This had caught Kerton’s attention. ‘You’re referring, I take it, to the deal we launched last month for Mexico?’
‘That, and some other things.’
‘Well, the deal wasn’t a success. It suffered from unfortunate timing. But when you dominate a market like we do, you have to take the rough with the smooth. I can assure you we can handle it. Look, if you want to talk emerging markets, perhaps I ought to get hold of Ricardo Ross.’ He reached towards a telephone.
‘No, don’t do that, Andy,’ Stahl said. ‘There’s more. Nick?’
‘Well, sir, I understand that Ricardo has bought four billion dollars of Mexican bonds, and two billion of debt from other Latin American borrowers. As you know, the market has fallen sharply in the last two weeks. My understanding is that Dekker’s losses are more than one and a half billion dollars.’
Kerton didn’t respond at first. His expression switched from polite attention to hostility. Of course he didn’t know this. And he felt a fool for not knowing. He was cornered. He lashed out. ‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’ he said to me. ‘Did we fire you or something?’
‘I resigned before you had the chance, sir.’
He turned back to Stahl. ‘I can’t see how you can possibly listen to this man. He obviously bears a grudge. He’s making it up.’
‘It kind of fits with what we’ve seen in the market, Andy,’ said Stahl. ‘I believe him.’
‘Well, I don’t. And I think you should leave. There is no need for me to respond to such allegations.’
Stahl stood up. ‘OK, Andy. We’re going. But check out what Nick here is saying. And we’ll be in touch to see if you change your mind. But do yourself a favour, OK? Don’t tell Ross about our little talk. At least, not till you know he isn’t hiding anything from you.’
Kerton showed us out of the building in icy silence.
Stahl called at lunch-time the next day. ‘Kerton wants to talk. He wants to come to our offices. Can you meet us at three?’
‘I’ll be there.’
It was tight, but I changed into a suit, bicycled to the station, got the train to London and the tube to Liverpool Street, and arrived at Bloomfield Weiss at two minutes to three. We met in a conference room: Kerton, Stahl, the two corporate financiers, and me. It was a much blander room than the one we had occupied at Dekker Ward, but there was a nice view of a giant iron phallus that looked as though it had been blown down in the wind. Kerton was there with someone he introduced as Giles Tilfourd from Tilfourd and Co., a corporate-finance boutique. It was promising that he had his own independent adviser. It suggested he expected discussions to lead somewhere.
‘OK, Andy,’ said Stahl. ‘Shoot.’
Kerton did well. He kept his cool. Although he seemed thoughtful, he didn’t look like a man who had just discovered that his shareholding, which he thought was worth several hundred million pounds, was now worth just five.
But it was.
‘Perhaps you could go through the details of your offer again...’
Negotiations proceeded quickly. They have to, in these situations. Any further deterioration in the market would make Dekker Ward worthless, worse than worthless. It would become a liability that even Bloomfield Weiss wouldn’t be able to handle. Stahl left London, but Godfrey and Schwartz stayed, and kept me informed. Kerton was careful to keep Ricardo out of it. He sent a trio of his own people down to Canary Wharf under the guise of an internal audit. This apparently aroused some disquiet in Ricardo, but no suspicions. He was confident he could run rings round any internal auditors.
I bought the Wall Street Journal every day. Things seemed neither better nor worse in Mexico. It was unclear what would happen to the Pinnock Bill in Congress. It seemed to have become sidetracked somehow in a negotiation over which military bases would be shut down in the continental United States.
It was difficult to focus on my thesis, but I did my best. Sitting in my room at the top of Kate and Jamie’s house, my mind kept drifting back to the deal. It was exhilarating. I spent many hours imagining the look on Ricardo’s face when he heard that Dekker had been sold from underneath him. To Bloomfield Weiss, of all people! Surely even he wouldn’t be able to keep his cool. He and Eduardo probably had plenty of cash stashed away for a rainy day, but this would hurt Ricardo much more than merely losing money. This would be a very public humiliation. A statement that the powerful Dekker machine that was so feared by the market was, in reality, nothing but a pile of worthless paper.
I thought of Isabel, and smiled wryly. I was sure she would appreciate it. If she was still alive. The familiar, chronic anxiety returned. I thought of calling Luís again to see if he had any news, but there was no point. I knew he would contact me as soon as he heard anything, if he ever heard anything.
I felt twinges of concern for the other people that worked at Dekker: Charlotte Baxter, Miguel, Pedro and, of course, Jamie. But Bloomfield Weiss intended to keep most of them, in fact it was the people they were really buying. They were good; even without Ricardo, they were the best in the market.
My musings were interrupted by a knock at the door.
‘Come in!’
It was Kate. Her face was serious. She carried a brown envelope in her right hand. I recognized it immediately.
Shit! It was an internal report prepared by analysts at Bloomfield Weiss on Dekker.
‘Where did you find that?’ I asked.
‘By the phone downstairs.’
Damn! I had rung Dwight Godfrey the day before, when Kate was picking up Oliver from his nursery school. He had wanted to know whether the Bloomfield Weiss report gelled with what I had seen at Dekker. It had, more or less.
‘Have you read it?’
‘Yes.’
Kate stood in the middle of the room. She had been a promising City lawyer. If she’d read it, she’d understood it. She was clearly rattled. I felt my cheeks redden; I had been caught.
‘Why have you got this report, Nick?’
I took a deep breath. Nothing but the truth would do now. ‘Because it was my idea.’
‘Your idea?’
‘Yes. I suggested to Bloomfield Weiss that they should buy Dekker.’
Kate sat on the bed, still clutching the envelope.
‘Why?’
I swallowed. ‘Ricardo deserves it,’ I said, slowly and deliberately. ‘And so does Eduardo. They’ve tried to ruin my career. They wrecked my flat, and destroyed my thesis. And it’s not just me they’ve trampled on. They’ve done the same thing to Dave. And to the poor bastards who live in the favelas. And who knows why Martin Beldecos was murdered?’
I was getting quite heated now. ‘Ricardo thinks that the rules of us lesser mortals don’t apply to him. Well, I’m going to show him he’s wrong. Let him feel what it’s like to have his life’s work taken away from him.’
Kate was looking at me hard.
‘But what about Jamie? This will put him in an impossible situation.’
I sighed. ‘I know. But Dekker’s sinking. If Bloomfield Weiss do take them over, Jamie should still have a job.’ I met her eyes. ‘Are you going to tell him?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kate, and she stood up from the bed and left the room.
25
I spent the barest possible time with Kate and Jamie that evening at supper, before making an excuse about working on my thesis and escaping upstairs to my room. I sat at my desk, my notes in front of me, my mind elsewhere. Would she tell him? What would his reaction be?
Sure, I had my justification ready, the one I had given Kate. But Jamie wouldn’t see it that way. I knew that Dekker was important to him. I was staying in his house, and I had betrayed him. And I did not want to betray Jamie.