The Marketmaker

12

The Brady battle tempted Lord Kerton out to Canary Wharf to inspect his victorious troops. He was Chairman of Dekker Ward, a post he had effectively inherited from his father twelve years previously. He and Ricardo had come to an arrangement. Ricardo had independence, his own offices in Canary Wharf, and fifty per cent of the profits he generated for himself and his people. Kerton had the other fifty per cent, and the satisfaction of seeing Dekker Ward grow to be the most successful brokerage firm in London. He and Ricardo treated each other with a mixture of civility and circumspection.

They strolled round to where I was sitting with Jamie.

‘Jamie you know,’ said Ricardo. ‘But I don’t think you’ve met Nick Elliot, one of our new hires. He was the one who worked out where Bloomfield Weiss were borrowing their bonds.’

My chest swelled with pride. I couldn’t help it.

Lord Kerton shook my hand, and looked me in the eye. He was a tall, athletic man of about forty, with fair hair that curled over his ears and down the nape of his neck. He wore a double-breasted suit with a broad stripe. ‘Jolly well done, Nick. Good to have you on board.’

‘I’m enjoying it here.’

‘Excellent, excellent,’ he said, and then he was off, looking around curiously, as if he would suddenly discover the key to our extraordinary profitability lurking under a desk, or behind a screen, if he only looked hard enough. He was gone within half an hour.

‘That was a bit like a royal visit,’ I said to Jamie.

He laughed. ‘That’s about it. Kerton is just like a monarch. A useful figurehead with no power, who knows that if he makes a nuisance of himself he’ll be overthrown. He’s no fool. He realizes if he leaves Ricardo well alone he can just sit back and watch the profits roll in. Nice job, if you can get it.’

The phone light flashed. It was Alejo. He sold his Argentine Discounts back to Jamie for a four-point profit. Although most of the conversation was in Spanish, Alejo didn’t sound very grateful. Chris Frewer had been much more enthusiastic that morning.

‘Alejo’s a miserable sod, isn’t he?’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ said Jamie. ‘But he does some pretty big trades so I don’t complain. You’ve seen what we’ve done over the last few weeks.’

It was true. Alejo had been in and out of the market many times in size. Big size. Like two hundred million sometimes. A customer well worth keeping sweet, however grumpy he was.

It only took me a few minutes to pedal the mile or so from the office to the bar where I had agreed to meet Isabel. It wasn’t exactly a secret assignation. Isabel just didn’t want to draw attention to us by leaving together, or by meeting up at the more convenient Corney and Barrow, a wine bar in Canary Wharf that some of the Dekker crowd used on a Friday night.

The bar was big and noisy, converted from a warehouse during the yuppification of the Docklands. It was full of young men and women in suits drinking designer beers. Some of them were on their way home west from Canary Wharf, and some were the new inhabitants of the area who had moved into the speculatively priced waterfront apartments. No sign of a true East Ender of course.

Even though I was wearing one myself, I still felt uneasy surrounded by this sea of suits. I was more used to the pubs around Bloomsbury or Kentish Town, where scruffier men and women talked in quieter tones over pints of bitter.

Isabel arrived a few moments after me. We hadn’t spoken much during the week. I had spent most of the time at Jamie’s desk, and Isabel had been very busy.

I was still pretty sure she really was nervous of starting a relationship with someone from work. This I could understand, even though I didn’t necessarily like it. But I knew, with Isabel, there was no point in pushing my luck.

I ordered two extortionately priced bottles of Budvar, which seemed to be the local beverage of choice, and we perched on stools at the end of a crowded table.

‘That was a long week!’ I said, taking a swig of the malt-laden beer. ‘In fact, so was last week. I feel like I’ve been at Dekker a year already. Is it always like this?’

‘Basically yes,’ Isabel said. ‘There’s always something going on.’

‘Are you working on another favela deal?’

‘Yes. São Paulo sound as if they might be interested.’ She sighed. ‘But it’s hard to motivate myself to put in all that work after what happened to the Rio deal.’

‘It must be,’ I said.

‘I still can’t believe it!’ Isabel’s face reddened with indignation. ‘Or I can believe it of Ricardo. That’s just the trouble. OK, so I blew it. I lost the deal. But that’s no reason to destroy it for the people of Rio!’

‘I agree,’ I said. ‘I spoke to Ricardo about it on the plane.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said that he knew the favela deal was a good thing. But he had to teach Bloomfield Weiss a lesson. He had no choice.’

‘Bah!’

‘I find it difficult to get used to,’ I said. ‘What I was doing before had a purpose that had nothing to do with making money. We were teaching something important. And we were trying to understand a bit more about literature and language. We were paid just enough to be able to do that. But now everything we do is to make money for us and our firm. So if it makes money we do it, if it doesn’t, we don’t, and if it makes money for a competitor, we destroy it.’

‘What did you expect?’ muttered Isabel.

‘I suppose that’s what I expected. It just takes getting used to.’

‘It’s a dirty business,’ Isabel said. ‘I hoped with this one deal I would finally be able to do something good as well as make money for the House of Dekker. Stupid of me.’ She sighed. ‘Still, there’s no point getting depressed about it. We’ve just got to go on to the next deal. It’s a mistake to question what we do too closely, Nick. You’ll never like the answers.’

I knew she was right. In a perverse way it encouraged me that someone like Isabel, who seemed to share some of my misgivings about the money business, should have found a way to come to terms with it. I found the work at Dekker Ward fascinating, and I was determined to succeed. If Isabel could deal with her conscience, so could I.

But there was still one thing I wanted to ask her.

