Due Diligence Read online

  When I ask if she wants me to speak with Daniel's lawyers, she looks surprised. ‘Daniel’s will,’ I explain. ‘I’m an executor.’

  She seems relieved, and agrees that I should. She doesn’t want to be seen reading the will over Daniel’s unburied body. Then I ask if there’s anything else I can do, and she pushes her hair back and holds it there. Her face is red now and twisted with pain.

  ‘Who would want to kill him?’

  ‘I don’t know, Celia.’

  She shakes her head and fixes her eyes on mine. Beneath her pain there is a real perplexity. Her lips tremble: she is on the verge of tears again. ‘Why?’ is all that she says.

  5

  * * *

  Cocktails at my father’s flat in St James’s. One of the catering staff ushers me in and I take a glass from a passing tray and look around. Not as many here as I’d expected; maybe not even thirty, and a good few of those I don’t recognize. If I could be anywhere else at this moment, I would be; but I have a duty to fulfil, to the bank, and to my father.

  Charles Aldridge nods to me from near the fireplace. ‘We missed you,’ he says when I wander over. ‘Thought you wouldn’t make it.’

  This, it seems, is my invitation to mention Daniel. But I let the opportunity pass, asking after my father instead.

  ‘Edward?’ Charles looks around. ‘Haven’t seen him for a while. Quite shaken up by the news.’

  Ignoring this second opening to unburden myself, I sip the champagne. Charles Aldridge handles our family’s legal affairs, and has done for as long as I can remember. He also sits on the Carlton Brothers Board. He gave up practising as a barrister some years ago, when he turned sixty, but he has retained his obliquely probing manner. Normally it doesn’t trouble me, but right now it irks. Picking up the signal, he gestures around the room.

  ‘Into the fray?’

  I ask him how it's looking, and he runs a hand up through his thick mane of silver hair. ‘Not good. There isn’t much chance of twisting arms if they aren’t here.’

  ‘Where’s the Chairman?’

  ‘Couldn’t make it.’

  ‘The other Committee members?’

  'Two.’ He nods across the room. ‘The other five couldn’t make it either.’

  This is really not good. Tomorrow the Treasury Select Committee sits in public to ask questions about three recent privatizations, one of which was handled by Carlton Brothers. The signs are that we’ll be singled out for particular attention. In Westminster and Whitehall the knives are out for my father.

  When my grandfather died, my father became chairman of the bank and took up the family seat in the House of Lords: but unlike my grandfather, who attended the House rarely, my father has become increasingly active in Westminster. He now sits on several parliamentary committees dealing with the Ministry of Defence. When Carlton Brothers were in the running for a certain privatization, there were rumblings from our competitors in the City about unfair advantage, rumblings that were seized on by the Opposition. A suggestion came through from the Cabinet that my father might like to downgrade his role at the bank to non-executive chairman. My father bridled, but complied; and Carlton Brothers was subsequently awarded the privatization.

  But now his enemies have re-emerged. If the Select Committee focuses on Carlton Brothers tomorrow, there’ll be ample opportunity to smear the non- executive chairman. And then my father will never get the junior Ministry of Defence Procurement post that he has been promised. In fact he’ll be lucky to retain his current committee seats: his political career, to all intents and purposes, will be over.

  ‘Another?’ Sir Charles offers to take my glass, so I down the last of the champagne and he goes to fetch more. The chatter from the guests is quite loud, they must have been-here a good while. How many of them, I wonder, know about Daniel? More than a few, judging by the sympathetic and rather awkward looks I’m getting. Soon the condolences will begin, but for the time being I gaze fixedly into the middle distance, holding them off.

  The end of my father’s political career is not by any means our worst problem here; because if the Select Committee launches an assault on him tomorrow it will rebound on the bank. It’s too late for him to resign the chairmanship now — that would simply be a tacit concession of defeat. An attack on him will hurt Carltons, no question. But worse, Vance thinks it will harm the Meyers bid. And what that means for us we know only too well. Tonight was to be our last-ditch effort at containment, but most of those we were to threaten and cajole haven’t come. The day seems set to finish as it began: another disaster.

