Authors: Nic Bennett
Still, though, Jonah felt a pang of guilt. He climbed onto the Vespa and phoned Creedence, his hand shaking as he held the phone, his eyes scanning the lot for any human movement.
Creedence’s voice sounded brightly in his ear. “Hello! How was it?” she said.
“Well, we got attacked by some Russian heavies,” Jonah blurted out, the shaking now moving to his legs.
“You what!” she exclaimed. “What do you mean? Are you hurt? Is your dad with you?”
“Look, Creedence, I need to get to a police station. I don’t want to hang around here in case those thugs come back. But I’m not hurt. Not badly anyway. And no, Dad’s not with me. He’s mad. I’m going to Barnes police station to see what they can do. I’ll come back to the flat afterward and give you the full story.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Creedence spoke again, this time sounding as if she was close to tears. “I think I’m responsible for these Russians finding you,” she confessed, sobbing.
“What do you mean?” said Jonah. “He said he knew where we lived. He probably tailed Dad. Look, I’ve got to get out of here and get to the police station. I’ll see you at the flat.”
“No, I’ll meet you at the station.” She hung up without waiting for an answer.
Jonah fired up the Vespa and rode it quickly out of the park, checking all the time in his mirrors for an Audi Q7. He was at the police station before Creedence, but not by much, and had only been waiting two minutes when she sped up on her mountain bike.
She looked scared. “I told Amelia where you were going,” she babbled without even saying hello. “I told her yesterday I was going
to see you, and she rang again this morning, asking how you were and whether you’d seen or talked to your dad. I was on such a high after last night that I told her we’d got on really well, that you’d told me all about how much you hated your dad so I doubted you were involved, and that you were seeing him at twelve thirty today. She asked where, and I told her that too.”
Jonah pictured the Q7 coming down the hill from the parking lot and his dad walking away in the opposite direction. Surely if they had tailed his father, they would have appeared from the same direction as him, and not from behind Jonah.
“I’m sorry, Jonah. I’m so sorry. I thought I was being helpful. Please don’t hate me,” Creedence added, a tear dropping onto her cheek and catching the sunlight.
Jonah watched the tear make its way downward, unable to form a complete thought. Everything was once again spinning wildly out of control.
“She’s a bitch, Jonah. I’m so sorry. I won’t say anything else to her, I promise. This changes everything,” Creedence pleaded.
Jonah stumbled over Creedence’s initial statement. “What do you mean she’s a bitch? I thought she was really nice.” He thought back to how the Baron had called her a Hellcat. The description ran counter to how helpful and enthused she had been while setting him up with the Purple Nicey card and everything.
“Oh, she is nice to you and the Baron or any other rich trader. But if you’re not likely to be useful to her, she’ll chew you up and spit you out. You should see her in restaurants or with shop assistants—she’s so rude. And once you’re out of her good books, forget it. I’ve seen her reduce people to tears.”
“So you wouldn’t put it past her to tip off a client as to where to find me and my dad and have us beaten up?”
“No, I wouldn’t. Amelia looks after herself, and as she says, ‘It’s
the clients
who pay our bonuses.’ ”
Jonah’s eyes narrowed. “And how close is she to the Baron?”
“They’re thick as thieves. Apparently he got her the job in the first place. Why? What are you getting at?” It was Creedence’s turn to be quizzical.
“I’m not getting at anything yet,” Jonah replied. “I’m trying to work out the facts. Apparently Dad’s made a big loss before, and he reckons the Baron is using that to set him up. You think that Amelia sent Scrotycz to Richmond Park, and you’re telling me that Amelia and the Baron are as close as can be. And I can’t believe my dad would be so stupid as to make the same mistake twice or lose half a billion …”
Bingo!
Jonah realized that there was a single, simple question he had to ask his father.
“What is it, Jonah?” asked Creedence. “What have you worked out?”
“I need to find out how he managed to lose the money.” He reached into his pocket for his phone and dialed his dad again.
“Hello, Jonah,” said
David in a voice that sounded even more tired than he had looked half an hour ago.
Jonah went straight to the point. “What did you trade to make these losses?” he asked.
