The Money Makers (49 page)

‘What did you come here to tell us?’ asked Eileen Asperton. ‘You didn’t just come to ask for a job.’

‘Well, Gissings ain’t as bleeding holy as it makes out,’ said Darren. ‘They get up to stuff, just like everybody. Difference is, I know what stuff.’

‘Unsubstantiated allegations are of no interest to us. If that’s all you’ve come about, you may as well leave right now.’

But she wasn’t dismissing him. She was waiting. Darren patted his backpack.

‘I’ve got everything in here. Everything you could want. Copies, not originals, so they don’t even know they’re missing.’ Both Aspertons stared greedily at the filthy pack. ‘And you don’t need to worry, cos I’ve put them in a plastic bag, so they won’t even be wet. Unlike me,’ he added, hinting.

Muffled in their cashmere coats and scarves and hats, and bobbing gently beneath their tugging umbrellas, the two proprietors of Asperton Holdings stood and drooled. Eileen Asperton dropped the torch beam away from Darren’s face on to the ground, then from the ground to the shiny black car.

‘You’d better climb in,’ she said.

5

1’ll go get the celebration coffees,’ said Matthew.

‘Champagne, more like,’ said Fiona. But she was joking, of course. This was Madison. Alcohol was no more acceptable than trading losses. Coffees it would be.

They had plenty to celebrate. They had successfully bought eleven and a half percent of all outstanding bank loans to Cobra Electronics at an average cost of forty­ three pence in the pound. Last week, they had issued a press release announcing the size of their holding. They also mentioned their intention to block the company’s proposed refinancing plan.

There followed a week of frenzy. Cobra’s first response was not far short of hysterical. It accused Madison of being a ‘self-centred American bank with no understanding of the complexities of the industry’. It said that if Madison blocked the refinancing, the company might go bankrupt ‘by year end’. It called all of its other banks in a rush of indignation, only to discover that they were all quietly delighted at Madison’s leadership.

Cobra called on its merchant bankers, who broke the truth. The company didn’t need more money; it needed competent management. The quickest way to get it was to dismember the company and sell the pieces to the highest bidder. The management resisted, but not for long. With Madison preventing new money from coming in, the company had no choice. A fortnight after Madison had issued its press release, Cobra issued its own, announcing that the company was putting itself up for sale.

The stock price exploded into life, doubling on the first day, then doubling again over the next three days. The price of the loans also rocketed, giving Madison a paper profit of near enough seventy percent. Brian McAllister was ecstatic. He got an e-mail from Dan Kramer congratulating him, and he passed the note on to each of Fiona, Matthew and Ed. Fiona had a dozen picture nails banged into her office wall. She framed the note from Dan Kramer and hung it from one of the hooks. The other eleven stayed empty. This group was going to stay hungry.

Matthew put his coat on.

‘Cappuccino for you, Ed?’ he called to Ed Deane, who was fussing over his bonsai forest.

‘Coffee? Yeah, OK, whatever. But can you go by the florist’s and pick up some plant food? My apple’s developing a blemish. I think it’s magnesium deficiency.’

Deane pointed out a minute black speck on the last of his prized apples. The speck looked suspiciously like dirt to Matthew, who didn’t know too much about magnesium deficiencies. He poked the speck with his finger and it moved. Deane wiped it away with a soft cloth he kept ready.

‘I’ll go by the opticians, if you want,’ said Matthew, but his joke was lost on Deane, who was spraying distilled water on the apple in his relief.

On the way to the coffee shop, Matthew ducked into the little side alley that led up to the garden and the pub. The square was quiet again. The only people there were a couple of tourists trying to find an obscure Christopher Wren church. They asked Matthew’s assistance but he couldn’t help. They left. Matthew pulled out his phone and dialled.

‘Matthew! How nice to hear from you,’ said Belial, once he knew it was Matthew. ‘I had a funny feeling you were going to call.’

