East of the City (2 page)

She beckoned a broker forward from the queue. A tight knot formed in my stomach as I headed upstairs.

On the top floors of the Lloyd’s Building you’ve got the offices of the Chairman and his Deputy and their staff. The Adam Room is up there too, the eleventh floor, used for Council meetings and ceremonial occasions. Between these top floors and the Room down below it’s all offices, solicitors and brokers, that kind of thing. Most of the Managing Agents moved out to cheaper places a long I while ago, but not Allen Mortlake. I’d heard him say he’d be damned if he was going to walk half a mile just to get to the Room, but I knew there was more to it than that; there usually was with Allen. He wanted a seat on the Lloyd’s Council to top off his career, and here, right near the centre of power, was the best location from which to run a discreet campaign.

When I went into his office I found him at the window, hands resting on the plate-glass, staring down. The window overlooked the atrium and from where he stood he could see into the Room. Behind his desk sat his daughter - another colleague of mine on the 486 box - Justine.

‘Like beetles on a dunghill,’ he said turning. ‘Think things might firm up?’

‘Fair chance,’ I told him.

‘No way,’ Justine said. She didn’t even bother to look up from the magazine she was reading.

Justine was Allen and Angela’s only child. Down on the box, Angela kept a pretty firm rein on Justine, but in private both parents spoilt her like crazy. She was one of the lucky people, the kind who take it for granted the world is made for them. She was good looking in a plastic kind of way, and the only worry she ever seemed to have was how to spend her parents' money.

‘This one,’ she said now, circling something in the magazine as she handed it up to her father. He gave it the once-over, then nodded.

I said, ‘Have you heard from Sebastian?’

‘I’ve left a message for him to call me,’ Allen said. Apart from Sebastian’s company putting a lot of business the Mortlake Group’s way, Sebastian Ward was a Mortlake family friend. But Allen being Allen, that didn’t stop him from looking up at me now and asking, ‘Do we know who wrote the lead on his house?’

‘Not us,’ I told him cheerfully. I told him the only personal business we’d written on Sebastian was the kidnap and ransom policy, the K and R, a  promotional stunt we’d cooked up with Sebastian to announce our entry into that market. ‘But whoever did his house will be bleeding.’

‘Good,’ he said.

Glancing at Justine, who was still flicking through the magazine, I said, ‘Allen, can we have a quick word?’

When he turned to her she kept right on flicking. He was a big man, imposing, and it wasn’t just his size either. He’d started his career at Lloyd’s in the claims department of one of the marine syndicates, then worked his way onto their box. He’d gone from deputy underwriter to under-writer in seven years, married Angela, then formed his own Managing Agency. You wouldn’t say he was liked, he wasn’t the chummy kind, but he was respected, and I think he probably preferred it that way. His wife Angela never treated him as casually as Justine did, but even with his daughter there were limits.

‘Go on,’ he told her now ‘If you find something else, tell me tonight.’

She frowned, and circled something else, saying, ‘This one too.’

‘Good God,’ he murmured, looking at the magazine over her shoulder. I craned over and caught a glimpse of the name at the top of the page, Valentino.

Laughing, she got up and strolled out, telling me she’d see me down on the box later.

Allen rolled his eyes at me, as if to say, Daughters. What can you do?

And how I was going to put my problem to him? Sack your wife, I need the job?

‘Allen, I wanted to have a word about the situation on the 86 box.’

He cocked his head. ‘Situation?’

‘Angela’s retirement.’

He gave me a direct look, as if he was weighing something up. Then his private line rang, it was Angela.

While they talked, I wandered across to the window and looked over the Room. Down there the world’s risk was being traded and spread. From every part of the globe the brokers’ agents had gathered policies - insurance against crop damage in Australia, flood risk in the Caribbean, earthquakes in Bangkok, fire in the American mid-West — and now the brokers had brought them on to us, Lloyd’s of London. There were display cabinets downstairs full of silver plates, model ships made of ivory, and all sorts of other presents from various underwriters to historic figures like Nelson who’d saved British ships and cargo from going down. The Lutine Bell and all that. This same business had been going on for centuries, about as establishment as you get; I’d come a hell of a long way from the dog tracks. And now when I was all set to top the past thirteen years of my life off with a promotion and a penthouse, Sebastian Ward, the man who’d first opened the door to me at Lloyd’s, had lost his house in a fire. What were the odds on that?

