Authors: Nic Bennett
Prison
, thought Jonah. It hadn’t occurred to him that his father might go to prison. He paid for the breakfast and the paper and carried them over to where Creedence was sitting.
“We’re in the paper again. Says Dad might go to prison,” he said flatly as he put the tray down.
“Prison!” she exclaimed. “What for?”
Jonah sat down and handed her the paper. “Fraud. Here, have a read.”
While he waited for her to finish, he tried to analyze how he felt. His anger had been softened by the events of the last twelve hours, but now it was returning with abundance.
“Jesus, Jonah. This is heavy stuff. Prison! That’s for thieves and murderers. And if it’s a choice between proving your dad guilty of fraud and closing down Hellcat, I don’t think he stands a chance. From what I’ve seen of that place, they’ll be doing everything to make sure he’s convicted, regardless of what is or isn’t true.”
Jonah sipped his coffee. “What do you mean
they’ll
do everything? He’s either guilty or he’s not, and I’m guessing it’s the former.”
“Well, you know. There’s a lot of money at stake. And jobs. And reputation. It’s in the interest of the bank for your dad to take all the blame. I hope he’s got a good lawyer.”
Jonah remained unsympathetic. “Do you want to know what I think happened?”
“What?” asked Creedence, sitting upright and laying her palms flat on the table.
“I think he was trying to be a hero like the Baron and got it wrong, so he hid the losses. When the markets dived and Allegro Home Finance went down, he couldn’t hide them anymore.” He took a big bite of his croissant as if that settled it. “In which case he deserves what’s coming to him.”
“Really?” asked Creedence with steel in her voice. “Is that really your view? Because if it is, I had better be going.” Her mouth had turned down, and she was challenging him with her eyes.
Jonah was taken aback by her response. It was the first time she had said anything that wasn’t positive. “Well, he could have done it, right?” he said, his voice wavering. “Who’s to say he didn’t?”
“Where I come from people are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.” Creedence leaned over the table toward him. “Look at you—you’ve been kicked out without anyone telling you why, judged guilty without any proof. You’re doing to your dad precisely what they’re doing to you.”
“No, of course I’m not. I’ve done nothing. I’m not part of it.”
“Precisely!” She slammed her coffee against the table, shaking the croissants. “What are
you
going to do about it?”
Jonah rocked back on his chair. He didn’t know what he was going to do about it. He hadn’t thought it was his problem to solve. Even though it was the Baron who had kicked him out of the office yesterday morning, part of Jonah had still believed that he’d be the one to fix everything. But maybe that wasn’t true….
Creedence seemed satisfied that she had succeeded in making her point. She leaned back and in a much softer voice said, “You have to talk to him. You have to listen to what he has to say; find out if you believe him. It affects you.”
Jonah knew she was right, but he wasn’t going to back down completely. “Fine. I’ll hear what he has to say, but I don’t have to agree to help him.”
Creedence rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you make that decision
after
you hear him out?” She reached into her pocket and pulled
out her phone, holding it out to him. Jonah shook his head, took out his own phone, and dialed the number without needing to look at the scrap of paper he’d been given the previous evening. It had gone straight into his memory.
The phone rang several times before Jonah heard his father answer. “Hello?”
“It’s Jonah,” he grumbled.
Creedence raised one finger in the air, motioning that she was going to move to an empty table in order to give him some privacy. Sitting down, she nibbled on her croissant.
“Oh, hi,” said David, breathing an audible sigh of relief. “Are you all right? I heard they’d kicked you out too. I’m sorry about that.”
Jonah was taken aback by this apology. His father sounded sympathetic. “Yeah, I’m fine. You want to see me?”
“Yes, please,” his dad replied. If Jonah didn’t know better, he’d have thought his dad was nodding vigorously on the other side of the phone. “Where are you?” he asked.
“Dad, just tell me where you want to meet. I’m not coming to the house.”
“I don’t want you coming to the house,” David retorted. “Can you get to Richmond Park at around twelve thirty?”
“Probably.” Jonah shrugged.
“Okay. Meet me at Pen Ponds then.”
“Fine,” he answered, playing with the last of his croissant.
“See you,” said his father, pausing. “And Jonah?”
“Yeah?”
“Take care of yourself.” With that, his dad hung up.
