Jeffrey Archer - Cometh the Hour

“To Farthings Kaufman,” he said. “Possibly not the biggest bank on the block, but unquestionably the latest.” The three laughed and raised their glasses. “To Farthings Kaufman.”

“Right, let’s get back to work,” said the chairman. “What’s next on my schedule?”

“Clive Bingham has an appointment to see you in half an hour, chairman,” said Hardcastle, “to discuss a press statement he’s working on. I know everyone in the Square Mile considers it’s a done deal, but I’d still like to see the merger well covered by the financial press. Clive tells me that both the FT and Economist have requested to do profiles on you.”

“And to think it’s less than a decade ago that the Bank of England refused to grant me a secondary banking license.”

“We’ve all come a long way since then,” said Seb.

“We have indeed,” said Hakim. “And the merging of our two banks is just the next stage of what I have planned.”

“Amen to that,” said Victor, raising his glass a second time.

“Seb,” said the chairman when he failed to raise his glass, “you seem a little preoccupied.”

“It’s nothing, chairman. But I should let you know that I’ll be flying to Washington on Friday morning. I expect to be back in the office by Monday.”

“A deal I ought to know about?” asked Hakim, raising an eyebrow.

“No. I’m thinking of buying some pictures.”

“Sounds interesting,” said Hakim, but Seb didn’t rise to the bait. “I’m off to Lagos tomorrow,” Hakim added, “for a meeting with the oil minister. The government wants to build a larger port to handle the demand for so many foreign oil tankers following the discovery of several new oil fields off the Nigerian coast. They’ve invited Farthings — sorry, Farthings Kaufman — to act as their financial advisors. Like you, Seb, I hope to be back at my desk by Monday at the latest, as I have another heavy week ahead of me. So, Victor, we’ll leave the shop in your hands while we’re away. Just be sure there are no surprises when we return.”

“Quite a coup,” said Desmond Mellor once he’d read the press statement. “I’m not sure there’s much we can do about it.”

“How large is our holding in Farthings Kaufman?” asked Jim Knowles.

“We own six percent of Farthings,” said Adrian Sloane. “But that will be reduced to three percent of the new bank when the merger goes through, which wouldn’t entitle us to a place on the board.”

“And although Mellor Travel has had another good year,” said Desmond, “I just don’t have the financial clout to take on Bishara.”

“One of my contacts at the Bank of England,” said Knowles, “tells me he expects the merger to be ratified within the next couple of weeks.”

“Unless the Bank of England felt unable to ratify it,” said Sloane.

“What reason would they have not to?” asked Mellor.

“If a director didn’t fulfil one of the Bank’s statutory regulations.”

“Which regulation do you have in mind, Adrian?”

“That he’d been to jail.”

Sebastian walked out of Dulles airport and joined the short queue for a yellow cab.

“The Mayflower Hotel, please,” he said to the driver. Seb always enjoyed the drive from Dulles into the capital. A long, winding road that stretched between wooded forests before crossing the Potomac and passing the magnificent marble monuments of past presidents that dominated the landscape like Roman temples. Lincoln, Jefferson and finally Washington, before the cab drew up outside the hotel.

Sebastian was impressed when the clerk on the front desk said, “Welcome back, Mr. Clifton,” as he’d only stayed at the Mayflower once before. “Is there anything I can do to assist you?”

“How long will it take me to get to Jefferson School?”

“Fifteen minutes, twenty at most. Shall I book you a cab?”

Seb checked his watch. Just after 2 p.m. “Yes, let’s make it for four twenty?”

“Four twenty it is, sir. I’ll call your room the moment the car arrives.”

Seb made his way to the ninth floor and, as he looked across at the White House, he realized they’d even given him the same room as before. He unpacked his small suitcase and placed a thousand dollars in the wall safe, which he assumed would be more than enough to buy all of Jessica’s pictures. He undressed, took a shower, lay down on the bed and put his head on the pillow.

The phone was ringing. Seb opened his eyes and tried to remember where he was. He picked up the receiver.

“Your cab is waiting at the front entrance, sir.”

Seb checked his watch: 4:15 p.m. He must have fallen asleep. Damn jet lag. “Thank you, I’ll be right down.” He quickly put on some clean clothes before making his way downstairs. “Can you get me there before five?” he asked the driver.

“Kinda depends where ‘there’ is.”

“Sorry, Jefferson School.”

“No sweat.” The cab moved off to join the early evening traffic.

Seb had already worked on two plans. If, when he arrived at the school, he spotted either Samantha or Jessica, he would wait until they’d left before going into the exhibition. But if they weren’t there, he would take a quick look at his daughter’s work, select the pictures he wanted and be on his way back to the Mayflower before they even realized he’d been there.

The cab pulled up outside the school entrance a few minutes before five. Seb remained in the backseat and watched as a couple of parents, accompanied by a child, made their way up the path and into the building. He then paid the fare and tentatively followed them, searching all the time for two people he didn’t want to see. When he entered the building, he was greeted by a large red arrow with the words ART EXHIBITION pointing down the corridor.

He kept looking in every direction but there was no sign of them. In the exhibition hall there must have been over a hundred pictures filling the walls with bold splashes of color, but so far there were only about half a dozen parents, who were clearly interested only in their own offspring’s efforts. Seb stuck to plan A and walked quickly around the room. It wasn’t difficult to pick out Jessica’s work; to quote one of his father’s favorite expressions when describing his old school friend Mr. Deakins, she was “in a different class.”

Every few moments he glanced toward the door, but as there was no sign of them, he began to study his daughter’s work more carefully. Although only ten, she already had a style of her own; the brushwork was bold and confident with no suggestion of second attempts. And then he stopped in front of the painting entitled My Father and understood why Dr. Wolfe had singled it out as quite exceptional. The image of a man and woman holding hands seemed to Seb to have been influenced by René Magritte. The woman could only have been Samantha, the warm smile and the kind eyes and even the tiny birthmark that he would never forget. The man was dressed in a gray suit, white shirt and blue tie, but the face hadn’t been filled in, just left blank. Seb felt so many emotions: sadness, stupidity, guilt, regret but, most of all, regret.

He quickly checked the door again before walking over to a desk where a young woman was sitting behind a sign that read SALES. Sebastian turned the pages of his catalogue, then asked for the price of items 9, 12, 18, 21, 37 and 52. She checked her list.

“With the exception of number thirty-seven, they are all a hundred dollars each. And, of course, all the money goes to charity.”

“Please don’t tell me number thirty-seven has already been sold?”

“No, sir. It is for sale, but I’m afraid it’s five hundred dollars.”