The Money Makers (58 page)

The bank’s admin department had tried hard to get them to find their own accommodation. Fiona had stalled them, gaily using her managing director’s prerogatives to get her way. But even an MD can’t stall for ever. The bank would stop paying the rent on 31 December and after that they were on their own. Fiona said she’d stay on in her impersonal little suite and pay the outrageous rent herself. This wasn’t an option for Matthew, though, and he had pondered the alternatives long and gloomily.

They walked out of the lobby on to the chilly street. It was a frosty night and above the neon glow, a caffeine stay-awake for the elderly city, stars glittered. They walked a couple of blocks to Gianfranco’s, their favourite restaurant and a fashionable haunt of the affluent residents of South Kensington.

Although they ate there often, tonight was special. The EPAS system had ground through another annual cycle and bonuses were announced this week. Matthew’s boss was, of course, Fiona, and it was her duty to break the news. They had agreed to do it away from the bank, and tonight was the night. In her pocket was an envelope. Inside the envelope, a couple of short lines would tell him salary and bonus. This year there was no blot on his copybook, no repeat of the Western Instruments fiasco. The group had made a stackload of money and Matthew had contributed fully to the achievement. McAllister was pleased. The bank was pleased. Matthew was giddy with anticipation.

At Gianfranco’s, in front of the cloakroom tended by a succession of young Italian women of plentiful bosoms and limited English, Matthew helped Fiona off with her coat. It slid off to reveal her in a red evening dress, which Matthew had never seen before. She kissed him.

‘Surprise,’ she said.

It was a surprise. Matthew had never see her wear anything but office clothes or casual outfits. Everything was always excellent quality and well chosen-but it was relentlessly unsexy. At work, she was professional. At home, she was comfortable. Short skirts and extravagant dresses were unknown to her wardrobe.

‘You look wonderful, absolutely wonderful. I never imagined I was going out with a beautiful woman,’ said Matthew.

She pinched him lightly for his cheek.

‘What’s the special occasion? I thought you said bonuses weren’t all that important.’

She shrugged. Her shoulders lifted the dress and let it drop back again. The fabric moved and fell as only very expensive, very well tailored fabrics do.

‘Bonuses aren’t,’ she said. ‘You are. Very. I sometimes worry I don’t tell you that enough. This has been a wonderful year for me.’

Matthew nodded.

‘For
me too. At least,’ he added, crassly joking through nervousness, ‘I think it has. It depends what’s in that envelope.’

‘Idiot,’ she said. She was hurt that Matthew ended the moment with a needless reference to money. He was obsessed by it. She always told him to relax, but he never did. With a gesture of annoyance, she picked the envelope from her coat pocket and walked on into the restaurant.

They ordered without needing to look at the menu.

The waiter brought them a basket of warm ciabatta and a dish of olive oil and Fiona began to dunk the bread in the oil. Matthew normally joined in, but not tonight. She sighed.

‘I guess we’d better cut to the chase or you’ll ruin the evening.’

She put the envelope down on the table, but with both hands on it. She looked even lovelier by candlelight than she had done beneath the overhead lights in the hall. Matthew’s eyes, though, rested not on her, but on the envelope. She noticed and was saddened:

She pushed the envelope across the table.

‘You’re a very good trader. You work very hard. You’ve made a lot of money for the bank. Here’s your reward. Congratulations.’

Matthew ignored the bitterness in her voice. He ripped open the envelope.

His salary had been increased to sixty-five thousand pounds. He was promoted to vice president, another of the bank’s meaningless titles. His bonus was three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars.

Matthew calculated rapidly. That was getting on for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. A quarter of a million pounds. Earned honestly, through talent and hard work.

