Ken Follett - Paper Money

The television set screened the Hamilton Holdings price again: it was down another point. Laski wished they wouldn't use that damn computer typeface, all horizontal and vertical lines: it strained his eyes. He began to calculate what he stood to lose if Hamilton did not get the license.

If he could sell the 510,000 shares right now, he would have lost only a few thousand pounds. But it would not be possible to dump the lot at the market value. And the price was still slipping. Say a loss of twenty thousand at the outside. And a psychological setback-damage to his reputation as a winner.

Was there anything else at risk? What Cox planned to do with the information Laski had supplied was certain to be criminal. However, since Laski did not actually know about it, he could not be convicted of conspiracy.

There was still Britain's Official Secrets Act-mild by East European standards, but a formidable piece of legislation. It was illegal to approach a civil servant and get from him confidential data. Proving that Laski had done that would be difficult, but not impossible. He had asked Peters whether he had a big day ahead, and Peters had said: "One of the days." Then Laski had said to Cox: "It's today." Well, if Cox and Peters could be persuaded to testify, then Laski would be convicted. But Peters did not even know he had given away a secret, and nobody would think of asking him. Suppose Cox was arrested? The British police had ways of squeezing information out of people, even if they did not use baseball bats. Cox might say he got the information from Laski; then they would check Laski's movements on the day, and they might discover he had taken coffee with Peters…

It was a pretty distant possibility. Laski was more worried about finishing off the Hamilton deal.

The phone rang. Laski answered: "Yes?"

"It's Threadneedle Street-Mr. Ley," Carol said.

Laski rutted. "It's probably about the Cotton Bank. Put him on to Jones."

"He's been through to the Cotton Bank, and Mr. Jones has gone home."

"Gone home? All right, I'll take it."

He heard Carol say: "I have Mr. Laski for you now."

"Laski?" The voice was high-pitched, the accent an aristocratic drawl.

"Yes."

"Ley here, Bank of England."

"How are you?"

"Good afternoon. Now look here, old chap"-Laski rolled his eyes at this phrase-"you've made out rather a large check to Fett and Company."

Laski paled. "My God, have they presented it already?"

"Yes, well, I rather gathered the ink was still wet. Now the thing is, it's drawn on the Cotton Bank, as you obviously know, and the poor little Cotton Bank can't cover it. Do you follow me?"

"Of course I follow you." The bloody man was talking as if to a child. Nothing annoyed Laski more. "Clearly, my instructions as to the arrangements for providing these funds have not been followed. However, perhaps I can plead that my staff might well have thought they had a little time to spare."

"Mmm. It's nice, really, to have the funds ready before you sign the damn thing, you know, just to be safe, don't you think?"

Laski thought fast. Damn, this need not have happened if the announcement had been made on time. And where the devil was Jones? "You may have guessed that the check is payment for a controlling interest in Hamilton Holdings. I should think those shares would stand as security-"

"Oh, dear me, no," Ley interrupted. "That really wouldn't do. The Bank of England is not in business to finance speculation on the stock market."

Maybe not, Laski thought; but if the announcement had been made, and you knew that Hamilton Holdings now had an oil well, you wouldn't be making this fuss. It occurred to him that perhaps they did know, and Hamilton had not got the oil well, hence the phone call. He felt angry. "Look, you're a bank," he said. "I'll pay you the rate for twenty-four-hour money-"

"The Bank is not accustomed to being in the money market."

Laski raised his voice. "You know damn well I can cover that check with ease, given a little time! If you return it, my reputation is gone. Are you going to ruin me for the sake of a lousy million overnight and a foolish tradition?"

Ley's voice went very cold. "Mr. Laski, our traditions exist specifically for the purpose of ruining people who sign checks they cannot honor. If this draft cannot be cleared today, I shall ask the payee to represent. That means, in effect, that you have an hour and a half in which to make a cash deposit of one million pounds at Threadneedle Street. Good day."

"Damn you," Laski said, but the line was dead. He cradled the receiver, cracking the plastic of the phone. His mind raced. There had to be a way of raising a million instantly… didn't there?

His coffee had arrived while he was on the phone. He had not noticed Carol come in. He sipped it, and made a face.

"Carol!" he shouted.

She opened the door. "Yes?"

Red-faced and trembling, he threw the delicate china cup into the metal wastepaper basket, where it shattered noisily. He bellowed: "The bloody coffee is cold!"

The girl turned around and fled.

Young Billy Johnson was looking for Tony Cox, but he kept forgetting this.

He had got out of the house quite fast after they all returned from the hospital. His mother was doing a lot of screaming, there were a few policemen hanging around, and Jacko had been carted off to the station to help with inquiries. The neighbors and relatives who kept dropping in added to the confusion. Billy liked quiet.

Nobody seemed disposed to get his lunch or pay him any attention, so he ate a packet of ginger biscuits and went out the back way, telling Mrs. Glebe from three doors down that he was going up to his auntie's to watch her color television.

He had been getting things sorted out as he walked. Walking helped him to think. When he found himself baffled, he could look at the cars and the shops and the people for a while, to rest his mind.

He went toward his auntie's at first, until he remembered that he did not really want to go there; he had only said that to stop Mrs. Glebe making trouble. Then he had to think where he was going. He stopped, looking in the window of a record shop, painstakingly reading the names on the gaudy sleeves, and trying to match them to songs he had heard on the radio. He had a record player, but he never had any money to buy records, and his parents' taste did not suit him. Ma liked soppy songs, Pa liked brass bands, and Billy liked rock-and-roll. The only other person he knew who liked rock-and-roll was Tony CoxThat was it. He was looking for Tony Cox.

He headed in what he thought was roughly the direction for Bethnal Green. He knew the East End very well-every street, every shop, all the bomb sites, patches of waste ground, canals and parks-but he knew it in bits. He passed a demolition site, and remembered that Granny Parker had lived there, and had sat stubbornly in her front room while the old houses on either side had been torn down, until she had caught pneumonia and died, relieving the London Borough of Tower Hamlets of the problem of what to do about her. Billy had followed the story with interest: it was like something on the television. Yes, he knew every particle of the East London landscape; but he could not connect them together in his mind. He knew Commercial Road and he knew Mile End Road, but he did not know that they met at Aldgate. Despite this, he could almost always find his way home, even if sometimes it took longer than he expected; and if he really got lost the Old Bill would run him back to the house in a squad car. All the coppers knew his pa.

By the time he got to Wapping, he had forgotten his destination again; but he thought he was probably going to see the ships. He got in through a hole in a fence: the same hole he had used with Snowy White and Tubby Toms, that day when they caught a rat and the others told Billy to take it home to his ma, because she would be pleased and cook it for tea. She had not been pleased, of course: she jumped in the air and dropped a bag of sugar and screamed, and later she cried and said they shouldn't make fun of Billy. People often played tricks on him, but he did not mind, because it was nice to have pals.