MONEY TREE (17 page)

She hefted
her cell phone, then put it down and picked up the room phone. Do I even need to call? Why not just get on the plane? Because they’d know I knew something. . .

She hit the pad and put on her smile. Smile and dial
, the first rule of trading on the Fixed Interest desk. Grudgingly Pat put her through. She forced lightness into her voice.

‘
Just wanted to say I’m off, Warwick. . . time to get back before they forget me. I’ll catch you at the next quarterly. Unless you’re doing one of your globals? Passing through Hong Kong?’

‘
I’m tied up here for a few weeks. Preparing for our monthly call with the press analysts. Needing Charlie to be inventive, given our figures. Then I need to get down to Rio to meet José’s wife and chose his successor. For the job not the husband,’ he laughed.

She swallowed
, thinking of the unctuous insincerity that he’d ooze over poor José’s wife.

‘
Look, Warwick, about José, it’s still hard to take in. I’m due some downtime. I’m going to set my out-of-office for a week. Book into the Peninsula Spa in HK. My number two can handle things, but my PA will haul me out of the steam room if you need me. OK?’

‘Sure. Recharge
. You sound tired. We all need to shake this stuff out of our heads. You fly safe and keep those reds out of your bed.’

She wished he’d stop using that
stupid quip, and hung up before she screamed at him.

Warwick too, cut off the speaker connection and pulled
over the photo. Kutzov had left it on his desk and had marked the time, date and place. It was taken inside the café of the local bookshop. It showed José Cadenza and Erin Wishart in earnest conversation. Warwick’s face flooded with blood, his jaw muscles contorted and he felt the room closing in on him. Slowly, he ripped the photo into tiny pieces before heading for his washroom.

A day later in travel time and two days by calendar, Erin Wishart was wheeling her trolley towards the exit signs in Kolkata airport. It was nearly midnight local time. No matter how many miles she clocked up, it didn’t get easier. In her weariness she wondered again why she’d been so impulsive, other than being annoyed at Ted Saddler’s attempts to thwart her. There were a thousand better boltholes than this. Like the Peninsula Spa in Hong Kong. And the thought of having to whip some life into a reluctant reporter with a pickled liver held little attraction. But as usual, if she wanted anything done well, she had to take charge.

Her trolley had a faulty wheel and she had to wrestle it round the cluttered arrival hall. It wasn’t like the last time she’d come to India –
barely a year ago – when she’d descended from on high as GA’s top executive in the region, outranking the area manager. Back then, before landing, she’d changed into the power suit in the toilet and donned the boss make-up and heels. The metaphorical red carpet and the very real limo were waiting, along with a small group of flunkies to cosset her and make her feel important. She’d swept in, cell phone ringing and urgent messages piling up, to lord it over her fiefdom.

This time,
her phone was silent. In the private lounge for Concierge Key holders at Newark she’d called her regional assistant to tell her she was taking time out for a week and didn’t need collecting at Hong Kong. Then she’d personally fixed the second leg of her journey to Kolkata. At Hong Kong she’d showered in the VIP lounge and had a manicurist remove her nail varnish, knowing it would chip to pieces within a day.

This time
, coming into land at Kolkata airport she put a brush through her hair and pulled it back in a single ponytail. Her eyes were gritty from the recycled cabin air so she kept on her specs. Trainers dropped her height. The low key grooming left her feeling inconspicuous, as planned, but also curiously naked. The pampering rituals of New York had seemed outrageous vanity on first arrival but it hadn’t taken long to get used to the weekly blow dries and manicures.

Now,
instead of a bunch of nervous little men waiting for her, dressed to the nines in suit, collar and tie, there was one shambling big guy. She saw Ted and realised he didn’t recognise her. He looked anxious. She hoped he hadn’t been drinking. She steered towards him and slapped on a smile.

Ted was calling himself stupid, crazy. She was bossy and full of Scottish rectitude, and in any other circumstances, wouldn’t have wasted a glance on him, maybe not even in his heyday, whenever that was. She was only coming to make his life more difficult. He kept finding his finger nails in his mouth and pulling them back in annoyance.

For the first time in – well, who knows how long? – he had
the glimmer of a sense of purpose, as though something had been switched on inside of him. It left him schizophrenic; half irritated and half expectant. Half ready to bolt, half up for it, whatever ‘it’ was. He analysed the expectant emotion: he was waiting for a girl at an airport, and no matter how he weighed up the case against Theodore Saddler ever getting past first base with this girl, it still felt good. As the notion crystallised, he chided himself. She was just the source and symbol of meaningful activity. That was the sensation he’d not felt in a while.

Her flight was late and he wandered over to the newspaper shop and bought a
New York Tribune, printed in New Delhi and circulated across India. He flicked through to the business section and scanned the headlines till he found his piece. The copy he’d filed was more even-handed than Stan had wanted; than Ted had expected. Guilt was a powerful driver. Glancing through the article, his own phrases jumped out at him:

…hard to visualise this decrepit office block as a breeding ground for corruption. Flies maybe…

…micro-finance if applied right, can work…it’s how Bank of America started a century ago in Manhattan’s Lower East Side among Italian immigrants.

This story might indeed be about corruption. The question is whose and where?
Mr Banerjee talks … about underhand tactics by a major competitor. A Western competitor. . .

He’d left plenty of room for
rowing back in the light of new facts but it was still a tonal shift. It had been a wrestling match to begin with; Stan sceptical of the softer line and muttering how hard this would play on the top floor. But say what you like about Stan, he was an old-style newspaper man and he didn’t like being dictated to from on high. He always backed his boys down on the street, especially unfriendly foreign streets.

