Майкл Ридпат - The Predator

Abby worked in Muni sales, not the most glamorous of departments at Bloomfield Weiss. As they reached her desk, Chris recognized Latasha James, wearing a smart black suit.

‘Hello, Chris! It’s been a long time.’ She gave him a hug. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about Lenka.’

‘Yes, it was terrible,’ Chris said. ‘I see they still haven’t let you out of Municipal Finance.’

Latasha rolled her eyes. ‘I guess not. I work upstairs in origination. But it’s not so bad. Some of these cities need the cash we can get them, you know what I’m saying? I guess I’m doing more good here than I would in many places.’

‘Doing good at Bloomfield Weiss. Now there’s a thought!’

‘Isn’t it just? I’ve got to run,’ Latasha said. ‘See you around.’

‘She’s really good,’ said Abby, sitting down at her desk. ‘She wins us more deals than the rest of the guys upstairs put together. The public officials love her. And not just the black ones.’

‘I’m very glad to hear it,’ Chris said, pulling up a chair, and glancing at the familiar screens on Abby’s desk. ‘How long have you been doing this?’

‘Nine years,’ Abby said. ‘I eventually escaped from George Calhoun’s clutches. It’s OK. I keep my head down, I’m nice to my customers, I put up with shit from my boss, they keep me around.’

‘An achievement these days,’ Chris said.

Abby smiled. ‘I heard it was Herbie Exler who screwed you on the convergence trade. They should have gotten rid of him, not you.’

Chris raised his eyebrows. ‘I didn’t realize other people knew.’

‘Oh, yeah. They all know,’ Abby said. ‘They’re not about to mention it, though. Herbie is not someone you want as an enemy. Nor is Simon Bibby. He’s head of Fixed Income in New York now.’

‘Well, I’m glad I’m out of it.’

Abby chewed her gum contemplatively. ‘I’m sorry I was such a bitch on the training programme.’

Chris was startled. ‘You weren’t a bitch.’

Abby smiled. ‘Oh, yes I was. I wanted to be the meanest programme coordinator Calhoun had ever seen. I know that’s what he wanted, and I thought that was the only way I was ever going to make it in an investment bank. I was so uptight about everything.’

‘They get you like that, don’t they?’ Chris said.

‘They sure do. I was just as bad here, at first. Then, it dawned on me that it was possible to have a quiet life and work at Bloomfield Weiss. You just have to know how. Excuse me.’

One of the lights on a panel flashed and Abby answered it. She chatted amiably with someone on the other line, and ended up selling him three million dollars of a New Jersey Turnpike bond.

She hung up. ‘Where was I?’

‘Reliving the good old days.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Abby laughed. ‘Now, how can I help you?’

‘I wanted to ask you something about the programme. I think it might be related to Lenka’s death.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘It’s about Alex Lubron.’

Abby raised her eyebrows. ‘Alex Lubron? Now that’s a subject that I thought you had all the answers to, not me.’

Chris ignored the dig. He knew he would have to be careful. ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about what happened a little before he died.’

‘I’ll see if I can remember.’

‘I understand he tested positive for drugs?’

Abby nodded. ‘I do remember that. We were supposed to have a crackdown on drug abuse in the firm. You might recall that a couple of salesmen had been caught supplying clients. Well, the idea was to fire one or two employees quite publicly to show that the firm was coming down hard on the issue. But they didn’t want to fire real employees that were making real money. So they had the idea that they would pick on a couple of trainees. No one would miss them, right?’

Chris smiled.

‘As you can imagine, Calhoun loved this idea. So he set up a fake medical exam, which would be taken without warning right after the final examination. The Frankfurt and London offices objected that their trainees were going to be sacrificed as well, so Calhoun was forced to restrict things to the American hires.

‘So, they took the samples, and much to their surprise only one trainee tested positive.’

‘Alex?’

‘That’s right. Alex. And what’s more, he had some kind of mentor in mortgage trading who raised hell. Calhoun spent a lot of time with Alex; I’m not sure what the deal was, exactly. Anyway, after Alex died it was all forgotten. Bloomfield Weiss wanted a quick and easy sacking of someone who’d never be heard of again. Once Alex had drowned, he became entirely the wrong person to be found with drugs.’

‘Did the police know?’ Chris asked.

‘I’m not sure what the police knew,’ Abby said. ‘They seemed suspicious about Alex’s death for a week or so, and then they dropped the whole thing. But I’m sure you remember that.’

‘I do,’ said Chris. ‘I definitely do.’

‘Now, whether Bloomfield Weiss put some kind of pressure on them, I don’t know.’

‘Can Bloomfield Weiss do that?’

Abby looked around her. ‘What do you think we do here? We’re one of the top three firms on the Street for raising municipal finance. We know a lot of public officials.’

‘Hmm.’

Abby leaned forward. ‘So tell me,’ she said, a twinkle in her eye. ‘What did happen on that boat?’

Chris sighed. ‘Alex got drunk. The boat was going fast. The sea was choppy. He fell in. Ian, Eric and Duncan jumped in to try to find him. They couldn’t. We were lucky to find them, quite honestly. Alex drowned.’ Chris’s voice was flat as he recited this. All of it was true, even if it wasn’t the whole truth.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Abby, her curiosity punctured by Chris’s tone. ‘Sometimes you forget that disasters involve real people.’

‘Yeah,’ said Chris. ‘You do.’

‘There were rumours afterwards. That it hadn’t been an accident.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘It was a big deal in HR. You see, they’d been trying a new approach to recruitment for a couple of years. Do you remember doing some psychometric tests when you joined?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘Well, one of the things they were looking for was extreme competitiveness, aggression, even ruthlessness. The theory was that investment bankers need to be predators, kings of the jungle, some crap like that.’

‘Sounds just like George Calhoun,’ Chris said.

‘Exactly. In fact, I think the whole thing might have been his idea. Well, a lot of the people produced by this process were your average nasty red-blooded investment banker. But one or two of them were borderline psychotic’

‘And Bloomfield Weiss recruited them anyway?’

‘You got it. With open arms. One of the psychologists who did the tests kicked up a fuss about it. In the end we stopped them.’

‘Do you know who these “borderline psychotics” were?’

‘I found out who one of them was later. A guy called Steve Matzley was convicted for rape a few months after he left Bloomfield Weiss. I don’t think he was on your programme. But he was recruited about that time. The rumour is that the psychologist’s report flagged him as being a dangerous person.’

‘And they took him anyway?’

‘You got it. He was a great government bond trader. It was pure luck he wasn’t working here when he committed the rape.’

‘Jesus. So was the rumour that one of us on the boat had a similar profile?’

‘That was the rumour. After Steve Matzley, it made some kind of sense. But it was pure speculation. The files were strictly locked up and confidential. Besides, you just told me it was an accident, didn’t you?’

Chris didn’t respond to her question. ‘Did you know the name of the psychologist who complained about the tests?’