Dead Cat Bounce (17 page)

The announcer was now calling the runners, and Jonah made his way to the start. This was his first race since the end of the term and the summer holidays. It was a new set of competitors, and he had no coach with him and no teammates. He was on his own.

The starter called out, “On your marks,” and Jonah stuck his elbows out to create space for himself. “Get set!” He bent his legs further. “Go!” He rocketed away, almost sprinting to get to the front, his pace at one hundred strides a minute, wanting to nose in front before the curve in the track four hundred yards after the start. “Got it, through it, now pump it,” he said to himself. It was one of the motivation techniques he used: a constant commentary rolling through his mind.

The track was brown gravel, and Jonah wore spiked shoes to give himself an added advantage over this opening stretch. His feet would hurt later on, but he’d cope with that. The first two miles of the race were flat, but after that, there was a short, steep hill. This was where he’d bargain on opening up a gap. They’d expect him to ease off at this point, not hit it harder. He accelerated up the hill, his heart rate rising, and felt the cool air streaming past his face, barely noticing the
rabbits scurrying for their burrows as he pounded past them, determined to show the other racers that Richmond Park was his to win.

Four miles later and with a little more than a mile to go, his body was beginning to rebel against his earlier aggression. His breathing was becoming ragged, and pain suffused his whole body. He had set a furious pace that had opened up a substantial gap at halfway and held it for the next few miles. Now it was a case of trying to hang on until the end.

He was passing Richmond Gate when a female voice shouted. “Go Jonah! Go! Go!” He allowed himself a moment to glance over. It was Creedence! She was riding on a bicycle alongside the track, hair flowing behind her.

Jonah couldn’t believe she’d actually come to watch him. He couldn’t lose now, not in front of her. He’d have to dig even deeper.

Half a mile to go.

Jonah was feeling real pain now. His face was screwed up, his head thrown back, his mouth open gulping oxygen to feed his rapidly tiring legs. He used Creedence as a pacemaker as she rode alongside him, standing on the pedals, shouting encouragement, her center of gravity slightly behind the seat to counter the effects of the slope they were now cutting across. But it wasn’t enough. He knew they were catching him.

Five hundred and fifty yards to go.

“He’s closing!” Creedence yelled.

Jonah glanced behind to see a tall, dark-haired runner closing the gap fast. The man was twenty yards away; now fifteen.

“Go Jonah! Go!” screamed Creedence again.

Jonah could feel his heart rate speed up past his usual 175
beats per minute. There were two hundred yards to the finish, and Jonah was only five yards in front.
Come on Jonah!
he screamed at himself.

Fifty yards ahead was a small bridge, at each end of which were double fenced gates to slow cyclists pedaling along the track. Jonah knew that these would also bring the runners to a near standstill. There would only be room for one at a time through the gates, and whoever was through first would be almost guaranteed victory. Jonah had to get to the bridge before anyone else managed to reach it.

He saw Creedence veer off to the right to find another way across the ditch, and he could feel the other runner on his shoulder. The runner pulled out to the side and moved ahead of Jonah a fraction. Jonah tried to up his own speed, but there was no kick left. He wouldn’t make it.

But as he raced toward the first double fence ahead another option entered his head. A risky option. A Whistler option. There would be no margin for error.

The bigger runner was a yard ahead now and began to slam his feet into the ground, reaching out his right arm to use the fence post to help slow him down and maneuver himself through the gate.

Jonah, however, did the opposite. He didn’t slam his feet into the ground. He didn’t slow down. He ran hard straight at the fence, pushing up and over it with every ounce of energy he had left.

And somehow it worked. He was over the fence and back in front. He would be through the second gate in the lead, and from there he knew he could hold on. The crowd roared with excitement, and Creedence appeared again to his right, screaming, “Yeahhhhhhh!” and punching her arm in the air. “Yeahhhhhh!”