Jonah put the phone back in his pocket, somewhat bewildered by the proposed meeting place as Creedence moseyed back over.
“Well done,” she said. “Where are you meeting him?”
“He wants to meet at Pen Ponds in Richmond Park. Twelve thirty.”
If Creedence thought that this was an unusual spot for a rendezvous, she didn’t mention it. Her focus was instead on what they would be doing together until then. “Three hours. Excellent,” she replied. “Let’s get back on that Vespa and cruise the King’s Road. Drink up!”
Cruising the King’s
Road, Jonah discovered, meant shopping, which he wasn’t particularly keen about given his current employment prospects. Afterward, Creedence went back to her flat in a taxi, leaving Jonah to ride to Richmond Park alone. He reached the park at twelve fifteen
P.M.
and rode up to the Pen Ponds parking lot, walking down to the ponds on a path he’d taken many times before.
He thought it odd that his dad had selected this location of all places—it used to be their regular family Sunday afternoon “breath of fresh air.” He would feed the ducks, always making sure he stayed clear of the old swan called Charlie that terrified him. He automatically scanned the ponds for Charlie this time and saw his father at the far end of the causeway that split the two small lakes. His hands were in the pockets of his old green Barbour jacket, and he was hunched up against the cold south-westerly wind that had replaced the morning sunshine. When he saw Jonah, he started to walk toward him. Close up, Jonah could see that his father hadn’t
slept much in the last twenty-four hours. He felt a pang of guilt that he’d been having such a good time with Creedence while his father was in this state.
Where had that come from?
he wondered.
“Thanks, Jonah. I appreciate you coming, and I’m sorry for any embarrassment I’ve caused you,” David greeted him.
His apology again disarmed Jonah. “Yeah, well, okay,” he said.
“I didn’t do it, you know? I didn’t make those trades.”
Jonah shrugged his shoulders in a “if you say so” sort of way.
“Creedence seems like a nice girl,” his dad continued.
This time Jonah cracked. “Dad, I didn’t think we were here to talk about Creedence.”
David looked sheepish. “No, you’re right. Sorry.” He took a deep breath and looked directly at his son. “I’ve been set up, Jonah. And the bank is going to hang me out to dry. Hellcat needs a quick fix to clear its name and get back in business, and they’re not going to root out the truth if all it means is proving my innocence.”
Jonah mused to himself that that was pretty much what Creedence had said to him as well.
David pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. “I don’t deserve it, but I need your help.”
Jonah staggered back. “You need
my
help? You’ve never wanted it before….”
His father inhaled deeply. Then he looked beyond Jonah toward the parking lot and frowned before saying, “Point taken.”
Jonah glanced to see what his dad was looking at. A black 4x4 was heading down the track toward them, probably some mother whose spoiled children couldn’t be bothered to walk the four hundred yards from the parking lot to feed the ducks.
He turned back. “So?”
“So I need to get hold of the Baron’s trading records.”
Jonah shook his head in disbelief. “Oh, come on, Dad. You know I can’t do that. And what’s the Baron got to do with it?”
“I’ve told you before that he’s dangerous. You know he hates me.” David was strident now, and again he was looking over Jonah’s shoulder. “Jesus, what are these idiots doing?” He moved toward Jonah as if to push him out of the way. Jonah looked back. The 4x4 was accelerating straight at them. They both jumped to the side as the car, an Audi Q7 with blacked-out windows, skidded to a halt on the gravel. The two right-hand doors were thrown open, and out leapt two huge men in black leather jackets.
“What the hell do you think …” His father was cut off as one of the men shoulder-charged him to the ground. The other one grabbed Jonah’s throat and shoulder and spun him around to lock him in a half-nelson. Jonah yelped in shock and pain.
Who were these people? Were they being mugged?
A third man appeared around the front of the car as the first man punched Jonah’s father twice in the face before hauling him up by gripping him by the chest and spinning him around so that he, too, was in a half-nelson.
This man was wearing a dark, well-cut suit and black wraparound sunglasses. He was holding a piece of paper. “Mr. Lightbody,” he said. His English was heavily accented—Russian.
Jonah looked toward his father, who was shaking his head, trying to recover from the two vicious punches.
He regained his visual focus. “Yes,” David said after a short pause.
