The Marketmaker

30

Isabel was slumped in the other corner of the back seat of the car, watching the road ahead absently. Ronaldo was driving us back to Rio, leaving Nelson to clear up the mess we had left behind.

And there was quite a mess. Nelson and I had decided to let Francisco and his son go. We had, after all, promised as much to him when we had set up the exchange for Isabel, and he had kept his part of the bargain. It was Zico who had run after Isabel at the last minute. And implicating Francisco with the kidnapping would involve prolonged wrangling with the authorities. We thought it was better to wrap things up as quietly as possible. Nelson had, however, promised to bring back Euclides’s body for a proper burial.

Isabel didn’t look too bad after her ordeal. She was thin, but then she’d always been thin. Her skin was paler than it had been, after so many weeks away from the sun, I supposed. And there was a sort of fragility to her. But basically she looked unharmed.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

She looked at me and smiled, reaching out her hand for mine.

‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘I’m just so glad to be free.’

There was so much to say, so much to ask her, but I wanted to do it at her pace so I kept silent.

‘Where’s my father?’ she asked.

‘In London.’

‘In London?’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘Yes, it’s a long story. But Cordelia’s waiting at his apartment.’

‘How is she? I mean...’

I smiled. ‘Don’t worry, she’s fine. She’s growing bigger every day.’

Isabel smiled. ‘Good.’ Then, after a moment, ‘Did he pay a ransom?’

‘That’s a long story too.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I can tell you later, when you’ve had some rest.’

‘No, tell me now. That’s all I’ve been thinking about over the last two months. What’s been happening at home? Tell me.’

So I told her everything. About the initial ransom demands, about the long silence after the failed police raid, and then about the renewed demands once I had suggested Bloomfield Weiss take over Dekker. I told her how Ricardo and Eduardo must have been in league with Francisco first of all to have Martin Beldecos murdered, and then to have her and me kidnapped to prevent the discovery of Francisco’s money-laundering operations. And finally I described how we had snatched Francisco’s son to force an exchange.

She listened in amazement. ‘So Ricardo was behind it all?’ she said quietly.

I nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

She looked out of the window at the Rio suburbs drifting slowly by. ‘Bastard,’ she whispered. She turned to me. ‘It looks like you were right about him, after all.’

‘Right now I don’t care who’s right or wrong,’ I said. ‘I’m just glad you’re alive.’

She squeezed my hand. ‘Thank you. Thank you for all you did for me.’

There were loud squeals when we reached Luís’s apartment. Cordelia hugged her sister hard and long, and Maria danced around. Fernando was there as well. The excitement roused Isabel out of the daze she had been in since her release, and she became more animated. Within a minute she was on the phone with Luís at the Savoy in London. Tears flowed. Portuguese words were spoken at a hundred miles an hour. I watched with a huge grin on my face.

The one sour note was Euclides. Cordelia was shaken by news of his death. It had affected me too. But it wouldn’t have surprised the boy himself: I doubt he had expected to reach adulthood. Cordelia had been right, he was brave. He had been stupid to take Nelson’s gun with him, and to try to sneak up on Zico. But he was only twelve, how could you blame him? He had been trying to save Cordelia’s sister and impress us. In fact, he had died with a gun in his hand, having just shot a bad guy; by Euclides’s reckoning that probably was a good way to go. But it was a waste. And a waste for which we were all responsible: the Brazilian government and middle class who allowed such poverty and violence in their midst and, more particularly, Nelson, Cordelia and me, who had armed him and encouraged him on his last adventure. I wouldn’t forget Euclides.

Isabel had a long bath, and then told us about her ordeal. She had been looked after well. For the first couple of weeks she had been kept in a tent inside a basement. Then she had been hurriedly moved up to the farm, and had been imprisoned in a barn with only one window that was fixed shut. She had had heat, light, adequate food and drink. She was allowed to wash once a day, and had been given a radio, books and newspapers. She had only seen her captors wearing masks, until that last day when she had finally seen Zico, but of course she had soon grown to recognize their voices. There seemed to have been five of them, who guarded her in shifts.

Right from the beginning she had decided that her best chance for survival was to co-operate with them. She had frequently asked about the progress of negotiations but they had told her nothing. The only indications she had had that there had been any communication with her father were the two proof-of-life questions she had received. The first, asking the name of her teddy-bear, had made her smile. It was typical of the sentimentality of her father, and it reminded her of the security of her childhood.

But, through it all, she kept calm. She knew that kidnappings could take months, but she also knew that her father would find a way to pay her ransom. It was clear that she had been a lot less worried about her safety than we.