Oh, boy. Through his insider trading, Matthew had grown his first bonus to a grand total of three hundred and four thousand pounds. With this bonus on top, Matthew was worth close to five-fifty. In eight months’ of insider trading, Matthew had grown his paltry sixty thousand pounds by five times. All he needed to do now, in the seven months remaining to him, was to double what he had. That was a piece of cake. And now he was enjoying the fatter returns from investing in shares instead of bonds, he’d get there even quicker. He wouldn’t try to get more than the million, though.

As time went by, he had become more nervous, not less. He hated Belial’s crooked, self-satisfied chuckle. He hated the fear and deception and the criminality. He hated the little square garden with the benches under the tree. He hated the fact that he was scared of Brian McAllister and of everything around him. He wanted out.

‘That’s great. That’s absolutely great,’ said Matthew. ‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t thank me. Thank EPAS,’ she replied automatically. ‘Do you want to know all your strengths and weaknesses and all that kind of stuff?’

‘Yes, I suppose. But not now. Not tonight.’

Matthew looked again at Fiona. She was radiant and he was blissful, and the combination made her irresistible.

‘Has my bonus obsession been annoying you?’ he asked.

‘I swore I’d never wear a nice dress again unless you looked at me properly. You did, but only with about a minute to spare.’

‘I’m sorry. I promise you that I won’t be like this next year,’ he said, then broke off. It had been an unwritten rule of their relationship that they never spoke of the future more than about a month ahead. Fiona was so quick to feel suffocated, it worked better to keep things low-key. ‘You do look fantastic,’ he added. ‘I’ve never seen you look better.’

Fiona smiled a half-smile. It was her way of telling him that she’d noticed his reference to next year, but that it was OK. She wouldn’t freak out and start behaving like she didn’t know him.

‘Thanks,’ she whispered.

Matthew paused. He had an envelope in his pocket too. He hadn’t been sure whether to hand it over. But he decided to chance it.

‘Fi, you realise that in a few weeks we’re not going to be living next door to each other any more, don’t you?’ She nodded, but she was already tensing up.

‘Aren’t you going to miss that?’

She nodded again.

‘Wouldn’t you like to do something about it? Take some positive action?’

Fiona waited, saying nothing. On the trading floor, she was decisive, swift and level-headed. In anything to do with the relationship, she was almost incapable of action.

‘Fiona, my love, I’d like to live with you. Share a house with you.’ Fiona’s tension visibly mounted, and Matthew was quick to throw her the lifeline she needed.

‘I know you need your own space. I know there will be times when you need to be able to live separately from me. But take a look at this and tell me it’s not perfect.’ He tossed his envelope to her across the table. She reached for it and opened it.

Inside the envelope was an estate agent’s blurb describing a mews house set in a tiny dead-end road in the heart of Chelsea. Surrounded by imposing four-storey houses, the least of them worth very well upwards of a million, the mews houses stood at a lowly two storeys, like the stables they once were. Number 11 stood at the end. The main house comprised a couple of bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, a small kitchen-cum-dining room, and a large and delightful living room. At the back was a tiny brick-paved courtyard, with a fountain in the middle and a hundred terracotta pots which overflowed with scent and flowers in summer. But the real jewel, the feature which first attracted Matthew’s interest, stood at the back of the courtyard. A long, low building had been converted from an artist’s studio to a self-contained flat. Anyone living there would have no need of the main house - not even for access to the street, which was available through a gate in the courtyard.

Fiona looked through the blurb, quickly at first, then, once she had understood Matthew’s intentions, more slowly.

‘We’d buy the house together, but the flat would be yours. I wouldn’t have a key to it. I wouldn’t even set foot in it. You could have your own phone. Your own bed. Whatever clothes you wanted. It would be Fortress Fiona, there for whenever you needed.’

She nodded. Though they had been going out for eighteen months, every step forward still seemed sudden to her. Dangerously rushed. But she knew herself well enough now to do battle with her first impulses. She gave a brave smile.

‘It does look interesting. Perhaps we should take a look at it. Some weekend soon. I’d like that.’

She was trying her hardest. Matthew smiled at her.

