‘I’d as soon walk the last bit.’ Quaint was a big man — an inch taller than the six-foot banker and ten years or so his senior: the face was florid and the large frame running to fat. He had spoken earlier of playing Rugby for the Army twenty-five years ago. Now he looked as though the two-hundred-yard length of Berkeley Street was more exercise than he took most days. ‘Unless you’d come in for a brandy? Ali was a bit light on the extras. Claret was good.’

  ‘But not much of it. No, I can’t stop. Another time, perhaps.’ Treasure smiled. His companion had consumed three-quarters of the single claret decanter by himself. ‘Butler’s possibly converting to Islam.’

  ‘Or on the fiddle. Shifty-looking. Wouldn’t trust him with my shopping-list.’

  ‘It may just be Ali’s frugality,’ Treasure offered charitably. ‘Consumables are provided with the house, but I think our young sheikh is kept on a pretty tight budget.’

  Quaint glanced sideways at the speaker. ‘Er …’ he hesitated, then seemed to make up his mind … ‘that was something I wanted a word on, as a matter of fact.’ He stopped again, then nodded pointedly at the chauffeur.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Treasure quietly. From experience he trusted Henry Pink not to register business confidences — even those he understood. The one that followed he never heard, since Quaint had dropped his voice so low.

  ‘We’re paying Ali two hundred thou. Half now, the rest on completion. There’s a matching deal on the marina contract.’

  ‘You mean a personal payment?’

  Quaint nodded. ‘It’s above board … in a sense. Audit proof, if you follow me. He’s got one of those all-purpose consultancy companies in Zürich. They’re invoicing us for architectural services.’

  ‘Are they indeed? And it’s Ali’s company? Nothing to do with Seawell or Abu B’yat?’ He thought he knew the answer to this already. If there had been an official Abu B’yat-owned consultancy in Switzerland he would have heard about it.

  ‘It’s his private outfit all right. Nothing to prove the connection, though. Sinking fund for a new toy boat, I’d say.’

  ‘That’s probably sharply apposite.’ Treasure avoided showing his extreme displeasure at the news.

  ‘He told me we’d get detailed invoices. The first one came last week. Very er … creative.’

  ‘But nothing in writing between you and Ali?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  At least the young sheikh was not as naïve as he appeared in at least one important area — even if the fact did him no credit.

  ‘You’ve told Gerald Head?’

  ‘No. Didn’t seem necessary. Didn’t affect our getting the contract.’ Quaint had expected to note undisguised doubt on the banker’s face. ‘Ali raised it after our bid had been accepted.’

  Treasure supposed he would have to take the man’s word on that. ‘And you’re telling me now?’ They were approaching the Ritz. He raised his voice to speak to the driver. ‘Go round Berkeley Square, will you, Henry?’

  ‘Gerald says you’re Mr Big with the Emir. If we do the right job in Tophaven, will it put us on the inside track for work in Abu B’yat?’

  The car was moving slowly down Dover Street. ‘It might, yes.’

  ‘Nothing better than that?’

  ‘A bit better, perhaps. Ali’s told you something different?’

  ‘Very different.’ Quaint leaned sideways, closer to Treasure. His elbow pressed hard into the wide armrest between them. The camelhair topcoat increased his bulk so that his size and proximity were almost menacing. ‘Look, we’ll be lucky to break even on Sandy Lane.’ This was delivered in a desperate undertone. ‘If, if the marina goes through, we’ll be better placed to make some sort of profit. Not much. The real pay-off has to come from work we get in the Emirate. There’s a new hospital scheduled for next year, an airport, an industrial complex, God knows how many housing projects …’

  ‘All subject to the usual tendering.’

  ‘Tendering my foot. Ali’s promised if we make sure Tophaven comes in on the nose, including his cut, he can fix it we get twenty million-plus in work out there. In the next three years. His percentage will stay the same.’

  ‘Then it’s up to you to decide whether he can deliver.’

  ‘You don’t believe he can?’ Quaint fell back on to the seat. Now he looked strained and exhausted.

  ‘Honestly, I’ve no idea. These people can be very inscrutable. I get along fairly well with the Emir. It’s still a pretty arm’s length relationship.’

