The Money Makers

9

Where was George and what was he up to? Those were questions he was asking himself right now. He was somewhere in Cornwall, he knew that much. His car was parked in a lay-by off the A30 somewhere close to Bodmin Moor. It was late evening in mid-August and George watched as the last blue light surrendered to the gathering stars.

Somewhere in the car was an insect which George wouldn’t find until it bit him. He wound his seat back as far as it would go. It wasn’t far. A Lotus Esprit is not designed for men of stocky build to camp out in, as George had by now proved many times over. But his first attempt outside in a tent had been a disaster, with a summer storm leaving him soaked and desperate and since then he had preferred the car’s cramped interior to any tent, no matter how spacious.

He closed his eyes with a sort of fantasy idea that closing his eyes would send him to sleep. It didn’t. His legs sent him a message which he mostly ignored, but it had to do with bucket seats, feather beds, and their relative merits. Somewhere outside the car, an animal screamed. George remembered seeing video footage of a puma loose on Bodmin Moor, apparently still not caught. But they couldn’t attack Lotuses, could they? He wound up the window, just in case.

As he slumped back into his seat, the insect found George, and slap around though he did, George failed to find the insect. He struggled for the light switch, found it, and swatted round aimlessly for a minute or two, using the copy of the Financial Times which lay rolled up beside him.

As the light was on and the paper in his hand, George looked again at the familiar page. A section of classified ads, all but a few of them with blue lines through them. He’d carry on with the rest tomorrow, then it would be time for the next paper and the next set of ads, and so it would be until his last dribble of cash ran out, leaving him stranded in his Lotus Esprit, too poor to afford a gallon of petrol.

Zack and Matthew might laugh about his billionaire friends, but George knew the rules of the international jet set better than they did. If you wanted to be part of it, you either had to pay your way or be young enough and pretty enough to sleep your way. George hadn’t the cash or the body for it. As soon as people found out his wallet was empty, he’d be dumped faster than last season’s clothes. He’d sooner do the dumping himself.

He threw the paper down. On his answering machine at the flat, there had been three messages from his sister and one from Kiki. He missed them both.

He turned off the light again and tried to sleep.

10

Matthew emerged on to the floor of the deserted trading room. Except for the red digital wall-clocks and the flicker of screens, the room was in darkness. Matthew turned on an Anglepoise lamp over his desk. He liked the dark and the hour of silence before the cleaners arrived at five am. He fetched a cup of black coffee and got to work.

In the five weeks since he had really got started, Matthew had his routine well developed. By the time Luigi came in with fresh coffee at seven, Matthew would have prepared five neat piles of painstakingly referenced and highlighted bundles of research. At first the piles had been a welcome luxury. They had since become little short of essential: the Saint Matthew Gospel, as Luigi put it.

The fictional lira which marked Matthew’s progress with Luigi had nudged up to nearly one dollar. In practice, Matthew knew, Luigi would vote in favour of Madison’s offering him a full-time job to start once he had completed his degree. But that wouldn’t do. He had three years to make a million, and he wasn’t going to spend one of them studying economics. Matthew needed a job and he needed it now.

Later that day, Matthew was to have an interview with Brian McAllister. The son of a Glaswegian truck driver, McAllister ruled the trading floor with quiet voice and omniscient eye. By reputation, he knew each trader’s market better than they did themselves. He was willing, as most traders were, to take large risks in search of profit. Less commonly, he was also willing to refrain from risk whenever he judged the conditions were wrong. Many people had made bigger profits than Brian McAllister, but none had made smaller losses.

McAllister’s judgement would decide Matthew’s fate, and there was no court of appeal.

Just after nine, Luigi came by his desk. ‘Matteo, where does ze lira stand today?’

Matthew pretended to check his screen. ‘Hey, Luigi, what d’you know? The lira equals one dollar exactly.’

‘And how is the Italian deficit, please?’

Matthew touched some buttons on his keyboard. A new screen flashed up. ‘Well, look at that. Rupert Murdoch’s just bought the Italian government for a zillion dollars and the deficit’s been eliminated.’

Luigi grinned. ‘Seriously, Matteo, Big Mac will ask me why you suddenly work, when before you were the most goddamn lazy prick I have ever seen. How do we know which one we’re buying?’

‘My dad died six weeks ago,’ said Matthew, who had said nothing about it earlier. ‘About five weeks ago, I realised I needed to look after myself now. So I did.’

Luigi nodded seriously. His trader’s eyes scanned Matthew’s face, looking for the truth behind his words. ‘I’m sorry, Matteo, I didn’t know.’

Luigi walked off to find Big Mac, as McAllister was known behind his back, never to his face.

