The Deal (31 page)

“What might he do? He’s adjusting to a new way of life. Give the man a chance.”

Sarah hugged him and snuggled into his arms. She spoke into his chest but he heard every word.

“He was a coiled spring, Nick. He never looked me in the eye once. He’s fighting something.”

“Are you worried about the children?”

“I’ve filed a report to the family liaison officers and they’re going to find a reason to visit the two schools. I think it’s unlikely, though, that anyone’s in any danger. Lucy Harriman would almost certainly pick up a problem if there was one.” She kissed his neck. “No, I sense the danger is coming from within.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I’ve done all I can. My job is to solve crimes.”

“Well said, Detective Chief...”

She interrupted by placing a finger across his lips.

“Perhaps not for much longer,” she said.

He shot upright in bed and took her face in his hands.

“Spill the beans,” he ordered.

“It’s not confirmed yet, but I’ve been told to expect some good news any time.”

“Not…?”

“Yes. Superintendent!” She beamed with pure happiness. “I just hope the new title doesn’t affect your libido…”

He proceeded to squeeze the living daylights out of her.

“Well, I think it might be time to check, don’t you, Superintendent Rudd?” he laughed. “Now, where are the handcuffs?”

Alistair sat at his office desk and sighed with contentment. He had finished reading a long report from Melanie Reid at Chatham Capital. It set out for him the details of the fund-raising, the sources of the money, the new shareholdings, the procedures to be followed, the involvement of the company’s lawyers and the date the two million pounds less costs would be received. She had set these out at some length and they totalled over three hundred thousand pounds. Alistair refused to be annoyed. He knew that this was the way the City operated. He mentally had £1.7 million pounds to spend and he began to allocate the resources to realise his dreams. He had received a report from David Singleton and several suggestions on how the additional money might be spent.

His first priority was to recruit a chief operations officer. He wanted to strengthen both the editorial and sales team and David needed a qualified assistant. He also wanted a new chairman. At this point, his thoughts turned to Oliver and Amanda.

He’d been briefed on developments at Chatham Capital and now realised that Oliver was not the right candidate for chairman. He would speak to him about it, but had also decided to take independent advice on the matter. As one door shut so another opened and he realised that the Peer whose book he was now publishing might well provide the answer. They were to lunch at the House of Lords the following week and he was planning to use the opportunity to raise the idea.

The more difficult decision he was facing concerned his sister’s future. He was perplexed by her sudden decision to move in with Zach and even more surprised at her willingness to take responsibility for his two boys. She’d said it wouldn’t affect her work but she was already arriving later in the mornings, even though she and Zach seemed to share the responsibility for collecting the boys from school.

And he was staggered by the almost immediate change in her. She had gone from being a fun-loving free spirit to a domesticated woman within weeks. As he’d once remarked to Sara, he found her relationships with men hard to understand and never really understood her ‘deal’ with Oliver. The only thing he knew was that she would make her own decisions.

He was nervous about raising these matters with her too. Their argument over Oliver’s ‘deal’ and the hurt they’d caused each other with their intemperate words still cut deep.

He closed his file and prepared to go home. He knew, in his heart of hearts, that his sister was unlikely to be part of City Fiction for very much longer.

Duncan pushed his way through the crowd at the bar and bought two beers. He returned to the table where Gavin was subdued and not himself.

“So what gives?” he asked.

“Can’t find any fucking work, Dunc.”

“I thought that you were joining...”

“Never got there, Dunc. I had a letter from the regulators saying my registration was being suspended and I was not to undertake any brokerage work until I was recommended by an approved firm. I’ve visited all my mates but the markets are dead at the moment.”

Gavin wanted to know what was happening at Chatham Capital and laughed ruefully when he heard about the role Sara had played in the fund-raising for City Fiction.

“Got her wrong, didn’t I, Dunc?”

He finished his beer and stood up to go to the bar.

“Got it all fuckin’ wrong, really … as Martine never stops telling me.”