‘I’ve already looked round. It’s beautiful. You’ll love it.’

Matthew paused. Fiona was swallowing, trying to master her fear. The next bit would be the hardest.

‘Well, perhaps we should think about making an offer,’ she said. ‘Just to hold off other buyers, till I’ve had a chance to see it.’

Matthew nodded and leaned forward.

‘I’ve put in an offer. It’s been accepted. Of course you need to see it, but we can do that any time. We can do that tomorrow lunch time. I know we’re busy,’ he added quickly, forestalling objection, ‘but we’re always busy. We could make excuses until someone else has bought the house. But let’s not. Let’s really try to buy it.’

Fiona took a deep breath. She looked at Matthew, then down again at the photos of the house.

‘This is very sudden.’

‘Yes. But it’s no easier for you when you have more warning. You just have longer to think up reasons to say no.’

Fiona hesitated. She sat very still. The only movement visible carne from the candlelight flickering over her arms and shoulders. Then she sighed and nodded.

‘OK, let’s look tomorrow. If it’s nice, we’ll go ahead. And I won’t raise problems where there aren’t any. And thanks. It’s a great idea.’

Her words were brave, but she was shivery with fear.

Living with somebody was as scary as it could get. Though her past had grown less terrible with distance, she was its prisoner still. She bit her lip.

‘Remember. Fortress Fiona will be yours, and only yours. You won’t need to see me for months on end if you don’t want to.’

She squeezed his hand across the table.

‘Thank you. Don’t ever ever let me down. I wouldn’t be able to bear it.’

‘It’s OK. I won’t.’ Easy to say. He knew he wouldn’t be unfaithful. He wouldn’t drink too much or beat her up or stop loving her. But what if he were sent to jail for insider trading right under her nose? It would destroy her. Another reason not to get caught.

They kissed and talked more about the house. The price was six hundred thousand pounds which should have been exorbitant, but this was Chelsea. Fiona insisted that she would pay for Fortress Fiona by herself, while they would go halves on the house itself. They decided that that meant Fiona paying four hundred thousand, while Matthew would put up the balance. She would pay cash, of course. If you’ve been in banking for ten years, as Fiona had, you certainly don’t need a mort­ gage. Matthew, naturally, would borrow to make up his share. He certainly wasn’t going to dip into his funds at Switzerland International.

As they talked, Fiona felt a surge of nervous relief. She laughed lots, drank plenty and flirted outrageously. She looked gorgeous and knew it. Matthew was mesmerised by her, as he had been once on the Jamaican sands, as he had been in Vermont and as he had been so often this year. He couldn’t wait to get home to fulfil the passionate promise of her eyes. She saw his impatience and teased him. She ate her pudding slowly, then wanted coffee, then more coffee, then got deep into conversation with the waiter about his family back in Genoa. All the while her eyes darted fire at Matthew and her leg nuzzled his beneath the table.

Eventually she relented and, as they left, she allowed Matthew to put his arm around her. She swayed into his embrace, letting him know her promise held good.

They made their way to the cloakroom booth. Except for the red glow of a smoke alarm, the room was dark and the buxom Italian had disappeared.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll just hop over the counter and get the coats myself,’ said Matthew.

‘No need,’ said a man’s voice from within. Tm just rummaging round for mine.’

The figure approached the counter, where the light in the hallway provided some brightness. With a rush of horror, Matthew recognised him. It was Belial. Looking as neat as ever, in a snug little dinner jacket, the repulsive man pumped Matthew’s hand.

‘Matthew! How good to see you! And who’s this very lovely lady, may I ask? Let me introduce myself. I’m James Belial,’ he said, turning the attentions of his hairy little handshake to Fiona.

Belial grinned at Matthew, squeezed Fiona’s hand too tight and too long, then bounded around the interior of the cloakroom looking for their coats. He insisted on wriggling back over the counter with the coats, kicking with his absurd short legs to lift himself up.