Free to Trade (9 page)

'So how much are we up?' asked Debbie.

'We bought those two million at 82 and sold them for a 17i point profit,' I said. 'That's three hundred and fifty thousand dollars we've made! Not bad. And we got rid of our original half-million position. I wonder where our shares will be when New York comes in?'

Debbie looked thoughtful.

'What's up?' I said.

'Someone must have known about the takeover,' she said.

'Of course they did,' I said. 'They always do. That's the way the world works.'

'Maybe we shouldn't have bought those shares,' she said.

'Why shouldn't we? We had no knowledge there was going to be a takeover. We just guessed. We haven't broken any rules.'

'Somebody knew. Why else would the stock shoot up?'

'Look,' I said, 'You are the compliance officer. You know the rules. Have we broken any of them?'

Debbie thought a little. 'Technically, I suppose not,' she said.

'Good. Now pass me some tickets so I can log this trade.'

The next day, Wednesday, was an infuriating one. I was supposed to produce a report for one of our clients, and I was having severe trouble reconciling the performance figures produced by administration with what I knew we had achieved. I spent two hours in the afternoon staring at the same columns of numbers before I spotted the mistake, which had been staring back at me the whole time. Cursing myself for my stupidity, I went through to administration to point out the error. There was still many hours' work involved to straighten it out, and what with constant interruptions from salesmen, I would be lucky to get out before midnight. Debbie offered to help me, and I accepted with relief. Even so, it was not until eight o'clock that we finished. I put the report on Karen's desk, ready to be sent out first thing the next morning. Debbie and I looked at each other. 'Drink?' she said.

'Somehow I thought you would suggest that,' I said. 'Where shall we go?'

'Have you ever been on that boat on the Thames? You know, the one by Temple tube station?'

'That's fine with me,' I said. 'Just let me get my briefcase.'

'Oh, sod your briefcase!' said Debbie. 'All you are going to do is take it home and bring it back to work unopened, aren't you?'

'Um, well...'

'Come on!'

I looked round the trading room. Rob and Hamilton were still there, Hamilton going through piles of papers, Rob fiddling with his computer. It was no surprise at all to see Hamilton at this time of night, but Rob was a rarer sighting after six o'clock. It was dusk, and the red evening sunlight shot into the trading room, driving a broad band of orange between city and sky, both looming shapes of grey and black.

'It's going to rain...' I said.

'Oh, do come on.'

We got to the boat just before it started to rain. We sat at a table in the main cabin, looking out at the grey Thames rushing up towards Westminster on the floodtide. Powerful eddies whirled around the poles driven into the river-bed just next to the boat. It was strange to see such a wild, untamed force in the middle of a late-twentieth-century city. Man might be able to build river walls and elaborate barriers to contain or channel the flow, but there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Just then it started to rain, lashing down on to the water, so that river, city and sky became blurred in the gathering darkness. The wind had got up and the boat began to rock back and forth gently, creaking as it did so.

'Brrr,' Debbie shivered. 'You would hardly think it was summer. Mind you, it's quite cosy in here.'

I looked round. The varnished wooden interior of the boat was softly lit. There were a few small groups of people at the tables running up both sides of the cabin, and a larger group of drinkers at one end. The swaying and creaking of the boat, the murmur of relaxed conversation, and the damp but warm atmosphere did make it snug.

We ordered a bottle of Sancerre. The waiter returned with it right away and poured us both a glass. I raised mine to Debbie. 'Cheers,' I said. 'Thank you for your help this evening. I would still be there now if you hadn't done your bit.'

'Not at all,' Debbie said, taking a sip of her wine. 'You see, I'm not quite the lazy slob I'm cracked up to be.'

'Well, I'm sure Hamilton noticed.'

'Oh, screw him. I only did it because you looked so miserable all day. The language you used about that accrued interest reconciliation made me blush.'

'Well, thank you anyway,' I said. I thought it highly unlikely that any language I could use would make Debbie blush, although looking at her now, her round cheeks were beginning to glow in the fuggy, alcohol-ridden atmosphere.

