Darke Mission (53 page)

“Good morning guys. Glad to see you didn't wait!” said JJ, only half joking.

“Hi JJ,” they replied.

JJ didn't really feel like being overly social, nor was he in the mood for that early morning banter so prevalent in investment houses. He wanted to get straight down to the business in hand.

“Toby, where's the gold that you sold yesterday?”

Yves-Jacques jumped in, partly because he was the one Toby had delegated the transportation job to and partly because he was quite excited by this edgy extracurricular exercise. “The bars destined for Metalor are in the London Silver Vaults in Chancery Lane. They're very secure vaults, apart from that one breach a while ago, and their security has been beefed up a lot since then. It is not widely known that they store gold as well as silver and jewellery. Brink's are scheduled to pick up the bars later today and ship them to Switzerland.”

JJ thought what a small world. The London Silver Vaults were indeed very secure but the breach mentioned by Yves-Jacques had been masterminded by Victor Pagari. Good job JJ knew that the young safe cracker had only just returned from Seoul with a rapidly healing Ethel. “And those bought by JPM?”

“I managed to convince JPM in New York that it would be more efficient and cheaper if they stored the gold at their vaults in London Wall, rather than go to the expense, actually our expense, of having them shipped to the States,” said Toby, still munching on a cheese and tomato croissant.

“That all sounds good guys. What's today's plan?” asked JJ.

“We've got 2,250 bullion bars to go,” said Toby. “I'm speaking to HSBC this morning and a Geneva based family office in the afternoon. I'm confident that between them they will gobble up the bars. If not, my back up is Heraeus in Germany and Scotia Mocatta in New York. The early morning gold price looks like it'll trade between $1,840/oz. and $1860/oz. That's a bit up from yesterday. Cable is stable so we should be all set.” Toby, clearly energised by croissants, baguettes and a couple of nuclear strength coffees was ready to rock.

JJ mulled over Fathead's information for a minute or two. Though JJ did not trade gold for MAM he was in charge of its inclusion or exclusion from the fund's portfolio. He needed to know more about the influences on gold than even Toby, though his amigo was the one with the sharp-end trading skills. JJ knew that there were many determinants of the gold price, ranging from supply and demand to geopolitical concerns, doubts over the worth of fiat monies, inflation, government defaults, intrinsic taste of the Chinese and Indians. At the end of the day, however, most gold bugs were momentum players. If the price went up they wanted to hold more and vice versa if it went down. Buy low and sell high did not, empirically, seem to be an adage embraced by the majority of gold market participants. A mere glance at a twenty year chart of COMEX gold stocks versus the gold price showed a correlation of near 90%. With the price of gold rising Toby was selling to willing buyers.

“Sounds like a good plan, Toby,” said JJ eventually, “but no more discounts. I understand why you gave Metalor a preferential deal, it's always nice to get a bulk selling programme off to a good start. The gold price seems to be on the up and most market players will simply extrapolate that forward until the price sinks one day. So get it done at market and let me know the final tally when you're finished,” advised the Scot.

“Sure, no problem,” replied Toby with belly full of food and mind full of markets.

The meeting of the three amigos ended with JJ again thanking Toby and Yves-Jacques for their commitment and skill. This gold task was not MAM business but a successful outcome was essential to their continued employment with MAM not to mention their entire financial careers and personal freedom. JJ had no doubt that Toby would complete the task and that Yves-Jacques would stay on top of the logistics of moving and storing the bullion bars. They would be relying on JJ to negotiate their release from the vice like grip of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and the FCA. Nauseating as it felt that meant a meeting with Neil Robson.

* * *

“So where's my money Darke?” asked Neil Robson abruptly and with a hefty dose of anxiety in his voice. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury was becoming so twitchy about the health of his limbs and the earache he was getting from the Chancellor that he had demanded that JJ come to his office the very day that Toby was finalising the sale of the bullion bars. JJ complied and had been shown in to Robson's Treasury office by Becky, resplendent in her full candescence again, today's outfit being primarily a lime green suit with lime green and black designer shoes. JJ thought she was very pleasant albeit a bit bright.

