Aidan had listened intently. ‘What help will I have?’
‘You’ll have Emma to help you,’ said Kate.
‘That’s it? Bloody hell, this isn’t going to be easy!’ Aidan looked across at Emma. ‘Tell me you’ve got a degree in rocket science!’
‘Afraid not,’ replied Emma. ‘I studied applied mathematics and I have experience as an accountant…’
Aidan cut her off. ‘Well, you can’t have everything,’ he beamed. ‘Emma, you’ll do fine. What about IT kit?’
‘You’ll meet Greg, our IT Manager, after this meeting,’ said Kate.
She looked carefully at Aidan. ‘Are you willing to promise that everything you see and do here remains strictly confidential?’
Aidan nodded. ‘I have no doubt that you could make life very difficult for me and my employers if I broke my promise.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘My lips are sealed. Shall we get started?’
His demeanour, which to start with had been a mixture of tension and annoyance, was now relaxed and businesslike.
‘What we need to know is whether they are trying to short or manipulate the relevant futures or options contracts.’ Rafi paused. ‘My educated view is that the action will be in the long gilts and interest-rate contracts.’
Aidan’s face was deadly serious. His light blue eyes, sharp as sabres, focused on Rafi. ‘It’s funny – no, let me rephrase that – it’s a great coincidence that you should be talking of these two markets. Up to a fortnight ago, they were trading as might be expected in these volatile times and everyone was comfortable with an interest rate scenario where over the next year they move up by a per cent or so.’
He paused. ‘The funding of the Government’s debt mountain is on a knife edge. As things stand the big international investors are just about happy with the UK’s creditworthiness. Any significant increase in borrowings or a knock to the economy would be very unwelcome.’ He grimaced. ‘Were something to happen which shook investor confidence and caused the Government to issue shed loads of debt, it would become very expensive… recently the volume of deals betting on interest rates rising significantly has grown to the point where someone, or a group of people, out there fervently believes that they are heading towards double digits!’
Rafi raised his eyebrows.
‘The view amongst the traders,’ continued Aidan, ‘Is that a few punters have lost their marbles and instead of playing the roulette tables have decided to place some big bets in these derivative contracts. If they’re right they’ll make huge profits! My informed guess is you could be on to something. I’d be glad to check it out for you.’
‘Excellent – thank you – that’d be perfect,’ said Rafi.
There was a quiet knock on the door; Greg, not waiting for a reply, walked in.
‘Kind of you to join us,’ said Kate. ‘Let me introduce you to Aidan Gilchrist of Maine Leadbetter, the international bank. He’s a derivatives guru and is here to help us. Aidan, Greg is our IT manager. He has an uncanny knack for getting into online databases and making things work. He’ll set you up with whatever you need in terms of hardware and software. His budgets are a tiny proportion of yours, so the kit isn’t as smart as what you’re used to, but it should do the job.’
Greg had found a plate and was enjoying the last croissant.
‘Aidan, please tell Greg what you’ll need.’ Kate shot a brief smile at Greg.
‘First of all,’ said Aidan, ‘I could do with access to my bank’s intranet, in such a way that no one can trace it.’ He hesitated. ‘No, on second thoughts, that would raise too many suspicions.’ Aidan thought for a moment. ‘Would it be possible to arrange access from here via my home IP address?’
‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’
‘Second, I could do with access to the central computers of the main UK derivatives markets. Also, if possible, some names of contacts in their settlement teams would be a real bonus.’
Greg nodded.
‘Third, I could do with a desktop PC with a bit of grunt and access to a good printer. And fourth,’ he turned and looked at Emma, ‘Access to a supply of coffee would be much appreciated.’
As if to signal the end of the meeting, Greg slid his empty plate forward and looked up. ‘If that’s all, I’ll get started on your shopping list. If I seem a bit stressed, please bear with me. The commissioner has asked that I give you priority, but why does everything arrive in twos and threes like London buses? We still have a load of unfinished business following the Bishopsgate bombing, which took out their IT servers and means they’re using ours. It’s all a bit of a bugger’s muddle,’ Greg added as he left.
‘Emma, would you please take Aidan under your wing?’ asked Kate, changing the subject.
‘Yes, sure. I’d be happy to,’ replied Emma.
Kate turned and looked at Rafi. Her eyes twinkled. ‘And I’ll team up with Rafi.’
She looked pleased, as if she’d got what she wanted. She held Rafi’s gaze, gave him a barely perceivable wink and added, ‘Which should be interesting.’
Rafi got up to leave as if he’d finished a normal business meeting.
Kate looked a little crestfallen by his lack of interest and right at that moment it dawned on Rafi that he had accidentally ignored her gesture.
He looked at her with new eyes. She was attractive in a gamine sort of way; her hazel eyes were gorgeous… He cut short his thoughts – this definitely wasn’t the time for distractions.
Aidan stood up. ‘Where’s my desk?’
‘Follow me, I’ll show you where we work,’ said Emma.
‘Where do you want it set up?’ asked one of Greg’s team, pulling a trolley with a serious-looking PC on it. Emma pointed to the desk to the left of the whiteboard.
Greg popped his head around the door. ‘By the way, do you happen to know your home IP address or would you like me to find it out for you?’
Aidan gave Greg his nine-digit IP address. ‘Could you also arrange for my home phone line to be routed through to here?’
‘No problem.’ Greg turned and left.
‘Will your colleagues notice your absence?’ asked Emma ‘You might like to tell them you’ll be away from the office for some while.’
‘Good idea. I’ll be able to tell them I’m working from home as soon as Greg has me set up.’
Minutes later Aidan was up and running.
‘The printer is where?’ Aidan called across to no one in particular.
Emma pointed to a large, old HP printer next to her desk.
‘Bloody hell! I haven’t seen one of those for years. Did you get it from the museum up the road?’
‘That’s a bit too close to the truth to be funny,’ interjected Kate.
Aidan busied himself and in no time the printer was churning out sheets of paper.
Emma glanced at him. ‘I didn’t know you had your IP address rerouted yet. What are you up to?’
‘I thought I’d access some background data from the Web to save some time.’
Fifteen minutes later, the phone on the corner of Aidan’s desk rang. He scooped it up without taking his eyes away from his screen, said, ‘Thanks’ and put it down. He now had access to his bank’s intranet.
Rafi went over to Kate. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t seem enthusiastic about the prospect of working with you earlier. My mind was on other things. Shall we get started?’
Kate looked at him carefully, almost quizzically – she couldn’t make him out. ‘Where do you suggest we start?’
‘Let’s work on the property angle. It shouldn’t be long before we hear from the agent,’ replied Rafi.
Twenty minutes later Justin Smith telephoned. He sounded rather sheepish. He had put the list of properties through the three databases and had expected reams of information to come out, but had obtained only seven pages of data.
Constable Peter Ashby was waiting nearby in a squad car and made the pickup.
Less than twenty minutes later, he was handing over the envelope with the data to Kate.
Rafi looked at the printouts. Six agents showed up. Dewoodson cropped up more than any of the other names. Rafi smiled; so they were involved. They would be his starting point. From their website, he located their head office in Manchester, and noted that they also had offices in London, Edinburgh and Bristol. He passed the contact details to Kate.