She told us all of this in a mixture of English, for my benefit, and Portuguese for Maria’s. But when her story had finished, and the conversation had broken up into rushed questions and answers, I left them to it. Despite all the time I had spent with them, I wasn’t really part of their family. I grabbed a bottle of beer, and went out on to the balcony to watch the sunset, glad that Isabel was finally free.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked up.

‘Hallo,’ said Isabel.

‘Hi.’

She bent down and kissed me, her hair falling on my face. Then she stood up and looked out to sea. ‘You can’t believe what it’s like to see the sea again,’ she said. ‘This view. These people.’ A pause. ‘You.’

A warm glow of happiness ran through me. It was just what I had hoped to hear. I reached up and pulled her lips down to mine again.

Eventually she broke away. ‘What will you do now?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.’ And, in truth, I hadn’t. My plans had gone no further than Isabel’s release.

‘Is Papai really going to take over Dekker?’ she asked.

‘We’ll soon find out. The auction is tomorrow afternoon. It’s between him and Bloomfield Weiss.’

‘So Ricardo has finally lost? I still can’t believe he did that to me. Had me kidnapped. I know our relationship was over, but I thought I meant more to him than that.’

‘You know what he’s like,’ I said. ‘With the survival of Dekker Ward at stake, he’d do anything. And at least you’re still alive.’

Isabel frowned. ‘I guess you’re right.’

It was getting dark quickly. The floodlights were on, picking out the white spume of the waves on the beach. I had stared out at this view often, worrying about Isabel in captivity. And now she was here, next to me.

My thoughts turned to Luís in London, and the auction tomorrow. I prayed he would be successful. I badly wanted Ricardo to see that he wasn’t invincible. That he couldn’t mess up so many people’s lives, especially mine and Isabel’s, and get away with it.

Isabel was obviously thinking the same thing. ‘Let’s go and help Papai,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Let’s go to London. Tonight. To help him with his bid tomorrow.’

‘It’s too late, isn’t it? And shouldn’t you rest?’

‘I’ve been resting for weeks. I want to see my father. This is an important time for him. There’s a flight that leaves at about ten o’clock, I think. We’ve plenty of time.’

I grinned. ‘OK. Let’s go.’

The plane arrived at Heathrow airport early the following afternoon, and Luís said he’d meet us. Isabel had bought first-class tickets on the Varig flight and I hadn’t complained. Despite what she’d said about too much rest, she was tired. The excitement of her release had worn her out after her weeks of inactivity. So she slept for the entire flight, while I stayed awake mulling over the last few weeks, and letting my hopes play with the idea of a future with Isabel.

I spotted him first, his domed head rising above the press of people waiting outside customs at Terminal Three. His face lit up with pleasure when he saw Isabel. She ran to him and they embraced. He stroked her hair, and a tear appeared in his eye. Eventually he broke free and shook my hand. Or pumped it, more like. The man I had spent so much time with over the last few weeks, bowing but not broken by the pressure of his daughter’s kidnap, was transformed. It was a pleasure to see.

Luís and Isabel talked excitedly in Portuguese as they made their way to his chauffeur-driven car. But as we sped down the M4 into London, Luís switched to English.

‘I’ve booked you both rooms at the Savoy, where I’m staying. I’ll drop you off there, but then I’ll have to go into the City to put the final touches to our bid.’

‘How’s it going?’ I asked.

‘Pretty well. We’ve hired Gurney Kroheim to act for us. Do you know them?’

They were Jamie’s old firm. They were also one of the foremost British merchant banks, who had built a reputation for advising on international takeovers. Not only would they provide good advice but they should add weight to Banco Horizonte’s bid.

‘They have a good reputation,’ I said.

‘They deserve it. And KBN are tied in. We’ve put together quite a complicated structure with offshore companies and convertible preference shares. It gives KBN economic control of the bond portfolio, without recognizing a loss at Dekker that would wipe out its capital. KBN will end up with twenty per cent of Dekker, and we get the remaining eighty. With KBN behind it, the new Dekker should have better credibility with the markets. And also with the SFA and the Bank of England.’

‘What do KBN think about Dekker’s bond position?’

‘They’re enthusiastic, thank God. The market has been strengthening the last few days. It looks like Congress will abandon the Pinnock Bill.’

‘That’s good news,’ I said.

‘Good and bad. It’s good in that it makes the whole bid less risky. It’s bad in that it makes Dekker Ward more expensive. And Bloomfield Weiss can afford to pay up more than we can.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Bloomfield Weiss’s capital was many times that of Banco Horizonte so they could pay more if they wanted to. But Sidney Stahl did not look the kind of man who would overpay for anything. We were still in with a chance. ‘Have you heard anything from Ricardo?’

