Matthew described what he had heard. For the first time that evening, he thought, my father is really listening to me.
“Very interesting indeed!” said Gordon after Matthew had finished. “I can very easily find out who they’re talking about.
It’s very simple to find out which Scottish companies have their shares traded on the AIM market. Very simple. In fact . . . you said the chairman was referred to as Tommy?”
“Yes.”
“I think I know exactly who they are then.” Gordon smiled at Matthew and patted him on the shoulder playfully. “I’ll get in touch with you about this, Matt.”
Matthew winced. He did not like being called Matt, and his father was the only one who did it. “Why?” asked Matthew.
Gordon smiled at him. “Information can be put to good use, Matt. The market’s all about information, and that sounds like a very useful bit of information. If it’s the company that I’m thinking about, then they’re a biotech company. The results must be a clinical trial or something of that sort. That can mean a great deal if it enables them to sell something on to one of the big pharmaceutical companies, for instance. Major profits all round.”
“But why couldn’t they – the people who were talking – buy the shares and make the profits themselves?”
Gordon shook a finger in admonition. “Tut, tut!” he said.
“Insider dealing. Those chaps were obviously lawyers. They can’t use their private knowledge to make a quick buck on the market.
Very bad! The powers that be take a dim view of that sort of thing.”
“But can we . . . ?”
Gordon made a dismissive gesture, and indicated that they 156
should continue to make their way downstairs. “Oh, we’re all right. We just happen to have heard a little snippet, that’s all.
We can buy their shares. Nobody would associate us with insider information. Why should they? We’re perfectly safe.”
Matthew was not sure about this. “But wouldn’t we also be taking unfair advantage of the people we buy the shares from?
After all, we know something they don’t.”
Gordon looked at his son, who saw in his father’s gaze something akin to pity, and resented it. “Life is hardly fair, Matt,”
he said. “If I had scruples about this sort of thing, do you think for a moment that I would have got anywhere in business? Do you really think that?”
Matthew did not reply. They had almost reached the front door now, and he could hear the low hum of the traffic outside.
He glanced sideways at Janis, and for a moment their eyes met.
Then she looked away. Matthew reached out and took his father’s hand, and shook it.
“Thanks for dinner.”
Gordon nodded. “Thank you for coming. And I’ll let you know about those shares. I may have a little flutter on them.
Can’t do any harm.”
Matthew opened the door and they stepped outside onto Princes Street, disturbing a thin-faced man who was standing near the doorway. He looked at them in surprise, as he had evidently not expected anybody to emerge from the unmarked door. The man looked tired; as if worn out by life. He had a cold sore, or something that looked like a cold sore, above his lip.
Matthew felt ashamed. How did he look in the eyes of this man? And what would this man have thought had he known the nature of their conversation of a few moments ago? Matthew wanted to say: “Not me, not me.”
157
Pat hesitated at the door of Peter’s flat in Cumberland Street.
It would be easy to turn back now, to return to Scotland Street and to call him from there. Something could have arisen to prevent her from seeing him as planned – there were so many excuses to stand somebody up: a friend in need, a headache, a deadline to meet. If she did that, of course, then she would not see him again, and she was not sure whether that was what she wanted. She was undecided. Men complicated one’s life; that was obvious. They made demands. They changed everything. In short, the question was whether they were worth it.
And what was it anyway? The pleasure of their company? –
women were far more companionable than men. The excitement of male presence? – how long did that last, and did she want that anyway? She thought not, and was about to turn away when she remembered his face, and the way he had stooped to talk to her at that first meeting, and how physically perfect he had seemed to her then and was still, in the imagining of him.
158
She tugged at the old-fashioned brass bell-pull. There was a lot of give in the wire, but eventually there was a