  ‘You needn’t have come over, Raef.’ Mary Needham. She touches my arm. ‘Edward’s in his study.’ Frail but formidable, that’s how Theresa describes her. A widow, Mary’s been a frequent guest at Boddington, our Gloucestershire estate, lately. She’s my father’s first female companion since my mother passed away. A good woman, and I won’t be sorry if, as he’s hinted, he finally marries her. She says it again.‘You needn’t have come.’

  ‘I look that bad?’

  ‘My dear’ — she rests her hand on my arm — ‘You look awful.’

  ‘What have I missed?’

  ‘Here?’ Her change of tack is masterly: she scans the room. ‘Not the most inspiring collection.’ She begins putting names to those faces I don’t know. Charles Aldridge returns with my glass and completes the picture: a maestro of the influence game, he knows everyone. It seems we’ve ended up with several make-weight MPs and their wives, a scattering of industrialists, plus wives, a handful of bureaucrats — Treasury and Department of Trade — unaccompanied; and in the far comer of the room a cluster of my father’s friends from the Ministry of Defence.

  ‘Not quite the turnout we’d hoped,’ Charles remarks dryly, a knuckle resting on his chin. ‘Still. Do what we can.’ Undaunted, he moves off to mingle.

  Mary touches my sleeve. ‘Edward,’ she says, and when I follow her gaze I see my father in the doorway of his study, watching me.

  It is time to face the dreadful moment.

  The study door closed and locked, he sits behind his desk and gestures to a chair. When he looks up, I see the puffiness around his red-rimmed eyes. My heart lurches. ‘Terrible business,’ he says, and his eyes flicker down again and he studies the desk in silence. Even the reflection of his grief for Daniel is painful. Looking around at the leather-bound books, I wait for him to regather his composure. ‘John called,’ he remarks finally. ‘Apparently the police were at the bank asking questions.’

  ‘Daniel was shot.’

  ‘Yes. Do they know any more? I've tried to phone you.’

  ‘I went to see Celia.’

  ‘All day?’

  ‘I went for a walk.’

  His look becomes searching. This afternoon I walked for hours down by the river, past Chelsea; walked and remembered. We must have been nine years old when Daniel spent his first summer down at Boddington. We were school-friends, and that holiday turned into an extended exploration of the estate. My parents had given me a spaniel pup, Sergeant, at the start of summer, he went with us everywhere. We swam down at the weir and played in the barns, plunging like stuntmen from the loft onto broken bales of hay. We’d rise early to go and watch the dairymen, and then the gamekeeper took us on his rounds, checking crow-traps and shooting squirrels. And then something happened. One afternoon my mother sent me to fetch Daniel back to the house for tea; he’d gone down to the river to play, and when I got down there I heard splashing. So I knelt in the grass and crept forward, meaning to scare him as I crested the rise. But he wasn’t playing. I saw him crouched on his haunches at the water’s edge, a long forked-stick in his hand. He was using the stick to fend Sergeant away from the safety of the bank. Sergeant was drowning.

  Hey.

  As I scrambled down the bank, he dropped the stick.

  He was dirty, Daniel said.

  Sergeant clambered, whimpering, onto the bank.

  Was not.

  Was so, Daniel sa
id.

  And he looked at me then in a way I’ve never forgotten, burning with some inner rage, and yet, behind it all, deeply remorseful. I picked up Sergeant and scrambled up the bank, with Daniel at my heels.

  You won’t tell, he said.

  Nearer the house, I put Sergeant down. He was shivering, but he wasn’t going to die. Daniel crouched, and tickled Sergeant's ear.

  We'll say he fell, he said.

  I didn't understand it all then. But he was nine years old, his father was dead, and for some reason his mother didn’t want him with her over summer. Did I sense even then how much he wanted what I had, the warm affection of a family? But if I did, why in the world, when we went inside, did I calmly explain to my mother that Daniel had just tried to drown Sergeant in the river?

