Little Sister (A Group 15 Novella)

  Little Sister

  A Group Fifteen Novella

  Mark Dawson

  Michael Ridpath

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  A Word From Mark

  Get Exclusive John Milton Material

  Also By Mark Dawson

  In the John Milton Series

  In the Beatrix Rose Series

  In the Isabella Rose Series

  In the Soho Noir Series

  About Mark Dawson

  About Michael Ridpath

  1

  The dented black Mercedes taxi dropped Kevin Walsh in front of the low-slung villa, barely visible from the road above its surrounding wall. A breath of air brushed past the villa from the sea behind it, briefly touching Kevin’s glistening brow, before disappearing into the forest at his back. A lone chicken strode along the centre of the empty road; where the hell it had come from Kevin had no idea. This northern tip of the island was virtually uninhabited, with the exception of a small number of exclusive villas like the one in front of him. He was overdressed for the Caribbean humidity in the linen jacket and khaki pants he had packed the day before, back home in Connecticut.

  He had wanted to look the part to open an account in one of the dozen or so banks in the capital of the tiny island that morning. There would be only two transactions in the account: one payment of two million dollars coming in and then, a few minutes later, another heading out. The outgoing payment would be routed to an account in Panama, and then on to Mauritius where Kevin had set up a company to trade Bitcoin.

  He had it all figured out.

  Now, all he had to do was go inside and ask for the money.

  If he had the nerve.

  Many times, Kevin had sweated hundred-million-dollar positions when others would have cracked and sold. He knew how to control the panic, trust his judgement, take the money.

  The problem was the guy who was staying in that villa in front of him: that guy had nerve. Iron nerve.

  Kevin crossed the road and rang the bell embedded in a concrete gatepost under a brass plate bearing the words Potter’s Cove. There were two tall iron gates, one for cars and a side gate for people. The side gate swung open. The villa appeared smaller than he expected. The front yard was planted with tropical plants of a deep green. A plant sprouting large deep-red blossoms spread across the wall. Half a dozen hummingbirds, so small they could have been mistaken for butterflies, darted in and out of its petals in a scarcely visible blur.

  A lean man of about forty appeared at the door. He was wearing a crisp white shirt and black pants, and his cleanly shaven scalp shone pink in the sunshine.

  “Hi, Ian,” Kevin said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Walsh,” Ian Mackay answered in his soft Scottish accent. “Mr. Karsh is expecting you.”

  Mackay was Finlay Karsh’s butler. He went everywhere Finlay went. It was rumoured within the firm that he pulled down a hundred and fifty grand. It was also rumoured he could look after himself, or anyone else who bothered his boss. Kevin had heard stories about Mackay. The stories suggested that he was well worth his salary.

  Mackay led Kevin along a path around the house and down some steps. Kevin had been determined to maintain his composure no matter what he was confronted with at the villa, but he couldn’t help but pause and gawp at the beauty of the view. The house, which was much larger than it had seemed from the road, tumbled down a steep hillside for three storeys. A series of balconies and terraces overlooked the most perfect small cove of sparkling blue water. Half the shoreline was a narrow strip of sand, while the other half comprised low rocks and a wooden dock beside which nuzzled two craft: a sleek powerboat and an old mahogany motor launch. A perfectly shaped volcano, maybe a thousand feet high, rose up to the right, one flank of which was clad in green forest and the other in a cloak of black frozen lava from a past eruption.

  Mackay led Kevin down to the lower of the terraces. Sun loungers, chairs and tables were gathered around a smooth infinity pool in which two women were swimming. Kevin looked up and saw a figure hunched over a laptop on the balcony. He was about to call out a greeting when Mackay stalled him.

  “Mr. Karsh and Mr. Brenner will be with you in a moment, sir. In the meantime, can I get you a drink?”

  It was only eleven o’clock, but there were two empty cocktail glasses on a table by the pool. Kevin resisted the temptation to treat his nerves. “Yeah, sure. I’ll take a Diet Coke.”

  Mackay disappeared into the villa, and Kevin took a seat to admire the view.

  And what a view. It wasn’t just the sea and the volcano and the lush gardens. The two women in the pool were something else. One was very tall, with short brown hair, trapezoid cheekbones and thick lips. The other? Well, the other was just stunning.

  This was what Kevin wanted. He wanted this life, and he was going to get it.

  He could be as good a trader as Finlay Karsh; he knew he could. Finlay was smart, but then so was Kevin. They both had an intuition for the psychology of markets. And they both had the guts to take advantage of it, to buy when everyone was selling, to quietly cash out when the amateurs were piling in.

  Kevin was twenty-eight and had been at Lochalsh Capital for three years, following a brief but brilliant spell at an investment bank. In the last twelve months he had got himself noticed, pulling off some major elephant trades. Until he had gone too far. He had built up a big position in a bombed-out biotech company, XHydron Therapeutics. XHydron had developed a cancer drug that, after years of disappointment, had stormed through a clinical trial with results that had stunned the market. In a good way. It had become a “five-bagger”, its stock price having quintupled, which Kevin had been convinced would turn into a ten. So he had doubled up. Against Finlay’s advice.