‘Yeah,’ said Matthew, who didn’t enjoy Belial’s innuendoes. ‘I want to sell out of my position in Cobra Electronics. Completely.’

Belial said it would take a few minutes but that Matthew could call back to find out exactly how well he had done. Matthew agreed and went off to get the coffees. Once back in the little square again, he called Belial.

‘Congratulations. We’ve sold everything. You’ve made a seventy-two percent profit on the deal, after commissions and everything. Your balance with us is now £109,000 sterling. I must say, you did strike lucky. Just imagine Madison marching in the very same morning you made your investment with us! I bet you were pleased.’

Matthew rang off. He could just imagine the tidy little man, his ugly little face screwed up in laughter. He was unpleasant, but useful.

Matthew went back to the bank, coffee in his hand and joy triumphant in his heart. Plan B was rolling into action.

With Cobra, he had done particularly well, because of the company’s vulnerability and the way Madison had been able to take advantage of it. But even when Madison was just buying on the basis of long-term research, Matthew could profit. The market for company loans and bonds is very thin. Big trades will push the price up or down by a long way and almost overnight. Just knowing that Madison was going to make a trade was information that Matthew could profit from. Even if prices moved by just ten percent, he could make an overnight profit of ten thousand pounds. Even five percent was a huge move - as long as it happened overnight, and as long as, like Matthew, you knew which night was the night. And each time his capital increased, his scope for profits increased too. He’d do it. He now really believed, perhaps for the first time, that he’d do it. He’d get his father’s millions.

But in amongst the joy, there was also shame. Insider trading is deeply illegal. It carries a maximum of seven years in jail. Everyone who respected him at Madison would despise him if he were caught. And, above all, if she knew, Fiona would never speak to him again. She mustn’t know.

He got back to his desk. Fiona and Ed were somewhere else, in a meeting probably.

Matthew took the lid off his cappuccino and drank. God, it was good. He couldn’t just sit down at his desk and begin to work again. He was too keyed up. He strolled up and down drinking his coffee.

He thought about George and Josephine and his mother. He’d send Josephine a present of some money. Not much, but something. Whatever he did, he wouldn’t jeopardise his chance of making the million now.

He thought about his shame. He told himself that insider trading is a crime without victims, but he knew it was a lie. When he bought his bonds, somebody else was selling them: an investment manager maybe, or a pension fund perhaps. If they hadn’t sold, somebody’s pension would pay a little more, somebody’s savings would be that little bit more valuable.

He shook off the uncomfortable logic, and thought instead of his father’s company, about how much it was worth and how long it would take to sell. Matthew hadn’t decided how much of his father’s cash he’d give to his family. Maybe a quarter to Josie, and a million or so to each of his brothers. The world was all before him and he’d aim to be generous.

As Matthew drank his coffee and mused, he saw an apple in front of him. He reached for it absent-mindedly and bit into it. It was bitter and unripe.

As he put it aside, he suddenly saw what he’d done. He had picked Deane’s last, precious, forbidden apple.

The bonsai forest and the dwarf apple tree at its centre looked reproachful, menacing even. Matthew picked up the half-eaten apple and wandered guiltily away.

6

The building was a manor house auctioned off by its original, posh but penniless, owners shortly after the roof had sprung its first major leak. The building had been purchased, tidied, prettied. Tall iron gates operable by remote control sprang up at the entrance. Local girls were interviewed for menial positions and the prettiest ones selected. Soft-spoken doctors with mediocre qualifications and a melting bedside manner swished in and out in their discreet German cars. It was unflashy, but immaculate, a clinic where the sick rich are gently reminded that wealth is always to be preferred to health.

Behind a high mahogany desk in the front hall, a white­suited receptionist icily surveyed the two newcomers: a pretty young woman, not especially well dressed, and an older woman, obviously frail and in need of treatment. The receptionist was unimpressed. The cab that had brought them had been local, meaning that the new arrivals must have arrived by train, and no one who travels by train is wealthy enough to obtain treatment here.

