Tom Cain: Carver

Carver had been eating olives while Shafik made his speech in defence of shareholder capitalism. ‘And there was I thinking this had something to do with senior executives getting nervous that their bonuses might be a zero or two short this year,’ he said when it was over.

Ginger laughed. ‘I hadn’t realized that you were such a cynic, Sam.’

‘Huh… no matter how hard I try to be cynical, the truth is almost always far worse.’

Shafik gave a contemptuous snort. ‘Grow up, Carver. The only way all the little guys make a small amount of money is if the big guys make lots of it. That is how the system works. Anything else is just… communism.’

‘But why do you want Zorn removed now?’ Carver asked. ‘It sounds like he’s been operating for quite a while. Why the sudden desire to stop him?’

‘Because…’ Ginger began. Then she stopped herself and looked at Shafik. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

‘Not at all… go ahead.’

‘Up until now Zorn has always worked alone,’ Ginger continued. ‘That’s been the source of his mystique: one man, betting his own money against the system.’

‘Or a spoilt playboy playing his selfish games at other people’s expense,’ Shafik snapped.

Ginger flicked her eyes up at the heavens in mock exasperation. ‘You’ll have to excuse my boss, Sam. He takes our work very personally sometimes.’

‘I don’t give a damn about your boss,’ Carver replied. ‘Tell me about Zorn. What’s changed?’

‘He’s getting partners for the first time in his career: serious investors. He’s using their money to start a fund: Zorn Global. Very private, very exclusive, but also very well-financed. He’ll have tens of billions of dollars behind him, all provided by ultra-high-net-worth individuals. No institutions at all.’

‘So he’ll have more leverage, and be able to do more damage, as they would see it, to your clients?’

‘You have got it in one, Mr Carver,’ said Shafik.

‘Well, you’re right about one thing. I’d certainly have turned down the job.’

‘But…?’

‘But now I’m considering my options. And I want to know the details. When does this have to be done? Where? How? That kind of thing.’

Ginger spoke again, ‘It has to be done quickly. Zorn is launching his fund at the end of next week in London.’

‘How come he’s not doing it on Wall Street?’

Shafik answered the question, ‘His new fund has investors from around the world. It will operate globally. Wall Street serves the world’s biggest domestic economy, but London is the centre of international finance.’

‘And it’s also where many of his investors like to be at this time of year,’ Ginger went on. ‘They go to parties, Royal Ascot, Wimbledon. You know the kind of things. Zorn’s crazy about tennis. He’s going to be at Wimbledon for a few days next week. He’s going Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.’

Carver couldn’t stop himself from asking, ‘What about the days in-between?’

‘Ladies’ quarter-finals, semis and final,’ said Ginger. ‘Zorn ignores them — he’s a sexist when it comes to tennis.’

‘Or a realist,’ Shafik observed.

‘But for the men’s days,’ Ginger went on, refusing to rise to the bait, ‘he has tickets for himself and his guests: debenture seats, the best for Centre, Number One and Number Two Courts, six at a time. He likes to know that he has his choice of all the most important matches. He’s spending tens of thousands of dollars a day, but what does he care?’

‘He even enquired about hiring a box at Lord’s,’ Shafik said, with a shake of his head. ‘As if he could possibly appreciate cricket.’

‘Well, who cares about cricket, anyway?’ Ginger laughed, getting her own back. She smiled again at Carver, trying to make him complicit in her gentle mockery of Shafik, doing what she could to draw him again into some kind of relationship. ‘The crucial day is this coming Friday, 1 July. That’s when Zorn will formally launch his fund with a reception at the Goldsmiths’ Hall, in the heart of the City of London, for a very exclusive selection of guests — his investors, senior politicians and bankers.’

‘Including the men who want him dead?’

‘Possibly,’ she admitted.

‘And you wonder why I’m cynical?’

‘There will also be a number of figures from the media and entertainment industries,’ said Shafik. ‘Zorn is not foolish. He knows they will attract more attention than any number of middle-aged, unattractive male billionaires.’

‘But you do want Zorn to make it to his own party?’

‘Indeed not.’

Carver drank some more beer. He put the glass down and said, ‘So you’re looking for an unfortunate accident?’

‘Precisely — the tragic end to a brilliant career. And it must be visible: Zorn must be seen to die.’

‘To send a message?’

‘I’d prefer to say: to encourage any other independent operators not to be so greedy,’ Shafik suggested. ‘In any case, you can be sure that my clients will attend the funeral and send many magnificent wreaths.’

‘Well, then they’d better hope I don’t decide to pay my respects as well. I don’t have any views about this Malachi Zorn one way or another. But I’m taking a serious dislike to your clients.’

Brick Lane, London E1

The package was addressed to Brynmor Gryffud at the office of his graphic design agency, Sharpeville Images. The company specialized in branding and website design for charities and pressure groups involved in controversial fields, such as minority and animal rights, environmental activism and anti-war campaigning. Gryffud was a tall, thickset, heavily bearded Welshman who looked and sounded as though he should be farming sheep, playing rugby and drinking a dozen pints a night — all of which he had done in his time. As he liked to tell clients in a rich, musical voice made for lyrical speeches, ‘Whatever the Daily Mail is against, that is what we are for.’

In addition to his design work, Gryffud ran a small, but vociferous, group of his own, the Forces of Gaia. It specialized in stunts that drew attention to what Gryffud and his supporters viewed as unacceptable assaults on the environment. Inspired by the fathers’ rights campaigners, who had attracted global coverage simply by appearing at high-visibility, high-security locations such as Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace dressed up as superheroes, Gryffud had relied on wit and imagination to make his point. His actions had given him a high profile, and even brought in new clients for his business, but he’d long since accepted that they hadn’t made a damn bit of difference to the environment.

The screensavers on his office computer were pictures he had taken of the Welsh hills where he had been raised, and to which he still returned whenever possible. Gryffud’s connection to that landscape and, through it, to the planet as a whole was part of his very soul. His certainty that man’s abuse of all the bounty that nature had bestowed on him was leading to the inevitable desecration, even destruction, of the planet caused him intense pain. Now his patience had run out. Recently, Gryffud had been listening to angrier, more radical voices. He had been persuaded that it was time for a total change of tactics.

He was looking at a standard white postal packing box, 180 mm long by 100 mm wide and 50 mm deep. Inside it were four clear plastic packets, each containing ten fat marker pens, along with a delivery notice stating that each packet cost?4.99, plus?7.75 post and packaging, making a total of?27.71, paid through PayPal. Two of the packets contained blue pens, the other two red ones.

It was an everyday transaction for a company like Sharpeville Images, one that had attracted no official attention whatsoever on its way through the postal system. In the choking atmosphere of state-sanctioned paranoia that pervaded early twenty-first-century life, any phone call or email was liable to interception. But old-fashioned snail mail was a much more secure means of sending covert messages and goods: provided, of course, that the postal service was up to delivering them.