  ‘Does Ali rate with him?’

  ‘Higher than any of his other brothers. Not as high as his sons, but they’re none of them through with higher education yet. Depending how well he does in London, it’s possible Ali could go back as Development Minister in a year or two. That would certainly give him the clout to do what you want.’ Quaint made no immediate response. ‘Go round the square again, Henry,’ Treasure ordered.

  ‘No, driver. Let me off here. Thank you, Mark.’

  Pink stopped the car appropriately outside the Barclay Rolls-Royce showroom. He got out and held a rear door open.

  ‘Suppose I should have kept my mouth shut,’ muttered Quaint, preparing to leave.

  Inwardly Treasure agreed. ‘I’ll respect the confidence, but with your permission I’ll tell Gerald Head what you’ve told me.’ His tone allowed for no option.

  The big man nodded. ‘But not the Emir?’

  Treasure hesitated. ‘Not the Emir. If I wanted to change my mind on that I’d tell you in advance.’

  ‘It’s just we’ve got so much riding on this business. A real commercial footing in the Middle East. It’s a lifeline. You understand?’

  Treasure’s instinct was to understand Roxton International had more riding on Ali’s promises than was corporately prudent. Aloud he said, ‘Seems you’ve got phase one in the bag. The rest could fall into place. Goodbye.’ He held out his hand.

  Chapter Three

  Merchant banks are a dying breed: people have been saying so for more than a century. Rival institutions have grown fat trading on the merchant banker’s traditional preserve — notably in the lending and underwriting of venture capital.

  But raising the wind through the Treasury, an insurance company, or even a High Street bank will never be quite like borrowing from a Rothschild or a Baring or a Schroder. It’s the personal touch.

  Cosimo de’ Medici had the nuances figured when he got the idea moving in the fifteenth century: he was also right about keeping the scale big — and the riff-raff out.

  It’s true that not all the banks these days carry the family names of the dynasties that once funded kings and wars (sometimes both sides) and new countries — even new continents.

  It was after World War Two that the family bankers — who might be termed the Gentlemen — decided seriously on the good sense of introducing talented outsiders into their folds — people who might be called the Players.

  In no time the Players were assimilated and became indistinguishable from the Gentlemen. Equally the Gentlemen became much better Players — proving, or disproving, the adage that heredity is all, whichever conclusion you prefer.

  Mark Treasure joined Grenwood, Phipps after Oxford, the Bar and the Harvard Business School. He was made Chief Executive just before his fortieth birthday. He didn’t behave like a ‘high flier’: but he performed like one.

  Lord Grenwood, now in his late seventies, is the great-grandson of one of the bank’s co-founders. He is non-Executive Chairman because it gives him something to do, keeps him out of his wife’s way, and because he is the biggest shareholder. It also sometimes gets him into situations he’d much rather avoid — as at 3.15 p.m. on Friday, November 15, the day Treasure lunched with Prince Mhad Alid and Anthony Quaint.

  ‘Are you sure Mr Treasure’s not back yet … er … my dear?’ the aged Peer enquired of his secretary in an agitated stage whisper. The girl, whose name he had forgotten — again — was new, pretty, bright and not at all experienced. She had been chosen — in compliance with Lady Grenwood’s secret standing instruction — for possessing all those qualities.

  His Lordship had little work for a secretary, but without one he would have felt uncared for and definitely less needed. His wife ensured the job was filled by a succession of young lovelies who would in turn boost his morale until they became bored, and moved along armed with better commercial credentials than before. It was an arrangement that suited all concerned. There was no hanky-panky involved. Her Ladyship would have found hanky-panky tiresome: she knew, also, that it would unnerve her husband.

  The present incumbent’s name was Jennifer. Her boss was with her in her own office: the door to his was firmly closed. There had been no reason for whispers: the other room was sound-proofed.

  ‘Miss Gaunt, Mr Treasure’s secretary, said he’d be here any minute, Lord Grenwood.’ Jennifer looked prettily perplexed — something she’d been good at even before attending the Oxford & County Secretarial College: today, though, it wasn’t enough.

  ‘Well, Mr Head will have to do. Send for Head.’

  ‘He’s in Scotland.’