Jonah crossed the line, breaking the tape, gasping for breath. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground, shaking, and close to retching. A pair of feet materialized in front of him, dancing up and down manically, and he felt two hands reach under his armpits, helping him to his feet.

“You’re amazing! Amazing! Amazing! Amazing!” screamed Creedence, holding him upright with her tight embrace.

Jonah rested his chin on the top of her head, relishing the warmth of the hug and the smell of her hair.

They rode back to the house together on Creedence’s bike. Jonah was on the seat, hands on Creedence’s waist as she stood and pedaled them along Roehampton Lane from the park toward Jonah’s house.

“Sit still, you fool! You’ll kill us both,” she mocked.

“You should sit where I’m sitting and tell me if you could stay still,” Jonah replied.

“Shut up and enjoy the view.”

They cut across Barnes Common, rode down the bus lane on Castelnau, and turned left into Lonsdale Road before ending up at Jonah’s house. “Do you want to come in for a coffee?” he asked. “My dad’s away. Meeting with one of his Russian clients again, I presume.”

Creedence pursed her lips. “Sadly not.”

“Oh, can you not stand my musky male scent?” Jonah flexed for effect. He really was quite sweaty from the race.

“Actually, that’s a reason to stay. I love
eau de
need a shower.” She pretended to take a whiff of him, giggling. “Unfortunately, the issue
is that I’m supposed to be on a train to East Anglia to see my grandmother. Instead I’m on my bike in West London talking to you.”

“Oh, that’s not an issue,” Jonah replied, leaning against the doorpost. “Phone her and tell her you’ve come down with a horrible case of must-hang-out-with-Jonah-itis.”

Creedence laughed. “She won’t believe that. I’ll have to tell her the truth: that I was watching a potential Olympic superstar.”

Jonah shrugged. “Guess as long as you tell her the superstar part.”

“Oh, I will.”

He leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned her face so that their lips met. The kiss was magical, their first real one. It was soft and tender, and Creedence tasted of cappuccino and cherry, the latter most likely from her lip gloss. It was a kiss that Jonah never wanted to end.

Eventually, though, like all things it did. “Thanks for coming,” he whispered as she pulled away.

“Of course,” she whispered back, her eyelashes self-consciously fluttering.

“I’ll come and find you at work. Okay?”

She nodded. “Definitely okay!” she answered with uninhibited enthusiasm, playfully shoving him toward the house. “Now go and have a hot bath. I bet you won’t be able to move tomorrow!” She turned the bike back down the road and cycled away, waving at him as she went.

Jonah let himself into the deserted house, taking a deep breath as he did so. The effort of the race was now hitting him. At least sleep would make Monday arrive quicker.

Monday didn’t turn
out the way that Jonah had been hoping for, however. He woke up to discover that Allegro Home Finance was going down. Overnight in America, the U.S. government had made a public statement that there would be no bailout or rescue. It was all over the radio. Bankruptcy was the only option. For the first time since Jonah knew him, the Baron had got it wrong.

In Africa, Kloot was catatonic. He had been given incorrect information and was now sitting on a two-billion-dollar loss. As soon as Allegro Home Finance formally declared its bankruptcy, he would be asked for the money to cover those losses, money he didn’t intend to part with. Time was of the essence. Operatives placed inside trading teams would offload the trades onto someone else; hit teams would ensure no further collateral damage from this disaster. There was one thing Kloot knew for certain: If Allegro was going down, they weren’t taking him with them.

Jonah arrived in the office by six o’clock on Monday morning and was thankful that he had. When the Baron arrived an hour later he was in a foul mood and merely grunted at Jonah as he passed. He was unshaven, wearing clothes that looked as if he had slept in them, and mentally he seemed to be somewhere that no one else could enter. He was a man possessed: punching buttons on his keyboard, punching buttons on the comms board, punching buttons on his phone.

