Payback (4 page)

‘
Averaging what, overall?’ Tom had a prickly relationship with the older man, the Chief Executive of the small investment bank that Barton now effectively controlled.

‘
Better than you want. It looks like today’s yield was 3.25 per cent above LIBOR.’

Tom
frowned. ‘And the derivatives?’ His new team had put over ten per cent of the portfolio into complicated bear-spread put equity options, backing their pessimism. They had sold the right to ‘put’ into the market at today’s price 10,000 options as cover if the market started the bear trend they were expecting. As derivatives went, this was a fairly cautious play. But derivatives still frightened the hell out of him.

‘
Looking fine. Don’t worry. And yes—before you ask, we
are
marking to market in everything you see. No nasty shocks.’

‘
Fine,’ he said, satisfied that the man seemed finally to have got the message. The message that all Barton wanted was a modest turn on the huge capital flows he had brought in for them to manage. Emphatically not treasury speculation. Something the gung-ho security traders had real difficulty coming to terms with.

Despite
only officially doing two days a week with Barton’s businesses, Tom still had to check all end-of-day trades with Bill Platt, whatever else he may be doing for his on-going WMC client assignments. He knew, and Platt knew to his cost, that Barton could call either of them at any time, day or night, for an update on his $15 billion Curaçao-based funds. If this was designed to keep them both on their toes, it certainly worked. Whereas Platt recognised that Tom was still feeling his way in his world, he well knew Barton was completely on top of everything, asking the most probing questions like the wiliest, most experienced PLC corporate treasury management chief. And the way he had handled an initially difficult Bank of England during the sale had also shown the big man’s shrewdness and toughness.

Relaxing,
Tom waved Platt to sit down. ‘How’s it going now - out there?’ he asked, nodding towards the small twenty-four-hour trading floor outside, where everyone was focusing on their screens in total concentration.

‘
Your people? They’re good. But getting frustrated,’ he replied, barely perching down. ‘You recruited the best in the City, the hottest kids in town to join us old donkeys. And now they’re here, you don’t let them show you what they can do.’

‘
They’re still earning big bucks. What’s it matter to them if we have a conservative investment strategy? They know their real challenge is finding homes for funds on this scale without moving the market.’

The
old head shook. ‘They need the buzz, the adrenaline—every bit as much as the big cheques. You’ll lose them.’

Tom
looked pensive. Poaching the team of five top traders
en
masse
from the American trading house had cost a not so small fortune, and caused big waves in the City. ‘I’ll talk to Sir James about what you say,’ he said at last. ‘Perhaps we can give them a slightly bigger share of the portfolio to play with a
little
more speculatively. They need incentivising. I see that. I’ll talk to him.’

Standing,
Platt turned to leave. ‘You can try and convince him, but...’ He left the sentence in the air, still baffled why, with all the talent he had drafted in, Barton would not permit them to take even prudent risks to grow the portfolio. But then, he still did not understand what Barton was doing effectively taking over his firm. The Curaçao portfolio now made up over two-thirds of the funds handled by the bank.

Tom
watched him go and spent the next fifteen minutes digesting the figures he had left behind, occasionally going into the Reuters option pages and Telerate screens to check out some detail. Then, once satisfied, he put the paperwork in his case, and pulled on his jacket to leave. Despite Platt’s warnings, he was overall very happy with everything. And so, he knew, was Barton. It was, after all, less than five months since Barton had called him in and sprung the news that through his US contacts he had won the treasury management contract for a consortium of international companies. This, he said, was where all the vast cash to manage would come from. He explained that the consortium was involved in a travel-voucher scheme, a payment instrument which major business houses worldwide were using for much of their corporate travel and entertaining. The companies enjoyed heavily discounted airfare, hotel and car rental rates by cutting out the travel agent and user frequent-traveller benefits. The travel company principals avoided agents’ over-ride and credit card charges. And the consortium made its turn by treasury managing the huge cash flow generated, and through clever tax avoidance arrangements through the Dutch West Indies island of Curaçao. To meet the contract, Tom had been tasked with finding a London bank or securities house to handle things. Fast. There had been no time to attempt to set up a new bank, given the licensing and Bank of England hoops they would have had to jump through. And Barton, of course, a recent bankrupt.

Instead,
Tom had quickly identified the small but exclusive American house, already SFA/SIB and Bank licensed, and tee-ed up what was effectively a reverse takeover by Barton. Then came the open cheque to find and poach a crack team to put in exclusively to handle the new portfolio...

Brilliant,
exciting work for Tom. Wheeling and dealing, right at the centre of things—but always with the comfort factor that in the end, Barton would make the final decision. It had been the same two years earlier in the biotech business, when Barton had spotted the niche early. Tom had not only done all the routine consultancy business-modelling, but gone out and found the boffins and property to make it all happen. He had even amazed Barton by winning some EU funding, as new start-ups.

As
he flagged down a cab by Eastcheap, Tom reflected on his luck all those years ago in cultivating Barton after INSEAD. And by hanging on in there when Barton was in the wilderness—a calculated risk, that—he had certainly reaped rich rewards. Financially, but just as importantly professionally, in terms of sheer, pulsating work satisfaction. Also, by keeping his three days with WMC, he enjoyed the best of all worlds: career stability and continuity through the consultancy, and the thrilling big dipper ride and extraordinary hands-on experience of working with the piratical James Barton.

The
ninety-hour weeks were beginning to grind him down, and he knew that soon he really should slow down and get a life. But not yet. Definitely not yet...

*

Lydia examined the old man’s feet and shook her head. ‘When was the last time you had these looked at?’