Zach was away for the day filming in Wapping. He was completing a documentary on the black economy. It had started with a chance remark from a friend at a dinner party who was advocating that the twenty percent VAT rate was equitable. His argument was that the Revenue was taxing Middle England out of existence because they could reach them. However, millions of people trade daily in cash outside the tax system. Much local activity is now for ‘back of the pocket’ payments and the rise in VAT had increased the demand for non-tax payment deals. But the one tax that cannot be avoided is VAT and the dinner guest suggested it should rise to twenty-five percent. He countered the concerns of several of the other guests that it would hit the poorest by saying that the benefits system must help them. Zach had found several informers in East London who were willing to ‘spill the beans’ on the cash society. One was a middle-ranking drug dealer. Zach was due to arrive home at around six o’clock.

His two boys were spending the day with their mother. She wouldn’t acknowledge Amanda, who simply took them to the front door and made sure they were safely delivered. She would collect them at four o’clock.

After dropping them off, Amanda went straight to the gym and completed a full programme of exercises. Her personal trainer told her she had let her regime slip. She settled into the steam room and enjoyed the heat and the perspiration as it gradually seeped from her pores down her skin. She left after twenty minutes, showered, completed thirty lengths in the pool, showered again, changed, had a fruit drink and then caught the tube into London and walked down Oxford Street. When she reached Regent Street, for some unconscious reason, she turned left and then right down Conduit Street. She reached The Westbury, entered the Polo Bar and ordered a glass of wine. She promised herself that she would drink only one glass because she had to collect the boys later in the afternoon.

The memories flooded back. She missed Oliver. He was still seeing Alistair on a regular basis and she was aware of the developments at Chatham Capital, but she made sure that they didn’t find themselves together. Zach had encouraged her to talk about him and on occasions she did just that. But she could never really capture the roller coaster events of ‘the deal’. And now here she was with a soon-to-be-divorced married man and two small boys for whom she was responsible. She could have been with Oliver.

What was it that Zach offered that had led to her sudden decision? He was charming and brilliant with words, spoken and written. He was serious and successful professionally. He was fun. He was smart – that much was certainly clear. His boys now had a future and his ex-wife would rebuild hers.

She’d re-read his letter on a number of occasions. It almost improved with each session. Had he seduced her? She thought about her own parents’ early demises and her love for Alistair. He had said little about Zach. She sensed he was completely baffled by her choice, but they had settled back into a solid working relationship at City Fiction and she would soon be travelling again.

She and Zach had exchanged views on only one occasion about whether they should have children together or, rather, when they should start the process. Amanda had privately decided to wait at least a year because she wanted to develop her relationship with the boys.

As she finished her glass of wine and listened to the overture to ‘Porgy and Bess’ being relayed on the music system, she had a sudden jolt of realisation that she was not completely at ease with herself. She paid her bill, left the hotel, caught the tube home, collected her car and drove to collect the boys.

As she reached the path leading to the house, the front door opened and Zach’s sons were pushed out of the porch and towards her. Their mother appeared and gave Amanda a strange look, something half way between a smile and a grin. She quickly disappeared indoors again and as Amanda buckled safety belts around the boys in the back seat of the car, she thought they seemed rather subdued.

Andrew and Rachel simply could not agree. For her, it was the shopping malls of Hong Kong that she adored. She spent hours in the air conditioned auditoriums, going up and down in the lifts and viewing shop after shop stuffed full of the latest global fashions. Hong Kong oozed money in every direction. She loved catching the ferry over to Kowloon. The shipping lanes were very busy and it was fun watching the junks trying to avoid the cargo boats. She was furnishing their flat with the latest designs because she had no restrictions on her budget. After the gloom and austerity of Britain this really was the new world.