“The gold sales are being completed today,” replied JJ. “The money from them will be safe in an account with a private bank in Luxembourg. If all goes well you can probably have it in a day or so.” JJ delivered the news in a very low key way. Inside he was seething. All the trouble that he and his friends had gone to acquiring the gold. The injury to Ethel, the capture of deep cover Kwon, the stalking of Cyrus. None of that would have happened if both Britain and Greece hadn't been so fucking financially useless and he and Toby not so fucking financially smart to dance at the edge of trading legality. Every time that he looked at Robson's miserable face he wanted to punch his lights out. He needed to be calm and collected however until it was over, not a frame of mind often visited by west coast Scots.

“Good, JJ, good. I'll give you details where to send the proceeds. Then you can have your nasty little FCA file,” said Robson with a face full of smirk.

“Do you think I came up the Clyde in the shit ship you fucking tit?” raged JJ, his calm and collected aura having hardly registered on any timescale. “I'll have the file first, any copies hard or electronic, a signed letter from you exonerating me, Toby Naismith and Yves-Jacques Durand from any wrongdoing financial or otherwise. When I'm totally satisfied with that you can have your money, I mean the British government's rightful compensation for bond defaults by the North Koreans, or had you forgotten about that?”

Neil Robson's ugly mug had gone as incandescent as one of Becky's rosso outfits. Even if he had been in JJ's shoes and done the same he wasn't going to be dictated to by this Scottish pleb. “You're in no position to demand anything you fuckwit. I can end your career and have you thrown in jail by tonight. What's poor little Cyrus going to do then brainbox?”

Any living creature's neural system can be complex. The internal and external stimuli which trigger a response are not the same across species, or from one human to another. In JJ's case, a derogatory or threatening remark aimed at his son would almost always trigger that part of the brain which signalled ‘attack'. In a flash, JJ was out of his seat, across Robson's desk, had his right hand on his throat, punched him full on the nose with his left fist and both of them were on the floor. As JJ was squeezing a little harder and berating the Financial Secretary for even mentioning Cyrus, the door to Robson's office was opening and Becky was coming through it. The antagonistic pair leapt up, Robson sat in his seat, handkerchief covering his bloody nose, and JJ walked slowly around Robson's desk and back to his chair.

“What's all this commotion?” asked Becky, surveying the scene but not sure what had happened.

“It's OK,” said Robson. “I had a sudden nose bleed and felt a bit faint. Mr Darke, here, darted round to make sure I was alright. Things are good now.”

“Do you want some tea?” enquired Becky of her boss. Given that half of Robson's desktop contents were all over the place, that Mr Darke sure must have taken the short route to aid her boss's bleeding nose she thought. “Yes, fine, OK, that would be good,” said Robson.

“Please, thank you,” added JJ, now having recovered some external composure, though still internally boiling. Becky acknowledged JJ and headed out to make some tea. She left the office door open, however, as she did not really believe a word that her slimy boss said.

JJ was the first to speak, in a low voice. “Look Robson, this isn't getting us anywhere. I told you before and now you get it. Don't mention Cyrus again. Don't think about him, as my son or as a tool of leverage. I know you're the one behind those Russian donkeys who were tailing him. I saw off black Merc man and if I ever see another lowlife even looking at me or Cyrus it'll be the last look of his miserable criminal life.”

Robson said nothing, too busy trying to plug his red nose river.

“When the gold sales are completed, I'll let you know. It'll probably be today or tomorrow. Then I'll be back here. I'll have a laptop with me, connected to the accounts that you want me to transfer the funds to, the amounts and their distribution. One press of a key and it's done, the British government will be solvent again. Before that press, however, you will give me what I've asked for. Is this understood and agreed?”

Robson nodded and mumbled, “Yes.”

JJ got up and exited Robson's office. As he was leaving Becky was coming in with the tea. JJ apologised to Becky saying that he had to dash off, wished her a pleasant day and said that he hoped it would be less full of incident. He smiled broadly. Becky smiled back and thought that this Mr Darke seemed a decent enough man.

Neil Robson's nose had stopped pouring blood. It was painful and probably broken. He needed to change his shirt and, thankfully, Becky always had a spare one on hand for such an occasion, though a random chunk of squirting tomato was more often the replacement cause than a puddle of nose blood. Robson would do as JJ had demanded, but the Scot was a fool if he thought that would be the end of it. Young Master Darke was clearly JJ's Achilles heel and before this was over, he vowed, that heel was going to hurt like hell.