'You do seem to have been working abnormally hard recently,' I said. 'Are you sure you are all right?' Debbie had had her head down all day.

'Well, it's you who gave me all those prospectuses to read, thank you very much.' She frowned. 'There are a couple of things that bother me, though. Bother me quite a lot.'

My curiosity was aroused. 'Such as?'

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. 'Oh forget it. I've spent enough time worrying about those bloody prospectuses today, it can wait till tomorrow. We'll have a chance to talk about it soon enough.'

I could tell she was worried about something, and for Debbie to be worried, it must be something interesting. But she clearly didn't want to talk about it now, so I changed the subject. 'You know some of the traders at Bloomfield Weiss, don't you?'

'Yes, why?'

'Do you know which one trades the Gypsums?'

'Yes, Joe Finlay. He trades all Bloomfield Weiss's US corporate book. He is very good. He is supposed to be the best corporate trader on the street, makes money month in and month out. Traders at the other houses try to keep him sweet.'

'Why is that?'

'He is a total bastard.' Debbie said this with such certainty that I assumed she had come to this conclusion from personal experience. Something about the tone in which she said it put me off asking her to explain more.

'Is he honest?'

Debbie laughed. 'A trader from Bloomfield Weiss? I would think that highly unlikely, wouldn't you? Why do you ask?'

'I was just wondering why Bloomfield Weiss showed so much interest in the bonds just before the takeover announcement.'

'You mean you think Joe might have known about it? I wouldn't be at all surprised.'

I refilled both our glasses. 'What are you going to spend your Gypsum profits on?' she asked, mischievously.

'You mean from the shares we bought? I don't know. I suppose I will just save them.'

'What for? A rainy day?' said Debbie, nodding towards the driving rain outside.

I smiled, feeling foolish. 'Well, what am I supposed to spend it on? My flat is perfectly adequate. De Jong give me a car. I don't seem to get time to take any holiday.'

'What you need is a very expensive girlfriend,' said Debbie. 'Someone you can lavish your ill-gotten gains on.'

'None of those about at the moment, I'm afraid.'

'What, an eligible young financier like you? I don't believe it,' said Debbie in mock astonishment. 'Mind you, you are a bit rough around the edges, and that nose could do with improvement. And it is a while since you last had a haircut, isn't it? No, I can quite see your problem.'

'Thank you for the encouragement. I don't know, I just don't seem to get the time.'

'Too busy working?'

'Too busy working, too busy running.'

'Typical. So, what are you? The virgin toiler?'

'It's not quite that bad,' I said smiling.

'Oh yes? Tell me more,' said Debbie, leaning forward, all curiosity.

'It's none of your business,' I said half-heartedly.

'Of course it isn't,' said Debbie. 'Tell me.'

She was leaning across the table, her bright eyes dancing over my face, begging me to talk. Despite some reluctance, I couldn't disappoint her.

'Well, there was a girl at university called Jane,' I said. 'She was very nice. Very patient.'

'Patient?'

'Yes. I was almost always in training. I used to run at least forty miles a week, and that didn't include weights and sprint training. And then I was trying to get a good degree. There wasn't a lot of time for much else.'

'And she put up with that?'

'For a while. She was really very good about it. She would always watch me compete, and sometimes she would even watch me train.'

'She must have been quite taken with you,' said Debbie.

'I suppose she was. In the end she had had enough. It was either my running or her. You can guess which I chose.'

'Poor her.'

'Oh, I don't know. She was better off without me. Two months later she met Martin, one year later and they were married. She probably has two kids now and is very happy.'

'And no one else since then?'

'One or two. But none of them really lasted.' I sighed. Every relationship I had started had soon become a struggle between a girl and my running, and I had never been willing to compromise on my running. Sometimes I regretted it, but it was just part of the price I had had to pay to get to the Olympics. In the end I was always prepared to pay it.

'Well, what's to stop you now?' Debbie asked.

'Stop me what?'

'You know, getting a girlfriend.'

'Well, you can't just go out and get one, just like that,' I protested. 'I mean, it's not that easy. There's no time, what with work and everything.'