“What am I
supposed
to have traded, you mean?”
“Okay. Whatever. What are you supposed to have traded?”
David sighed. “I am supposed to have bought one hundred million dollars worth of a high-risk derivative in Allegro Home Finance. The bet was that the Allegro share price would go up. With Allegro Home Finance’s share price now worth nothing, the loss is five hundred million.”
A memory from four years back floated into Jonah’s head: his dad telling him about finance by putting money on his desk and throwing it into the trash to demonstrate a loss. He’d thrown his whole wallet in the bin when he’d talked about derivatives.
His father didn’t trade derivatives. He was a Drizzler. He was paid to
make sure his clients didn’t
lose
their money. He traded boring, low-risk investments. This trade was a huge gamble. It was a Whistler trade.
“So it’s not loads of little losses hidden away. It’s one big hit,” Jonah said, practically whispering into the phone.
“That’s right. One big hit.”
“Using derivatives?”
“Yes, derivatives,” David repeated.
“And what about the other loss? The one from years ago. Was that derivatives?”
“Yes,” replied David sheepishly. “I didn’t really understand them, and I paid the price.”
“Is that why you don’t trade them?”
“Correct,” said David. “Do you believe me now?” Jonah could hear the hope in his voice.
He replied with another question. “Are you at home, Dad?”
“No. I haven’t been home since Tuesday morning,” said David.
The wheels of Jonah’s mind were really spinning now. “Where have you been then?”
“Camping in Richmond Park,” David explained. “I’ve been keeping my head down. People get killed for this amount of money. You saw what happened to Clive! And Scrotycz said it himself: He knows where we live.”
David’s sleeping in the woods struck Jonah as a bit weird, but he carried on his questioning regardless. “How did Scrotycz find us?”
“I assumed he must have followed you.”
Jonah was silent.
“Jonah? Jonah! Are you still there?”
“I’ll ring you back, Dad,” Jonah exclaimed, ending the call. He turned to face Creedence, who was looking at him anxiously.
“What did he say, Jonah? What did he say?”
Jonah stood dead still, trancelike, nearly letting the phone slip out of his hand.
“What did he say?” Creedence repeated.
Jonah came back into the present. “He said … he said that the loss was all off one big trade, a big derivatives trade.”
“Okay …” Creedence’s voice trailed. “And?”
“And that doesn’t make sense. He wouldn’t do anything like that. That’s not his style.”
“And what about how those Russians found you? Did he have a different explanation?”
Jonah shook his head. “Actually, he said that he hadn’t been home at all, so Scrotycz couldn’t possibly have followed him.”
Creedence’s face fell again. “So it had to be Amelia who told him?”
“Looks like it.” Jonah felt the fear grip him again.
“Do you think your dad is telling the truth?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet. But there’s still nothing to suggest that the Baron is involved. It’s one thing for me to believe Dad didn’t do it, but it’s another for me to go against the Baron. I owe everything to him.”
“What’s your gut feeling, though? Isn’t that what you traders go by?”
“I, uh …” The short sharp pangs of guilt he’d felt when he’d seen his father in the park began to develop into something more definitive, something that came from deep, deep inside him.
But it couldn’t be right, could it?
“Are you all right, Jonah?” Creedence asked, concerned, seeing the expression on his face.
He turned back. “My gut says Dad.”
“That he did it or that he didn’t do it?”
“It says I should side with him. Because he’s”—Jonah couldn’t believe he was saying this—“my dad.”
“‘An indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born,’” said Creedence quietly.
“What?” said Jonah.
“It’s something Pearl S. Buck wrote. It means blood is thicker than water,” she supplied, looking embarrassed for a moment and swiftly returning to whether Jonah believed his dad. “Is that what you’re going to do? Side with him?”
“Yeah, I, umm …” Jonah stammered. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t? I thought you said …”
“The Baron’s been there for me. Really. Truly,” Jonah answered, the words tumbling out of his mouth. “I’ve yet to be convinced that he’s behind it.” He paused. “He and my dad could both be innocent, couldn’t they?” Effectively answering his own question, he added, “I need more facts.”