For Andrew, it was the complete absence of graffiti. Every street was clean. There was no litter. There were no drunks. There were police everywhere. There was no violence. He knew that if he went behind the scenes where the eight million residents lived it would be different, but the Chinese authorities wanted Hong Kong and Macao to be showcases. The transport system was one of the best in the world. The Chinese were flooding in by plane, boat and train. This was where the growing rich from the People’s Republic spent their money. The Hong Kong financial markets were booming; the West, Europe and America were a million miles away.

They had arrived and Hong Kong was their new home. Everywhere they went people were smiling. The service in the restaurants was immaculate and they’d been eating out most evenings. The old colony was much in evidence and there were many expats indulging in its financial success.

They had intended to try and stay in touch with their old life but within days they were being seduced by the adrenalin of the territory. Andrew was already speaking to the English finance houses and was planning to accept a consultancy before too long. Rachel was awaiting the arrival of her daughter from Laos and had surprised Andrew by asking if he minded if she flew to Australia with her. He had questioned whether she would be able to get the necessary visa but accepted the position. He would miss Rachel hugely but was already looking forward to seeing her in a few weeks’ time.

Andrew had one more task to complete as he arrived at the post office. He had bought the card two days earlier and made sure that Rachel had not seen it. The carefully written salutation read:

“To my beloved son, Ben...”

Abbi clung to the railings of the cross-channel boat. She and Jonathan were getting their day in France at last. They’d decided to leave the car at Dover and travel as foot passengers to Calais, where they would spend four hours before returning.

Jonathan was taking his responsibilities as a shareholder in Chatham Capital very seriously. He was regularly emailing Oliver with questions and on several occasions had offered some suggestions. He had used his IT skills to devise a transaction monitoring software program and, when Martin came across it, he immediately met with Jonathan and they were ready to start trial runs a week on Monday.

Abbi was surprised when Martin, their guest for the day, had arrived at the harbour with an attractive black woman at his side. She was his wife, Annette, and nobody at Chatham Capital had known about her. The reason soon became clear. She was a lawyer at the FSA, the regulatory body which covered Chatham Capital.

“We met at a Securities Institute evening,” explained Martin. “Annette was giving a talk on regulatory procedures and we began talking afterwards. She’s never stopped since.”

Annette slapped his arm and laughed. “No business talk,” she said. “It’s so kind of you to invite us. The section I work on doesn’t cover Chatham Capital, so don’t worry, we’ll have no problems today!”

As the ship left the harbour and reached the calm waters of the channel, Jonathan and Martin went for a beer, leaving Abbi and Annette to talk over coffee and Danish pastries.

They discussed their individual work and Abbi was surprised at how realistic Annette was in her approach to regulatory matters.

“Our problem,” said Annette, “is that we only seem to meet the wrong-doers. In my section we have responsibility for over two thousand firms. I only get involved when there’s a problem. When Martin talks about his work it seems like another world to me.”

She paused, went to the counter and bought more coffees and pastries. She returned with her tray and smiled at Abbi.

“I try not to eat these things when Martin’s around,” she said. “Hey, by the way, who’s this Sara that Martin talks to me about?”

Abbi told her about her colleague and Sara’s teasing of Martin about his weight.

“Well, it’s working,” said Annette. “He’s bought an exercise bike and gets up at five every morning. He spends an hour on it. Mind you,” she laughed, “I can’t complain about the results!”

Charles Harriman refused to wear an apron. Lucy had been forced to bite her tongue on several occasions when she’d found the linen baskets overflowing with dirty tops and trousers. They had agreed that Charles would take part of the washing to the local cleaners.

The rot began to set in with Lucy’s promotion to an equity partner at Whiteoaks Practice. She was working longer hours and becoming more involved. When she told her husband that she’d agreed to join one of the new Budget Commissioning Groups, and that it would entail some evening work, Charles began to struggle. He recalled his conversation with DCI Rudd and remembered that she’d sent him details of some voluntary opportunities.

That was not the issue. He was proud of his wife. He relished taking and picking up his daughters from school. Their finances were solid and he loved the house. He thought that he was at ease with his battle with alcohol and accepted that City life wasn’t for him anymore.