.

‘You can, if you wish,’ replied Davas, his eyes glinting.

Jim sat down and put the mask over his face. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘It was found in a field in Germany about three weeks ago. When I saw it I knew I might have something to change your mind about helping me.’

‘Do you think they buried it where he died?’

‘Very possibly.’

Jim slid the ring onto his little finger. ‘The Romans were short-arses.’ He was always surprised by how tiny their things were.

‘They were harsh times,’ said Davas. ‘It’s only in this modern era that we can grow to our full potential.’

‘When they buried these, they were burying Rome,’ said Jim. ‘After Marcus that was it for civilisation.’

‘Plague,’ said Davas. ‘Marcus Aurelius died of it. Perhaps half the population of the known world died of it.’

‘I hope you washed this,’ said Jim, almost joking.

‘Smallpox doesn’t survive for very long,’ said Davas.

‘Smallpox has been eradicated, right?’

‘Yes,’ said Davas. ‘I would say it decimated the Roman Empire, but “decimate” means only one in ten died. Instead whole regions of Europe were emptied of people. Grass grew on their roads. The barbarians simply filled the vacuum. With smallpox the empire crumbled into dust.’

Jim held up the mask and looked into the face of Marcus. The emperor had worn it at his last battle against the northern tribes and then the plague that had killed his partner in government had struck him. When the Philosopher King had been cut down by smallpox, his world had been set on a course of irreversible decay.

‘Why don’t you take a look at those charts?’ said Davas, as Jim marvelled at the battle mask.

Jim laid the golden trophy on the low walnut table in front of him and picked up the papers.

Davas was holding out a pen to him.

‘These are three-year charts?’

‘I’m not expecting to get my hands on another trove like this,’ said Davas. ‘I need all you can give me.’

Jim knew he’d be back soon enough. ‘That’s a fake,’ he said, waving his pen at the mask, well aware that it wasn’t.

Davas didn’t react.

‘What’s wrong with your computers?’ said Jim. ‘Have they gone blind?’

‘In a way.’ Davas looked unhappily at him. ‘That’s why I need you.’

Jim turned to the first chart. It was the dollar yen. He squinted at it. ‘I don’t look at this stuff any more,’ he muttered. ‘I trade a few stocks for a bit of fun, but I keep away from the big stuff.’ He shook his head, as if his neck was stiff. ‘Most of the time, anyway.’ He stared hard at the chart. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘This is kind of indeterminate.’

Davas was looking past his shoulder as if he didn’t want to put Jim off but, equally, was desperate to watch him study the charts. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘Well, I’m not sure I can draw on this – it’s like a bit of a fork in the road.’ Jim circled a blank about two months into the future. Davas had left a large quantity of space, which represented the future for Jim to fill in with his pen. This was the skill that had made Jim unbelievably rich: his talent at inking a line that predicted the future of money markets.

‘Look at the others,’ said Davas.

Jim leafed through them. ‘I’m losing my touch,’ he said. ‘This is just bullshit to me.’ He went to the gold chart. ‘OK, this is what I see.’ Starting where the gold chart ended, the price at yesterday’s close, he drew a line that zigzagged up over the next three years. But then he drew another that zigzagged down and levelled out. ‘That’s pretty crazy, but that’s what I see. In a few months’ time things could go either way.’

Davas riffled in his case and pulled out a roll of transparencies. He flicked through them until he came to the one he wanted. ‘Gold,’ he said, grabbing Jim’s chart. He put an overlay over Jim’s drawing. Davas’s projection stopped where Jim’s line forked: Jim had predicted a potential split in the fortunes of gold.

‘We kind of agree, then,’ said Jim.

‘Not really.’

‘But gold at nine hundred dollars an ounce, that’s not the end of the world.’

‘It would be very inconvenient,’ said Davas, ‘to put it mildly.’

‘Sorry, Max, but that’s all I’ve got.’ He looked at the ring on his little finger. ‘Do I get to keep these?’

‘Yes,’ said Davas, ‘but I might have to use your God-given talent again to be certain you’ve earned them.’

Jim wasn’t sure whether he was getting a good deal or not. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘but only once, and not, like, a ten-year chart next time or every instrument on the whole bloody market either.’

‘I understand,’ said Davas. He folded up Jim’s projection. ‘Can you draw on the others for me?’

Jim paged through the charts. ‘It’s the same story. It’s like there’s a cliff and either the chart goes off it or it doesn’t. It’s like a fifty-fifty moment in history is coming up. Either something bad happens or it doesn’t.’

Davas grunted in agreement. ‘Well, that’s what I’m getting from my computers too, and it’s not good.’

‘It’s nothing to worry about,’ said Jim.