  ‘Are you all right, Raef?’ I look up, returned suddenly to the present. ‘I called Stephen,’ my father says. Stephen Vance. ‘He seems to think it won’t derail the Meyers bid.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’ He lowers his eyes. ‘Good,’ he repeats faintly. This is even worse than I’d feared. I explain that I'll be giving Vance a hand for a while, but this doesn’t seem to register. ‘Shocking business,’ he murmurs again, and he peers down at the desk. Years ago, Daniel was like a second son to him and he seems to have slipped back there now, to those earlier times before his disappointment with Daniel set 1n.

  He served with Daniel’s father during the War, they remained friends, each becoming godfather to the other’s first and — as it turned out - only child. But Daniel’s family lived down in Dorset, and I don’t recall ever seeing Daniel until my third year of prep school. I was an adult, about twenty-five, before my father thought it appropriate to tell me most of the story.

  Daniel’s father, after bankrupting the family business, had committed suicide. It was reported in the papers as a shooting accident, and in Daniel’s presence that’s how it was always referred to: your father’s accident. But the life-insurers proved beyond doubt that it was suicide. The family was ruined. My father felt honour-bound to take over responsibility for Daniel’s education. He never explained why this entailed moving Daniel out of his old school, or why Daniel spent so many holidays with us instead of returning to his mother in Dorset.

  My own mother came to treat Daniel like a second son. Perhaps my father is remembering both of them now. His shoulders sag.

  ‘Charles doesn’t seem hopeful,’ I say, gesturing back to the door. A feeble attempt to move us on. To my relief, he grasps this straw. He pushes a list of names across the desk.

  ‘Tonight’s guest list. A red dot by the refusals.’

  The red dots are liberally scattered; everyone of consequence has declined. When I hand the sheet back, he regards it thoughtfully. We both know that just ten years ago, when my grandfather was alive and Carltons was still a real force in the City, there wouldn’t have been a single no-show.

  ‘There’s no need for you to stay, Raef.’

  ‘I’m here now.’

  ‘Have a night in with Theresa.’

  ‘She’s still down in Hampshire, with Annie.’

  He lifts his eyes from the sheet.

  'Her father’s quite ill,’ I explain.

  He nods without comment. He knows me too well not to have realized over the past few weeks that something is amiss with my marriage; he knows, but tonight all other concerns are dwarfed by the memory of Daniel. He passes a hand over his face. ‘What have the police found?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to them.’

  ‘The whole thing,’ he says quietly, brow furrowed. ‘So bloody pointless.’

  We drift into silence again. He stares at the guest list, unseeing. He’s thin and pallid, on the backs of his hands the veins stand up pale blue. We have had our differences — most, though not all, about the bank — but right here and now I want to feel that we’re together in our grief. I want to feel that every one of the walls between us is down. ‘Father. Remember when I told you Daniel was going to blow the whistle on Odin?’ He rises slowly and comes round the desk. He stops by my chair.

  ‘Let it go, Raef.’

  ‘The other night—’

  ‘Let it go.’

  A moment later and the door is unlocked and opened, and the sound of chattering guests breaks in. ‘They’re expecting us,’ he says. By the time I turn in my chair he has gone.

  Half an hour later, and I regret not leaving while I had the chance. The women all want to discuss the latest Impressionist exhibition at the Royal Academy and their husbands seem fixated on the cricket. England are touring the West Indies; to everyone’s amazement we’ve won the first Test. And every five minutes someone feels it necessary to turn me aside and offer a few discreet words of personal condolence. Inevitably there are questions: Where? Who did it? Why? To all of which my answer is a silent shake of the head and a long blank gaze into my glass.

  Charles Aldridge comes over to save me from my current persecutor, a woman I barely know who goes back to discuss Cézanne with her friends. He asks me if I’ve spoken to Gerald Wolsey yet. Wolsey, a big-wig in the DTI, the Department of Trade and Industry. ‘He’s over there with Lyle.’ Charles nods toward the terrace windows, and I freeze. Darren Lyle.

  ‘What the hell’s he doing here?’

  ‘Who, Darren?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Lyle.’

  ‘He’s giving evidence at the Select Committee tomorrow. Edward thought a little courtesy wouldn’t go amiss.’

  I make a sound. The idea that courtesy might have any effect on Darren Lyle is faintly absurd.

  ‘Yes,’ Charles murmurs. ‘Your father does have these notions.’