Luigi’s conversation lasted perhaps five minutes. Given the number of demands on McAllister’s time, that counted as a long interview. Matthew drummed nervously on his desk and felt inside his jacket pocket to reassure himself that a certain document was still there. Luigi returned, and one by one Anders, Cristina, and Jean-François went to speak with McAllister. Matthew believed they would support him. Each of them had said to him privately that his support over the last weeks had really given them an edge in the free-for-all of the market. Their trading profits still depended on their daily judgements, but Matthew had helped them and they were grateful.

Jean-François came back. He patted Matthew on the back. ‘Allez,’ he said, and gave a wink of support.

Matthew walked over to McAllister’s office. McAllister had taken advantage of the thirty second gap between Jean-François’s departure and Matthew’s arrival to take a call from his counterpart in the Paris office. The phone call blared from a speaker on McAllister’s desk. The subject of the conversation appeared to be how the French bond markets would react to a European summit being held the following day.

McAllister saw Matthew come in and signed him to sit. Privacy was unheard of on the trading floor. Conversations were yelled across the room. Phone calls were recorded. Pierre d’Avignon, on the phone to McAllister, wouldn’t raise an eyebrow if he knew that somebody else had just come in to sit in on his call. D’Avignon asked McAllister a question, something to do with the European summit.

‘An interesting question,’ said McAllister, in his strong Scots accent. ‘I’ll get our analyst here to do some research on that point and we’ll get back to you tomorrow.’

‘OK, but it needs to be tomorrow first thing, before the markets open.’

‘Aye. First thing tomorrow.’

‘And put one of your best guys on this, eh, Brian?’ said d’Avignon. ‘We’ve got five hundred million dollars’ worth of bonds on our books at the moment, and we don’t want to make a mess.’

‘Don’t worry. You’ll have the best.’

D’Avignon hung up. McAllister looked at Matthew.

‘Got that?’

‘You want me to do the research?’

McAllister nodded.

‘Yes. No problem,’ croaked Matthew. He knew virtually nothing about the European summit which d’Avignon was on about, but if he screwed up, he could wave his job goodbye. His mouth turned dry.

‘Good. We’ll talk about your job after your conversation with d’Avignon tomorrow morning.’

Matthew was dismissed, but he continued to hold McAllister’s gaze. The Scotsman’s eyes were pale blue and piercing. It was like gazing into the eyes of God.

‘Thank you,’ said Matthew. ‘There’s just one thing I’d like to ask you.’ He paused. McAllister said nothing, waiting. God, he was intimidating. ‘I don’t want to finish my degree. The last few weeks have made me realise that I love trading. I don’t believe that completing my degree will make me a better trader. I want to work hard and I want to start now. I like Madison and I’d like to work here if I possibly can.’

Matthew paused to review the effect of his words, but McAllister’s face was as empty as granite. Matthew decided he might as well play his only trump card and drew a letter from his pocket. He gave it to the Scotsman.

‘I’ve been offered a job by Coburg’s. I don’t want to work there. I want to work here. I know as well as you do that Madison is going to wipe the floor with Coburg’s, and I want to be part of that. But above all I want to trade and I want to start now. And if that means I need to start at a second-rate firm, then I will.’

McAllister barely glanced at the photocopied letter in front of him. Matthew had pinched the letter from Zack’s flat the evening Josie smashed his coffee table. Except for a couple of initials and the name of the department, he’d hardly needed to alter it. ‘Dear Mr Gradley, We are pleased to be able to offer you a job as Assistant Manager in our Global Markets Department. We are keen that you should start with us directly, and I would ask you to confirm your start date with us as soon as possible.’ The letter continued with banalities. Matthew had photocopied the doctored original, then inspected it under a magnifying glass. He was confident that the changes were virtually undetectable.

McAllister tapped the letter lightly with his finger to indicate that Matthew should take it back.

‘Don’t write off Coburg’s,’ he said softly. ‘They’ve been around for more than two hundred years, twice as long as we have. We’ll be doing well to last that long ourselves.’

The interview was over.

11

George drove away from the little cluster of buildings. Once out of sight, he pulled out his Financial Times and put a line through another box. This was getting ridiculous. He’d try for another two weeks – three at most – then give it all up. Zack or Matthew could try to win their father’s fortune. He’d apply for a job stacking shelves. He’d make new friends, find new things to do. Maybe in time he’d go back to school and get some exam results and a proper job. He’d live the way most people lived. But for now he’d go on trying, just a little longer.

He looked back at his newspaper. Next on the list was Gissings, based in the village of Sawley Bridge up near Ilkley in Yorkshire. He phoned a number and was put through to somebody who put him through to somebody else. George explained his interest and asked if there were any documents he could have a look at. Yes, there were documents. Would he like them posted? Yes, please, said George, but it wasn’t convenient to post them to his business address at present. Perhaps they could send them to the hotel he’d be staying at – The Devonshire Arms near Skipton. That was fine. They’d send the documents out right away. Did he want to make an appointment for a site visit now? No, that was fine, he’d look through the documents first.