Allen hung up the phone, and I faced him.

‘I really think it should be settled,’ I said. ‘The delay’s not helping, even the brokers are starting to ask what’s going on.’ I was all set to give him the works, why I deserved the job, and why I deserved it right now. But the look on his face stopped me cold. ‘Bad news?’

‘The fire at Sebastian’s,’ he said.

Something fluttered in my throat. ‘Is he all right?’

‘No,’ Allen said, ‘he’s not all right.’ His hands went to his face again and his voice came out muffled. ‘Angela’s coming up. She’s got Max with her.’ Max was Sebastian Ward’s son.

Allen didn’t move, he kept his hands to his face. I felt a prickling sensation up my neck.

‘Is he dead?’

It was a few seconds before he lowered his hands. He looked straight at me. ‘No, not dead.’ His face was flushed, I thought it was shock at first, but then I realized it was something more like anger. ‘The stupid bastard,’ he said, ‘has been kidnapped.'

F
or a while I just stood there not saying a word. Allen pushed his hand up through his hair again.

‘Bastard,’ he said. ‘The stupid bastard.’

He got up from his desk and went to the atrium window. His face was pink now, turning pale.

‘Are they sure?’ I said. ‘What is it, some rumour?'

‘There’s a note. Max got it at the office.' Max Ward, Sebastian’s son, was the deputy manager of WardSure. Allen explained that Max had brought the note straight over to the Room and shown Angela; it was definitely a kidnap and ransom, a K and R. Now Angela was on her way up with Max. ‘Bastard,’ Allen whispered again, but he didn’t mean Sebastian now, it was the whole situation.

Dazed, I suggested, hopefully, that it might be a hoax.

‘Hoax,’ he said like he was grabbing at a lifeline. Then he pulled a face. ‘What about the house?’ He slapped the plate-glass. ‘First time up. Can you believe it?’

I couldn’t, not really. Or maybe I just didn’t want to. And maybe I should have been thinking a bit more about Sebastian just then too, but I wasn’t, not at first. What I was thinking was that if this really was a K and R, and we had to pay out, I could forget about my promotion. Because it was me who'd talked Allen and Angela into writing K and R business in the first place. So far Sebastian Ward was our one and only policy. Five million quid. I was starting to feel quite sick.

Then Angela burst in with Max just behind, she gave the note to Allen.

‘What now?’ Max said, turning a frantic half-circle. ‘It’s your responsibility, isn’t it?’ Allen told him to settle down. Max threw up a hand. ‘He’s been kidnapped, for fucksake. Settle down? You crazy?’

‘When did you get the note?’

‘Just now.’ Max turned left then right. ‘Fifteen minutes, I don’t know I came straight over.'

‘No phone call?’

‘Just the note.'

Angela asked her husband if he’d called Bill Tyler yet. He went to his desk now and made the call. Max kept asking stupid questions, I thought Angela was going to hit him.

Backing over to a chair by the wall, I sat down. I bent forward, elbows on my knees, head in hands, and stared at the little red triangles in the carpet. Bill Tyler. Not just our security expert on the Ottoman case, he ran the specialist K and R rescue team, the guys we’d told him we were never going to need. And now, suddenly, we needed them.

‘Ian?’

When I lifted my head I found the three of them looking at me.

‘Take the note to Tyler,’ Allen said, hanging up. ‘He needs to see it. He’s leaving his office right now. He’ll meet you at the other place.' Then he saw I was lost. ‘Snap out of it, Ian. The safe-house.’

‘Allen-’

‘What?’ he barked.

No, I thought. This definitely was not the time. Shaking my head, I told him, Nothing. Then I grabbed the note and headed for the door.

Max said, ‘I’ll come too.’

I glanced back at Allen. He gave a quick flick of the hand. 'Take him. Get going.'

