Christ! Kate had said keep an eye on Jamie and I hadn’t. But to try to do something with the boss’s wife at a party with everyone from work would be foolhardy. Insane. Just the kind of thing Jamie when drunk might do.
I hurried out of the back garden round the side of the house, trying to make as much noise as possible, so as not to surprise them doing something I didn’t want to see. A little copse of trees stood discreetly back from the house, with a path winding through it. It was beginning to get dark.
‘Jamie!’ I called. Too loud. Someone might hear. Someone other than Jamie.
I found the statue. No sign of Jamie or Luciana. But I wasn’t surprised to see that Luciana hadn’t stinted in returning Hercules his manhood. He was now a very proud statue indeed.
‘Jamie! It’s Nick! Come on.’ I crashed through the undergrowth, and eventually spilled out in front of the house. There was Jamie in a little group with Luciana, Eduardo and Pedro, standing right by the taxi. They were all smiling, all tipsy.
‘Ah, Nick! There you are!’ he called, with a broad grin. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Our taxi’s here.’
I was too embarrassed to go back in and say goodbye to Ricardo, but I thanked Luciana, who drew me close to her for a kiss on both cheeks.
‘It was very nice to meet you, Nick,’ she purred. ‘Come and see my designs some day.’
‘I’d love to,’ I said, and bundled Jamie into the taxi.
The favela deal was dead. Bocci’s papers carried the scandal over the weekend. It harmed Humberto Alves and the Mayor, but there wasn’t enough in it to do them serious damage. Brazilians had found a new enthusiasm for rooting out corruption; they had even successfully impeached a president. But there was nothing that really surprised the city in this story: everyone assumed that this kind of thing was still going on. Besides which, Rio’s mayor, assisted by Humberto, had done much to clean up the municipal finances and the city was not about to throw them over because of one unsubstantiated scandal.
For Bloomfield Weiss things were different. International banks dealing in Latin America have to be scrupulous about keeping their reputations clean. Gringo financiers make easy targets for accusations of corruption, as Bloomfield Weiss were finding out. They couldn’t risk more damage to their reputation by going ahead with the deal. So they pulled out.
The Dekker machine continued to operate as if nothing had happened, bringing bond issues to market, spreading rumours, buying, selling. I watched Jamie work: it was all beginning to make more sense to me now. But we were both subdued. We didn’t mention the favela deal, money-laundering or where he and Luciana had got to at the party the previous day.
But our activities in Brazil were not only marked by Bocci’s newspapers. A small article in IFR caused a ripple round the dealing room when it was first noticed. It was in the gossip column, where the following week’s events often first appeared as unsubstantiated rumour.
An English banker working for London-based Dekker Ward was in Brazil last week. Nicholas Elliot was walking on Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro late at night when he was attacked by a gang and stabbed in the chest. Elliot is understood to have recovered well from his ordeal.
Not so his colleague, American citizen Martin Beldecos, who was murdered in his hotel room in Caracas last month, ostensibly by thieves. Two such attacks so close together demonstrate the increasing dangers facing bankers travelling to South America. However, there may be a more sinister explanation. Sources inside Dekker Ward say that Martin Beldecos was working on verifying the origin of funds received by Dekker Trust, Dekker Ward’s Cayman Islands affiliate. There are rumours in Caracas that Beldecos’s murder was not the result of a random burglary gone wrong, but a contract killing. A spokesman for Dekker Ward denied this, and spoke of the shock felt by the whole firm over the tragedy, and their sympathy for Martin Beldecos’s family.
Jamie scanned the article and threw me an anxious glance. ‘That wasn’t you who talked to them, was it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But it’s interesting, don’t you think?’
‘It’s just gossip. The real trouble will come when Eduardo finds out who has been talking to IFR. Watch out, here he comes.’
Eduardo was walking across the square to Ricardo’s desk, clasping his yellow copy of IFR. They conferred for a few minutes, and then Eduardo broke away.
‘Shit! He’s coming this way,’ whispered Jamie.
He was indeed, a large dark presence, brows knitted in anger.
‘Follow me,’ he growled at me, barely pausing to slow down as he passed Jamie’s desk.
I did as he asked, into the opaque corner office.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
I sat.
He strode round his desk and sat facing me, his large shoulders hunched over the plain white pad of paper in front of him.
‘Well?’
Initially cowed by his presence, I now began to feel angry myself. I had done nothing wrong. I wasn’t a schoolboy. I shouldn’t be intimidated like this.
‘Well, what?’ I replied, looking him in the eye.
‘Did you talk to IFR?’
‘No.’ I kept my voice calm.
Eduardo leaned back in his chair and fixed his eyes on mine. They were large, dark and angry, but like Ricardo’s they seemed to bore straight into me, threatening me to tell the truth, daring me to lie.
‘No one is allowed to talk to the press at Dekker Ward without permission,’ Eduardo said. ‘And to spread this kind of rumour is a betrayal to everyone who works here. Dekker Ward has worked hard to keep a spotless reputation in Latin America. This kind of rumour can do us untold harm. Do you understand?’
‘I understand very well,’ I said. ‘As I said, I haven’t spoken to any journalists. I don’t even know any financial journalists.’ The anger rose in my chest, and seemed actually to cause my wound to throb. ‘A week ago I was stabbed in the chest while I was on business for Dekker Ward. I deserve your trust. In fact, I expect your trust.’
Eduardo watched me with his thick lips pursed. ‘I hope you’re telling the truth,’ he said, ‘because if you’re not—’
I’d had enough. ‘Of course I am!’ I said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ I stood up and left the room, feeling Eduardo’s glowering eyes on my back.
Jamie was right. There was no way I was going to tell Eduardo about Martin Beldecos’s fax.
During the morning, a number of other people were called into Eduardo’s office, including Jamie. The atmosphere in the office changed noticeably. I was not the only one who was angry.
Just before lunch, Ricardo emerged from Eduardo’s office and perched himself on Jamie’s desk.
‘Nick, I suspect Eduardo was a little rough on you this morning,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘He was. And without cause. He has no reason to think that I talked to the press. And it was me who was stabbed.’
‘I know. And I’m sorry. I appreciate that. I trust you and Eduardo trusts you too. It’s just it doesn’t look good for the firm to be linked to a drug-gang murder, and I think my brother was a little angry about it. Don’t worry, you’re doing a good job and we know that. Let’s just forget it, shall we?’
He patted me on the shoulder, and walked over towards Dave and Miguel, who both looked like they had had a hard time too.
I glanced at Jamie. ‘Eduardo does this every now and then,’ he said. ‘Loses his rag and throws his weight around. Then Ricardo has to calm things down. At least this time it looks like no one got hurt.’