“Maybe your dad
has
evidence? Ring him again?” Creedence pushed. But then she held up her hands as if changing her mind. “No, don’t do it while I’m here.”
“What do you mean?” said Jonah, looking straight at her.
“I should go,” she said. “I mustn’t know anything more about what you and your father discuss or do in case Amelia quizzes me. This way I can’t tell her anything.”
Jonah thought hard. He didn’t want to let her go, not even for a moment. But on the other hand he didn’t want to encourage another run in with Scrotycz. He eyed her up and down, memorizing her every feature. If she stayed, she could end up getting dragged into everything. Or worse. As his father had pointed out, people got killed for this amount of money.
He decided she was right. “What will you say to Amelia if she rings?” he asked.
“I’ll tell her what happened in the park and that you are shit scared and don’t intend to have any other meetings with your father.”
Jonah nodded. “And if she asks you what Dad and I talked about?”
Creedence thought for a moment. “I’ll say that you didn’t get a chance to talk because Scrotycz turned up and afterward you got out as quickly as you could.”
Jonah nodded again. “Sounds good.”
“And I’m not going to go back to the flat,” she continued. “I’ll head out to dinner tonight with a girlfriend. I’ll stay the night there or longer if necessary. That way you will have somewhere to live until it’s all sorted out.” She reached into her pocket and handed him a key. “Leave it under the flowerpot by the door if you go out.”
He took the key in silence as Creedence stood up. “You really want to do this for me?”
Creedence’s eyes sparkled. “Ring me if you think the coast is clear,” she said.
Jonah smiled weakly. “You betcha,” he said, trying to sound strong.
She hugged him hard and gave him a long, lasting farewell kiss.
As she pulled away, her lips formed one of those closed-mouth sad smiles. She took a step backward to put her bike helmet on, and Jonah felt waves of loneliness flood over him again. He was losing his only ally. “Can I call you if I need to?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied without hesitation. “And will you still buy me that dinner when this is over?”
“I’d like to see someone try to stop me.”
Creedence raised her eyebrows. That was far too close to what was happening to joke about.
Jonah struggled to recapture the moment. “I’ll take you to Jake’s Kitchen in Covent Garden.” It was the latest trendy restaurant. He’d read about it in the paper before all the hoopla had started.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she said, wagging her finger. “I haven’t been there.”
“Well, in that case it would be my pleasure to accompany you.” Jonah cupped her cheek in his hand and gave her a quick peck on the lips.
He gazed into her eyes. “You should go. I’ve got to make this call.”
“Yup,” she said and mounted her bike. “Good luck.”
Jonah watched her cycle away along the river until she disappeared into the trees. Then he reached into his pocket and phoned his father for the third time that day.
“Jonah?”
“Yes. Dad, I believe you didn’t do the trade, I think.”
“Thank you, Jonah,” said David softly. “That means a lot to me.”
Jonah was again disarmed by the gratitude. “But I’m not ready to believe that the Baron is behind it. I need to understand what makes you so convinced.” He paused. “Beyond the fact that you hate him.”
“Where are you now?” came the curt reply.
“I’m at Barnes police station.”
There was a pause. “I should have some evidence tonight. Will you meet me? I can’t share it over the phone.”
“All right,” said Jonah, feeling the pain in his shoulder again. “Where this time?”
“I’ll call you later, but it will probably be in the City.”
“Okay,” said Jonah and hung up. All at once the solitude hit him. He looked at his watch. It was now one thirty
P.M.
He had a whole afternoon by himself ahead of him. He went into the police station to file an assault complaint against Scrotycz, then crossed the road to the river. For a long time he leaned on the river wall, watching the boats, noting that the leaves on the trees that flanked it were beginning to change color as autumn approached. And all the time his mind was trying to find some sense as to what was going on:
Who could I believe? Who should I trust? What should I do?
The questions only brought more riddles. And more anxiety.
“This line is secure. Yours?” asked Kloot from inside his stationary helicopter. He’d left a very important business meeting in Central Africa to check in with his chief operative in London. His bodyguard, Klaasens, stood outside the chopper, having been directed to use force if necessary to ensure that Kloot’s conversation wouldn’t be interrupted.