The market maker (16 page)

"It must be," I said.

"I still can't believe it!" Isabel's face reddened with indignation. "Or I can believe it of Ricardo. That's just

the trouble. OK, so I blew it. I lost the deal. But that's no reason to destroy it for the people of Rio!"

"I agree," I said. "I spoke to Ricardo about it on the

plane."

"What did he say?"

"He said that he knew the favela deal was a good thing. But he had to teach Bloomfield Weiss a lesson. He had no choice."

"Bah!"

"I find it difficult to get used to," I said. "What I was doing before had a purpose that had nothing to do with making money. We were teaching something important. And we were trying to understand a bit more about literature and language. We were paid just enough to be able to do that. But now everything we do is to make money for us and our firm. So if it makes money we do it, if it doesn't, we don't, and if it makes money for a competitor, we destroy it."

"What did you expect?" muttered Isabel.

"I suppose, that's what I expected. It just takes getting used to."

"It's a dirty business," Isabel said. "I hoped with this one deal I would finally be able to do something good as well as make money for the House of Dekker. Stupid of me." She sighed. "Still, there's no point getting depressed about it. We've just got to go on to the next deal. It's a mistake to question what we do too closely, Nick. You'll never like the answers."

I knew she was right. In a perverse way it encouraged me that someone like Isabel, who seemed to share some of my misgivings about the money business, should have found a way to come to terms with it. I found the work at Dekker Ward fascinating, and I was determined to succeed. If Isabel could deal with her conscience, so could I.

But there was still one thing I wanted to ask her.

''Do you think Dekker is involved in money laundering?''

She thought for a moment before replying. "No, I don't," she said. "Ricardo sails very close to the wind, but he knows when to stop. Money laundering is illegal. It can get you into too much trouble if you're caught. Ricardo has worked hard to maintain a reputation for being aggressive but always legal, and I don't think he would jeopardize that."

I listened to her words closely. She seemed convinced of what she was saying, and I trusted her judgment.

"Why do you ask? That article in IFR7"

"Yes. And there was Jack Langton's comment about Dekker and the Rio drug gangs," I said.

"I know there's nothing in that," said Isabel. "I know everything we do in Brazil."

"Well, it's not just that," I said. "Do you know Lu-ciana's maiden name?"

It was a question I had been meaning to ask someone ever since I had spoken to her at Ricardo's party. With all that had happened over the last week, I hadn't quite got around to it. Now I wanted to know the answer.

Isabel was puzzled, but she answered my question. "Aragao. Luciana Pinto Aragao."

"I thought so," I said. "So her brother is Francisco Aragao?"

"Yes. That's right."

I had guessed as much. The Brazilian financier who had been mentioned in Martin's fax. The one under investigation by the DEA for drug-related money-laundering activities.

"What is it, Nick?" Isabel asked.

I told her about the second fax for Martin Beldecos, and about my suspicion that it had been taken from my

desk while I was in Brazil. I also mentioned Eduardo's insistence that I tell him and only him if I received any more messages for Beldecos.

Isabel listened closely to every word.

"So what do you think?" I asked her when I had finished.

"I don't know what to think."

"Well, is something going on?"

"From what you've said, yes, there must be. But I still can't believe Ricardo is involved. It's not like him."

"Francisco Aragao is his brother-in-law."

"That's true. But Ricardo goes to great lengths not to deal with him. It's a policy I have no trouble with. Francisco has a bad reputation in Brazil. My father told me he's rumored to be dealing with the narco-traffickers. Dekker has always steered well clear of him."

"In public, yes. But couldn't Ricardo have set up an account at Dekker Trust in secret?"

Isabel looked doubtful. "It would certainly be possible for him to do that easily enough. But I still don't believe he would. It would be against the way he does business. I know it soimds ridiculous, but Ricardo has his own set of rules, and he never breaks them."

"What about Eduardo?"

Isabel thought for a moment. "That's more likely. Eduardo doesn't believe in any rules."

"And he's responsible for Dekker Trust, isn't he?"

