At MI6 her first week was filled with a relentless series of induction briefings. She understood the need for these, but it was still frustrating not to be able to get on with the work she’d been appointed to do – though even that presented a complication: Jasminder’s job was to represent the Service to the world outside, yet the media enquiries pouring into MI6 at the moment were all about her, not the Service.
As she hastily drank a cup of tea during a short snatched break and looked at the stack of phone messages on her desk, she found herself dreading a return to her newly fortified house, and yet another media scrum outside the front door in the morning.
Then Laurenz once again came to the rescue. Since her first night with him she had seen him several times, but then suddenly he’d gone away – seeing clients in Copenhagen. On her way home after the third day at work her mobile rang, she looked at the number and answered it at once. Her voice must have given her mood away for Laurenz said, ‘Hi, darling, I’m back.’
‘Thank God.’
‘You sound terrible. What’s the matter?’
She explained, and he said at once: ‘The bank owns a flat and I’m using it. Come and stay with me for a few days until the fuss dies down. Don’t worry, it will. Nothing lasts for more than five days in the popular press. Get some things and take the tube to Moorgate. Text me when you’re at Angel station ready to get on the train and I’ll meet you at Moorgate where you come up from the Northern Line.’
So seven-thirty saw her clutching a small overnight bag, on the up escalator at Moorgate station. She waved when she saw Laurenz standing at the top, waiting for her. As they walked along Moorgate he explained that the bank’s flat was normally reserved for colleagues visiting from abroad; Laurenz had been loaned it temporarily while his divorce worked its messy way to a conclusion because his own flat was let.
The apartment, in a tall glass-faced block, was smalclass="underline" one reasonable-sized living room with a galley kitchen screened off by a granite counter with bar stools, and one bedroom. It was modern, impersonal and soulless, but also blissfully private. Laurenz said he didn’t have a clue who else lived in the building. He rarely saw or heard anyone. The most he noticed was the hum of the lift going up and down. ‘I thought we’d eat in,’ he announced, handing Jasminder a large glass of Sancerre. ‘That way you can stop looking over your shoulder every thirty seconds.’
He cooked garlic prawns and pasta, and they ate at the counter, sitting on the bar stools. When she asked him where he’d learned to cook, he shrugged. ‘My mother wasn’t often around, and my father thought being in the kitchen was unmanly. I didn’t have much choice: if I didn’t cook, I didn’t eat.’
‘This was in Norway?’ she asked, eager to learn more about his background.
‘Of course,’ he said simply. ‘But I want to hear all about you. How’s the new job going? Have you learned loads of secrets? Tell me everything.’
She smiled. ‘No, I haven’t learned any secrets yet. I’ve spent my time learning who does what and where everything is and trying not to get lost in that complicated building. And fending off the media, who all want to interview me about my background and my thoughts on working women and careers and all sorts of other stuff that I’m not going to talk about.’
Laurenz grinned. ‘You’re the perfect role model. But hang in there! They’ll get used to you.’ They fell silent until Jasminder asked about his work at the bank.
‘I work exclusively with private clients. Wealthy individuals, unsurprisingly. Some of them are quite interesting – especially the ones who’ve made their money themselves. You don’t have to be an intellectual to make a fortune, but you can’t be stupid either. And there are some real eccentrics.’ Jasminder laughed as he described the software inventor who put gloves on to shake hands; the oil mogul who installed solar panels on his house on the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen, only to discover it received less sunshine than any other place in the world; and the hedge-fund founder who had amassed the world’s largest collection of ten-pin bowling balls.
‘How bizarre,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone really rich.’
‘These are people who have so much money that they can do anything they want, indulge absolutely any interest they have. However weird it seems to the rest of the world, they don’t care – they can afford not to. But when it comes to money, they are deadly serious, and they can get very worried. The world seems increasingly unstable to the very rich. For these people globalisation is a two-edged sword: it’s easy now to make investments all over the world in countless different ways; it’s hard, though, to find places where you feel your money is safe.’
‘Is that what you do for them then?’
Laurenz nodded. ‘For the most part, yes. There’s a lot of hand-holding involved. They often invite me to meals or to stay in their places. They like the pretence that I’m a friend. But the bottom line is that they have hired me to protect their most important interest – which is their assets.’
‘It must make for a strange relationship.’
‘It does. There’s no real friendship in it, in spite of superficial appearances. They expect a high level of fiscal performance, and you don’t get any applause for doing well – it just means they keep employing you. But if their cocoa futures dip for six hours, I’ll get a phone call right away, no matter what time it is, and it won’t be very friendly.’
They had moved to the sofa, and he was pouring Jasminder some coffee now. She asked, ‘How can you cover such a range of investments, and in so many places?’
‘It’s not easy. I travel a lot, as you know, and I talk to people who travel even more than I do. But I’m heavily reliant on data banks. They’re not always very good, and the private sector will always lag behind governments in collecting the best information. That’s what I envy about your job.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Simply that you have access to unparalleled collections of data. Your new employers have the money to buy all the private ones, but they also have their own sources – and the CIA’s. And probably the French, German, Spanish and Scandinavian intelligence services’ as well if they need them. It’s a pity people like me can’t have access to them – I mean, to the unclassified parts of course. I bet ninety-nine per cent of the information is perfectly harmless, in terms of security, but it’s all completely locked up, and the security services hold the key.’
He paused for a moment, then seemed to think of something. He said, ‘If you really want to change the image of the organisation, a first step would be to let people with legitimate purposes have access to some of your research data. Then you wouldn’t have Snowden-types stealing millions of documents without any regard for what should be secret and what not. There wouldn’t be any point in exposing stuff that was already available.’
Jasminder nodded; it seemed sensible enough, provided that what needed to be secret was kept separate from what didn’t. That should be easy enough to do, she thought.
‘Sounds a good idea,’ she said. ‘But I’m very new to all this. It may be more difficult than it sounds. I like knowing more about your work, though. My friend Emma was asking me about what you do and I realised I couldn’t actually tell her.’
‘Why did she want to know?’ The question was sharp.
‘She’s one of my closest friends, so naturally I told her I was seeing you.’ Jasminder felt his eyes fix on her. ‘Is there anything wrong with that?’
He smiled suddenly. ‘Of course not.’
‘Emma’s hoping to meet you. I thought we might have dinner one night.’