Michael Ridpath - Free To Trade

'I know that you can't run an estate like you would the balance sheet of a bank,' I said, but I could see that there wasn't much I could do to change Mablethorpe's mind. Pleading with him wouldn't work, and I had nothing to threaten him with. There was no point in hanging around. I got up to leave. 'Dad always said your father thought you were a fool, and now I know why,' I said as I turned on my heel and walked out of the room. A cheap shot, but it made me feel better.

The cold dawn air bit into my lungs with every breath. The muscles in my calves twisted and jarred on the stony path. I had forgotten how hard running up steep hills was on them. I was following the route I had run almost every day as a kid. Four miles up the steepest slopes in the area. The top of the hill was only two hundred yards away, but my progress was interminably slow. It felt bad enough now – I wondered at how I managed it as a twelve-year-old.

I recognised each odd-shaped stone, each sudden twist in the path. Recognition brought the pain of those runs flooding back. I had sought it out, looking forward to the daily struggle against the steep paths and the cold wind. It wasn't just a means of driving out that other pain of the loss of my father, although that was how it had started. I had developed a dependence on it, a need to focus my mind and my whole body on overcoming the pain and discomfort. It was a kind of self-indulgence, an opportunity to wrap myself up for an hour or two every day in my own world, which had my body and its aching muscles at its centre and the sometimes glorious, sometimes terrible hillside scenery as its backdrop. Every day a hard fought battle, every day a well-deserved victory.

Eventually I broke the brow of the hill and began the half-mile canter along the ridge between Barthwaite and Helmby. I loped along, dodging the sharper stones and the thicker clumps of heather which lurked along the old sheep-track, waiting to jar a foot or ankle. A brace of grouse darted out of the heather and flew fast and low along the line of the hill, before swooping out of my sight. The mist was just lifting from the valley floor around Barthwaite, and I could see the silver ribbon of the river sparkle in the morning sunshine, before turning sharp left behind the shoulder of a purple hill. I looked behind me at the broad desolate brown and purple expanse of the fell at the head of the dale. But I was running away from that, down towards the neatly parcelled green fields of the valley floor, and the grey stone village, where the first signs of morning activity could be heard; a tractor spluttering to life, dogs barking for their breakfast. I arrived back at my mother's house sore but refreshed, and with a decision taken.

I couldn't hope to change Mablethorpe's mind. Even if I found a way to fight him legally, he would get my mother out in the end. The effect of that on her delicately balanced psychology was incalculable. But perhaps I could buy the cottage. That would provide both me and my mother with the comfort of knowing she had a secure home for the rest of her life.

The trouble was, I couldn't afford fifty thousand pounds. But, with my ten thousand pounds of savings, mostly made up of my Gypsum investment, I could just afford to borrow another twenty, after taking into account the existing mortgage on my flat. How to get the cottage for only thirty thousand pounds?

Swallow my pride and ask him, I supposed. I rang the Hall and made another appointment for later that day. We met in the same study as the day before. I told Mablethorpe my proposition, the cottage for thirty thousand pounds. I regretted my parting comment of the day before, but Mablethorpe was a little more conciliatory; maybe some of my remarks had got through, after all.

'Thirty-five thousand,' he said. 'No less.'

'OK, thirty-five thousand,' I said, and held out my hand. I hoped I would get the finance from somewhere. He shook it limply. I think we were both aware of the strong friendship that had existed between our fathers, and felt ashamed at letting them down. We parted on cool but not cold terms.

My mother was very pleased when I told her. She insisted I stay another couple of days, which I did. After the strain of the last few weeks the enforced idleness and change of scenery did me good. I tried, and broadly succeeded, in banishing concerns about my future at De Jong & Co. Time enough to worry about that. I was less able to free my mind of Cathy. I wondered whether she would like Barthwaite. Idiotic thought! There was no reason on earth why she would ever have cause to consider the question. I kicked myself more than once for somehow screwing up what seemed to have been the start of a very promising relationship.

And then I had to borrow twenty-five thousand pounds from somewhere. It ought to be possible, just. After a year or two in the bond-trading world, my salary should rise quite rapidly, and it should quickly become more affordable. That was as long as nothing came of the TSA investigation.

We were sitting in the De Jong conference room, the same one in which I had been grilled by Mr Berryman from the TSA. On the polished mahogany table was a tape-recorder. On the other side of the table was Hamilton.

When he had rung asking to see me at eleven o'clock on the Monday morning, my fears had been awakened. If I had been cleared by the investigation, then surely I would have been asked to report for work at seven thirty as normal.

Hamilton's demeanour was grave. Taciturn at the best of times, the most he could manage in terms of small-talk now was a curt, 'Good week off?'

Without taking any notice of my mumbled answer, he said, 'Listen to these tapes.'

I was completely still. I attempted to sift through all the conversations of the last two months, trying to think of one which could incriminate me. It was difficult to think what could be on the tape, since I hadn't done anything wrong.

Hamilton flicked the switch.

The volume was on high. Cash's voice boomed, 'Changed your mind about the Gypsums?'

'No, I haven't,' I said. It is always strange listening to your own voice on tape. It didn't sound like me, it was slightly higher-pitched, and the accent stronger than I knew it to be. The tape went on. 'But I wonder if you could do me a favour?' Me again.

'Sure.' That was Cash.

'How can I buy some stock on the New York Stock Exchange?'

'Oh, that's easy. I can get an account opened for you here. All you have to do is call Miriam Wall in our private-client department. Just give me five minutes and I'll warn her you are coming through.'

Hamilton switched off the tape-recorder. Neither of us said anything for a moment.

Eventually I broke the silence. 'That doesn't prove anything,' I said, and then regretted it. It sounded just like the sort of thing a guilty man might say.

Hamilton's slight frown suggested the same thought had occurred to him. 'It doesn't prove anything conclusively, no,' he said. 'But it doesn't look good when put alongside the other evidence the TSA is pulling together against Cash. It sounds to them as though Cash is telling you how to buy stock for your own account in a company about which he has inside information. A classic way of bribing your clients to do business with you. That's how it sounds.'

'Well, it wasn't like that,' I protested.

'The shares you were talking about were Gypsum of America, were they not?'

'Yes.'

'And Cash did go out of his way to help set up an account for you?'

'Well, yes. But he was trying to help me out as a client.' I paused, trying to collect my thoughts. I felt cornered, and I couldn't think of a clever way of dodging out. In the end I just repeated the truth. 'Debbie and I decided to buy shares, based on the analysis of the company I did myself, which suggested it was likely to be taken over. Neither of us had bought shares in American companies before, and Cash seemed the natural person to ask how to do it. It's as simple as that.'