“Is that legal?” Sam asked.
“Absolutely. It’s what hedge funds do all the time. But it’s risky.”
“Why?”
“Because the price of the stock might not fall. It might rise, and here’s the kicker. There’s no limit to how high it might rise. If you borrow a million shares at $10, and the price rises to $100, well you’re in big trouble. If it rises to a $1000 a share…” he whistled. “And there’s no upper limit. It could get to a million dollars a share. At least in theory. Infinite losses.”
“But if you knew for sure that the price would go down…” Amber began to get where this was going.
“Exactly. If you had prior knowledge of something that would cause the share price to drop… say you knew that a bomb was going to go off on one of the company’s sites. Well that removes a great deal of the risk.”
“And that’s what they were doing?” Amber asked looking at West for confirmation. “They were planting the bombs and – what’s it called? Shorting the stock?”
“Exactly.” Chow beamed.
“How much were they making?” Sam asked.
“Not that much, which in a way was the genius of the operation. Shorting is perfectly legal, but not,” he smiled at Sam Wheatley, “as a result of insider knowledge. So if it’s done too aggressively, or too frequently it’ll usually attract attention. Magnuson and Richards were keeping the level low. They were shorting, but not huge amounts, they were going under the radar.” Chow sat back, assuming his audience had understood. But Amber protested further.
“But why? I still don’t understand why they were working for this Jacques Bellafonte guy?”
“That’s what we wanted to know,” West took over. “We finally got there last night.
“James Richards and Lily Bellafonte started seeing each other when they were both still in high school. On the face of it, they’re both rich kids, but actually they’re in different leagues. Her family’s money dwarfs his. And though her family generally approve of him, what they don’t know is how he’s played around behind her back. Sleeping with other girls, pretty much anyone he could it seems. Somehow Jacques Bellafonte got wind of this a year ago, and began blackmailing him. Either he helped out in the scheme to wrest control of Fonchem, or Richards’ relationship with Lily Bellafonte would be blown out of the water.”
“What he didn’t figure on is just how willing Richards was to take part – hence the shorting,” Black cut in. “It became a way for him to make enough money to keep up with his much-richer girlfriend. Albeit while destroying her wealth along the way.”
Amber happened to glance at Billy as Black was speaking, and saw him flinch at the word ‘girlfriend’. She turned back.
“What about Oscar? Why did he do it?”
“He’s James’ oldest friend.” West said. “The pair of them grew up together, running minor scams. Stealing wallets, boosting cars. They didn’t need to, but it seems they got a kick out of doing it anyway. But after a while small time crime doesn’t quite cut it. He saw this as his chance to break into something much bigger. Bigger risk, bigger rewards. And a bigger thrill too.”
The room was quiet for a moment, and West went on.
“He also appears to be very much the brains of the pairing. At least, he’s doing the better job of trying to cut a deal to get out of this. I’d say we’re very lucky to have stopped him now, before he moves on to bigger and deadlier operations.”
“Have you got enough to stop them all?” Sam Wheatley asked, and Black couldn’t suppress a laugh. “Oh yeah. We got more than enough.”
“So is that it,” Amber asked, looking around. “Are we done?”
West shook her head. “No. There’s one further part which we have to keep front and center.”
“What?”
“All the other bombings were carried out on unmanned sites, and they seemed timed to minimize the risk of anyone being harmed. This one was different. A man died.”
“Oh. The security guard?”
“Correct. Keith Waterhouse. He had a wife, two children.”
“And you need to know whether it was James or Oscar who actually set the bomb? So you know who killed him?”
“Exactly and we suspect it was actually neither. At first they each blamed the other, but then a new name came up. Henderson. Does that mean anything to you Billy?”
Billy looked up, as if he was surprised to still be there. Or that anyone else remembered he was there. Amber watched him, worried again for how down and tired her friend looked.
“No.” He dropped his head back down to the table. West kept her eyes on him a moment before going on.
“Karl Henderson works directly for Jacques Bellafonte, but doesn’t have a role within the company. Instead he seems to fill the role of general fixer. A problem solver. We know he was there on the night of the bombing, Magnuson gave him the bomb before Billy even traveled back to Lornea. His role was to plant the bomb and then help Magnuson and Richards get away. But it seems he may have deliberately targeted Keith Waterhouse.”
“Why?”
There was a folder resting on the table, and West opened it now. Inside were color copies of photographs. Carefully she pushed one across the table to Billy, then a second to Amber and Sam. They showed a section of beach, and when Amber looked more carefully she saw a few dead seahorses lying on the sand. Billy’s photograph showed a different section of beach, but still had the dead animals.
“Do you recognize these photographs Billy?”
Billy’s expression answered before he did. He
