A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks Read Free Book Online Page A

interested in that. I want it very thin, with Dijon mustard in the sauce and a few green leaves, maybe rocket. Then I want roast chicken. No, I don't want coq au vin. I want plain roast chicken, lots of salt on the skin, roast potatoes, not small ones, proper size and cauliflower cheese. That's it. OK? And some gravy. No, not fucking jus . Gravy. And my friend will have a cheeseburger.'
    'Sir, we do not have--'
    'Yes, you do. You have filet mignon. Mince it up. Get a bun. You have a cheeseboard here. Look. It says here, PS5 supplement! Get a slice off it. You can do it. It's what you do.'
    It was worse when the heads of American banks were with him. Even when one of them had been persuaded to try something that was actually on the menu he would change his mind after it had been delivered and send it away again. 'Just bring me some clams.' 'Sorry, sir, we have no--' 'Here's PS50. Go and buy some.'
    John Veals hated holidays, but once, in the burning summer of 2003, Vanessa had told him that if he didn't come with her to an Italian villa for a fortnight she would leave him. It was an immense palazzo, the last cool building in the European heatwave, with a mosaic-tiled swimming pool, a small olive grove, eight bedrooms, silent icy air conditioning, a live-in couple and a view of poplared hills that might have brought a spasm of joy to Giorgione. Veals left three days early for an unmissable appointment in New York and discovered on his arrival at his Manhattan hotel that Vanessa had bought the villa for PS2.5 million.
    'How did you manage that?' he asked by phone from his room.
    'I contacted the agent and they put me in touch with the owner. And I asked him how much he wanted for it.'
    'You did what?'
    'You know you gave me access to the Bermuda accounts. You remember, last year when--'
    'Yeah, yeah, it's not that. It's how you did it. Did you say you asked him how much he wanted?'
    'Yes, I asked him how much he--'
    'That's no fucking way to trade.'
    'Do you think it's too much, John?'
    'I've no idea. It's just the principle of the thing. Asking him what he wants! For Christ's sake, Vanessa.'
    As the clock showed six, John Veals went to the bookcase in the corner of his office, removed a few volumes and opened a small safe behind them. He took out a brown envelope that contained three sheets of photocopied A4 paper. He sat down, tilted the back of his chair and put his feet up on the desk again while he examined the papers. It was not the first time he'd read them.
    For more than two years, he had been watching Allied Royal Bank. It was a fine institution in many ways. Its roots were in the empire and its branches were in the high street. It looked after more institutional pensions than any other bank and it was laughingly said that the future happiness of one in three Britons over sixty-five years old depended on it. People joked that the four-legged runner of its logo, intended by a management consultant to represent 'diverse synergy', looked like a walking frame. It was associated in the public mind with low-risk, traditional banking; one of its small branches had been in Edgware, and it was here that the eighteen-year-old John Veals had opened his own first bank account with PS25 he'd earned in his uncle's betting shop. He had been with ARB in various ways ever since, and High Level used the Victoria branch for some of its day-to-day needs.
    Allied Royal, however, wasn't altogether happy with the idea of itself as the old person's friend, the knitted cardigan of the banking world. It had therefore developed an aggressive investment banking arm which had generated most of its profits over the last two decades. Largely through its business in derivatives (many relating to commodities it had traded for real in empire days) the management had been able to deliver an average of twenty per cent a year to the shareholders.
    Veals had sensed, however, from the way the share price moved from day to day, that all might not be what it