He sat drinking coffee in Arrowsmith’s office on avenue Franklin D.Roosevelt in Paris. His bulging watery blue eyes fixed Arrowsmith, he looked like an incredulous fish, he still wore the same poorly cut suit, his stomach pushed against his shirt causing it to gape, pulling on the buttons, his bright red tie bore the stains from a recent lunch. Before moving to the capital he had spent most of his life in Sundsvall, a soulless hole, three hundred and fifty kilometres north of Stockholm, most of the year a grim icy waste where smart dressing was an unknown and unnecessary luxury.
Erikkson imagined he knew the world, it was true he had travelled for the Bottens Handelsbank, investing the saving funds they managed, however he had observed it mainly from dreary hotel rooms.
Erikkson likened his management style to the army, in which he had served his military service as a lieutenant. Arrowsmith was not impressed, as far as he could remember the Swedish army had spent a most of its time watching international developments from the isolation of the neutral democratic-socialist position of its governments, their last battle had been so long back that it had been forgotten.
“You know Tony, we are not so sophisticated as you down here in Central Europe, we’ve only recently come out of the forest,” he said less as a sign of admission, but rather in derision for the French, whom he saw as effete and far from Scandinavian standards of honesty and seriousness. ‘Central’ to him meant that Paris was midway between north and south, but nevertheless a country of ‘blackheads’ as Swedes sometimes contemptuously called southern Europeans.
You said it, thought Arrowsmith, as Erikkson continued his lecture on tourist development in the Caribbean. As long as you come up with your investment funds you can think of it as you like.
The following day Arrowsmith had commenced early, walking from his apartment to the Metro at Nation, in 12th district of Paris, it was just after seven, dark and cold. What else could have been expected from a cold February morning he had sighed to himself as he shook off his sleep. He took the Metro to the Gare de Lyon where he alighted. It was depressing, the station was old with cast iron stanchions dating back to the beginning of the 20th century, it had been recently painted a garish orange. As he crossed the foot bridge to the opposite platform, the foul odour of urine and the homeless reached his nostrils, it was an odour that he detested; it nagged him, not out of sympathy with the poor and unwashed, but by rather the fear that it was a disease that could somehow be catching.
He waited on the middle of platform for ten minutes, three trains passed and Erikkson was not on one of them. He paced backwards and forwards looking at his watch, they had enough time, but his natural anxiety pulled at him. The fourth train passed, he picked up his bag and walked down the platform towards the exit. He found Erikkson sitting waiting on one of the plastic seats, half hidden behind one of the cast iron stanchions. Arrowsmith swore to himself, the stupid bastard hadn’t the good sense to stand-up and look around.
They exchanged greetings and headed in the direction of the main line station, crossing the crowds of early morning workers huddled up in their shapeless clothes. The two men arrived in the bright modern TGV high-speed train terminal, the departure board indicated that train N°607 was leaving platform 15 at 7.45am, as scheduled. They validated their tickets in the automatic machines and proceeded to the train. The crowd had changed, smartly dressed businessmen and the occasional skier mixed in with them.
It was just three hours to Geneva, where they were to be met by Guy de Montfort. He had fixed up a meeting at a branch of the Swiss Credit Bank nearby the Windsor Hotel, where they were booked overnight. De Montfort had opened an account for Stig Erikkson, into which he had deposited one hundred thousand dollars in return for Erikkson’s services of assuring the Bottens Handelsbank’s participation in the funding of the first phase of Ciscap. The Handelsbank was to join the pool of investors that had been put together by the Irish Union, taking a fifteen percent share in the financing of the investment.
The Bottens Handelsbank had been introduced as a potential investor by Castlemain. Erikkson, the Bottens Handelsbank’s property investment manager, had first been invited to Cuba on a fully paid trip, then enticed to Guadeloupe, the French island in the Caribbean, ostensibly to visit the BCN sponsored Hotel Club; a new tourist hotel which was in final stages of completion.
Castlemain had no illusions about how such business was carried out and had no qualms in offering men of Erikkson’s ilk a cruise on his yacht, a sweetener followed by gifts and money, to get their commitment in his projects.
Erikkson’s visit to Guadeloupe had been a great success, thanks to Guy Courtauld, one of Castlemain’s many friends in the region. Briefed by Castlemain, he knew how to take care of customers such as the Swede. He had got the measure of Erikkson, full of Vodka, as soon as he had stumbled off the Air France flight at Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, in the French Antilles.
Chapter 29
Les Marchand de Biens