Kennedy flashed his black card. ‘Put it all on my tab,’ he told the exclusive club’s barman with a conspiratorial wink. Drinks for everyone, no holds barred, the evening was on him. By the time they staggered out to a line of waiting taxis, the bill had reached five figures and included half a dozen magnums of Dom Perignon and a kilo of caviar. Even Kennedy, not really a drinker, had partaken in the feast, magnanimously lashing out a fabulous tip for the waitress, an attractive Irish girl from Dublin, whose encouragement to the party goers had certainly earned her a well-deserved bonus from the management.
Kennedy was perceived as a cool and successful banker, and his spending a just compensation for hard work. Pat liked to tell people he looked after what could have been described as the public relations aspect of the bank, which was in a sense was true. However, his real talent was that of developing relations with the bank’s rich influential friends and potential investors. He was Fitzwilliams’ friend and eminence gris, and although he had become a rich man in his own right, he owed the banker everything, and never forgot his place in the hierarchy of Fitzwilliams’ world.
In spite of his local boy’s naivety, Kennedy had an extraordinary flair for business. Mixing easily he navigated without the least complex in the world of business and investment, both in the City and abroad, cultivating a circle of rich and famous friends, who trusted his intuition and put their money in the bank’s investment funds.
That Monday he was celebrating a memorable day at a Sotheby’s sale. Tarasov had been amongst those present at for the auction of Damien Hirst’s new works. The Russian had spent millions on the collection of modern art that decorated his homes in the UK and at home. But aesthetics were not his only concern; modern art performed better than stock markets. His investment in desirable works had been propelled to unimaginable heights by a bubble that had outdone that of the stock market. That day’s Sotheby sale had been an important test.
The rumour of scandal was making the rounds. The Art Newspaper reported that Damien Hirst’s London gallery, White Cube, was sitting on over two hundred unsold sculptures and paintings by the artist, worth an estimated one hundred million pounds, excluding a diamond-encrusted platinum skull bearing the name ‘For the Love of God’ said to be worth fifty million.
It was a year since Hirst’s memorable sale on that fatal day in September 2008, a day that would be remembered by the world of finance for generations; the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection in New York, the largest failure in banking history. That day Hirst’s Golden Calf, a gold plated bull in formaldehyde, was sold for eighteen and a half million dollars and a shark, also preserved in the same organic compound, called The Kingdom, was sold for over seventeen million dollars.
Since then the prices of Hirst’s works had collapsed and the oligarch was on the lookout for a killing. The collapse was in large part due to the recession. Russian billionaires had become great amateurs of art, many of them with huge collections, though some of those who had bought Hirst’s works in 2008 were now forced to sell. Tarasov had bought several of those canvases at knockdown prices and the auction would tell him whether his investment had been good or not.
Hirst, already rich and famous, had become even richer and more famous. For certain of his buyers it was another story. A year after that memorable auction, the second-hand trade in Hirsts has slowed down to a mere trickle, with prices down to 2002 levels, but as always a seller’s disappointment was a buyer’s opportunity.
The 2008 sale made almost one hundred million pounds, which had impressed Pat Kennedy no end at the time, though the idea of a dead cow in his living room left him almost speechless.
‘They were stark raving mad. Can you believe it, a dead feckin cow,’ Kennedy whispered to a Russian girl. He had seen a great number of nice enough live cows in his native Limerick and was greatly relieved his friend was not about to buy a dead one.
The number of rich and privileged continued to rise in a society of growing inequalities. Their number not only counted those who had inherited businesses and old money, but more and more those who had been successful in their professions; career bankers, traders, business executives, along with a growing number of innovative entrepreneurs. They were the so-called nouveaux riche who were more susceptible to listen to the Kennedy’s of the world when it came to investing their money. They imagined themselves as informed investors, connected to informed sources via their ever present smart phones. However, they would have been seriously mistakenly in thinking of Kennedy as being one of them.
Such investors moved in herds, and reminded Kennedy of cows, little better than the dead ones, who placed a great deal of confidence in illusory insider information. A nod and a wink from Kennedy was enough for many of them to believe they were privy to an exclusive deal. The problem came when the going got bad, when they panicked, pulling their money out of funds, provoking a chain reaction that upset the finely balanced composition of certain sophisticated funds. The same investors, as a matter of facility and confidence, did not hesitate to put their eggs in the same doubtful basket, without asking too many questions, and especially when they saw irreal returns.
Beyond a very narrow circle of friends and acquaintances few were familiar with Kennedy’s background. His home was in Limerick, where he was in fact rarely seen. Whenever unavoidable family events forced him back home, he was in and out of Shannon in the blink of an eye ― in the bank’s jet. Pat was to all intents separated from his troubled wife, a devout Catholic, who led her own life dedicated to the church and charitable work. Kennedy, who was brought up in the faith, had ambivalent feelings about his marriage vows, but fear of the Church and its laws was deeply ingrained in his mind.