  Like most who have had dealings with him, Charles is well-acquainted with the more unpleasant aspects of Lyle’s character. Darren Lyle once worked for us at Carlton Brothers. For two years he was Vance’s deputy in Corporate Finance, but it’s since leaving us that his career has really taken off. Through a fierce and ruthless application of his Darren-Lyle-first policy, he’s risen to the Managing Directorship of Sandersons, another independent merchant bank much like ours. As it happens they’re running the Parnells’ defence against the Meyers. I’m not sure how much of Lyle's smiling insincerity I can take tonight.

  ‘If you want to slip away,’ Charles suggests, ‘now might be the time.’ But just then Darren spots us, and immediately he leads Wolsey across the room.

  'Too late,’ Charles murmurs.

  ‘Raef.' His face fixed into a picture of sympathetic sorrow, Darren Lyle thrusts out his hand. ‘I can’t tell you - I mean Daniel, Jesus, do they know what it’s about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I heard he was shot, is that right?’

  ‘Darren,’ I say tightly, freeing my hand, ‘not now.’

  He nods, straightening his tie. ‘Right. Right. Unbelievable.’

  Charles intervenes, introducing me to Gerald Wolsey, and the conversation turns. Wolsey, it seems, was one of the mandarins behind the push to set up a committee in the City to promote ‘best practice’ standards across the Square Mile. This committee has become one of Lyle’s pet projects. He chairs monthly meetings in the Sandersons’ Boardroom. In tribute to the chef at Sandersons, and the hopelessness of the committee’s task, it's now referred to almost universally as the Best Lunches Group. I wonder if anyone has ever mentioned that to Gerald Wolsey. An earnest-looking man, one of the grey legion that swarms into Whitehall from the suburbs each morning, I have a feeling he would not see the joke. When Charles begins to quiz Wolsey on some internal politicking at the DTI, I take Lyle by the elbow, drawing him aside.

  ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘Your old man asked me. Why, what’s the problem? I shouldn't have come?’

  He is a picture of innocence; I restrain a sudden impulse to punch him.

  ‘You’re not welcome.’

  ‘I'll get you a drink.’ He wanders across to the nearest waiter. Darren Lyle. Amazing, after all these years, how even the sight of him c
an make my hackles rise. The man exudes vigour, like some cannibal who has devoured more than his fair share of enemies; several years ago he made an attempt on Daniel and me.

  Now he chats to the waiter and smiles in my direction.

  Daniel was deputy to the Deputy Treasurer then, and I’d been in Corporate Finance for just a year. Lyle, answering to Stephen Vance, was my senior, and he seemed to take me under his wing. Darren. Darren bloody Lyle. He came within an ace of finishing my nascent career. We were working on the defence for Azart Industries at the time, a Midlands manufacturer. Lyle seemed to get cold feet about the price we’d recommended they accept. He made quite a show of it, trailing his doubts in front of me every hour. Eventually he suggested we might ask someone from our Treasury whose discretion we could rely on; someone who could give us a feel for what the market thought. I mentioned Daniel. And the rest, as they say, is history: I broke the rules. With a nudge and a wink from Lyle, I spoke to Daniel about Azarts, and so breached the Chinese Wall between the two departments. I reported Daniel’s thoughts back to Lyle, who surprised me by pointing out that I’d broken the bank’s internal regulations. He played annoyed. And that afternoon the Azarts share price took off. Before close-of-trade Darren was quizzing me on Daniel’s integrity, implying that I’d made an horrendous mistake. The next morning, after a sleepless night, I was confronted by another barrage of questions as the Azart share price continued its ascent. Was I sure, Lyle wanted to know, that Daniel and I weren’t buying for our own accounts? I swore that we weren’t. He told me not to tell Vance, but suggested I have a quiet word with my father, still Carltons’ MD, and have Daniel dismissed. I felt trapped. The world seemed to be caving in.

  Then Stephen Vance called me into his office. He’d seen Lyle and me in whispered conference; he’d been watching the Azart share price; and he’d noticed me sitting in distraction at my desk.

  Perhaps you might like to tell me, Vance said, exactly what the hell is going on.