Sebastian Ward was a face in the market. There are plenty who think they are, and even more who want to be, but Sebastian was it, the real thing. When he came into the Room, people noticed. After ten minutes there’d be a cluster of senior underwriters around him, Sebastian chatting and smiling and generally charming them. Partly it was business, his company WardSure was a fair-sized broker so he could send plenty of premiums their way; but it wasn’t just that. He had boxes at the opera and Ascot, he entertained on a grand scale, but it wasn’t even that either. Allen Mortlake used to call these underwriters Sebastian’s ‘free caviar’ friends, but that wasn’t true. Sebastian was genuinely liked. As a broker you don’t go from being a one-man-band to owning and managing a company like WardSure without having some special gift. And Sebastian’s gift was charm, an instinct for putting people at ease, somehow making even acquaintances think they were his friends. I sometimes wondered if Allen didn’t envy Sebastian that. They were both big men at Lloyd’s, but whenever I saw them walk into the Room together it was Allen Mortlake who ended up standing on the edge of the group that formed. It wasn’t Allen’s opinions on the market anybody wanted to hear, not while Sebastian was delivering the latest jokes he’d picked up from God knows where.

And even before Sebastian got seriously rich he had the charm. I know that, because I was there. It was Sebastian I had to thank for rescuing me from the dogs and my old man. But now Sebastian Ward had been kidnapped and his house had burnt down, it was a bloody strange turn.

The safe-house was in that no-man’s-land between Docklands and the City, the taxi dropped us in the next street. Max tagged along beside me, we turned into a lane, walked fifty yards, then turned again. He kept asking who Bill Tyler was.

‘You’ll see.’

‘What’s he do? What’s this safe-house bit?’

When the Mortlake Group put Bill Tyler’s company on a retainer and a secrecy agreement was signed, it cut both ways. If we ever had to use their services, no third parties were to be informed. I wasn’t sure yet where Max fitted into that arrangement.

I said, ‘Ask Tyler.’

‘I’m asking you, Ian.’

When I didn’t answer him, he gave me a pissed-off look.

In a vague kind of way I’d known Max for more than twenty years. He used to trail around after Sebastian at the dogs, a pimply-faced kid three years older than me who always had his hands in his pockets. Sebastian bet with my old man quite a lot. He sometimes brought Max down the Gallon Club of a Monday night, that’s when the bookies and a few big punters did their settle-up for the week. I’d be sitting in the corner drinking my Coke and Max’d be perched up at the bar near the men. He’d say Hi to me, but that was all. I guess when you’re fifteen a twelve-year-old isn’t someone you want to be seen with, but I only understood that later. When I was twelve, I thought Max was a prick.

We got to the safe-house, I hit the buzzer, wondering how I was going to explain Max to Bill.

‘This the right place?’

Stepping back, I checked the number. 33. ‘Ahha.’ I hit the buzzer again. It was one of those old Victorian places with bay windows. There were dark curtains, downstairs and up, so we couldn’t see in. There was a narrow gap between the pavement and the house; you could see a basement down there, but that was curtained too.

‘Yes?’ Bill, on the intercom.

I gave him the codeword, the lock clicked and I pushed the door open. ‘Allen sent Max Ward with me,’ I said. I was already inside, with Max right behind me, when Bill muttered over the intercom, ‘Fucking hell.’

There was a short hallway leading straight to the stairs and an open door off to the right. I went in, calling Bill’s name.

‘Christ, minimalist or what,’ Max said, following me into the front room. ‘Who is this guy?'

The walls and ceiling were a dirty cream colour, and the floor had a grey carpet that looked brand-new. There wasn’t one piece of furniture in the room. The overhead light was bright, a single bulb, its glass cover was sitting on the floor in the corner.

‘He lives here?' Max said.

Footsteps came down the stairs, Bill appeared in the doorway, he looked at me hard. When I did the introductions he didn’t bother to shake Max’s hand. ‘Where’s the note?' he said.

While he was reading it, Max said to him, ‘Shouldn’t you be out there?' Max gestured vaguely. London. The world. He wasn’t angry, more like confused about exactly what was being done to save his old man.

Bill looked up. ‘Is your father on any medication?

‘What?’

‘Does he have to take anything?

‘Some pills,’ Max said. ‘For his heart.'

Bill asked what type, and how often, and Max explained that they weren’t that important. ‘He just pops one when he’s a bit stressed.'

Bill stared and waited. Max, feeling stupid now, told him the name of the drug.

Then Bill handed the note back to me. I read it again while he fired more questions at Max. The note said, ‘
Sebastian Ward will be released upon the delivery of 5 US Treasury bonds, each to the face value of one million pounds. Place and time of the exchange to be notified.
' That was it. The typeface was dark and bold, and the note was unsigned.