‘I don’t know so much,’ said Davas.

‘It’ll work itself out. It always does.’

Davas sat down on the camp seat. He looked drained. ‘Not necessarily Jim. There isn’t always a happy ending.’

Dear Professor,

Thank you for asking why I no longer wish to be on the course. As you know I’m a chemist. Genetics has always fascinated me, so I thought, after my master’s, that biochemistry was the next step. However, I cannot work with/on animals.

She was staring at the screen, her brow furrowed like a piece of corrugated cardboard. She was angry with the situation, herself, the professor, the course, the university. She was angry with the world. She continued typing:

I really do not think I could look at myself in the mirror if I experimented on animals. Animals are no more machines than I am, and what is done to them in the name of science is horrible.

‘Horrible’ sounded lame. She found a better word with the online thesaurus. She scanned the new line: ‘What we do to them in the name of science is vile.’ Reading the sentence back, she felt a rush of release.

Animals might treat each other badly in nature, but I do not see that as an excuse to act viciously towards them too. Unlike creatures in the wild, I do not have to tear my fellow beings to pieces in order to survive. I can try to wrap all sorts of clever arguments around why I am dropping out but the real reason is that I believe treating animals as you treated that mouse is an awful kind of bullying, predicated on a level of callousness that verges on inhumanity.

She read the lines back. Was she suggesting that the professor was a vile, callous and inhumane person? She closed her eyes and thought. She was too upset to write to him just now, she told herself. She should delete the message and answer the email tomorrow. By then she’d be able to write in a less emotional and more balanced way.

She didn’t want to make an enemy of the professor, especially as she needed another subject for her doctorate. She sighed. She had made two catastrophic choices: to do the course and to leave it. Her next idea had better be a good one or she’d mess up her whole life.

She opened her eyes and clicked. ‘Oh, God,’ she moaned, realising she’d clicked ‘send’. She opened her ‘sent’ folder and groaned again. ‘You idiot,’ she cried. She opened the message and read it again. Perhaps the prof wouldn’t take it the wrong way. Fat chance, she thought. It was easily the rudest message she had ever sent.

She prayed Cardini was as bloodless as his reputation suggested. Robots didn’t take umbrage. She wondered if she had an email-recall function, and tugged at her long chestnut hair with her left hand as she searched for it. Eventually she gave up. To hell with it, she thought, getting up. I meant every word. She headed for the kitchenette. A mint tea would calm her down.

Jim got up off the grass. Pierre, in his perfect cricket whites, was running towards him. The boy was growing into a giant. Only two years before he had been a couple of inches shorter than Jim, but now he was a couple of inches taller than his benefactor. ‘Hey, Jim,’ called Pierre. ‘I’m so glad you came to see me play. I’ll show you a trick or two.’

Jim smiled at Pierre with pride. They had cheated death together in the DRC under Nyiragongo. They had been thrown together in the mountain jungle, Jim the hapless mining investor and Pierre the child soldier and defiant victim. They were both tenacious survivors, now bonded like brothers. Jim had adopted the boy and brought him to Britain, after making sure his family was provided for in the Congolese chaos.

Kings and dictators sent their pampered princelings to this school yet despite his deprived and violent childhood Pierre had managed to get along. Still, there was something outlandish about his size and athleticism that made him seem older and much bigger than his peers.

Now Jim hugged him. ‘We’re straight to the airport after the match.’

‘You going to come home with me?’

‘Not this time,’ said Jim. ‘I’ve got to see some people about a few things. We can go together at the end of term and take a look at the mine.’

‘Deal,’ said Pierre, grabbing Jim’s hand and shaking it. ‘Got to go now and play.’

‘Good luck.’

Pierre laughed. ‘Way!’ he said looking back to Jim. ‘They’re going to need the luck.’ He loped off, his stride long and fluid.

Jim had caught a whiff of a new English inflection in Pierre’s heavy French Congolese accent. He sat down, smiling to himself. It was good to see him so obviously flourishing. As Jim sat on the neatly cut grass, memories of squatting on jungle litter, pestered by insects, his body exhausted and soaked in sweat returned to him, a legacy of that adventure, like a whistle in the ears after a noisy concert. The more he wanted them to stop, the more he noticed them.

He heard his late nan saying, ‘It’s a funny old world.’

He often dreamt of the jungle and woke from the nightmares with a start.

In a few short years, his talent for predicting the market had turned his life completely inside out. His ability to know if markets were going to rise or fall had set off a chain of events that had transformed him from a poor Docklands kid into a lightning rod struck by bolts of money and trouble. Often his life was like some strange hallucination and he would pull a hair on the back of his arm: pain proved he was in the real world. Sometimes it was the only proof.