"True. It would be easy for him to set something up. There's just one thing not quite right with that, though."

"What's that?"

"He and Luciana don't get along at all."

"Hm," I said." But this could be a strictly business arrangement. I can imagine Eduardo getting over his dislike of someone for money."

''Maybe/' said Isabel. "But he'd know his brother wouldn't approve."

"If he ever found out." Our beers were empty. "Another?" I asked.

Isabel nodded distractedly. She was deep in thought over what I had said.

I procured two more Budvars from the bar and returned. "So what should I do?" I asked as I took my seat. "I haven't told Eduardo. Jamie says I should just forget the whole thing."

"Difficult," said Isabel. "I think Jamie's right that you shouldn't tell Eduardo. There's too big a chance he's involved, and then you might get yourself into a dangerous situation."

"You mean if he knew I suspected him of money laimdering?" I was concerned I had got myself into that position already.

"Yes. But I think I would speak to Ricardo."

"Wouldn't he just tell his brother?" I protested.

"He might. But I'd trust him on this. I don't think he's involved, and I think he'd want to know."

Trust Ricardo? I wasn't quite ready to do that.

"What about going to the authorities?" I suggested.

Isabel inhaled through her teeth. "Now, that's something Ricardo would never forgive. If you spoke to them without speaking to him first, he'd feel betrayed. And he'd be right. No, I think you should talk to him."

"Hm."

"What will you do?" Isabel asked.

"I'll think about it," I said. And I would. But I was pretty sure now that the wisest thing would be to keep quiet, at least for the time being.

My fears about Martin Beldecos's death and my own stabbing seemed more grounded. But I didn't want to discuss them with Isabel. She might think it all a bit

melodramatic, and while I could live with looking silly in front of Jamie, I didn't want to appear paranoid in front of her.

But I did want to ask her about the man whom I was increasingly thinking of as my predecessor.

"What was Martin Beldecos like?"

"He was nice enough," said Isabel. "He was quiet, almost shy. Very dedicated to his work."

"He was American, wasn't he?"

"That's right. From Miami. He had worked for one of the branches of the big U.S. banks there, which deal with Latin American private clients."

"And do you know what he actually did?"

"Not precisely. I think technically he was employed by Dekker Trust. He spent half his time here and half his time in the Caymans. He was working on some project for Eduardo, which he tried to keep confidential, but it obviously had something to do with Dekker Trust. He asked us all about clients of ours who had accounts there." Isabel paused. "It's terrible what happened to him. He was only thirty."

"Any family?" I asked.

"Parents. And a brother and a sister, I think. They're all in Miami. He wasn't married or anything." She looked at me sharply. "And the same thing nearly happened to you."

1 nodded. Now she knew what I was thinking.

13

"I've left the School of Russian Studies."

A piece of overdone pork hovered on my fork. I shoved it in my mouth and chewed. And chewed. My mother was not a good cook.

"Really, dear?" she said, raising her eyebrows.

"Good God! When was this?" thundered my father.

"About a month ago."

The obvious question for most families would have been "why didn't you tell us sooner?" But not in our family. I had long since stopped discussing anything important with them, and they had stopped expecting it.

We were sitting in the small, square dining room in the flint cottage that my parents had bought in Norfolk after my father had retired. Even though it was the end of April, it was cold. When the wind came from the north or east, it was always cold; there wasn't much between the cottage and the North Pole. Both my mother and I were wearing thick jerseys, and my father an old sports jacket.

I had inserted this remark into a pause in the conversation. Although it wasn't really a conversation, more a monologue as my father droned through his staple top-

ics: Europe, old friends from the City, Lady Thatcher (always with the ''Lady''), and cricket. The subjects hadn't changed nnuch since my youth, although he had substituted Europe for the unions as his principal object of hatred. He would eat and talk at the same time, his large florid face bulging as he chewed. These conversations required no participation at all from my mother and me. I sometimes wondered whether they occurred when there was just the two of them. I concluded something much more depressing. Days, months, years of meals eaten in silence.