JJ left the Treasury and hailed a taxi to take him to Chelsea. He was still a bit discombobulated following the altercation with Robson, but at least the dealings with him would soon be over. As he settled into the cab's back seat JJ was replaying the Robson meeting in his head. Strange, thought JJ, even if he was distracted by his busted nose, the Fin Sec did not seem to bat an eyelid at JJ's mention of black Merc man nor did he even attempt to deny any link with Russian lowlife. Robson was dirtier and more malignant than even he had thought. This saga had further to run.

* * *

Becky went home to her Pimlico flat around 6.30pm. It was on Douglas Street, roughly equidistant from the Gordon Hospital, how ironic, and Pimlico tube station. Pimlico was famous for two things, the legendary 1949 movie
Passport to Pimlico
and the district's plumbers. The latter were a lot more expensive to see than the former. Becky's apartment was leasehold in Mulberry House. Joel had helped her negotiate a good deal and she really liked it there, close enough to work but even closer to Chelsea's designer shops and entertaining night life. Perhaps surprisingly, the décor of her apartment was a lot more subdued than her outfits. Maybe she didn't want to clash with mere paint and wallpaper or maybe her daytime dress was a kind of body armour intended to repel the faint of heart and the sleaze of mind.

Becky settled into her soft leather cream sofa with even softer pale blue cotton covered cushions, kicked off her heels and switched on her flat screen television. She was extremely frugal and saved, each month, a good chunk of her salary. While she loved shopping, she was not an impulsive or serial buyer. Her clothes were selected meticulously, often from sales, special deals or ‘pop up' clothes shops that were about to pop back down again. Becky gave around a quarter of her salary every month to her mother. Although still in her fifties, Mum had stage 2 to 3 Alzheimer's Disease and was resident in Borovere, a care home in Alton, Hampshire. It was a lovely place and her mum was well looked after, but it was expensive. Becky and her elder brother did the best they could. Their father had skipped off to Canada shortly after Becky was born so he was de facto useless in terms of support, financial or emotional. The disease does not affect all memory capabilities at the same time nor is its progression easily predictable from one human to the next. In Mum's case, her older memories and her semantic memories were good, but new facts and experiences were more difficult to retain.

One thing that Becky did know for certain, however, was that her mum had not baked any cupcakes in the near past. She spoke to her on the phone the previous evening, and would probably drive down to Alton this coming weekend. When Becky asked her mum she laughed out loud. She couldn't bake even when she was fully
compus mentus
and definitely had no desire or ability to do it now. So the Joel Gordon cupcake mystery was in play. Why would Joel be mumbling about cupcakes to Talisha on his deathbed? Why would he have asked Becky to thank her mum for baking them as he left Neil Robson's office a few weeks ago? Joel did not know that her mum was in care or had AD so it may have been feasible but it was not correct. Somebody must have told Joel that her mum had baked or sent some cupcakes. In her faint memory Becky envisaged Joel entering Neil Robson's office that day and she did not recall him carrying anything let alone a box or bag full of cupcakes. Logic implies, thought Becky, that any such cupcakes must have already been in her boss's office. In her time working for Neil Robson she had never seen him eat a cupcake. Anything he wanted to eat, chew or drink he'd get her to fetch it for him. Curiouser and curiouser.

Becky had ordered a takeaway pizza, vegetable topping with extra capers, onions and mushrooms. As she let the superficial entertainment known as ‘soaps' waft over her head, she ate her pizza and drank her water. The only other images in her mind were that Neil Robson had given her a bag of rubbish to dump on ‘cupcake' day and that she had noticed that Joel and her boss had been having more tête-à-têtes than normal, even accounting for the fact that Joel's direct boss, Craig Wilson, had been on holiday for two weeks. When Becky was a kid at school in Hampshire, her English teacher, Miss Hooper, had drummed into her to look for key words in any essay or passage of literature she needed to critique. Becky liked Miss Hooper. Tonight's key words seemed to be Joel, cupcake, Robson. Becky was tired. It was just after 10pm. She decided to select her clothes and accessories for the next day and then head off to bed.