Майкл Ридпат - The Predator

Megan watched Eric, took a deep breath, and nodded. ‘OK. But I’m not making anything up. I’ll just say I didn’t see any of it.’

‘That will do fine,’ said Eric. ‘Now, let me steer the boat into the dock.’

The first blow had hurt Alex. The second damaged something in his brain, some mechanism of the nervous system that kept him upright and balanced. He felt his legs buckling underneath him, as he was forced back by the power of Duncan’s punch. He felt his thighs touch the railing, and he tried to lean forward, but whether because he was drunk or because the boat was lurching at the most impossible of angles, he couldn’t manage it. He felt his body spill backwards, and a second later he was underwater .

The water was very cold, and it seemed to squeeze the breath out of him, but somehow he managed to retain something in his lungs. It was dark, and the weight of his clothes was pulling him down, so he couldn’t tell which way was up. He kicked his legs in panic and waved his arms. His lungs hurt, but somehow he managed to keep his mouth closed and the water out. Then, somehow, his face emerged into the open air and he took a large gulp, just as a wave broke over him. The seawater stung his lungs and made him choke. He kicked frantically with his legs and managed to keep his face above water long enough to cough and splutter the water clear of his airway. He took another gulp of air, and was submerged briefly under another wave .

He could just keep himself above the water if he worked hard with his arms and his legs. His clothes were so heavy, and it was so cold. He looked around him, and caught a glimpse of the bridge of the boat speeding away through the waves. He raised his arm to catch their attention, and promptly sank, swallowing more water. More choking .

He was in big trouble; he knew it. He wasn’t a strong swimmer, and he knew he was drunk. The boat was impossible to see in the waves .

Alex didn’t want to die. He was too young. He had so much more he wanted to do with his life. He wasn’t going to die .

He struck out towards the direction he had last seen the boat. He tried to keep his strokes steady, but it was difficult. He was swimming too fast, tiring himself. Slow down. Swim slowly. As long as he was afloat, they would find him. Already they would have turned back. They’d be with him in a second .

He saw something dead ahead! Someone was swimming towards him. Alex raised a hand, shouted, pulled harder .

The swimmer came closer. Thank God, thought Alex. ‘Here!’ he shouted. ‘I’m over here! ’

He grabbed the arms as they reached out towards him. He tried to hold on to the sleeve. He wanted to cling on and never let go. He couldn’t believe it! He was safe!

Suddenly he felt strong hands on his head, pushing him downwards. He was so surprised he failed to take a breath before he went under. What the hell was happening? He was too weak. He couldn’t fight. He reached out to grab the swimmer, to pull him down with him, but already his lungs were filling with water. He could feel himself slipping into the darkness, into the embrace of the cold, cold sea .

Alex’s body was found the following morning, dashed against some rocks a few miles further along the coast near Eatons Neck. Chris, Ian and Duncan were delayed in New York for a week to talk to the police and attend Alex’s funeral. Questions were asked, lies were told. Then the Brits flew back to London, Eric and Lenka went on to their jobs at Bloomfield Weiss, and Megan returned to Washington.

But Alex was still dead. And the memory of how he had died would stay with all of them.

Chris returned to Carpathian’s office in London determined to ensure that the firm survived. It would be difficult: Carpathian was much more Lenka’s creation than his. He knew all the details: the administration of the funds, the individual securities in the portfolio, the accounts, the computer maintenance contracts, the people who managed the building and so on. But the vision was Lenka’s. And so were the relationships with investors.

Lenka’s murder had torn at Chris from many different directions. There was the horror of the act itself. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her pale face beneath him on the street, felt the warmth and stickiness of her blood on his hands, watched her die. Then there was the guilt that he hadn’t been able to stop it. In his waking moments, he replayed the attack again and again. If only he had reacted a second sooner to the sound of footsteps, if he had grabbed the arm half a second earlier. He fantasized about how he could have caught the attacker, thrown him to the ground and overpowered him. All pointless, he knew. If he had been quicker, he would probably have been stabbed too.

There was also straightforward grief at the loss of a friend, of someone who had helped him when he really needed it, of someone to whom he owed a debt, of a genuinely good person. He missed her laughter, her hoarse voice teasing him, the immediate rush of vitality that she brought to a room when she entered it.

And lastly, there was the worry about her company, their company. She had put so much of her energy into Carpathian over the last couple of years. It had become the most important thing in her life. He found, after the initial shock wore off, that Carpathian became the focus for all his feelings about her. He couldn’t prevent her murder, he couldn’t bring her back, but he could make sure that her creation survived.

First, he had to deal with the two remaining members of the team, Ollie and Tina. Ollie was a wreck. Chris and Lenka had picked him the previous year from the collapsing investment-banking arm of a British bank. He was twenty-four, very bright, but very shy. He seemed to live his life in permanent terror. Lenka, in her more wicked moments, had taken cruel advantage of this. But both she and Chris had liked him, and thought that he would mature into a real asset. In the meantime, he didn’t cost much, and he made the coffee without complaining. Until that week, Ollie’s worst nightmare was screwing up on the settlement of a trade and having Lenka scream at him. But this was so much worse than that. He seemed incapable of the simplest task; he was barely able to speak. When Chris talked to him about Lenka’s death, he cried. Chris felt sorry for him, and in a strange way he was pleased that Lenka had meant something to Ollie, despite her occasional mocking of him. Chris let him collapse for five minutes, but only five minutes. Chris needed Ollie: he was bright, he was familiar with how Carpathian worked, there was no one else. Ollie was going to have to grow up. Immediately.

Tina was made of sterner stuff. She was a fiercely competent nineteen-year-old from Ongar who could fix the photocopier when Ollie broke it, and who would not stand any nonsense from pushy brokers. During the couple of days Chris had been away, it was she who had fielded calls from the market. She had little experience or knowledge of finance, but Chris had to rely on her too. She seemed to sense his determination to ensure Carpathian’s survival, and to share it.

The four of them all sat in an open-plan room, with Lenka and Chris’s desks overlooking the square outside. The entire office consisted of this room, a reception area, a boardroom, which doubled as a conference room, a kitchen, and an alcove for photocopier, fax machine and computer equipment. It wasn’t large, but it had been nicely designed by an American friend of Lenka’s, and it was airy, light and professional. The work hadn’t cost much, except for a sweeping curved wall in the reception area, which sported a mural of swirling blues. Chris and Lenka had argued about it: Lenka loved it, but Chris had objected that it was too frivolous.