George switched his phone off. He was headed north anyway to view some Scottish outfit, a long shot. He’d pass by the Devonshire Arms, apologise for changing his plans and pick up the documents from a mystified receptionist. He was getting good at doing that. Just like he was getting pretty good at keeping himself pretty much respectable while living mostly in a two-seater Lotus Esprit with an engine capacity bigger than its luggage hold.

He looked back at the ad. Gissings, eh? He didn’t feel hopeful, but he didn’t feel ready to stack shelves either.

He drove off, wearily.

12

First step, gather information.

Matthew dug into the bank’s news database to get the dates of all European summits over the last ten years, then printed articles from Europe’s leading papers in the run-up to and aftermath of each summit. Then, switching to a new database, he collected bond market data around the key dates. Then, finally, he called up relevant research reports published by the major investment banks and printed about thirty reports of a few pages each. The database was charged at twenty-five dollars a sheet and he ran up a bill of a couple of thousand dollars in an hour and a half. It didn’t bother Matthew and it wouldn’t bother anyone else either. When a single trade, even a small one, can easily win or lose five thousand dollars for the bank, cost control is a game reserved strictly for losers.

By this point it was four in the afternoon and Matthew had a vast pile of paper by his desk, of which he’d read almost nothing.

Matthew worked his way swiftly through the pile. Most of it was dross, but amidst the rubbish were diamonds scattered and he needed to find them. He skimmed document after document and built a shorter stack of those he thought important.

Then he started to crunch some numbers. He printed graphs. He looked at the markets for bonds, currencies and shares. He categorised the previous summits in a dozen different ways and reran his numbers searching for a pattern.

By eleven in the evening, Matthew knew what he wanted to say. He also knew how he was going to say it and prove it to an audience much more knowledgeable than himself.

He got more coffee and started to build a presentation. His presentation had a dozen slides, five appendices containing sixty graphs and another two appendices with some of the most interesting statistics and research comments he’d unearthed. The whole document was around a hundred and twenty pages long. He stepped wearily over to the fax machine. It was one thirty in the morning. Matthew had been in the bank nigh on twenty-two hours.

He wrote out a cover page and punched d’Avignon’s number into the fax. It rang a couple of times and then started to pull the first page through the scanner. Matthew walked off to get another coffee. Something had gone wrong with the vending machine and the coffee tasted like metal. He drank it anyway.

When he came back, the fax had stopped. An error message slowly printed out. D’Avignon’s machine was out of paper. By the time anybody was in the office to refill it, it would be far too late to send the documents across. Damn. He tried a different number, of a machine he thought would be somewhere close to d’Avignon’s office. Five pages ticked their way slowly through. Then, the same result. Damn, damn, damn. It was now two o’clock, three o’clock Paris time.

Matthew considered his options briefly. They were few and far between. Matthew copied the presentation and dropped it on to McAllister’s desk with a scribbled note on the front cover. He walked downstairs and hailed a cab from the rank across the street.

‘Where you going, mate?’ asked the driver.

‘Paris,’ said Matthew, ‘rue de la Colonne.’

They made it to Paris in four hours flat, which would have been impossible but for the cabbie’s conviction that there was no speed limit on French autoroutes. Matthew kept silent about the difference between autoroutes and autobahns and snoozed in the back as the flat French countryside slipped past in the gathering dawn.

They entered Paris before rush hour and drew up outside Madison’s elegant Paris office. Matthew asked the driver to wait and dashed inside.

D’Avignon had arrived only shortly before. Mildly startled to see Matthew in person, he apologised for his empty fax machine and waved Matthew into a seat. Matthew handed over the presentation, d’Avignon called McAllister on the speaker phone, and the conference call began. Matthew led them through his work. He reckoned the discussion might last for twenty minutes all told and that he might speak for perhaps seven minutes of that. In the cab on the way across, he had run through his introduction a dozen times, until falling asleep somewhere after the turn-off to Lille.

Matthew felt confident of his conclusions. All the evidence seemed to confirm that after a few days of thinking that the end of the world had happened (or alternatively that the millennium had arrived early) the bond markets would turn their attention to something else. Matthew ran through the relevant data and summarised his conclusions. He spoke without interruption for six and a half minutes exactly. There were a couple of questions on points of detail, as McAllister and d’Avignon flipped through the charts and other material in the appendices. Neither trader challenged Matthew. After a brief discussion about how best to place the firm’s bets, d’Avignon rang off. He thanked Matthew for coming over and invited him unenthusiastically to tour the building. Matthew declined. D’Avignon looked relieved and dived off to take a call coming in from Milan. Matthew went downstairs to his waiting cab and they crept out of Paris in swelling traffic, heading north to Calais and London.