  And then it had all gone tits up. The company’s wonder drug had failed its last clinical trial and the stock had collapsed. Losses in the tens of millions. Lochalsh’s quarterly performance had tanked. It had been bad luck. Astonishingly bad luck.

  Finlay hadn’t taken it well. Kevin might have kept his job if he had grovelled, but he had held his ground, pointed out that the trade had always been a good one, made one or two pointed remarks about Finlay’s judgement.

  The pointed remarks may have been a bad idea.

  Kevin had been fired. This hadn’t worried him too much: there were plenty of calls he had received over the previous few months both from rival funds and from the Street which he could now return. But, funnily enough, the offers of million-dollar signing-on bonuses just weren’t there anymore. Finlay had put the word out.

  So Kevin had come up with a Plan B. A plan that required nerve.

  Which was why he was sitting by this idyllic bay, watching two incredible-looking girls eyeing him, waiting to speak to his former boss.

  The taller girl hauled herself out of the pool and strolled over to him. “Hi,” she said. “Are you here to see Finlay?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you mind if I join you?”

  From the safety of his shades, Kevin examined the girl’s long, lithe body, droplets of water forming intriguing little r
ivulets down her tanned skin. “Of course not,” he said. There was no other answer.

  “My name’s Olya,” she said, with a definite Russian accent. “And that’s Gudrún.”

  She nodded towards the other girl, who had picked up a towel and was drying herself. Gudrún’s skin looked soft, white with dashes of red sunburn brushing tantalising curves. Big, light blue eyes smiled at him from beneath her wet black hair. It was hard to tell how old she was. Young; definitely younger than Olya. Maybe eighteen?

  “Hi,” she said.

  “I’m Kevin.” He gestured to the view in front of them. “What a place. Must be like paradise. So peaceful.”

  “Oh, it is,” said Olya. “But it’s a dangerous paradise.”

  “What do you mean?” said Kevin.

  “There are so many things that can kill you. Snakes. Jellyfish. Sharks. Barracudas. And it’s October – hurricane season. They have monster hurricanes.”

  “The volcano,” interrupted Gudrún. “It could take out half the island next time it blows. That’s why no one lives here.”

  Kevin glanced across the bay. There was no sign of smoke. The mountain looked pretty harmless to him.

  “Then there are the trees,” said Olya, taking a seat under the shade of the umbrella. “See those trees down there by the beach?”

  Kevin looked at a couple of inoffensive-looking bushy trees a few feet in from the sea.

  “Yeah.”

  “Manchineel. Don’t eat their apples. Don’t touch their bark. Be careful how you breathe when you are close to them.”

  “They can kill you too,” said Gudrún. Like her name, her accent sounded Scandinavian.

  “Really,” said Kevin. “What about the people on the island? Is there much crime?”

  “Oh, there’s no crime here,” said Olya.

  “The criminals are too scared,” said Gudrún.

  “Scared?”

  “Of the narco-traffickers.” She erupted into laughter, an intoxicating mixture of warmth and innocence. The Russian flashed him a wicked smile. They were teasing him. Kevin was cool with that. But he was finding it very hard not to stare at them behind his glasses. Especially the little dark-haired Scandinavian one. There was something about her that . . .

  “Hey, Kevin!”

  He turned to see Jesse Brenner approaching them. Tall, with a rich, even tan, strong regular features and genial brown eyes, Jesse was Finlay’s right-hand man and Kevin’s former direct boss. In theory Finlay ran the whole firm from the office in London, and Jesse was in charge of the Greenwich operation in Connecticut, where Kevin had worked. Jesse was a good trader, but not as good as Finlay, and not as good as Kevin, either. Kevin knew that, and he was pretty sure Jesse did too, which was why he was disappointed that Jesse hadn’t backed him up when Finlay wanted to fire him.

  But then Jesse never stood up to Finlay.

  In practice both of them seemed to split their time between London and Connecticut, plus, more recently, other places they liked to hang out, too. Like small Caribbean islands. Or Finlay’s new castle in Scotland. In theory, given modern communications, it was possible to run a hedge fund from anywhere. Kevin didn’t buy that; his opinion was you needed to be right in the middle of your team to lead it well. That’s how Finlay used to do it.

  It was only in the last six months or so, since Finlay’s wife had left him, that he had begun to act the absentee boss. The guys worried that Finlay was beginning to lose his focus. That was a problem: it was Finlay’s ability to focus, to concentrate his phenomenal brainpower, judgement, and intuition absolutely onto a problem, that gave him his edge. And without Finlay’s edge, Lochalsh Capital was nothing.

  Finlay’s split with his wife probably explained the girls, too. Jesse was also married, but that had never stopped him maintaining a wide circle of female friendships in the past. For Finlay, it was something new, as far as Kevin was aware.

  Kevin wondered which girl belonged to whom.

  He stood up to shake Jesse’s outstretched hand. Jesse leaned over to kiss the Russian quickly. “Hi, babe.”