‘You’re here for a consultation, are you?’ she enquired with freezing politeness and indicating the older woman with a tiny flick of her chin.

‘No, no. I haven’t come about my mother,’ said Josephine. ‘I’ve come to visit one of your patients.’

The receptionist eased up. Even wealthy people have poor relatives. ‘Of course. Who was it you wished to see?’

And Josephine told her.

Summer 2000

Summer is here, the first of the millennium. It is hot and bright. The water companies are moaning, the news­ papers mutter about climate change, and the skies are already scorched by holiday jets heading south.

Summer is a time for young men’s thoughts to turn to love, but right now some young men are preoccupied. It is 16 June 2000, and there are 392 days to go until Bernard Gradley’s deadline. That’s little more than a year.

1

‘How are you, Zack, you revolting sod?’

Dixon Banderman was in a good mood. He made a habit of swearing at Zack whenever they met as a reminder of their first encounter, screaming at each other on the zebra crossing outside Coburg’s. Zack, naturally, reciprocated.

‘Not bad. How about yourself, you repellent old fossil?’

‘Good, thanks. You want a bonus this year, or do you want to give it to the Partners in Hardship Fund?’

Zack gave the matter some thought. ‘Well, I’m the first to help the needy, Dixon, but the partners are such an ugly bunch and dishonest as hell from what I’ve heard. I’ll take the bonus.’

Dixon grinned. He liked Zack.

‘Fair enough. God knows it’s small enough.’ Dixon’s face changed and his voice grew businesslike. ‘Amy-Lou has given you the rundown on strengths and weaknesses and all that?’

‘Yeah. My strengths are that I work hard, my work is always top quality, and I’ve made plenty of money. My weaknesses are that I’m a bit arrogant, a bit insensitive, and a bit hard to work with.’

‘A
bit
arrogant?’

‘Amy-Lou might have used a stronger term, it’s true. I do think I’m smarter than most people I work with, but then again, I am smarter than most of them. So what am I meant to think?’

‘There’s more to this game than brains, Zack. You won’t work well in this organisation if people don’t like you, and the same goes for our clients.’

‘Fair enough. I’ll be sweet as a kitten from now on.’

Banderman held Zack’s gaze a moment longer, then picked up an envelope and handed it over.

Zack tore it open. The slip inside told him his bonus was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars plus a salary increase which Zack didn’t register.

‘You should feel pleased with that. That bonus puts you into the top twenty percent of your peer group, which is a tremendous achievement for your first year. You’ll have a good career here, if you want it.’

Zack was pleased, but not over the moon. Unlike Matthew, the bonus didn’t play a big part in Zack’s plans for the future. Either Zack was going to make partner, or he would find a way to Sarah’s money, or both. Either way, a quarter of a million dollars didn’t make a lot of difference. This was just spending money. Still, it was nice to have. He could buy something for Sarah, maybe for her parents too. And Josie. She should have something. He could get her something from Aspreys perhaps, a necklace or something. She always used to love jewellery.

‘Thanks,’ said Zack briefly.

Banderman smiled internally. Zack probably meant it when he said he’d try to be nice, but he didn’t stand a chance. The young man didn’t even realise when he was being rude.

‘OK. You can probably guess why I wanted to have this chat.’

‘It’s to do with finding a replacement for Hal Gillingham, right?’

‘That’s right. As you know, we’ve had our headhunters searching for a replacement and we’ve all been grateful to you for holding the fort in the interim, especially since I know that you’ve still been working hard for Amy-Lou.’

‘It’s been my pleasure.’ That was kind of true. Zack worked hard because he needed to. On the other hand, Sarah was beginning to wonder who exactly she was engaged to: a future husband and father, or a workaholic business machine. They hadn’t rowed about it, exactly. Sarah was uncommonly mature about these things, and Zack had managed to stifle his natural impulse towards aggressive sarcasm. But it was an issue, like sand in the folds of their clothes, that chafed constantly and wouldn’t disappear.