“You remember me?” asked the man. It was more a statement than a question.
Recognition began to spread across David Lightbody’s face now that he’d had a few seconds to recover from the assault. “Yes, yes. Mr. Scrotycz. Of course I remember you.”
Scrotycz!
Jonah gasped.
This was the “client” who’d kept his father so busy over the years?
“Mr. Lightbody, I have received this letter from your employer. It says that ‘unfortunately, unfortunately’”—the pitch of his voice rose a fraction—“ ‘we regret to inform you that your funds have been reduced by one hundred million dollars due to an unauthorized trade by Mr. David Lightbody. Mr. Lightbody has left Helsby Cattermole, and we are investigating the matter. But we regret that we cannot accept any responsibility for this loss. We remind you that investments can go down as well as up.’ ”
He stopped talking and looked at David, his gaze shifting as he caught sight of the boy standing next to him. “Is this your son, Mr. Lightbody?”
“No,” came the reply.
“You lie,” the Russian said, sounding bored. “I know it is your son. His name is Jonah. He also works at Helsby Cattermole. I know everything about you—where you live, when you get up, what car you drive.” He raised his sunglasses to reveal a pair of heavily hooded eyes and stepped forward, leaning toward David Lightbody, his voice lowered to a menacing stage whisper. “I want my hundred million back. You have thirty days or you and your son will die.”
The man holding Jonah wrenched his arm up until it felt as if his shoulder would dislocate. Jonah screamed in pain this time,
and from the look on David’s face the same was happening to him, although he didn’t make a sound.
Scrotycz stood back. “We go,” he ordered his men, who pushed their two charges to the ground and returned to the car, leaving Jonah and his father sprawling in the dirt. The Audi roared off, straight ahead up the hill to join the road that ran to the Sheen Gate exit.
Jonah was the first to get up, massaging his shoulder to ease the pain, still scared. “What the hell was that?!”
David Lightbody staggered to his feet, and his watch fell off his wrist, the strap broken. His face was already swelling up around the eyes where he had been punched. But beneath the swelling his eyes were blazing with cold fury. “Jonah, I told you—I’ve been set up. It’s the Baron who’s screwed up your future. He’s the one you need to direct your anger toward. Not me.”
“Oh, please, Dad. Not the Baron thing again.”
“It’s him, I tell you. He’s the one who has done this. And I think he’s had it planned for years.”
“
Years?
” repeated Jonah.
“Yes!” said David. “Ten years ago I lost thirty million dollars in a trade, and he was the one on the other side. I was fired, and Hellcat was the only firm willing to employ me. You know what kind of influence he has there.”
Jonah furrowed his brow. “So you’re mad at him for doing you a favor?”
“I don’t think it was a favor!” David practically screamed. He quickly reined in his temper. “Now look. He wants a fall guy, and I’ve got history.”
Jonah shook his head. “You’re obsessed, Dad. And anyway, the Baron doesn’t trade clients’ money. He’s a proprietary trader. Besides which, I see every trade we do. Do you think that with my memory a one-hundred-million-dollar trade would have passed me by? Give me some credit.”
“
You
don’t trade clients’ money. But he does. Big money.”
“Dad, I really don’t think—”
David didn’t let him finish. “That’s why I need his trading records. The only other person who might know what’s going on is Clive in Settlements, and he’s dead. Didn’t that sound any warning bells to you? Clive? Dead? He’s the only person who has access to every trade.”
“Oh, come on, Dad. You’ve lost it. I’m going to the police now before another of your clients pays us a friendly visit.” Jonah spun around and started running back up toward the parking lot. “The cops will sort it out.”
“If you go to the police, we’ll have no chance,” his father shouted after him. “They’re not going to help. Nobody’s going to help. Only we can do this. You must help me Jonah. You must help me,” he pleaded, desperation in his voice.
Jonah ran on, wanting to get away from the park as quickly as possible, away from the threat of violence. When he reached the parking lot, he turned around and looked back toward the Ponds. He could see his father walking up the hill on the other side, presumably back toward Barnes. He was a despondent figure with his hands thrust deep into his pockets and his shoulders hunched forward. For a moment, Jonah thought he might be crying, the way his shoulders were moving. But that was a ridiculous idea: David Lightbody didn’t cry.