  That explained that.

  “Thanks for coming, Kevin,” Jesse said. He looked up towards the balcony above them. “Hey, Finlay! Kevin’s here!”

  A disembodied voice drifted down. “I’ll be right there.”

  2

  Finlay Karsh was short and bespectacled, with a broad forehead, thick dark hair and brown penetrating eyes. Unlike the polo-shirted and khaki-shorted Jesse, Finlay was wearing jeans and a T-shirt with an obscure comment about Schrödinger’s Cat that Kevin didn’t immediately get.

  Finlay was a nerd; there was no doubt about it. But a nerd with charisma. Anyone who worked with him respected him. More than that, they loved him, or, at least, most of them did.

  Not Kevin.

  They shook hands. Finlay stared right at Kevin. “Did you see XHydron went into Chapter Eleven last week?” He had the rapid diction of a genius whose thoughts ran faster than his mouth.

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

  That was a lie. Of course Kevin had seen it. Chapter Eleven was bankruptcy: the stock, which had been trading in the hundreds of dollars, was now worth pennies.

  “The fund lost $22.35 million on that trade. It took nearly five percentage points off our performance this year.”

  Kevin didn’t answer. He was damned if he was going to apologise.

  “Let’s go inside,” Finlay said. It was more of a command than an invitation.

  Kevin followed Finlay, with a quick glance back at the two women, who had settled back in their loungers, sunglasses on.

  “Awesome girls,” said Jesse with a smile that verged on the friendly. “And smart, too.”

  “Aren’t they a bit young?”

  Jesse and Finlay were about the same age: mid-thirties.

  “Oh, don’t worry. They know what they’re doing.” Jesse chuckled.

  Finlay led them inside, through a large, airy living room with spectacular views of the pool, the cove and the volcano, down a hallway, and through a door into a concrete garage. Maintenance equipment was piled against one wall and a gold Porsche Cayenne took up half the floor space, but there was room for a table and three garden chairs.

  “This your office?” Kevin asked.

  Finlay ignored the crack. “Take a seat.”

  Finlay and Jesse sat on one side of the small wooden table, Kevin on the other.

  Finlay stared at Kevin. Here we go, Kevin thought. It’s starting. Although in theory they had agreed on the deal, Kevin was expecting Finlay to pull something before he handed over the cash.

  “Are you sure this is wise?” Finlay said. “Shaking me down?”

  “Absolutely. You give me two million. You invest some more money in my new fund. I keep quiet about what you knew about the Chalfont lawsuit. Everyone’s happy.” He paused, holding Finlay’s stare. “If you back my fund, you know I’ll get you a great return.”

  It was a strong plan. Chalfont Chemical had been a particularly successful position Kevin had seen Finlay take a year before. Lochalsh belonged to one of the more notorious sub-species of hedge funds that were also known as “vulture funds”. It specialised in “distressed situations”: companies, or sometimes countries, whose stocks or bonds were trading at a low price because they were in big trouble. Chalfont certainly qualified for that: the company’s shares had been trashed by a class-action lawsuit brought by individuals who claimed to have suffered damage from intensive use of one of the company’s weed-killing products. A “contact” of Finlay’s in the prosecutor’s office had told him that the defence had produced a convincing expert witness who could prove the weed killer was harmless. So, the suit would fail and the company would survive. Finlay had bought the shares; three weeks later the company had announced a settlement, and the stock price had trebled.

  It was classic insider trading. And it had worked.

  Until now.

  It was a carefully calibrated demand. Kevi
n had all the cards. He had the evidence. And Finlay could afford to give him the two million cash. It was a problem with a straightforward solution: pay Kevin to make it go away.

  “I’m not going to pay you,” said Finlay. “And I’m certainly not going to seed a hedge fund run by a blackmailer.” For the first time, he smiled. “Never invest in someone you don’t trust.”

  “You can trust me to keep quiet,” said Kevin. “One payment and that’s it.”

  “Until you screw up again,” said Finlay. “Which you will. You’re smart, you’ll have a few great quarters, and then you’ll make a big dumb bet that will go wrong and your fund will blow up. With my money in it. And you will come back to me for more. Am I right?”

  Kevin could feel his cheeks go pink. Part of him knew Finlay was right. “XHydron was a one-off,” he said.

  Finlay laughed. “Another one-off? Like the ‘one payment and that’s it’?” He shook his head. “I’m glad I fired you. I should never have hired you.”

  Finlay’s deep brown eyes were looking into Kevin’s soul. Kevin desperately fought to control the anger and humiliation he felt. Right then it came to him. It wasn’t the money he was looking for, although he certainly needed it. It wasn’t even the chance to set up his own fund. What he really wanted was Finlay’s approval. More than that, his respect.

  And he had lost that, if he had ever had it.

  He had always known this was going to be difficult. But he held the cards. If Finlay wanted to call Kevin, he would find he wasn’t bluffing. Kevin would lay down his hand. All aces.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll call the DA’s office in the morning.”