Trader Jack -The Story of Jack Miner (The Story of Jack Miner Series) (9 page)

'If you put your mind to it, you'll become rich, Jack. But don't forget your true self.'

'What do you mean? I know who I am.'

'Why do you think I gave you
The Crowd?'

'The book's a bit boring, but I read a few pages. Learnt a few things.'

'I wanted you to read it because it was one of my husband's favourite books. I was his secretary. That's how I met him.'

I couldn't believe it. Martha was nice, but nutty. A secretary? Her house was a mess. Sure, she cleaned it up for me, but her things were still all over the place.

'As a psychoanalyst, Tony believed in the individual. That we're all unique. He warned that individuals lose themselves in the crowd.'

'Your book gave me some good tips about the stock market.'

'It's not about getting rich, Jack. Those celebrities. Their parties . . . They're just another crowd.'

'So what. They have a great time.'

'Really? Tony had lots of celebrities as patients. They weren't too happy. They were depressed. On drugs.'

I nodded my head, but wasn't concentrating. I was thinking about Sandy. Was fed up with being poor. Martha's book had showed me that the crowd was powerful. If you knew how to take advantage of it, you could make lots of money.

The next morning I put on fresh clothes and Martha gave me a battered old briefcase that belonged to Tony. Inside were my papers with gold share prices and drawings of the aquarium, a pencil, pen and crayons. Jazz and I began our walk across the heath to the brokers. It had rained during the night and the dew on the grass glistened in the sun. We climbed Parliament Hill and looked back towards the city. The atmosphere was hazy in the early morning light. I could just make out the buildings in the far distance. It was 8am in the morning. Thousands would be arriving at their offices to start work. Jazz, nearby, was licking the dew off the fresh grass. I felt the coins in my pocket and held the briefcase tightly against my side. It was my big day. I was going to show Sandy that I was a winner.

*   *   *

When I arrived at Wardle & Co, Jim Wardle, David Drummond and Shri Khosler were huddled around a desk. They were looking at the screen on the terminal. I could see from the doorway that virtually all the figures were in red.

'It's a bad market,' muttered Drummond. 'Last week we told them to hold on. Now what?'

'Good morning . . . Nice day,' I said.

Drummond looked up: 'Nice day? You must be joking.'

He turned his eyes towards the red prices on the terminal. Drummond was calm the previous week, but now his hand was shaking. He struggled to light a cigarette, had a few puffs and put it out quickly when Khosler glared at him.

'What do we say to our clients now?' asked Khosler.

'It's a bear market,' said Wardle. 'Prices could go down a lot further. But we don't want them to panic. Just tell them it's a small setback. That it won't last. Try and calm them.'

'It's going to be one hell of a day,' mumbled Drummond softly.

The words were barely out of his mouth when the phones started ringing. They rushed to their desks, ignoring me.

'It's a market correction,' Khosler explained to a client as he scrolled down the screen. 'The market's down five per cent. Yes I know I told you not to sell last week . . . Sorry. I can't get it right all the time . . . OK . . . OK, I'll do my best.'

He picked up another phone: 'Sell at best 2,000 M&S, 5,000 BAE . . .'

'Want some coffee?'

I looked up at Tracy, Wardle's secretary. She seemed to be the only one who wasn't worried.

'Thanks, white, two sugars please,' I said observing the hectic dealing. 'Can you ask Mr Wardle if they sold my shares?'

Tracy with a black bob and bright red lipstick, sauntered up to Wardle in her short black skirt and plain white blouse. He glanced at me and nodded while he was frantically selling shares. She went into his office and brought me some papers.

Wardle half waved to me: 'You're lucky . . . you're out!'

Tracy showed me two separate pieces of paper. One of the broker's notes said 'sold 600 OilFinder at £5.90' and the other, 'sold 500 MineDeep at £12.95'. I added the sums. After brokers' commission and stamp duty, I was left with around £9800.

'What is the price of OilFinder and MineDeep today?' I asked.

Tracy went to a screen: 'They're falling like stones. Wow! Everything!'

I finished my coffee and patted Jazz on his head. They were so busy shouting and making excuses that they didn't notice that a dog was in the office. Their clients were very angry. They were blaming their brokers, not themselves.