Ted
began his prowling again, wondering if Erin would appreciate his new angle, or even detect it. He pulled out of his waistband the light-weight sports shirt he’d unearthed from his discard pile in the spare room. Better - cooler and less constricting. He kept casting around. There was a fresh eddy of arriving passengers chugging behind their piled trolleys. He almost missed her.

Then he caught the smile
and the eyes behind the glasses. She looked like her younger, smaller, less threatening sister. She was in sneakers, and like him, shirt loose outside blue jeans. As she closed in on him he saw the gaze of the tough executive he’d met in New York. For a second, all his doubts flooded back, and he wondered what the hell this stranger had got him into.

So he was glad of the smile. It might have been all that was on offer, but it was at least a recognition that they were in this together. He didn’t know whether to shake hands, embrace her, or do air-kisses like they were in a
Chi-Chi Manhattan restaurant. In the paralysis of their forced relationship they mustered a couple of self conscious waves from way too close.

‘Hi,
Ted! My god, that’s a long haul.’

‘
Thought you were used to it? Can I push that?’

He took over the recalcitrant trolley holding her one case and
smart leather backpack. They pushed through the doors into the steam-bath outside. He fended off the touts and beggars – feeling positively like a local - and waved to the car he’d hired from the hotel. It was a small Merc with a bright young man driving. He was out the door and hauling her case into the car before they knew it. They fell into the air-conditioned luxury of the back seat and Erin was immediately on the attack.

‘So what have you been up to? When can I see Banerjee?’

‘It’s midnight. Don’t you ever sleep?

‘
I like to plan the day ahead.’

‘Fixed for t
omorrow morning. Do you get sick in cars if you read?’

‘Nope.
Travelling is catch-up time between meetings.’

‘Try this.’ He handed her the Tribune, folded at the place.

She read it once, then again. She smiled, genuinely this time.

‘
Not quite on the side of the angels yet. But progress. What was he like?’

‘
Ramesh? A combination of prophet and financial whiz. Is he really that good? Is anyone?’

‘
We’ll see tomorrow. But my research says so.’

He heard the challenge. ‘Let’s keep the notion open. But I still need hard evidence, so maybe I’m more Thomas than Paul.’

‘Why’s it so hard?’ She wasn’t asking it of Ted in particular.

He thought for minute.

‘Altruism embarrasses us. Too unsophisticated, too heart-on-your-sleeve. Too naïve for us Western sophisticates?’

She was silent for a while, looking out the window. They both gripped the door handles tightly as the car braked and dived through the traffic
, still manic at midnight.

‘So why are we here?’ she asked turning back to him and inspecting him.

‘I’m just trying to keep my job.’

‘One of us should. I’m hoping that it doesn’t matter
how it started out. That what counts is how we take it from here and what we make of it.’

Ted
didn’t like the way the conversation was going. It sounded too much like a quest for his liking, and he’d given up all that tilting at windmills stuff.

They dropped the philosophical discussions and pointed out
the poorly lit streets to each other as they drove to the Oberoi Grand. It was like passing an endless series of Caravaggio tableaus; lives lit by cooking fires, neon tubes and cigarette glows. She mentioned how nice it was to be travelling on the correct side of the road for a change. He pointed out the irrelevance of that remark given the chaos outside.

By the time they got to the hotel her face was showing the strain of the last 24 hours flying and the last few days of playing spies. There were red spots on her pale cheeks, and
behind her glasses her eyes were dark ringed. They agreed to meet at breakfast prior to seeing Ramesh together in a small conference room at the hotel. Ted had convinced Ramesh it would be good to get some real privacy. But he was also thinking of air conditioning and imported coffee.

In the meantime
there was his bed, CNN, and a restocked minibar.

C
arly Sofersen got her first real job just three months after graduation. Her heart had been set on becoming a news reader – she had the right voice and looks, all her friends had told her. It was there in her year book Carly Sofersen, the next star of stage and screen! And Carly, CNN’s anchor! So it would be true.

Her father had pulled a few strings with some old marketing buddies who in turn had mentioned it to a news executive. Carly had taken the train into New York, all the way from her home in Albany, to be interviewed for and offered the job of trainee journalist at the
New York Tribune. Carly’s initial sense of awe at living and working in Manhattan, and being on the first rung of the ladder to news reader was beginning to wear off. Sure, she’d now seen plenty of her heroines in the flesh. And sure there was a buzz about the place. But essentially her job was a glorified office junior.

It had been particularly humiliating to be told by two of the older journalists and one sub editor that she couldn’t write. What that had to do with news reading was beyond her. All she wanted was the chance to get in front of those cameras and she’d show them. So she wore smart two-piece suits, bought for her by
Mommy after a huge expedition to Madison Avenue, and she kept a clip-board under her arm at all times and made sure she was often in the sightlines of the top executives. It was only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, she fielded odd jobs for some of the senior journalists, like
Ted Saddler. She liked Ted, even though he scared her at times. But he was friendly without wanting to get too close, like some of the other men. Ted always seemed more interested in her; his eyes didn’t automatically go to her legs or her chest. He looked her straight in the face. Like her father. He kept telling her she’d make it; it just took time. Occasionally he would let her work on a piece so that she could get the ‘feel’ of the words, he said. In return, Carly did helpful things like check his mail or get him a sandwich if she was heading to the canteen too.

So when she noticed the flat, book-sized  package on his desk, she picked it up and looked at the labels. It was from Florida and it was marked Urgent, Private and Personal,
Theodore Saddler. She knew he was over in India doing something big about a bank, so she let it sit for a day or two. Then, as no-one else seemed to care about it one way or the other, she decided to show some initiative; which would please Ted, she was certain. She put the package inside a FedEx envelope and, after checking with Travel, addressed the package to Ted’s hotel in Kolkata. Before she closed the envelope, she stuck a post-it note in the shape of a heart on the original and wrote in a big round hand, Thought this was important, love, Carly.