‘Nothing. Kerton thinks he’s keeping him in the dark, but we know he knows there’s something going on. I guess he’s just trying to cope with the bond position and hoping that with Isabel’s life under threat we would stop the takeover somehow.’

‘Except that Isabel is free. He’ll know that by now.’

‘Yes,’ said Luís, thoughtfully. ‘I expect he will.’

We were silent for a moment, each one of us thinking what Ricardo would do next. ‘Did you ask Francisco about him?’ Luís inquired eventually.

‘No, I didn’t. Francisco was pretty clever, really. He never admitted any involvement with the kidnapping himself, let alone the involvement of anyone else.’

‘And you just let him go?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I had promised him I would. And, besides, Nelson said it would get very messy with the authorities if we tried to get them to prosecute him.’

Luís sighed. ‘A shame, but I understand. One day I’ll make him pay.’

‘You’ll make Ricardo pay today,’ I said.

Luís chuckled. ‘Ah, yes.’

‘Have you decided how much to bid, Papai?’ Isabel asked.

‘Not yet,’ said Luís. ‘It depends on the strength of the market. We’ll decide just before the auction.’

‘When’s that?’

‘Five o’clock. At Dekker Ward’s office in the City.’

‘Can we come?’ Isabel asked. ‘We’ll keep out of the way.’

‘Of course,’ said Luís. ‘I want you to see this, whether it works or not. Come and meet us at Gurney Kroheim, when you are ready.’

Luís dropped us off at the Savoy. He had booked us into separate rooms, of course.

‘What time shall we meet?’ I asked Isabel. ‘Would you like a rest?’

Isabel smiled that wicked little smile that made my heart melt. She shook her head. ‘Say, two minutes?’

‘I’ll be there,’ I said.

It was an hour and a half before we left the Savoy for the City. We could have stayed there all day, but we didn’t want to miss Luís’s bid deliberations.

Gurney Kroheim’s offices were a hundred yards away from Dekker Ward’s, in the heart of the City. Their meeting room was more like Dekker’s than Bloomfield Weiss’s. A couple of baronets in top hats watched over the route to the room, but once there, the pictures were Victorian landscapes, originals subtly illuminated. The room gleamed with polished wood. But there was no chance of ever mistaking Gurney Kroheim’s offices for a country house. Most of the great and good of British industry had certainly visited here, but to do battle with each other, to eat and be eaten.

The room was crowded. Luís was sitting next to one of his partners, Sergio Prenzman, who had borne the brunt of the work of putting the bid together while Luís was distracted by Isabel’s kidnap. Next to him were two earnest associates who had spent night after night feeding numbers into computers. Also round the table were two Dutch bankers from KBN, a couple of lawyers, and a team of three from Gurney Kroheim, led by a director, Charles Scott-Liddell.

Luís introduced his daughter with pride, and me with thanks as the man who had secured her release. There were broad smiles all round. As well as working for Luís, it was clear that these City professionals liked him.

‘You’ve arrived at a good time,’ Luís said. ‘We’re just about to discuss the price.’

We sat at two empty chairs at the other end of the long board table. All eyes were turned to Luís.

‘So, Charles, what have we got?’

Scott-Liddell, every inch the smooth merchant banker, examined the sheets of figures in front of him.

‘Well, we’ve plugged today’s market prices for the bond portfolio into the model. As we suspected, it makes quite a difference. Using method one we get a valuation of sixty-three million pounds, and using method two...’ he paused as he flipped through the papers in front of him ‘... seventy-two million.’

Things had moved on from the twenty million that had been talked about the previous week. The market must have improved, I thought.

Sergio butted in. ‘I’m much happier with method one than method two. I don’t trust these discounted cash-flow valuations for a stockbroker. They make no sense to me.’

Luís smiled. ‘I know, Sergio. But an opportunity like this will only come once. If we can get Dekker Ward, Banco Horizonte will become the first truly international investment bank in Latin America. That has to be worth something. What did we say was the maximum we could afford?’

‘Seventy-five would be the limit,’ said Sergio. ‘Beyond that, our capital ratios would be stretched. You know how we’ve always kept a conservative balance sheet. But seventy-five million would be too much to pay for Dekker anyway.’

Luís stared at the numbers. Then he stood up and walked over to the window, looking down on the lunch-time London traffic.

With his back to the room he said, ‘We’ll bid eighty million pounds.’