‘Do you think Dekker is involved in money-laundering?’

She thought for a moment before replying. ‘No, I don’t,’ she said. ‘Ricardo sails very close to the wind, but he knows when to stop. Money-laundering is illegal. It can get you into too much trouble if you’re caught. Ricardo has worked hard to maintain a reputation for being aggressive but always legal, and I don’t think he would jeopardize that.’

I listened to her words closely. She seemed convinced of what she was saying, and I trusted her judgement.

‘Why do you ask? That article in IFR?’

‘Yes. And there was Jack Langton’s comment about Dekker and the Rio drug gangs,’ I said.

‘I know there’s nothing in that,’ said Isabel. ‘I know everything we do in Brazil.’

‘Well, it’s not just that,’ I said. ‘Do you know Luciana’s maiden name?’

It was a question I had been meaning to ask someone ever since I had spoken to her at Ricardo’s party. With all that had happened over the last week, I hadn’t quite got round to it. Now I wanted to know the answer.

Isabel was puzzled, but she answered my question. ‘Aragão. Luciana Pinto Aragão.’

‘I thought so,’ I said. ‘So her brother is Francisco Aragão?’

‘Yes. That’s right.’

I had guessed as much. The Brazilian financier who had been mentioned in Martin’s fax. The one under investigation by the DEA for drug-related money-laundering activities.

‘What is it, Nick?’ Isabel asked.

I told her about the second fax for Martin Beldecos, and about my suspicion that it had been taken from my desk while I was in Brazil. I also mentioned Eduardo’s insistence that I tell him and only him if I received any more messages for Beldecos.

Isabel listened closely to every word.

‘So what do you think?’ I asked her, when I had finished.

‘I don’t know what to think.’

‘Well, is something going on?’

‘From what you’ve said, yes, there must be. But I still can’t believe Ricardo is involved. It’s not like him.’

‘Francisco Aragão is his brother-in-law.’

‘That’s true. But Ricardo goes to great lengths not to deal with him. It’s a policy I have no trouble with. Francisco has a bad reputation in Brazil. My father told me he’s rumoured to be dealing with the narco-traffickers. Dekker have always steered well clear of him.’

‘In public, yes. But couldn’t Ricardo have set up an account at Dekker Trust in secret?’

Isabel looked doubtful. ‘It would certainly be possible for him to do that easily enough. But I still don’t believe he would. It would be against the way he does business. I know it sounds ridiculous, but Ricardo has his own set of rules, and he never breaks them.’

‘What about Eduardo?’

Isabel thought for a moment. ‘That’s more likely. Eduardo doesn’t believe in any rules.’

‘And he’s responsible for Dekker Trust, isn’t he?’

‘True. It would be easy for him to set something up. There’s just one thing not quite right with that, though.’

‘What’s that?’

‘He and Luciana don’t get on at all.’

‘Hm,’ I said. ‘But this could be a strictly business arrangement. I can imagine Eduardo getting over his dislike of someone for money.’

‘Maybe,’ said Isabel. ‘But he’d know his brother wouldn’t approve.’

‘If he ever found out.’ Our beers were empty. ‘Another?’ I asked.

Isabel nodded distractedly. She was deep in thought over what I had said.

I procured two more Budvars from the bar, and returned. ‘So what should I do?’ I asked, as I took my seat. ‘I haven’t told Eduardo. Jamie says I should just forget the whole thing.’

‘Difficult,’ said Isabel. ‘I think Jamie’s right that you shouldn’t tell Eduardo. There’s too big a chance he’s involved, and then you might get yourself into quite a dangerous situation.’

‘You mean if he knew I suspected him of money-laundering?’ I was concerned I had already got myself into that position already.

‘Yes. But I think I would speak to Ricardo.’

‘Wouldn’t he just tell his brother?’ I protested.

‘He might. But I’d trust him on this. I don’t think he’s involved, and I think he’d want to know.’

Trust Ricardo? I wasn’t quite ready to do that.

‘What about going to the authorities?’ I suggested.

Isabel inhaled through her teeth. ‘Now that’s something Ricardo would never forgive. If you spoke to them without speaking to him first, he’d feel betrayed. And he’d be right. No, I think you should talk to him.’

‘Hm.’

‘What will you do?’ Isabel asked.

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said. And I would. But I was pretty sure now that the wisest thing would be to keep quiet, at least for the time being.

My fears about Martin Beldecos’s death and my own stabbing seemed more grounded. But I didn’t want to discuss them with Isabel. She might think it all a bit melodramatic, and while I could live with looking silly in front of Jamie, I didn’t want to appear paranoid in front of her.

But I did want to ask her about the man whom I was increasingly thinking of as my predecessor.

‘What was Martin Beldecos like?’

‘He was nice enough,’ said Isabel. ‘He was quiet, almost shy. Very dedicated to his work.’

‘He was American, wasn’t he?’

‘That’s right. From Miami. He had worked for one of the branches of the big US banks there, which deal with Latin American private clients.’

‘And do you know what he actually did?’

‘Not precisely. I think technically he was employed by Dekker Trust. He spent half his time here, and half his time in the Caymans. He was working on some project for Eduardo, which he tried to keep confidential, but it obviously had something to do with Dekker Trust. He asked us all about clients of ours who had accounts there.’ Isabel paused. ‘It’s terrible what happened to him. He was only thirty.’

‘Any family?’ I asked.

‘Parents. And a brother and a sister, I think. They’re all in Miami. He wasn’t married or anything.’ She looked at me sharply. ‘And the same thing nearly happened to you.’

I nodded. Now she knew what I was thinking.