Читать книгу The Money Makers - Harry Bingham - Страница 40

Zack burst into Hanbury’s office. Hanbury, who was married, was on the phone to his mistress and was less than pleased to be interrupted. He waved Zack out of the room, but Zack, typically, took this as a signal to sit down. Hanbury finished his call abruptly, ‘Look, I’ll see you at the opera tonight. Don’t be late,’ then turned to Zack. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve got a way to rescue the Aberdeen Drilling deal. I think we can get back into it.’

‘We’ve already lost. The deal’s over. And I don’t want you bursting in –’

‘Yes, but we bid too low. I know it’s late, but if we came back with a bid, say ten million higher, even twelve –’

‘Oh, don’t be stupid. We’ve lost. The other guys won. Our fee went down the pan. It’s over. Now, will you –’

‘But you haven’t heard my idea. Listen. Tominto Oil lost a lot of money drilling unsuccessfully for oil in Nigeria. In total, it threw away sixty million bucks without tax relief. Aberdeen Drilling, on the other hand, has a profitable subsidiary out there –’

‘I don’t want to know. Shut up and get out.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t want to know? I’m bringing you the solution here.’

Hanbury had a quick temper and Zack’s mistimed intrusion guaranteed a vintage display. The senior banker stood up, incensed.

‘This is the last time I’m going to tell you. The deal is dead and I don’t need your kindergarten tax scams. Now get out of my room and stay out.’

Zack had worked hard on his tax idea. His concept was that under Nigerian tax laws, Tominto’s losses could be used to offset Aberdeen Drilling’s profits. After intensive research, he was pretty sure it could be done, and had fondly imagined that Hanbury would be only too pleased to get back into the race. Zack was suddenly angry. Angry, and out of control.

‘Jesus Christ! I come in here with a good idea – an idea to save a deal and earn a fee – and you are too pompous, too arrogant, too fucking stupid to even hear it. I don’t know why I bothered.’

Zack turned to go, but Hanbury flew to the door and flung it shut. Hanbury put his face a couple of inches away from Zack’s and hissed at him.

‘How dare you say that? How dare you? If you want to continue another day in this bank, you will put a letter of apology on my desk by nine o’clock tomorrow morning. A full and complete apology. If I am satisfied – if I am – then we will talk with personnel about getting you transferred to an area where you won’t come into contact with clients, because I’m damned if I’ll ever trust you with a client again. Is that perfectly clear?’

If Zack had been able to think clearly, he would have been best advised to apologise profusely, to beg forgiveness on his knees if he had to. Piers St George Hanbury was Coburg’s most successful dealmaker, and whatever he wanted, the bank would give him. But, as Sarah Havercoombe for one could testify, Zack wasn’t the sort to think clearly when he was angry. He leaped to Hanbury’s desk.

‘I’ll give you a letter of apology, right here and right now.’

He grabbed pen and paper, and wrote in capitals: ‘DEAR MR HANBURY, I AM VERY SORRY THAT YOU ARE SUCH A POMPOUS DICKHEAD. YOURS MOST SINCERELY, ZACK GRADLEY.’

Leaving the letter on Hanbury’s desk and shaking with anger, Zack sped from the room.

He left the bank in a foul mood. The row seemed pretty much fatal. If Hanbury carried out his threat to prevent him from seeing clients – to move him to the so-called back office – then Zack’s career would be killed stone dead. At first the gap in pay was small, the difference in responsibility hardly noticeable. But as time moved on, and the front office staff made it to associate director and then just director, their peers in the back office were wondering if they would ever make it beyond manager. A well-regarded thirty-year-old in the front office would be deeply upset if his end-of-year bonus was less than his already generous annual salary. His back office colleague took home a thousand pounds extra at Christmas and was grateful.

Zack left the building, eyes on the ground, collar raised against a thin December sleet, and stepped blindly out on to the zebra crossing leading to Bank tube station. A silver-green Jaguar, which had been driving too fast along the little street, squealed to a halt, skidding in the wet.

‘Screw you, you goddamn idiot. Look where you’re going.’ A distinguished-looking man with swept-back silver hair stuck his head out of the car window, the better to yell at Zack.

‘Screw you yourself, you geriatric shit-for-brains,’ yelled Zack, pleased to have an opportunity to vent his feelings.

‘Next time I won’t apply the brakes, you jerk.’

The man in the car was really shouting. His silver hair had come away from his head and shook like an angry mane. His accent was mid-Atlantic. Zack couldn’t tell if he was a Brit who had just come back from a long stay in the States, or a Yank who’d been in London too long. Either way, he looked like a viscount and swore like a trooper. Zack couldn’t help liking him. Zack yelled something obscene and stomped off.

He felt better for the row. Sod Hanbury. Zack would never apologise. Besides, he’d had a better idea.