His warm and sometimes naïve nature tucked those fears far away in the back his mind. Those who really knew him would have said he was genuinely sincere, but difficult to plumb. One thing was certain however, Pat Kennedy was determined to lead his own life wherever it led.
His gift for easy-going familiarity made him a generous and exceptional host, with a wide circle of casual friends. The gregarious side of his nature liked hosting parties at his luxurious homes, in London and Biarritz. The other side of him preferred being far from the crowd, free, discovering the world for himself.
Kennedy was seen in London’s best restaurants, though he was by no means a fine gourmet, on the other hand he had developed a taste for music and opera; something to do with composers being foreigners and operas being sung in Italian or German. It was true he had learned to appreciate certain well-known arias, and whenever he was heard humming airs from La Traviata, or some other popular opera, those around him were assured of his good mood, which was mostly the case.
In business, Kennedy was seen as one of the architects of the Irish Netherlands Bank’s strategy throughout the difficult days of the crisis. He, unlike the chairman of Allied Irish, who was pelted with eggs by angry shareholders at its Dublin headquarters, was appreciated by shareholders for his constructive and straightforward ideas.
Fitzwilliams, with Kennedy’s loyal support, had safely steered the Irish Netherlands through the storm, unlike the management of the Allied Irish, whose savers lost their pensions in the economic debacle. One furious Allied Irish shareholder had even suggested the whole board of the ill-fated bank be replaced by Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, telling the press, if it were not for Ireland’s tolerant society, the chairman and the rest of the board would be hanging by their necks on piano wire.
At the moment Kennedy pondered over modern art and joked about Hirst’s dead cow with his charming friend, Hiltermann was sunning himself with Elizaveta Bessmertnova at the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz. Deeply infatuated with the Russian dancer he had met at evening at the Mariinski in St Petersburg, the Dutch banker had quit Amsterdam to embark on a new life.
That evening after a romantic dinner they returned to their suite. It was not as if they were feeling tired, on the contrary after a separation of two weeks they had a lot to c
atch up on. The following morning the couple checked-out and left for San Sebastian in a red Ferrari, where Hiltermann was to settle an affair with a client.
He had not however counted on any problem at the Franco-Spanish border, in fact there were no controls and had not been for many years. As Hiltermann rounded the bend leaving Hendaye he was unpleasantly surprised when he spotted a police van stationed in the middle of the bridge crossing the Bidassoa River. It was too late to turn back. He had not taken into account the spot checks carried out by the Police des Frontiers on the look-out for ETA activists, Basque terrorists, at the border crossing.
A tough looking CRS, more curious to see who was driving a red Ferrari than anything else, made them a sign to pull over. When the two unlikely tourists were asked to present their papers, the controlling officer was surprised by Hiltermann’s Surinamese passport, the first he had ever seen. That together with Elizaveta’s Russian passport was more than enough to justify a closer inspection.
Further suspicion was aroused by Hiltermann’s barely concealed reluctance when the officer pointed to his crocodile skinned briefcase. Simultaneously pressing the gold plated locks it sprung open to reveal a thick unmarked beige envelope. It contained a wad of dollar denominated bearer bonds issued by different Central American governments, and more than one hundred thousand euros in cash. A quick calculation told the police officer the total value of the bonds was not far off three million dollars.
When questioned, Hiltermann blustered, declaring he was on holiday at the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz. The police captain raised an eyebrow, remarking the hotel must be very expensive in view of the quantity of money he was carrying. Hiltermann dug himself into a deeper hole by haughtily announcing he was the head of the Nederlandsche Nassau Bank in Amsterdam and was going to San Sebastian on legitimate business. As far as the police were concerned his attitude merely aroused more doubts given the number of financial scandals that had recently received so much attention in the media.
Digging into the briefcase a little deeper the police came up with two plane tickets to Aruba, in the Dutch Antilles, from nearby Bilbao via Madrid, and a further twenty thousand euros in cash. Hiltermann and his girlfriend were promptly invited to accompany the police to the Saint Jean de Luz, where after further questioning his passport was withheld and he was released and told return to the hotel in Biarritz pending verification when banks opened the following Monday morning.
Hiltermann had more than one trick up his sleeve and a couple additional passports. By Monday he and Elizaveta had disappeared. The news of encounter in France was played down by Fitzwilliams, who embarrassed by yet another banking scandal, this time affecting his own bank, refused to comment on rumours relating to the Dutchman and the suspected movement of funds to Caracas.
That Hiltermann was also wanted for questioning by the Dutch authorities surprised no one. Enquiries had been made concerning the ownership of certain offshore accounts and loans in his name. His multi-million dollar home in the Dutch Antilles, along with a number of other properties, had been sold no doubt in preparation for his planned disappearance.
Chapter 38 SEPTEMBER