Jonah didn’t know what to do, so he kept his head down and out of the Baron’s way. He was tempted to tell him that it really wasn’t
that
much of a big deal—they had made two hundred and fifty million last week and had only lost twenty-five million with the Allegro bankruptcy. But he reasoned that there was no way the Baron would look on this comment favorably. He really hated to lose.

Jonah thought that the Baron’s ill temper would be the worst of it, and perhaps a slight scaling down of bonuses, but at eleven o’clock the news began to spread that Clive from Settlements had been found dead at his home.

It was Birdcage who was first on the case. He shot upward out of his desk like some amphetamined jack-in-the-box and shouted, “Oi! Apparently, Clive has killed himself.”

The other heads in the Bunker all popped up. They, too, had been keeping a low profile until then. “What?” they chimed in unison.

“Topped himself,” Birdcage repeated. “Dead. Kaput.”

“What happened?” Jonah asked. He’d only met Clive once a week ago, and the only thing they’d had in common was their mutual admiration for the Baron. He’d struck him as a harried, overworked
man who didn’t seem to grasp the excitement of trading, only the logistics. He couldn’t imagine what it must have come to for him to take his own life.

“Killed his wife and then shot himself.” Birdcage shook his head. “I’ve just spoken to his secretary.” Turning to Jonah, he said, “Been banging her.” Then he refocused back on the group, leaving Jonah to wonder exactly what kind of girl would go for Birdcage’s particular brand of cluelessness. “They’ve had a call from the Essex police asking them if they could confirm he worked at Hellcat. She took the call. Cops told her the cleaner found him.”

“Was there a lot of blood?” ogled Dog.

“For God’s sake, Dog,” Milkshake admonished. “It’s someone we know, not some scene from a Tarantino film.”

Jonah was surprised to see that for once Milkshake had pulled himself from the fray enough to make a reasonable point.

“It was just a question,” Dog insisted, his expression completely devoid of any semblance of guilt. “Anyway, I bet he did it because he found out his wife was shagging someone else.”

“How much?” challenged Jeeves. “Let’s take bets.” He walked over to the empty fish tank and grabbed a felt-tip pen.

“Good idea!” Dog exclaimed. “Crime of passion: evens.”

“Stock market losses?” suggested Birdcage.

“Could be, could be,” said Dog. “Give you twos on that. Fives it was because he was gay and she found out.”

Jeeves scribbled the odds on the glass.

Jonah couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Were the Bunker Boys really taking bets on why Clive had committed suicide?
He knew they dealt with stress in unusual ways—he never forgot how
they all piled on Birdcage his first day on the desk—but this was a whole other level.

“Maybe she shot him and then herself?” Milkshake offered, joining in on the action.

Jonah sighed. He guessed his original impression of him was right.

The sound caught Dog’s attention. “Oh, Jonah, we almost forgot about you! What’ll it be?”

Jonah struggled for a response. “No thanks, I—”

Suddenly the Baron’s voice roared violently out above the grim chatter. “Will you shut the hell up! This is not the pub or the bookies or your poker school. Get on with your work. Make some money.”

The heads went down. This was a day to keep your mouth shut.

“Your cappuccino. Not
too much milk this time.” Jonah looked up from the newspaper he was reading at the coffee shop the next day to see a smiling woman, probably in her mid-forties. She’d somehow remembered him from the previous week. It was the first time since last Monday that he’d been late enough for the coffee bar to be open, and this time it was mostly because he could barely bring himself to face another day like the one he’d had yesterday.

“Thanks,” he said, folding his newspaper as he took the coffee. Still, though, his eyes kept trailing back to the front-page headline: “City Trader Tops Himself.” The article went on to ask whether this was the first suicide of the market crash and recalled stockbrokers jumping from the window ledges of their offices in 1929 after the markets went similarly bust.
Dog would be happy
, thought Jonah as he walked the last few hundred yards to Helsby Cattermole—there had been plenty of blood. “Blew his head off with a shotgun after blasting his wife,” according to the article.