'No boom can last forever,' Wardle was explaining down the phone. 'Yes I know the market peaked a fortnight ago . . . It's almost impossible to sell at the top . . .'

He looked exasperated as he picked up his other phone and shouted out more sell orders.

Another phone rang and Wardle answered: 'Yes I know that your shares started falling a week ago. Yes, I told you to hold on. No one expected a panic.'

'I hope it's a correction and the market will settle down,' Drummond was saying. 'Yes it could be a bear market.'

They were all jabbering at the same time. Then I heard Khosler: 'That Russian bank failure is turning into a full-scale banking crisis. Yes some of our banks are badly exposed. Their shares are well down. All down. Yes, maybe the Bank of England will step in and support the banks. We can only hope.'

There was no point in doing anything now. They were far too busy. Tracy was typing on her computer. I sidled up alongside her and asked her to search for the price of gold and Ajax Gold Mines, Downtown Mining, Golden Fish Mines, Playdon Discovery and Raven Creek.

It was remarkable. Despite the general stock market slump, gold and the gold shares were steady. On the terminal screen, almost all the shares were red and falling but the gold shares were blue. Amazing! They were up slightly. I wrote down their prices and went and sat down in the reception area. I took out my aquarium drawing and my orange crayon and worked on the coffee table. I drew my gold fish swimming in the second compartment of my aquarium. Despite the stock market slump they had not fallen back to the bottom division of the tank.

I looked up and noticed that a tall man with silvery white hair and a white moustache had sat down nearby. He was reading a newspaper, but was peeping at me from time to time, trying to see what I was doing. When he saw that I noticed him, he quickly lifted his newspaper. I could see the headline of the main story on the front page: 'Bank Crisis: Yapolovitch in Russian Mining Fraud'. Further down the page was a photo of a woman and a headline:
'Telegraph's
Moscow Correspondent dies'.

I nervously went across to Wardle and asked if I could speak to him privately.

'I don't have time to talk,' he snapped. 'OK, I suppose I need a break. Tracy can you get me some coffee?'

'Thanks for selling my shares. Can I buy some others?'

'What? In this market?' sighed Wardle. 'You can't be serious.'

I had written down my order: Buy 1,000 Ajax, 1,000 Downtown, 1,000 Golden Fish, 500 Playdon Discovery and 500 Raven Creek. At the latest market prices they would cost about £9,600, including brokerage charges.

'OK if you want to lose your money, don't blame me,' said Wardle, sighing. 'I've learnt over the years not to argue with clients. It's your money. If that's what you want to do with it . . .'

I watched him as he picked up the phone and asked the dealer to buy my gold shares. I sat down in the reception room to wait for confirmation. The silver haired man was still sitting there.

'Did I hear you say gold?' he asked.

'Yes that's right.'

'Do you think it's going up?'

'Maybe.'

'Those drawings of yours? Are they telling you to buy gold?'

I didn't reply. There was no way I was going to tell him why I was buying gold shares. Tracy came up and gave me my broker notes. They had bought me my gold shares leaving me with cash to spare. I asked for the money and she gave me nine crispy twenty pound notes.

'Did you just buy gold shares?' insisted the man.

Now that I definitely owned the shares, I was happy to talk.

'They're going up while the rest of the market's going down,' I said.

'I don't know why, but it could mean that some people expect gold to rise.'

He smiled: 'I hear that Moscow Narodsky has been selling gold.'

I shuddered. That bank again! He looked at me closely with sharp eyes, wondering if I knew something.

'They may be selling, but the gold price isn't falling,' I blurted out.

He grinned and held out his hand: 'That's a good answer. Name's Stanley Slimcop.'

'Jack Miner,' I replied, noticing that his newspaper was on the coffee table.

'Finished with the paper?' I asked.

'I'll give it to you on one condition.'

'What?'

'Do you think I should buy gold shares?'

'That's up to you. I did.'

I snatched the paper, picked up Jazz's lead and rushed out of the office.

*   *   *

Jazz and I raced from the broker towards the Heath. On the one hand I was on a high. I had sold my OilFinder and MineDeep shares before the crash and had bought gold shares. Dealing in thousands of pounds was better than wrapping up fish and chips and selling them for a fiver. But at the same time I was worried about the murder. It was big news and they were probably still looking for me. After passing some cottages and a white church, we came to The Freemasons Arms, a pub with a large garden. Successfully fooling them that I was older than eighteen, I bought a pint of lager and some crisps and asked for some water for Jazz. A blonde barmaid with an Australian accent accepted the order. She had a nice smile, so I chatted to her.

