Elleck had coined the advertising slogan for Globalex: ‘At Globalex, we make you richer whilst you’re just dreaming about it.’ And it was his proud boast to all potential new clients that ‘We have offices in every time zone in the world. Wherever in the world you are sleeping, Globalex is awake somewhere else, making you money.’
Sir Monty Elleck was not only good at making money, reflected Rocq, as he walked up to the sixth floor of 88 Mincing Lane, he was equally talented at spending it. The change in atmosphere from the fourth floor was similar to that of walking from economy into first class in an aeroplane. There was nothing dramatically different, but there were subtle changes, creating a most definite aura; for instance, thought Rocq, anyone much below six foot tall would have greatly benefited from a pair of stilts, which would have enabled them to see over the top of the pile of the carpet. It was when you got nearer to Elleck’s office itself that things began to change appreciably. Suddenly, the walls became oak panelled, and hung with paintings; anyone who did not know much about art but could read signatures would learn that gentlemen by the names of Gainsborough, Titian, Reynolds, Claude, Constable, Vermeer and Hals had been responsible for these paintings — originals, all.
Money dripped off the walls like running water; each time Rocq walked down here, he had the same feeling of awe, envy, and lust for money. Just in those twenty feet of corridor, he had walked past more money than almost any ordinary human being was ever going to have in a lifetime — even if he or she won the football pools every week for a year.
Elleck’s office looked like the boudoir of a successful whore — probably because it was his wife who had been responsible for the decorating. It was a curious blend of Louis XIV, Louis XVI, Robert Adam, Thomas Chippendale, the Bauhaus, and Harrods. The walls were lemon yellow, and pastel pink, with gilded friezes. The carpet was cerise, and sprinkled with Persian rugs.
Elleck’s secretary of seventeen years — and his father’s secretary before that — Miss Jane Wells, ushered Rocq in and then left, closing the door behind her.
Elleck sat in the middle of the room, behind an ornate carved mahogany desk that looked like a dressing table, on a mountainous chair which looked as if it had been stolen from an African tribal chieftain; it was so thickly upholstered that even with several inches shaved off its legs, Elleck’s short legs were still suspended above the ground.
The diminutive chairman of Globalex spoke in a high-pitched voice and as he spoke, his face always moved with a combination of nervous energy and nervous twitches that were so intense, it was always quite impossible for anyone opposite him to tell in which direction he was looking at any given time. His head was almost completely bald, but he had massive bushy eyebrows, and when he screwed up his forehead tightly, which he did every five seconds, the eyebrows shot almost to the dome of his head.
‘Good afternoon, Alex, sit down.’ He waved his pudgy fingers expansively about; Rocq cast his eyes around the room, noticing a pair of pink Victorian love-seats, a saffron chesterfield, and a small lime green armchair over by the window. There was no chair close to the desk. Rocq decided on the lime green armchair, and sat down.
Elleck never bothered with formalities — he went straight in: ‘This Israeli raid, Alex — it’s pushed quite a few metals up.’
Rocq nodded. ‘Particularly gold, Sir Monty.’
‘And silver, zinc, lead and copper.’ The Chairman proceeded to reel off from memory the current market buying and selling price of all the major metals. Rocq nodded his agreement to the prices.
‘You must be pleased to see life in the market,’ said Elleck.
‘It has been quiet recently.’
‘You still got that car of yours?’ There was disapproval in the Chairman’s voice. Although Alex qualified for a company car, the Chairman strictly forbade buying foreign; if employees wanted foreign cars, they had to buy them with their own money.
‘Yes, Sir Monty.’
‘Why don’t you buy something British? You know we would buy it for you.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Sir Monty, but there is no British car that I want.’
The Chairman shrugged, and looked at his watch. ‘It is now four-twenty. At exactly four-thirty, I want you to start selling your gold. I want you to have unloaded your entire gold position by five o’clock. You have some big customers — I don’t want to see them upset.’
‘Personally, I think the price will climb several dollars higher.’ Rocq spoke with a trace of petulance and a trace of arrogance in his voice.
Elleck’s eyebrows shot to the top of his head and hung there like two large moths; he pursed his lips and made a sound not unlike a Wellington boot being extracted from a ditch of thick mud. ‘Would you like to assume personal responsibility for any losses incurred if the price does not rise?’
‘Of course not, no.’
‘You’ve made a good profit for your clients so far today?’
Rocq nodded.
‘You bought for all your clients at four hundred and ninety-eight, I trust?’
Rocq stared at him for a moment. He wasn’t sure what was coming next. ‘No, Sir Monty, I didn’t. I waited until five hundred and nine.’
‘Why?’ asked Elleck, politely; too politely.
‘I wanted to wait until there was a definite rising pattern.’
‘I see.’ Elleck still spoke very politely. ‘When the Israelis bombed Osirak in 1981, the world press called it the greatest single act of aggression since the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. Now the Israelis do the same again, which presumably makes this morning’s raid on Osirak the second greatest single act of aggression since Pearl Harbour; the entire world starts beating a path to its nearest bullion dealer, and you alone decide to sit tight?’
‘I felt it was the right thing to do.’
The eyebrows sank down and rested on the bridge of his nose. Elleck was becoming less polite by the word. ‘You lost six of the biggest clients this firm ever had a ten dollar rise in gold, because you felt it was the right thing to do? And now you expect me to listen to your advice? You just get back down there, Alex Rocq, and at half past four, you start selling; any gold you have left in any client account by five o’clock, I am treating as your personal property and I am going to invoice you for it. Is that clear?’
‘Perfectly clear,’ said Rocq.
The chairman looked down at his desk, turned over some papers, nodded his head twice, and dismissed Rocq with a wave of his hand.
As Rocq walked down the corridor, he smarted with anger, although he knew that in view of what had happened, he had actually got off extremely lightly. He had been convinced that gold would continue to rise and would go several more dollars; he wondered why Elleck was so sure it would not, and why he was so insistent on the times. He was no prophet, thought Rocq, so what did he know? He was very interested to see what would happen to the price. Very interested indeed.
At exactly four-thirty, Daniel Baenhaker’s heart stopped beating. The surgeon at the operating table in Theatre 1 at the West Middlesex Hospital injected the heart with adrenalin; it beat again, for thirty seconds, and once more stopped. The surgeon, Harvey Johnstone-Keynes, shook his head, and looked at the clock on the wall; he was going to the theatre with his wife tonight, to see an Alan Ayckbourn play; she was mad as hell with him at the moment because, on the last two occasions when they had arranged to go, he had had to cancel out because of urgent operations. There was a danger of the same thing happening again now. If the man did die, it would solve an awful lot of problems, and with the condition he was in, the chances were, that even if he spent the next five hours operating, it would still be a waste of time; the guy had lost so much blood, he had absolutely no resistance left in him. Johnstone Keynes wanted to pull off his gloves, and say ‘That’s it.’ But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. ‘Calcium’ he said, instead, and began injecting the heart again.