Майкл Ридпат - The Predator

The trouble was, the junk bond market was illiquid. What this meant was that as soon as Chris said he wanted to sell the entire position, Bloomfield Weiss would drop their price. By how much, Chris would have to see.

‘What would you pay me for ten?’ asked Chris.

There was a pause on the phone. ‘Ninety-five was only good for a million,’ said Ian.

‘OK, I understand,’ said Chris. ‘Now, where can I sell ten million?’

There was a long pause. Eventually Ian returned. ‘My trader would like to work an order on that. Say at ninety-three?’

Chris wasn’t having any of that. Bloomfield Weiss wanted to tout his bonds around the market at no risk to themselves to try to find a buyer. Chris wanted out, and he wanted out immediately.

‘No, Ian. I want a bid for the ten million.’

‘I think we’d prefer to work an order.’

‘Ian, you sold us twenty-five million euros of this bond last week. You have to be willing to buy ten million back.’

Ian hesitated. ‘Chris,’ he said. ‘You’re not familiar with the way this market works. These aren’t government bonds. The high-yield market is illiquid; everyone knows that. Let us work the order.’

‘Don’t patronize me, Ian. Ask your trader where he would buy ten million. Now.’

‘But, Chris...’

‘Ask him.’

‘OK.’

Chris was left hanging on the phone for several minutes. Ian was right, Chris wasn’t as familiar with the junk market as the government bond market, but he wasn’t going to let Bloomfield Weiss take advantage of that. They sold Carpathian the bonds; they’d have to buy them back.

‘Chris?’ It was Ian. He sounded hesitant, nervous. Chris steeled himself.

‘Yes?’

‘If you want to sell the bonds on the wire, we’ll pay seventy.’

‘Seventy!’ Chris almost screamed. ‘That’s absurd. How can you pretend the price is ninety-five when you’ll only pay seventy?’

We’ve nowhere to go with them, Chris. The market looks bad and the subscriber numbers spooked everyone. If we buy them from you, we’re wearing them.’

Chris did the sums. At a price of seventy, the loss he would realize on the sale of ten million would be three million euros. The unrealized loss on the rest of the Eureka Telecom position would be another five. Basically, the value of Carpathian was eight million euros lower than it had been a week before.

‘Listen,’ Ian was whispering now. ‘Don’t sell them, Chris. Trust me. They’re worth hanging on to.’

‘Why?’ Chris asked.

‘Just trust me.’

Trust Ian! No way. Chris had a real problem, but trusting Ian wasn’t the best way out of it. ‘Send me the press release on the subscriber numbers. I need to look at this deal a bit more closely. We’ll speak again tomorrow.’

Chris slammed down the phone and put his head in his hands. This was a problem. A big problem.

He spent the rest of the afternoon going through the information in Lenka’s files on Eureka Telecom. It was a dog. Sure, it was an ambitious idea, to set up a mobile telephone network in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with the possibility of extending it to Romania and the Baltic States later. The networking agreements and licences were in place. But there was no cash, and precious few subscribers. Investment requirements over the next five years were huge. That was what the junk bond was for. But Eureka would get through the cash raised from that in eighteen months. Where the further money for investment would come from was a mystery.

Ian sent details of the subscriber information by e-mail. It was disappointing. For a company that was supposed to be entering a dramatic growth phase over the next few years, a five per cent increase in subscribers over a six-month period was pitiful. No wonder Bloomfield Weiss’s trader was worried.

Chris put down the prospectus and stared at Lenka’s empty desk. Why had she bought it? She was no fool. She could see this was a bad deal. He was surprised she had bought any, let alone twenty-five million, nearly half the value of the fund.

Oh, Lenka, Lenka. Chris felt a flash of anger. Not only had she gone and left him, but she’d left him with an enormous screw-up to deal with. He smashed his fist down on his desk with a crash that caused Ollie to look up in fright.

Chris put his head in his hands. Why was Lenka gone? How could such a horrible thing have happened to her? He wanted her back. Now.

‘Are you all right?’ said Ollie.

Chris looked up and forced a smile. ‘Not really, but thank you.’ He glanced back at the papers in front of him. ‘Ollie?’

‘Yes?’

‘Lenka didn’t tell you why she bought this Eureka Telecom deal, did she?’

‘No. I asked her. She just said she had a good feeling about it.’

‘You didn’t hear her discussing it with Ian?’

‘Not really. They did have a few conversations before the deal came out. He’s been calling quite a lot recently, hasn’t he? And then at the end of last week, Lenka said she didn’t want to take any more of his calls. It was a bit embarrassing, really. I had to take messages for her.’

‘Huh,’ said Chris thoughtfully. ‘Did she say why she didn’t want to talk to him?’

‘No. She was quite off-hand about it.’

Chris thought about that. Lenka being off-hand often meant that Lenka was angry. Angry because she had been sold a dog, perhaps.

‘There is something else I’ve been meaning to mention to you, though. About Lenka.’

‘Oh, yes? What is it?’

‘Well, one day last week, when you were away, someone came round here to speak to her.’

‘Uh-huh.’ People always came round to speak to Lenka, or Chris for that matter.

‘Yes. He wasn’t a broker or anything like that. He didn’t look like he worked in an office at all. Tall thin guy, in jeans. Big long coat. American accent.’

‘Young?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Ollie. ‘Old. Thirty-five, something like that.’ Ollie saw the look on Chris’s face. ‘Well, not exactly old, but not young either. You know.’

‘OK, OK, I know,’ said Chris. ‘What did they talk about?’

‘No idea. Lenka took him into the boardroom and shut the door. They were in there about an hour. When he left, he looked angry. And she looked really upset. She went off to the loo for ages.’

‘Interesting. Did Tina see this bloke?’

‘No. She was out, I think. I remember I was the only one here, apart from Lenka of course.’

Pity, Chris thought. Tina would have been able to give him a much more accurate description of what had happened.

‘And Lenka didn’t say anything afterwards?’

‘No. I tried to talk to her, to see if she was all right, but she told me to go away. So I went off and did some photocopying.’

The photocopier was Ollie’s equivalent of the gooseberry bushes. It was where he always liked to go when Lenka shouted at him.

‘Can you be more precise about this guy? Hair colour, eyes, nose, face?’

Ollie screwed up his face, thinking. ‘It’s hard to remember. Eyes? Brown, I think. Although they could have been blue. Brown hair. Yes, definitely brown. Longish. Stubble — I don’t think he’d shaved.’

‘That’s very helpful,’ said Chris. ‘But we’ve no idea who this man is.’ He tapped his fingers on the desk. ‘Can you remember what day it was?’

‘Monday, I think. Maybe Tuesday.’

‘Let’s have a look.’ Chris turned on Lenka’s computer and opened it at her diary. There was only one entry that was not easily explainable. Against two o’clock on Tuesday 15 February was the word ‘Marcus’. That was all, just ‘Marcus’.

‘Know who that might be?’ Chris asked Ollie.

Ollie shrugged. There’s a Marcus Neale at Harrison Brothers. But it definitely wasn’t him.’