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I could feel my face getting hot. I had made good money on the Swedish issue and it looked very much like I was going to make some more on the Gypsums. I deserved some encouragement, for God's sake! Of all people, Hamilton was the last person to criticise anyone for taking risks.

'Thank you,' I said. 'I'll remember that.'

'Good,' said Hamilton. 'Now, have you got anything interesting coming up this week?'

'Actually, yes,' I answered. 'Cash is coming in this afternoon with his sidekick, to try to sell us a new deal.'

'Not another one,' said Hamilton. 'I would have thought one would have been quite enough for one week.'

'No this is different. It's a junk bond issue. It's for the Tahiti, a new hotel in Las Vegas. It's a risky deal, since almost the whole cost of the construction of the casino has been financed with debt. But it yields 14 per cent.'

'Now, that is a lot. I hope we can live with the risk. This is where you earn your crust.'

I sincerely hoped so. Junk bonds, or 'high yield bonds' as they are sometimes more politely called, can be very profitable. They can also be very dangerous. The name 'high yield' comes from the high interest coupon that these bonds pay. The name 'junk' comes from the high risk that they represent. They are usually issued by companies burdened with high levels of debt. If everything goes well, then everyone is happy; the investors in the junk bonds get their high coupon, and the owners of the company make a fortune out of an often small initial investment. If everything does not go well, then the company is unable to earn enough cash to meet its interest bills and it goes bankrupt, leaving its junk bondholders and its owners with paper fit only for the waste-basket. The secret to investing successfully is picking those companies that will survive. This was where my experience as a credit analyst came in. Hamilton wanted to begin buying junk bonds, and he had specifically hired someone with credit skills to help him do it. I was looking forward to my first opportunity to display those skills, although I knew nothing about casinos, and was more than a little suspicious of Bloomfield Weiss's new deal.

'Well, let me know how it goes,' Hamilton said. With that, he stood up and went back to his own desk.

Debbie muttered something that sounded very much like 'Bastard!'.

'What was that?' I asked.

She looked up just for a second, her face still clenched with the effort of keeping control.

'Nothing,' she said and bent over her calculator. The anger radiated from her desk.

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to twelve.

'Look, it's almost lunchtime. Why don't we go out and get a sandwich?' I said.

'It's too early,' said Debbie.

'Come on,' I said firmly.

Debbie sighed and threw her pen down on to her desk. 'OK, let's go.'

We ignored the usual Italian sandwich shop over the road and instead walked to Birley's in Moorgate. Clutching our absurdly expensive turkey-and-avocado sandwiches, we walked on to Finsbury Circus.

It was a gorgeous day. The sun was out and a gentle breeze ruffled the dresses of the secretaries who were making their way to the lawn in the middle of the Circus for a lunchtime's sunbathing. We found an empty patch of grass with a view over to the bowling-green. Young men in bright blue striped shirts and red braces were playing. The gentle murmur of relaxed conversation hovered over the lounging office workers scattered over the lawn, pale limbs and faces turned towards the July sun.

We chewed our sandwiches in silence, watching the people go by.

'Well?' I said.

'Well, what?' said Debbie.

'Do you want to tell me about it?'

Debbie didn't answer. She leaned back on her elbows and raised her face to the sky, her eyes closed. Finally, she opened them and squinted sideways at me.

'I think I should give all this up,' she said. 'Hamilton's right, I'm not suited to it.'

'Bullshit,' I said. 'You are picking it up very quickly. You're a natural.'

'A natural dilettante, according to Hamilton. I have the wrong attitude. Traders with my attitude are dangerous. They're careless. They lose money. Unless I improve my attitude, I have no future. And you know what? I don't care. I am damned if I am going to become an anally retentive Scottish robot, just so I can earn De Jong's clients an extra half a per cent. It's all right for you. He loves you. All that dedication and hard work. The sun shines out of your arse. But that's just not me. I'm sorry.'

She looked away from me as she blinked away a tear.

'Look around you,' I said, inclining my head towards the crowd of prone bodies. 'Do you think all these people are failures? The City isn't full of people like Hamilton or even me. There are hundreds of people who enjoy a good laugh and who spend their lunchtimes lying in the sun, who are very successful, thank you very much.'

Debbie looked at me doubtfully.

'Look,' I said, 'you are quick on the uptake, you always get the work done, you are 99 per cent accurate, what more do you want?'

I put my hand on hers. 'I'll tell you what you have got that the rest of us haven't,' I said. 'People love to work with you. They like to deal with you. They tell you things. They let you get away with things they probably shouldn't. They do you favours. Don't underestimate how important that is, in this business.'

'So I shouldn't just get married, have two point two children and eat ice-cream in front of "Neighbours" every afternoon? I would be good at that. Especially the eating ice-cream bit.'

'You can if you want, but it would be a shame,' I said.

'Well, it may not be my decision,' she said. 'Unless I "sharpen up" in the next month, I will be out.'

'Hamilton said that?'

'Hamilton said that. And I am damned if I am going to change my personality just for him.'

She put her head on her knees, and examined a daisy two feet in front of her.

'What did he say to you about buying the Gypsum stock?' she asked.

'He wasn't too happy,' I said. 'He didn't exactly tell me I was wrong to do it. He just said I should be careful. Come to think of it, I don't know whether he was talking about the stock I bought for my own account, or the bonds I bought for the firm. Either way, it's a bit much for him to criticise anyone for taking risks.'

'You like him, don't you?' Debbie asked.

'Well, yes, I suppose I do,' I said.

'Why?'

'It's difficult to say. He's not exactly a warm and loving person, is he? But he's fair. He's honest. He's professional. And he is probably the best fund manager in the City.'

I watched a couple slowly get up from a wooden bench opposite us, their places soon taken by two young bankers, there to check out the talent. There was plenty to look at, dotted about on the closely cut grass.

'I doubt there is anyone else like him in the City,' I went on. 'It really is a privilege to work with him. When I see him in action, I am amazed. He always sees angles others don't. And he has this way of drawing you into his thought process, making you an accomplice in whatever brilliant trade he is working on. Do you understand what I mean?'

Debbie nodded. 'Yes, I suppose I do.' She looked at me closely. 'Why do you come in to work every day?' she asked.

'To earn a crust,' I replied.

'That's not all, is it?'

I reflected a moment. 'No, I want to learn how to trade. I want to learn how to trade better than anyone else out there.'

'Why?'

'What do you mean, why? Isn't it obvious?'

'No, not really.'

'I suppose it isn't.' I sat back and rested on my elbows, squinting into the strong sunlight. 'I need to push myself all the time, as hard as I can. And then a bit harder. I have always been like that, ever since I was a boy. When I ran, I wanted to be the best. Not second or third, but the best. I suppose the habit just doesn't go away.'

'I envy people like you. Where do you get all that drive from?'

'Oh I don't know,' I said. But I did know. There was a reason for those bitter hours of self-inflicted pain I had suffered as an adolescent, that single-mindedness which Debbie said she envied, and which had cut me off from the carefree enjoyment of life that I saw in other 'normal' people. But I wasn't going to tell Debbie or anyone else at De Jong what that reason was.