The Clayton Account by Bill Vidal Page B

‘we do nothing. If your client calls, or gives any instructions,’ he told Ackermann, ‘you respond normally. But you do nothing, nothing at all without first clearing with Dr Brugger. Understood?’
    ‘Yes, Director.’ Ackermann was glad the meeting ended. He felt reprieved, albeit temporarily.

4
    GIVEN THE HOUR’S difference between Britain and Switzerland, Tom Clayton made it back to his London desk by three. He had travelled from Heathrow to the City by Underground – a fast forty-minute journey at that time of day – still trying to come to terms with his new wealth.
    Where could a pile of that magnitude have come from?
    One thing was certain, Tom concluded without much difficulty, it had not resulted from interest on his grandad’s half million. He would have to press Sweeney. Dick knew more than he let on, for sure. Tom’s immediate problem was to tidy up the mess at the bank. The five million he had asked Ackermann to transfer would take care of that. Then he would decide what to do with the rest of his fortune.
His
fortune? The train screeched to a halt at Earls Court and Tom watched as most passengers alighted. Whose money was it really, and how had it got into his grandfather’s – or was it his father’s – account?
    Four and a quarter was a good rate yielding $130,000 a month. But leaving cash in bank deposits was for old matrons in Palm Beach. Tom was a dealer. He knew that, with hardly any risk, he could double the return. And what if he played the markets seriously? He shook his head and smiled. Better not even think about it. Not now. Not until the present mess was tidied up.
    Should he quit his job?
    At nearly a million a year, what was the point of continuing?
    The truth was that he enjoyed his work, the risks, the satisfaction of reading the markets correctly. Maybe it was the unique, boisterous camaraderie at the sharp end of the financial world. He would miss all that. Then again, he had to admit he did it mostly for the money. If ever his employers cut the bonuses – it had happened at other banks – he would definitely walk out. With his savings, investments, assets, the proceeds of his inheritance and the new bonanza, Tom Clayton was currently worth over fifty million dollars. Would he, he asked himself, continue putting in twelve-hour days, taking piecemeal holidays and working for someone else?
    Caroline’s friends were different. They’d always had money. They were capable of filling their lives without careers, they’d practised for generations. Tom’s banking friends – Langland excepted – were self-made individuals. High earners. It took Tom some time to realize that a single painting or a set of cutlery tucked away in the many ancestral homes was worth more than all Tom’s assets.
    On the other hand, what else would he do? What else
could
he do?
    After leaving Harvard with a decent MBA he had joined Salomons in New York. Tom loved it. The pay was good, the job was fun and the clients he dealt with were his kind of people. He remained with the firm eight years before the present offer came along. Tom had been to Europe many times – he remembered his first visit quite vividly, to Henley-on-Thames with the Cornell eight in the summer of ’78 – and had developed a profound fondness for the Old World and for England in particular. Surprisingly, he had not once visited Ireland; never carried out the traditional Irish-American pilgrimage in search of family roots. But Tom had never dwelt upon his Irishness. He was an East Coast American and never saw himself in any other light.
    Now he had to think of Ireland. There was his promise to Tessa. And he had to consider – however reluctantly – the possibility that the Clayton money in Switzerland might in some way be connected with ‘the Cause’.
    The train pulled up at Liverpool Street. Suddenly he was on familiar ground again: walking briskly along Broad Street, into the bank with a quick greeting to and from the