'Q' - a short story

top of page

© Michael Ridpath 2005

I looked up to see a tall square-shouldered young man striding towards me, brandishing a brown telephone handset, its cord swinging wildly.
 'Oi, Q!'
 'Yes?'
 'This bloody phone doesn't work!'
 'It must do. I only gave it to you last week.'
 'Well it's a duff one. I need one that works this time.'
 I leaned back in my chair and sighed. The young man glared at me, nostrils flaring.
I kept my voice reasonable. 'Gavin. If you didn't throw the phones quite so hard on to your desk every time something went wrong, then they would work.'
 'Jesus!' Gavin muttered. He took two steps round to my side of the desk, and yanked my handset out of its socket. 'I need a phone that works now!' He stormed off back to his desk.
 Kids! I've been looking after them for twenty-four years now, almost half my life. They are dealers. Young men who act like children. The dealing room is their playground. My job is to give them the toys they need to play their games. Phones, computer systems, coffee machines, Reuters screens, chairs, desks, pens. And yes, I am in charge of paper-clips.
 About fifteen years ago, when new technology was exciting and not just a drain on budgets and management time, one of the kids had called me Q, after the enthusiastic scientist who provided James Bond with his sophisticated weaponry. The kid left a couple of years later to punt currencies in Riyadh. Q stayed with me.
 Eight thirty. The morning meeting. We all trooped into the small airless conference room. There were a dozen of us, European Commercial Bank's Fixed Income Group. I leaned against a wall at the back. I was there to listen and be available for abuse if necessary.
 'Hey, Gav, who was that bird you were wiv last night? She was all over you!' Gavin smiled. 'A new broker. She just wanted to get to know one of her accounts, that's all.'
 'Yeah, well tell her if she wants some real business, she can always give me a bell!' Darren tapped the ash from his cigarette into a plastic coffee cup and giggled. Small and weaselly, he was only 23. He had joined us three months ago. For a hundred and fifty thousand in his first year guaranteed, I happened to know.
 'OK, guys, settle down.' It was James Moorecroft, the head of the group. 'Now,  Darren, tell me what's happening to bonds.'
 'Yeah, well, the market finks that the unemployment number will be unchanged. But I fink they're wrong. We're going to see a point two per cent rise. So I'm lifting any good offers out there.'
 'You're sure about that Darren?' asked James.
Darren sucked at his cigarette and nodded. 'That's what I fink.'
 'OK. Good. Got that guys? We want to go into the number long. Ship 'em in!'
 Personally, I would trust the market's economic analysis over Darren's any day, but then I'm not Head of Fixed Income.
 'Now, Martha, tell us about currencies.'
 Martha was an earnest, bespectacled Canadian who most certainly did know what she was talking about. She ran through her outlook for exchange rates, subtly implying that there was no chance the unemployment number would rise. Martha was nearly always right. She made the bank a lot of money. But not our department. She worked for Treasury, not Fixed Income.
 After fifteen minutes, the meeting was over.
  'Go get 'em guys,' said James, and the kids filed out into the playground. 'Got a minute, Q?'
 I followed him into his office. James was the grown-up. He was in his late-thirties. Moulded at public school, glazed at one of London's most prestigious merchant banks, he had joined ECB three years ago for the same reason everyone else had. Money. Lot's of it. Three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds last year or exactly ten times what I earned.
 'Q, I'm not at all happy about the new deal-capture system. My guys are spending too long sorting out screw-ups. It's just not acceptable.'
 'I know, James,' I said. 'The problem is the interface with our settlements system. There's no compatibility. The guys upstairs have to manually transfer data. Mistakes are inevitable.'
 'Well, that's not good enough,' said James. 'I don't understand why we can't just get one system that would take care of the whole process: deal-capture, settlements, accounting, the works.'
 James did understand. It would cost three million pounds, that was why.
 'We're doing our best,' I said. I always said that. It was always true.
 'Look, Q,' James leaned forward, finger pointed towards my chest. 'I want this problem cleared up by the end of the month. Or there will be consequences. Do I make myself clear?'
 'OK,' I said. 'I'll do what I can.'
 I left his office. James was threatening to fire me. He liked to fire people. He had already fired four this year, and it was only May. But they could never manage without me. He knew that.
 As long as there was a Fixed Income Department, I would have a job.
 Not that I needed a job for much longer. It was my birthday in three months. Fifty. One good thing about ECB, no, the only good thing about ECB, was its early retirement policy. It encouraged you to retire at fifty. It had an over-funded pension plan, and a policy that encouraged clearing out dead wood in favour of younger talent. Well here was one piece of dead wood that was looking forward to the experience. And James would just have to figure out how the computer systems worked himself.

I paid for the bottle of house white, and made my way through the gloomy basement wine bar to where Liz sat at a small table in the far corner.
 I poured us both a glass. 'Cheers.'
 'Cheers, Bob.' She smiled at me, her face breaking into lines around her good-humoured eyes. 'It's nice to have a proper drink at lunch time.'
 'Yes. I never do this any more.'
 'We used to have liquid lunches four days out of five, remember?'
 'Five days out of five. The bank was fun then.'
 Both Liz and I had joined ECB right at the start, over twenty years ago. I was a fresh-faced accountant, she was the chief executive's secretary. We were the only two left of that brave band of twenty who had built up the bank with a mixture of enthusiasm, good spirits, and, occasionally hard work. Liz and I had had a lot of fun in those days. Slowly, imperceptibly, the job had changed. Now the only reason we showed up every day was the salary, the mortgage subsidy, and that pension plan.
 'So what did you want to tell me?' I asked.
 The smile disappeared. 'Have you heard about next Wednesday?'
 'Next Wednesday? No. Tell me.'
 So she did.