Debbie laughed. 'Surely you could fit in some time between nine and nine-thirty on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That should be enough, shouldn't it?'

I shrugged and grinned. 'Yes, you are right. I am just out of practice. I will rectify the problem immediately. By this time next week I will have three women ready for your inspection.'

We polished off the bottle, split the bill, and got up to brave the wind and the rain outside. We walked along the covered gangway, bucking on the choppy water, and stood under the awning on the pavement. Neither of us had coats or umbrellas.

We were standing staring in dismay at the cold wet night, when a man pushed past us. He stopped for a second in front of Debbie, thrust his hand up to her blouse and squeezed. 'Miss me, love?' he said and gave a short dry laugh. He turned to me for just a second, looked at me with strangely limp blue eyes, twitched the corners of his mouth in a fake smile and ducked into the rain.

I stood still for a moment in surprise, my reflexes dulled by the wine. Then, as I lunged out into the rain to catch him, Debbie caught my sleeve. 'Don't Paul! Stop!'

'But you saw what he did,' I said, hesitating, with Debbie pulling on my arm.

'Please, Paul. Don't bother. Please.'

I looked into the gloom, but the man had already disappeared. Debbie's face was pleading, and, for once, dead serious. And she was afraid.

I shrugged my shoulders and got back into the shelter of the awning, soaked from just a few seconds in the rain.

'Who the hell is he?'

'Don't ask.'

'But he can't just do that to you.'

'Look, Paul. Please. Just drop it. Please.'

'OK, OK. Let's get you in a taxi.'

Not surprisingly, given the rain, no taxis appeared, and after five minutes we agreed to depart to our respective tube stations, Debbie hunched under her umbrella to get to the Northern line at Embankment, and me sprinting through the rain to Temple.

As the underground train lurched westwards on its never-ending journey round the Circle line, I wondered about the man I had seen grope Debbie. Who could he have been? A former lover? A former work colleague? A total stranger? A drunk? I had no idea. Nor had I any idea why Debbie refused to tell me anything about him. She had looked scared, rather than shocked or offended. Very odd.

I had caught a good glimpse of him in the moment he had turned to me. He was thin and wiry, about thirty-five, and wearing an unremarkable city suit. I could still see his eyes. Pale blue, dead, the pupils almost invisible pinpricks. I shuddered.

The train stopped at Victoria. A crowd of people barged off, and one or two got on. As the train jolted into motion again, my mind wandered. I tried to read the newspaper of the old man sitting opposite me, but I couldn't quite make it out. The conversation I had had with Debbie about my girlfriends, or rather lack of them, drifted back into my mind. I had just not tried over the last few years as far as women were concerned. It wasn't that I disliked female company, far from it, it was just that so many relationships had started with high hopes and ended in disappointment that it did not seem worth the effort. Well, I should probably change that. Debbie was right; however single-minded I was about succeeding at work, there had to be time for some other things.

The thought of Debbie made me smile. Her good humour was irrepressible. I realised that I looked forward to facing her wide grin and gentle teasing as I came into work every day. I had grown very fond of her over the last few months.

Hold on. Had Debbie anyone in mind when she was encouraging me to find myself a girlfriend? It would be typical of me to miss a come-on like that. No, I was just imagining it, surely. Not Debbie. Not me. Still, in some strange way, the idea appealed.

CHAPTER 5

I was busy the next morning. The phones didn't stop ringing. The market was active. Institutional fund managers were switching out of Deutschmarks into dollars ahead of what they believed to be an interest rate cut by the Bundesbank. The Street had been taken by surprise. The build-up of supply of eurobonds that had preceded the recent Sweden issue had almost all been bought, and a number of brokers had been caught short. Salesmen were calling us to try to tempt us to sell our positions to them. But we were hanging on. Let them sweat.

Debbie was late, so I had to answer all the phones myself. It was hard work.

At nine I called over to Karen, 'Heard anything from Debbie?' We hadn't had that heavy a night's drinking last night; she should have been able to make her way in.

'Nothing yet,' she said.

At nine thirty, Hamilton wandered by my desk. 'Any sign of Debbie?'

'Not yet.'