  ‘Is he? Damnation. I mean bother.’

  Jennifer, whose father was a Major-General, smiled, indicating that she was used to strong language.

  ‘I hear you’re looking for me.’ Treasure appeared from the wide, carpeted corridor.

  ‘My dear chap, thank heaven you’ve arrived,’ muttered the Chairman, literally wringing his hands. ‘There’s a … there’s a female in my office.’ He paused. His lower jaw moved up and down but no words came. He was ordering the further outrages that had befallen him; his hierarchy of horrors. ‘She’s American. Name’s … huh? … name’s …’

  ‘Lady Brasset,’ put in Jennifer.

  ‘That’s it. Old Jimmy Brasset’s widow. Scarcely acquainted, I assure you.’ Lord Grenwood paused as though expecting a rebuttal. There was none. He went on. ‘Off her chump, I’m afraid. Huh? He wasn’t much better. Remember that gaffe he made with …’ He looked from Treasure to his secretary, then back again. ‘No, you wouldn’t. Too young. Both of you. That was about knocking things down, too. Huh?’

  ‘This Lady Brasset wants something knocked down?’ Treasure was used to helping the thread of Grenwood’s discourses to unwind.

  ‘Certainly not. Didn’t I tell you? Preserved. Not knocked down. Absolute opposite, my dear fellow. Huh? Didn’t get her drift at all to start with. Not sure I’ve got it now.’ He blew his nose loudly before reverting to his still muffled narrative. ‘I ask you, what can you do about a house in Tophaven? Ghastly place, anyway. Whole town should be knocked down.’

  ‘This is to do with the Sandy Lane development?’

  Grenwood lifted both arms in a gesture of astonishment and relief. ‘Got it in one, Mark. That’s the place she said. Sandy Lane. Knew you’d have the facts. Assuming there were any. Been stalling her till you got here.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Where’ve you been? Never mind. None of my business. Sorry I asked. Huh? It’s just that you’re usually back earlier. Miss Gaunt said …’

  ‘I was delayed. D’you want me to deal with Lady Brasset?’ — whatever that might involve.

  The Chairman nodded vigorously. ‘Better go back in. Said I needed a wash. She’ll think I’ve fallen down the plughole. Or gone home. No more than she deserves.’ He paused before the door of his office, turning about to face Treasure again. ‘Knew her husband, you see. Very slightly. Not a chap you’d cultivate. Sent up a message an hour ago. Her, not him. He’s dead … Well, you know that. Had to see me. Matter of life or death. What could we do, Mark? She was waiting in there after lunch. Making phone calls!’

  The ‘we’ was evidently meant to include and in some way excuse Jennifer. Treasure guessed she had admitted the unwelcome lady without authorization. Even so, if the visitor had no appointment she should have been kept down in reception until whoever it was she wanted to see had personally approved her being let loose.

  So much for the bank’s strengthened security arrangements if they could be bypassed by elderly ladies, Treasure mused. This was before he had met Louella.

  ‘Proof positive the Round House was designed by Sir John Soane in 1793, and probably executed by William Butterfield in 1841. That makes it a principal work by two principal architects. Possibly unique. How about that?’ Lady Brasset inhaled deeply on her cigarette.

  She had removed neither the dark ranch mink coat nor the matching Cossack-style hat. The coat was open and arranged carelessly to set off the white wool dress with the gold metallic thread. She sat forward and upright, the expression alert, the voice controlled and assured. The long cigarette-holder she used like a conjuror’s baton with smoke effects.

  Treasure considered the quality of a Hepplewhite leather wing chair was seldom challenged by an occupant. On this occasion the lady was more than a match: she even had better legs.

  There were four such chairs set around the drum table across the room from Grenwood’s imposing partners’ desk. Treasure guessed it had been Lady Brasset who had chosen to sit at the table rather than risk any attempt by Grenwood to dominate from the business side of that desk.

  ‘Soane? Soane? Did he design …’ His Lordship’s voice faltered hopefully from the depths of his own chair.

  ‘The Bank of England, Berty,’ put in the lady. ‘Even you ought to know that, darling. The English surely do their geniuses too little honour. Still, there are compensating virtues in your case, my sweet.’

