Tim Weaver - Vanished

17

Investment International was on the thirty-seventh floor of One Canada Square, right at the heart of Canary Wharf. Around it, vast buildings climbed their way into the cloudless sky, its colour an unending blue like the surface of a glacial lake. The size of the towers seemed only to amplify the heat, as if there were no space for it to escape, and One Canada Square was the biggest of them all: fifty storeys high, a mountain of steel and glass, its windows blinking in the sun like thousands of eyes.

I’d called ahead to check with the receptionist that Sam’s boss and friend Ross McGregor was in, but only that. I didn’t speak to him, or anyone else. The more time you gave people to prepare, the easier it was for them to bury their secrets. That was assuming McGregor – or anyone else at Investment International – had any secrets to bury.

I entered the building, crossed the foyer and rode the elevator up.

Ten seconds later, the doors opened out on to a smart reception area with brushed glass panels running the length of the room on my left, a curved front desk in front of that, and black leather sofas in a line on the right. Beyond the sofas were floor-to-ceiling windows with fantastic views towards South Quay.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

The receptionist looked like she’d left school about five minutes ago: she couldn’t have even been nineteen, her blonde hair scraped back into a ponytail, her skin flawless. She had the traces of a south London accent, but was obviously trying to put the brakes on it now she was working out of a Canary Wharf office block.

‘I’m here to see Ross McGregor.’

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘I don’t, no.’

She blinked. ‘Uh, okay.’

‘My name’s David Raker. I’m sure he’ll be able to spare the time to see me.’ I gave her my best smile. ‘I’ll wait over here.’

I went and sat by the window and looked at the view. The receptionist made a call, but I couldn’t hear exactly what was being said; her voice was lost behind the drone of a plane close by, dropping out of the sky towards London City Airport. After a couple of minutes she came over and told me McGregor wouldn’t be long, and then offered me something to drink. I thanked her and asked for a glass of water.

Ross McGregor emerged a quarter of an hour later and was immediately on the defensive, a scowl on his face, suspicion in his eyes as he zeroed in on me. He was a tall man in his thirties, with thick black hair – glistening slightly – swept back from his face, blue eyes and pockmarked skin. As I stood and waited for him to come over, I saw he was wearing a blue and white pinstripe shirt, a terrible maroon tie and thick black braces. Wall Street was obviously a film that didn’t come out of his DVD player much.

‘Mr McGregor, my name’s David Raker.’

I held out my hand and he took it gingerly. ‘Ross McGregor,’ he said, eyes still narrowed. ‘What is it I can do for you?’

‘I’m here about Sam Wren.’

His expression immediately softened. ‘Oh. Right.’

‘Julia said you wouldn’t mind if I came over.’

It wasn’t strictly true, but already the dynamic had changed. McGregor had known Sam since university, had headhunted him for the company. I was playing on their friendship, using it as a way in.

‘Do you have a few minutes, Mr McGregor?’

It looked like the wind had been taken out of his sails. He’d puffed himself up at the thought of coming out here to see me, readied himself for a fight. I wasn’t sure who he’d expected – because I wasn’t sure who would drop by an investment firm, thirty-seven floors up, on the off-chance of a meeting with the MD – but he hadn’t expected me and he hadn’t expected to hear the name Sam Wren.

‘Mr McGregor?’

He seemed to start, as if he’d drifted away. ‘Let’s go through,’ he said, gesturing towards a door at the far end of the glass panels.

We passed the front desk, where he told his receptionist to bring us some coffee, and then moved through the door. On the other side of the panels was a room about the same length as the reception area with sixteen desks in it, all of them filled. Some of his employees were on the phone, some were staring into their monitors.

McGregor veered left towards an L-shaped kink in the room. Off to the right was his office. It was entirely encased in glass, standing on its own like a transparent mausoleum. There were no windows on this part of the floor, but any potential darkness was offset by a series of bright halogen lamps running across the ceiling. Inside was his desk, a big leather chair, filing cabinets lined up behind him and a second table with six chairs around it, which I assumed he used for meetings. His screensaver was an extreme close-up of the side of a pound coin, shot in black and white. We sat down at the second table and he pushed the door shut.

‘I didn’t know Julia was trying to find him,’ McGregor said as he shuffled in at the table. ‘When did this start?’

‘Tuesday.’

He nodded. ‘You had any joy?’

‘Not yet.’ I got out my notepad, laid it on the table, and then removed a business card and pushed it across the desk towards him. ‘I find people,’ I said, ‘but not for the police or any other agency. Just so we’re clear.’

‘You work for yourself?’

‘Yes.’

He leaned back in his chair. ‘Do you get many jobs?’

‘Well, I’m not on the breadline.’ But I could see in his face what he really wanted to ask: how much money did I make? ‘Can you tell me how you first got to know Sam, and how he ended up here?’

‘Sure.’ He paused. He looked much more composed now. ‘We both did Banking and Finance at London Met. I was a mature student. Arsed around for a couple of years after school, did some travelling, that kind of thing. Then came back, signed up for the course, and that was how I got to know Sam. I only really became friendly with him in the second year, but we hit it off straight away. After finishing, he went into the graduate programme at HSBC and I got a job at J. P. Morgan. He didn’t really like the people at HSBC so he jumped at the chance to move across to JPM with me.’

‘Working with you, or for you?’

‘For me,’ he said, picking a hair off his cuff.

‘And then you left J. P. Morgan?’

‘Yeah.’ He shrugged. ‘I got the hump with a couple of the bosses there, and just fancied trying something myself. So I set up this place.’

‘What do you do here?’

‘We make people lots of money,’ he said, like it was the dumbest question he’d heard all day. ‘That’s the bottom line. We specialize in emerging markets: Russia, Latin America, the Middle East, the Far East. That’s why I poached Sam. He knows those markets. I didn’t just hire him ’cause he was my mate.’

‘So he was good at what he did?’

‘Very good.’

‘No problems you can remember?’

‘None.’

‘He didn’t run into any trouble with anyone?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m looking for a reason he might have left. One of the possibilities is that he ran into problems here: lost a client money, got tied up in something he shouldn’t have.’

McGregor made an oh expression. ‘I doubt it.’

‘Why?’

‘I run a tight ship. I like to keep an eye on what’s happening out there. This is my baby. My investment. It’s in my interests to keep the balance sheet close because I need to make sure we’re not losing our clients money and pissing away the goodwill we’ve built up over the last five years. Most of my people out there, they’re good, but they need a steady hand. Someone to step in and tell them what to do, and to make sure they’re not making bad decisions. Sam was different.’