I had a lot to think about that weekend. Joyce and I spent the afternoon on the patio of our small St Albans garden, talking. I was angry. So was she. In a way this encouraged me. Joyce was never angry. She was sensible, solid, patient reliable. She rolled with life's punches. Usually when I came home to complain about the antics of the kids at work, she would listen, make some soothing remarks, and remind me how close my fiftieth birthday was. We were going to move away from the crowded, polluted South East of England. Joyce didn't care where. Just as long as we left.
 But when I told her about next Wednesday, she was angry. She wanted to do something. For once in our lives we were going to take control. We made plans. Detailed, careful plans.

Wednesday was a long time in coming. In fact the unemployment figure had been lower than expected the week before, and so bond markets had fallen. Everyone had lost money. They all blamed Darren, who spent his days scowling at the screen and at his position sheet, with its large negative number.
 James was in a bad mood. All the kids were in a bad mood. tempers were frayed. Gavin broke another phone. Darren came back from lunch on Tuesday so drunk he had to go home. I spent Monday and Tuesday fiddling about with the computer. ECB had three totally separate systems. There was the expensive new deal-capture system, which recorded each trade and its effect on the risk position of all the trading books. Then there was the settlements system, which sent out instructions for bonds and money to be delivered or received, and for corresponding entries to be made in the correct accounts. Finally there was an accounting system, which once a month took all the data from across the bank and tried to reconcile it. This took two weeks and the total attention of three intelligent and very persistent accountants.
 The weak link was the settlements system. The people who had designed it had been fired long ago. I was the only one who truly knew my way around all its dark alleys, with its dangling suspense accounts and moribund customer files. A parade of intense young accountants and internal auditors had tried to get me to explain it over the years with little success. I didn't have the time or the patience. Besides, there were some corners of the system that were just my little secret.

Wednesday morning. Eleven o'clock. James had been ensconced in his office since an unusually subdued morning meeting.
 'Q! Got a moment?'
 I entered his office. He shut the door.
 He spent a moment or two, eyes down, fiddling with his cuff-links. Then he looked up. 'There's no easy way of saying this,' he began.
 I looked into his soulless brown eyes.
 'At twelve o'clock today, we're being shut down. The Management Committee and the board have decided to close Fixed Income.'
 I had expected this, but none the less, I felt a physical shock. I sat completely still. I held my breath until my ears began to sing. My brain raced. They've done it. They've actually done it!
 'Oh.'
 'Yes. The profitability hasn't been great recently, and the bank wants to change its strategic direction. I will be heading up a new group called Global Marketing. But the guys out there are history.'
 'Oh.'
 'Now, I'd like you to help me with the termination process.' James reeled off a list of details about security, revoking dealing authorization, and so on. I wasn't listening. 'Have you got that?' James was finishing.
 'One question.'
 'Yes?'
 'Am I fired too?'
 The soulless eyes looked down. 'I'm afraid so Q. No exceptions.'
 'But you know I'll be fifty in three months time. I can take early retirement.'
 'No, I didn't know that, Q. But I'm sorry we can't accommodate you. No exceptions.'
 The turmoil and agitation I had been feeling over the last few days suddenly cleared.
 So that was it. The decision had been made for me.
 I smiled, and left.
 As soon as I got back to my desk, I turned on my computer and began tapping.
 At ten to twelve, James called everyone into the conference room. I stayed at my desk. I picked up the phone, and dialled Ken, a broker I occasionally dealt with on behalf of one of our traders. He would think nothing strange of me trading now.
 'Hi, Q, how are you?'
 'I haven't got much time, Ken. Darren asked me to hedge up his position for him whilst he goes to lunch. Can you please give me bid prices on the following bonds?'
 I read off the list in front of me. It was a list of the government bonds in which ECB had invested its capital. A bank's capital acts as a cushion against unexpected losses. If a bank loses its capital, it's bust.
Ken put me on hold, and came back with a list of bids.
 'OK,' I said. 'That's done.'
 'Good to deal with you again, Q.' He hung up.
 Ken thought that he was just dealing in a short-term trading position. So would the settlements clerk who authorised the delivery instructions later that afternoon. The trade would not show up at all on James's position sheets, because it would affect capital, which was only checked once a month.
 It would take three weeks before ECB realised it had sold its capital. And a further couple of days before they realised that the funds that had been paid for it had been funnelled through a series of banks in London, Switzerland and Bermuda, to somewhere in the West Indies.
 The kids filed out of the conference room. Some were angry, two were tearful, but most just looked stunned. A group of embarrassed-looking security guards watched over them clearing their desks, and then escorted them from the building.

 'Happy birthday!' said Joyce, raising her glass of Dom Perignon.
 'Thank you.' I sipped my champagne, gazing out from the terrace of our apartment on to the golden beach below. In front of me yesterday's Financial Times shone pink in the sunshine. On the front page was a photograph of my former place of work, under the headline, 'London Bank Fails after Fraud Shock.'
 Joyce raised her glass again. 'Here's to a well-deserved retirement.'
I smiled. Two hundred million pounds would make a very comfortable pension. And I wouldn't miss the kids one bit.

Copyright 1998 Michael Ridpath