Sweet Talking Money. Harry Bingham

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       SEVEN

      1

      The immense and mouldering college barge which had been sitting in the main boathouse had been hauled down the slipway to sink or swim, and after a brief hesitation, it had swum quite happily, moored up against the side of the boathouse, slapping against the wood at every change in the wind. It made a nice place to sit and watch life, and Bryn sat on the roof of the barge, protected from the green mould by a dustsheet left by Dai.

      Meg, Bryn’s former secretary and a bouncy brunette who was just a few years younger than him, came round the corner of the boathouse, down the jetty, and scrambled breathlessly on to the roof. ‘Coffee,’ she said, dumping a bag down beside her. ‘And yes, it is from the Italian shop up the road, and yes, it is a double espresso, and yes it is continental roast, and yes, you are the most finicky coffee drinker in the whole world ever.’

      Bryn took the coffee with gratitude, and began telling her about Cameron’s refusal to take money from the venture capitalists.

      ‘Twenty million quid,’ said Meg. ‘She tore it up?’

      Scraps of the ripped-up offer letter still floated down by the side of the barge, trapped in a debris of floating twigs, plastic bottles and a kind of nameless oily scum. Bryn gestured at it with his coffee cup.

      ‘There it is. All gone. Shame.’

      Meg had tried lying back on the roof to catch some early spring sun, but the sun was so feeble it was scarcely worth catching, and her head had poked over the edge of the dustsheet, quickly gathering an assortment of moulds, lichens and algae. Picking the green bits from her hair, she mused aloud. ‘Cammie had a point, though. It would have been gutting if you’d succeeded with everything, just for old Malcolm Milne to sell the whole kit an’ caboodle to Corinth.’

      Bryn smiled wryly. ‘Right. Not that gutting, since I’d stand to make a bloody fortune from the sale. Besides, there’d be no reason for Milne to sell to the bad guys. It’s not as though he cares one way or the other.’

      ‘Cammie’s point exactly, sweetie.’ She looked at the green stuff collected in her hand and hurled it at a gull, missing by miles. She continued to gaze after it, then sprang to attention. ‘What the hell is that?’ she demanded, jabbing a finger downstream past the red-brick wharves towards the empty trees of Bishop’s Park.

      ‘It’s a tree, Meg, a willow tree.’

      ‘It’s what’s in the tree, matey. Look.’

      Bryn rolled on to his elbow. In the bare branches of the willow tree, there was a blue-green smudge. ‘Bloody hell, you’re right. It’s a parrot.’ The blue-green smudge nodded its head and began to preen, as though to confirm the sighting.

      ‘Must have escaped,’ she said. Then, ‘Good on you, parrot!’ she screamed.

      Bryn shook his head. ‘Actually, I doubt it. They’re meant to be quite common, apparently. Escaped parrots started breeding and London’s warm enough these days for the birds to survive through the winter. I’ll bet you we’re looking at a genuine wild parrot.’

      ‘Wild? Who’s wild? I don’t call you a wild Welshman, do I? It’s free, a free parrot.’

      Bryn laughed and swigged at his rapidly cooling coffee. Meg continued gazing, mesmerised, at her find.

      ‘It’s a pity you had to go elsewhere for money,’ she said reflectively. ‘I know you. You wouldn’t sell out to the bad guys, however much you think you would.’

      ‘It’s a pity I’m not a multi-millionaire, Meg.’

      She looked sharply at him, about to cross the unmentionable gap between banking secretary and banking boss. ‘You must be pretty close, though,’ she said. ‘Big swinger at Berger Scholes and all that.’

      Bryn sighed. ‘I’ve had to split things with Cecily. She gets all the savings and most of the furnishings of any quality. I get the house, my deferred bonuses – ha, bloody ha – and sod all else. I’m not far off being a pauper.’

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