'I've got a friend who's from Perth,' I said. 'Where are you from? Sydney? Melbourne?'

'No ways. West Australian. Born in Kalgoorlie. Worked for Macquarie Bank in Perth.'

'Don't suppose you know Sandy Swann,' I said.

It was a long shot, but it was worth a try.

'Does she live in Hampstead? Quite a few Australians come here.'

'Her cousin's Mike Swann, the Australian fast bowler. She looks a bit like him.'

'Is that so? I'll look out for her. You can watch the cricket over there.'

She pointed to the TV screen in the corner of the room. The Australians were hitting the winning run.

'It's all over. You guys have won,' I said, passing her Martha's phone number. 'If you manage to spot Sandy, could you give this to her?'

Jazz pulled on his lead and led me into the pub garden. It had neat flowerbeds, a thick green lawn and dark brown wooden benches and tables. The lager tasted good. Two bearded authors were whinging about their publishers, complaining that they weren't earning enough money from their royalties.

I picked up the
Telegraph
and read the article about the collapse of Moscow Narodsky. Boris Yapolovitch, Moscow Narodsky's chief executive, was involved in a Russian mining scam. He had become friendly with directors of new Russian mining exploration companies. They were prospecting and drilling for gold, diamonds, platinum, aluminium and other minerals in the Siberian wastelands.

Yapolovitch persuaded Moscow Narodsky, a leading Russian bank, to make loans to the companies. The finance paid for the exploration. Soon afterwards, the directors announced that their companies had discovered exciting new gold, diamond and other resources. Russian, European and American investors were excited and Yapolovitch encouraged them to invest in the new mining companies. British, German, French and American banks were keen to lend the Russians hundreds of millions of dollars. The directors promised that the companies would soon develop substantial mines that would earn multi millions.

A few years passed by, but the mines produced hardly anything. The companies spent a lot, continually requiring more money for drilling and other equipment. In most instances, the drills and tools never arrived. Losses grew and investors became impatient. The directors knew that their promises were empty, but the
Telegraph
was unsure about Yapolovitch. Did he know the full story, or was he in fantasyland? Yapolovitch remained full of confidence at various investor and banker meetings and enthusiastically backed the directors. Good times were around the corner, he claimed. Yapolovitch continually spun the optimistic story because he was no longer an objective, cautious banker. The directors were bribing him. The bank paid him an unexceptional salary, so his wealth came from backhanders. The bribes enabled him to enjoy the lifestyle of a jet set celebrity banker who owned a Moscow football club.

For a short while, Moscow Narodsky and other banks continued to lend money to the dud companies, but eventually the music stopped. Disenchanted investors and bankers at last decided that it was foolish to throw money down Siberian holes. Losses mounted. The corporations were doing so badly that they stopped paying their employees. The workers complained and the Russian police began to investigate. They found that the directors were fraudsters. Yapolovitch tried to wriggle out of his corner and decided that it was best to give State's Evidence. The deal was that he would receive a lenient sentence for his corruption, provided that he exposed the crooks behind the scam.

The company directors and Yapolovitch were the front men, but the
Telegraph
concluded that the true owners of the dud mines were the Russian mafia. When they found out that Yapolovitch was going to give evidence to the Moscow prosecutor, the mafia took out a contract on his life. He ran away to London, but couldn't escape the Russian criminal network. The public hanging was a message to others. Keep your mouths shut!

I held my breath as I recalled the struggling, twitching banker at the end of the rope and nervously paged through the newspaper. Relief! There was nothing about the police search for the key witness.

While I was looking, I came across another article. The story was about the death of a Russian journalist. Marcia Mirikover, freelance Moscow correspondent for the
Telegraph
and other foreign newspapers, had investigated the scandal. She had met with the angry workers. Most of the information in the
Telegraph's
Russian fraud article came from her reports. Mirikover had arrived in London the previous week to interview Yapolovitch. She had been a friend of his wife at university, so the refugee banker had decided that he could trust her. Her meeting with the Moscow banker proved to be fatal.