The
man’s rheumy eyes stared back with the incomprehension of dementia. ‘Bluebottles. Bluebottles everywhere!’ he said for the fourth time, deeply agitated.

‘
Come on. Can’t have you hobbling around like this. You’ll get blood poisoning. Let’s have the doctor look at them, shall we?’

She
helped him down the corridor to sit in the waiting area with three other much younger homeless men. They were in the Day Centre charity near Waterloo where she helped out a couple of nights a week. The down-and-outs mostly slept rough in the area, and came to the centre mornings and early evenings for hot drinks and food donated each day by supermarkets and sandwich bars. While in the place, they could get cleaned up and have basic medical attention. Feet, dental and bronchial troubles were the most common. Tuberculosis had even made a worrying return to the streets of London. But no less serious, and much harder to treat, were the mental and related illnesses—alcoholism, depression, schizophrenia and dementia.

‘
What’s he need?’ The tired-looking old doctor had come out for the next case to treat.

‘
Feet. I’ve bathed them, but there’s infection in some of his toes, I think.’

The
doctor looked at the man. ‘Hello again, Charlie.’

‘
You know him?’

‘
Sure. He comes and goes. Like his mind.’

‘
What’s his story?’

The
doctor smiled weakly. ‘Believe it or not, he was a doctor. A very well-off Harley Street practitioner. Treated royals. The type of doctor who wouldn’t have passed the time of day with the likes of me in the NHS. As close as
that
to a knighthood.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘But then—disaster. He was suspected of poisoning his wife, but it was never proved. Big case in its day.’

‘
And did he? Did he poison her?’ Lydia looked over at the old man with fresh eyes.

‘
Oh yes,’ the doctor replied, cheerfully. ‘None of us doubted that. But he was very good with poisons. It was impossible to make it stick.’

‘
And what’s wrong with him now? Dementia?’

‘
That, and a good few other mental problems. Shouldn’t be on the streets, of course. He’s got a serious persecution complex. Keeps thinking they’re going to arrest him again.’

‘
Strange. All he says to me is the word “bluebottles”.’

The
doctor laughed. ‘That’s it. When he and I were young, “bluebottle” was the nickname for a policeman. He thinks they’re still after him.’

Lydia
stared down again at the husk of the man. How easy it was to fall from grace. A success one day; on the streets, shouting, the next. Perhaps this was one reason she helped out here. There but for the Grace of God and all that. After the doctor had gone into his surgery with one of the other patients, Lydia took out her purse and slipped a twenty-pound note in old Charlie’s pocket. ‘Good luck, “Sir” Charles,’ she said gently to the haunted, frightened face.

Then,
after a glance at her accusingly expensive watch, it was time to go and see another ‘Sir’, her father. To discover just how secure
his
grip would prove to be on the seemingly fickle Grace of God...

*

Chancey was worried. They were ten minutes off landing and Banto had started to wake up, moving his head back and forth and moaning. Despite his skill as a pilot, Chancey did not relish the thought of putting down with a violent passenger flailing beside him.

He
radioed Bolitho. ‘What to do, man? He’s
kam
bek
awake! I’m
mebbe
ten minute to down.’

‘
He’s strapped in good?’

‘
Sure.’

‘
Hit him if you have to. But not too hard. You hear?’

‘
Sure,’ Chancey replied, uncertainly, feeling down for the wrench by his right side.

Banto
was now fully conscious and had opened his eyes to the most frightening experience of his life. More terrifying than facing up to a wild boar. Or than the time he startled a cassowary, the fiercesome five foot tall, 130-pound flightless bird, PNG’s biggest animal. More harrowing even than battle, and the taking of his first trophy head. There below him was green. His mind had no framework to recognise it as his beloved forests. He was like a person looking for the first time at a 3D image, unable to assimilate the patterns into anything recognisable. One thing he could comprehend, however, was the sky. And this now seemed to be above
and
below him! Then, directly ahead, they were approaching a place where the green ended, and a great empty space of blue-green began. A wilderness of nothingness all the way to the horizon: his first sight of an ocean. Worse than even all this was the noise. Angry, deafening and alien to his senses, creating harmonics in his head he had never before experienced. His first instinct was to flee, and he tried to get up and run. But the harness kept him pinned to the seat, and after a brief struggle, terror washed over him and he bent double with fear, staring at his feet, shaking uncontrollably and chanting. Chancey observed all this, and finally put the wrench down, greatly relieved: not because he no longer had to beat him senseless—violence was his stock-in-trade—but because he could avoid the risk of damaging him and facing the anger of Bolitho.

The
private, unlicensed runway was 400 yards long. Tight, but a breeze after the 250-yard forest clearing. After all the drama he had expected, the landing was an anti-climax for Chancey, with Banto stiff beside him, still shaking, his teeth chattering.

Bolitho
ran over to the Otter and yanked open the door to inspect the native. ‘He OK?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘Did you hit him?’

Chancey
killed the engines and freed his seat-harness. ‘He’s fine,
kiap
. No need to quiet him, he’s
planti
afraid.’

Bolitho
—in his late fifties, a shaven bullet-head crowning a once-fit body—was a 1960s Vietnam war veteran who had never been able to adjust back to the soft, domestic world he had left in Ohio. A life since as a mercenary, cargo pilot, drugs runner and general muscle-for-hire had finally washed him up in PNG, dying of cirrhosis. It was a question of months, maybe a year. That was if he, or one of his many enemies, did not blow his brains out first. ‘Great work,
kauboi
,’ he said. ‘You done good.’