"So, what are you going to do?" my father demanded.

This was the bit I wasn't looking forward to. I finally managed to swallow the lump of pork, and felt it force its way painfully down my throat.

"I'm going to work for a company called Dekker Ward," I said.

"Dekker Ward! Not the stockbroker?" My father put down his fork and broke into a huge grin. "Well done, my boy! Well done!" And then, much to my embarrassment, he leaned over and shook my hand.

"Know them well. Old Lord Kerton was a pal of mine. Must be near retirement age by now. They specialized in Plantations, I think. Now, there was plenty of money to be made there if you could get the timing right. Oh, yes. Plenty of money."

"I think the old Lord Kerton died. Father." He liked to be called Father. "It's his son, Andrew, who's chairman now."

My father tucked into his burnt pig with renewed gusto. I had made his day. "Don't remember a son. Probably still at school when I knew him. Sorry to hear about old Gerald, though." He took a gulp of the tap water in the glass in front of him. "Well, old man! Whatever made you finally do it?"

"Money, Father. I needed the money."

"Well, you should make plenty of that. The City's rolling in it these days. A smart young man like you will make a fortune. Let me get a bottle of wine. We need to celebrate."

My mother had been watching me all this time, wearing a slight frown. "Why?" she mouthed.

"I'm broke," I mouthed back. She nodded. She understood that. When we had lived in Surrey, we had lurched from having plenty of money to having very little. For a while I had thought it was my fault. I had gone to a local grammar school that had become independent. I had enjoyed it. The teachers were excellent, the rugby team won more than it lost, I made some good, like-minded friends, and it got me into Oxford. But somehow I was made to feel guilty that I was there. It had to do with the fees. The termly demands for payment were met by frowns and barbed comments from my father. I was never quite sure why; he was a stockbroker, like many of the other boys' fathers, fees should not have been a problem. I'm pretty sure now that my father's distress was a result of inept stock market speculation, but at the time he left me in no doubt that the family's money worries were because of me.

He returned with a bottle of Argentine red. Very appropriate. He prattled on, talking a lot about the old colonial stocks in which Dekker Ward used to ply their trade.

After several minutes I decided to correct him mildly. "Actually, Father, they concentrate a lot on Latin America now. And they're thinking of doing business in Russia. That's why they want me."

"Oh, I see. Jolly good."

My father talked on, about the deals he'd done, the people he knew, and he trotted out some aphorisms

such as "Sell in May and go away/' and "Never trust a man whose tie is lighter than the color of his shirt." I studied the surface of the dining table, where the imprint of my school homework could still just be picked out. "Oct 197" and " = 5x + 3" were the most prominent

marks.

After coffee, I asked my mother if I could look at her latest paintings. She smiled and led me to her studio. We left my father behind with the washing up.

The studio was a large room that took up half the length of the cottage. It had big window^s that provided plenty of natural light. But to walk in there was like walking into a hurricane.

Five years ago her pictures had been open landscapes of the Norfolk shoreline, in an Impressionist style. Since then they had become steadily darker, wilder, swirls of cloud enveloping lonely figures on beaches that never ended. Individually they were highly unsettling. When surrounded by dozens of them at once the effect was dowiuight frightening. The nearest thing I had felt to it was walking through the Edvard Munch exhibition at the National Gallery several years before.

My mother's painting worried me. It was probably brilliant, but it had taken over her life.

"Have you tried any more galleries. Mum?" I asked.

"I've told you, dear, none of the galleries around here will touch them."

"How about London?"

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. They wouldn't be interested in this."

I wasn't so sure. I suspected that someone somewhere would jump at her work. But these pictures were for herself, not other people.

We were looking at a particularly haimting painting

of the blackened shell of a wreck being slowly sucked down into the sand flats off Brancaster beach.

"I'm sorry you're giving up Russian literature, Nick," she said.

"I'm not. I'll still read. And once I've made some money, I'm sure I'll go back to it in some form."