Heads You Win

It hadn’t helped that Lawrence had been serving in Vietnam for two years when Douglas Ackroyd had brought a new meaning to the words “when the cat’s away.” He not only paid himself five hundred thousand dollars a year, but claimed another three hundred thousand dollars in expenses, while his two cronies, Jardine and Fowler, only ever traveled first class whenever they climbed aboard his gravy train. But the conductor was clearly Evelyn, who, with her fifty percent of the bank’s shares, appeared to have given Ackroyd carte blanche to do as he pleased. Now he’d discovered just how much she’d expected in return.

He was looking forward to spending the weekend with Anna, who was traveling up from New York that afternoon, but it didn’t stop him picking up half a dozen more files before he left the office. As he passed Miss Robbins’s room, he noticed that her light was still on. He popped his head around the door and said, “Thank you, and have a good weekend.”

“I’ll see you at six o’clock on Monday morning, chairman,” she said, without looking up from a pile of correspondence.

Alex had quickly discovered why Doug Ackroyd had sacked her. She was the one person who knew where all the bodies were buried.

As Alex left the building, he had a nagging feeling that he was being watched; a throwback from his days in Leningrad. It brought back memories of Vladimir, and he wondered how far up the KGB ladder he’d crawled by now. I ought to give him a call and see if he’d like to join the board of Lowell’s, he thought. He was sure Vladimir would have ways of making Ackroyd, Fowler, and Jardine divulge which entries he should be checking more carefully.

Alex gave the driver his address before he sank into the back seat of a taxi and opened another file. If he hadn’t read each debit with close attention, he might have missed yet another withdrawal, which could only have been sanctioned by one man. He checked the figure three times, but still couldn’t believe it. The final check had been cashed two days after Lawrence’s death, and the day before Ackroyd resigned, and was by far the largest amount to date.

Alex added the latest figure to his long list, before he totaled up all the withdrawals Evelyn had made since her father had died and her brother had taken over as chairman of Lowell’s. The final figure came to just over twenty-one million dollars, with no suggestion of any repayments. If you added her profligacy to the outrageous salary Ackroyd had paid himself and his four placemen, plus their countless expenses, it was no wonder that Lowell’s was facing bankruptcy. Alex began to wonder if he would have to sell off the Lowell Collection in order to make sure the bank was solvent enough to lower its debts and continue trading.

He was considering the consequences as the taxi pulled up outside Lawrence’s home. He would always think of it as Lawrence’s home.

He climbed out of the car and a huge smile appeared on his face when he spotted Anna standing in the doorway. It evaporated just as quickly when he saw the look on her face.

“What’s the matter, darling?” he asked as he took her in his arms.

“You’d better have a large vodka before I tell you.” She took his hand, and without another word led him into the house. She poured them both a drink and waited for him to sit down before saying, “It’s not just the Warhol that’s a copy.”

Alex drained his glass before asking, “How many?”

“I can’t be sure until Mr. Rosenthal has given his opinion, but I suspect that at least half the collection are copies.”

Alex said nothing, while she refilled his glass. After another long gulp, he admitted, “The value of the Lowell Collection is the one thing that’s preventing the bank from going under. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until Mr. Rosenthal arrives.”

“I called him a couple of hours ago and he’s already on his way.”

“And my mother?” asked Alex. “How is she?”

“Your mother keeps asking me why we constantly change the date for our wedding,” said Anna.

“And what did you tell her?”

“We’re still trying to fit it in between rescuing a bank, opening the latest Elena’s, and preferably when we’re both in the same place at the same time.”

“We could have grandchildren by then,” said Alex.

33

SASHA

Merrifield

Sasha had always managed to survive on six hours’ sleep a night, but once the Prime Minister had visited Buckingham Palace and sought a dissolution of Parliament, he had to learn how to get by on four.

Once again he adopted a daily routine that would have impressed a Bolshoi ballet master, even if it was only for three weeks. He rose every morning at five, and was standing outside Roxton station with a small band of volunteers long before the first commuters arrived. He greeted them with, “Hi, I’m Sasha Karpenko, and I’m…”