Geoff Nicholson - Bleeding London

He withdrew briskly, stood up and made for the shower. Soon Sally would get up too, collect herself and dress for work, but for a few savoured moments she lay there motionless, and if you had been in a position to peer in dirough the roof of the conservatory you would have seen her looking as happy as she ever looked, having been had briskly and sweatily and uncom-plicatedly on the floor in her very favourite place.

Mick Wilton was, in feet, in just such a position, lodged in the middle branches of a mature horsechestnut tree that overlooked the Mastersons’ conservatory. And having watched the floor-show with great, perhaps indecent, interest, he moved from his vantage point, and climbed easily through a couple of the neighbouring gardens so that he was there at the front of the house, ready for Philip Masterson’s departure for work.

Less than ten minutes later, now shaved and showered, Masterson bounced out of his front door. He was wearing a navy wool pinstriped, three — piece suit and he was carrying a full briefcase, but he still looked intensely athletic, as though the day would be a series of sporting contests, jousts; not just business as usual. He repeatedly tossed his car keys up in the air and caught them as he walked along the tree-lined street, along the row of residents’ parking spaces until he came to his own car, an E-type convertible, a low-slung, racing-green slab with personalized number plates. The hood was up and even though it was a cold winter morning he intended to lower it before driving to work. That was the sort of chap he was. But as he got closer he saw that someone had cut three long, jagged slashes through the thick black material of the hood.

“Fuck,” he shouted at the world. “Fucking hell.” And he ran up to the car, threw down his briefcase and looked as though he might stamp his feet and throw a full-blown tantrum.

Then, out of nowhere, Mick appeared. He was someone who would always be better suited to the night than to the early morning, but he was trying hard to look like a man who was on his way to work, a man who had heard the shouting of a neighbour and had decided to help.

In what he took to be a neighbourly fashion he said, “Car trouble?”

“You could say that,” Masterson replied. “Some bastard’s done this,” and he pointed at the hood.

“That’s a rotten dirty trick,” Mick sympathized.

“If I ever get my hands on them…” said Masterson.

“Yeah,” said Mick and he went over to have a closer look at the damage. He inspected the cut material and said, “How much does a new hood cost?”

“I don’t know,” Masterson said. “Enough. But that’s not really the point.”

“Are you insured?”—“Of course I’m insured, but…”

Masterson calmed down a little, not because he felt any more philosophical about the damage but simply because he knew there was nothing he could do about it at the moment and because he had to get to work. “I’ll worry about it later,” he said, and he began to undo the catches that held the hood in place.

“Need any help?” Mick asked.

“No.”

But Mick took no notice and started grabbing at the edge of the material.

“I can do it quicker myself,” Masterson insisted, in what he generally knew to be a commanding voice.

Mick said, “Oh, OK,” and he stopped fiddling with the hood. Instead he stood back and stared at Masterson as he completed the operation, rather clumsily since he was angry and because he didn’t like being stared at. Then, when Masterson was finished and had got into the driver’s seat, he watched in disbelief as Mick opened the car’s passenger door and slid in beside him. The leather seats didn’t fit Mick’s body very well but he tried to get comfortable and he reached for the seat belt to strap himself in.

“Excuse me,” Masterson bawled. “Excuse me. What exactly do you think you’re doing? Get out of my fucking car. Now. No argument. All right?”

Mick shook his head. “I cannot tell a lie, Masterson. It was me who slashed your hood.”

“What?”

“It was a bit juvenile, I know.”

“What? Did I hear you correctly? Who the fuck are you? And how do you know my name?”

Masterson raised his clenched fist as though he was about to punch Mick in the face.

“Bad idea to do that,” said Mick. “I have this thing in my inside pocket. It’s a 9 millimetre, fifteen round EAA Witness. Solid steel construction, three dot sighting system, combat trigger guard, staggered high capacity magazine. I got it from America. It’s nice. It gets the job done. Honest.”

He opened his jacket so that Masterson could see the hard outline of the gun against the lining. Masterson’s fist still hung futilely in mid-air, then his fingers unclenched and he gingerly put his hand on the huge, wooden steering wheel.

“What do you want?” he asked, moving and speaking with a new-found, meticulous precision.

“That’ll become obvious,” said Mick. “But for now just drive.”

Masterson obeyed, and as he set the car in motion Mick admired the vehicle: the short black gear lever and silver hand brake, the serious sculpted dashboard, the long snout of the car pushing out in front of them. Then he looked out at the street they were driving along, still Masterson’s street.

“London,” said Mick. “Just like I pictured it. Skyscrapers and everything.” But Masterson didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I don’t know much about London,” Mick continued, “but this looks like a nice enough place to live. Wide streets. Plenty of trees.”

“We like it,” said Masterson.

“What would a house like yours cost?”

“We don’t have the whole house actually, just a maisonette.”

“Still, it can’t come cheap.”

“I don’t see that it’s any of your business, actually.”

“Well, I’m the one with the gun.”

“I’m not frightened of you, you know.”

“No? Then you’re very stupid. So what’s the house worth?”

It took Masterson no time at all to realize the significance of the gun.

“About two hundred grand,” he said. “It’s a very nice maisonette.”

“Well, yeah, it’d need to be. In Yorkshire that sort of money’d buy you a mansion.”

“Unfortunately I happen not to work in Yorkshire.”

“What line of work are you in anyway, Philip?”

He thought about telling Mick to mind his own business again, but he knew it would be useless.

“I work in the City,” he said.

“Yeah? Which city?”

“THE City. The City of London.”

“Yeah, but what do you do?”

“I do the kinds of thing you do in the City. I buy and sell. I deal. Brokerage. OK?”

“Oh right, I’m with you. You mean the CITY. People use the term all the time, but nobody knows what it means.”

“Some of us do.”

“Go on then.”

Patiently as if explaining to an insistent but not very bright child Masterson said, “Historically the City has been the most important financial centre in the world, a place where money and markets are made. And even though its power has declined in the face of Tokyo and New York, it still ranks in many ways as the leader in global finance. Geographically the City is the square mile of London that contains international banking institutions such as the Bank of England, Lloyd’s of London, the Stock Exchange, the Baltic Exchange et cetera, et cetera.”

“Must be handy having them all so close together.”

“In the age of the computer, less so, but for various historic reasons, mostly to, do with monarchy and empire, we’re all there together, yes.”

“So if you were a member of some terrorist gang and you planted a couple of bombs in the City, it wouldn’t matter if you missed one target, you’d still be bound to blow up something worth destroying.”