Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

‘You can’t tell me you don’t miss the markets,’ Tarek said.

‘I suppose I do,’ Calder replied. He was just about to tell Tarek about the little bits of spread-betting he did, but something stopped him. When they had worked together as bond traders they had laughed at ‘dumb retail’, their name for ill-informed individual speculators. Calder didn’t want to admit that that was what he had become. It was only a bit of dabbling anyway. A bit of fun. ‘Thanks for setting this up.’

‘No problem. I’m curious to see what happens. Ah, here’s the man now.’

Tarek stood up and waved, extending his hand. Calder was sitting with his back to the entrance to the dining room. He waited a few seconds and then turned to see Benton Davis striding towards them. The polite smile on Benton’s face froze as he saw Calder.

Tarek shook his hand. ‘Have a seat, Benton. You remember Alex, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Benton said, the smile now gone. He curtly shook Calder’s hand and hesitated. Clearly he had no desire to have breakfast with his former colleague. But although Benton was nominally head of the London office, that was essentially a bureaucratic and ambassadorial role. Tarek was in charge of Fixed Income in Europe, and his group made lots of money. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Tarek’s star was in the ascendant. Benton sat down.

‘I congratulate you on your choice of venue, Tarek,’ he said, looking around the ornate dining room.

Tarek smiled. He raised an eyebrow and the head waiter came over. He ordered his usual complicated mozzarella cheese, bread and olive-oil concoction, Calder went for a full breakfast, and Benton just a bowl of muesli and some fruit. Calder had forgotten how impressive a figure Benton cut, with his tall trim frame, his perfectly tailored suit and his deep authoritative voice. Outside Bloomfield Weiss he didn’t look like the lightweight glad-hander he had appeared to be from the trading floor.

Benton and Tarek made small talk for a few minutes, ignoring Calder, before Benton turned to him. ‘Well, Alex, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’ He was polite and he kept the exasperation he must surely have felt over Tarek setting him up out of his voice. But his eyes were wary.

‘Alex wants to ask you a question,’ Tarek said.

Calder thought he noticed a flicker of relief in Benton’s eyes. He suddenly realized that Benton’s first assumption was probably that Tarek wanted to offer him his old job back, and this breakfast meeting was actually an interview. But a mere question couldn’t be that difficult.

‘Sure,’ Benton said, with a quick smile. ‘Shoot.’

‘Do you remember Martha van Zyl?’

Benton hesitated, taken aback by the course Calder was taking. ‘Yes, I do. She was Cornelius van Zyl’s wife. She was murdered, wasn’t she? In South Africa. Horrible business.’ He shook his head. His concern seemed genuine.

‘Martha’s son, Todd, has some questions that he wants to ask you about the death. I’m a very old friend of his wife, Kim. She asked me to talk to you.’

‘Ah,’ Benton said. ‘I was aware that Todd was trying to speak with me about that.’

‘And you avoided him?’

Benton smiled. ‘Cornelius van Zyl is an important client of the firm. It seemed inappropriate for me to be speaking with his relatives about his wife’s death.’

‘Did you check with him whether you could talk to Todd?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Benton said. ‘Successful men often have complicated families. Martha was Cornelius’s second wife, I believe. He has a third now. And Edwin, the son from his first marriage, works for him. I have no idea what the tensions are in that family, but I know I don’t want to find out. And if I’m not going to discuss these things with Todd van Zyl, I’m certainly not going to discuss them with you.’

Calder had been expecting this. ‘Todd’s in hospital in a coma at the moment. He was involved in an aircraft accident a few days ago. We both were.’

Benton frowned. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he’s going to be OK.’

‘So do I,’ said Calder. ‘But his wife is anxious to get an answer to his questions. Which is why I’m here.’

‘It must be a very trying time for her. But I’m afraid I can’t help.’

Calder took a deep breath. ‘You remember Jennifer Tan?’

Benton sighed. ‘I wondered when this would come up. I’ve discussed the whole business with Sidney. It’s over now. It’s in the past.’

Sidney Stahl was Bloomfield Weiss’s chairman. To Calder’s disappointment, he hadn’t fired Benton after Jen’s death.

‘It’s not in the past though, is it, Benton? There isn’t a week goes by that I don’t think about her.’

Benton glanced at Calder quickly. Calder knew he had hit a nerve. Benton might have been misguided, callous even, in the way he had treated Jen, but Calder didn’t believe he had intentionally driven her to her death. Whatever his protestations, however well he covered his arse, Benton knew he shouldn’t have suspended her when she brought the sexual harassment suit against her previous boss. The boss in question was a jerk, everyone knew that, he was just a jerk who made the firm a hundred million dollars a year. So when one of them had to go, Benton had made damn sure it was Jen.

‘The answer to my question is important to me, and it’s important to people I care for. I really would appreciate a reply.’

Benton shifted in his chair. Calder waited. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘As long as this doesn’t get back to Cornelius. What’s the question?’

Calder described the letter that was found in Todd’s grandmother’s papers, and its mention of Benton. Benton listened intently. ‘So. What was it that Martha wanted you to tell her mother?’ Calder asked.

‘I don’t know,’ said Benton. ‘I really don’t know. The old woman came to see me right after Martha died. It was a shock, Martha’s death. I didn’t know her well, I’d only met her once or twice, but to die like that. Ugh.’ He scowled. ‘South Africa was a sick, sick country. Still is, probably. I won’t go back there.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘I told her I didn’t know what Martha meant. I wracked my brains. My only guess was it was something I let slip when we were having dinner in Cape Town. I was sent down there shortly before she died to do some due diligence on Zyl News’s South African newspapers. The plan was to sell them off or close them. I found South Africa a loathsome place and she took pity on me. I guess I implied, probably not much more than that, that Zyl News was running out of cash. I think Martha assumed Cornelius’s businesses were worth tens of millions. Well, they were, of course, but then so was his debt. He was finding it tight meeting the interest payments. The acquisition of the Herald, bringing with it yet more debt, was a brave move. I guess when a rich man’s wife discovers that her husband’s net worth is close to negative, it comes as a bit of a shock.’

Calder stared hard at Benton. ‘Was that all?’

Benton shrugged. ‘It’s all that I could think of.’

‘What was Martha’s mother’s reaction?’

‘She was disappointed. I think she expected more.’

‘Did she ask about a diary?’

Benton frowned. ‘It was a while ago. She might have done. I really don’t remember.’

‘You didn’t see a diary anywhere? Martha didn’t give you a diary to look after?’

Benton snorted. ‘I really didn’t know her that well. I liked her, but I have no idea if she kept a diary and she certainly wouldn’t have shown it to me if she did.’

‘And finally, does the word “Laagerbond” mean anything to you?’

Benton shook his head. He drained his coffee and put his napkin on the table. ‘If that’s all, I need to get on to the office.’