  The easy intimacy that governed Lady Brasset’s relationship with Grenwood was entirely unmatched by Grenwood’s nervousness in the presence of Lady Brasset.

  ‘Soane’s Bank was replaced. The style of the present one’s similar, though,’ Treasure offered. ‘Lady Brasset’s right. Soane was a genius. Probably the most original architect of his time.’

  ‘Eighteen er …’

  ‘Seventeen fifty-three to eighteen thirty-seven, Berty,’ Louella prompted.

  ‘His interiors were better than his exteriors, though.’ This was Treasure again.

  ‘John Nash for outside. John Soane for in. Isn’t that right, Mark. I may call you Mark? You know the Soane Museum?’

  He nodded. ‘In Lincoln’s Inn Fields. His own home. And it fuels the adage you quoted.’

  ‘I was there this morning. The façade’s better than you think. It needs studying. The whole place is the most compact temple to culture and the visual arts I guess I know. Makes the Frick in New York look unwieldy, with a lot less to see. And that’s just a town house, too.’

  ‘They’re both nice,’ Treasure added in the cause of good Anglo-American relations.

  ‘Agreed. The lady librarian at the Soane was just peachy. She let me handle their own copy of Sketches in Architecture. That’s Soane’s 1793 book. Huge thing. Plates Thirty and Thirty-one show the Round House. Just like the letter says.’

  ‘I find it curious that a work of distinction …’

  ‘Hasn’t been spotted, Mark? Listed? Protected?’ She interrupted in a tone less outraged than expected. ‘Isn’t it the truth? But it’s fallen on hard times. OK, it’s a Soane building. The chances are the outside never was its strongest feature. Right now, with all the added bits, it looks like a roughly circular workshop with a flattish kind of lighthouse pushing up through the middle. It’s an eyesore. It’s why the guy from the local authority took one look and never went inside.’

  ‘You mean it was checked?’

  ‘A few years back. I’ve seen the report. It just says “post 1840, extended 1941” and that’s it. He never looked inside. Not that it would have made a deal of difference. What the Navy did to it in the war was rape it.’

  ‘But buildings were usually put back …’

  Louella shook her head. ‘Not this one. They added bits on when it became a WRNS secretarial school, and a secretarial college is what it stayed after the war. Custom built, you might say. Lot of the plastering was knocked about. Some of the decoration got boxed in. Still is. There’s an inside colonnade that’s a honey.’ She was feeding Treasure’s interest. ‘And that’s only the half. It’s all there for the uncovering. Resurrecting.’

  ‘But nobody’s troubled because functionally the place suited.’

  ‘That’s about it. Canon Tring, sweet old man. Guess his family’s owned the lease since the Flood. Place was sub-let in 1946 when the Navy handed it back …’

  ‘Sub-let to whoever started the secretarial college?’

  ‘Right. Two ex-Wren officers. They needed it exactly the way it was. Might have closed three years back when they retired.’

  ‘Except Mrs Tring, your friend, decided to keep it going herself.’

  ‘She’d been a competent secretary. Married to a man a hell of a lot older than herself. Figure she was bored. And you don’t exactly live like a Cardinal on a Church of England pension. The Canon was vice-principal of some theological college.’

  ‘Does the Canon have a private income?’

  ‘Some. I guess not much. The school was to provide the little extras. Trouble is, it hasn’t paid.’

  ‘So Mrs Tring hasn’t been spending a lot putting the Round House back to its original glory?’

  ‘Tell you the truth, Cynthia isn’t exactly an architectural buff. Also, you have to know the lease reverts to the freeholders this Christmas …’

  ‘So you can hardly blame her for taking no action. At least in that connection.’ Treasure nevertheless had ample evidence Mrs Tring was every bit as redoubtable as Lady Brasset when it came to defending the house to the last ditch. Still, it seemed her reasons were bedded in loyalty to her friend rather than in aesthetics: at least he could now account for her obduracy. He excused himself for a few moments to telephone his secretary from the outer office. When he returned Lord Grenwood was speaking.

  ‘I really don’t understand your part in all this, Louella.’ It was the first time the older man had addressed his visitor by her first name. ‘And I still don’t know what you expect us to do. Huh?’

 

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