Be Careful What You Wish For (The Clifton Chronicles) Read online

  “Did I hear you correctly, sir?”

  “You most certainly did.”

  “Then that is a buy order for one million two hundred thousand Barrington’s Shipping shares at one pound and nine shillings. Do you accept the transaction, sir?”

  “Yes, I do,” said the chairman of Farthings Bank, trying to sound pompous.

  “The deal has been closed, sir. Those shares are now held in the name of Farthings Bank. I’ll send the paperwork around for your signature later this morning.” The line went dead.

  Cedric jumped up and punched the air as if Huddersfield Town had just won the FA Cup. Sebastian would have joined him, but the phone rang again.

  He grabbed the receiver, listened for a moment, then quickly passed it to Cedric.

  “It’s David Alexander. Says it’s urgent.”

  DIEGO MARTINEZ

  1964

  36

  8:53, Monday morning

  DIEGO MARTINEZ CHECKED his watch. He couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He looked up and down the crowded corridor to make sure there was no sign of the steward, then pulled down the window, reached outside for the handle and opened the door. He jumped off the train and landed on the tracks.

  Someone shouted, “You can’t do that!”

  He didn’t waste his time pointing out that he already had.

  He began running toward the well-lit station, and he must have covered a couple of hundred yards before the platform loomed up in front of him. He couldn’t see the astonished looks on the faces of the passengers staring out of the carriage windows as he shot past them.

  “It must be a matter of life or death,” one of them suggested.

  Diego kept on running until he reached the far end of the platform. He took out his wallet on the move, and had extracted his ticket long before he reached the barrier. The ticket collector looked up at him and said, “I was told The Night Scotsman wouldn’t be arriving for at least another fifteen minutes.”

  “Where’s the nearest phone box?” Diego shouted.

  “Just over there,” the ticket collector said, pointing to a row of red boxes. “You can’t miss them.”

  Diego dashed across the crowded concourse, trying to grab a handful of coins from a trouser pocket on the run. He came to a halt outside the six phone boxes; three were occupied. He pulled open a door and checked his change, but he didn’t have four pennies; one short.

  “Read all about it!”

  He swung around, spotted the paperboy and began running toward him. He went straight to the front of a long queue, handed the lad half a crown and said, “I need a penny.”

  “Sure thing, guv,” said the paperboy, who assumed he was desperate to go to the lavatory, and quickly gave him a penny.

  Diego dashed back to the phone boxes and didn’t hear him say, “Don’t forget your change, sir,” and “What about your newspaper?” He opened a door to be greeted with the words, Out of Order. He barged into the next box just as a startled woman was opening the door. He picked up the phone, pressed four pennies into the black box and dialed CITY 416. Moments later he heard a ringing tone.

  “Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up!” he shouted. A voice finally came on the line.

  “Capel and Company. How may I help you?”

  Diego pressed button A and heard the coins drop into the box. “Put me through to Mr. Alexander.”

  “Which Mr. Alexander, A., D. or W.?”

  “Hold on,” said Diego. He placed the receiver on top of the box, took out his wallet, extracted Mr. Alexander’s card and quickly picked up the phone again. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “David Alexander.”

  “He’s not available at the moment. Can I put you through to another broker?”

  “No, put me through to David Alexander immediately,” demanded Diego.

  “But he’s on the line to another client.”

  “Then get him off the line. This is an emergency.”

  “I’m not allowed to interrupt a call, sir.”

  “You can and you will interrupt him, you stupid girl, if you still hope to have your job tomorrow morning.”

  “Who shall I say is calling?” asked a trembling voice.

  “Just put me through!” shouted Diego. He heard a click.

  “Are you still there, Mr. Hardcastle?”

  “No, he’s not. This is Diego Martinez, Mr. Alexander.”

  “Ah, good morning, Mr. Martinez. Your timing couldn’t be better.”

  “Tell me you haven’t sold my father’s Barrington’s shares.”

  “But I have, in fact, just before you came on the line. I’m sure you’ll be delighted to hear that one customer took all one million two hundred thousand of them—in normal circumstances it might have taken two, possibly even three weeks to offload them all. And I even got a shilling more than the opening price.”

  “How much did you sell them for?”

  “One pound and nine shillings. I have the sale order in front of me.”

  “But they were two pounds and eight shillings when the market closed on Friday afternoon.”

  “That’s correct, but there seems to have been a great deal of activity in this stock over the weekend. I assumed you’d be aware of that, and it was one of the reasons I was so delighted to get them all off the books so quickly.”

  “Why didn’t you try to contact my father to warn him that the shares had collapsed?” shouted Diego.

  “Your father made it clear that he would not be available over the weekend, and wouldn’t be returning to London until tomorrow morning.”

  “But when you saw the share price had collapsed, why didn’t you use your common sense and wait until you’d spoken to him?”

  “I have your father’s written instructions in front of me, Mr. Martinez. They could not be clearer. His entire holding of Barrington’s stock was to be placed on the market when the Exchange opened this morning.”

  “Now listen to me, Alexander, and listen carefully. I’m ordering you to cancel that sale and get his shares back.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. Once a transaction has been agreed, there is no way of reversing it.”

  “Has the paperwork been completed?”

  “No, sir, but it will have been before the close of business this evening.”

  “Then don’t complete it. Tell whoever bought the shares there’s been a mistake.”

  “The City doesn’t work like that, Mr. Martinez. Once a transaction has been agreed, there’s no going back, otherwise the market would be in perpetual turmoil.”

  “I’m telling you, Alexander, you will reverse that sale, or I will sue your company for negligence.”

  “And I’m telling you, Mr. Martinez, that if I did, I would be up in front of the Stock Exchange council, and would lose my license to trade.”

  Diego changed tack. “Were those shares purchased by a member of the Barrington or Clifton families?”

  “No, they were not, sir. We carried out your father’s instructions to the letter.”

  “So who did buy them?”

  “The chairman of an established Yorkshire bank, on behalf of one of his clients.”

  Diego decided the time had come to try another approach, one that had never failed him in the past. “If you were to mislay that order, Mr. Alexander, I will give you one hundred thousand pounds.”

  “If I did that, Mr. Martinez, I would not only lose my license, but end up in jail.”

  “But it would be cash, so no one would be any the wiser.”

  “I am the wiser,” said Alexander, “and I shall be reporting this conversation to my father and brother at the next partners’ meeting. I must make my position clear, Mr. Martinez. This firm will not be doing business with you, or any member of your family, in the future. Good day, sir.”

  The line went dead.

  * * *

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

  “I’m an optimist